The Jesuits, 1534-1921

In this document of the vicar there are some features which are worthy of consideration. The first is that it was not communicated personally to those interested but through the post – and it might have been a forgery. Secondly, it was not correct in saying that it was issued on July 21, 1773. It was signed on July 21 but issued or published only on August 16 of that year, and it was not effective or binding until that date. Thirdly, there was no mention of the renewal of faculties to the superior whose ecclesiastical character had now been completely transformed from that of a religious to a secular priest; and they were thus obliged to presume that they were not suspended and that their power of transmitting faculties was not withdrawn. Fourthly, before the Suppression, the vicar Apostolic had warned the Propaganda that he could do nothing to aid the Maryland missioners, and after the Revolution he refused absolutely to have any communication with them. Thus, there was no possibility of fulfilling the injunction of becoming secular priests, as the Brief enjoined.

As far as the Jesuit habit was concerned there was no difficulty, for there is no distinctive habit in the Society. The Jesuits are ecclesiastically in the rank of "clerici regulares," and can wear the garb of any secular priest, just as they do, at present, in many parts of the world. St. Francis Xavier once wore green silk, and in our own days, the English Jesuit dress is rather an academic gown than a cassock. Again in Maryland and Pennsylvania, there were at that time no secular priests; the missionaries were all Jesuits, and it would have been difficult to get any other ecclesiastical attire. What they wore was, as a matter of fact, used only in ecclesiastical functions. An analogous obstacle presented itself in the name. The people continued to recognize them as Jesuits, and it would have been very imprudent to publicly announce that they were no longer such. There are several letters extant, however, in which the Jesuits advise their friends to drop the S. J. in their correspondence, but that is not unusual even now. Exteriorly, the life of those old Maryland Jesuits continued to be precisely the same as it had always been.

Moreover they retained possession of their property, for unlike the Jesuits of Canada, Illinois and Louisiana, they held their estates by personal, not by corporate title; and regularly deeded their possession by will or transfer from one to another. In Maryland, it was impossible to do otherwise, for the English government did not recognize the Jesuits as constituting a legal association.

Indeed, Challoner informs Talbot that he considered the promulgation of the Brief as enjoined by the Pope would be fraught with serious danger, and hence he was convinced that the method adopted for the extinction of the Jesuits of England and her colonies was the only one possible and that the Pope would be so advised.

A lament from one of the Maryland missionaries may be of interest. Father Mosley is the writer. "I cannot think of it," he says, "without tears in my eyes. Yes, dear Sister, our Body or Factory is dissolved of which your two brothers are members; and for myself, I know I am an unworthy one when I see so many worthy, saintly, pious, learned, laborious missionaries dead and alive who were or who have been members of the same, for the last two ages. I know no fault that we are guilty of. I am convinced that our labors are pure, upright and sincere for God's honor and our neighbor's good. What our Supreme Judge on earth may think of our labors is a mystery to me. It is true he has stigmatized us through the world with infamy, and declared us unfit for our business or his service. Our dissolution is known through the whole world; it is in every newspaper, and I am ashamed to show my face. As we are judged unserviceable, we labor with little heart, and what is worse, by no Rule.

"To my great sorrow, the Society is abolished, and with it must die all the zeal that was founded and raised on it. Labor for our neighbor is a Jesuit's pleasure; destroy the Jesuit and labor is painful and disagreeable. I must allow that what was my pleasure is now irksome. Every fatigue I underwent caused a secret and inward satisfaction; it is now unpleasant and disagreeable. I disregarded this unhealthy climate, and all its agues and fevers which have really paid me to my heart's content, for the sake of my rule. The night was as agreeable as the day; frost and cold as a warm fire and a soft bed; the excessive heats as welcome as a cool shade or pleasant breezes, but now the scene is changed. The Jesuit is metamorphosed into I know not what. He is a monster; a scarecrow in my idea. With joy I impaired my health and broke my constitution in the care of my flock. It was the Jesuit's call; it was his whole aim and business. The Jesuit is no more. He now endeavors to repair his little remains of health and his shattered constitution, as he has no rule calling him to expose it.

"Joseph Mosley, S. J. forever, as I think and hope."

