The Jesuits, 1534-1921

Moreover, in none of these seminaries was there the remotest thought of forming a native clergy in the sense of the word employed in the anti-Jesuit indictment. The seminarians were all foreigners or sons of foreigners. There were no native Indians in these establishments, as that, apart from intellectual and moral reasons, would have been a physiological impossibility. Nature rebels against the transplanting of a creature of the woods and mountains to the confinement of a lecture hall. The old martyr of Colonial times, Father Daniel, brought a number of Indian boys from Huronia to Quebec to educate them, but they fled to the forests, while the Indian girls, who were lodged with the Ursulines, died of consumption. Even in our own times, Archbishop Gillow of Oaxaca, Mexico, brought a number of pure-blooded Indians to Rome, in the hope of making them priests, but they all died before he attained any results. In brief, we in America have never formed a native clergy.

Moreover, this century-stretch of failure in China is cut down considerably when we recall the fact that for a considerable time there were only two or, at most, three Jesuits in that vast empire, and that they contrived to remain there only because they interested the learned part of the populace by their knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, never daring to broach the subject of religion, though they succeeded under the pretence of science in circulating everywhere a catechism which enraptured the literati. It was only in the year 1601 that permission was given to them to preach. Hence, the figure 100 has to be cut down to 83. In two years time, namely in 1617, there were 13,00 °Christians in China. How were the rest to be reached? No help could be expected from Europe, which was being devastated by the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Independently of that, the caste system prevailed in China, and the learned, even those who were converted, found it difficult to understand why the wonderful truths of Christianity should be communicated to the common people, yet it is from the people that ecclesiastical vocations usually come. Thirdly, the Chinaman has an instinctive horror of anything foreign. Yet here was a foreign creed which, moreover, could be thoroughly learned only by a language which was itself foreign even to the priests who taught it.

The audacious project was then formed to petition the Pope to have the liturgy, even the Mass, in Chinese. No other modern mission ever dared to make such a request. As early as 1617, the petition was presented, and although Pope Paul V favored the scheme, yet the undertaking was so stupendous and the project so unusual that he withheld any direct or official recognition. Whereupon the missionaries began the work of translating into Chinese not only the Missal and Ritual, but an entire course of moral theology with the cases of conscience. In addition a large part of the "Summa" of St. Thomas along with many other books which might be useful to the future priest were rendered into the vernacular. The work was begun by Father Trigault in 1615 and was continued by others up to 1682, when the Pope while accepting the dedication of a Chinese Missal by Verbiest, finally concluded that it would be impolitic to grant permission for a liturgy in Chinese. This gigantic undertaking ought of itself to be a sufficient answer to the charge that the Jesuits were averse to the formation of a native clergy. The scheme failed, it is true, but the attempt is a sufficient answer to the hackneyed charge against the Society.

It might be asked, however, why did they not foresee the possible failure of their request and provide otherwise for priests? In the first place, there were Dominicans and Franciscans in China, and it might be proper to ask them why they excluded the Chinese from the ministry? Secondly, the Jesuits had all they could do to defend themselves from the charge of idolatry for sanctioning the Chinese Rites. Thirdly when Schall arrived in 1622 there were no missionaries to be met anywhere – they were in prison or in exile. Fourthly, in 1637 there was a bloody persecution. Fifthly, in 1644 the Tatar invasion occurred with the usual havoc, and the Manchu dynasty was inaugurated. Sixthly, in 1664 Schall hitherto such a great man in the empire was imprisoned and condemned to be hacked to pieces and Verbiest was lying in chains. It is quite comprehensible, therefore, that in such a condition of things, quiet seminary life was impossible, and as the Jesuits were suspected of leaning to Confucianism it would have been quite improper to entrust to them the formation of a secular clergy.

