SW News: For history enthusiasts and believers in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, Thursday, November 11, was a red-letter day as A three-century old cloister of a Jesuit college and its maze of tunnels were thrown open to the public after restoration.

People thronged the premises of the historic Colegio Grande de San Ignacio, one of the oldest edifices in the city, to witness the opening of the historic structures. Fr. Francisco Baigorria, the vicar of St. Ignatius parish, offered a thanksgiving Mass as part of the reopening of the historic structures.

The re-opening of Colegio Grande de San Ignacio, one of the oldest buildings, coincides with the installation of the Jesuits in the vicinity in one of the oldest city blocks known as Manzana. After the Holy Eucharist, Fr. Baigorria blessed the building and tunnels in the presence of the municipal and national authorities. The priest said that the restoration work of the building was done to recover and enhance the spiritual and cultural values that are the foundation of the nation.

According to Ana María Di Consoli, the coordinator and manager of the opening ceremony and guided tours of San Ignacio, and Soledad Saubidet, the Jesuits started a school in their own headquarters nine years after they arrived in Buenos Aires in 1608. In 1661, they established the Colegio Grande de San Ignacio on the land given to them as a donation from a rich benefactress Isabel de Carbajal. They also built a church dedicated to St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus.

The main attractions of the Jesuit college are its cloisters where scholastics and priests once treaded as well as the well-preserved façade of the first collegiate church built in 1675 apart from the south tower of 1680. The clock tower in the north was built in 1850.

The college and church buildings were designed by German Jesuit Juan Krauss. In those days, the Jesuits taught Latin, Hebrew, Greek, arithmetic, natural sciences, and mathematics in the historic college. When Pope Francis was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he entrusted Fr. Baigorria with preserving and renovating the historic buildings of the college as well as its maze of tunnels.

Historians opine that the tunnels were built to help the priests, brothers and scholars escape at a time when the Spanish colonial masters fighting other European powers.