It must have been a very hard trial for the Jesuit vicars Apostolic in the various foreign missions to be the executioners of their own brethren in carrying out this decree. One of these sad scenes occurred in Nankin, where Mgr. Laimbeckhoven, S. J., was vicar. He did not live to see the Restoration, for he died in 1787.

CHAPTER XX

THE SEQUEL TO THE SUPPRESSION

Failure of the Papal Brief to give peace to the Church – Liguori and Tanucci – Joseph II destroying the Church in Austria – Voltaireanism in Portugal – Illness of Clement XIV – Death – Accusations of poisoning – Election of Pius VI – The Synod of Pistoia – Febronianism in Austria – Visit of Pius VI to Joseph II – The Punctation of Ems – Spain, Sardinia, Venice, Sicily in opposition to the Pope – Political collapse in Spain – Fall of Pombal – Liberation of his Victims – Protest of de Guzman – Death of Joseph II – Occupations of the dispersed Jesuits – The Theologia Wiceburgensis – Feller – Beauregard's Prophecy – Zaccaria – Tiraboschi – Boscovich – Missionaries – Denunciation of the Suppression in the French Assembly – Slain in the French Revolution – Destitute Jesuits in Poland – Shelter in Russia.

Clement XIV did not give peace to the Church as he had hoped. On the contrary, distressing scandals were continually occurring in the Holy City itself under his very eyes. Infamous books and pamphlets directed against the Church were hawked about the streets, and actors and buffoons parodied the most sacred ceremonies in the public squares. Elsewhere the same conditions obtained. Tanucci who had governed Naples for over forty years was continuing his ruthless persecution of every thing holy, and enriching himself by the spoliation of ecclesiastical property. Even St. Alphonsus Liguori could not obtain from the Pope the recognition of the Redemptorists as a congregation because Tanucci opposed it. Doctrinal views leading to schism in the Church were openly advocated in the schools and universities of Austria, in spite of the entreaties and threats of the Sovereign Pontiff. Maria Theresa had proved feeble or false, and her son Joseph II was in league with the Bourbon princes in their work of destruction. In Portugal, Pombal was still raging like a wild beast; filling the schools with the disciples of Voltaire, flouting the papal nuncio, and keeping in dark and filthy dungeons the members of the detested Order which he had exterminated. The Philosophers and Jansenists were rejoicing in their triumph, and were suppressing all religious communities and seizing their property; the morality and orthodoxy of Poland were being rapidly corrupted; Catherine of Russia was creating bishops and establishing sees as the fancy prompted her, and Freemason lodges were multiplying all over Europe. Worst of all, the Pope's own household with but few exceptions kept aloof from him and were silent about what he had done, while many bishops of various countries of Europe and the entire episcopacy of France endorsed the sentiments expressed in the terrible letter of the Archbishop of Paris, denouncing the Suppression.

Ineffably shocked by all this, the Pope began to show signs of depression, and everyone was in consternation. St. Alphonsus Liguori, especially, was anxious about him and kept continually repeating: "Pray for the Pope; he is distressed; for there is nowhere the slightest glimmer of peace for the Church. He is praying for death, so crushed is he by the sorrows that are overwhelming the Church; he remains continually in seclusion; gives audience to no one; and attends to no business. I have heard things about him from those who are at Rome that would bring tears to your eyes." His mind was unbalanced, and one of his successors, Pius VII, related later what he had been told by a prelate who was present at the signing of the fatal Brief: "As soon as he had affixed his signature to the paper he threw the pen to one side and the paper to the other. He had lost his mind." Before that, Pius had said the same thing to Cardinal Pacca at Fontainebleau, when in an agony of remorse for having signed the Concordat with Napoleon: "I cannot get the cruel thought out of my mind. I cannot sleep at night and I am haunted by the fear of going mad and ending like Clement XIV." Another writer who received his information from Gregory XVI tells the same sad story (de Ravignan, Clément XIII et Clément XIV, I, 452). St. Alphonsus Liguori was with the Pope when he died, but according to a Redemptorist writer, it was "in spirit," and not by bodily bilocation. The end came in September 22, 1774, thirteen months after the unfortunate Brief was issued.

