The Jesuits, 1534-1921

Quesnel, who succeeded Arnauld and Nicole, wrote a book entitled "Moral Reflections on the New Testament", the style of which quite captivated de Noailles, Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, and without adverting to its Jansenism he gave it his hearty approval. Later however, when he became Archbishop of Paris, he condemned another Jansenist publication whose doctrine was identical with the one he had previously recommended; whereupon an anonymous pamphlet calling attention to the contradiction was published; in it the cardinal was made to appear in the very unpleasant attitude of stultifying himself in the eyes of the learned. He accused the Jesuits of the pamphlet, whereas, it was the work of their enemies, and was written precisely to turn him against the Society. The situation became worse when other members of the hierarchy began to comment on his approval of the Jansenistic publication, and he was exasperated to such an extent that he suspended every Jesuit in the diocese. The Jansenists were naturally jubilant over their success, and began to look forward hopefully to the approaching death of Louis XIV, who had never wavered in his defense of the Society. His successor, the dissolute Philip of Orléans, could be reckoned on as their aid, they imagined, but they were disappointed. He began by refusing their petition to revoke the university rights of the Jesuits and although he dissolved all the sodalities in the army, he lodged a number of Jansenists in jail for an alleged conspiracy against the government, a measure which they, of course, attributed to the machinations of the Society.

It was during this Generalate that the Paraguay missions reached their highest degree of efficiency. In a single year no fewer than seventy-seven missionaries left Europe to co-operate in the great work. Meantime, Francis Hieronymo and Anthony Baldinucci were astonishing Italy by their apostolic work, as was Manuel Padial in Spain – all three of whom were inscribed later on the Church's roll of honor. Finally, the canonization of Aloysius and Stanislaus Kostka along with the beatification of John Francis Régis put the stamp of the Church's most solemn approval on the Institute of Ignatius Loyola. Father Tamburini died at the age of eighty-two. He had lived sixty-five years as a Jesuit; and at his death, the Society had thirty-seven provinces with twenty-four houses of professed, 612 colleges, 340 residences, 59 novitiates, 200 mission stations, and 157 seminaries. Assuredly, it was doing something for the Church of God.

Francis Retz, a Bohemian, was the next General. His election, which took place on March 7, 1730, was unanimous; and his administration of twenty years gave the Society a condition of tranquillity such as it had never enjoyed in its entire history. Perhaps, however, there would have been a shade of sorrow if the future of one of the Jesuits of those days could have been foreseen. Father Raynal left the Society in 1747 and joined the Sulpicians. Subsequently he apostatized from the Faith, became the intimate associate of Rousseau, Diderot and other atheists and died at an advanced age apparently impenitent. Before Father Retz expired, two more provinces had been added to the thirty-seven already existing; the colleges had increased to 669; the seminaries to 176 and there were on the registers 22,589 members of whom 11,293 were already priests. During this period several great personages, who were to have much to do with the fortunes of the Society, began to assume prominence in the political world. They were Frederick the Great of Prussia, Maria Theresa of Austria, the Duc de Choiseul in France, and Carvalho, Marquis de Pombal in Portugal.

Eight months after the death of Father Retz which occurred on November 19, 1750, the Society chose for its General Ignatius Visconti, a Milanese. He was at that time sixty-nine years of age and survived only two years. He was succeeded by Father Louis Centurione, who, besides the burden of his seventy years of life, had to endure the pain of constant physical ailments. In two years time, on October 2, 1757, he breathed his last, and on the 21st of May following, Lorenzo Ricci was elected. According to Huonder, the choice was unanimous, but the digest of the nineteenth congregation states that he was elected by a very large majority.

Who was Ricci? He was a Florentine of noble blood, and was born on August 3, 1703. He was, therefore, fifty-three years of age when placed at the head of the Society, whose destruction he was to witness fifteen years later. From his earliest youth, he had attracted attention by his unusual intellectual ability as well as by his fervent piety. He had been professor of Rhetoric at the colleges of Siena and Rome to which only brilliant men were assigned, and at the end of his studies he was designated for what is called the "Public Act," that is to say an all-day defense of a series of theses covering the entire range of philosophy and theology. He subsequently taught theology for eleven years and was spiritual father at the Roman College. The latter office brought him in contact with the most distinguished prelates of the Church, who chose him as the guide of their consciences. In 1755 Father Centurione called him to the secretaryship of the Society, and he was occupying that post when elected General. The regret is very often expressed that a General of the stamp of Aquaviva was not chosen at that time; one who might have been equal to the shock that was to be met. Hence, the choice of a man who had never been a superior in any minor position is sometimes denounced as fatuous. One distinguished enemy is said to have exclaimed when he heard the result of the balloting: "Ricci! Ricci! Now we have them."

