THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIETY
The blows which were inflicted on the Jesuits by the Catholic monarchs
of Portugal, Spain, and France during the eighteenth century are
historically insignificant in comparison with the suppression of the
Society by the papacy. It is easy to suggest for the conduct of the
rulers reasons which conceal the misdeeds of the Jesuits. Was not Louis
XV. an immoral and unscrupulous ruler, and had not liberalism pervaded
every stratum of higher French society? Was not Joseph I. of Portugal
an unprincipled voluptuary, an irresolute pupil of a minister who could
stoop to forgery? Was not Charles of Spain deluded by a sceptical
minister in collusion with Pombal and Choiseul? Did they not force the
King of Naples to follow their example, and win the Austrian Emperor
with the prospect of appropriating the vast wealth of the Society?
So the excuses run; and it is added that these combined monarchs at
length brought such pressure to bear upon a Pope, whose election they
had secured, that, solely for the sake of peace, without blaming the
Jesuits, he reluctantly penned the famous brief of abolition.
We have seen that this version of the destruction of the Society, as
far as the Catholic monarchs are concerned, may have some ingenuity
in the pages of an apologist, but could not without absurdity be put
forward as history. Definite, grave, and irremediable grievances
were proved against the Jesuits in each country in which they were
suppressed. We have now to see that the last part of the apologetic
version is equally untrue. It is not true that the Powers secured the
election of Clement XIV.; it is not true that he was pledged to destroy
the Society; and it is not true that he destroyed it for the sake of
peace, without pronouncing on the merit of the charges against it.
We shall find rather that the action of Clement XIV. was the natural
culmination of the attitude of the best Popes toward the Society, that
it was represented by him as such, and that, in condemning the Society,
he collected all the grave charges which were urged against it, and
endorsed them with the papal authority.
The general fortunes of the Society in Italy until the middle of
the eighteenth century do not merit detailed examination. One
undistinguished General succeeded another in the nominal autocracy of
the supreme office, but the policy of the Society was, at least after
the time of Acquaviva, dictated by the assistants and abler men at
Rome. The Society of Jesus is an aristocracy, not an autocracy. The
charge of despotism is not unjust, if we do not forget how frequently
this despotism has been checked by rebellious "subjects," but it is the
despotism of a few, whose decisions are published by the General. An
incident that occurred toward the close of the seventeenth century will
illustrate this.
By that time, as we saw, Pascal's _Letters_ had drawn the disdainful
eyes of Europe to the teaching of Jesuit casuists. It makes little
difference that the laxer of these moralists were but a few among
the countless theologians of the Society, because nearly the whole
of the Jesuits taught that, in case of a moral dilemma, a man might
act on the opinion of a single casuist against the opinion of the
remainder. It is true that they added that the one theologian must
have a "grave authority," but, in view of the censorship and approval
of the Society in each case, any Jesuit theologian would be regarded by
admirers of the Society as a grave authority. This famous principle of
Probabilism--the theory that one might follow a "probable" opinion in
matters of moral guilt against "more probable" opinions--which had been
adopted and almost appropriated by the Jesuits, gave great scandal, in
view of the laxity of some of their prominent casuists, and at length a
number of fathers assailed it and tried to remove the stigma from the
Society.
The most notable of these reformers was Father Thyrsus Gonzalez de
Santalla, an able professor at Salamanca University. About the year
1670 he composed a Latin treatise on "The right use of probable
opinions," and sent it to Rome for examination and approval. The
authorities refused to sanction publication, but in 1676 Innocent
XI., who frowned on the laxity of the Jesuit casuists, heard of the
rejected manuscript and sent for it. Through the Inquisition the Pope
then (in 1680) urged Gonzalez to publish the book, and communicated
to General Oliva a decree to the effect that no father was to be
prevented from teaching Probabiliorism, and that, on the contrary,
none was to be allowed to defend Probabilism. General Oliva drew up
a circular embodying the Pope's commands, which he was ordered to
convey to his subjects, respectfully submitted it to the cardinals
of the Inquisition, and then--suppressed it. Oliva died in 1681, his
successor, Father de Noyelle, died in 1686, and Gonzalez himself was
sent to Rome to take part in the election of 1687. The Pope welcomed
him and intimated that he ought to be raised to the generalship, to
save the Society from the "abyss" into which it was plunging. In spite
of the fierce opposition of the Probabilists, he was elected by a
narrow majority, and in 1691 he sent to the press his Latin treatise.
The Assistants or Councillors of the General now asserted their power.
They threatened their General that, if he did not withdraw the work,
they would warn the heads of all the Provinces of the Society of the
danger he would bring on them. Father Gonzalez offered to omit his
name from the title-page and cut out a particularly obnoxious section
of the work, but they sternly refused the compromise. He published,
and they denounced their General to the Pope for issuing a theological
work without papal authorisation. There was now so fierce a controversy
in the Society that the Pope suspended the sale of the book, and
remitted the affair to the triennial Congregation of Jesuit Procurators
in 1693. A feverish intrigue and a number of heated pamphlets from
experienced Jesuit pens prepared the way for the Congregation, and,
when it assembled, it voted for the calling of an extraordinary General
Congregation. Numbers of them were threatening to have Gonzalez
deposed. The Pope, however, declared their vote invalid, and the book
was published; but his "subjects"--whom so many regard as corpses in
the hands of a despotic General--persecuted and assailed Gonzalez until
his death.[38]
The interest of the Italian Jesuits is almost confined to Rome during
this period. They were now so wealthy and powerful throughout Italy
that they held in check the opposing elements, and we find few of those
interesting episodes which saved their earlier career from monotony. In
1656 they secured permission to return to Venice, the last stronghold
of their enemies. The dwindling commerce of Venice was now gravely
menaced by the Turks, and the Jesuits did not scruple to fan the zeal
of the Turks. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Venice was
hard pressed, and compelled to look for assistance. It is said that
the Jesuits paid a handsome sum to the impoverished Republic; it is at
least true, and is the same thing in principle, that the Pope promised
assistance on condition that the doors were opened to the Jesuits.
