# Suppression of the Jesuits (21 July 1773)

URL: https://allhistories.com/vatican/timeline/1773-suppression-of-the-jesuits
Location: Rome
Themes: Key Events

The Society of Jesus, founded in 1540 as the spearhead of the Counter-Reformation, had become the most powerful religious order in the Church, with schools, missions and influence at court throughout the Catholic world. It also made many enemies among Jansenists, Enlightenment philosophers and royal ministers, and it was expelled from Portugal in 1759, France in 1764 and Spain and its empire in 1767. The Bourbon powers made the abolition of the whole order the condition for reconciliation with Rome. Clement XIV, elected in May 1769 with their backing, delayed for four years but finally signed the brief Dominus ac Redemptor on 21 July 1773, published on 16 August, suppressing the Society throughout the world for the sake of peace in the Church. Its superior general, Lorenzo Ricci, was imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo, where he died in 1775, and Jesuit houses, colleges and property in the Papal States were confiscated. The suppression dealt a heavy blow to Catholic education and missions. The Society survived in the Russian Empire and Prussia, whose non-Catholic rulers refused to promulgate the brief, and was restored worldwide by Pius VII in 1814. Avignon and Benevento were returned to the pope in 1774.

## Why it matters
The suppression showed that the Catholic monarchies could compel the pope to abolish the Church's most powerful religious order.

Pope at the Time: [Pope Clement XIV](https://allhistories.com/vatican/popes/pope-clement-xiv)

Cardinal Secretary of State: Lazzaro Opizio Pallavicini

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Suppression of the Society of Jesus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_the_Society_of_Jesus)
- [Catholic Encyclopedia — Suppression of the Jesuits](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/)
- [Wikipedia — Baroque Papacy (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_States#Early_modern_period)