The Jesuits, 1534-1921

A romantic figure appears at this time in the person of John Casimir, who after many adventures ascended the throne of Poland. In spite of the remonstrances of his mother he not only refused to dispute the claim of his elder brother, but espoused his cause, fought loyally for his election and was the first to congratulate him when chosen. He then withdrew from Poland and we find him, first, as an officer in the imperial army, and at the head of a league against France. Afterwards, while in command of a fleet in the Mediterranean, he was driven ashore near Marseilles by a storm; he was recognized and kept in prison for two years, but was finally released at the request of his brother. In passing by Loreto, on his way home, the fancy of becoming a Jesuit seized him. He applied for admission and was received, but left three or four years afterwards, and, though not in orders, was made a cardinal. When the news of his brother's death arrived, he returned the red hat to the Pope and set out for Poland to claim the crown, and simultaneously that of Sweden. The latter pretence, of course, meant war with Gustavus Adolphus, who forthwith invaded Poland, but Casimir drove him out and also expelled the Prussians from Lithuania. Probably on account of the dissensions in his own country which gave him occupation enough, he ceased to urge his rights to the throne of Sweden, and after some futile struggles relinquished that of Poland likewise.

In the Convocation of Warsaw where he pronounced his abdication, he is said to have made the following utterance which sounds like a prophecy but which may have been merely a clever bit of political foresight. "Would to God," he exclaimed "that I were a false prophet, but I foresee great disasters for Poland. The Cossack and the Muscovite will unite with the people who speak their language and will seize the greater part of Lithuania. The frontiers of Greater Poland will be possessed by the House of Brandenburg; and Prussia, either by treaty or force of arms, will invade our territory. In the dismemberment of our country, Austria will not let slip the chance of laying hands on Cracow." John was the last representative of the House of Vasa. He was succeeded by Michael, who reigned only three years (1669-72) and then the great Sobieski was elected after he and his 20,000 Poles had routed an army of 100,000 Tatars – an exploit which made him the country's idol as well as its king.

In becoming General, Oliva inherited the suffering inflicted on the Society by the English persecutions which had been inaugurated by Elizabeth and continued by James I. A lull had occurred during the reign of Charles I, probably because the queen, Henrietta Maria, was a Catholic; and in 1634 there were as many as one hundred and sixty Jesuits in the British dominions; but Cromwell was true to his instincts, and, between the time of the Long Parliament and the Restoration of the Stuarts, twenty-four Catholics died for the Faith. Naturally, the Jesuits came in for their share. Thus Father James Latin was put in jail on August 3, 1643, and was never heard of afterwards. "From which," says O'Reilly, "it is easy to conjecture his fate." William Boyton was one of the victims in a general massacre that took place in 1647, in the Cashel Cathedral; and two years afterwards, John Bathe and Robert Netterville were put to death by the Cromwellians in Drogheda. Bathe was tied to a stake and shot, while Netterville, who was an invalid, was dragged from his bed, beaten with clubs and flung out on the highway. He died four days afterwards.

The Stuarts were restored in 1660, but the easy-going Charles II made no serious effort to erase the laws against Catholics from the statute-book, and from time to time proclamations were issued ordering all priests and Jesuits out of the realm. Two occasions especially furnished pretexts for these expulsions. One was the "Great Plague," and the other was the "Great Fire," for both of which the Jesuits were held responsible. No one knew what was going to happen next, when there appeared in England an individual to whom Crétineau-Joly devotes considerable space, but who receives scant notice from English writers. He announced himself as Hippolyte du Chatelet de Luzancy. He was the son of a French actress, and was under indictment for forgery in his native country; added to these attractions, founded or not, he claimed to be an ex-Jesuit. Of course, he was received with great enthusiasm by the prelates of the Established Church, for he let it be known he was quite willing to accept any religious creed they might present to him. The Government officials also welcomed him. His first exploit was to accuse Father Saint-Germain, the Duchess of York's confessor, of entering his apartment with a drawn dagger and threatening to kill him. Whereupon all England was startled and the House of Lords passed a bill consigning all priests and Jesuits to jail. Saint-Germain was the first victim. Luzancy was then called before the privy council and told a blood curdling story of a great conspiracy that was being hatched on the Continent. It implicated the king and the Duke of York. The story was false on the face of it, but Luzancy was taken under the protection of the Bishop of London; he was given the degree of Master of Arts by Oxford and was installed as the Vicar of Dover Court, Essex. A most unexpected defender of the Society appeared at this juncture in the person of Antoine Arnauld, the fiercest foe of the Jesuits in France. He denounced Luzancy as an imposter, and berated the whole English people for accepting the conspiracy myth. His indignation, however, was not prompted by any love of the Society, but because Luzancy claimed to have lived for a considerable time with the Jansenists and with Arnauld, in particular, at Port-Royal.

