Shaping the Spiritual Exercises: the Maisons des retraites in Brittany during the Seventeenth Century as a Gendered Pastoral Tool

In the second half of the seventeenth century, on the periphery of Catholic Europe, Brittany was the site of intensive missionary activity aimed at both men and women. Based on a heterogeneous corpus of manuscripts, printed books, and iconographic sources, this article shows how, far from Rome, Jesu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Jesuit studies
Main Author: Mostaccio, Silvia (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2015
In: Journal of Jesuit studies
IxTheo Classification:CH Christianity and Society
KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history
KBG France
KCA Monasticism; religious orders
KDB Roman Catholic Church
NBE Anthropology
RJ Mission; missiology
Further subjects:B popular missions Spiritual Exercises retreat houses moral images (images morales) Brittany Vannes Vincent Huby, SJ Catherine de Francheville semi-religious women
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:In the second half of the seventeenth century, on the periphery of Catholic Europe, Brittany was the site of intensive missionary activity aimed at both men and women. Based on a heterogeneous corpus of manuscripts, printed books, and iconographic sources, this article shows how, far from Rome, Jesuits and devout laywomen adopted a gendered perspective in reconceptualizing mission. In the city of Vannes, the Jesuit Vincent Huby and the aristocrat Catherine de Francheville instructed large groups of men and women in the Spiritual Exercises. They supervised two retreat houses to welcome them and created a “missionary kit” of moral images adapted to their gendered pastoral field. The Breton context presents a particularly good example of the importance of gender to missionary interactions. Here, the Jesuit “way of proceeding” allowed for the integration of local communitarian perspectives, in order to enhance the effectiveness of the mission.
ISSN:2214-1332
Contains:In: Journal of Jesuit studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/22141332-00204007