Jan Roothaan

Jan Philipp Roothaan, SJ (23 November 1785 – 8 May 1853) was a Dutch Jesuit, elected twenty-first Superior-General of the Society of Jesus.

From there he passed to the Athenaeum Illustre (high school), and continued his classical studies for four years under Professor David Jacob van Lennep.

As an altarboy at de Krijtberg church of Amsterdam the young Roothaan came in touch with ex-Jesuits priests who sent him to Russia when he expressed the desire to become a Jesuit.

In 1804 he left his homeland to join the Society of Jesus whose survival in Russia had been recently approved by Pope Pius VII (1801).

The following four years (1812–16) were spent as professor of rhetoric at Pusza; this was the stormy era of the Napoleonic Wars, the same time period that saw Pius VII restore universally the Society of Jesus (1814).

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.

This gave him the opportunity to visit Jesuit communities and works in France, Belgium, Netherlands, England, Ireland; he was the first Superior General to ever do it.

A highly talented man and very able administrator Roothaan displayed also an indefatigable zeal for the restoration and spiritual uplift of the Society.

Roothaan's biographer summed up his spirit well: Impetuous by nature, he governed all passions by the exercise of Christian self-denial, so that a most measured moderation in all things forms his distinctive characteristic.