Jesuits in Asia

Jesuits in Asia

The missionary enterprise of the Jesuits in Asia is comprehensible only against the background of three foundational principles. The first two are from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the order: Following Jesus as a Jesuit entails missionary outreach, and being a missionary implies cultural adaptation because Jesus adapted himself to the human condition.

The third theological principle is that missionary activity should reflect the shared life of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) as documented in the Formula of the Institute and Constitutions.

The nascent Society of Jesus was yet to receive full papal approbation (September 27, 1540) when a request arrived from João III the Pious, king of Portugal, for Jesuits to work in the Portuguese domains of Asia. Ignatius of Loyola chose two of his first companions, Simão Rodrigues and Nicolas Bobadilla, for the mission.


However, before they could leave for Portugal, Bobadilla fell ill. Providentially, Francis Xavier was then in Rome and Ignatius decided to send him instead. The king of Portugal, impressed by the two Jesuits, decided to keep Rodrigues in Lisbon. Xavier, accompanied by Micer Paul, a secular priest recently admitted into the Society of Jesus, and Francisco Mansilhas, a Jesuit aspirant, set sail for India.

They finally reached Goa in India on May 6, 1542. Xavier would labor in Asia for 10 years as a missionary, baptizing and catechizing the inhabitants of the Fishery Coast of southern India; Malacca on the western coast of the Malay Peninsula; the Moluccas, also known as the “Spice Islands”; and Japan.

While in Japan, Xavier heard about China and resolved to preach the Christian message there. While awaiting Chinese government permission to land, he died on the island of Sancian in 1552, unable to fulfill his dream of converting the Chinese to Christ.

That dream would be partially realized not much later as thousands of Jesuits of various nationalities followed Xavier in the Asian missionary enterprise. Missions were conducted in West Asia, for example, with the appointment of Jesuits as papal legates in establishing relations with the Maronites and in negotiating church unity with Orthodox, Nestorian, and Monophysite Churches. But the majority of Jesuit missionaries worked farther afield, chiefly in South Asia and in East Asia.

After India, Jesuits would find themselves laboring in places in peninsular (Malacca, Indochina) and insular (Indonesia, the Philippines) Southeast Asia, and in Japan and China. The primary goal was of course the spread of Christianity, but the diverse cultures who populated the huge continent called for various missionary strategies and tactics.

The chief architect of the Asian missionary enterprise was an Italian Jesuit named Alessandro Valignano. He called for cultural adaptation to Asian ways where this was legitimate and did not compromise the Christian message.

Perhaps the most significant cultural adaptation was the use of Asian languages in the preaching of Christ and teaching of doctrine. They also extended this cultural adaptation to the manner of dress, civil customs, and ordinary life of their target audience.

His principles were put to good use by such as Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri. Aside from exploiting European sciences and arts of their day to gain entrance into the educated elite of China, Ricci and his companions decided to study the Confucian classics esteemed by the Mandarin ruling class.

In a similar way, the Jesuits working in the south of India decided on a two-pronged strategy that enabled them to reach out to both the higher and lower social castes, tailoring their manner of living to gain initial acceptance from their respective audiences.

“Dressed in cloth of red-ochre, a triangular sandal mark on his forehead, high wooden sandals on his feet,” Roberto de Nobili lived in the manner of a Hindu man of God (sannyasi), learned Sanskrit, and memorized the Vedas so that he could share the message of Christ and his church with the Indian people.

In other Asian places not as highly developed in civilization and culture, the Jesuits were animated by the same principles of cultural adaptation. In the Philippines, they creatively replicated strategies that were used elsewhere.

Because local populations were dispersed far and wide, the Jesuits encouraged people to set up permanent communities in planned settlements (a method they used in Latin America called reduction), thus laying the foundation of many towns and cities that exist today. They also set up schools wherever these were needed and constructed churches and other buildings that transformed European architectural designs to suit Asian artistic sensibilities.

They learned the various local languages and dialects and produced grammars, vocabularies, and dictionaries, thus systematizing the study not just of the languages themselves but of the cultures of the peoples that they were seeking to convert. They wrote books that mapped the ethnography of Asia and were keen observers of Asian ways and traditions, including their interaction with the natural environment.

The Jesuit missionary enterprise in Asia met with obstacles along the way. Some of these obstacles arose from European ethnocentric fears and prejudices that burdened the church of their times. Cultural adaptation was denounced as syncretism, and the missionaries themselves were often at loggerheads on the appropriate strategies to use in mission work.

It was not always clear for example whether Chinese categories used to translate Latin ones were without ambiguity, but a lack of understanding, trust, and generosity created a poisoned atmosphere that did not produce the requisite witness to Christian charity.

The distance between Rome and Asia proved to be not only a geographical dilema but also a psychological barrier that prevented church authorities from being more sympathetic to the needs of the missionary enterprise in Asia. Furthermore the political, economic, and social burden imposed by Portuguese and Spanish royal patronage of the church in the Indies proved too heavy at times to carry.

Rome itself would be forced to set up the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith in 1622 to loosen the viselike grip of the European monarchs who wished to manipulate the missionary enterprise for political and economic gain. Also, Jesuits allowed themselves to be caught in political controversies of their host countries, thus inevitably creating enemies for themselves among members of the ruling classes.

In 1759 the Portuguese king expelled all Jesuits working in Portugal and Portuguese Asia. In Spain, the Spanish king followed suit and banished the Jesuits from his domains in 1767. Finally, in 1773, Pope Clement XIV, under extreme political pressure from the Bourbon monarchs of Europe, could no longer prevent the inevitable from happening.

Through the bull Redemptor ac hominis, the pope suppressed the Society of Jesus, thus bringing an end to their missionary work in Asia. This work would be resumed only in the 19th century, when Jesuits would return to their former mission fields now besieged by new historical forces.

Rites Controversy in China

From the beginning of their work in China in 1583, many Catholic Jesuit missionaries presented themselves as scholars and scientists. Their goal was to impress the elite scholar-officials with their culture and erudition and then gradually to present the essential teachings of Christianity.

Thus they adapted to many Chinese ways and avoided conflict with the Chinese over unessential matters. This tactic won prominent converts among the court and high government officials during the last years of the Ming dynasty. The fall of the Ming and the establishment of the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty in 1644 did not damage the prestige of the Jesuits.

Discord came with the arrival of Franciscan and Dominican missionaries in China in 1634. With no knowledge of Chinese culture, they were horrified with Jesuit accommodations with Chinese mores.