Of course, when he died, the report went abroad that the Jesuits had poisoned him, by administering a dose of aqua toffana, but although no one has ever found out what aqua toffana is or was, and as there were no Jesuits in Rome at the time, the story was nevertheless believed by many and was adduced as a proof of the wisdom of the Pope in suppressing the iniquitous organization. The Jansenists even made a saint of the dead Pontiff and circulated marvellous romances about the incorruption of his body and the miracles that were wrought at his tomb.

Cantù in his "Storia dei cent' anni" says that "the Pope whose health and mind were grievously affected, died in delirium, haunted by phantoms, and begging for pardon. It was claimed that he had been poisoned by the Jesuits, but the truth is that the physicians found no trace of poison in the body. Had the Jesuits possessed the power or the will to do so, one might ask why they did not do it before and not after Clement had struck them. But passion often makes light of common sense." The post-mortem which was made in the presence of a great many people showed that the sickness to which he had succumbed arose from scorbutic and hemorrhoidal conditions from which he had been suffering for many years, and which were aggravated by excessive work and the system he had followed of producing artificial perspiration even in the heats of summer."

The poor Pope had exclaimed before he signed the Brief: "Questa soppressione mi darà la morte" (this suppression will kill me.) "After it," says Saint-Priest in his 'Chute des Jésuites,' "he would pace his apartments in agony, crying: 'Mercy! Mercy! They forced me to do it. Compulsus feci.' However, at the last moment his reason returned. He showed his indignation at a proposal made to him even then, to raise some of the enemies of the Society to the cardinalate and drove them from his bedside with loathing.

Bernis, the French ambassador at Rome, wrote to Louis XV that "the Vicar of Christ prayed like the Redeemer for his implacable enemies," and insinuated that he was poisoned. Knowing this d'Alembert warned Frederick II to be on his guard against a similar fate, but the king replied: "There is nothing more false than the story of the poisoning; the truth is that he was profoundly hurt by the coldness manifested by the cardinals and he often reproached himself, for having sacrificed an Order like that of the Jesuits, to satisfy the whim of his rebellious children." Becantini (Storia di Pio VI, i, 31) says: "Nowadays no one believes the story of the poisoning of Clement XIV. Even Bernis who first stood for it, afterwards disavowed it." Cancelleri one of the most distinguished savants of Italy denies the fact; so does Gavani, a bitter enemy of the Church and the Society. Finally, Salcetto the physician of the Apostolic palace, and Adinolfi the Pope's own doctor, in their official report to the majordomo, Archinto, declare it to have been an absolutely natural death and they explain that the corruption which set in was due to the excessive heat that prevailed at the time.

It was even said that the Pope had expressed to the General of the Conventuals, Marzoni, a fear that he had been poisoned. Whereupon Marzoni caused the following statement to be published:

"I, the undersigned Minister General of the Order of the Conventuals of St. Francis, fully aware that by my oath I call the sovereign and true God to witness what I say; and being certain of what I say, I now without any constraint and in the presence of God who knows that I do not lie, do by these words, which are absolutely true, and which I write and trace with my own hand, swear and attest to the whole universe, that never in any circumstance whatever did Clement XIV ever say to me either that he had been poisoned or that he felt the slightest symptom of poison. I swear also that I never said to any one soever that the same Clement XIV assured me in confidence that he had been poisoned or had felt the effects of poison. So help me God.

"Given in the Convent of the Twelve Apostles at Rome July 27, 1775.

"I, Bro. Louis-Maria Marzoni

"Minister General of the Order."

Thus Clement XIV, far from giving peace to the Church, left a heritage of woe to his successor, Angelo Braschi, who was elected Pope on February 15, 1775, and took the name of Pius VI. The new Pope was painfully conscious that an error had been committed by suppressing an Order without trial and without even condemnation, and that a reflection had been cast upon a great number of Pontiffs who had been unstinted in their praise of it, no one more so than Clement's immediate predecessor. The act had also given to the Jansenists a terrific instrument in the implied approval of them by the Sovereign Pontiff. They became more aggressive than ever and organized their forces to introduce their doctrines into Italy itself.

