Question

Select all the correct answers.

How did the Jesuits spread the Catholic faith among the masses?

a.They cared for the sick and worked for social justice.
b.They established convents for meditation and prayer.
c.They showed the suffering of Christ in paintings.
d.They founded schools that focused on Catholic teachings.
e.They encouraged witch hunts.

Answer 1

The Jesuits spread the Catholic faith by caring for the sick, depicting the suffering of Christ in art, and founding schools focused on Catholic education. They employed cultural accommodation and social works as primary methods of conversion and education.

Step-by-step explanation:

How the Jesuits Spread the Catholic Faith

The Jesuits, members of the Society of Jesus, were a group of missionaries with the goal to spread the Catholic faith. Among their strategies for converting and educating the masses in Catholicism, they:

• a. Cared for the sick and worked for social justice, fulfilling both spiritual and temporal needs.
• c. Utilized visual arts such as paintings to depict the suffering of Christ, making the religious narratives more accessible to the people.
• d. Founded schools that focused on Catholic teachings to educate young men and to fortify their religious beliefs.

While the Jesuits were active in many areas including New France, China, and Japan, they primarily focused on education, cultural accommodation, and participation in social works to achieve their mission. They also produced written works, like the Jesuit Relations, which detailed their experiences and efforts in converting indigenous peoples to Christianity. However, contrary to some misconceptions, they did not establish convents for the specific purpose of meditation and prayer (option b) nor did they promote witch hunts (option e).

Answer 2

The Jesuit order was founded in 1539 in Rome (Italy) by Ignacio de Loyola, a former nobleman of the Basque noble family of Azpeitia (Guipuzcoa), who found faith after being wounded during a battle in Pamplona in 1521, and approved by the Holy See in 1540, following the bull of Pope Paul III 'Regimini Militants Ecclesiae'.

The Jesuits have an almost military type structure (absolute obedience), a clear mission (to the greater glory of God), a total lack of concern for worldly successes (vain desires).

With the Latin motto 'Ad maiorem Dei gloriam' (To the greater glory of God), the Jesuit order aims to spread the Catholic faith through missions, apostolate, teaching and science.

According to their rules, they work for the evangelization of the world, in defense of the faith and the promotion of justice, in permanent cultural and interreligious dialogue and the engine of the company is to deepen humanistic studies and scientists to deliver them to the schools and colleges that were opening in Europe.

Since its beginning, Jesuits have run the most important centers of higher education in Europe, including the prestigious Roman College, in addition to providing services in countries where the Catholic religion was persecuted or banned.

An important work was the undertaken by the also Basque, San Francisco Javier in his missionary work of conversion in India, Japan, where he left in 1549 when no European had yet arrived, and China.

The Jesuits, in addition to the three vows of the religious - poverty, chastity and obedience - profess a fourth, related to the obedience to the Pope, to which they are thus united in a special way.

That said, the correct answer is C: they founded schools that focused on Catholic teachings since their aim was to spread their fatigh through missions and apostolate.