"In the eyes of their Jesuit teachers, the boys have completely won our hearts. They study hard, they are respectful, obedient, well disciplined, and quite religious," said Fr. Edward Madaras, SJ, one of the founders of the Jesuit mission to Baghdad, in 1933. He was a fadheria, as Jesuits were known to Iraqis, the modern inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, the land of the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, just south of Jonah's Nineveh and north of Sinbad's Basra. The apostles Jude Thaddeus, Bartholomew, and Simon are said to have first planted the Christian faith in Iraq. At the beginning of the third century local Christians became valued advisors to Mesopotamia's rulers. Their influence lasted for centuries, even after the Muslim invasion. Dealing with Islam remained one of Ignatius's highest priorities, and he sent Jesuits to the Middle East in 1550. Popes later sent Jesuits to try to help reunify the Catholic Chaldean and the Assyrian branches of the Church of the East, but without success.

Around 1850 two Jesuits were sent from Beirut to Baghdad to determine if the time was ripe for a Jesuit mission there. As their caravan was robbed on the way to and from Baghdad, they reported that the time was not yet ripe.

Jesuit Fathers John Mifsud, Edward Madaras, William Rice, and Edward Coffey opened Baghdad College's doors in 1932 at 11/45 Murabba'ah Street, on the left bank of the Tigris.

In 1929, as Iraq was preparing for independence, the time had come for the Jesuits to return to Baghdad. In response to a request from the Chaldean patriarch as well as lay Christians, Pope Pius XI asked Fr. Wlodimir Ledochowsky, the Jesuit general, to start a school for Christians. In 1932 four U.S. Jesuits arrived in Baghdad, bought two houses on the Tigris, and started Baghdad College, a high school for boys, with an initial enrollment of 120. Those numbers eventually increased to 1,000 at Baghdad College and 700 at the later Al-Hikma University.

I was one of many Jesuits who, from 1932 to 1969, taught and learned from 7,000 young Iraqis. That the latter appreciated the Jesuits is best illustrated by the two Muslims who once told me: "We like the fadheria very much, but you won't be with us in paradise because you are infidels." Both took it in stride when I informed them that when I was their age, I was told that they were the infidels, so we seemed to be involved in a tie ball game.

Muslims and Christians

"This mission has to be the biggest waste of men and money in the history of the ChurchÑnot a single Muslim convert!" said Boston's Cardinal Cushing to Jesuit friends right after he gave a wonderful exhortation to benefactors supporting Jesuits in Baghdad. The cardinal, an extraordinary promoter of missions worldwide, never seemed to grasp the fact that Jesuits in Baghdad were not trying to convert Muslims, who were admitted to the schools from the beginning and made up half the enrollment.

There was indeed historical distrust between Christians and Muslims, the result of twelve centuries of conquest and massacre, but at these Jesuit schools Christians and Muslims found a place where friendships developed as well as a deeper understanding of each other's religion. I remember one Muslim student who raised the money a Catholic friend needed to go to England for a brain tumor operation. A Muslim parent once wrote to Fr. John Owens, SJ, after his homily to the whole student body about death, knowing that he himself was dying of cancer. "Rarely have I encountered in my life a faith as deep as yours. In Islam, an essential of faith is a complete acceptance of God's will. To accept it in the serenity that you have shown, Father, is rare indeed. Your spirit in accepting God's will is an inspiring and enriching experience not only to your boys but to us parents, too. To know that in the turmoil of modern times there still exist people like you gives us hope for a better world."

Muslim mullahs and government officials alike gradually converted from mistrust of to enthusiasm for the Jesuits' educational work once they realized that the Jesuits were not trying to find converts but simply to offer an excellent education. This change of heart was quickened by the 1942 pro-Nazi coup, when Americans fled Iraq en masse. The fact that the American Jesuits showed no intention of departing impressed the prime minister, who enrolled his two nephews in Baghdad College after the coup was put down. Sons of prime ministers, governors, and sheiks were sent for the discipline and learning the Jesuits imparted. Muslims, who became strong supporters of the Jesuits, saw them as religious men whose purpose was to take seriously their gospel's admonition to serve others.

Muslims and Christians alike came to realize that the Jesuits were fostering intellectual, spiritual, and social benefits that went beyond education: Jesuits staffed a center in Baghdad where young Iraqi Christian men and women recreated and learned together. Nearby was a house of Arabic studies, where Jesuits learned the culture and language of the Arab world. The Chaldean patriarch entrusted the minor and major seminaries to the Jesuits. In 1966 a scholar of Oriental languages and Islamic philosophy and theology, Fr. Richard McCarthy, SJ, started an Oriental Institute at Al-Hikma University, where students and scholars from all over the world studied the treasures of Christian and Muslim sources. Because of the number of young men interested in joining the Jesuits (five did become Jesuits), a Jesuit novitiate was started in 1968.

But a turn of events started bringing Jesuit efforts in Iraq to a halt that year.

The Dismissal

A coup engineered by the Baath Socialist party put them in power, which they still hold today. The Baathi moved quickly, nationalizing private schools, Christian and Muslim alike. The 28 U.S. Jesuits at Al-Hikma were told in November that they had five days to leave the country. In spite of threats, hundreds of students came to the airport to bid farewell. Nine months later the 33 U.S. Jesuits at Baghdad College were expelled as well.

Ignoring the atmosphere of terror, Muslim professors at Baghdad University pleaded with Iraq's new president: "You cannot treat the Jesuits this way: they have brought many innovations to Iraqi education and have enriched Iraq by their presence." Their protest was in vain. Thirty-four years after the founding of the college, twelve years after the founding of the university, the same year that the novitiate opened its doors, the Jesuits left Iraq.

Br. James McDavitt, SJ, Mr. Dave Nona (Baghdad College '64, Al-Hikma University '68), Mr. Ramzi Hermiz (Baghdad College '48), Fr. Joseph MacDonnell, SJ, and Louis Stephen (his brother attended Baghdad College) were among the Jesuits and alumni/ae who attended the '94 reunion in San Francisco; last summer's was in Toronto.

The Work Continues

Most Baghdad College and Al-Hikma alumni remained in Iraq, but some came to America, many settling in Chicago and Detroit. In 1977 they decided to have a reunion, attended by 360 Iraqis and Jesuits. Since that first reunion, nine more four-day reunions have been held, each with greater zest than the previous one. About 30 Jesuits attend each reunion, their expenses covered by generous alumni. The July 1996 meeting in Toronto was attended by 1,400 Iraqi alumni, their loyalty undiminished by the fact that their school lost its Jesuit identity almost 30 years ago! One alumnus put it this way: "Living in this country makes us aware of the sacrifices the fadheria made and reminds us that there is something much more valuable in life than our status and our jobs."