The Jesuits, 1534-1921

In Austria, the Jesuits were expelled in the month of April. The community of Innsbruck, which is in the Tyrol, held together for some time, but finally drifted off to France or America or Australia or elsewhere. The emperor signed the decree on May 7, 1848. It applied also to Galicia, Switzerland, and Silesia, and the Jesuit houses all disappeared in those parts.

What happened to the Jesuits in France in the meantime? Nothing whatever. They had obeyed the General in 1845, and had simply kept their activities out of sight. They did not wait for the Revolution, and hence although the "Journal des Débats," announced officially, on October 18, 1845, that "at the present moment there are no more Jesuits in France," there were a great many. Indeed, the catalogues of 1846 and 1847 were issued as usual, not in print, however, but in lithograph, and as if they felt perfectly free in 1848, the catalogue of that year appeared in printed form. Meantime de Ravignan was giving conferences in Notre-Dame, and preaching all over the country. The only change the Fathers made was to transport two of their establishments beyond the frontiers. Thus a college was organized at Brugelette in Belgium and a novitiate at Issenheim. The scholasticate of Laval continued as usual. What was done in the province of Paris was identical with that of Lyons. For a year or so the catalogues were lithographed but after that they appeared in the usual form.

For two years Father Roothaan journeyed from place to place through France, Belgium, Holland, England, and Ireland, and in 1850 returned to Rome. The storm had spent itself, and the ruins it had caused were rapidly repaired, at least in France, where the Falloux Law, which was passed in 1850, permitted freedom of education, and the Fathers hastened to avail themselves of the opportunity to establish colleges throughout the country.

Elsewhere, however, other conditions prevailed. In 1851 there was a dispersion in Spain; in 1859 the provinces of Venice and Turin were disrupted and the members were distributed through the fifteen other provinces of the Society. In 1860 the arrival of Garibaldi had already made an end of the Jesuits in Naples and Sicily. The wreckage was considerable, and from a complaint presented to King Victor Emmanuel by Father Beckx, it appears that the Society had lost three establishments in Lombardy; in Modena, six; in Sardinia, eleven; in Naples, nineteen, and in Sicily, fifteen. Fifteen hundred Jesuits had been expelled from their houses, as if they had been criminals, and were thrown into public jails, abused and ill-treated. They were forbidden to accept shelter even from their most devoted friends, and the old and the infirm had to suffer like the rest. Nor were these outrages perpetrated by excited mobs, but by the authorities then established in Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Modena and elsewhere. "This appeal for justice and reparation for at least some of the harm done," said Father Beckx, "is placed, as it were, on the tomb of your ancestor Charles Emmanuel, who laid aside his royal dignity and entered the Society of Jesus as a lay-brother. He surely would not have embraced that manner of life if it were iniquitous." But it is not on record that Victor Emmanuel showed his appreciation of his predecessor's virtue by healing any of the wounds of the Society, whose garb Charles Emmanuel had worn.

The Jesuits of Venice had resumed work in their province, when in 1866 war was declared between Prussia and Austria. Sadowa shattered the Austrian forces, and though the Italians had been badly beaten at Custozzio, Venice was handed over to them by the treaty that ended the war. That meant of course another expulsion. Most of the exiles went to the Tyrol and Dalmatia. Then followed the dispersion of all the provinces of Italy except that of Rome.

The Spanish Jesuits had recovered somewhat from the dispersions of 1854, but, in 1868 just as the provincial congregations had concluded their sessions, a revolution broke out all over Spain. Many of the houses were attacked, but no personal injuries were inflicted. After a while, a provisional government was established at Madrid which held the mob in check but made no pretence to restrain the attacks on priests and nuns. Indeed, it inaugurated a bitter persecution on its own account. The minister of justice issued a decree which not only ordered the Jesuits out of all Spain and the adjacent islands within three days, but forbade any Spaniard to join the Society, even in foreign parts. Of course all the property was confiscated. That was probably the chief motive of the whole procedure. The outcasts for the most part went to France, and a temporary novitiate was established in the territory known as Les Landes. They returned home after some time, but were expecting another expulsion in 1912 when the great war was threatening. Possibly the hideous scenes enacted in Portugal in 1912 were deemed sufficient by the revolutionists for the time being.

