Suppression of the Society of Jesus

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The suppression of the Society of Jesus was the removal of all members of the Jesuits from most of Western Europe and their respective colonies beginning in 1759 along with the abolition of the order by the Holy See in 1773; the papacy acceded to anti-Jesuit demands without much resistance. The Jesuits were serially expelled from the Portuguese Empire (1759), France (1764), the Kingdom of Naples and Kingdom of Sicily, Malta, Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, the Spanish Empire (1767) and Austria and Hungary (1782). Historians identify multiple factors causing the suppression. The Jesuits, who were not above getting involved in politics, were distrusted for their closeness to the pope and his power in independent nations' religious and political affairs. In France, it was a combination of many influences, from Jansenism to free-thought, to the then-prevailing impatience with the Ancien Régime. Monarchies attempting to centralise and secularise political power viewed the Jesuits as supranational...

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