They also attacked the Jesuits for choosing Chinese words to express Christian terminology, for tolerating Chinese rites such as those honoring ancestors and Confucius, and for refusing to teach that Confucius, China’s most revered philosopher, had gone to hell for not being a Christian. Franciscans and Dominicans, who preferred converting ordinary people, were moreover jealous of the Jesuits for their connections with leaders of society.


The most bitter fight between the Jesuits and the other orders was over Chinese rites. Jesuits maintained that ancestor worship expressed respect and filial piety, and rituals that honored Confucius were civil rites of good citizenship that did not negate worship of God. Moreover they believed that their prohibition would make it impossible for many Chinese to become Christians.

A papal decree of 1656 had allowed the Jesuits to permit Chinese converts to continue the practice of their family and civic rituals under stipulated conditions. Franciscans and Dominicans however thought these acts idolatrous and blasphemous and campaigned to have them banned. The debate generated 262 published works on the subject.

Emperor Kangxi (K’ang-hsi, ruled 1662–1722) was personally not interested in Christianity but was sympathetic to the Jesuits for their learning and because of their services to his government. He issued an Edict of Toleration in 1692 that allowed Christians to build churches and worship freely in China.

However Kangxi was offended when the pope sided with Franciscans in 1704, banned the Chinese rites for Chinese converts to Christianity, and insisted that the words Jesuits had used for God in Chinese be changed.

In 1705, the pope sent an emissary to China to inform Kangxi that he wished to exert authority over all Chinese Catholics. This demand confirmed the suspicion of many Chinese leaders that there was a secret dark purpose for sending missionaries to China. Kangxi rejected the pope’s demand categorically.

A second papal legate, sent in 1720, was no more successful. Meanwhile in 1707, 1715, and 1742, successive popes decreed that ancestor worship and veneration of Confucius were idolatrous and incompatible with Christian practice and banned them for Chinese converts to Catholicism.

After reading the papal bull of 1715, Emperor Kangxi commented in writing, “I ask myself how these uncultivated Westerners dare to speak of the great [philosophical and moral] precepts of China ... As from now I forbid the Westerners to spread their doctrine in China; that will spare us a lot of trouble.” He further decreed that all missionaries should be repatriated except for those who served as scientists and specialists in the Chinese government. However the decision was not strictly applied.

Kangxi died in 1722 and was followed by his son Yongzheng (Yung-Cheng, ruled 1723–35), who was much less sympathetic to Christian missionaries. He said, “China has its religions and the Western world has its religions. Western religions need not propagate in China, just as Chinese religions cannot prevail in the Western world.”

This view was shared by his son Emperor Qianlong (Ch’ien-lung, ruled 1736–95), although both rulers continued to employ Jesuits in the government. When the papacy dissolved the Society of Jesus in 1773, the moving spirit of Christianity in China was gone and Chinese-Western religious and cultural contacts became minimal.

The Jesuits’ understanding of the differences between Chinese and Christian cultures was key to their success. That success bred jealousy among other missionary groups, resulting in the rites controversy, which severed the bridge between China and the West.

Ignatius of Loyola and the Society of Jesus

Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and author of the spiritual classic The Spiritual Exercises, holds a place among the most influential people of his time. Such a claim says a great deal about his impact, for Loyola lived in an age of many powerful and influential personalities.

Ignatius was born one year before Columbus discovered America into a noble family in the Basque country of northern Spain. The youngest of 13 children, he dreamed of making his fame and fortune as a valiant knight in the service of his king, and he pursued the swashbuckling life of a soldier until he reached the age of 30. Then, in May of 1591, he found himself heading a small garrison of Spanish troops in the fortress of Pamplona when it was attacked by a vastly superior French army.

Although the city’s leaders wished to surrender without a fight, the zealous Loyola convinced them to defend their walls, and he bravely rallied his troops in battle until a French cannonball shattered his right leg. Pamplona promptly fell to the French, and Ignatius was transported by stretcher to his family’s castle at Loyola, where he endured excruciating operations aimed at repairing and straightening his leg.


He nearly died under the surgeon’s knife, and his recovery process was long and slow. During his lengthy recuperation, a profound change took place in him that would totally alter the course of his life. As he lay in bed day after day, he grew extremely bored and asked for something to read.

He was an avid reader of the stories of gallant knights, who performed daring deeds in the service of their lady, and he craved such books to help him pass the time. But in his family’s castle, there was only a book on the life of Jesus Christ, and another on the lives of the saints.

In his desperation for something to occupy his mind, he would read from these books as he lay in bed and then daydream about knightly exploits. Yet, the more he read about Christ and the saints, the more impressed he became by their heroic virtue and goodness.

His daydreams began to alternate: At times he would envision himself as a valorous knight of the king of Spain; at other times, he would dream of becoming “a knight of Christ,” and of heroically following Jesus Christ as the great saints of old had done. After a period of serious deliberation, he became utterly convinced that he must leave behind his former way of life and dedicate himself completely to the cause of Christ.

A Hermit, Pilgrim, and Student

Over the following 13 years, Ignatius investigated various ways of responding to his new calling. His early attempts were not highly successful. First, he lived for many months as a poor hermit, begging for his food and spending his days in prayer. Then he took ship and went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, hoping to offer himself in lifelong service there.

When he was denied permission to remain permanently in the Holy Land, he returned to Spain and began a long process of study, which would take him from Barcelona, to the Spanish university town of Alcalá, and ultimately to the University of Paris, where he studied theology and was ordained a Catholic priest.

During his years at the University of Paris, by force of his virtuous character, his strength of personality, and his other powerful leadership qualities, he gathered around himself a group of extremely talented younger men from Spain, France, and Portugal, who were also studying for the priesthood.

He led each of them through The Spiritual Exercises, his life-changing 30-day retreat, which he had by that time developed. As their numbers and their friendship grew, this impressive band of men dreamed of doing something together in the service of God.

Founding of the Jesuits

In August 1534, Ignatius of Loyola and several others joined together in Paris to make promises to remain permanently single for God (chastity) and to live in poverty, in order to place their lives as completely as possible at the service of God. Their first ambition was to sail together to the Holy Land, and to preach the Gospel of Christ in Jerusalem.

When this proved impossible, they journeyed to Rome and placed themselves at the disposal of the pope, ready to serve in whatever way he should direct. The small group continued to grow, attracting many other young and gifted men who were inspired by the lives of Ignatius and his companions, and by the scope of their vision.

Although numerous religious orders of men already existed in the Roman Catholic Church, Ignatius’s company was utterly new: a bold and dynamic missionary band of highly gifted men who were prepared to go anywhere in the world, and to do anything that would advance the cause of Christ. In 1540 the new order, called the Society of Jesus, was officially established by Pope Paul III.

