Superior General
- Roothaan is credited with preserving and strengthening the internal spirit of the Society. To this object he devoted nine of his eleven circular letters, starting with the first, soon after entering office. It was a sort of programme De amore Societatis et Instituti nostri (1830). To achieve this he also worked on the new edition of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, providing it with an introduction and explanatory notes.
- In 1832 he published the new Ratio Studiorum (Order of Studies) after a commission met in Rome in 1830-31. But times were not ripe for a pedagogical reform. The text was a reassertion of the benefits of traditional Jesuit education. New trends and liberal ideas were suspect.
- Roothaan increased the breadth of apostolic activities, and in a vibrant letter (De missionum exterarum desiderio, 1833) he called for volunteers for the foreign missions. At the end of his term (1853) Jesuits in oversee missions (America, Africa, Asia) were 1014.
- Traditional apostolic works also received his support, such as preaching, the rural missions. When an epidemic of cholera hit Rome in 1837 he sent the Jesuits to organise relief among the sick.
- Intellectual work was restarted: the Bollandists and historical research. The La Civiltà Cattolica was started. And with intellectual work, Jesuits renewed with controversies as well, as with the Italian philosopher Antonio Rosmini.
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