The Jesuits, 1534-1921

Nor was there much comfort to be hoped for in Austria. Maria Theresa was undoubtedly pious, kind hearted and devoted to her people, but as ruler is very much overrated. Her advisers were commonly the men who were plotting the ruin of all existing governments – Jansenists and Freethinkers. Even her court physicians were close allies of the schismatical Jansenist Archbishop of Utrecht, and they made liberal and constant use of the great esteem they enjoyed at Vienna to foment hostility to the Holy See. They even succeeded in persuading the empress, though they were only laymen, to appoint a commission for the reform of theological teaching in the seminaries; and one of their friends, de Stock, was appointed to direct the work. The Jesuits were removed from the professorships of divinity and canon law; lay professors were appointed in their stead by the politicians, in spite of the protests of the bishops; and books were published in direct opposition to orthodox teaching. At this time appeared the famous treatise known as "Febronius" by Hontheim, a suffragan bishop of Treves, who thus prepared for the coming of Joseph II. The universities were quickly infected with his doctrines; and new schools were established at Bonn and Münster out of the money of suppressed convents in order to accelerate the spread of the poison. When the University of Cologne protested, it was punished for its temerity.

It goes without saying that if Maria Theresa, with her strong Catholic instincts, was so easy to control, it was not difficult for the statesmen who governed France, Spain, Portugal and Italy to carry out their nefarious schemes against the Church. The Free-masons were hard at work, and immoral and atheistic literature was spread broadcast. It had already made ravages among the aristocracy and the middle classes, and now the grades below were being deeply gangrened. Cardinal Pacca writing about a period immediately subsequent to this, says: "In the time of my two nunciatures at Cologne and Lisbon, I had occasion to become acquainted with the greater part of the French émigrés, and I regret to say that, with the exception of a few gentlemen from the Provinces, they all made open profession of the philosophical maxims which had brought about the catastrophe of which they were the first victims. They admitted, at times, in their lucid moments, that the overturning of the altar had dragged down the throne; and that it was the pretended intellectuality of the Freethinkers that had introduced into the minds of the people the new ideas of liberty and equality, which had such fatal consequence for them. Nevertheless, they persisted in their errors and even endeavored to spread them both orally and by the most abominable publications. God grant that these seeds of impiety, flung broadcast on a still virgin soil, may not produce more bitter and more poisonous fruit for the Church and the Portuguese monarchy." The editor of the "Memoirs" adds in a note: "They have only too well succeeded in producing the fruit."

"I remember," continues Pacca, "that during my nunciature at Cologne, some of these distinguished "emigrés" determined to have a funeral service for Marie Antoinette, not out of any religious sentiment, but merely to conform to the fashion followed in the courts of Europe. I was invited and was present. The priest who sang the Mass preached the eulogy of the dead queen. In his discourse which did not lack either eloquence or solidity, he enumerated the causes of the French Revolution, and instanced chiefly the irreligious doctrines taught by the philosophy of the period. This undeniable proposition evoked loud murmurs of discontent in the congregation, which was almost exclusively composed of Frenchmen; and when the orator said that Marie Antoinette was one of the first victims of modern philosophy, a voice was heard far down in the church crying out in the most insulting fashion: 'That's not true.'" When laymen who professed to be Catholics were so blind to patent facts and would dare to conduct themselves so disgracefully in a church at a funeral service for their murdered queen, there was no hope of appealing to them to stand up for truth and justice in the political world.

The hierarchy throughout the Church was devoted to the Society, but it could only protest. And hence as soon as the first signs appeared of the determination to destroy the Order, letters and appeals, full of tender affection and of unstinted praise for the victims, poured into Rome from bishops all over the world. There were at least two hundred sent to Clement XIII, but many of them were either lost or purposely destroyed, as soon as the great Pontiff breathed his last. Father Lagomarsni found many of them which he intended to publish but, for one reason or another, did not do so.