In the following year, Ignatius was elected the first superior (“general”), and he remained in that role until his death 15 years later, in 1556. Throughout these years, Ignatius remained in Rome, crafting the Constitutions of his order and directing his far-flung society through his extensive correspondence. A gifted leader of men and an able administrator, he was also revered by his men for his personal holiness and his profound life of prayer.

Under his direction, the Society of Jesus became a powerful force in the Counter-Reformation, exercising enormous impact through their dominance in the field of education, through their popular preaching and their theological disputations, and through their worldwide missionary activity. The order continued to grow rapidly throughout his life, and by the time of his death numbered nearly 1,000 men.

Society of Jesus

The Jesuit order exploded onto the European scene in the decades following their official establishment in 1540. Their growth in numbers was rapid, and within 25 years after Ignatius’s death, 5,000 Jesuits were at work all over the world. They played a major role in educating the youth of upper-class European society and had established nearly 150 colleges by 1580.

As time went on, they enjoyed enormous popular appeal through their creative use of preaching, drama, music, extensive use of the recently invented printing press, and promotion of baroque art and architecture. In the highest echelons of society, Jesuits became confessors and counselors to many of Europe’s kings and queens and leading statesmen.

Over the next 200 years, hundreds of intrepid Jesuit missionaries followed in the footsteps of the first Jesuit foreign missionary, Francis Xavier. They journeyed from Europe to many parts of North and South America, Africa, and Asia. Many of them would die on the journey itself, the hazards and hardships of sea travel at that time being so great.

Many others would die a martyr’s death in the land of their mission. Jesuits were known to be outstanding in developing creative missionary methods for different cultural settings, and in respecting the indigenous cultures within which they sought to adapt the preaching of the Gospel.

The work of such men as Valignano in Japan, Matteo Ricci in China, Di Nobili in India, and the Jesuit reductions in Paraguay continue to be studied today by missionaries seeking to adapt the Gospel effectively to new cultures with respect and sensitivity.

All was not smooth sailing for the Society of Jesus, however. Their unprecedented success in so many of their endeavors, their massive influence at all levels of society, and serious doubts that were raised about some of their methods all contributed to making the Jesuits a storm center of controversy.

Although they won many influential friends over the years, they also accumulated a long list of powerful and dedicated enemies, who considered them a dangerous force to be eliminated. Some of their implacable foes came from within the Catholic Church itself, others from among the Protestants of Europe, and many more from among Europe’s Enlightenment intellectuals and rulers.

By the mid-1700s, fierce opposition to the activity and influence of the Jesuits had coalesced into strong pressure from different quarters for the complete suppression of the order. The society was first driven out of Portugal, then out of France and Spain, and finally in 1773, the pope was prevailed upon to suppress the entire order. The suppression was not lifted by Rome until 40 years later, in 1814.

The restored Society of Jesus flourished in many parts of the world in the 19th and 20th centuries, including in the United States, and became especially well-known for its excellent high schools and universities. Today the Society of Jesus ranks as the largest Catholic religious order in the world, with more than 20,000 members serving in 112 nations on six of the world’s continents.

Conquest and Colonization of Brazil

Conquest and Colonization of Brazil

The Portuguese conquest of Brazil was a complex, prolonged, and partial process that many scholars argue was never fully realized. Lacking large cities, a centralized political structure, and a common language, the estimated 2 to 3 million precontact indigenous inhabitants of the Brazilian coast and interior were divided into an intricate patchwork of ethnolinguistic groups and clan-based tribes.

The principal coastal groups were Tupi-speaking peoples who had migrated into the area in the preceding centuries, displacing and absorbing existing groups. Seminomadic hunter-gatherers with intimate knowledge of the local environment, Tupi speakers were divided into numerous major branches and hundreds of autonomous bands, often in conflict with each other and other groups, and possessing great skill in the arts of war.

Their principal weapon, often used with deadly effect, was the bow and arrow. Like other ethnolinguistic groups in the Americas, many Tupi-speaking peoples practiced ritual cannibalism in the most general terms, a cultural-religious practice acknowledging the spiritual power of slain enemies.


The Portuguese used reports of ritual cannibalism to justify their invasion, slave raiding, and other excesses of violence, much as the Spanish had used the practice of ritual human sacrifice to justify their subjugation of the Aztecs in the conquest of Mexico.

The first European explorer to sight the Brazilian coast was Portuguese noble Pedro Álvares Cabral, in command of 13 ships headed around the southern tip of Africa to India, on April 22, 1500. Following a brief excursion on the beach, the expedition’s chronicler, Pêro Vaz de Caminha, produced the first written report on the land and its people.

Cabral sent one ship back to Portugal loaded with brazilwood, a red dyewood from which the later colony derived its name, and left behind two convicts to begin the process of mixing with the natives. The following year Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci sailed along Brazil’s southern coast. A number of French and Spanish expeditions followed.

These initial contacts with the natives were largely peaceful, though here as elsewhere they resulted in the spread of European diseases against which native peoples had no biological immunity. These diseases led to rapid population declines in many areas long before Europeans arrived.

The years 1500–30 saw the growth of the brazil-wood trade between Europeans and Brazil’s coastal peoples. Relations between rival French and Portuguese traders soon degenerated into a series of violent clashes, with the French ignoring the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, to which it was not a signatory.

In the early 1520s, the Portuguese established a garrisoned trading station at Pernambuco, where sugar cultivation was introduced in 1526. French-Portuguese hostilities along the coast intensified. In 1530, the Portuguese Crown responded by commissioning Martím Afonso de Sousa to begin the process of settlement and colonization, an expedition that in 1532 established the first permanent colony at São Vicente near modern São Paulo.

As conflicts with the French grew, in the mid-1530s King João III and his advisers devised the donatory system, which divided the coastland into 15 sections or donatories that extended along imaginary boundaries west into the interior, each to be ruled by a captain or hereditary lord.

Entrusting colonization to a handful of private individuals who would exercise full authority within their respective domains, the Crown hoped to secure its claims against its French rivals. Most donatories languished and failed, with São Vicente and Pernambuco seeing the greatest albeit limited success.

Important in this early phase of colonization were a small number of individuals who mixed with the natives and acted as cultural intermediaries between indigenous peoples and the Portuguese. Sailor Diogo Álvares ventured into the interior near Bahia in the early 1500s, married the daughter of the chief of the Tupinambá tribe, learned their language and culture, and changed his name to Caramurú.

By the 1530s, he had become a respected tribal chieftain and from this position of authority worked to facilitate the process of colonization. That the Bahia captaincy failed was due mainly to poor administration and the settlers’ failure to heed Caramurú’s counsel regarding their interactions with the natives.

Farther south, the settlement of São Paulo succeeded in large part by the efforts of Portuguese castaway João Ramalho, who had also married into a local tribe, the Goiana Tupinikin, and served as interpreter and intermediary.

Portuguese colonists generally mixed with the local inhabitants to a greater extent than was true of other European powers, thereby facilitating subsequent cultural and linguistic melding of different ethnic and racial groups.

Sugar Trade

As the brazilwood trade faded, sugar became the colony’s economic backbone. By the mid-1540s, two sugar-producing centers had emerged; one was around Pernambuco in the north, and the other was in São Vicente in the south.

By this time, competition with French, Spanish, and other rivals had sharpened, prompting the Portuguese Crown to intensify colonization efforts. Consequently, the Crown would play a major role in the colony’s economic development.

In 1549, Tomé de Sousa was appointed governor-general of Brazil at the head of a major expedition that included royal officials, artisans, soldiers, and Jesuit missionaries. Sousa established Salvador as the colony’s capital. To the south, the French colony at the Guanabara Bay threatened Portuguese control of the southern littoral.

In 1565–67, the Portuguese defeated and ousted the French colony and established the town São Sebastião de Rio de Janeiro. Sousa’s successor Mem de Sá (governor-general, 1558–74) consolidated royal control over these coastal population centers.

Indigenous resistance to colonization intensified, particularly in consequence of slave-raiding expeditions organized by planters in the rapidly growing sugar industry. Indian counterattacks nearly destroyed the settlements of Bahia, Espirito Santo, and Ilhéus, and killed Brazil’s first bishop, but could not stem the Portuguese tide.

The Jesuits played a key role in this early phase of colonization and in the centralization of royal authority. Though their numbers were never large (110 in all of Brazil in 1574), their economic, social, and cultural impact was huge.

Young and aggressive, the Jesuit order (founded in 1540) was instrumental in establishing the town of São Paulo in 1557, and in facilitating generally peaceful relations between Indians and colonists in the south.

Taking no vow of poverty, Jesuits made their missions (aldeas) self-supporting and profitable through farming, ranching, and related enterprises. They were also crucial to the colony’s educational life. For most of the colonial period, Jesuit colleges in all the major towns served as the colony’s principal schools.

By the mid-1500s, sugar planters considered that labor had become the colony’s principal economic bottleneck. Land was plentiful, but sugar production in their view required a steady and reliable supply of bound labor. Enslaving native peoples was their initial strategy for meeting these rising labor demands.

The period from 1540 to 1600 saw the most extensive use of Indian slave labor in Brazil’s burgeoning sugar industry. By the late 1500s, disease and native resistance combined to make Indian slavery unable to meet sugar growers’ labor demands, leading to conflicts among the Crown, sugar growers, and the Jesuits.

The Crown tended to advocate the integration of Indians into the economy as free wage laborers; sugar growers promoted slavery; and Jesuits worked toward the transformation of Indians into a kind of smallholding or peasant class. Whose vision predominated hinged on a host of local and regional variables.

The transition from Indian to African slave labor was gradual, though by the early 1600s African slave labor dominated the sugar industry. The first Africans came as servants and sailors, while the first large-scale importation of African slaves did not begin until the 1570s. By the 1580s, the labor force on the 66 sugar plantations of Pernambuco is estimated at two-thirds Indian and one-third African slaves.

In later decades, the proportion of African slaves grew, so that by 1600 Brazil’s slave labor force was predominantly African. Over the next 250 years, Brazil became the single largest recipient of African slaves in the Americas, especially the Northeast, the colony’s principal sugar zone.

Brazil’s European population remained overwhelmingly concentrated in coastal areas. All the major cities founded in the 1500s were ports, including Bahia, São Vicente, Olinda (1537), Santos (1545), Salvador (1549), Vitória (1551), and Rio de Janeiro (1565). The pattern continued well into the 1600s, especially in the north and along the lower reaches of the Amazon.

The Brazilian population remained heavily concentrated in coastal areas through the colonial period and after. As European coastal populations swelled, migrations of Indian peoples away from the coast intensified, producing a ripple effect throughout the interior.

In 1585, São Paulo colonists officially authorized slave-raiding expeditions, and for the next 150 years the bandeirantes hunted Indian slaves across much of Brazil in the service of Paulista sugar planters. From the 1550s on, a series of epidemics ravaged Indian populations, including those of 1552 around Bahia, 1554 around São Paulo, Espírito Santo in 1559, and continuing through the colonial period.

Further impelling the Portuguese Crown to consolidate its hold on the colony was the Dutch presence in the Northeast, from the 1620s until their expulsion in 1654. The discovery of gold in present-day Minas Gerais in the mid-1690s led to a gold rush in these regions from 1700 to 1760, while discovery of diamonds in the same region in the 1720s further propelled expansion into the interior.

Many escaped African slaves also escaped into the interior, sometimes forming Maroon societies of runaway slaves, called quilombos. The largest and most resilient, Palmares, endured through most of the 1600s. By 1700, the population of the colonized areas was an estimated 300,000, with 100,000 whites, 150,000 mostly African slaves, and 50,000 free blacks, Indians, and mixed-race groups.

Colonial Brazil’s first 250 years set in motion a series of patterns and processes that profoundly shaped the subsequent development of Brazilian society. Especially important in this regard were the formation of an export-oriented economy (most notably brazilwood, sugar, gold, and diamonds); stark divisions of race and class; highly unequal landownership; a substantial degree of racial and ethnic intermingling, particularly among the lower classes; the gradual movement of the frontier of settlement westward; the subordination of Indian and African peoples within a relatively rigid social hierarchy; and the existence of vast unconquered lands beyond the western and northern frontiers.

Counter-Reformation (Catholic Reformation) in Europe

Counter-Reformation in Europe

Beginning in the late 15th century, calls for reform of the Catholic Church “in head and members”—that is, in respect to both the papal administration and the life of the faithful—had become commonplace in all ecclesiastical circles.

However, in the early 16th century, there were increasing calls from many sides for the calling of a General Council. The Fifth Lateran Council of 1512–17, called by Pope Julius II, undertook various reforms, but its pronouncements had little effect.

If reform “in the head” was stymied by political and bureaucratic inertia, reform “in the members” was proceeding ahead. The late 15th century saw reforms within the Franciscan, Augustinian, and Carmelite orders, leading, in the case of the Franciscans and Augustinians, to the founding of separate branches of the orders incorporating friars following a stricter version of their rule. It was indeed from the observant branch of the Augustinians that Martin Luther came.

