WARD, MARY. Mary Ward (1585–1645) was the founder of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, earlier known as the "English Ladies." She is recognized for pioneering the active, unenclosed life for nuns within the Roman Catholic Church, and her institute was the first systematic attempt to adopt for women the Jesuit missionary purpose and governance, with its emphasis on mobility and centralized structure under a superior general answerable directly to the pope. Traditionally, and in canon law, the members of women's religious orders were enclosed and monastic, a definition that was reinforced by the Council of Trent (1545–1563) as part of its reform of Catholicism. Mary Ward's was not the only contemporary initiative to challenge the status quo, but it was the most far-reaching and controversial—and remained so long after her death. She was convinced that "women in time to come will do much," but it...