It must not, however, be forgotten that the battle which brought out Aquaviva's powers bears no comparison with that which confronted Father Ricci. Against Aquaviva were ranged only the Spanish Inquisition, a small number of recalcitrant Spanish Jesuits, and to a certain extent, Philip II. But in the first place, the Spanish Inquisition had no standing in Rome; in the second, the Jesuits who were in opposition had all of them a strain in their blood, which their fellow countrymen disliked; and, finally, though Philip II would have liked to have had his hand on the machinery of the Society he was at all times a staunch Catholic. Against this coalition, Aquaviva had with him as enthusiastic supporters all the Catholic princes of Germany and they contributed largely to his triumph. Father Ricci, on the contrary, found arrayed against the Society the so-called Catholic kings: Joseph I of Portugal; Charles III of Spain and Joseph II of Austria, all of them absolutely in the power of Voltairean ministers like Pombal, de Choiseul, Aranda, Tanucci and Kaunitz, who were in league, not only to destroy the Jesuits, but to wreck the Church. The suppression of the Society was only an incident in the fight; it had to be swept out of the way at any cost. A thousand Aquavivas would not have been able to avert it. Two Popes succumbed in the struggle.

Carayon, in his "Documents inédits," describes Father Ricci as "timid, shy, and lacking in initiative." Among the instances of his timidity, there is quoted his reprehension of Father Pinto, who had of his own accord asked Frederick II to pronounce himself as a defender of the Society. Of course, he was sternly reproved by Father Ricci and properly so, for one cannot imagine a more incongruous situation than that of the Society of Jesus on its knees to the half-infidel friend of Voltaire, entreating him to vouch for the virtue and orthodoxy of the Order. Frederick himself was very much amused by the proposition.

In any case, the fight was too far advanced to afford any hope of its being checked. Eight years before that time, Pombal had made arrangements with Spain to drive the Jesuits out of Paraguay, and had extorted from the dying Benedict XIV the appointment of Saldanha to investigate the Jesuits of Portugal. Indeed, it was soon discovered that Pombal's performances were only a part of the general plot to destroy the Society and the Church.

As soon as Benedict's successor ascended the papal throne, Father Ricci laid a petition before him representing the distress and injury inflicted on the Society by what was going on in Portugal. Crimes which had no foundation were attributed to it, and all of the Fathers, whether guilty or not, had been suspended from their priestly functions. The petition could not have been more humble or more just, but it brought down a storm on the head of Father Ricci. The sad feature of it was that, although it was intended to be an absolutely secret communication, it was immediately circulated with notes throughout Europe, and a fierce votum, or protest, was issued against it by Cardinal Passionei, who denounced it as an absolutely untruthful and subtle plea to induce the Holy Father to hand over the rest of his flock to the ferocious wolves (the Jesuits). The cardinal stated that the King of Portugal had complained of the Jesuits, and that Cardinal Saldanha was a person capable of obtaining the best information about the case, and was absolutely without bias or animosity for any party, besides being known for his ecclesiastical zeal and his submission to the head of the Church.

Far from being influenced by this utterance of Passionei, Pope Clement XIII appointed a congregation to examine the question; the report was favorable to the Society, so that Pombal was momentarily checked. On the other hand, it was very clear that the battle was not won. A false report of the proceedings of the congregation was published, and although the Pope ordered it to be burned by the public executioner, it was, nevertheless, an open proclamation that the enemies of the Society were willing to go to any lengths to gain their point. Portuguese gold flowed into Rome and Mgr. Bottari was employed to revive all the ancient calumnies against the Society. In a short time, he produced a work called "Reflections of a Portuguese on the Memorial presented to His Holiness Clement XIII by the Jesuits." When there was question of putting the book on the Index, Almada, the Portuguese ambassador declared that if such a proceeding were resorted to Portugal would secede from the Church. Furthermore, when the Papal Secretary of State, Achito, wrote a very mild and prudent letter to the nuncio in Lisbon, instructing him to let the king know that the petition of the Jesuits was very humble and submissive, he was denounced as issuing a declaration of war against Portugal. Meantime, the author of the "Reflections" continued to pour out other libellous publications in Rome itself, and Papal prohibitions were powerless to prevent him.