The dire oaths never to readmit them were reluctantly erased, and the
fathers soon restored their old prosperity. Although wholesome jets
of criticism were constantly directed against them, especially at
Rome, they flourished throughout Italy much as they did in Spain and
Portugal. Hardly a year elapsed without some dying noble bequeathing
them a palace or a country house, or some small town being induced to
invite them to found a college; and when plague or earthquake or famine
desolated the land, and they recovered their heroic mood, a shower of
blessings and benefactions fell upon them.
Only one serious calamity overtook them during the period we are
surveying. Toward the close of the seventeenth century there was a
violent quarrel between the King of the Two Sicilies and the Pope;
always one of the most painful dilemmas for the Society. The King
claimed a high spiritual authority, and the bishops, supported by the
Papacy, placed an interdict on large areas of Sicily. The civil power
retorted with a decree of banishment against the clergy who obeyed
the Pope, and part of the Jesuits incurred the sentence. Later, when
Victor Amadeo received the island and promised conciliatory conduct,
the Jesuits reopened their churches; but they were directed from Rome
to close them, and were again exiled. Spain then resumed control of
Sicily, and reinstated them.
In the year 1705, Gonzalez died, and the learned Tamburini succeeded
him. At that time the scandal of the Jesuit concessions in India and
China was added, in the literature of their opponents, to the scandals
of the American missions, and the Papacy was being forced to act. In
1710 and 1715, Clement XI. sternly condemned their practices, and the
Roman Jesuits could do no more than represent, inaccurately, that
their missionaries had submitted. The next Pope, Innocent XIII., found
that this was untrue, and again severely condemned them; but he was
followed by several complaisant Pontiffs, and the Society continued
its irregular ways in all parts of the globe. Edifying utterances on
the part of the Roman authorities were not wanting. Tamburini died
in 1730, and at the Congregation which followed one of the decrees
severely enacted that the fathers of the Society must, in every part of
the world, avoid "even the appearance of commerce," and refrain from
violence in attacking their opponents. No one knew better than these
rulers of the Society the industrial and commercial system which was
then followed everywhere by the fathers, and the devices by which they
silenced their critics; yet no effort whatever was made to enforce the
decree.
Benedict XIV. came to the papal throne in 1740, and put an end to the
intrigues of the Society in the Roman courts for a time. His bulls
of 1742 and 1744, sternly condemning their contumacious conduct in
India and China, struck a heavy blow at two of their most profitable
missions; but their American missions were veiled by the optimist
assurances of France, Spain, and Portugal; and, when Lawrence Ricci
became General of the Society in 1758, there was little ground for
serious anxiety. Indeed, Benedict XIV. died in that year, and a
friendly Pope, Clement XIII., an Italian noble of conciliatory temper,
received the tiara. By that time (according to a list published in
1750) the Society had 22,589 members, of whom 11,293 were priests.
These were distributed in 669 colleges and 945 residences of less
importance; it is singular, and characteristic of the Society, that
there were only 24 "houses of the professed" to 22,000 members, and
that one half these members were not priests.
One cloud rested on the horizon when Lawrence Ricci became General; but
even the most timid and despondent observer could not have ventured
to suggest that he was destined to be the last successor of Ignatius.
It had been proved to the satisfaction of the Spanish and Portuguese
courts that the Jesuits had inspired the revolt in Paraguay, and Pombal
had begun his campaign against the Society. The accession of Clement
XIII. in July reassured the Jesuits, but in September of that year the
news came of the attempt to assassinate the King of Portugal, and a few
months later a number of the leading Portuguese Jesuits were in jail.
From that moment the doom of the fathers was sealed in Portugal, and
their efforts were chiefly directed to restricting the contagious area.
Clement was encouraged to resist the Portuguese, and the Spanish court
was induced to regard Pombal as a slanderer. In France, however, the
famous Lavalette case had recently occurred, and a very ominous wave of
indignation against the Jesuits was rising. Choiseul was now known to
be leagued with Pombal in hostility to the Society.
Ricci, a Florentine noble by birth, a man of quiet and cultivated
taste, was not an ideal ruler for such a period, but as the clouds
gathered thicker he threw all his energy into the combat. Before the
end of the year 1759 he had to make provision for the thousands of
Portuguese Jesuits whom Pombal cynically flung upon the shores of
Italy. In the following year the French courts began to condemn the
Society to pay the debts of Lavalette, and in 1761 the Parlement of
Paris condemned the Society and began the work of repression. In the
fiery controversy which now filled all the Catholic countries of Europe
every questionable episode in the history of the Society, and probably
much that had been added to the historical facts, was discussed and
advertised. Myriads of pamphlets fed the sensations of the people,
and for the first time since the early years of Ignatius the Jesuits
cowered before the storm of obloquy. In 1764, Louis XV. signed the
decree for the abolition of the Society in France, and by 1767 the
Italian provinces were once more swamped with crowds of fugitives.
