Jesuits

Dedicated to living life by their motto ad maiorem Dei gloriam - For the greater glory of God, members of the exclusively male Jesuit society, founded in 1521 by Ignatius Loyola, take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, with many working with the poor, as missionaries or in education. Followers of the Roman Catholic faith, the Jesuits have often been regarded with mistrust, particularly in Protestant Elizabethan England, where they were seen as representing a foreign Catholic threat. They would later become entangled in the Gunpowder Plot, and became enemies of the Crown, leading to the Royal Proclamation of 1606 by James VI that banished all Jesuits from the Kingdom. By the late 18th century, the Jesuit order had been suppressed by Rome, feared for its power, however, it would be re-established by Pope Pious VII in 1814, and would continue to grow into the largest male-only religious order.