1649 — St. Jean de Brébeuf, St. Gabriel Lalemant, St. Charles Garnier and St. Noël Chabanel are martyred.
1673 — Seven years after being sent to Canada from France, Fr. Jacques Marquette, with the Jesuit-trained Louis Joliet, become the first Europeans to reach the Mississippi River. Marquette, who died in 1675, is the most prominent of a generation of missionaries and explorers who preached the Gospel to the native peoples from Quebec into the Great Lakes, up to Hudson Bay and down to New Orleans.
1773 — The Jesuits are “dissolved, suppressed, disbanded and abolished for all eternity” in Europe and the colonies by Pope Clement XIV.
1800 — The last Jesuit in Canada, Fr. Jean-Joseph Cazot, dies in Quebec on March 16.
1814 — Pope Pius VII restores the Jesuits.
1843 — The Jesuits return to Canada. At the urging of Bishop Bourget of Montreal, nine Jesuits are sent to Montreal and a year later three more are invited to Toronto by Bishop Michael Power.
1843 — Auguste Régnier, from Lacadie, Que., the first Canadian-born Jesuit novice, enters the novitiate in Montreal.
1844 — Establishment of Jesuit Mission Headquarters at Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island. Today it is the oldest uninterrupted Jesuit mission in Canada.
1845 — Richard Baxter from Barrie, Ont., enters the Jesuit novitiate in Montreal. He is the first anglophone candidate to the Canadian Jesuits.
1846 — The Jesuits are organized as the New York-Canada mission, dependent on France.
1848 — Construction of a first “industrial school” at Wikwemikong and founding of St. Mary’s College (Collège Sainte-Marie) in Montreal. The English program will be incorporated in 1896 to become Loyola College.
1852 — Frs. John Holzer and Gasper Matoga establish a mission in Guelph, Ont., to serve German and other settlers.
1872 — Founding of St. Andrew’s parish in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), Ont.
1879 — The Mission of Canada, numbering 186 Jesuits, separates from New York.
1890 — The Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart begins publication. By 2011, it has a readership of some 30,000-40,000 people.
1907 — The Canadian Independent Mission becomes the Province of Canada.
1909 — Founding of St. Ignatius parish, Winnipeg.
1913 — Seventeen English-speaking novices in Montreal move to Guelph, Ont., to found St. Stanislaus Novitiate. In 1958, it was incorporated as Ignatius College. In 1994, the novices joined the novitiate in St. Paul, Minn. In 2008, eight novices began, in Montreal, a new, bilingual, joint novitiate with the French Canadian Province.
1917 — Founding of St. Ignatius parish, Montreal, on the campus of Loyola College.
1918 — The first Canadian Jesuits overseas mission opens in China.
1924 — Division of the Province into the English-speaking Vice-Province of Upper Canada with 137 members and the French-speaking Province of Lower Canada with 330 members.
1924 — Founding of the Parish of the Immaculate Conception, Vancouver.
1925 — Beatification of the Canadian Martyrs by Pope Pius XI.
1926 — The Canadian Martyrs Shrine opens in Midland, Ont.
1930 — Canonization of the Canadian Martyrs. Founding of Regis College, the Jesuit Seminary of Philosophy in Toronto.
1931 — Jesuits accept the direction of Regiopolis College, Kingston, Ont. In 1967 it unites with Notre-Dame Convent School until 1971 when the Jesuits withdraw. In 1975 the College is transferred to the Catholic school board.
1933 — Jesuits accept the direction of St. Paul’s College, Winnipeg, which will transfer in federation to the campus of the University of Manitoba in 1958.
1939 — The Vice-Province of Upper Canada becomes a Province with 300 members.
1940 — Jesuits purchase the site of Sainte-Marie-Among-the-Hurons in Midland, Ont.
1941 — Archeological excavations begin at Sainte-Marie-Among-the-Hurons and in 1963 an agreement is signed with the Government of Ontario for the restoration of the site.
1943 — Establishment of the Sacred Heart Radio Hour (later, Sacred Heart Program) in Toronto. When it is broadcast on TV in 1955, its nationwide audience exceeds half-a-million people. Three Canadian Jesuits, Frs. Prosper Bernard, Alphonse Dubé and Armand Lalonde, were executed by Japanese forces in China for refusing to cease their missionary work.
1945 — Founding of the Jesuit European Relief Fund by the Jesuit scholastics at Regis College, Toronto.