Charles III. of Spain had so far firmly resisted the arguments of
Pombal, but in the spring of 1766 the Jesuits of Madrid had drawn on
themselves the suspicion of having inspired a revolt against the royal
authority, and it would be reported to Ricci that the monarch was
sombre and inaccessible. As the year proceeded (and, as we now know,
Aranda completed his case against the order), increasingly gloomy
messages would come from the Spanish court, and in the early days of
April 1767 the news came from the coast that 6000 Spanish Jesuits were
tossing homeless on the waters. Taking the colonies into account,
the Society had now been destroyed in by far the greater part of the
Christian world, and a stupendous amount of its property had been
confiscated. Moreover, it was now known that the French, Spanish, and
Portuguese were pressing the Pope to abolish the Society; and, at least
from the middle of 1767, the prospect of that terrible contingency was
discussed throughout the clerical world at Rome.
Before the end of 1767 the work began on Italian soil. Charles III.
had passed from Naples to the throne of Spain, and he had left that
kingdom in the charge of a liberal minister, Tanucci, under the rule
of his son Ferdinand IV. Little pressure was needed by the Neapolitans.
On the 3rd of November 1767 the Jesuit houses were surrounded, the
papers seized, and the fathers banished from Southern Italy. A few
months later it was the turn of Parma, and in April the fathers were
driven from Malta, as the Grand Master was a feudatory of the King of
Naples. Whether the idea came from the Jesuits or no we cannot say,
but the Pope concluded that, in the case of Parma, he might retaliate.
He revived an old pontifical claim to the duchy, annulled the sentence
against the Jesuits, and excommunicated those who had banished them.
The allies promptly replied; France seized Avignon, and Naples occupied
Benevento and Ponte Corvo, of the Papal States.
It was at this juncture that, on the 2nd of February 1769, Clement
XIII. found relief in death, and the historic struggle over the
succession to the papal throne began. On the result of that election
the fate of the Society would depend, and Jesuits and anti-Jesuits
hurried to the arena and used every means in their power to influence
the issue. But the Jesuits and their friends have, not unnaturally,
published as fact every faint echo of gossip in connection with the
election, in order to weaken the significance of their suppression by
the Pope elected; and it must be examined with great care.[39]
Clement XIII. died on 2nd February, and the Italian cardinals,
especially those of the Papal States, tried to elect a new Pope before
the distant and anti-Jesuit Powers could send their cardinals and
assert their influence. They opened the conclave on 15th February,
and nearly succeeded in electing Cardinal Chigi. It is natural to
suspect, and is emphatically affirmed, that the Jesuits induced them
to take this irregular step, and we know that General Ricci was at
the time hastening feverishly from one prelate to another. We may be
quite sure that the Jesuits used what influence they had to secure a
premature election, but there is another element to be considered.
The cardinals were, in the phrase of the hour, divided into _zelanti_
and _antizelanti_: cardinals who resented the interference of lay
Powers in the affairs of Rome, and cardinals who thought it politic to
consult the wishes of the Catholic monarchs. Besides these two schools,
however, there were many cardinals who did not adopt a decisive
attitude, and were disposed to be guided by the course of events, or at
least indisposed to meet the violent anger of France, Spain, Portugal,
and Naples.
When, therefore, the Marquis d'Aubeterre, the French ambassador, and
Mgr. Azpuru, the representative of Spain--the Portuguese ambassador
did not arrive until a later date--protested in the names of their
sovereigns, and demanded that the conclave should be postponed
until the French and Spanish cardinals arrived, the majority of the
cardinals were intimidated, and the _zelanti_ were forced sullenly to
quit their cells in the Vatican. Cardinal Rezzonico, a nephew of the
late Pope, was one of the leaders of the _zelanti_. In the course of
March, Cardinal Luynes and Cardinal Bernis arrived from France. The
former was a mere voter, but Bernis--a suave, conceited, ambitious
prelate, who sought the place of French ambassador at Rome--had been
flattered by the French authorities into the belief that the issue of
the election and the fate of the Jesuits depended mainly on him, and he
applied his small powers to the intrigue with great zeal. Before the
end of April the Portuguese ambassador, Mendoza, and the two Spanish
cardinals arrived, and Rome throbbed with discussion and intrigue. The
anti-Jesuits had a nucleus of six Neapolitan, two Spanish, and two
French cardinals, and the problem was to secure a majority for their
cause among the forty voters.
It is sometimes said that they won the indifferent cardinals, partly
by bribery and partly by intimidation; but Father Theiner denies
both charges. We have, in fact, the private assurance of Bernis to
his government, which seems to have contemplated bribery, that the
cardinals of that particular conclave were all religious men and
incorruptible. At the most, we may be disposed to admit that the
fact that some of the cardinals had property in the Provinces seized
by France and Naples inclined them to gratify the Powers. As to
intimidation, it seems clear that the ambassadors urged upon individual
voters the grave danger of opposing the wishes of the Catholic
monarchs; but Father Theiner denies that such arguments were used in
the conclave itself. One would imagine that they were superfluous.