CHAPTER XIII

CONDITIONS BEFORE THE CRASH

State of the Society – The Seven Years War – Political Changes – Rulers of Spain, Portugal, Naples, France and Austria – Febronius – Sentiments of the Hierarchy – Popes Benedict XIV; Clement XIII; Clement XIV.

Just before its suppression, the Society had about 23,000 members. It was divided into forty-two provinces in which there were 24 houses of professed fathers, 669 colleges, 61 novitiates, 335 residences and 273 mission stations. Taking this grand total in detail, there were in Italy 3,622 Jesuits, about one-half of whom were priests. They possessed 178 houses. The provinces of Spain had 2,943 members (1,342 priests) and 158 houses; Portugal, 861 members (384 priests), 49 houses; France, 3,350 members (1,763 priests), 158 houses; Germany, 5,340 members (2,558 priests), 307 houses; Poland, 2,359 members; Flemish Belgium, 542 members (232 priests), 30 houses; French Belgian, 471 members (266 priests), 25 houses; England, 274 members; and Ireland, 28. Their missions were in all parts of the world. In Hindostan, de Nobili, and de Britto's work was being carried on; in Madura, there were forty-seven missionaries. The establishments in Persia extended to Ispahan and counted 400,00 °Catholics. Syria, the Levant and the Maronites were also being looked after. Although Christianity had been crushed as early as 1644, the name of the province of Japan was preserved, and in 1760 it counted fifty-seven members. There were fifty-four Portuguese Fathers attached to China at the time of the Suppression, and an independent French mission had been organized at Pekin with twenty-three members mostly priests. In South America, the whole territory had been divided into missions, and there were 445 Jesuits in Brazil, with 146 in the vice-province of Maranhão. The Paraguay province contained 564 members of whom 385 were priests; they had 113,716 Indians in their care. In Mexico, which included Lower California, there were 572 Jesuits, who were devoting themselves to 122,000 Indians. New Granada had 193 missionaries; Chili had 242; Peru, 526; and Ecuador, 209.

In the United States, they were necessarily very few, on account of political conditions. At the time of the Suppression, they numbered only nine, two of whom Robert Molyneux and John Bolton survived until the complete restoration of the Society. The French had missions in Guiana, Hayti and Martinique; and in Canada, the work inaugurated by Brébeuf among the Hurons, was kept up among the Iroquois, Algonquins, Abenakis, Crees, Ottawas, Miamis and other tribes in Illinois, Alabama and Lower Mississippi. At the time of the Suppression there were fifty-five Jesuits in Canada and Louisiana.

This world-wide activity synchronized with the Seven Years War, which was to change the face of the earth politically and religiously. The unscrupulous energy of Lord Clive had, previous to the outbreak of hostilities, given Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and the Carnatic to England. Before war had been proclaimed, Boscawen, who was sent to Canada, had captured two French warships and the feeble protest of France was answered by the seizure of three hundred other vessels, manned by 10,000 seamen and carrying cargoes estimated to be worth 30,000,000 francs. In 1757 Frederick the Great won the battle of Rosbach against the French; and in the same year triumphed over the imperial forces. In 1759 he defeated the Russians, only to meet similar reverses in turn; but in 1760 when all seemed lost, Russia withdrew from the fight and became Frederick's friend. In 1758 France scored some victories in Germany, but in 1762 was completely crushed and consented to what a French historian describes as "a shameful peace." Quebec fell in 1759, and Vaudreuil capitulated at Montreal in 1760.

Peace was finally made by the treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg in 1763, in virtue of which, France surrendered all her conquests of German territory as well as the Island of Minorca. In North America, she gave up Canada with its 60,000 French inhabitants. She also lost the River and Gulf of St. Lawrence, the valley of the Ohio, the left bank of the Mississippi, four islands in the West Indies, and her African trading-post of Senegal. In return, she received the Islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Marie-Galande, Désirade and St. Lucia. In Asia, she was granted Pondicherry, Chandernagor and other places, but was prohibited from fortifying them. Spain yielded Florida and Pensacola Bay to England, in order to recover Cuba and the Philippines; and after a while, France made her a present of Louisiana. Thus, New France was completely effaced from the map of America; and France proper, while losing almost all her other colonial possessions, saw her maritime power, her military prestige and her political importance disappear. She was now only in the second grade among the nations. On the same level stood Spain, while Portugal had long since ceased to count. Austria had declined and Protestant England and Prussia ruled, while schismatic Russia was looming up in the North.

