Jesuit Missionaries and the Multifaceted North America: Past and Present in the Italian Magazine Le Missioni della Compagnia di Gesù (1915-19)
Abstract
The article aims to define the image of North America that Jesuits missionaries conveyed through the fortnightly Le Missioni della Compagnia di Gesù, that of a sui generis missionary field (compared to Asia and Africa), whose ethnic and socio-cultural heterogeneity required an equally multifaceted effort. The magazine presented two coexisting models of missionary commitment in North America, as a result of different adaptation strategies: the pioneering model, carried out among the native populations, and a ‘modern’ one, that of an apostolate in a highly ‘civilized’ society aimed mainly at protecting the Catholic emigrants’ religiosity.
Presentato: 13 Gennaio 2026 | Accettato: 11 Febbraio 2026 | Pubblicato 30 Aprile 2026 | Lingua: en
Keywords Jesuit missions • Catholic evangelization • North American missions • Catholic missionary press • Jesuit periodical
Copyright © 2026 Daiana Menti. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/JoMaCC/2785-6046/2026/01/001