Every cardinal knew that the four Catholic kings sternly insisted on
the relief of Parma and the suppression of the Society, and could not
but reflect on the possible consequences of electing a pro-Jesuit Pope.
Crétineau-Joly represents that the Society and the cardinals in favour
of it had the support of Maria Theresa, and that she sent Count Kaunitz
to Rome to express his support. He maintains that it was only after the
other Catholic monarchs had tempted Joseph II., her son and Emperor,
to covet the property of the Society, that she reluctantly yielded.
This is so demonstrably false as to incur the suspicion of untruth.
Cardinal Bernis wrote to his court on 28th March 1769, long before the
conclave, that Maria Theresa refused to support the demand for the
suppression of the Jesuits, but "could not oppose, and would even be
glad to see it"; so the Emperor Joseph II. stated. In September of the
same year the Nuncio at Vienna gave the same report. Joseph II. himself
came to Rome in March (1769), and the Jesuits clearly learned his
attitude. When he visited their famous church, the Gesù, General Ricci
hastened to greet him, and was jocularly asked "when he was going to
change his coat." Later, when they stood before the solid silver statue
of Ignatius, and Ricci explained that it was due to gifts of friends
of the Society, Joseph observed: "Say, rather, to the profits on your
Indian missions." And the Jesuits would further learn that, when the
Emperor visited the Vatican, he urged the cardinals to elect another
Benedict XIV. On the other hand, the visit of Count Kaunitz was in the
following year, long after the attitude of Maria Theresa was known.
She never wavered in her position, as she expressed it to Clement XIV.
after the suppression; she had no idea of opposing or disapproving what
the Pope thought necessary. Austria was lost to the Jesuits. Only a few
small and unimportant rulers could be induced to plead for them.
The more difficult problem of the opponents of the Jesuits was to
discover a cardinal who might be trusted to destroy the Society, yet
would have some chance of election. The Spanish ambassador proposed
that a cardinal should be induced to engage himself to abolish the
Society if he were elected. For a time the French ambassador favoured
the idea, but Cardinal Bernis strongly opposed it; and there is
ample proof that it was abandoned before the end of April. There is,
therefore, no serious ground whatever for the charge that Cardinal
Ganganelli promised to destroy the Society if he were elected, as the
French historian is compelled to admit. The only question is whether
Ganganelli gave a written assurance to the Spaniards that in his
opinion a Pope had the power to destroy the Society. General Ricci had
issued a pamphlet in which he contended that the Pope had no power to
abolish the Society, and it would assuredly not be a serious matter
for a cardinal to express his opinion on that point. But it seems
that Ganganelli made no statement to the Spaniards. Some jealousy
had arisen between the representatives of Spain and France, and the
Spaniards vaguely boasted to Bernis of having had some communication
with Ganganelli. Bernis reported that they had some written assurance
from him, but in later letters (ignored by the French historian) he
retracts. On 19th July he wrote that he may have been mistaken: on 30th
November he acknowledged that he was wholly mistaken, and there had
been no "arrangement" between the Spaniards and Ganganelli. The results
of the voting, which are given by Theiner, confirm this. The supposed
arrangement or assurance would have to be dated 15th or 16th May, yet
Ganganelli received just the same number of votes (10) on 14th, 15th,
16th, 17th May.
The truth is that no one knew what Ganganelli would do if he became
Pope. Formerly a Franciscan monk, he was a man of sincere piety and
unquestioned integrity. It is said that he was ambitious, and attempted
to secure the votes of both parties by remarking to one group that it
was dangerous to offend the Catholic monarchs, and to the other that it
was impossible to sacrifice the Society. This is mere gossip. He was
an elderly man--in his sixty-fifth year--of high character and great
ability. The Jesuit Cordara tells us that Ricci had urged Clement XIII.
to give him the purple, and he had always been on friendly terms with
the Jesuits. There is not the least serious ground for charging him
with acting improperly, and we know that, on 19th May, he was elected
by a unanimous vote.
Both parties now assailed the Vatican, and engaged officials in its
service to report to them the movements of their opponents and the
moods of the Pope. It is difficult to conceive an elderly friar as
having sought with deliberate ambition the position in which the new
Pope would find himself. The ambassadors of the Powers at once renewed
their demand for the abolition of the Society, while the Jesuits and
their friends and spies maintained a sombre vigilance. Whichever way
the Pope acted he would incur a fierce and dangerous resentment.
Clement XIV. was not the man to sell his conscience for the restoration
of Avignon, Benevento, and Ponte Corvo; but the retention of these
places would not be the only, or the most serious, consequence of
disappointing the Powers. On the other hand, he knew the history and
principles of the Jesuits. It is said that he put his kitchen in the
charge of a friar of the Franciscan order. Whether or no it is true
that he feared poison, he would know that the Jesuits would not meekly
submit to a sentence of death, and the last years of his life would be
full of trouble.
To the representatives of the Powers the Pope replied that he would
take no step, and would give no encouragement to either side, until
he had made a thorough inquiry into the matter. The Jesuits, however,
soon perceived, or imagined, that Clement favoured the Powers. Twice
in the two months after the election, General Ricci presented himself
at the Vatican, as it was customary for the heads of religious orders
to do on the chief festivals of the order, and twice had he to depart
without seeing the Pope. He increased his vigilance and activity, and
the ambassadors had to adopt various ruses to conceal their intercourse
with the Pope; Bernis had now become ambassador, and was eager to
justify his appointment. In July the spirits of the Jesuits revived,
and it was the turn of the courts to fret and fume. Clement had issued
a brief giving certain sacerdotal powers for seven years to the
Jesuit missionaries who were just starting for the foreign missions.
