Casa da Torre, located in Soutelo ten minutes from Braga, functions as the Center for Spirituality and Culture of the Society of Jesus, promoting a "frontier pastoral ministry" that welcomes believers, people away from the Church and individuals seeking interiority and meaning. Father Francisco Cortês Ferreira, director of the house, described the space as an oasis prepared to combat contemporary dispersion and anxiety, providing accompaniment in situations of grief, professional disorientation or need for spiritual rest.
The central training offering is based on the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, whose original one-month model was adapted for durations of three, four or eight days. The director noted that truly knowing a Jesuit is only possible through the spiritual exercises, identifying this practice as the heart and common grammar of all the missions of the Society of Jesus.
The property passed to Jesuit stewardship in 1912, following the will of the second Viscount of Torre, having housed the congregation's novitiate and juniorate between the 1950s and 1970s, a period during which it was known as "Seminário da Torre." From that era it preserves a library of approximately 80,000 volumes, maintaining a cultural dimension that encourages dialogue of faith through activities such as laboratories focused on the relationship between cinema and spirituality.
The space has 90 rooms with 120 beds, dining rooms for 150 people, six to seven chapels and an equal number of work rooms, as well as a new wing for direction and spiritual accompaniment. The landscape surroundings, with hectares of woodland and vineyard at the confluence of the Alme and Cávado rivers, near Gerês, function as facilitators of interior relaxation, rejecting the hotel unit format to safeguard its spiritual mission.
