Why can't women be Jesuits?

[Rebekah_34]

I would really like to be a Jesuit, but it is a “male only” order. Why can’t I, or other women, join the Jesuits?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

The Society of Jesus does not currently have a women’s congregation within its order. The Jesuits’ web site states:

The Jesuits do not have a female religious component in the Society. However, there are a number of congregations of women religious that have modeled themselves on Ignatian spirituality, such as the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, etc.

General Congregation 34 launched a small scale project into a third order type relationship, but at General Congregation 35, the project ended (See GC35 Decree 6, Paragraph 58). The Jesuits do have many lay partners that are integral in numerous Jesuits works such as Apostleship of Prayer, Christian Life Communities, Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Ignatian Volunteer Corps, among others (source).

You may be interested to know, though, that there was one female Jesuit in the history of the Society of Jesus. She was Princess Juana of Austria.