Jesuit aspirants

We have often spoken of the life of Jesuits, of the fathers and brothers and their respective characteristics and duties, of the religious path of novices.

Today, however, we focus on all those who aspired to join the Society of Jesus, who applied, but never became Jesuits.

In the course of the column, we shed light on the entire Jesuit journey, from the novitiate onwards, including the possibility of leaving the order.

Resignations can take place at any time, but those prior to first vows are ‘quicker’: novices can realise during the two years of probation that the Society of Jesus is not their path and leave the novitiate, without a documentary procedure.

On the other hand, for those who decide to leave the order after first vows, it is necessary to proceed following a series of steps involving reports, documents, and the opening of a dossier to accompany the resignation.

For all those who fall into these categories, documentation has been produced and kept, which can almost always be found in the personal file.

However, for the many novices who entered the novitiate each year, almost as many remained outside because they were judged unsuitable, or lacking certain characteristics.

It is more difficult to delineate the identities of this group precisely because of the absence or scarcity of sources.

Only a few papers concerning these Jesuit aspirants have been preserved: a letter for a first contact with the Society, some information sheets, a parent’s permission to enter the novitiate, a medical certificate.

We hardly keep all these documents for a single aspirant. Nei casi più fortunati se abbiamo i fogli di sintesi o dell’esame di vocazione vuol dire che l’aspirante novizio aveva sostenuto già diversi colloqui e spesso questi documenti ci permettono di conoscere qualche dato in più: data di nascita, nome dei genitori, attitudine alla vocazione e i commenti o i giudizi sul suo ingresso espressi dai gesuiti che lo hanno esaminato.

In those cases where only a letter requesting entry is preserved, we can assume that the process was immediately interrupted, sometimes we even know the reasons why because they were noted at the foot of the letter.

One of the interesting cases is that of a man who asks to enter the Company at the age of 53. It is not his age, however, that is the most interesting factor, when it is the fact that he is married, in fact he states that he wanted to separate from his wife before the bishop.

We do not know if his wife also wanted to pursue a path of religious life, but we do know that he was rejected for a different reason: his age over 50.

A conspicuous number of people have therefore intercepted the Society of Jesus and often embarked on other paths of religious or personal life after finding it impossible to be accepted by the order.

Several times the Paul VI Institute engaged in the publication of Montini’s correspondence, from his seminary years up to his election to the Papal Throne, has contacted our archives to obtain numbers on a candidate for the novitiate.

The search was carried out by verifying whether a file had been opened, which often turned out to be meagre, but also the diaries of the house.

It was not uncommon for a candidate to arrive at a residence for an initial cognitive interview and to be noted in the source, or to be accompanied to the medical examination that would later reveal an incompatibility with the lifestyle of the Society of Jesus.

Other contingencies could have prevented him from entering the novitiate, as for Giuseppe Brini, who had begun his vocational interviews in March 1915, a note reports that ‘The parish priest […] presents him to us as a jewel, giving us the best information. But he has not passed the draft and perhaps this same year if war breaks out he will be subject to it’.

Maria Macchi