The Jesuits printed the brief and triumphantly scattered copies over
Europe; the ambassadors angrily protested that this was to flout the
wishes of their monarchs. In point of fact, there was not the least
reason to attach importance to the brief. It was merely the observance
of a form that was customary at the departure of missionaries, and
to have omitted it on this occasion would have been a very grave and
premature indication of an intention to abolish the Society.
However, the impolitic rejoicing of the Jesuits compelled the Pope
to make some concession to their opponents. It was customary to
republish every year the bull _In Coena Domini_ which a friendly
predecessor had issued in favour of the Society. Clement declined to
sanction its republication in 1769, and another ripple of excitement
ran over Europe. In some places the Jesuits printed and published
the bull themselves, and added another indiscretion to the account
against them. A third and more serious error was committed by them.
The ambassadors pressed more eagerly, and, as Bernis reports to his
court, the Pope replied with dignity that he must consult his honour
and his conscience, and make a prolonged inquiry before deciding.
Choiseul threatened that the ambassadors would be withdrawn if the
Pope did not give them a written assurance within two months, and
Clement again sternly refused. France offered to restore Avignon if he
would give the assurance, and only excited his indignation. This is the
Pope whom the Jesuits and their apologists represent as morally and
intellectually perverse; yet they themselves betrayed, and betray, a
considerable degree of unscrupulousness in the matter. Crétineau-Joly,
ignoring its inconsistency with his whole narrative, quotes a letter in
which Clement is supposed to tell Louis XV. that he will not abolish
a Society that has had the blessing of nineteen of his predecessors.
This letter was forged and published by the Jesuits who lingered in
disguise in France, and the apologist must have been quite aware that
the Pope himself indignantly disavowed it in a letter to the Nuncio at
Paris; indeed, Crétineau-Joly at once goes on to show, from Choiseul's
correspondence, that the French could make nothing of the Pope's
attitude.
These Jesuit outrages, however, seem to have stimulated the Pope, and
on 25th September (1769) he gave Bernis a written assurance for Louis
XV. that he intended to suppress the Society. A little later Charles
III. of Spain received the same secret assurance. Thirty-four of the
bishops of Spain, led by their cardinals and the Archbishop of Seville,
had written to demand the suppression, and prove that it was not merely
liberal politicians who opposed the Society. In the following February
the seminary at Frascati was taken from the Jesuits and put under
the control of secular priests. The spring and summer passed without
giving fresh hope to the Jesuits. They reported Clement gloomy and
inaccessible, and it is not impossible that they learned that a search
was now being made in the Vatican Archives, and a report being drawn
up on the history of the Society since its establishment. From that
time, in fact, Clement secretly gathered the historical material with
which he was to frame his crushing indictment of the Society. In June,
it is true, Count Kaunitz visited Rome; but, as we know the attitude of
both Maria Theresa and Joseph II., we must accept Theiner's statement
that he urged the Pope to suppress the Society, rather than the French
historian's light assertion that he pleaded for the Jesuits. The
Society seemed to be doomed.
Then, in the month of December, Choiseul fell from power in France,
and the news fired a train of rejoicing throughout the Provinces of
the Society. D'Aiguillon, believed to be a friend of the Society, had
(with the aid of Mme. du Barry) displaced their great opponent, and the
policy of France would, no doubt, now be reversed. The Jesuits, and the
noble ladies who worked for them at Paris, affected at least to believe
that they would be recalled to France, and that the Pope would no
longer be exposed to the unanimous pressure of the Catholic Powers. But
in his first dispatch to Cardinal Bernis, D'Aiguillon maintained the
policy of his predecessor in regard to the Society. Spain also replaced
its ambassador with a more vigorous representative, Count Florida
Blanca, and the Pope was assailed more vehemently than ever. A piquant
picture is offered to us of the robust Spanish count bullying the aged
Pontiff, who plaintively bares his skin to show Florida Blanca the
eruption which proves that he is ill and cannot be pressed. Bernis's
letters are more reliable; the French ambassador candidly admires the
noble resistance of the Pope to the intriguers on both sides, and his
determination to have his inquiry justly and patiently completed before
he condemns the Society.
In the course of 1771 and 1772 the Jesuits were convicted of further
indiscretions which strengthened the case against them. In June 1771
the secretary of the Portuguese embassy was convicted of collusion
with the Jesuits, and banished from Rome; he had communicated to the
Jesuits the dispatches which were received from his government, even
letters to the Vatican, concerning the Society. In 1772 the cause
of the canonisation of Bishop Palafox was before the Congregation,
and, in spite of their extreme peril, the Jesuits made a violent
and unscrupulous opposition. The scurrilous pamphlets in which the
character of the saintly bishop was maligned, and the person of the
Spanish monarch represented as abandoned to the devils, were, of
course, anonymous; but the Jesuits alone had an interest, or thought
they had an interest, in preventing the canonisation of Palafox.
