ROBERT PERSONS, JESUIT

ROBERT PERSONS, JESUIT - 15 APRIL

ROBERT PERSONS, JESUIT

Robert Persons (also spelled Parsons) was born at Nether Stowey, Somerset, June 24, 1546; his parents were of the yeoman class. By favour of the local parson, John Hayward (once a monk at Taunton), Robert was sent to St. Mary's Hall, Oxford (1562). After taking his degrees with distinction he became fellow and tutor at Balliol (1568); but on February 13, 1574, he was forced to resign, partly because of his strong Catholic leanings, partly through college quarrels. Before long, he went abroad, and was reconciled, probably by Father William Good, S.J., and after a year spent in travel and study, he became a Jesuit at Rome (July 3, 1575).

At Rome he suggested the English mission for the Society, and when the students of the English College there came into difficulties with their first rector, he exerted himself to maintain peace, and proposed the "oath of the missions", an idea which was taken up, and is now in vogue throughout the Church. When the college was entrusted to the Jesuits, he was temporarily installed as rector on March 19, 1579. Dr. Allen came to Rome, October 10, 1579, to complete the college arrangements, already so well begun, and at his instance the Jesuit mission to England was decided upon (December 1579).

The year of mission in England (June 12, 1580, to late August 1581), was the most useful of Persons's life. Ever at the post of danger, he yet managed to avoid seizure, while he organised means of missionary enterprise not for Jesuits only but for the whole country. Laymen and secular priests carried out his plans with whole-hearted enthusiasm, and deserve unstinted praise for the results that followed. Persons not only preached, confessed, arranged missionary tours, and posts, he also wrote books and pamphlets, and set up his "magic press" (Stephen Brinkley), which printed and set forth Campion's "Decem Rationes", while several books of his own, answers to onslaughts of Protestants, were brought out within a few days of the attack. Considering the losses previously incurred through want of courage and energy, it would be impossible to praise this pioneer work too highly. But later on the missionary methods had to be modified: the presses were transferred abroad, and the challenges to disputation were dropped. Though not initiated by Persons, they had been subsequently approved by him. Persons died in Rome on April 15, 1610.

Source: Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913

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