When Verbiest wrote home for help, numbers of volunteers left Europe for China. Louis XIV was especially enthusiastic in furthering the movement, and, among other favors he conferred the title of "Fellows of the Academy of Science and Royal Mathematicians" on six Jesuits of Paris, and sent them off to Pekin. But when they arrived, Verbiest was dead. They were in time, however, for his funeral, which took place on March 11, 1688, with the same honors that had been accorded to Ricci and Schall. He was laid to rest at their side. His successors began their work by establishing what was called the French Mission of China, which lasted until the suppression of the Society. The great difficulty in sending missionaries thither by sea had long exercised the minds of the superiors of the Society, especially after a startling announcement was made by Father Couplet, who, after passing many years in China, had returned home, shattered in health and altogether unable to continue his work. He said that, after a very careful count, he had found that of the six hundred Jesuits who had attempted to enter China from the time that Ruggieri and Ricci had succeeded in gaining an entrance there, as many as four hundred had either died of sickness on the way or had been lost at sea. De Rhodes had shown that an overland route was possible from India to Europe; the lay-brother Goes had succeeded in getting to China from the land of the Great Mogul, Gruber had reversed the process, and in 1685 an attempt was made by Father Avril, to reach it by the way of Russia, but he failed.

Avril's account of his journey has been shockingly "done out of French" by a translator who prudently withheld his name. It was "published in London, at Maidenhead, over against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street." Its date is 1693. From it we learn that Father Avril started from Marseilles and made for Civita Vecchia, after paying his respects in Rome to Father General de Noyelle, he went to Leghorn, where he took ship on a vessel that was convoyed by a man-of-war called the "Thundering Jupiter." Passing by Capraia, Elba, Sardinia, and nearly wrecked off the "Coast of Candy," his ship dropped anchor in the Lerneca roadstead after three days' voyage, but without the "Thundering Jupiter." It was still at sea. He touched at Cyprus and Alexandretta, then proceeded to Aleppo, crossing the plain of Antioch in a caravan. He was fleeced by an Armenian who professed to be a friend of the Jesuits, then he crossed the Tigris or Tiger, and arrived at Erzerum in time for an earthquake. Continuing his journey through the intervening territory to what he calls the "Caspian Lake", he finally reached Moscow, after being almost burned to death on the Volga, when his ship took fire. At Moscow he was welcomed by the German Jesuits who had a house there, for Prince Gallichin (Galitzin) was then prime minister. He was soon bidden to depart, and crossed a part of Muscovy, Lithuania and White Russia, reaching Warsaw on March 12, 1686. It was eighteen months since he had left Leghorn. He made effort after effort to get back to Muscovy, but in vain. Ambassadors and princes and even Louis XIV found the Czar obdurate, and so, after two years of unsuccessful endeavor, Avril arrived at Constantinople, after being imprisoned by the Turks on his way thither. Finally, he reached Marseilles, having proved, at least, that the road through Russia would have to be abandoned; hence, it was determined to make those overland journeys in the future through the territory of the Shah of Persia.

CHAPTER IX

BATTLE OF THE BOOKS

Aquaviva and the Spanish Opposition – Vitelleschi – The "Monita Secreta"; Morlin – Roding – "Historia Jesuitici Ordinis" – "Jesuiticum Jejunium" – "Speculum Jesuiticum" – Pasquier – Mariana – "Mysteries of the Jesuits" – "The Jesuit Cabinet" – "Jesuit Wolves" – "Teatro Jesuítico" – "Morale Pratique des Jésuites" – "Conjuratio Sulphurea" – "Lettres Provinciales" – "Causeries du Lundi" and Bourdaloue – Prohibition of publication by Louis XIV – Pastoral of the Bishops of Sens – Santarelli – Escobar – Anti-Coton – "Les Descouvertes" – Norbert.

Father Claudius Aquaviva died on January 31, 1615, after a generalship of thirty-four years. To him are to be ascribed not only all of the great enterprises inaugurated since 1580, but, to a very considerable extent, the spirit by which the Society has been actuated up to the present time and which, it is to be hoped, it will always retain. The marvellous skill and the serene equanimity with which he guided the Society through the perils which it encountered from kings and princes, from heretics and heathens, from great ecclesiastical tribunals and powerful religious organizations, and most of all from the machinations of disloyal members of the Institute, entitle him to the enthusiastic love and admiration of every Jesuit and the unchallenged right to the title which he bears of the "Saviour of the Society." Far from being rigid and severe, as he is sometimes accused of being, he was amazingly meek and magnanimously merciful. The story about forty professed fathers having been dismissed in consequence of their connection with the sedition of Vásquez is a myth. The entire number of plotters on this occasion did not exceed twenty-eight, and only a few of those were expelled. In any case, whatever penalty was meted out to them was the act of the congregation and not of Aquaviva. Indeed, Aquaviva's methods are in violent contrast with those of Francis Xavier, who gave the power of expulsion to even local Superiors, and we almost regret that Xavier had not to deal with his fellow-countrymen at this juncture. It must also be borne in mind that the great exodus from the Society which occurred in Portugal antedated Aquaviva's time, and was due to the mistaken methods of government by Simon, Rodriguez.

