St. Ignatius of Loyola And The Holy Sepulchre

After recognizing the impossibility of becoming an active warrior in the cause of the Catholic Church against the Mohammedans, Ignatius devoted all his energies to the furtherance of his spiritual mission in the Holy Land and the cause of the early hostility to the Society which he afterwards founded, was the settlement of its members in countries other than Palestine. Father Genelli, S.J., in his Life of St. Ignatius of Loyola, says that:

"Everything tends to show that Ignatius, in making the journey to Jerusalem, had no other object than to take up his abode near the sepulchre of our Lord, and there labour to extend the Kingdom of Christ and to make war upon His enemies. It was not then a simple pilgrimage that he was making, for the East had been his first thought after his conversion. He had the idea of at once establishing, on the spot sanctified by the presence of our Lord in the flesh, a Society of Jesus, composed of apostolic evangelical labourers, whose spiritual welfare in the midst of the children of Mohammed should pave the way to new triumphs of the Catholic Church. This was, without doubt, a noble conception, which the swords of the Christian chivalry of Europe had not been able to realize by the efforts of Catholicism of centuries. That this was the real design of St. Ignatius is proved by the pains he took to gain a footing in Palestine. ... To the last years of his life he thought seriously of securing at last an entrance for the Society in Jerusalem."

When Ignatius left Manresa in 1523 he undertook a voyage which is passed over by many historians of the Society. It was to Palestine in general and to Jerusalem in particular. Father Dominic Bonhours (Pere Dominque Bouhours, S.J) , in his Life of St. Ignatius, tells us that in the early days of his conversion he did not desire to make this pilgrimage to do honour to the places consecrated by the presence and blood of Jesus Christ, but that "he undertook it at the time (doubtless after contact with Moors or Moriscos at Manresa) with the desire of working for the salvation of infidels".

These "infidels" were, of course, the followers of the creed of Mohammed. During the two months of his sojourn in Palestine he endeavored to approach the Mussulmans and even ventured into the secret meetings of the Islamic confraternities, open only to the initiated. Henin de Cuvilliers says that he was nearly murdered. At any rate, his zeal for proselytising was so untimely that the Franciscans, the guardians of the holy tomb, called upon him, under pain of excommunication, to renounce an enterprise which aroused the fury of the Mussulman societies against the Christians, and to return to Europe.

Ignatius obeyed and returned to Spain. He went to the University of Alcala, which Cardinal Ximenes had founded for the Voriscos and for the instruction of missionaries who were to labour for the conversion of the Moors. The Inquisitors by this time, however, had concentrated attention upon Ignatius and, having surveyed his apostolate, they suspected him of being a "Mahometiser". They demanded his arrest, which they secured, and he was detained for several days in the (Note: This statement is not corroborated by the next link) dungeons of the Inquisition. On his release, Ignatius decided that he would go to Salamanca, which he did, but new suspicions arose and for the second time he was arrested at the instigation of the Inquisitors. His close connection with the Moors, his unusual interest in the Islamic faith and in Mohammedans generally had made him suspected once again of Mahomedanism.

Link (here) to the quote published in 1922 in the monthly magazine entitled, The Open Court

Woodcut of St. Ignatius of Loyola