Jesuit Sup. Gen. Fr Adolfo Nicolás, Dr Rowan Williams mark Heythrop’s 400th year

(Vatican Radio) The Superior General of the Jesuits and a former Archbishop of Canterbury were among the guests at Heythrop College’s 400th anniversary celebrations this week.

The Jesuit General, Fr Adolfo Nicolás SJ, celebrated Mass on Friday, and took part in the conference “For the Greater Glory of God and the More Universal Good” held to celebrate 400 years since Heythrop College was founded in Leuven, Belgium. The Conference was scheduled to be concluded by an address by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, speaking on “Liberal Education: the Jesuit Response to a Theological Imperative.”

The conference this Thursday and Friday explored the character and significance of the Jesuit educational tradition with respect both to the study of theology and philosophy, and to science, letters and the arts, with a broad range of eminent speakers from the UK, the USA, the Vatican and France. It also featured a concert of music associated with English Jesuit colleges in Liège and St Omers, as well as music by composers in the wider European Jesuit college network over the past 400 years.

Dr Guy Consolmagno, SJ, of the Vatican Observatory on Thursday gave an overview of the Jesuits and Science, through four centuries and across all continents. Jesuits shone in the field of scientific exploration because of their comprehensive liberal education, because of their training in rhetoric and communication, because they travelled the globe before anyone else did, and because they had an international network of collaborators.

On Saturday 21 June, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, was scheduled to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving for the 400 years that Heythrop College has served the Church as a centre of educational excellence.

Heythrop College was founded in 1614 in Louvain before transferring to Liège. During the French Revolution, it moved to England – sited first at Stonyhurst in Lancashire and then in Oxfordshire. Heythrop College was established in the capital firstly in Cavendish Square, becoming a specialist college of the University of London, before moving to its present site in Kensington.