By a curious coincidence the leader of the movement was of the same family as the General of the suppressed Jesuits: Scipio Ricci, the Bishop of Pistoia. Supporting him in the civic world was the Grand Duke of Tuscany who was the brother of Joseph II of Austria. Ricci convened the famous Synod of Pistoia, on July 31, 1786. No doubt July 31 was chosen purposely; it was the feast of St. Ignatius. There were 247 members in attendance, all exclusively Jansenists and regalists. The four Gallican Articles were endorsed and among the measures was that of conferring the right on the civil authority to create matrimonial impediments. It advocated the reduction of all religious orders to one; the abolition of perpetual vows; a vernacular liturgy; the removal of all altars but one from the church; etc. The Acts of the synod were promulgated with the royal imprimatur. Indeed Pius VI found himself compelled to condemn eighty-five of the synod's propositions.

Worse than this was the Febronianism of Austria, which went far beyond the Gallicanism of France or Italy in its rebellious aggressiveness. It maintained that the primacy of Rome had no basis in the authority of Christ; that the papacy was not restricted to Rome, but could be placed anywhere; that Rome was merely a centre with which the individual churches could be united; that the papal power was simply administrative and unifying and not jurisdictional; that the papal power of condemning heresies, confirming episcopal elections, naming coadjutors, transferring and removing bishops, erecting primatial sees, etc., all rested on the False Decretals. It was maintained that the Pope could issue no decrees for the Universal Church, and that even the decrees of general councils were not binding until approved of by the individual churches.

In vain Clement XIV had begged Maria Theresa to check the movement. She was absolutely in the power of her son Joseph II, whose very first ordinances forbade the reception of papal decrees without the government's sanction. The bishops, he ruled, were not to apply to the Pope for faculties; they could not even issue instructions to their own flocks without permission of the civil authority. He established parishes, assigned fast days, determined the number of Masses to be said, and sermons to be preached. He even decided how many candles were to be lighted on the altar; he made marriage a civil contract and abolished ecclesiastical ceremonies.

In the hope that a personal appeal might avail, the Pope determined to make a journey to Vienna to entreat the emperor to desist. He arrived there on March 22, 1782, and was courteously received by Joseph himself, but brutally by his minister, Kaunitz, who forbade any ecclesiastic to present himself in the city while the Pope was there. Pius remained a month in the capital and succeeded only in extracting a promise that nothing would be done against the Faith or the respect due the Holy See. How far the royal word was kept may be inferred from the fact that after accompanying the Pope as far as the Monastery of Marianbrunn Joseph suppressed that establishment an hour after the Pope had resumed his journey to Rome.

In Germany the three ecclesiastical Electors of Mayence, Treves and Cologne with the Archbishop of Salzburg met in a convention at Ems in 1786, and attempted to curtail the powers of the Pope in dealing with bishops. That assembly was also strongly Jansenistic. Thirty-one of its articles were directed against the Pope. Pacca, the papal nuncio, was not even received by the Archbishop of Cologne, and three of the Elector bishops refused to honor his credentials. The famous "Punctation of Ems," which consisted of twenty-three articles, declared that German archbishops were independent of Rome, because of the "False Decretals." They pronounced for an abolition of all direct communication with Rome; all monasteries were to be subject to the bishops; religious orders were to have no superior generals residing outside of Germany; Rome's exclusive power of granting faculties was denied; Papal Bulls were binding only after the bishop of the diocese had given his placet; all Apostolic nunciatures were to be abolished, etc. In brief, the synod, or "Congress" as it was called, aimed at establishing a schismatical church. But the Pope's remarkable letter to the dissidents and the progress of the French Revolution, which was then raging furiously, prevented the application anywhere of the doctrines put forth at the meeting.

Spain, Sardinia, Venice and Sicily were all in this movement against the Church, and Ferdinand IV of Sicily claimed the right of appointment to all ecclesiastical benefices, as well as the power to nullify all Papal Briefs which had not received his approval.

