By: John Dorow

St. Ignatius was born in the Basque Region of Spain in 1491, the year before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He was the last of thirteen children.

In 1521, Ignatius, a soldier, was struck with a cannon ball in a battle with the French. This broke his leg. A French doctor tried to fix it, but he just made it worse.

He is then sent home from battle.

After going home and wanting to become more religious, Ignatius decided to go on a pilgrimage to the holy land of Jerusalem. He was then kicked out of Jerusalem for preaching his ideas about Christianity.

In 1524 in Barcelona, Ignatius, now 33, decided to go back to elementary school to learn Latin with young schoolboys.

He wanted to learn Latin because it was the official language of the Church and he didn’t have an education when he was young because he was to be a soldier.

Ignatius attended college at the University of Paris.

In the city of Rome in 1556, Ignatius dies of “Roman Fever”, a type of malaria.

By this time, there were 1,000 Jesuits.