[1] In 1760, Leonard and Charles set sail for St. Omer’s, accompanied by their sister Anne, who was joining the Carmelites at Lier, Belgium.
Two years later, before he was able to take his religious vows as a Jesuit, Pope Clement XIV authorized the worldwide suppression of the Society of Jesus.
Due to his poor health, Charles Neale joined other members of the suppressed Society who were continuing their seminary studies in Liege.
The voyage was a difficult one, due both to the weather, and the lack of provisions, from the captain's unwillingness to provide adequate food for either the crew or passengers.
Additionally, according to the account by the nuns, when they landed in Tenerife to drop off the cargo, local church authorities heard reports bandied about by the captain that the women were fleeing their monastery in order to marry the priests.
In 1803, the members of the Maryland Mission, consisting of the surviving former Jesuits, learned that, two years earlier, Pope Pius VII had approved the continuation of the Society in Russia, where the decree of suppression had never been implemented by the Empress Catherine the Great.
As a Russian Orthodox ruler, she had no obligation to obey a papal order, and she valued the educational works of the Jesuits in the territories she ruled, particularly Poland.
Thus in May of that year, Bishop John Carroll, the sole Ordinary for the entire nation, supported by his coadjutor bishop, Leonard Neale (Charles' brother), both of whom were former members of the Society, appealed to the new Father General in Russia that the former Jesuits in the United States be re-admitted to the Society, noting that the structure of the Jesuit Mission in Maryland had remained intact from the time of the Suppression up to that date.
At that time (as had also occurred after his taking vows), Neale was instructed by the Father General to leave the direction of the Carmel he had founded, in order that he might help staff the institutions of the Society.
[10] In light of the unsatisfactory conditions at White Marsh, Neale decided to transfer the Jesuit novitiate to St. Thomas Manor in St. Charles County, Maryland.
[11] Father Neale died in 1823 and was buried in the graveyard of the monastery by order of Mother Clare Joseph, one of the nuns brought by him from Europe.