Charles III. redoubled his pressure on the Vatican, and in September
the Roman seminary was taken from them on the just ground of improper
administration. In the same month, Catherine the Great invaded Poland,
and Rome and the other Catholic countries learned with indignation that
the Jesuits had taken the lead in greeting and demanding submission
to the schismatical usurper. They were, as we shall see, currying
favour with Catherine and preparing a retreat from Catholic Europe.
Rome had hardly ceased to discuss this remarkable news when an even
more remarkable incident was reported from Paris. Frederick the Great
cynically informed D'Alembert (in December) that General Ricci had sent
a secret representative to ask him to declare himself "Protector of the
Society of Jesus." A little later, again, Maria Theresa discovered that
her Jesuit confessor Campmüller had, as such confessors were secretly
bound to do, betrayed her confidence to the authorities of the Society
at Rome.
It is hardly probable that these incidents affected the main policy
of Clement XIV., whose summary of the historical irregularities of
the Society was being slowly compiled, but they enabled him to make a
beginning of open action against the Jesuits. Their administration of
other seminaries and colleges was questioned, and several (including
the Irish College at Rome) were taken from them. In February (1773) it
was announced that the bishops were to receive the powers of "apostolic
visitators," to inspect all the Jesuit residences in their dioceses,
and suppress them where they deemed it necessary. It is suggested that
Clement thought he had discovered a way of demolishing the Society
without issuing a formal decree of abolition, but it is more likely
that he was merely preparing the Catholic mind for a drastic measure.
He appointed only one of these "visitators," Cardinal Malvezzi,
Archbishop of Bologna, and the brief of suppression must have been
drafted before Malvezzi had concluded his work. In point of fact,
Malvezzi had reported to the Vatican that the Jesuits of Bologna were
already disposing of their property, and it was at once necessary
to prevent them from carrying out so irregular a scheme as this.
Malvezzi himself, in his letters to Clement, speaks of the measure as
a preliminary to carrying out the "long-prepared sentence" against the
Society. The Jesuits met the cardinal, who was notoriously hostile
to them, with great insolence, and only added to the feeling against
themselves.
As the spring of 1773 advanced the conflicting elements at Rome were
thrown into a state of intense excitement. The Pope was proceeding
with the greatest secrecy, but the secrecy itself plainly shrouded
a sentence of death. On 28th May the Pope went into retreat for a
fortnight, and thus escaped the importunities of both parties. In the
few weeks following the retreat he still gave no indication of his
intention, and on 27th June he again went into retreat,[40] and refused
to admit visitors.
The air of Rome was now tense with expectation, but the secrecy was
maintained with singular success. We now know that the famous brief
(_Dominus ac Redemptor Noster_) for the abolition of the Society was
signed by Clement on 21st July, and that the papal press printed
sufficient copies of it for transmission to each country without a
single breach of confidence. The representatives of the Powers were
privately informed in August that the work was done, but the Jesuits
could not obtain the least information. Clement XIV. accomplished
his task with consummate ability. The Jesuit legends which depict
him signing the fatal decree at a window of the palace by night,
swooning, lying unconscious during the night, and awakening only
to enter into a delirious fit of terror and remorse, are not worth
consideration. They are fables retailed years afterwards by Jesuit
writers (especially Bolgeni), and have not even the artistic merit of
consistency. Crétineau-Joly seems to give them weighty confirmation
by asserting that he had heard _his_ version from the lips of Gregory
XVI. But he singularly fails to tell us what was the precise story
he heard from the later Pope, and Father Theiner bluntly questions
if he knew sufficient Italian to understand Gregory (who never spoke
French on such occasions). In any case, this reproduction, at a remote
date, of pro-Jesuit gossip of which we find no trace at the time, is
historically worthless. According to all the contemporary witnesses
Clement was in excellent spirits after the suppression, and carried
out the difficult work with entire prudence, tranquillity, and good
feeling.
But the best defence of Clement and the decisive answer to his
detractors is the brief itself which he signed on 21st July, and at
the composition of which he had worked assiduously during his two
"retreats." It is an exceedingly able and convincing document. Jesuit
writers constantly say that Clement XIV. abolished the Society only on
the ground that the peace of Christendom demanded that step, and that
he passed no judgment on the Society itself. Even the recent American
_Catholic Encyclopædia_, which affects candour and accuracy, states,
in the article on Clement XIV. that "no blame is laid by the Pope on
the rules of the Order, or the present condition of its members, or
the orthodoxy of their teaching." This is a disingenuous and most
misleading description of the brief. Clement gives a masterly summary
of the irregularities which had been charged against the Society during
the two hundred years of its activity. While, however, he is frequently
content to speak of these past matters as "charges," he is careful to
add that, time after time, they were endorsed by his predecessors, who
were condemned to take drastic action against the Society; and, when
he comes to deal with the existing Society, which properly concerns
him, he plainly observes that it "can no longer produce the abundant
fruits and the considerable advantages for which it was created," and
he therefore abolishes it for ever.
