JESUIT

Madurai Province is the oldest and the biggest Province in India. It has a glorious past and rich and eventful history. Jesuit province in the Tamil country began since the times of St. Francis Xavier. He arrived in Goa on may 6, 1542. After four months of stay in Goa, he worked in Manapad, Tuticorin, Madurai, Madras-Mylapore etc. preached the Gospel and planted the Catholic Church. Having accomplished his mission successfully in India, Sri Lanka and Japan, he was keen to begin his work in China as well. And he set sail on April 17, 1552 from Goa never to return alive. He died in the Sancian Islands on December 3, 1552. For a period of 450 year (1552 –2002), his mortal body has withstood the heat and insects of India and is incorrupt. At the time of his death, there were 64 Jesuits in the Portuguese India and all of them were Europeans. 

After St. Francis Xavier came Antony Criminali (1520 – 1549) who was killed by the Badagas in a raid near Vedalai, Ramnad District on the Fishery Coast, Henri Genriques (1520 –1600), Goncalo Fernandez (1541–1621), Robert de Nobili (1577 –1656) and others were sent from Goa to the Tamil region to continue the work of evangelisation. When Robert de Nobili visited Madurai in 1606, he found it an ideal place to learn Tamil and to start the process of evangelisation and so he founded a mission know as “Madura Mission” (1606), dependent on Goa Province for men and material. After Robert de Nobili, great personalities like St. John de Britto (1647–1693), Constantine Joseph Beschi – Veeramamuniver 1680–1747 and others (122 Jesuits) have worked in this Mission till 1759. Enmity and oppositions were growing strong in Portugal and in its colonies against the Jesuits. The villain was certain Pombal who succeeded in poisoning the ears of the King against the Jesuits. In 1759, Pombal ordered all the Jesuits working in the Portuguese India to be arrested and deported to Portugal. Since oppositions against Jesuits were gaining strength in Europe, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus in the whole world on 21 July 1773. Jesuits ceased to exist openly and officially in Madura Mission and all over India. However, the Society of Jesus was re-established on 7th August 1814 by Pope Pius VII. Rev.Fr. J. Roothann, General of the Society of Jesus, entrusted Madura Mission to the Provincial of France, Fr. Francis Renault who at once sent four French Jesuits to the Mission in 1837:: Joseph Bertrand (1801 –1884), Louis Garnier (1805 – 1843), Louis du Ranquet (1801 –1843) and Alexander Martin 1799 – 1840). When the Toulouse Province was created in 1852, Madura Mission was entrusted to its care till its independence in 1952.