Some of these papers, however have been reproduced by de Ravignan, in his "Clément XIII et Clément XIV." They fill more than a hundred pages of his second volume, and he chose only those that came from the most important sees in the Church, such as the three German Archbishoprics of Treves, Cologne and Mayence, whose prelates were prince electors of the empire. There are also appeals from Cardinal Lamberg the Prince-Bishop of Passau, from the Primate of Germany, the Archbishop of Salzburg, the Primates of Bohemia, of Hungary, and of Ireland. The Archbishop of Armagh says "he lived with the Jesuits from childhood, and loved and admired them." There are letters from the Cardinal Archbishop of Turin; the Archbishops of Messina, Monreale, Sorrento, Seville, Compostella, Tarragona, and even from the far north, – from Norway and Denmark, where the vicar-Apostolic begs the Pope to save those distant countries from the ruin which will certainly fall on them if the Jesuits are withdrawn. They are all dated between the years 1758 and 1760. The Polish Bishop of Kiew begs the Pope to stand "like a wall of brass" against the enemies of the Society, which he calls a religiosissimus cætus. For the Bishops of Lombez, it is the dilectissima Societas Jesu, quæ concussa, confugit in sinum nostrum – "the most beloved Society of Jesus which, when struck, rushed to our arms." The Bishop of Narbonne declares: "It is known and admitted through all the world that the Society of Jesus, which is worthy of all respect, has never ceased to render services to the Church in every part of the world. There never was an order whose sons have fulfilled the duties of the sacred ministry with more burning, pure and intelligent zeal. Nothing could check their zeal; and the most furious storm only displayed the constancy and solidity of their virtue." Du Guesclin denounces the persecution as "atrocious; the like of which was never heard of before." "I omit," says the Archbishop of Auch, "an infinite number of things which redound to their praise." The Bishop of Malaga recalls how Clement VIII described them as "the right arm of the Holy See." The Archbishop of Salzburg bitterly resents "the calumnious and defamatory charges against them." And, so, in each one of these communications to the Holy Father, there is nothing but praise for the victims and indignant denunciations of their executioners.

The three Pontiffs who occupied the Chair of St. Peter at that period were Benedict XIV, Clement XIII and Clement XIV. Benedict died on May 3, 1758, eighteen days before Father Ricci was elected General. Clement XIII was the ardent defender of the Society during the ten stormy years of his pontificate; and finally Clement XIV yielded to the enemy and put his name to the Brief which legislated the Order out of existence.

Perhaps there never was a Pope who enjoyed such universal popularity as the brilliant Benedict XIV. His attractive personality, his great ability as a writer, his readiness to go to all lengths in the way of concession, elicited praise even from heretics, Turks and unbelievers. As regards his attitude to the Society, there can be no possible doubt that he entertained for it not only admiration, but great affection. He had been a pupil in its schools, and had always shown its members the greatest honor. He defended it against its enemies, and lavished praise again and again on the Institute. It is true that he re-affirmed the Bulls of his predecessor condemning the Malabar and Chinese Rites, but he denied indignantly that he was thereby explicitly condemning the Jesuits. It is also true that he appointed Saldanha, at the request of Pombal, to investigate the Jesuit houses in Portugal; but in the first place, that permission was wrung from him when he was a dying man; and there is no doubt whatever that in doing so, he was convinced that the concession would propitiate Pombal and not injure the Jesuits, whose conduct he knew to be without reproach. Moreover, he had put as a proviso in the Brief that Saldanha who, though the Pope was unaware of it, was an agent of Pombal, should not publish any grievous charge if any such were to be formulated, but should refer it to Rome for judgment. Finally, as the Brief was signed on April 1, 1758, and as the Pope died on May 3, Saldanha's powers ceased. That however, did not trouble him and he did everything that Pombal bade him to do, to defame and destroy the Society. He was not Benedict's agent.

Far from being prejudiced against the Society, Benedict XIV did nothing but bestow praise on it during all his long pontificate. In 1746 in the Bull "Devotam," he says that "it has rendered the greatest services to the Church and has ever been governed with as much success as prudence." In 1748 the "Præclairs" declared that "these Religious are everywhere regarded as the good odor of Jesus Christ, and are so in effect," and, in the same year, the Bull "Constantem" affirmed that "they give to the world examples of religious virtue and profound science." Benedict died in the arms of the Jesuit, Father Pepe, his confessor and friend.