It is impossible to insert here the whole text of the lengthy brief,
but an analysis and some extracts will suffice to show this. The brief
opens, after a few introductory remarks of a general nature, with a
long list of religious congregations which had been dissolved by the
papacy. These bodies had been suppressed for their deterioration or
irregularities, and the list is therefore a fitting introduction to the
main work of the brief. The Pope then tells that he has made a thorough
study of the foundation of the Society and the early papal documents
issued in regard to it. He adds: "The very tenor and terms of these
apostolic constitutions [the letters of his predecessors] teach us that
the Society, almost from the beginning, produced within it the germs of
discord and jealousy, and that these not only rent the Society itself,
but impelled its members to rise against the other religious orders,
the secular clergy, the academies, the universities, the colleges, the
public schools, and even against the monarchs who had received them
into their States." Here we have, in categorical form, an endorsement
of all the charges that were made against the Jesuits in the first
century of their existence.
On account of these disorders, he says, "a thousand complaints against
these religious were made," and the papacy was entreated to reform
them. He recalls the efforts of earlier Popes to reform the Society,
and adds that, as we have seen, they were defeated. "The most lively
controversy arises everywhere about the doctrine of this Order, which
many charged with being wholly opposed to sound faith and good morals.
The bosom of the Society is torn by internal and external dissensions;
amongst other things it is reproached with seeking worldly goods too
eagerly." Here again the categorical note of censure is found, and,
after telling the next efforts of Popes to reform the Society, he says:
"We have observed with the bitterest grief that these remedies, and
others applied afterwards, had neither efficacy nor strength enough
to put an end to the troubles, the charges, and the complaints formed
against the Society, and that our predecessors, Urban VII., Clement
IX. X. XI. and XII., Alexander VII. and VIII., Innocent X. XI. XII.
and XIII., and Benedict XIV. vainly endeavoured to restore to the
Church the desired tranquillity by means of various enactments,
either relating to secular affairs with which the Society ought not
to concern itself, on missions or elsewhere: or relating to grave
dissensions and quarrels harshly provoked by its members, not without
a risk of the loss of souls, and to the great scandal of the nations,
against the bishops, the religious orders, places consecrated to
piety, and all kinds of communities in Europe, Asia, and America:
or relating to the interpretation and practice of certain pagan
ceremonies tolerated and admitted in various places, apart from those
which are approved by the universal Church: or relating to the use
and interpretation of those maxims which the Holy See has justly
proscribed as scandalous and evidently injurious to good morals: or
relating to other matters of great importance and absolutely necessary
to preserve the purity and integrity of the dogmas of the Christian
religion."
It is absurd to regard this formidable indictment of a religious body
as a mere list of charges into the justice of which the Pope will not
inquire. It is a list of the charges proved to the satisfaction of
his predecessors, and embodied in the decrees of the Popes whom he
names; and the sternest critic of the Society could hardly frame a
weightier indictment in a few lines. The Pope adds that the measures
of his predecessors for the reform of the Society were fruitless, and
under Clement XIII. "the storms became worse than ever." The Catholic
monarchs, he says, have been compelled by "seditions" and "scandals"
to expel the Jesuits from their dominions and demand the abolition
of the Society. To this demand he has given conscientious attention,
and, "recognising that the Society of Jesus can no longer produce the
abundant fruits and the considerable advantages for which it was
created," he "suppresses and abolishes the Society for ever." The
brief closes with directions for the disposal of Jesuit property, and
a singularly lengthy and subtle development of his sentence to prevent
the casuistic genius of the Jesuits from evading it.
The brief is, therefore, much more than a declaration that the Jesuits
must be sacrificed in the interest of peace, and the hatred with which
they have pursued the memory of its author has solid ground. It is a
plain and learned demonstration that the step taken by Clement XIV. is
the just culmination of the history of the Society; it says nothing
of leaving open the question of the truth of the charges against the
Jesuits, and the deliberate addition of the solemn words "for ever"
to the sentence of dissolution shows clearly that it contemplates no
temporary situation. The only serious objection urged by the Jesuits
and their friends is that they were not summoned to answer the charges
against them. Clement might have replied that the charges had been
examined, and their defence heard, a dozen times in the history of
the papacy; but his chief reason for rejecting this futile idea of a
trial was probably that he knew well how the Jesuits intrigued on such
occasions. Like Sixtus V. he would certainly have passed away, leaving
the Church in the throes of the struggle, before a verdict was given.
This brief was, as I said, concealed from all but the five cardinals
who were to carry out the sentence until 17th August. On that day the
Catholic Powers were officially informed of the signing of the brief.
At nine o'clock that evening a band of officials and guards entered
the metropolitan house attached to the Gesù, and ordered Ricci to
summon all his subjects to the refectory. They knew--some of them had
witnessed the same scene in Spain and Portugal--that their hour had
come, but they must have been deeply pained at the wording of the
brief, which was read to them. Their proud Society added to that list
of degenerate congregations which the Vatican had been compelled to
abolish! They were forbidden to leave the house until secular costumes
were provided for them, and the notaries put the papal seal on their
documents. The same evening, or on the next day, the brief was read
in the other Italian houses, and, as the couriers sped to the north,
the disastrous tidings slowly spread gloom and despair throughout the
Jesuit world as far as Holland and Poland.
