THE VICAR-GENERAL OF THE JESUITS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 33, 14 December 1883, Page 21

THE VICAR-GENERAL OF THE JESUITS.

Wb have already referred to the distinguished Jesuit who has been elected by the aggregate voice of his Order to the high and eminent position of Vicar to General Beckx, with succession to the Generalship on the death of the present chief. Father Anderledy, having new tiken up his residence in Fiesole, the suburban retreat occupied by General Beckx since the expulsion of the Jesuits from Rome, it will be interesting, perhaps, to glance at the main events of his career. Antonius Anderledy was horn at Brieg, canton of Valais Switzerland, on June 3rd, 1819. His early inclination to piety foreshadowed his entrance into the religious state. At the age of nineteen he joined the Society of Jesus, being at that early period remarkably proficient in lelles-lettres. His course of Philosophy and Theology he studied at Rome and Freiburg. He was at Freiburg in his native country, in 1847— a year rife with political and religions strife in Switzerland— when the Radical party, having for their aim the expulsion of the Jesuits from the country, had organised bodies of armed men called the Free Corps, which invaded the Catholic cantons. The Catholics, in. self-defence, had to form a league named Sonderbund. Straightway there was a loud clamor for its suppression, and in 18±7 a majority of the Diet declared the illegality of the Sonderbund and the expulsion of the Jesuits. In the war which followed between the federal army and the forces of the Sonderbund the latter were defeated at Freiburg, the Jesuits were expelled, and the monasteries suppressed. The expelled Jesuits went in" great numbers to America, Father Anderledy finding shelter in' Piedmont, whence, also, the society was a little later expelled. He then joined several other members of bis Order, bound for the United States, and became a priest at Green Bay. Meanwhile Germany had opened her gates to the Jesuits, and Father Anderledy returned in 1851. For two years he served as a missionary priest in Bavaria, and was in. 1853 made Rector of the House of the Society at Cologne, a college where the scholastics study theology. In 1856 he became Rector of the Theological College at Paderborn. In 1865 he wa« appointed Professor of Moral Theology at Maria Laach, and four years later he succeeded to the Rectorship of the same place. In IS7O Father Anderledy became assistant at Rome to the General of the Order for , the province of Germany. His deep piety, his profound learning, his excellent training, his wide knowledge of mankind, his admirable talents for administration, and thirteen years' experience in the arduous duties of helping the General to rule his widely-diffused Order, had rendered the election of Father Anderledy as Vicar-General a foregone conclusion. — Dublin Ereeman.