Early History
The founding of the Ateneo de Manila University finds its roots in the history of the Society of Jesus as a teaching order in the Philippines.
The first Spanish Jesuits in the Philippines, Alonzo Sánchez and Antonio Sedeño, arrived in 1581 as missionaries. They were custodians of the ratio studiorum, the Jesuit system of education developed around 1559. Within a decade of their arrival, the Society, through Fr. Antonio Sedeño, founded the Colegio de Manila (also known as the Colegio Seminario de San Ignacio) in Intramuros in 1590. The Colegio formally opened in 1595, and was the first school in the Philippines.
In 1621, the Colegio de Manila was authorized to confer university degrees in theology and arts by virtue of the privileges conferred by Pope Gregory XV on colleges of the Society of Jesus. In 1623, Philip IV of Spain confirmed the authorization, while in 1732, Philip V of Spain founded two regius (royal) professorships in the Colegio, one in canon and another in civil law, making the school both a pontifical and a royal institution. The institution was frequently referred to in contemporary documents as the Universidad Máximo de San Ignacio, the first royal and pontifical university in the Philippines and in Asia.
However, by the mid-18th century, Catholic colonial powers, notably France, Portugal, and Spain, had grown hostile to the Society of Jesus because the Jesuits actively educated and empowered colonized people. The Society was particularly notorious for encouraging indigenous people to seek self-governance. Because of this, the colonial powers eventually expelled the Society, often quite brutally, from their realms.
In 1768, the Jesuits surrendered the San Ignacio to Spanish civil authorities following their suppression and expulsion from Spain and the rest of the Spanish realm, including the Philippines. Under pressure from Catholic royalty, Pope Clement XIV formally declared the dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773.
Pope Pius VII reinstated the Society in 1814, after almost seven decades of persecution and over four decades of formal suppression. However, the Jesuits would not return to the Philippines until 1859, almost a century after their expulsion..
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