The bibliography on Iberoamerican Jesuits following the expulsion (1767) and suppression (1773) of the Society of Jesus and both individual and institutional survival strategies between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth has continued to expand in recent decades. Thanks to this enormous intellectual production, we know, in great detail, the life stories and intellectual, political, and religious journeys of the major figures in the community of expelled Jesuits and their relationships with contemporary European intellectuals, as well as with the political and religious authorities of the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, both before and after the expulsion of 1767. Nevertheless, the life and work of the vast majority of these Jesuits continue to be unknown to specialists. Their writings and their academic/literary production continue to be lost, unpublished, and dispersed throughout a large number of European archives.
For this reason, Carlos Page’s new edition of the Relación exacta de la Provincia del Paraguay, sus gobiernos; extensión collegios y reducciones (1770–1771) by the Valladolid Jesuit Lorenzo Casado (1717–74) represents an important contribution to the study of the history of the Society of Jesus during this period. Until now, Casado’s work—the manuscript can be found in the Historical Archive at Loyola—has gone unpublished, its existence only briefly mentioned by the Argentine Jesuit historian Guillermo Furlong (1889–1974). Nevertheless, a brief fragment of the Relación—regarding the practice of the Spiritual Exercises in the city of Córdoba—was published in 1930 by another historian of the Society, the Spaniard Justo Beguiriztain, as Page mentions in his introduction to the Relación (24). The author wrote the account at the request of the Jesuit Pedro de Calatayud (1689–1773), who, from his Italian exile, sought to draft a work on the Jesuit missions in Paraguay despite never having left the Iberian peninsula before the expulsion. Lorenzo Casado was not the only Jesuit who participated in Calatayud’s literary project. The Navarran missionary asked other priests from Paraguay to send in reports about different cities, regions or missionary experiences in the province, among them José Quiroga (1707–84), Ladislao Orosz (1697–1773), Francisco Javier Guevara (1731–1805), Francisco Burgés (1709–77) and Francisco Valdés (1720–82). Casado’s Relación is the lengthiest document as he wanted to give his coreligionist a detailed report on the totality of the Jesuit province of Paraguay. In his text, he described the civil governments of Paraguay, the region’s principal cities and towns—emphasizing the distances between them and the struggle of Jesuits to get from one place to another—and the many residences and colleges the Society of Jesus had in each. The bulk of Casado’s work, however, is dedicated to the province’s varied Jesuit ministries, particularly their economic and missionary activities in the region. Though this text was addressed to a fellow Jesuit, Casado wrote his Relación in a highly polemical style. On many occasions, the priest sought to prove not only the innocence of the Society of Jesus in the face of the usual accusations of European and American anti-Jesuitism—in particular those that argued that the Jesuits had accumulated countless riches in their Guaraní missions—but also the usefulness of the Jesuits and the harm done to the province by their expulsion and consequent absence.
Along with a complete transcription of the Relación exacta, Page’s edition contains a brief introductory study of the life of Casado and the history behind his work on Paraguay. Nevertheless, we must emphasize certain aspects of the introduction. First of all, its length: Page spends just seventeen pages on the life of Casado—who still lacks a proper biography—based on the information provided by the Jesuit in his Relación, the context in which it was written and a succinct description of the structure of the work. In this sense, it would have been better if the author had analyzed Casado’s writings in greater detail, exploring themes such as the apologetics of exiled Jesuits, the academic projects of the expelled or a comparison of the Relación with other contemporary works on the province of Paraguay. This problem is relatively frequent in Page’s academic production, which has played an essential role in the revival of previously unknown documents on the Society of Jesus, but nevertheless does not tend to involve an exhaustive analysis of their contents. Secondly, the author often seems to reveal a strong sympathy not only for Casado, but for all the expelled Jesuits. This position regarding his subject of study—similar, perhaps, to that of earlier local historians of the Society, such as Guillermo Furlong, S.J.—is problematic, as he lacks the critical distance that would allow him to interpret this previously unpublished material beyond a mere presentation of its general characteristics.
The Carlos Page edition of Casado’s Relación—like that of other, similar documents that he has republished in recent years—nevertheless represents a valuable contribution to the study of Jesuit history. The information provided herein on the functioning of the province of Paraguay, the collaborative writings of expelled Jesuits and the subjective experiences of exile, to name just some aspects of the text, remains fundamental to researchers specialized in the turbulent period between the expulsion, the suppression and the restoration of the Society of Jesus.