There was also a revival of the study of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose work had been neglected in most universities (outside his own Dominican order) in favor of the via moderna represented by William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel. Cardinal Tomasso de Vio (1469–1534), known as Cajetan, a leading Dominican scholar and superior general of the order, led the way with new works on Thomistic theology.


At the same time, scholars using humanistic methods called for new approaches to education and theology, most notably Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (c. 1455–1536) in France, John Colet (1467–1519) and Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) in England.

In Spain Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisernos, an Observant Franciscan, carried out reforms of the church in Spain and opened the University of Alcalá in 1508, where many of the new methods of learning were cultivated. It was there that the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, incorporating Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts, was completed in 1517 and published three years later.

During the 15th century, a movement of spiritual renewal known as the Modern Devotion (Devotio Moderna) had attracted followers among both clergy and laity, especially in Northern Europe. This movement stressed personal devotion and conversion, rather than theological speculation.

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis (1418) was the most popular representative work of this period. By the end of the century, groups of reformers that focused on personal piety and charitable works had emerged in several cities in Italy.

The Oratory of Divine Love, founded in Genoa by a layman, Ettore Vernazza, in 1497, brought together both clergy and laity in pursuit of holiness and good works. Vernazza moved to Rome early in the 16th century and founded an Oratory there. Branches of the Oratory were founded in a number of Italian cities, where they were the seedbeds of many later reform initiatives.

The foundation of new religious orders was central to the reforming efforts of the period. Several of these orders were of a new type, “clerks regular”—that is, priests (and in some cases lay brothers) living according to a religious rule, but not bound to celebration of the Divine Office in community as were monastic or mendicant orders.

This mode of living suited their orientation to active life, including preaching, teaching, and the hearing of confessions. The first of these orders were the Theatines, founded by Gaetano Thiene (1480–1547) and Gian Pietro Carafa (1476–1559), then bishop of Chieti, both of whom had been members of the Oratory of Divine Love. Their order was approved by Pope Clement VII in 1524.

Other such orders included the Clerks Regular of St. Paul, also known as the Barnabites, founded in Milan by Anthony Maria Zaccaria in 1533, and the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the best-known Counter-Reformation order. The Capuchins, officially approved in 1528 and active in spreading Catholic reform, were one of several offshoots of the Observant Franciscans, whose apostolate was nevertheless similar to that of the new orders.

The period also saw the foundation of the first orders of women oriented to the active life, including teaching and care of the sick. The best known of these were the Ursulines, founded in Brescia in 1535 by Angela Merici, a Franciscan associate who had also been a member of the Oratory of Divine Love.

For the first 20 years after Luther’s emergence onto the general European scene in 1517, it was by no means clear that his movement would provoke a split in the church. The doctrine of justification, which formed the basis of Luther’s teaching, had been much debated in the 15th century, especially within the schools of the via moderna from which Luther himself had emerged.

While his interpretation of this doctrine led Luther to reject the sacramental and hierarchical system of the Catholic Church, there were many who desired to preserve that system but at the same time adopt at least some of his theology. Likewise many of the attacks by Luther and his followers against corruption in the church echoed the concerns of both humanist and Observantine reformers.

Thus the writings of important bishops and thinkers were suspected of heresy in their teachings on grace and justification. The suspicions of the more traditional among the hierarchy were further confirmed when Bernardino Ochino, vicar-general of the Capuchins, and the popular preacher Pietro Martire Vermigli fled to Switzerland in 1542 and openly espoused Protestant doctrines.

Gaining Momentum for Reform

The aktivitas of institutional reform gained momentum in the 1530s. Paul III, pope from 1534 to 1549, made a number of the leading reformers cardinals, increasing their influence within the church. In 1536, he commissioned a group of these same men to study the problems confronting the church. Their report, the Consilium de emendanda ecclesiae, presented in 1537, advised reform of the papal curia, better discipline for bishops, and reform of the religious orders.

This was the aktivitas for a coming General Council, for which not only church reformers, but likewise many secular rulers, in particular the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, had been calling for some time. Convocation of a council, however, was impeded by the continuing war between the emperor and the king of France.

The council was finally convened at Trent in 1545. Protestants were invited to send observers, but none attended. The French likewise stayed away from the early sessions of the council, both because of its location in Imperial territory and because of suspicion that it would take measures that would interfere with the French king’s attempts to control the church in France.

The council’s doctrinal decrees reaffirmed traditional teaching in areas challenged by Protestants, such as the doctrine of free will and the sacraments. The disciplinary decrees of the council strengthened the authority of bishops over the clergy in their dioceses, at the same time demanding that bishops and other holders of pastoral responsibilities personally reside in their jurisdictions.

The council mandated the foundation of seminaries in every diocese for the training of priests, an innovation that was perhaps the most influential in the formation of the early modern Catholic Church.

The council also recognized the importance of the new medium of print by establishing the Index of Forbidden Books and providing that all works dealing with religious questions be approved beforehand by the local bishop.

The publication of the first index was the work of Pope Paul IV, whose reign was marked by an intensification of the efforts to stamp out heresy in Italy. While he himself was a reformer, he had suspected many Counter-Reformation figures of excessive sympathy with Protestantism, some of whom had to appear before Inquisition tribunals.

Council of Trent

Council of Trent

The institutional reforms mandated by the Council of Trent were put into action only gradually. Pius IV set up a Congregation for the Council in 1563 to supervise its implementation; this was the first of the Roman congregations that became the central administration of the Catholic Church.

His successor, Pius V (reigned 1566–72), issued the Roman Catechism, a summary of Catholic teaching, and a revision of the Roman Missal that imposed a uniform standard for the liturgy of the Roman Rite.

Beyond Rome, the application of the Council of Trent, which proceeded gradually, nation by nation and diocese by diocese, depended on both the local bishops and the cooperation of secular rulers.

The council was applied relatively quickly in Spain and in parts of Italy. Cardinal Charles Borromeo (1538–84), archbishop of Milan and nephew of Pope Pius IV, set the pattern for many of these reforms. He established a seminary and enacted other provisions of the council in the administration of the diocese.

He brought the Ursulines and other new orders to Milan, and encouraged the work of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, which had been founded in 1536 for the purpose of the religious education of children and included both clergy and laypersons. His efforts extended beyond his diocese throughout northern Italy and Switzerland.

By the end of the Council of Trent, the Jesuit order had gained numerous vocations and considerable influence. Several Jesuit theologians participated in the council. The Jesuits had begun the first overseas missionary work in America, Africa, and particularly East Asia; Saint Francis Xavier (1509–52), one of Ignatius Loyola’s original companions, traveled to Goa in 1542 and spent the rest of his life evangelizing in India, the East Indies, and Japan, dying as he was preparing to enter China.