1946 — The Upper Canada Province accepts its first overseas mission in Darjeeling, India, which eventually grows to include Bhutan and Nepal.
1948 — The Garnier Residential School at Spanish, Ont., offers the first high school program for native people in Canada.
1951 — Opening of the Catholic Labour School in Toronto.
1952 — Founding of the Canadian Martyrs’ parish, Halifax.
1954 — Discovery of the grave of St. Jean de Brébeuf at Sainte-Marie-Among-the-Hurons.
1958 — Closing of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jesuit Seminary in Toronto.
1961 — Regis College moves to Willowdale, Ont.
1962 — Founding of Gonzaga High School in St. John’s, Nfld. When it becomes non-confessional in 1998, the Jesuits assume responsibility for St. Bonaventure’s College.
1963 — Opening of Brebeuf College School in Toronto. In 1984, it will be transferred to the Presentation Brothers.
1964 — Loyola Retreat House (opened in Oakville in 1953) moves to Ignatius College, Guelph, Ont.
1965 — Opening of the Department of Communications, the first in Canada, at Loyola College in Montreal.
1968 — The first Canadian Jesuits arrive in Zambia to join the mission there.
1969 — Jesuits accept Our Lady of Lourdes parish in downtown Toronto, in 2011 numbering more than 18,000 parishioners. Regis College becomes a founding member of the Toronto School of Theology in federation with the University of Toronto.
1971 — Founding of the Anishinabe Spiritual Centre in Espanola, Ont., and opening of the Aboriginal Deacons Program. Members of the first graduating class were given individually prepared stoles by Blessed John Paul II during his historic visit to the tomb of St. Jean de Brébeuf in 1984. Opening of Camp Ekon on Lake Joseph, in Ontario’s Muskoka region.
1974 — Loyola College in Montreal joins with Sir George Williams University to found the new Concordia University.
1975 — Founding of Lonergan University College on the Loyola Campus of Concordia University.
1978 — Regis College is given full legal status by the Government of Ontario as a degree-granting institution.
1979 — Founding of the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice in Toronto, reorganized in 2007 as the Jesuit Forum for Social Faith and Justice.
1984 — Founding of the Jesuit Communication Project, Toronto. Between 1992-2007 its prime time TV program, Scanning the Movies and Beyond The Screen, created and hosted by Fr. John Pungente, S.J., won at least 10 awards at international festivals.
1986 — First Canadian Jesuits arrive in Jamaica to join the mission there.
1988 — Establishment of the Jesuit Refugee and Migrant Service. Founding of the Jesuit Centre for Faith Development and Values at St. Paul’s College, University of Manitoba. Founding of the Loyola Jesuit Institute for Studies in International Peace at Concordia University.
1998 — Opening of the Jesuit Centre for Catholic Studies, St. Paul’s College, University of Manitoba.
2000 — Opening of the Angus Reid Arts and Multi-Media Centre at St. Paul’s High School, Winnipeg.
2001 — Fr. Martin Royackers is murdered at his parish in Annotto Bay, Jamaica, where he worked alongside and supported poor farmers seeking adequate land. Jesuits accept the parishes of Holy Rosary in Guelph, Ont., and of Kitchitwa Kateri, Thunder Bay, Ont.
2001-10 — Ignatius College in Guelph gradually becomes Ignatius Jesuit Centre, bringing together Loyola House, Ignatius Farm, Ignatius Farm Community, Shared Agriculture and the Ecology Project.
2006 — The Upper Canada Province officially changes its name to “Jesuits in English Canada.”
2009 — The Province Archives of the two Canadian provinces come together in Montreal as the Archive of the Jesuits in Canada.
2010 — Beginning of the Spiritual Exercises ministry in Vancouver and opening of the Jesuit Centre of Spirituality in Halifax.
2011 — The Jesuits begin a year-long celebration of the order’s 400th anniversary in Canada, beginning in May with a re-enactment of the arrival of Frs. Pierre Biard and Ennemond Massé at Port Royal, N.S.
(Source: Jesuits.ca)
Jesuits in Canada - 400 Years of Service
Friday, 16 September 2011
The Catholic Register is proud to honour the 400th anniversary of the Jesuits arrival in Canada with this 18 part special feature.
You can view the articles as they were originally published in the September 18th in the embedded reader below. Click the "Expand" button in the centre of the player to go full-screen for the best reader experience.
And every word of our feature writing is also re-produced here on catholicregister.org - just use the links below the reader to browse through them.
