Jesuit Relations, annual reports and narratives written by French Jesuit missionaries at their stations in New France (America) between 1632 and 1673. They are invaluable as historical sources for French exploration and native relations and also as a record of the various indigenous tribes of the region before the influence of settlers and missionaries had changed them. Published originally in Paris in annual volumes, they were translated and edited by R. G. Thwaites (73 vol., 1896-1901).

Jesuit Estates Act, law adopted in 1888 by the Quebec legislature, partly to indemnify the Society of Jesus for Jesuit property confiscated by the British during the period after the suppression (1773) of the society by Pope Clement XIV. The act caused a violent controversy in Canada, and Protestants generally demanded that it be disallowed; the federal government finally decided not to interfere with provincial legislation, and the act was allowed to stand.

Jesuit: see Jesus, Society of.

Member of the Roman Catholic order of religious men called the Society of Jesus. First organized by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1534 at the University of Paris, the order was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. It discontinued many practices of medieval religious life, such as obligatory penances and fasts and a common uniform, and instead focused on military-style mobility and adaptability. Its organization was characterized by centralized authority, probation lasting many years before final vows, and special obedience to the pope. The Jesuits served as a preaching, teaching, and missionary society, actively promoting the Counter-Reformation, and by the time of Ignatius's death in 1556 their efforts were already worldwide. The success of their enterprise and their championship of the pope earned them much hostility from both religious and political foes. Under pressure from France, Spain, and Portugal, Pope Clement XIV abolished the order in 1773, but it was restored by Pius VII in 1814. The Jesuits have since become the largest male religious order.

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