The Jesuits were also active within Europe, establishing schools and preaching to the public. In their schools, they combined humanist and Scholastic methods, aiming at attracting the ablest boys and those from the most influential social groups.

In many areas where substantial portions of the population had been converted to Protestantism, such as Austria and Bohemia, Jesuit education was one of the means by which these areas were returned to Catholicism by the first part of the 17th century. Jesuit preachers like Peter Canisius (1521–97) began a revival of what had become, by the middle of the 16th century, an almost moribund Catholic Church in Germany.

In Spain, a country where Protestantism had attracted very few followers, the Counter-Reformation was marked by a revival of religious and mystical life. The most prominent figure in this revival was the Carmelite reformer and spiritual writer Teresa of Jesus (or Teresa of Ávila, 1515–82) and John of the Cross (1542–91).

The revival of religious life characterizing the Counter-Reformation went beyond, however, religious orders and the clergy. The application of the Council of Trent affected the religious experience of laypeople in all parts of Catholic Europe.

Circles of “the devout” or “friends of God” had grown up in many places even before the advent of institutional reform. Reforming orders like the Jesuits built on these groups to form organized lay confraternities and sodalities to pursue prayer, education, and charitable works.

Confraternities devoted to the Virgin Mary and especially to the Blessed Sacrament held public processions and reaffirmed Catholic doctrines under attack by Protestants. At the same time, reforming bishops and pastors attempted to suppress quasi-magical devotional practices unapproved by church authority, which in many cases had attracted the criticism of Protestant reformers.

The Counter-Reformation left the Catholic Church more organized and disciplined. In many ways, the changes in the Catholic Church paralleled those introduced by Protestants in the areas under their control. Both created a disciplined and educated clergy and clearer teaching on doctrinal matters and attempted to bring about effective conversion of the mass of the population. Both relied to a greater degree on the cooperation of secular governments.

While many scholars have recognized the contribution of the Counter-Reformation to the strengthening of the Catholic Church, others have suggested that by raising the standards of education of the clergy and attempting to impose a uniform discipline on the laity, the Counter-Reformation alienated many of the uneducated masses and prepared the way for the secularization that began in the 18th century.

Bandeirantes in Brazil

Bandeirantes in Brazil

Bandeirantes were members of bandeiras, or roving bands of explorers, prospectors, and Indian slavers originating principally in the frontier settlement of São Paulo in colonial Brazil, beginning around the 1580s and continuing for the next 150 years or so.

The original meaning of the term bandeira was “flag,” though in medieval Portugal it also came to mean a small autonomous militia. Their primary purpose was to acquire Indian slaves for their Paulista (São Paulo) patrons. Some bandeiras were gone years at a time and traveled thousands of kilometers through the back country.

In the process, the bandeirantes explored much of the vast Brazilian interior—its forests, grasslands, rivers, jungles, and backlands (sertão) to the west, south, and north—pushing back the colony’s known frontiers and opening up new paths for settlement and colonization.

In Brazilian historiography and national culture, bandeirantes occupy a very important and highly ambiguous position—praised for their endurance and discoveries, and condemned for their brutalities and cruelties that were integral to Indian slaving in the backcountry.


By 1600, most residents of São Paulo (which at the time was a small settlement of only about 120 houses and 2,000 people) were Portuguese, Indian, and racially mixed mamelucos (the Portuguese equivalent of the Spanish term mestizo).

The predominant language was Tupí. Their city and homesteads vulnerable to attack, Paulistas initially launched bandeiras as a defensive measure against hostile natives. By around 1600, bandeiras had transformed into offensive slave-raiding expeditions.

The indigenous inhabitants around São Paulo having all but disappeared by this time, victims to enslavement and diseases, the Paulistas found them-selves chronically short of servile labor. The bandeiras were their effort to remedy this chronic labor shortage.

Most bandeiras left no written record, though many others did, thanks in large part to Jesuit missionaries or foreigners who accompanied them through the backcountry and reported on their experiences. As one Jesuit priest marveled, “One is astounded by the boldness and impertinence with which, at such great cost, men allow themselves to enter that great sertão for two, three, four or more years.

They go without God, without food, naked as the savages, and subject to all the persecutions and miseries in the world. Men venture for two or three hundred leagues into the sertão, serving the devil with such amazing martyrdom, in order to trade or steal slaves.”

A classic account is by the Jesuit priest Pedro Domingues of 1613, which described a journey of several thousand kilometers lasting 19 months. Occasionally clashing with Spanish settlements emanating out from the Río de la Plata, the bandeirantes helped to define colonial Brazil’s southern boundaries.

Bandeirantes in Brazil

As time went on, they also clashed repeatedly with the Jesuits, who saw their slave raiding as antithetical to their own goal of converting the natives to Christianity and saving souls. This conflict between bandeirantes and Jesuits in colonial Brazil can be aptly compared to similar conflicts between encomenderos and religious missions in colonial Spanish America during this same period.

By around 1650, there occurred a broad shift among bandeiras from slave raiding to the search for precious metals. By this time, African slaves were fulfilling the colony’s servile labor requirements, while the Jesuit missions had fortified their defenses, making Indian slaving more difficult.

Greatly extending geographic knowledge of the vast Brazilian interior, the bandeirantes have come to occupy a position within Brazilian national culture akin to the cowboys of the United States or the gauchos of Argentina, symbolizing the spirit of adventure, independence, and, ironically, freedom. It is estimated that bandeirantes enslaved and caused the premature deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indians during the decades of their greatest activity.

St. Francis de Sales (François de Sales)

St. Francis de Sales (François de Sales)

In an age of religious division and strife, Francis de Sales (François de Sales) was a voice of reason and charity and a leader in the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Plagued by lifelong doubts about his faith, he was revered as a saintly man by both Catholics and Protestants precisely when violence was the usual recourse for religious controversy.

Francis’s father expected him to be either a lawyer or a military officer and raised him accordingly, sending him to the University of Paris to study rhetoric and humanities under the Jesuits and then to the Padua Law School. He was not much interested in the hidebound teachings of the Dominicans and Jesuits, consummate Scholastics who followed the old ideas of Thomas Aquinas.

He found himself fascinated by the new ideas of the Protestant reformer John Calvin, who taught predestination. Struggling with doubts, he finally came to the conclusion, at age 19, that his main concern was to love God in this life and to entrust his eternal fate to the hands of this God.

During Francis’s days in law school he resolved to become a priest. He became involved with the Catholic diocese of Geneva-Annecy, an area particularly hard-hit by Protestant proselytism. He was ordained in 1593, and through some papal connections was appointed provost of the diocese.


