The 1942 cinderella was used on a card, but is by its own admission sin valor postal. This Jesuit university was originally set up for the training of future priests in 1892 in the town of Comillas in the province of Santander in the north of Spain. Pius X in 1904 elevated it to Pontifical stature. In the 1950s the university moved to Madrid and in 1978 merged with another well-known Jesuit institution, ICAI-ICADE. Fr. Manuel Garcia Nieto (1894-1969) was spiritual father and professor of Pastoral and Spiritual Theology at the University of Comillas (1929-1969).

   
Spanish cinderellas, 1947, the First Philatelic Congress at Manresa, the retreat house and the interior of the cave
Spanish cinderella issued by the Charity Secretariat of the Railway Brotherhood of St. Ignatius Loyola
 
Ignatius Writing the Spiritual Exercises at Manresa, by Fr. Francisco de Paula Morell, SJ

  
Spanish cinderellas, 1956, the Ignatian Centenary, showing four scenes of the Holy Cave at Manresa
Fr. Morell's painting, the church, the cave, the sanctuary facing the river.
The set of four vignettes exists in each of the four colors shown above.

The Cova de Sant Ignasi, Manresa, Spain, is a sanctuary built around the cave in which St. Ignatius spent much time in 1522 and 1523, praying, doing penance, and making notes that would become the book of the Spiritual Exercises. Two of the above cinderellas are based on a painting by Fr. Francisco de Paula Morell, SJ, Ignatius Writing the Spiritual Exercises at Manresa. Two show the cave as it is today. It is also a retreat house and spirituality center. One stamp shows the extension of the retreat house along the river, while another shows the entrance to the center's church of St. Ignatius on the right side of the building.

Colegio de Nuestra Señora de la Antigua, Monforte de Lemos

SPAIN, 2001, 4th centenary of the death of Cardinal Rodrigo, Scott 3102

Behind Cardinal Rodrigo de Castro (1523 -1600) is the Jesuit College of Nuestra Señora de la Antigua, located in Monforte de Lemos where the Cardinal has passed his childhood until 1541. After he was ordained a priest in 1559, he worked as a judge of the Inquisition, became a counselor of the high court, Bishop of Cuenca and later of Seville. After making a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in July 1594, he visited Monforte de Lemos where decided to found the Jesuit college seen behind him on the stamp. To it he donated his estate including his art and library, and he also ordered his tomb to be located there. The building was erected under the direction of the Jesuit architects Juan de Tolosa and Juan Bustamante.

The Monastery of San Salvador of Oña, Burgos

 
SPAIN, 2010, the millennium of the Monastery, and its FDI cancel, Scott 3759

The Monastery of San Salvador, in the Village of Oña, a town of the Community of Castile and Leon in the Province of Burgos, was founded in 1011 by the count of Castile Sancho García as a double monastery for nuns of San Juan of Cillaperlata, and monks of San Salvador of Loberuela. In 1033 by order of the King of Spain it was given to the Cluniac monks, and grew until more than seventy monasteries and churches came under its jurisdiction. In 1506 it was integrated into the Benedictine Congregation of Valladolid. The Benedictines abandoned the site because of the French invasion and the later government-forced sale of church property, the "desamortización de Mandizábal." In 1835 the church became a parish church, and in 1880 the Jesuits acquired the monastery and remained there until 1967. The Jesuits made this their Major College of Philosophy and Theology for the Jesuit Province of Castile. Next to the college, the Jesuits ran the Secondary School of St. Francis Xavier. In 1968 the monastic complex passed to the Diputación Provincial de Burgos as a psychiatric hospital.

The Jesuit college at El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) was founded in 1864. It closed in 1868 with the expulsion of the Jesuits and the seizure of the building by the revolutionary junta. The Jesuits returned in 1875 and reopened the school. In 1925 it became the Jesuit novitiate and center for humanistic studies, except from 1936-39 when the government again expelled the Jesuits and seized the building. When the Jesuit novitiate and center were moved to Cordova in 1961, the school reopened as the Colegio de San Luis Gonzaga. In 1974 it joined the Professional Schools of Sagrada Familia (SAFA) and in 1982 was integrated into the Institution SAFA.

Ebro Observatory, Roquetes

 
SPAIN, 2004, honoring the centenary of the observatory, Scott 3327, and its FDI cancel

Ebro Observatory, the Jesuit-run seismological station in Roquetes (Tarragona), Spain, has functioned continuously from 1904 to the present. Fr. Richard Cirera, SJ (1864-1932) was it first director. Fr. Antonio Romañá Pujó, SJ was director from 1939 to 1971. This observatory has astronomical, meteorological, magnetic, and seismological departments, and publishes the results of its observations on a monthly basis.

