Society of Jesus

The Order was founded in 1540 as the dream of seven students at Paris University who a few years earlier had decided to travel to the Holy Land. If they failed to reach their final destination,
they would place themselves at the Pope’s service. The Society of Jesus grew rapidly. At the time of the death of its founder, Ignatius, it already had almost a thousand members. A century later they had reached 13,000.

The Jesuits have had to face many hardships over time: the Society was outlawed for several years and subsequently reinstated, the persecution of several of its members… Yet thanks to the leadership of the Superior
General Father Pedro Arrupe and the Jesuit belief that faith should go hand-in-hand with the pursuit of justice, the Jesuits have managed to carry out their intense Apostolic work involving the education of young people,
working in all fields of learning, tackling injustice, and defending human rights.
There are now 17,000 Jesuits throughout the world, of whom almost a thousand are in Spain. Thanks to them, more than 3,000,000 pupils and students are developing and learning at a Jesuit school.

In Spain, we run 68 educational centres that are open, participative and places of dialogue in which 75,000 pupils and students receive face-to-face classes.
Our mission is shared with the laymen and laywomen with whom we work, and who make up most of our staff. Many of these people share the spirituality that informs our projects and others are attracted by our mission.
Together, we form a single Apostolic body.
For further information, visit the website by clicking on the following link ⇒  Compañía de Jesús