IBELIEVE that only because of this international aspect, which above all showed itself prominent in the activity of the Jesuits in America during the seventeenth century, can we be speaking in a special way of the Jesuits at this international meeting, which corresponds to the Pan American tone of the chapter written by Doctor Zavala.
This “internationality” of the Company of Jesus was not something exclusive to the Jesuits in America. It came from the very times of Saint Ignatius (1556), when not only in the European colleges but also in the missions of the Orient and of Brazil—the only ones founded before 1556—Jesuits of different nationalities were always living together.
An Order so essentially international of necessity had to have a greater unity of hierarchy and of thought to give it coherence and efficacy.