Jesuit Mission Funding and Legacy Donations: Revisiting the Belgian Controversy over the Disposition of the De Boey Estate, 1850–1868*

Abstract

During the mid-1860s, the Belgian press and politics were riveted by legal proceedings alleging Jesuit financial predation against the estate of noted Antwerp businessman and donor to religious causes Guillaume-Joseph De Boey. These controversies remain understudied in prominent scholarship on De Boey's extensive support for Jesuit missions in the United States. More recent scholarship on religious contestation in Belgian politics during the 1850s and 1860s explores the trials but focuses on their politicisation and prominence of anti-Jesuit tropes more than the potential accuracy of the allegations of impropriety. Combining these literatures with trial transcripts and archival research, this article revisits the De Boey case to explore ways in which Jesuit funding for overseas missions navigated legal restrictions on private donations. The article reveals a pattern of proxies and regulatory evasion, but one conducted through donor complicity more than Jesuit predation. These findings add to the historiography of Jesuit funding networks and support for overseas missions.