It was probably the success achieved by Luzancy that suggested the greater extravagances of Titus Oates. Titus Oates was a minister of the Anglican Establishment, and first signalized himself in association with his father, Samuel, who also wore the cloth, by trumping up an abominable charge against a certain Protestant schoolmaster, for which the father lost his living, and the son was sent to prison for trial. Escaping from jail, Titus became a chaplain on a man-of-war, but was expelled from the navy in a twelve-month. He then succeeded in being appointed Protestant chaplain in the household of the Duke of Norfolk and was thus brought into contact with Catholics. He promptly professed to be converted and was baptized on Ash-Wednesday 1677. The Jesuit provincial was induced to send him to the English College at Valladolid, but the infamous creature was expelled before half a year had passed. Nevertheless, he was granted another trial and was admitted to the Seminary of St. Omers, which soon turned him out of doors.

Coming to London, he took up with Israel Tonge who is described as a "city divine and a man of letters," and together they devised the famous "Popish Plot," each claiming the credit of being its inventor. It proposed: first, to kill "the Black Bastard," a designation of Charles II which they said was in vogue among Catholics. His majesty was to be shot "with silver bullets from jointed carbines." Secondly, two Benedictines were to poison and stab the queen's physician, "with the help," as Titus declared, "of four Irish ruffians who were to be hired by Doctor Fogarthy." The Prince of Orange, the Lord Bishop of Hertford and several minor celebrities were also to be put out of the way. Thirdly, England, Ireland and all the British possessions were to be conquered by the sword and subjected to the Romish obedience. To achieve all this, the Pope, the Society of Jesus and their confederates were to send an Italian bishop to England to proclaim the papal programme. Subsequently, Cardinal Howard was to be papal legate. Father White, the Jesuit provincial, or Oliva, Father General of the Order, would issue commissions to generals, lieutenant generals, naval officers. When the king was duly assassinated, the crown was to be offered to the Duke of York, after he had approved of the murder of his royal brother as well as the massacre of all his Protestant subjects. Whereupon the duke himself was to be killed and the French were to be called in. The Jesuit provincial was to be made Archbishop of Canterbury, and so on.

No more extravagant nonsense could have been conceived by the inhabitants of a madhouse. Nevertheless, "all England," says Macaulay, "was worked up into a frenzy by it. London was placed in a state of siege. Train bands were under arms all night. Preparations were made to barricade the main thoroughfares. Patrols marched up and down the streets, cannon were planted in Whitehall. Every citizen carried a flail, loaded with lead, to brain the popish assassins, and all the jails were filled with papists. Meantime Oates was received in the palaces of the great and hailed everywhere as the saviour of the nation." The result of it all was that sixteen innocent men were sent to the gallows, among them seven Jesuits: William Ireland, John Gavan, William Harcourt, Anthony Turner, Thomas Whitebread, John Fenwick and David Lewis, besides their illustrious pupil, Oliver Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh. As the saintly prelate has been beatified by the Church as a martyr for thus shedding his blood, inferentially one might claim a similar distinction for all his companions. On the list are one Benedictine, one Franciscan and six secular priests. The Earl of Stafford who was sentenced like the rest to be hanged, drawn and quartered was graciously permitted by his majesty to be merely beheaded. For these murders Oates was pensioned for life, but in 1682 Judge Jeffries fined him one hundred thousand pounds for scandalum magnatum and condemned him to be whipped, pilloried, degraded and imprisoned for life. "He has deserved more punishment," said the judge, "than the law can inflict." But when William of Orange came to the throne he pardoned the miscreant and gave him a pension of three hundred pounds.