The expatriation of the Jesuits and other religious from Portugal which was decreed by the Republican government, on October 10, 1910, six days after the bombardment of the royal palace and the flight of King Manuel, is typical of the manner in which such demonstrations are made in Europe. We have an account of it from the Father provincial Cabral which we quote in part.

"After the press had been working up the populace for three years to the proper state of mind by stories of subterranean arsenals in the Jesuit colleges; the boundless wealth of the Fathers; their affiliated secret organizations; their political plots, etc., the colleges of Campolide and San Fiel were invaded. The occupants were driven out and led between lines of soldiers through a howling mob to the common jail. Those who had fled before the arrival of the soldiers were pursued across the fields with rifles, and when caught were insulted, beaten and spat upon, and led like the others to prison. They had to eat out of the dishes with their hands, and at night sentinels stood over them with loaded rifles and warned the victims that if they got up they would be shot. Abandoned women were sent in among them, but those poor creatures soon withdrew. The prisoners were then transferred to Caixas where they slept on the floor. Twenty-three were confined in a space that could scarcely accommodate three. They were kept there for four days, and were not allowed to leave the room for any reason whatever, and were told that they would be kept in that condition until they began to rot, and that then some of their rich friends would buy them off. They were photographed, subjected to anthropometric examinations, and their finger prints taken, etc. They were then expelled from the country and forbidden ever to return. They had only the clothes on their backs, and had no money except what was given them by some friends; their colleges with their splendid museums and libraries were confiscated, and in this condition they set out, old and young, the sick and the strong, to ask shelter from their brethren in other lands. It was almost a return to the days of Pombal."

In Germany the Kulturkampf began in 1870, and in 1872 a decree was signed by the Kaiser, on June 14, 1872, expelling all members of the Society, and with them the Redemptorists, Lazarists, Fathers of the Holy Ghost, and the Society of the Sacred Heart. Some of the Jesuits went to Holland; others to England and America. Contrary to expectations, this act of tyranny did not harm the German province, for, whereas it then numbered only 775, it now (1920) has 1210 on its roll, of whom 664 are priests.

France had its horror in 1871, when on May 24 and 26, Fathers Olivaint, Ducoudray, Caubert, Clerc and de Bengy were shot to death by the Communists, who were then in possession of Paris. It was not, however, a rising against the Jesuits. There were fifty-seven victims in all: priests, religious and seculars, were immolated. At their head, was the venerable Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Darboy. Again, on March 29, 1880, a decree issued by Jules Ferry brought about a new dispersion and the substitution of staffs of non-religious teachers in the Jesuit colleges. The law was not enforced, however, and little by little the Fathers returned to their posts. Then followed the law of Waldeck-Rousseau in 1901 against unauthorized congregations, which closed all their houses, for these religious declined to apply for authorization which they knew would be refused, or if not, would be used to oppress them. The communities were, therefore, scattered in various houses of Europe. The last blow was the summons sent to all parts of the world for every Frenchman not exempt from military service to take part in the great World War, as chaplains, hospital aids or common soldiers.

The simultaneity as well as the similarity in the methods of executing these multiplied expulsions show clearly enough that they were not accidental but part of a universal war against the Church. Thus, at the other ends of the earth, similar outrages were being committed. When, for instance, the Conservatives fell from power in Colombia, South America, in 1850, the Jesuits were expelled. They went from there to Ecuador and Guayaquil, but were left unmolested only for a year. In 1861 they were re-admitted, and soon had fifty mission stations and had succeeded in converting 10,000 natives to the faith. But Garcia Moreno who had invited them was assassinated, and forthwith they were expelled. A second time they were recalled, but remained only from 1883 to 1894, and from there they returned to Colombia where they are at present. In Argentina, whither they were summoned in 1836, their houses were closed in 1841. They entered Paraguay in 1848, where the old Society had achieved such triumphs, but were allowed to remain there only three years. They asked the Chilian government to let them evangelize the fierce Araucanian savages, but this was refused. At the death of the dictator Rosas in 1873, they again went to Argentina and have not since been disturbed. They have had the same good fortune in Chile.