Clement XIII, whose name was Carlo della Torre Rezzonico, was born at Venice, March 7, 1693; after studying with the Jesuits at Bologna, he was appointed referendary of the tribunal known as the Segnatura di Giustizia, and later became Governor of Rieti, cardinal-deacon and in 1743 Bishop of Padua. He was called a saint by his people; in spite of the vast revenues of his diocese, he was always in want for he gave everything to the poor, even the shirt on his back. On July 5, 1758, he was elected Pope to succeed Benedict XIV. The first shock he received as head of the Church was in 1758 from Pombal, who insulted him by sending back an extremely courteous letter which the Pontiff had written in answer to a demand for leave to punish three Jesuits who happened to know a nobleman against whom a charge had been lodged of attempting to assassinate the king. Pombal followed up the outrage by flinging all the exiled Jesuits on the Papal States; and then, in 1760, by dismissing the Papal ambassador from Lisbon. In 1761 Pope Clement wrote to Louis XV of France, imploring him to stop the proceedings against the Jesuits: in 1762 he protested against the proposed suppression of the Society in France; and in 1764 he denounced the government programme which he declared was an assault upon the Church itself.

Spain was guilty of the next outrage when, in 1767, Charles III imitated Pombal by expelling the Jesuits and deporting them to Civita Vecchia: and then refusing to answer a letter of the Pope who asked for an explanation of the proceeding. Naples and Parma insulted him in a similar fashion. And to add injury to outrage, the Bourbon coalition seized the Papal possessions of Avignon and Venaissin in France, and Benevento and Montecorvo in Italy. Finally, when Spain, France and Naples sent him a joint note demanding the universal suppression of the Society, he died of grief on February 3, 1769. He was then seventy-five years old, and had governed the Church for ten years, six months and twenty-six days. Canova, one of the last of the Jesuit pupils, built his monument, putting at the feet of the Pontiff two lions – one asleep, the other erect and ready for the combat. It was a representation in the mind of the sculptor portraying the meekness of Clement, combined with an indomitable courage which defied the kings of Europe who were attacking the Church.

De Ravignan says of him: "Not because I am a Jesuit, but independently of that affiliation, I regard Clement XIII as endowed with the most genuine traits of grandeur and glory that ever shone in the most illustrious popes. He brings back to me the lineaments of Innocent III, of Gregory VII, of Pius V, of Clement XI. Like them he had to fight; like them he had to face the powers of earth in league against the Church; like them he knew how to unite the most inflexible firmness with the most patient moderation. Alone, as it were, in the midst of a Christendom that was conspiring against the Chair of Peter, he suffered and moaned, but he fought. He was not a politician; he was a Pope. As a worthy successor of St. Peter, he stood solidly on the indestructible rock. Always in the presence of God and his duty, when every earthly interest and when the most appealing entreaties seemed to suggest to him to be silent and to yield basely, he heard within his soul the strong voice of the Church, which can never relinquish the rights with which heaven has invested it; and neither threats, nor outrages, nor spoliations nor sacrilegious assaults availed to bend his resolution to resist, or induced him to display any suspicion of feebleness for a single instant. Until he died, Clement fulfilled the august mission of a Supreme Pontiff. He fought for the Church though it cost him his life. His death was really that of a martyr."

The successor of Clement XIII was not so heroic. He was Lorenzo or Giovanni Antonio Ganganelli. He was born at Sant' Archangelo near Rimini on October 31, 1705; and received his education from the Jesuits at Rimini and from the Piarists at Urbano. At the age of nineteen, he entered the order of the Minor Conventuals, and changed his baptismal name of Giovanni to Lorenzo. His talents and virtue raised him to the dignity of definitor generalis of his order in 1741. Benedict XIV made him consultor of the Holy Office, and Clement XIII gave him the cardinal's hat at the instance, it is said, of Father Ricci, the General of the Jesuits. On May 18, 1769, he was elected Pope by 46 out of 47 votes. By eliminating a great number of possible cardinals, the veto power of the Catholic kings had restricted the choice of a Pope to four out of the forty-seven in the Sacred College. In the beginning of his career, Ganganelli was extremely favorable to the Jesuits: but when he was made a cardinal, a change of disposition manifested itself, although in giving him the honor, Clement XIII had said that he was "a Jesuit in the disguise of a Franciscan." Once on the Papal throne, he refused even Father Ricci an audience, possibly through fear of the Great Powers; for, before Clement's accession the work of the destruction had already begun, and the new Pope found himself in the centre of a whirlwind. It was now clear that the Society could never weather the storm.