In his "Popish Plot," Pollock continually insists, by insinuation rather than by direct assertion, that Oates was a novice of the Society. Thus, we are told that he was sent to the "Collegio de los Ingleses at Valladolid to nurse into a Jesuit;" and subsequently "the expelled novice was sent to complete his education at St. Omers." But, in the first place, a "Collegio" at Valladolid or anywhere else can never be a novitiate, for novices are forbidden all collegiate study; secondly, St. Omers in France was a boys' school and nothing else; thirdly, the description of Oates by the Jesuit Father Warner absolutely precludes any possibility of his ever having been admitted as a novice or even as a remotely prospective candidate.

Warner's pen picture merits reproduction. Its general lines are: "Mentis in eo summa stupiditas; lingua balbutiens; sermo e trivio; vox stridula, et cantillans, plorantis quam loquentis similior. Memoria fallax, prius dicta numquam fideliter reddens; frons contracta; oculi parvi et in occiput retracti; facies plana, in medio lancis sive disci instar compressa; prominentibus hic inde genis rubicundus nasus; os in ipso vultus centro, mentum reliquam faciem prope totam æquans; caput vix corporis trunco extans, in pectus declive; reliqua corporis hisce respondentia; monstro quam homini similiora." In English this means that the lovely Oates "was possessed of a mind in which stupidity was supremely conspicuous, a tongue that stuttered in vulgar speech; a voice that was shrill, whining, and more of a moan than an articulate utterance; a faulty memory that could not recall what had been said; a narrow forehead, small eyes, sunk deep in his head; a flat face depressed in the middle like a plate or a dish; a red nose set between puffy cheeks; a mouth so much in the centre of his countenance that the chin was almost as large as the rest of the features; his head bent forward on his chest; and the rest of his body after the same build, making him more of a monster than a man." If the English provincial could for a moment have ever dreamed of admitting such an abortion into the Society, he would have verified his name of Father Strange. On the other hand it was natural for the fanatics of that time to adopt Oates.

During Oliva's administration, and in spite of his protests, Father Giovanni Salerno and Francisco Cienfuegos were made cardinals; under Peter the Great a few Jesuits were admitted to Russia, but the terrible Czar was fickle and drove out his guests soon after. There was also some missionary success in Persia, where 400,000 Nestorians were converted between the years 1656 and 1681, the date of Oliva's death.

Charles de Noyelle, a Belgian, was now appointed Vicar; and at the congregation which assembled in 1682 he was elected General, receiving every vote except his own. He was then sixty-seven years old. His first task was to adjust the difficulty between Innocent XI and Louis XIV on the question of the régale, or the royal right to administer the revenues of a certain number of vacant abbeys and episcopal sees claimed by the kings of France. Such invasions of the Church-rights by the State were common extending as far back as the times of St. Bernard. By 1608 the French parliament had extended this prerogative to the whole of France; but the upright Henry IV, half Protestant though he was, refused to accept it; whereas later on the Catholic Louis XIV had no scruples about the matter, and issued an edict to that effect. The Pope protested and refused to send the Bulls to the royal nominees for the vacant dioceses, with the result that at one time there were thirty sees in France without a bishop. Only two prelates stood out against the king and, strange to say, one of them was Caulet, the Jansenist Bishop of Pamiers; who, stranger still, lived on intimate terms with the Jesuits.

So far the Jesuits had kept out of the controversy, but, unfortunately, Father Louis Maimbourg published a book in support of the king, and, eminently distinguished though he was in the field of letters, especially in history, he was promptly expelled from the Society. The king angrily protested and ordered Maimbourg not to obey, but the General stood firm and Maimbourg severed his connection with his former brethren. As substantially all the bishops were arrayed against the Pope, copies of the Bull against Louis were sent to the Jesuit provincials for distribution. The situation was most embarrassing, but before the copies were delivered, they were seized by the authorities. In retaliation for the Bull, the king took the principality of Benevento, which was part of the patrimony of the Church, and thus drew upon himself a sentence of excommunication. As this document would also have been refused by the bishops, it was entrusted to a Jesuit Father named Dez, who was on his way from Rome to France.