A different condition of things, however, obtained in Brazil. In the very year that Rosas died in Argentina, 1873, the Jesuit College of Olinda in Brazil was looted and the Fathers expelled. The reason was not that the Jesuits were objectionable but that the bishop had suspended a young ecclesiastic who was a Freemason. The College of Pernambuco was wrecked by a mob, and one of the priests was dangerously wounded. Worse treatment was meted out to them when the Emperor, Don Pedro, was deposed in 1889. Since then, however, there has been comparatively no trouble.

Of course, when the Piedmontese broke down the Porta Pia the Jesuits had to leave Rome, where until then they had been undisturbed. The novitiate of S. Andrea was the first to be seized; then St. Eusebio, the house of the third probation, and after that, St. Vitalis, the Gesù, and finally the Roman College. The occupants had three months to vacate the premises. The other religious orders whose general or procurator resided at Rome could retain one house for the transaction of business but that indulgence was not granted to the Jesuits. Their General was not to remain, and hence Father Peter Beckx, though then seventy-eight years old, had to depart with his brethren for Fiesole, where he was received in the family of the Counts of Ricasole on November 9, 1873. From that place he governed the Society until the year 1884, when he was succeeded by Father Anthony Anderledy, who remained in the same city until he died. Father Luis Martín, the next General, returned to Rome in 1893, so that Fiesole was the centre of the Society for twenty years.

As the chief representative of Christ on Earth is the most prominent victim of these spoliations, and as he has been frequently driven into exile and is at present only tolerated in his own territory, the Society of Jesus with the other religious orders cannot consider it a reproach but rather a glory to be treated like him. How does the Society survive all these disasters? It continues as if nothing had happened, and one reads with amazement the statement of Father General Wernz at the meeting of the procurators held in September and October 1910, when in a tone that is almost jubilant he congratulates the Society on its "flourishing condition." He said in brief:

"There are five new provinces; a revival of the professed houses; new novitiates, scholasticates, tertianships and courses in the best colleges for students of special subjects; and a superior course for Jesuit students of canon law in the Gregorian University. Next year there are to be accommodations for 300 theologians (boarders) at Innsbruck, which institution will be a Collegium Maximum for philosophy, theology and special studies. The novitiate is to be moved to the suburbs of Vienna. In the province of Galicia sufficient ground has been bought to make the College of Cracow similar to Innsbruck, and a beautiful church is being built there. The province of Germany though dispersed has built in Holland an immense novitiate and house of retreats and the Luxemburg house of writers is to be united to the Collegium Maximum of Valkenburg. The Holland province has more diplomated professors than any other in the Society, and is about to build a new scholasticate. Louvain is becoming more and more a house of special studies. In England, the Campion house at Oxford is continuing its success and there is question of moving St. Beuno's. The Irish province is looking for another site for the novitiate and juniorate, and is using the University to form better teachers. Canada is looking for another place for its novitiate and so are Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, while Maryland is trying to put its scholasticate near New York.

"Not much remains to be done in Spain. However, Toledo has established a scholasticate in Murcia, and Aragon is planning one for Tarragona. France is dispersed, but it has furnished excellent professors for the Biblical Institute and the Gregorian University. In the mission of Calcutta, 130,000 pagans have been brought to the Faith and in one Chinese mission, 12,000. The numbers could be doubled if there were more workers." This was in 1910, and within a week of this pronouncement, the expulsion in Portugal took place; in 1914 the war broke out which shattered Belgium and made France more wretched than ever. What the future will be no one knows.

CHAPTER XXVI

MODERN MISSIONS

During the Suppression – Roothaan's appeal – South America – The Philippines – United States Indians – De Smet – Canadian Reservations – Alaska – British Honduras – China – India – Syria – Algeria – Guinea – Egypt – Madagascar – Mashonaland – Congo – Missions depleted by World War – Actual number of missionaries.