Nor did the Brief of Suppression contribute to the political stability of the nations. In Naples, for example, Tanucci was flung from power when the young king married an archduchess of Austria; so that he disappeared from the scene three years after the suppression of the Society. In 1798 the Bourbons fled from Naples; the city was given over to a mob directed by an innkeeper called Michael the Madman; the Duke della Torre and his brother were burned alive in the public square; the Senate was dissolved; the palaces were pillaged; a republic was proclaimed and the whole Peninsula of Italy fell into the hands of the French.

Charles III of Spain died in 1788, and was succeeded by Charles IV, whom Arnado describes as more deficient in character and ability than his father. The rude Florida Blanca, who was so conspicuous for his brutality in terrorizing Clement XIV, was thrown out of office by the inept Godoy, who allied Spain with France against England, and brought on the disaster of Trafalgar. The king was driven from his throne and country by his rebellious son, Ferdinand, and then laid his royal crown at the feet of Napoleon Bonaparte. Since that time, the country has been in a ferment because its politics are filled with the ideas of the French Revolution and of English Liberalism.

In Portugal, retribution came at a rapid pace. Pombal fell from power in 1777 on the death of the king. He had been detected in a plot to have the young Prince of Beira succeed to the throne to the exclusion of Queen Maria. It was possibly with the same end in view that he had endeavored to start a war with Spain. He had seized Spanish posts in America, mobilized troops and fortified Lisbon, but hostilities were never declared. Queen Maria's first act at her accession was to open Pombal's dungeons. Eight hundred men of all classes issued from these sepulchres in which some of them had been for eighteen years without a trial. They were like ghosts; emaciated; hollow-eyed and ghastly; some were sightless, many were half-naked. Among them were sixty Jesuits. The populace were so infuriated at the horrible spectacle that Pombal feared to venture into the street. He might have been torn to pieces, and he was conducted under guard to his country estates. Father Oliviera, the confessor of the queen, was installed in court, and the venerable Father de Guzman issued the following statement to the public:

"At the age of eighty-one and at the point of appearing before the tribunal of Divine Justice, John de Guzman, the last assistant of the Society of Jesus, for the provinces and dominions of Portugal, would believe himself guilty of an unpardonable sin of omission, if, in neglecting to have recourse to the throne of Your Majesty where clemency and justice reign, he did not place at your feet, this humble petition in the name of six hundred subjects of Your Majesty, the unfortunate remnants of a wrong inflicted on them.

"He entreats Your Majesty by the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, by that tender love which Your Majesty bears to the August Queen, His mother, and to the illustrious King Don Pedro, to the princes and princesses of the royal family, that you would deign and even command that the trial of so many of the faithful subjects of Your Majesty, who have been branded with infamy in the eyes of the world, be now reviewed. They are groaning under the accusation of having committed outrages and crimes which the very savages would shrink from even imagining, and which no human heart could ever conceive. They lament and moan that they were condemned without even having been brought to trial, without being heard and without being allowed to make any defense. Those who have now issued from prison are all in accord in this matter, and unanimously attest, that during all the time of their imprisonment, they have not even seen the face of any judge.

"On his part, your suppliant, who is now making this appeal, and who for many years occupied a position where he could acquire an intimate knowledge of what was going on, is ready to swear in the most solemn manner, that the superiors and members of the Spanish assistancy of the Society of Jesus were without reproach. He and all the other exiles are ready to undergo sufferings more rigorous than any to which they have hitherto been subjected, if a single individual has ever been guilty of the least crime against the State.

"Moreover, your suppliant and his brethren, the chief superiors of the Society, have been examined in Rome, again and again, in the most searching manner, and have been declared innocent. Pope Pius VI, now gloriously reigning, has seen the minutes of those investigations, and Your Majesty will find in that great Pontiff an enlightened witness whose integrity nothing on earth can equal; and at the same time you will find a judge who could not commit a wrong without rendering himself guilty of an unparalleled iniquity.

"Deign, then, Your Majesty, to extend to us that clemency which belongs to you as does your throne; deign to hearken to the prayers of so many unfortunates, whose innocence has been proven, and who have never ceased in the midst of their sufferings to be the faithful subjects of Your Majesty; and who could never falter or fail an instant, in the love that they have from childhood entertained for the royal family."