For a Frenchman to be the bearer of a Bull excommunicating his king, especially such a king as Louis XIV, was not without danger; but Dez was equal to the task. He directed his steps in such a leisurely fashion towards Paris that his brethren in Italy had time to appeal to the Pope to withdraw the decree. Fortunately the Pope yielded, and the excommunication was never pronounced; much to the relief of both sides. It would probably have ended in a schism; as a matter of fact it provoked the famous Assembly of the Clergy of 1682 which formulated the Four Articles of the Gallican Church. These Articles were then approved by the king and ordered to be taught in all theological schools of France – a proceeding which again angered the Sovereign Pontiff, who refused to confirm any of the royal nominees for the vacant bishoprics. The contest now became bitter, and it is said that Father Lachaise, whether prompted by the king or not, wrote to the General asking him to plead with the Pope to transmit the Bulls. That brought down the Papal displeasure not only on Lachaise personally but on all the Jesuits of France.

In 1689 the Pope died, and the king, who was by this time alarmed at the lengths to which he had gone, suggested that each of the bishops whom he had named should write a personal letter to the new Pontiff, Alexander VIII, disclaiming the acts of the Assembly of the Clergy of 1682. Subsequently, the king himself sent an expression of regret for having made the Four Articles obligatory on the whole kingdom; he thus absolutely annulled the proceedings of the famous gathering. The régale, however, was and is still maintained as a right in France whether it happens to be monarchical or republican. At present, it holds all church property but has nothing to say about episcopal appointments.

In 1685 the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was issued. It cancelled all the privileges granted to the Huguenots by Henry IV, and Protestants were given the choice either of renouncing their creed or leaving the country. The result was disastrous industrially, as France was thus deprived of a great number of skilled workmen and well-to-do merchants; in addition fictitious conversions were encouraged. As usual, the Jesuits were blamed for this measure by the Calvinists and Jansenists, and in retaliation the states general of Holland imposed the most outrageous taxes on the forty-five establishments which the Society possessed in that little country, hoping thereby to compass their ruin. But the sturdy Netherlanders drew up a formal protest and demanded from the government an explanation of why men of any religious views, even foreigners, should find protection in Holland while native Dutchmen were so unfairly treated. The claim was allowed, but the antagonism of the government, inspired as it was by William of Orange, who recognized that hostility to the Order was a good recommendation to his English subjects, was not laid aside. It was vigorous twenty years later.

The Vicar-Apostolic of Holland, who was titular Archbishop of Sebaste, had long been scandalizing the faithful by his heretical teachings. He was finally removed by the Holy See; but against this act the government of the states general protested, and ordered the Jesuits to write to Rome and ask for the rehabilitation of the vicar. The plea was that by doing so, they would restore peace to the country which was alleged to have been very much disturbed by the Papal document. The refusal to do so, they were warned, would be regarded as evidence of hostility to the government. De Bruyn, the superior, wrote to the Pope in effect, but instead of asking for the vicar's rehabilitation, he thanked the Holy Father for removing him. The consequence was that on June 20, 1705, three months after they had been told to write, the forty-five Jesuit houses in Holland were closed, and the seventy-four Fathers took the road of exile, branded as disturbers of the public peace.

It was during the Generalate of Father de Noyelle, that Innocent XI is said to have determined to suppress the Society by closing the novitiates. This is admitted, even by Pollen, and is flourished in the face of the Jesuits by their enemies as a mark of the disfavor in which they are held by that illustrious Pontiff. The assertion is based on a Roman document, the condemnatory clause of which runs as follows: "The Father General and the whole Society should be forbidden in the future to receive any novices, or to admit anyone to simple or solemn vows, under pain of nullity or other punishment, according to the wish of His Holiness, until they effectually submit and prove that they have submitted to the decree issued with regard to the aforesaid missions." Crétineau-Joly or his editor points out in a note that this is not a papal document at all. The Pope would never address himself as "His Holiness," nor tell himself what he should do. It was simply an utterance of the Propaganda, in which body the Society did not lack enemies. It was dated 1684, and in the very next year its application was restricted by the Propaganda itself to the provinces of Italy. It was never approved by the Holy See, and when it was presented to Innocent XI under still another form, namely to prevent the reception of novices in Eastern Asia, he flatly rejected it.