Besides its educational work, the Society of Jesus has always been eager for desperate and daring work among savages. At the time of the Suppression, namely in 1773 three thousand of its members were so employed; and the ruthless and cruel separation from those abandoned human beings was one of the darkest and gloomiest features of the tragedy. To all human appearances millions of heathens were thus hopelessly lost. Happily the disaster was not as great as was anticipated. In his "Christian Missions" Marshall says: – It would almost seem as if God had resolved to justify his servants by a special and marvellous Providence before the face of the whole world, and had left their work to what seemed inevitable ruin and decay only to show that neither the world nor the devil, neither persecution, nor fraud nor neglect could extinguish the life that was in it. And so when they came to look upon it, after sixty years of silence and desolation they found a living multitude where they expected to count only the corpses of the dead. Some indeed had failed, and paganism or heresy had sung its song of triumph over the victims; others had retained only the great truths of the Trinity and the Incarnation while ignorance and its twin sister, superstition, had spread a veil over their eyes, but still the prodigious fact was revealed that in India alone that there were more than one million natives who, after half a century of abandonment, still clung with constancy to the faith which had been preached to their fathers, and still bowed the head with loving awe when the names of their departed apostles were uttered amongst them. Such is the astonishing conclusion of a trial without parallel in the history of Christianity, and which if it had befallen the Christians of other lands, boasting their science and civilization, might perhaps have produced other results than among the despised Asiatics. The natural inference would be that besides this special Providence in their regard these neophytes had been well trained by their old masters (I, 246).

For a time, of course, there were some Jesuits who lingered on the missions in spite of the government's orders to the contrary. Thus we find a very distinguished man, a Tyrolese from Bolzano, who died at Lucknow on July 5, 1785. His name was Joseph Tiffenthaller and he had lived forty years in Hindostan. His tombstone, we are told, may be still seen in the cemetery of Agra where they laid his precious remains. He was a man of unusual ability and besides speaking his native tongue was familiar with Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hindustanee, Arabic, Persian and Sanscrit. He was the first European who wrote a description of Hindostan. It is a detailed account of the twenty-two Provinces of India, with their cities, towns, fortresses, whose geographical situations were all calculated by means of a simple quadrant. The work contains a large number of maps, plans and sketches drawn by himself and the list of places fills twenty-one quarto pages. He also made a large atlas of the basin of the Ganges, and is the author of a treatise on the regions in which the rivers of India rise; a map of the Gagra which Bernoulli calls "a work of enormous labor" is another part of Tiffenthaller's relics.

In the field of religion he wrote books on "Brahmanism," "Indian Idolatry," "Indian Asceticism," "The religion of the Parsees and Mohammedanism with their relations to each other." He also published his astronomical observations on the sun-spots, on the zodiacal light, besides discussions on the astrology and cosmology of the Hindus, with descriptions of the flora and the fauna of the country. He was besides all that an historian, and has left us an account in Latin of the origin and religion of the Hindus, another in German of the expedition of Nadir Shah to India; a third in Persian about the deeds of the Great Mogul, Alam, and a fourth in French which tells of the incursions of the Afghans and the capture of Delhi, together with a contemporary history of India for the years 1757-64. In linguistics, he wrote a Parsee-Sanscrit lexicon and treatises in Latin on the Parsee language, the pronunciation of Latin, etc., He was held in the highest esteem by the scientific societies of Europe with which he was in communication. During the greater part of his life in India, the struggle was going on between the French and English for the possession of the Peninsula.

Of course he was not alone in India, at that time, for Bertrand tells us in his "Notions sur l' Inde et les missions" (p. 30) that "the Jesuits had a residence at Delhi as late as 1790", but, unfortunately, he could say nothing more about them. It is very likely, however, that when Pombal's agents attempted to crowd the 127 Jesuits who were at work in the various districts of Hindostan into a ship which had accommodations – and such accommodations – for only forty or fifty, many of them had perforce to be left behind, or perhaps failed to report at the place of embarcation. By keeping out of Goa, they could easily elude the pursuivants. The jungle, for instance, was a convenient hiding place. However, as they received no recruits the work went to pieces when the old heroes died, so that there were, most likely, no Jesuits there at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was just at this time, that England took possession of the greater part of Hindostan and, as a consequence, the country was soon swarming with Protestant parsons of every sect, eager to fill their depleted ranks with new converts from the East.