Francis’s position allowed him to begin a mission to the resident Protestants. He conceived it as based on charity toward the poor, care of the sick, and evangelical preaching instead the conventional Counter-Reformation tactics of law and military force. Francis endured daily hardships of harassment, cold, violence, and threats.

When offered another diocese by Henry IV, he refused, saying, “Sire, I am married; my wife is a poor woman, but I cannot leave her for a richer one.” Miracles were associated with his mission. The area, Protestant for some 60 years, largely returned to the Catholic Church within four years.

Francis soon became bishop of Geneva, where his patience and mildness became proverbial. He often dared to walk the streets of the city where Calvin had his headquarters 50 years earlier. In fact he dialogued with the reformed leader and scholar Theodore Beza. Though again plagued by doubts, his philosophy was “Love will shake the walls of Geneva; by love we must invade it.”

Francis produced a stream of writings that proved that the pen was mightier than the sword. Among his most famous books were Introduction to the Devout Life (1608). He also became renowned as a spiritual director, having a profound effect on the founders of two Catholic Counter-Reformation orders, later declared saints, Vincent de Paul and Jane de Chantal. Protestant King James of England and Scottish Calvinists in Aberdeen read his literature. He had a vast correspondence, perhaps sending out 20,000 letters.

He suffered an agonizing death in 1622, was beatified by Pope Alexander VII only 39 years later, and was canonized by 1665. He was declared doctor of the church in 1877 partly for his irenic affects on religious dissent and patron saint of journalists and writers in 1923.

Among the organizations that claim direct connection with him today are Visitation Sisters, Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, Salesians of Don Bosco, and the St. Francis de Sales Association.

Qing Dynasty, Rise and Zenith

Qing Dynasty

The Qing (1644–1911) was China’s last imperial dynasty and the second of nomadic origin that ruled the entire Chinese world. Its success is due to capable and wise founders and their long-reigning immediate successors, whose admiration for Chinese culture led them to assimilate rapidly, and to retain most of the existing government institutions with few modifications. The dynasty remained prosperous and dynamic until the end of the 18th century.

The Qing is also called the Manchu dynasty. The Manchus were nomads descended from the Jurchen tribal people who lived in northeastern China (Manchuria). They had conquered and ruled northern China under the Jin (Chin) dynasty (1115–1234) but had retreated to their original homeland when the dynasty ended. They forgot their short-lived written language and reverted to a life of hunting, fishing, and raising livestock.

Manchuria was part of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and became an area of mixed residence of Jurchen and other nomadic tribal people amid the sedentary Han Chinese. Jurchen and other tribal people were responsible to Ming officials in Manchuria and went to Beijing (Peking) at stipulated times to render tribute to the Ming court.


The decline of the Ming dynasty coincided with the rise of strong leaders among the Jurchens, the first a minor tribal chief named Nurhaci, who began significant reforms and innovations that would lead his people to power. They included the creation of a written language and the militarization of all Jurchens into a banner system whereby all males were organized into fighting units and given land to farm and administer.

As a result of successful campaigns, the defeated people became serfs, liberating the bannermen into full time warriors and administrators. Nurhaci created a state called the Later Jin, which his son Abahai changed to Qing (which means “pure”) 1635. Abahai also changed his people’s name from Jurchen to Manchu.

Continuing his father’s ambitious policies Abahai expanded the banner system to include units of Mongols and Han Chinese, conquered most of Manchuria, subdued Korea and forced it to change allegiance and tribute relations from the Ming to Qing, and began attacking Ming territories near the Great Wall of China. Abahai died in 1643 and was succeeded by a young son, but his work was continued by his capable brother Dorgon, who acted as regent.

Formation of a National Dynasty

A great stroke of luck catapulted the frontier Manchu state to a national Chinese dynasty. In 1644, rebel bandits attacked and captured the Ming capital, causing the emperor to commit suicide. In the ensuing confusion Wu Sangui (Wu San-kuei), a Ming frontier general guarding the eastern extremity of the Great Wall, requested Manchu assistance to drive out the rebels, with which Dorgon happily complied.

After liberating Beijing and while Wu’s forces chased the rebels to their destruction Dorgon placed his nephew on the vacant Ming throne and proclaimed the Qing as a national successor dynasty to the Ming.

He won over many people in northern China by burying the last Ming emperor and empress with honor, restoring order, and keeping most of the Ming institutions and officials in place. Ming loyalists resisted in southern China and warfare continued until 1683, when Taiwan, the last Ming loyalist bastion, was captured.

Dorgon died in 1651 and his nephew the emperor Shunzi (Shun-chih, r. 1644–61) continued his policies but had little impact because of the brevity of his reign. Then came three great emperors: Kangxi (K’ang-hsi, r. 1662–1722), Yongzheng (Yung-Cheng, r. 1723–35), and Qianlong (Ch’ien-lung, r. 1736–1796). These three reigns totaled 134 years, during which traditional Chinese culture enjoyed its last great flowering and Chinese power attained great heights.

Capable Rulers

Kangxi was seven when he ascended an as yet insecure throne. A remarkably intelligent, ambitious, and hardworking boy, he freed himself from the tutelage of his regents at age 13 and began his personal rule, which was noted for its success in war and peace. Frugal in personal habits and in administration he repeatedly reduced taxes and permanently fixed them at a low level.

He also took a personal interest in agricultural improvements, introducing early ripening strains of rice to promote food production. He advocated vaccination against smallpox, a dreaded childhood disease that he had recovered from, and quinine (called Jesuit bark) against malaria.

He also took several tours of inspection to be personally acquainted with his realm. He worked long hours personally reading and responding to reports and memorials of officials and conscientiously fasting before reviewing capital cases, showing respect for life and the awesome responsibilities that were vested in him.

He finished the work of suppressing Ming loyalist revolts and the formidable revolt of the Three Feudatories. He campaigned against the Mongols and negotiated a treaty with Russia that defined part of the borders between the two empires and put part of Outer Mongolia under Qing control. He also installed a friendly cleric as the Seventh Dalai Lama, thus extending Qing authority over Tibet.

Although personally friendly with Jesuit missionaries, some of whom were his teachers and employees, he rejected the papacy’s attempt to claim authority over Chinese Catholics and definition of what rites Chinese Catholics should follow. The defeat of the Jesuits’ position on Chinese rites by their opponents in the Catholic curia ended over a century of cultural exchange between China and Europe.

Kangxi was both a keen student and a patron of the arts and learning. He sponsored numerous projects that included the compiling of a multivolume history of the Ming dynasty, a comprehensive dictionary, and other publications. His court was filled with literary men and artists.

