Comments by [William Lesley] on letters from the Scottish mission written in 1667

Comments by [William Lesley] on letters from the Scottish mission written in 1667

Scotland

Observations from [William Lesley] on the letters of the Scottish mission from the year 1667. His main points are: a) there is a structural lack of priests, mainly caused by the terrible state of the Scottish Colleges, the rectors of which are disobedient; b) the Colleges never call new students from the Highlands, although these would be the most suitable for the mission. This he says, is not strange, as the Jesuits have always neglected the Highlands, and stayed only with the rich and powerful people in the Lowlands. A remedy to these problems, and the same ones occurring in the Scottish monasteries in Germany, is to visit them and to constrain the superiors of the orders to make the rectors obey; and c) the best students are kept from the Scottish mission, as they are made to become Jesuits, convincing them that the vow they made [to go back to Scotland] was not binding. 

Additional comments

[William Lesley]

APF SOCG 308, 371r-375v

[1667]

Italian

Notes

361

Origin: [Rome]

Destination: