In Testing Ground for Jesuit Accommodation in Early Modern India: Francisco Ros SJ in Malabar (16th–17th Centuries), Antony Mecherry, SJ, explores the underlying dynamics of the accommodation experiments led by Francisco Ros SJ (1559–1624) – a Catalonian from the Jesuit Province of Aragón – in the cultural and religious terrain of Malabar, in particular, among the region’s Christian communities, including the ancient Thomas Christians.
Along with the questions of ecumenical and liturgical concerns, Mecherry’s historical analysis becomes an interpretative key to understanding the later mission launched by Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), the main proponent of accommodation in the non-Christian context of Madurai in South India. Most importantly, the study underscores, without losing sight of the history of the local church, the Jesuit mission in early modern India as the crucial intersecting point of some of the most prominent promoters of accommodation in the first century of the Society of Jesus, including Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606) and Matteo Ricci (1552–1610). The narrative thread of this book advances spotlighting the inescapable symbiosis of faith and culture in the respective contexts against the backdrop of recent academic interest in accommodation as a mission approach in Jesuit missions, as well as its offshoots: adaptation, inculturation, and interculturation.
- Title: Testing Ground for Jesuit Accommodation in Early Modern India: Francisco Ros SJ in Malabar (16th-17th Centuries)
- Author: Antony Mecherry, SJ
- Publisher: GInstitutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, Rome
- Pages: 494
- Price: €60
