Peter Jan Beckx

By giving classes to children in his own house, building a little church and organizing spiritual activities he brought many people back to the Catholic faith.

[clarification needed] His powerful sermons gave him fame and Jan Roothaan, the Superior General, often asked him to negotiate on his behalf the foundation of Jesuit schools: Graz, Innsbruck, and Linz.

As Provincial of Austria, Beckx attended the General Congregation of June 1853, called to elect a successor to Jan Roothaan who had died in March.

They were expelled from Russia in 1820, Spain (in 1854 and 1858), from Naples-Sicily (1859), from Germany (1872), from France and French colonies (1880), and even from Rome itself, in 1873, during which time Beckx shifted his headquarters to Fiesole, near Florence, where the 'Curia Generalizia' remained till 1895.

They are striking by their serenity and openness, in spite of the calamities they were facing, especially the letter of 1871 written to the whole Society after several French Jesuits (among whom was Pierre Olivaint) were executed during the Paris Commune of 1870.

New missions were begun in different parts of the world, promoted indirectly too by a growing oversee emigration of people from Europe: Cuba (1853), Colombia (1858), Philippines (1859), Madagascar (1861), Mangalore in India (1878), Armenia (1881), Australia (1882), etc.

Several journals were started: La Civiltà Cattolica (Italy, 1850), The Month (London, 1864), Etudes (Paris, 1865), Stimmen aus Maria Laach (Germany, 1865) and others in Ireland, Poland and Belgium.

During the thirty years that Beckx led the Jesuits, their membership doubled and a large number of new provinces were established in Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Missouri (USA), etc.