Ignatius of Loyola

About Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) was a Spanish Basque Catholic priest and theologian who founded the Society of Jesus, widely known as the Jesuits. His primary historical significance stems from the Counter-Reformation; as a pivotal figure in the Catholic Church's response to Protestantism, he established a powerful, highly disciplined, and globally influential religious and educational order. This profound impact on religious history, education, and global missionary work secures his rank at #555 on the Pantheon historical importance index.

Despite this high historical ranking, Ignatius currently receives modest digital attention. His Wikipedia page accrued approximately 498K annualized views in 2025. This level of traffic results in an Attention Gap of only ~1x, suggesting his modern online visibility is proportionate to his historical importance among this group. For context, he is viewed significantly less than Judas Iscariot (#674 importance, 1.4M views), though his viewership is higher than the considerably more influential William IV of the United Kingdom (#261 importance, 67K views).

Notably, interest in Loyola appears to be growing, as evidenced by a strong +32% momentum shift between Q1 and Q3 of 2025, alongside an overall +11.1% year-over-year increase in pageviews, suggesting a recent minor resurgence in public curiosity regarding the founder of the Jesuits.