Transatlantic Jesuit Encounters During the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

In 1896 the Austrian-born Jesuit Johann Georg Hagen, director of the Georgetown College observatory in Washington, D.C., embarked upon a journey from the United States to Europe, from whence he had fled during Bismarck's Kulturkampf. The account of his travels, published in the Woodstock Letters, was emblematic of the Jesuit reportage that passed back and forth across the Atlantic during the nineteenth century, helping both to define and problematize Jesuit identity during the post-Restoration period. The transatlantic links between Jesuits in Europe and America, which involved the transfer of personnel (often in the wake of periods of persecution in the Old World) and commentary on affairs on both sides of the Atlantic was a source both of tension and sustenance within the Society of Jesus, and had a significant impact on the way in which the broader Catholic Church analyzed the emergence of the fledgling American Republic. Through analysis of individual Jesuit trajectories and Jesuit publications (including the Woodstock Letters in the U.S. and the Études in France), we gain insights into how the Society of Jesus attempted to negotiate the complex political and social realities of the nineteenth century. While nationality was crucial to how individual Jesuits approached this task, the process unfolded in the wider context of how the "old Society" and the "new Society" were to be reconciled and differentiated.