CHAPTER XIV

POMBAL

Early life – Ambitions – Portuguese Missions – Seizure of the Spanish Reductions. Expulsion of the Missionaries – End of the Missions in Brazil – War against the Society in Portugal – The Jesuit Republic – Cardinal Saldanha – Seizure of Churches and Colleges – The Assassination Plot – The Prisons – Exiles – Execution of Malagrida.

The first conspirator who set to work to carry out the plot to destroy the Society, which had long been planned by the powers, was, as might be expected, the ruthless Pombal. He was more shameless and savage than his associates and would adopt any method to accomplish his purpose. The insensate fury which possessed his whole being against the Society is explained by Cardinal Pacca, who was Papal nuncio in Lisbon shortly after Pombal's fall (Notizie sul Portogallo, 10). He writes: "Pombal began his diplomatic career in Germany where he probably drank in those principles of aversion to the Holy See and the religious orders, which, when afterwards put in practice, merited for him from the irreligious philosophers the title of a great minister, and an illuminator of his nation; from good people, however, that of a vile instrument of the sects at war with the Church. Having obtained the office of prime minister, he made himself master of the mind of the king, Don Joseph; and for a quarter of a century governed the kingdom as a despot.

"To wage war against the Holy See, and to oppress the clergy, he adopted the measures and employed the arms which, in the hands of the irreligious men of our time, have done and are still doing harm and inflicting grievous wounds on the Church. He corrupted and perverted public education in the schools and universities, especially in Coimbra which soon became a centre of moral pestilence. He took from the hands of the youth of the kingdom the sound doctrinal works which they had so far been made to study; and substituted schismatical and heretical publications such as Dupin's 'De antiqua ecclesia' which had been condemned by Innocent XII; and Hontheim's 'Febronius' condemned by Clement XIII. He also brought into Portugal the works of the régalists, and excluded those writers who maintained the rights and authority of the Holy See, in defence of which he would not allow a word to be uttered. And to the horror of all decent people, he imprisoned in a loathsome dungeon a holy and venerable bishop who had warned his flock against those pernicious publications. Meantime the notorious Oratorian Pereira, who was condemned by the Index, and others who flattered him were remunerated for their writings and could print whatever they liked. He was a Jansenist who, in the perfidious fashion of the sect, exalted the authority of the bishops in order to diminish that of the Pope; and enlarged the authority of kings in church matters to such an extent that the system differed very little from that of the Protestant Anglican Church. Queen Marìa, who succeeded Joseph on the throne, did much to improve conditions; but did not undo all the harm that Pombal had already inflicted on the nation. Disguised Anglicanism continued to exist in Portugal."

Father Weld adds his own judgment to that of the cardinal, and tells us that "the bias in Pombal's nature may be traced to his English associations when he was ambassador in London." He advances this view, probably because of a note of Pacca's, who says that he could venture no opinion about the influence of England on Pombal, merely for want of documents on that point. The author of the "Memoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique du xviiie siècle" assures us that Pombal's purpose was to extend his reforms even into the bosom of the Church; to change, to destroy; to subject the bishops to his will; to declare himself an enemy of the Holy See; to protect authors hostile to the Holy See; to encourage publications savoring of novelty; to favor in Portugal a theological instruction quite different from what had been adopted previous to his time; and finally to open the way to a pernicious teaching in a country which until then had enjoyed religious peace.

This scheme did not restrict itself to a religious propaganda but got into the domain of politics; for the author of the "Vita di Pombal" (I, 145) notes the report, which is confirmed by the "Memoria Catholica secunda" that "Pombal had formed the design of marrying the Princess Marìa to the Duke of Cumberland, the butcher of Culloden – but that this was thwarted by the Jesuit confessor of the king." On this point the Maréchal de Belle Isle writes (Testament politique, 108): "It is known that the Duke of Cumberland looked forward to becoming King of Portugal, and I doubt not he would have succeeded, if the Jesuit confessors of the royal family had not been opposed to it. This crime was never forgiven the Portuguese Jesuits."

