My Hometown A - Z: Letter J

There are so many strong choices for the letter "J" when looking around St Louis.

The Jewel Box in Forest Park, the Johnson Shut-in's just outside the St Louis area, the St Louis Jazz Festival, and Scott Joplin's House open for tours at 2658 Delmar featuring his Ragtime music on a player piano are among the fabulous "J's".

However, the outstanding "J" in my hometown is the historic and continuing influence of the Jesuits in the religious and educational culture of the city.

It is accepted by most Catholics that the Jesuits and Rome have not always agreed on issues and topics having to do with the practice of Catholicism. In fact, Pope Clement XIV had suppressed the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1773 rendering them relatively inert (or so Clement must have thought) in all things Catholic world-wide. Only Germany allowed the Jesuits to continue to practice as a religious order.
Clement died a year after suppressing the Jesuits and his death certificate said he was poisoned.

Apparently the Jesuits were a bit too vocal and opinionated towards heads of state in countries where they had established their provinces. According to Clement XIV "the very tenor and terms of the said Apostolic constitutions show that the Society from its earliest days bore the germs of dissensions and jealousies which tore its own members asunder, led them to rise against other religious orders, against the secular clergy and the universities, and even against the sovereigns who had received them in their states". (Dominus ac Redemptor) He then follows with a list of the quarrels in which the Jesuits had been engaged, from Sixtus V to Benedict XIV.

Well, silencing the Jesuits did not last too long. Two popes later, Pius VII, restored the order to full operation, worldwide and in 1823 Jesuits from Belgium established the Missouri Province in St Louis.
Their first parish in St Louis was St Ferdinand's in the suburb of Florissant--and it still exists today. It is a reminder of the Spanish influence in St Louis at the time.






Close by, the Jesuits established the St. Stanislaus Seminary as a novitiate on what was called Bishop's Farm.
The Old Rock Building was built by hand by the Jesuits seminarians and brothers out of rock they cut themselves from the bluffs overlooking the nearby Missouri River. It replaced an earlier log structure. In its earlier days, this seminary of 999 acres was self-supporting, like the monasteries of old. This was one of the first seminaries west of the Mississippi River. It served as the home base for Father Pierre De Smet who named St Louis as the "missionary gateway of the West".
The Jesuits left in 1971 and the St Stanislaus Seminary, once considered part of the "Rome of the West, is no longer a Jesuit property, but now a center for pentacostal evangelism.

In 1829, the Jesuits took over St Louis College and Academy at the urging of Bishop DuBourg and under their charge, became St Louis University in 1832. The Jesuits continued to expand their influence in the catholic diocese of St Louis by establishing St Francis Xavier College Church at Grand and Lindell in 1841. In 1888, the Jesuits re-located St Louis University to Grand and Lindell next to the church where it remains today in the part of St Louis classified as Mid-Town.

Jesuits take to the air in 1921 with WEW--an AM radio station broadcasting from St Louis University. WEW was the second radio station licensed in the country--and the Jesuits and St Louis University owned it for over 40 years. No longer a Jesuit property, WEW remains on the air in St Louis today--but does not use a religious format.

In 1924, the highschool students were moved off the University's campus to their own building and campus at Oakland and Kingshighway. SLUH as its known is still at that location and still all-male. It is considered the premier Catholic highschool in St Louis.






The White House Retreat was opened on the Mississippi River Bluff in 1922 and remains a Jesuit-run retreat to this day. The White House Retreat sits 150 feet above the river protecting it from flooding. The buildings on the grounds are all constructed in the traditional Gothic style and




there is an outdoors Stations of the Cross placed to overlook the river.



The White House Retreat is one of the Jesuit sites involved in the 1949 exorcism of a Maryland eighth grader who came to St Louis supposedly possessed by the devil. His story and the religious interventon by the Jesuits at St Louis University inspired the famous 1971 novel and movie, The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty (Jesuit educated).







In a newer book, published in 2006 titled, The Devil Came To St Louis, author Troy Taylor attempts to unravel all the rumors and folklore about the event, the Jesuit's involvement, the locked room at the Alexian Brothers' Hospital and the final disposition of the furniture from the exoricism room. St Louis Jesuit Heavies like Father William Halloren, SJ and Father Paul Reinert, SJ are mentioned in the book. Its an interesting read.





In 1967, DeSmet Jesuit High School for boys opened in West St Louis County.

I am educationally indebted to the Jesuits as a graduate of St Louis University. I am the daughter of a graduate of both St Louis University Highschool and St Louis University, the mother of an attorney from St Louis University Law School. I am part of the Jacobsmeyer family who are considered legends in the Jesuit community having had Jacobsmeyer Jesuits who were prominent as college presidents and department heads in the sciences and classical languages.

Despite this rich history of Jesuit influence and my indebtedness to them for my liberal way of thinking, I was a member of only the 25th graduating class at St Louis University to include women undergrads. The Jesuits were the last to admit women undergrads following the University of Missouri and Washington University by almost 30 years and 116 years after its founding.

My Hometown A - Z: The letter J is for Jesuits.