Ward took as her model the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Founded in
1539 by Ignatius Loyola, a former soldier turned priest, the Jesuits were
not only missionaries but teachers. Loyola believed that by offering reli-
gious and moral instruction, by making devotional life accessible to the
young, and by preaching a message of service to others, the Jesuits offered
the greatest service to God and His holy church.
Ward’s interest in Catholic education arose in part because of the con-
tinuing religious persecution of Catholics in England after King Henry
VIII broke with the church in 1534; as a result, English Catholics often
fled and sought their religious education on the continent. Ward and her
associates established their first school at St. Omer, France. While there,
Ward and her group became known to the locals as the English Ladies, a
description still applied throughout much of Western Europe. Despite fac-
ing continuous financial difficulty, Ward in time established houses and
schools in Bavaria (Germany), Austria, and Italy. To communicate with
these different convents, Ward traveled between countries mostly on foot.
Although successful, Ward’s vision came at a price. Her ideas about
women’s role in religious life were so novel, especially in the Catholic
world, that in 1631, church authorities suppressed the Institute. Charged
with heresy, Mary was herself imprisoned by the Inquisition and briefly
excommunicated, or banned, from the Roman Catholic Church. Only
through the intervention of Pope Urban VIII was she eventually freed
and reinstated to full church membership, her organization now operating
under papal protection.
In 1639, Ward returned to England where the climate toward Catho-
lics had improved during the reign of King Charles I, who had married a
Catholic princess and was himself sympathetic to Catholicism. Ward re-
mained in England until she died in Yorkshire in 1645. Upon her death,
the Institute was in shambles. Embroiled in a civil war against his politi-
cal and religious enemies—a war he was destined to lose, and with it his
kingdom and his head—Charles could offer the order scant protection.
Radical English Protestants, known as the Puritans, who prevailed in the
civil war against Charles, disbanded Ward’s houses and schools in En-
gland. In 1650, the year after Puritan leaders had executed Charles, the
Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary again fled England, seeking refuge in
Catholic France. Not until 1677 did they return to Yorkshire under the
protection of Charles II, the son of Charles I who had been restored to the
throne in 1660. Like his father, Charles II was sympathetic to Catholi-
cism. It was only through the perseverance of Ward’s followers, and the
protection that both the Vatican and the English crown extended, that
the IBVM survived to continue the work that she had inspired.
14 MOTHER TERESA