Although his last years were clouded with problems of finding a worthy successor among his many sons, Kangxi’s long reign ended with the Qing dynasty firmly established. To many of his subjects, he approached the ideal ruler.

Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735) was Kangxi’s fourth son and his successor. Because he was already 44 when he ascended the throne, his reign was a short one. Like his father, Yongzheng was able, conscientious, and hardworking.

He focused on making his government efficient by weeding out incompetence and corruption and making all officials accountable. The civil service, recruited on merit through exams, enjoyed high morale under his reign. He concentrated military power in his own hands and personally commanded all the Manchu banner units, sidelining the Manchu tribal and clan chiefs and imperial princes.

Although he did not personally command campaigns, Yongzheng continued to consolidate his empire’s borders with expeditions against the Mongol tribes that had not submitted, and by a second treaty with Russia that completed the drawing of borders between the two empires. Yongzheng’s legacy was a more efficient and tightly controlled empire than the one he inherited and one that was institutionally stronger.

Yongzheng was followed on the throne by his fourth son, then aged 24 and well prepared for his role, who reigned as Emperor Qianlong, a keen student of history. His paragons were Taizong (T’ai-tsung, r. 627–47, statesman and general) and his grandfather Kangxi, and he abdicated in 1796 so that his reign would not be longer than that of his revered grandfather. Qianlong excelled in war, personally leading some campaigns.

Under him Qing arms finally reduced the troublesome Olod Mongols and Turkic tribes, extending Chinese control into Central Asia as had the great Han, Tang (T’ang), and Yuan (Mongol dynasty) dynasties. Peace and prosperity prevailed, education and culture flourished, and the civil service exams recruited capable men to serve the government.

As had his grandfather, Qianlong made numerous tours of inspection throughout his realm, and as had both his predecessors, he lavishly patronized the arts, including many Jesuit artists and architects who gathered at his court. He was also an avid collector, who added a vast array of arts to the imperial collection.

A great literary project that distinguished his reign was the compilation of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries. It contained more than 36,000 volumes consisting of 10,230 titles divided into four categories: the classics, history, philosophy, and belles-lettres.

Seven complete sets of the compilation were printed and deposited in different libraries throughout the realm. However the emperor also had an ulterior motive in sponsoring this project—to weed out works that were hostile to the Manchus.

Qianlong’s reign both saw the culmination of Qing greatness and was the forerunner of dynastic decline because of corruption during his later years. He abdicated in 1796 but continued to wield power until his death in 1799 even as his son was nominally in control.

The long and successful reigns of three great and ambitious emperors took the Qing dynasty and China to the height of power and prosperity. While the monarchs were of nomadic Manchu origin, they had almost totally assimilated to and identified with Chinese culture.

The Manchu written script, proclaimed as one of two official languages of the empire (together with Chinese), was soon relegated to the background. All of the three rulers considered themselves cultured Chinese rulers and patrons of the arts.

Despite certain favoritism shown to Manchus in the highest ranks of government, Chinese occupied the bulk of the civil service positions and most gradually became reconciled to Manchus for sharing and honoring their culture and traditions. However splendor bred complacency that led to degeneration. By the beginning of the 19th century, changing world conditions and the accumulation of domestic problems would lead to rapid decline of the Qing dynasty.

Satanic Ritual Abuse

Satanic Ritual Abuse

Conspiracy-infused accusations of satanic ritual abuse (SRA) came to the forefront inwards U.S. civilization inwards the mid-1980s through intense media attention, too spread to United Kingdom of Great Britain too Northern Ireland too Australia, too most lately continental Europe.

Those believing inwards SRA, unremarkably known equally truthful believers, maintained that secretive groups were involved inwards forcing people, mainly children, to receive got gender activity too engage inwards satanic rituals such equally the sacrificing of babies too drinking their blood. In the USA the principal menstruum of SRA accusations is from 1984 to 1994, but this is non an precisely recent trend.

In early on Christian cultures those idea to last inwards allegiance alongside the devil were believed to last involved inwards forms of satanic abuse. This reached its zenith inwards the Middle Ages alongside witch trials too the publication inwards 1481 of Malleus Maleficarum yesteryear Heinrich Kraemer too Johann Sprenger, known inwards English linguistic communication equally The Witches’ Hammer.


During the 1960s U.S. Christianity became focused on the personal too obsessed alongside personal evil, typified inwards Roman Polanski’s 1968 celluloid Rosemary’s Baby. In 1969 Anton Szandor La Vey wrote The Satanic Bible too those looking for clear prove of occult activeness across the USA believed they had flora it. This was followed yesteryear other texts such equally The Satan Seller yesteryear self-declared ex-satanic high priest Mike Warnke inwards 1972, claiming that occult too SRA activeness was proliferating.

In 1973 William Friedkin’s celluloid The Exorcist shockingly depicted the results of demonic possession, too was supposedly based on fact. Personal stories, such equally Michelle Remembers yesteryear Michelle Smith too Lawrence Pazder published inwards 1980, were taken equally prove of the existence of SRA, alongside no substantial proof given.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 major incident inwards 1984, known equally the McMartin case, sparked accusations of SRA. At McMartin Preschool inwards Manhattan Beach, California, 360 children were diagnosed alongside existence abused via SRA. Child abuse allegations were besides levied at other schools inwards the area, such equally St. Cross Episcopal Church inwards Hermosa Beach, too inwards all, 100 teachers were defendant of belonging to a satanic cult involved inwards ritual molestation.

The bulk of charges were dropped too the illustration led to farther investigations into faux retentiveness syndrome, a belief that inwards such cases psychologists working alongside the victims of alleged abuse house faux memories through suggestion, hypnosis, too other techniques.

However, this itself is frequently considered closed to other conspiracy: faux retentiveness syndrome or recovered retentiveness scheme is non a clinical medical term too was, it is alleged yesteryear believers of SRA, invented yesteryear those parents charged alongside abuse.

Groups such equally Breaking Free, an SRA survivors’ organization, receive got linked SRA rings to other conspiracy theories relating to disparate groups from the Jesuits to the Freemasons, seeing SRA equally closed to other means of bringing almost the New World Order.

To truthful believers 60,000 people are killed each yr via SRA. Numerous cases may be but prove of a to a greater extent than substantial conspiracy is lacking. After the 1980s receive away from liberalism too the rising of the Christian Right during the Reagan era, inwards 1994 the U.S. saw a backlash against belief inwards SRA.

The full general public, too thus juries, became skeptical of accusations made of SRA, seeing it equally the production of bright imaginations imbued alongside stories from pop U.S. Christianity rather than a reality, making prosecution inwards such cases problematic.