Whatever the truth may be about these royal schemes, Pombal soon found his chance to wreak his vengeance on the Society for balking his plans of making Portugal a Protestant country. A scatter-brained individual, named Pereira, who lived at Rio Janerio, raised the cry which may have been suggested to him, that the Jesuits of the Reductions excluded white intercourse with the natives because of the valuable gold mines they possessed; and that it would be a proper and, indeed, a most commendable thing in the interests of religion for the government to seize this source of wealth, and thus compel the Jesuits who controlled that territory to live up to the holiness of their profession. It was also added that the missions were little else than a great commercial speculation; and finally that the ultimate design of the Society was to make a Republic of Paraguay, independent of the mother country.

These three charges had been reiterated over and over again ever since the foundation of the Reductions, and had been just as often refuted and officially denied after the most vigorous investigation. But there was a man now in control of Portugal who would not be biased by any religious sentiment or regard for truth, if he could injure the Society. The first step was to transfer the aforesaid missions to Portuguese control. They all lay on the east shore of the Uruguay, and belonged to Spain. Hence, in 1750, a treaty was made between Spain and Portugal, to concede to Spain the undisputed control of the rich colony of San Sacramento, at the mouth of the River La Plata, in exchange for the territory, in which lay the seven Reductions of St. Michael, St. Lawrence, St. Aloysius, St. John, St. Francis Borgia, Holy Angels and St. Nicholas. According to the treaty, it was stipulated that the Portuguese should take immediate possession and fling out into the world, they did not care where, the 30,000 Indians who had built villages in the country, and were peacefully cultivating their farms, and who by the uprightness and purity of their lives were giving to the world and to all times an example of what Muratori calls a Cristianesimo felice.

To add to the brutality of the act, the Fathers themselves were ordered to announce to the Indians the order to vacate. Representations were made by the Spanish Viceroy of Peru, the Royal Audiencia of Charcas and various civil and ecclesiastical authorities of Spain that not only was this seizure a most atrocious violation of justice which could not be carried out except by bloodshed, no one could say to what extent, but that it was giving up the property of the Indians to their bitterest enemies, the Portuguese. For it was precisely to avoid the Mamelukes of Brazil that the Reductions had been originally created. Moreover, it would almost compel the Indians to conclude that the Fathers had betrayed them, and that they were not only parties to, but instigators of, the whole scheme of spoliation. Southey, in his "History of Brazil," denounces it as "one of the most tyrannical commands that were ever issued, in the recklessness of unfeeling power," and says that "the weak Ferdinand VI had no idea of the importance of the treaty."

The Jesuits appealed; but they were, of course, unheeded; and the Father General Visconti ordered them to submit without a murmur. Unfortunately, the commissioner Father Altamirano, whom he sent out was a bad choice. He was hot-headed and imperious; and according to Father Huonder (The Catholic Encyclopedia) actually treated his fellow Jesuits as rebels, when they advised him to proceed with moderation. Perhaps the fact that he was the representative of the king, as well as of the General, affected him; at all events the Indians would have killed him if he had not fled. Ten years would not have sufficed for a transfer of such a vast multitude with their women and children, and the old and infirm, not to speak of the herds and flocks and farming implements and household furniture, yet they were ordered to decamp within thirty days. Pombal would soon treat his Jesuit fellow countrymen as he had treated the Indians.

When, at last, the cruel edict was published, all the savage instincts of the Indians awoke, and it seemed for a time as if the missionaries would be massacred. It speaks well for the solid Christian training that had been given to these children of the forest that they at last consented to consider the matter at all. Some of the caciques were actually won over to the advisability of the measure, and started out with several hundred exiles to find a new home in the wilderness. A number of the children and the sick succumbed on the way. When, at last they found a place in the mountains of Quanai, they were attacked by hostile tribes. They resisted for a while, but finally returned in despair to their former abode. To make matters worse, the Bishop of Paraguay notified the Fathers that if they did not obey, they would be ipso facto suspended. "Whereas," says Weld, "if the Fathers really wished to oppose the government, a single sign from them would have sent an army of fifty thousand men to resist the Europeans; but owing to their fidelity and incredible exertions, there were never as many as seven hundred men in the field against the united armies of Spain and Portugal when hostilities at last broke out."