Black Robes and Buckskin: A Selection from the Jesuit Relations

‘‘Friends in the Lord’’

‘‘friends in the lord’’ Women played a small but crucial role in the Relations. During the foundational days of the order, such powerful women as Vittoria Colonna gave succor, shelter, and financial support to Ignatius’s earliest followers, Fathers Jay and Rodrigues, who also, through her, came into contact with the Italian Evangelicals or spirituali. Jesuits heard women’s confessions, becoming confessors who could incline the potential patronesses ’ hearts to give money and material aid to the Jesuit mission. In 1553, the Jesuits were urged to cease from hearing women’s confessions so as not to cause scandal, but Ignatius refused, and as late as 1561 Jesuits still heard women’s confessions in women’s homes, thus bringing them into intimate contact and positions of considerable influence. Ignatius maintained an extensive correspondence with many (usually noble and well-positioned) women throughout Europe. Indeed, it is a little-known fact (intended to be a well-kept secret) that the Jesuit order actually had one female member. In 1545, Pope Paul III compelled Ignatius Loyola to bend his rules and allow ‘‘a few devout women’’ to live in obedience to him effectively as unofficial members of the Society. In 1554, Infanta Juana of Austria persuaded Ignatius to admit her into the Society under the code name of Matteo Sanchez. She died in 1578, still a member of the Society of Jesus. Juana’s is a fascinating and untold story reminiscent of the tale of the medieval Pope Joan. Apparently, Juana proved somewhat difficult, and the Jesuits resolved never again to admit a woman to the order. However, they continued to encourage—indeed, to expect—women to be touched by the example of the Society of Jesus and to play an ancillary role, as was the case with women in Messina in 1552 who visited hospitals and poorhouses to imitate the Jesuits by performing acts of mercy and service. Women also occasionally joined the Jesuits as unofficial street preachers, as in Padua in 1556 when three or four women were encouraged by Jesuits to feed, preach, and minister to prostitutes in the area. Father Polanco’s report of 1565 narrated the inspiring tale of a woman, who gave Last Rites to a person who was dying because no priest was available at the time. The Society praised this donna devota. So it is not surprising that the Jesuits continued this pattern, and were more than happy for the sponsorship, support, and service provided by other women in French Canada. Spurred to philanthropic giving by their reading of the Relations, some European noblewomen became major donors to the Jesuit endeavor. Henrietta of France read the Relations and declared them to be more passionate and inspiring than the romances she so adored; subsequently, she became a major proponent of their cause. Another category of Frenchwomen supportive of the Jesuit cause was the mystic—women such as Marie de l’Incarnation, who left the security of an Ursuline convent in Tours for French Canada to missionize Indian children, in response to ‘‘a spiritual stirring’’ she felt while reading a Jesuit relation. Or the wealthy Madame de la Peltrie, who, inspired by the Jesuit Relations, sacrificed her house, money, and influence to realize her dream of establishing an Ursuline house, church, and hospital in Quebec. She traveled with a nobleman named Bernières, living a chaste mariage blanc in which their joint passion was dedicated to Christ and the service of others in tandem endeavors with the Society of Jesus. The Jesuit account of Madame de la Peltrie’s work is included in the following relation. Also included in this letter is an account of the Duchess d’Aiguillon, who conceived the plan of endowing a house for the religious in the New World; this house became an Ursuline-staffed hospital for Native Americans. The Duchess d’Aiguillon was the niece of 96 ‘‘Friends in the Lord’’ Cardinal Richelieu and the widow of Antoine de Beauvoir de Roure. After her husband’s death fighting Huguenots, she devoted her life to philanthropy. She read Father Le Jeune’s report of 1635 and was so inspired by it that she devised the project of having a Hôtel-Dieu, or hospital, built; she appealed to her uncle Richelieu for additional funds, and the hospital was established in Quebec in 1639. Another noblewoman , Madame de Guercheville, acquired a land grant from Henri...