The congregation convened after his death met on November 5, 1615, and the majority of its members must have been astounded to find the Spanish claim to the generalship still advocated. Mutio Vitelleschi an Italian, however, was most in evidence at that time; he was forty-five years old, and had been already rector of the English College, provincial both of Naples and Rome, and later assistant for Italy. As in all of those positions of trust he had displayed a marvellous combination of sweetness and strength which had endeared him to his subjects, the possibility of his election, at this juncture, afforded a well-grounded hope of a glorious future for the Society. Nevertheless some of the Spanish delegates determined to defeat him, and with that in view they addressed themselves to the ambassadors of France and Spain, to enlist their aid; but the shrewd politicians took the measure of the plotters, and, while piously commending them for their religious zeal and patriotism, politely refused their co-operation. That should have sufficed as a rebuke, but prompted by their unwise zeal they approached the Pope himself and assured him that Vitelleschi was altogether unfit for the position. The Pontiff listened to them graciously and bade them be of good heart, for, if Vitelleschi were half what they said he was, there could be no possibility of his election. The balloting took place on November 15, and Mutio was chosen by thirty-nine out of seventy-five votes. The margin was not a large one, and shows how nearly the conspirators had succeeded. To-day an appeal to laymen in such a matter would entail immediate expulsion.

Vitelleschi's vocation to the Society was a marked one. When only a boy of eleven, he was dreaming of being associated with it, and before he had finished his studies he bound himself by a vow to ask for admittance, and, if accepted, to distribute his inheritance to the poor. But as the Vitelleschi formed an important section of the Roman nobility, such aspirations did not fit in with the father's ambition for his son, and the boy was bidden to dismiss all thought of it. He was a gentle and docile lad, but he possessed also a decided strength of character, and like the Little Flower of Jesus in our own times, he betook himself to the Pope to lay the matter before him. The father finally yielded, and on August 15, 1583, young Mutio, after going to Communion with his mother at the Gesù, hurried off to lay his request before Father Aquaviva. His great desire was to go to England, which was just then waging its bloody war against the Faith, but, as with Aquaviva himself, his ignorance of the English language deprived him of the crown of martyrdom.

Crétineau-Joly is of the opinion that the generalate of Vitelleschi was monotone de bonheur. Whether that be so or not, it certainly had its share in the monotony of calumny which has been meted out to the Society from its birth. Thus, the beginning of Vitelleschi's term of office coincided with the publication of the famous "Monita secreta" which, with the exception of the "Lettres provinciales" is perhaps the cleverest piece of literary work ever levelled against the Society. The compliment is not a very great one, for nearly all the other books obtained their vogue by being extravagant distortions of the truth. But good or bad they never failed to appear.

The first in order was the diatribe of Morlin in 1568. This was a little before Vitelleschi's time. It was directed against the schools, and denounces the professors for having intercourse with the devil, practising sorcery, initiating their pupils in the black art, anointing them with some mysterious and diabolical compound which gave the masters control of their scholars after long years of separation. "God's gospel," they said, "was powerless before those creatures of the devil whom hell had vomited forth to poison the whole German empire and especially to do away with the Evangelicals who were the especial object of Jesuitical hatred." The immediate expulsion of the "sorcerers" was demanded, and even their burning at the stake, for "they not only deal in witchcraft themselves, but teach it to others, and impart to their pupils the methods of getting rid of their foes by poisons, incantations and the like." It was asserted that "those who send their boys to be educated by them are throwing their offspring into the jaws of wolves; or like the Hebrews of old immolating them to Moloch."

