Loyola University - Wolf Yearbook (New Orleans, LA)

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DEDICATION On June 12, 1954, Pope Pius XII officiated at a canonization before a vast throng in St. Peter ' s Ba- silica, Rome .... When the solemn ceremonies were over a new saint had been raised to the altars of the Church . . . Father Joseph Pignatelli, S.J., had become St. Joseph Pignatelli, S.J In Novem- ber, the announcement of a campus triduum in his honor caused many Loyolans to inquire: Who is this new Jesuit Saint? .... What did he do? . . . Why was he canonized? . . . During the triduum they received the answers to these questions . . . They learned that Joseph Pignatelli had attained heroic sanctity while playing a decisive role in one of the great turning points of history .... Joseph Pigna- telli, a prince on both sides of his family, was born in Aragon, Spain, in 1737 .... He appeared on the world stage just as another of history ' s never-ending attempts to destroy the Catholic Church was getting under way .... Devotees of rationalism, freemasonry and allied groups were planning their strategy .... Numbered among the adherents of this alliance were Ministers of State, men who were the real rulers of many powerful European nations . . . The Society of Jesus, then in the foremost po- sition to defend the Holy See, was selected as the object of the initial assault, and a campaign was prepared to eliminate the Jesuits by calumny, in accordance with Voltaire ' s advice: Heap lies on boldly, my friends, and some of them will stick. .... After the Jesuits were put out of the way, the other Orders, the clergy and the Papacy itself would be attacked . . . Although the conspirators did actually succeed in their ambition to kill off the Jesuits, their triumph proved to be a short-lived one . . . After forty-one years in the tomb, the Society of Jesus, in imitation of its Namesake, rose from the dead and walked the earth once more .... The major credit for this unprecedented resurrection be- longs to Joseph Pignatelli . . . Speaking at Pignatelli ' s beatification ceremonies in 1933, Pope Pius XI declared: . . not only was he constituted by Divine Providence the link between the old and the new Society of Jesus, but he also in justice must be honored as the Restorer of the Society of Jesus. . . . The whole life of Pignatelli was filled with the crisis that menaced the Society and the Church . . . He entered the Society at Tarragona, Spain, in 1753 .... He was still a very young Jesuit when the thunder of the gathering storm began sounding in his ears .... The Jesuits of Portugal, he learned, had been banished from their native land . . . Three years later, just as he was preparing to say his first Mass, word reached him that the French Jesuits had been driven out of France . . . Then came the order banishing all Spanish Jesuits . . . Speaking of this order, Roda, an accomplice of Aranda, the Prime Minister, wrote in a letter still extant: We have finished off the daughter. It now remains that we acquit ourselves as creditably with the holy mother, the Roman Church. . . . Pignatelli, as a Spanish grandee, was offered immunity from exile, which he refused . . . Instead he accepted the re- sponsibility from his provincial of leading the 600 members of the Aragon province into exile .... Young Father Pignatelli and his fellow Jesuits, herded on thirteen small and filthy ships, spent the next four months wandering around the Mediterranean seeking in vain for a place to land ... At length, the refugees were accepted by the island of Corsica, but within the year a French invasion started them wandering once more . . . Eventually, Ferrora, Italy agreed to receive them ... It was at Ferrara, that word of the suppression came to Father Pignatelli .... Relentlessly threatened by European governments, Clement XIV, to save the peace of the Church, decided to suppress the Society of Jesus .... On July 21, 1773, he reluctantly issued the papal brief of suppression .... Father Pignatelli moved to Bologna as a secular priest . . . His little home there became the rendezvous for ex-Jesu- its and the power house behind the drive for the restoration of the Society . . . Long years of dis- couragement failed to make Pignatelli give up hope, and, then, toward the century ' s end, little rays of encouragement began to appear .... In 1793, Pius VI told Pignatelli that Catherine the Great of Russia had refused to promulgate the brief of suppression . . . Pignatelli resolved to go to Russia, but changed his mind when the Duke of Parma, with the approval of the Pope, invited him and other ex-Jesuits to start a community there ... In Parma, on July 6, 1797, Father Pignatelli, no longer an ex-Jesuit, renewed his Jesuit vows .... He was named master of novices and later provincial of Italy . . . Driven out of Parma by French troops, Pignatelli next established a church and house of the Society in Rome. This return of the Jesuits to Rome was really the dawn of a new day .... Soon, the Jesuits would be returning everywhere . . . On November 15, 1811, Father Joseph Pignatelli, S.J., died in the odor of sanctity . . . Three years later, on August 7, 1814, Pope Pius VII restored the So- ciety of Jesus throughout the world .... A Saint in Heaven cannot but rejoice exceedingly when he learns that his life work on earth is at long last producing marvelous fruit .... This being so, it must have been an occasion of indescribable joy for St. Joseph Pignatelli when he looked down from ce- lestial heights and beheld his beloved Society of Jesus rising from the dead all over the world To St. Joseph Pignatelli, Restorer of the Society of Jesus, we, the students of Loyola University of the South, dedicate our 1955 yearbook, the Wolf-