Marshall had been employed to report on their success, but as every one knows, the investigation brought him to the Church. His researches furnish very reliable and interesting information about the conditions prevailing in those parts among the old proselytes of the Jesuits. Quoting from the "Madras Directory" of 1857, he shows that in the Missions of Madura, founded by de Nobili, there were still 150,00 °Catholics, and in Verapoli as many as 300,000, with an accession of 1000 converts from Mohammedanism every year. Nor were these Hindus merely nominal Christians. Bertrand who knew India thoroughly, writing in 1838, says of the Sanars: "One might almost say that they have not eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil with Adam, and that they were created in the days of original innocence. Among these Hindus there are numbers who when asked whether they commit this or that sin, answer: 'Formerly I did, but that is many years ago. I told it to the Father, and he forbade me to do it. Since then I have not committed it.' We reckon more than 700 °Christians of this caste." Father Garnier, S. J. wrote in the same year as follows: "The Christians of this country are, in general, well disposed and strongly attached to the Faith. The usages introduced among them by the Jesuits still subsist; morning prayer in common, an hour before sunrise; evening prayer with spiritual reading; catechism for the children every day given by a catechist; Mass on Sunday in the chapel. But in spite of these excellent practices there still remains much ignorance and superstition, and we shall have a good deal to do to form them into a people of true Christians before we turn our attention to the pagans. We shall do that when we are more numerous."

Of course these testimonies of Jesuits may be rejected by some people, but the Protestant missionaries in Hindostan, at that time, leave no room for doubt about the actual conditions. Buchanan, for instance, who was particularly conspicuous among his fellows and was greatly extolled in England says: "There are in India members of the Church of Rome who deserve the affection and respect of all good men. From Cape Commorin to Cochin, there are about one hundred churches on the seashore alone. Before each is a lofty cross which like the church itself is seen from a great distance. At Jaffna, on Sundays, about a thousand or twelve hundred people attend church and on feast days three thousand and upward. At Manaar they are all Romish Christians. At Tutycorin, the whole of the tribe, without exception, are Christians in the Romish Communion. Before they hoist sail to go out to sea, a number of boatmen all join in prayer to God for protection. Every man at his post, with the rope in his hands, pronounces the prayer."

One of these parsons who bore the very inappropriate name of Joseph Mullens and whose writing is usually a shriek against the Church says that "in 1854, the Jesuit and Roman Catholic missions are spread very widely through the Madras Presidency. At Pubna there is a population of 13,000 souls. It is all due to the Catholic missionaries. I allow that they dress simply, eat plainly and have no luxuries at home; they travel much; are greatly exposed; live poorly, and toil hard, and I have heard of a bishop living in a cave on fifty rupees a month, and devoutly attending the sick when friends and relatives had fled from fear. But all that is much easier on the principles of a Jesuit who is supported by motives of self-righteousness than it is to be a faithful minister on the principles of the New Testament."

The bloody persecution of 1805 in China showed how fervent and strong those Christians were in their faith. Very few apostatized, though new and terrible punishments were inflicted on them. Dr. Wells Williams, a Protestant agent in China, says that "many of them exhibited the greatest constancy in their profession, suffering persecution, torture, banishment and death, rather than deny their faith, though every inducement of prevarication and mental reservation was held out to them by the magistrates, in order to avoid the necessity of proceeding to extreme measures." It came to an end only when it was discovered that Christianity had even entered the royal family, and that the judges were sometimes trying their own immediate relatives. In 1815, however, the very year that the Protestant missionaries arrived in China the persecution broke out again. Bishop Dufresse was one of the victims, and when the day of execution arrived he with thirty-two other martyrs ascended the scaffold. In 1818 many were sent to the wastes of Tatary, and 1823 when pardon was offered to all who would renounce their faith, after suffering in the desert for five years only five proved recreant. In the midst of all this storm one of the missionaries reported that he had baptized one hundred and six adults.