In 1575 Roding, a professor of Heidelberg dedicated a book to the elector, in which he denounces the Jesuit schools as impious and abominable, and warns parents "not to give aid to the Kingdom of Satan by trusting those who were enemies of Christianity and of God." "They are wild beasts," he said, "who ought to be chased out of our cities. Though outwardly modest, simple, mortified and urbane, they are in reality furies and atheists – far worse indeed than atheists and idolaters. The children confided to them are constrained to join with their swinish instructors in grunting at the Divine Majesty" (Janssen, VIII, 339). "They are not only poisoners but conspirators and assassins. Their purpose is to slay all those who have accepted the Confession of Augsburg. They have been seen in processions of armed men, disguised as courtiers, dressed in silks, with gold chains around their necks, going from one end of Germany to the other. They caused the St. Bartholomew massacre; they killed King Sebastian; in Peru, they plunged red hot irons into the bodies of the Indians to make them reveal where they hid their treasures. In thirty years the Popes killed 900,000 people, the Jesuits 2,000,000; the cellars of all the colleges in Germany are packed with soldiers; and Canisius married an abbess." This latter story went around Germany a hundred times and was widely believed.

The chief storehouse of all these inventions in Germany was the "Historia jesuitici ordinis," which was published in 1593, and was attributed by the editor, Polycarp Leiser, to an ex-novice, named Elias Hasenmüller, who was then six years dead – a circumstance which ought to have invalidated the testimony for ordinary people, but which did not prevent the "Historia" from being an immense success. Its publication was said to be miraculous, for it was given out as certain that any member of the Order who would reveal its secrets was to be tortured, poisoned or roasted alive. It was only by a special intervention of the Lord that Hasenmüller escaped. The readers of the "Historia" were informed that the Order was founded by the devil, who was the spiritual father of St. Ignatius. Omitting the immoralities detailed in the volume, "the Jesuits were professional assassins, wild boars, robbers, traitors, snakes, vipers, etc. In their private lives they were lecherous goats, filthy pigs." Even Carlyle says this of St. Ignatius – "The Pope had given them full power to commit every excess. If we knew them better we would spit in their faces, instead of sending them boys to be educated. Indeed it would not be well to trust them with hogs." There were other productions of the same nature, such as the "Jesuiticum jejunium" and "Speculum jesuiticum." Some of these "histories" denounced Father Gretser as "a vile scribbler, an open heretic and an adulterer who carried the devil around in a bottle." Bellarmine was "an Epicurean of the worst type, who had already killed 1642 victims; 562 of whom were married women. He used magic and poison, and pitched the corpses of his victims into the Tiber. He died the death of the damned, and his ghost was seen in the air in broad daylight flying away on a winged horse," and so on.

Etienne Pasquier was the leader of the French pamphleteers. It was he who had acted as advocate against the Jesuits of the College of Clermont. The plaidoyer presented to the court on that occasion was embodied in his "Recherches," and, in 1602, when he was seventy-three years of age, he published "Le Catéchisme des jésuites, ou examen de leur doctrine." He finds that the Order, besides being Calvinistic, is also spotted with Judaism. Ignatius was worse than Luther or Julian the Apostate; he was a sort of Don Quixote, who laughed at the vows he made at Montmartre; he was a trickster, a glutton, a demon incarnate, an ass. The first chapter in book II is entitled "Anabaptism of the Jesuits in their vow of blind obedience." Chapter 2 is on the execution of the Jesuit, Crichton, for attempting to kill the Scotch chancellor, of which he had been accused by "Robert de Bruce." In chapter 3, a Mr. Parry is sent by the Jesuits to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. In chapter 4, another attempt is made by the same person, in 1597, etc. Father Garasse wrote an answer to the book, and though he found no difficulty in showing its absurdities, yet his language was rough and abusive and quite out of keeping with the dignity of his state; besides, it centred public attention on him to such extent that later when, three pamphlets with which he had had nothing to do were written against Cardinal Richelieu, he was accused of being the author of them and had to swear in the most solemn manner that he knew nothing whatever about them. This charge against Garasse came near alienating Louis XIII from the Society.

Much harm had also been done by Mariana's alleged doctrine on regicide. On the face of it, the book could not have been seditious, for it was written as an instruction for the heir of Philip II, and it is inconceivable that an autocrat, such as he was, should not only have put a book teaching regicide in the hands of his son, but should have paid for its publication. As a matter of fact, the king conjured up by Mariana as a possible victim of assassination is a monster who could have scarcely existed. In other circumstances the book would have passed unnoticed, but it served as a pretext to attack the Society by ascribing Mariana's doctrine to the whole Society.