La Clerecía, Salamanca

  
SPAIN, 1953, the 7th centenary of the University of Salamanca, Scott 797

SPAIN, 2001, issued for Salamanca's being named European Cultural City 2002, Scott 3114
at the left: the dome and two towers of the church and the building that was the Jesuit college

Opposite the famous Casa de las Conchas in Salamanca is the Jesuit church of the Holy Spirit, better known as the Clerecía. It can be seen more clearly on the 2 peseta value to the right of the Salamanca Cathedral, and on the .45 euro value to its left. The Clerecía was designed by Juan Gómez de Mora and was begun in 1617. Beside the Clerecía today is the Universidad Pontificia, a building with a Baroque cloister built on the site which formerly housed the Jesuit Royal College. The church and the college were the initiative of Margaret of Austria, wife of Philip III, in an attempt to make reparations to the Jesuits for the wrong done to St. Ignatius when he was imprisoned in Salamanca by the Dominicans.

Colegio Portaceli, Seville

SPAIN, 2008, a personalized stamp for the 50th anniversary of the Colegio Portaceli in Seville, Spain

The Jesuits have been educators in Seville since 1554, when the College of San Hermenegildo began. For two centuries, more than a thousand students a year attended class there. In 1767 Charles III closed Jesuit schools throughout his domain. Pius VII reestablished the Society in 1814, but the Jesuits in Spain faced successive expulsions in 1820, 1835 and 1868. In 1871 a Jesuit school was founded on Argote de Molina street. But only eleven years later it moved to Malaga.

The real history of the present school begins October 4, 1905, when Cardinal Spínola presided over the opening of the College of the Immaculate Heart of Mary [Inmaculado Corazón de María] in the palace of the Marquis of Villasís. Father Francisco Tarín, who was renown for his holiness, and Fr. Sánchez Prieto, who had been prefect of the school in Argote of Molina street were in charge. In January of 1932 republican authorities ordered the closing of Villasís, but the school continued. For the first two months classes were given in secret in the Academia Politécnica Sevillana and liturgies were celebrated in the Church of St. Martín. From April onward, lay teachers continued with the task in a house in Pajaritos Street, with a slight change of the name of the school to the Sacred Heart of Mary [Sagrado Corazón de María]. Local Jesuits went to live in the homes of friends close by the school to help the lay teachers. Only at the end of the Civil War could the school return to Villasís, and a Mass was offered in its central patio to celebrate the reopening. In 1950 the school moved to the Huerta del Rey, an enclave of the old Dominican convent of Portaceli, which the Jesuits had acquired in 1919 and which had been used for student sporting activities. Cardinal Segura blessed the foundation stone of the quadrangle that forms the school of today. In 1972 girls were admitted. In 1998, the Jesuits transferred ownership of the school to the Loyola Foundation. The personalized stamp above was commissioned by the class of 1958 to celebrate its 50th anniversary. It displays the coat of arms of Villasís to the left and that of Portaceli on the right.

Mission Office, Seville

Centro Educativo Cristo Rey, Valladolid

SPAIN, 2015, a personalized stamp for the school's 75th anniversary.

At the end of the Spanish Civil War many children were neglected, abandoned or orphaned, so Father Cid SJ, in 1939 founded the Christo Rey School arise to help, guide and assist the most disadvantaged and needy in Valladolid and its surroundings. Its goals were: to meet the most basic needs of the pupils (housing, food, clothing, education and elementary education) and teaching practical skills (mechanical manufacturing, carpentry, shoemaking, graphic arts and printing, and later electricity and electronics, especially radio). In 1942 the school moved to a farm on the Avenida de Gijon, where there is the boarding school, chapel, classes and workshops.

The high school kept expanding, adding courses and students until it came to house 2200 students, 1000 of whom were in boarding school, and it performs all the pre-university educational levels: childhood education, primary and secondary school, and baccalaureate.

The Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Veruela

  
SPAIN, 1967, Scott 1504-06

The Monastery of Veruela was founded by the Cistercians in 1146, but the Jesuits restored it and used it as a novitiate from 1877 until 1973, except when they were expelled during the Republican Government and the Civil War (1932-1939). In 1976 the State gave the Provincial Delegation of Saragossa some control and in 1998 ownership of the property. Here are three views of Veruela.

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