In Spain, Charles III had succeeded to the throne in 1759. He had previously been King of Naples, where he had reigned not without honor. It is true he made the mistake of accepting Choiseul's "Family Compact" which united the fortunes of Spain with those of the degenerate Bourbons, but he is nevertheless credited with being paternal in his administrations and virtuous in his private life. Unfortunately while in Naples, he had chosen as his minister of finance, the Marquis de Tanucci, a Tuscan who had at an early stage inaugurated a contest with the Holy See on the right of asylum. "But one seeks in vain anything on which to build the exalted reputation which Tanucci enjoyed during life and which clung to him even after death. His financial system was false; for instead of encouraging the arts, perfecting agriculture, building roads, opening canals, establishing manufactures in the fertile country over which he ruled, he did nothing but make it bristle with custom-houses. Men of science, jurists, archæologists, literary and other distinguished men, he left in prison or allowed to starve" (Biographie universelle).

Tanucci's moral character may be inferred from the fact that when entrusted with the regency at Naples, he purposely neglected the education of the crown prince, keeping him aloof from political life, and giving him every opportunity to indulge his passions. He declared war against the Holy See; he restricted the ancient rights of the nuncios; diminished the number of bishoprics; suppressed seventy-eight monasteries; named one of his henchmen Archbishop of Naples, and forbade a ceremonial homage to be paid to the Pope which had been in use ever since the time of Charles of Anjou. He governed the Two Sicilies for fifty years and took with him to the grave the execration of the nobles and the hatred of the people of the Two Kingdoms. Duclos said of him "he was of all the men I ever knew the least fitted to govern."

The Spanish ministers were very numerous and very bad. There was Wall, whom Schoell described as Irish, whereas Ranke deprives him of that distinction by classing him among the political atheists of that time. Of Squillace, little is said except that he was a Neapolitan and probably belonged to one of the branches of the Borgia family. He is the individual whose legislation caused a burlesque disturbance in Madrid about cloaks and sombreros. The Jesuits were falsely accused of being the instigators of the riot and suffered for it in consequence. Finally, after many changes, there came the saturnine and self-sufficient Aranda, "who," says Schoell, "sniffed with pleasure the incense which the French Encyclopedists burned on his altar, and whose greatest glory was to be rated as one of the enemies of the altar and the throne." A former minister of Ferdinand V with the ominous title of the Duke of Alva was his intimate and shared his many schemes in fomenting anti-Jesuitism. Aranda is described as follows, by the Marquis de Langle in his "Voyage en Espagne" (I, 27): "He is the only Spaniard of our time whose name posterity can inscribe on its tablets. He is the man who wanted to cut in the façade of every temple and unite on the same shield the names of Luther, Calvin, Mahomet, William Penn and Jesus Christ; and to proclaim from the frontiers of Navarre to the straits of Cadiz, that Torquemada, Ferdinand and Isabella were blasphemers. He sold altar-furniture, crucifixes and candelabra for bridges, wine-shops and public roads."

In France, conditions were still worse. During a reign of fifty-six years, Louis XV trampled on all the decencies of public and private life. He was the degraded slave of Pompadour, a woman who dictated his policies, named his ministers, appointed his ambassadors, made at least one of his cardinals, and even directed his armies. Her power was so great that the Empress of Austria felt compelled to address her as "ma bonne amie." She was succeeded by du Barry who was taken from a house of debauch. The coarseness of this creature deprived her of much of the power possessed by her predecessor, except that Louis was her slave. It was Pompadour who brought Choiseul out of obscurity to reward him for revealing a plot to make one of his own cousins supplant her in her relations to the king. For that, he was made ambassador to Rome in 1754, where during the last illness of Benedict XIV, he was planning with other ambassadors to interpose the royal vetos in the election of Benedict's successor. Before that event, however, he was sent to Vienna, from which post, he rose successively until he had France completely in his grasp. The "Family Compact" or union of all the Bourbon princes, which was a potent instrument in the war against the Jesuits, was his conception. He was a friend of La Chalotais, one of the arch-enemies of the Society, and was an intimate of Voltaire, whose property at Ferney he exempted from taxation. The spirit of his religious policy consisted in what was then called "an enlightened despotism," or a systematic hatred of everything Christian.