Now, Mariana never was and never could be a representative of the Society, for: first sixteen years before the objectionable book attracted notice in France, namely in 1584, Mariana had been solemnly condemned by the greatest assembly of the Society, the general congregation, as an unworthy son; a pestilential member who should be cut off from the body, and his expulsion was ordered. He was one of the leaders of the band of Spanish conspirators who did all in their power to destroy the Society. Secondly, his expulsion did not take place, possibly because of outside political influence like that of Philip II and the Inquisition. Nevertheless in 1605, that is five years before the French flurry, he wrote another book entitled, "De defectibus Societatis" (i. e. the Weak Points of the Society), which was condemned as involving the censure of the papal bull "Ascendente Domino." Instead of destroying the MS., as he should have done, if he had a spark of loyalty in him, he kept it, and when in 1609, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Spanish authorities for his book on Finance which seemed to reflect on the government, that MS. was seized, and subsequently served as a strong weapon against the Society. Why should such a man be cited as the representative of a body from which he was ordered to be expelled and which he had attempted to destroy?

Another harmful publication was the "Monita secreta," which represented the Jesuit as a sweet-voiced intriguer; a pious grabber of inheritances for the greater glory of God; enjoying a vast influence with conspicuous personages; working underhand in politics, and revealing himself in every clime, invariably the same, and always monstrously rich. The "Monita" appeared in Poland in the year 1612. It was printed in a place not to be found on any map: namely Notobirga, which suggests "Notaburgh," or "Not a City." It purported to be based on a Spanish manuscript, discovered in the secret archives of the Society at Padua. It was translated into Latin, and was then sent to Vienna, and afterwards to Cracow, where it was given to the public. It consists of sixteen short chapters, of which we give a few sample titles: "I. How the Society should act to get a new foundation. II. How to win and keep the friendship of princes and important personages. III. How to act with people who wield political influence or those who, even if not rich, may be serviceable. VI. How to win over wealthy widows. VII. How to induce them to dispose of their property. VIII. How to induce them to enter religious communities, or at least to make them devout."

To achieve all this the Jesuits were to wear outwardly an appearance of poverty in their houses; the sources of revenue were to be concealed; purchases of property were always to be made by dummies; rich widows were to be provided with adroit confessors; their family physicians were to be the friends of the Fathers; their daughters were to be sent to convents, their sons to the Society, etc. The vices of prominent personages were to be indulged; quarrels were to be entered into, so as to get the credit of reconciliation; the servants of the rich were to be bribed; confessors were to be very sweet; distinguished personages were never to be publicly reprehended, etc., etc. As the phraseology of these "Monita secreta" was a clever imitation of the official document of the Society known as the "Monita generalia," the forgery scored a perfect success in being accepted as genuine. It was such a cleverly devised instrument of warfare in a country like Poland, for instance, with its mixed Protestant and Catholic population, that it would be sure to strengthen the Protestants, and, at the same time, shame the Catholics, by discrediting the Jesuits, who were then in great favor. It was anonymous, but was finally traced to Jerome Zahorowski, who had been dismissed from the Society. When charged by the Inquisition with being the author, he denied it, and said he had no complaint against his former associates. The book was put on the Index, and Zahorowski's declaration that he was not the author was believed. Later, however, it was publicly declared by those who had the means of knowing the facts that he was really the guilty man. Indeed, just before he died, he confessed the authorship and bitterly regretted the crime he had committed. He recanted all that he had said in the book, but it was too late; the mischief had been done and the evil work has continued. There were twenty-two editions of it, issued during the seventeenth century, and it was translated into many languages. Its title was changed from time to time and it was called: "The Mysteries of the Jesuits;" "Arcana of the Society;" "Jesuit Machiavelism;" "The Jesuit Cabinet;" "Jesuit Wolves;" "Jesuit Intrigues," and so on. There appeared also a huge publication of six or seven bulky volumes entitled "Annales des soi-disants Jésuites," which is an encyclopedia of all the accusations ever made against the Society.