Louis XIV had lost the Netherlands to Spain and in a fit of childish petulance he insisted that the Jesuit province there on account of being half Walloon should be annexed to the French assistancy. When this demand was disregarded he ordered the French Jesuits who were in Rome to return to France, as he proposed to make the French part of the Society independent of the General. He was finally placated by a promise that men who had been superiors in France proper, should be chosen to fill similar positions in the Walloon district. It was a very silly performance.

Tirso González, a Spaniard, was chosen as the successor of de Noyelle in 1687. He had taught theology at Salamanca for ten years, and had been a missionary for eleven. He is famous for his antagonism to the doctrine known as Probabilism, as he advocated Probabiliorism. Probabilism is that system of morals according to which, in every doubt that concerns merely the lawfulness or unlawfulness of an action, it is permissible to follow a solidly probable opinion, in favor of liberty, even though the opposing view is more probable. This freedom to act, however, does not hold when the validity of the sacraments, the attainment of an obligatory end, or the established rights of another are concerned. González maintained with considerable bitterness that, even apart from the three exceptions, it was permitted to follow only the more probable opinion – a doctrine which is now almost universally rejected.

During the Generalate of Oliva, González had written a book on the subject, which was twice turned down by all the censors; whereupon, he appealed to Pope Innocent XI in 1680 asking him to forbid the teaching of Probabilism. The Pope did not go so far, but he permitted it to be attacked. Of course, González strictly speaking had a right to appeal to the Sovereign Pontiff, but it was a most unusual performance for a Jesuit, especially as the doctrine in question was only a matter of opinion, with all the great authorities of the Society against him. It must have been with dismay that his brethren heard of his election as General by the thirteenth general congregation. It appears certain, says Brucker in his history of the Society (p. 529), that on the eve of the election the Pope expressed his opinion that González was the most available candidate. That evidently determined the suffrage, though González seems to have had no experience as an administrator.

One of the first things the general did was to start a campaign against the doctrines of Gallicanism, as formulated in the famous Assembly of 1682, which every one thought was already dead and buried. His friend, Pope Innocent XI, died in August, 1689, and his successor Alexander VIII ordered González to call in all the copies that had been printed. In 1691 González began to print his book which Oliva had formerly forbidden. It was run through the press in Germany without the knowledge of his assistants; copies appeared in 1694, and threw the Society into an uproar, especially as González's appeared on the title page as "Former Professor of Salamanca and actual General of the Society of Jesus." Nevertheless, at the general congregation which met in 1697 Father González was treated with the profoundest consideration. Not a word was uttered about his doctrine and assistants who were most acceptable to him were elected. Although a few more probabiliorists subsequently appeared, the Society, nevertheless, remained true to the teaching of Suárez, Lugo, Laymann, and their school.

A quarrel then arose between Don Pedro II of Portugal and Cardinal Conti, the papal nuncio, about the revenues of certain estates. The question was referred to González, who decided in favor of the Pope, whereupon Pedro's successor, John V, closed all the Jesuit novitiates in Portugal and banished some of the Fathers from the country. González died before this affair was settled. He passed away on October 27, 1705, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He had been a Jesuit for sixty-three years, and during nineteen years occupied the post of General.

Father Michael Angelo Tamburini was the fourteenth General; his tenure of office extended from January 30, 1706, till his death on February 28, 1730. He was a native of Modena, and had filled several important offices with credit, before he was chosen to undertake the great responsibility of governing the entire Order, at the age of fifty-eight. The troubles in France were increasing. For although the implacable leaders of the Jansenist party, Arnauld and Nicole, had disappeared from the scene – Arnauld dying at Malines, a bitter old man of eighty-three, and Nicole soon following him to the grave – yet the antagonism created by them against the Society still persisted and was being reinforced by the atheists, who now began to dominate France.