Crétineau-Joly describes him as follows: "He was the ideal gentleman of the eighteenth century. He was controlled by its unbelief, its airs, its vanity, its nobility, its dissoluteness, insolence, courage, and by a levity which would have sacrificed the peace of Europe for an epigram. He was all for show; settling questions which he had merely skimmed over and sniffing the incense offered to him by the Encyclopedists, but shuddering at the thought that they might fancy themselves his teachers. He would admit no master either on the throne or below it. His life's ambition was to govern France and to apply to that sick nation the remedies he had dreamed would restore her to health. He could not do so except by winning public opinion, and for that purpose, he flattered the philosophers, captured the parliament, cringed to Madame de Pompadour and made things pleasant for the king. When he had gathered everyone on his side, he set himself to hunting the Jesuits."

On the throne of Portugal sat Joseph I, of whom, Father Weld in his "Suppression of the Society of Jesus" (p. 91) writes: "Joseph I united all those points of character which were calculated to make him a tool in the hands of a man who had the audacity to assume the command and astuteness to represent himself as a most humble and faithful servant. Timid and weak, like Louis XV, he was easily filled with fear for the safety of his own person, and, to a degree never reached by the French king, was incapable of exerting his own will when advised by any one who had succeeded in gaining his confidence. To this mental weakness, he also added the lamentable failing of being a slave to his own voluptuous passions. It required but little insight into human nature to see that a terrible scourge was in store for Portugal. To the evils of misrule, it pleased God to add other terrible calamities which overwhelmed the country in misery that cannot be described. The licentious habits of his father, John V had already impaired the national standard of morals. The nobility had ceased to visit their estates and had degenerated into a race of mere courtiers. The interests of the common people were neglected by the Government, and almost their only friends were the religious orders." (The Catholic Encyclopedia, XII, 304).

The real master of Portugal in those days was Don Sebastioa José Carvalho, better known as Pombal – the gigantic ex-soldier who, despite his herculean strength and reckless daring, was ignored when there was question of promotion. He left the army in disgust, and by the influence of the queen, Maria of Austria, and that of his uncle, the court chaplain, was sent as ambassador to London and then to Vienna. In both places he was a disastrous failure, probably on account of his brutal manners. Returning to Lisbon, he paid the most obsequious attention to churchmen, especially to the king's confessor, the Jesuit Carbone, who kept continually recommending him until John V bade him never to mention Carvalho's name. To the Marquis of Valenza, who also urged Carvalho's promotion, John said: "that man has hairs in his heart and he comes from a cruel and vindictive family." At the death of John and the retirement of the aged Motta, the former prime minister, the queen regent, who was fond of Carvalho's Austrian wife made Pombal prime minister: and Moreira, another Jesuit confessor, was insistent in proclaiming his wonderful ability. Never was departure from the principles and rules of the religious state by meddling with things outside the sphere of duty so terribly punished. Father Weld, however, when speaking of Moreira, who was a prisoner in Jonquiera, has a note which says that "Moreira protested to the end that he had never uttered a word in favor of Carvalho."

No sooner was Carvalho in power than the violence of his character began to display itself in the sanguinary measures he employed to suppress the brigandage that was rife in the country and even in the capital itself. The nobility, especially, were marked out for punishment; and when public criticism began to be heard, he issued furious edicts against the calumniators of the administration. He suppressed with terrible severity a rising at Porto against a wine-company which he had established there, and began a series of attacks on the most eminent personages of the kingdom. He dismissed in disgrace the minister of the navy, Diego de Mendoza; and de la Cerda, the ambassador to France; as well as John de Braganza, the Marquis of Marialva and many others. He gave the highest positions, ecclesiastical and political, to his relatives; forced the king to sign edicts without reading them, some of which made criticism of the government high treason, and he extended their application even to the ordinances of his minister; he silenced the preachers who spoke of public disasters as punishment of God; and forbade them to publish anything without his approbation. Though he reorganized the navy, he left the army a wreck, lest the nobles might control it. There was no public press in Portugal during his administration, and the mails were distributed only once a week. He encouraged commerce and organized public works, but always to enrich himself and his family. He flung thousands into prison without even the pretence of a trial, and at his downfall in 1782 says the "Encyclopédie catholique," "out of the subterraneous dungeons there issued eight hundred of his victims, the remnants of the nine thousand who had survived their entombment; and a government order was issued declaring that none of the victims living or dead had been guilty of the crimes imputed to them." This was the man who was declared by the Philosophers of the eighteenth century to be "the illuminator of his nation."