Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright Page -- Acknowledgments -- Figures -- Abbreviations -- Introduction / Thomas M. McCoog S.J. -- The Role and Significance of Father Visitor in the Society of Jesus / Robert Danieluk S.J. -- The Visitor and the Viceroy: Juan de la Plaza and the First Visitation to Jesuit Peru, 1575–79 / Andrés I. Prieto -- Between King and Superior General: Visitor Lorenzo Maggio and the Rehabilitation of the Society of Jesus in France, 1599–1603 / Eric Nelson -- Seventeenth-century Visitations of the Transmarine Houses of the English Province / Thomas M. McCoog S.J. -- The Visitation of Mercure Verdier to Ireland, 1648–49 / Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin -- A Scandal in Moravia: Jesuit Visitor Nicolò Avancini and the 1674 Case of the Jesuits Jan Tanner and Vilém Frölich / Paul Shore -- Francisco Saldanha da Gama: the Last Visitor of the Portuguese Assistancy / Francisco Malta Romeiras -- Peter Kenney: Twice Visitor of the Maryland Mission (1819–21, 1830–33) and Father of the First Two American Provinces / Robert Emmett Curran -- Mission Context and the Jesuit Visitor: Charles Bert and the Visitation of Polish Jesuits in the Zambesi Mission, 1924 / Festo Mkenda S.J. -- The Visitation of Alois Ersin, S.J., to the Province of Lower Germany in 1931 / Klaus Schatz S.J. -- The 1961 Visitation of the Australian Province by John J. McMahon, S.J. / David Strong S.J. -- Gordon George and the Visitation of the English Province, 1964–65 / Oliver P. Rafferty S.J. -- Back Matter -- Index of Persons, Works, and Subjects.

In With Eyes and Ears Open: The Role of Visitors in the Society of Jesus , twelve historians examine important visitations in the history of the Society. After a thorough investigation of the nature and role of the “visitor” in Jesuit rules and regulations, ten visitations of missions and provinces—from Peru in the sixteenth century, to Ireland in the seventeenth, to the Zambesi mission and Australia in the twentieth—are considered. Visitors, appointed by the superior general in Rome, surveyed the situation for fidelity to the Jesuit way of life, resolved any problems, and recommended future paths, often to the disapproval of Jesuit hosts. One contribution concerns the canonical visitation of the non-Jesuit Francis Saldanha da Gama in 1758, which resulted in the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal in 1759.