About
Jesuit Archives Digital Collections and Resources allows researchers to access the holdings of the Jesuit Archives & Research Center remotely from their homes and classrooms.
In November 2017, the Jesuit Archives: Central United States relocated to a new facility at 3920 West Pine Boulevard, Saint Louis, Missouri, and took a new name – the Jesuit Archives & Research Center – to reflect the wider geographic coverage of its collections and its mission to be a destination for researchers from around the world.
The Jesuit Archives & Research Center houses the collective memory of seventeen past and current administrative provinces of the Society of Jesus in the United States. These include the Buffalo, California, Central and Southern, Chicago, Chicago-Detroit, Detroit, East, Maryland, Midwest, Missouri, New England, New Orleans, New York, Northeast, Oregon, West, and Wisconsin Provinces. The archives also houses the records of the governing body of the Society of Jesus in the US, the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.
Digital collections and resources include items digitized from our archival collections documenting the work of Jesuits in the United States and American Catholic life, as well as important published works on Jesuit history.
The mission that guides the physical archive, also informs the creation of our digital collections:
From a desire to honor the wisdom of Superior General Pedro Arrupe, the Jesuit Archives has striven to fulfill its mission as a repository of record for the largest religious order of men in the Catholic Church.
The Jesuit Archives:
- Serves an essential function of the intellectual apostolate of the Society as a “place of memory.”
- Provides a secure, organized repository for the patrimony of documents and artifacts. This preserves the history of a province, its communities, and apostolic works, as well as the lives of its members. Thus the Society of Jesus may understand its past and animate its present and future endeavors.
- Supports the current administration of a province and its apostolic mission.
- Makes resources of history and spirituality available to help with the cultivation of Jesuit identity and the evangelization of cultures.
- Preserves the patrimony of the Society of Jesus in order to transmit it to future generations of Jesuits, who will act as emissaries to the culture at large.
Permission to Publish
Written permission to publish any records in their entirety or a substantial portion thereof must be requested and approved prior to publication. The researcher has the sole, legal responsibility for obtaining this written permission.
To obtain permission to publish you must complete an application for use. This form, along with more information on applicable fees, is available on the policies page of our website.