The grief of the Jesuits was not less intense than the rejoicing of
their opponents. A laughing crowd stormed the chancellory for copies
of the brief, but few copies had been printed, and its drastic clauses
only gradually became known. Then came the long and stirring period
when the news of the response of the Jesuits came in from every
quarter. The Roman Jesuits quietly left their homes, day by day, as
secular clothes were provided for them. The Pope provided, not only for
them, but for the Portuguese ex-Jesuits, as Portugal refused to fulfil
its promise, and had every effort made to find situations for them in
the service of the Vatican, the secular clergy, or the educational
world. Many merely changed their garments, and continued to be the
confessors of noble ladies or the tutors of their sons. Large numbers
of them lived in community, on their joint pensions, awaiting the
death of Clement XIV. and the restoration of the Society. The chief
trouble in Italy was that offensive anonymous pamphlets were printed
in vast quantities and circulated, and were in some instances traced
to the Jesuits; and that Ricci and his assistants, who remained in
the central house, were detected in a treacherous correspondence with
the insurgents in distant regions, and imprisoned in the fortress of
S. Angelo, where the unhappy Ricci died two years afterwards. Rome
was not indisposed to laugh at anti-Jesuits as well as Jesuits. No
doubt the gossips of the city told each other the fables which Jesuits
reproduced in later years, and their apologist gives as "history"--for
instance, that the diamonds which had adorned the statue of the Madonna
in the Gesù were publicly worn afterwards by the mistress of one of the
prelates charged with the execution of the sentence--but the pro-Jesuit
faction at Rome was completely silenced.
In the Italian provinces, where the Jesuits commanded the allegiance
of peasants and nobles who were unacquainted with their history, the
anonymous pamphlets circulated briskly, and some more overt attempts
were made to weaken the condemnation. For some time before the
suppression a holy nun of Viterbo had earned repute as an inspired
oracle, and her fame was great among the followers of the Jesuits.
After the suppression her inspiration became richer and more precise,
and the Vatican presently learned that thousands were cherishing her
predictions that the Pope was to die at once, the kings to perish
miserably, Frederick the Great to be converted, and the Society of
Jesus to be quickly restored. A second lady entered the field, with
predictions of a like nature. The Pope ordered that both should be
arrested and an inquiry held by the Bishop of Orvieto. In the rooms of
the ex-Jesuits he found an enormous mass of literature relating to the
prophetesses, and locks of their hair ("and other things which decency
forbids me to mention," says Father Theiner) for sale or distribution
as riches. A judicial inquiry was held, and two of the Jesuits were
condemned to imprisonment in S. Angelo as the chief agents in the fraud.
In Naples, Spain, and Portugal the news was received with great
rejoicing. In France, according to Crétineau-Joly, it was received
with indignation, and the Archbishop of Paris, speaking in the name of
"the Gallican Church," boldly rejected the Pope's brief, and addressed
a very remarkable letter to His Holiness. There were still bishops in
the French Church who owed their sees to the Jesuits, and Archbishop de
Beaumont had earned their gratitude by defending their casuists. But M.
Crétineau-Joly is here guilty of one of the gravest of the many grave
ruses in this part of his work. The supposed letter, in connection with
which he does not give a word of warning, is a flagrant Jesuit forgery.
It is dated 24th April 1774, yet it is well known that a few weeks
before that date the archbishop had suspended an ex-Jesuit preacher, M.
de la Vrillière, for presuming on his noble connections and fashionable
repute to make a few remarks, in a sermon, on the Pope's action. The
fact is that this forged letter, and one forged in the name of the
Archbishop of Arles, first saw the light in a Jesuit pamphlet eighteen
years afterwards. The French received the news with indifference or joy.
Austria also at once secularised its Jesuits. In spite of earlier
assurances the Pope had some misgiving about the attitude of Maria
Theresa, and with a copy of the brief he sent her a letter from his
own hand. She replied, as she had said for four years, that what the
Pope thought it proper to do was agreeable to her. Apart from Prussia
and Russia, which we will consider in the next chapter, it was chiefly
in small countries like the Swiss cantons, or on the foreign missions,
that the Jesuits tried to resist. At Lucerne the Jesuits induced the
senate to take the bold step of suspending the execution of the brief
and writing to the Vatican for explanations. They were disdainfully
ignored until they decided to carry out the sentence against the
Society. At Freiburg--this is told as a touching and creditable
incident by the Jesuits themselves--the superior gathered a vast
congregation in their chapel ("to say farewell"), made a most eloquent
discourse on the virtues and services of the Society, and implored
their followers to respect the Pope's orders. Naturally, the effect
was the reverse of pacifying the people, and it took some time to get
rid of the Jesuits in Freiburg. At Soleure and other towns there was
similar trouble. At Cologne the ex-Jesuit Fuller edited the _Gazette_,
and its columns erupted fiery attacks on the Pope, and reproduced all
the unfavourable gossip of Rome about him and his commissioners. They
were to appeal to a General Council against this infamous pontiff. It
was only in June of the following year, after the Nuncio had threatened
to lay an interdict on the town and the authority of the emperor
was invoked, that the Jesuits and their friends were silenced; and
then they merely changed their coats and continued, in their various
positions, to await better days. In Poland the bishops at once began
to execute the brief, but the Jesuits inspired the idea that it was
invalid on a technical ground, and the senate talked of sending an
ambassador to Rome. The struggle ended in the Polish Jesuits taking
shelter, as we shall see, under the authority of Catherine.
We do not, in a word, find that admirable and meek submission which
is claimed by pro-Jesuit writers, who seem to think that the cases of
vituperative pamphlets which were smuggled from country to country,
and the bold stand made by local authorities here and there, were
quite painful to the condemned fathers. We find, on the contrary, that
from General Ricci downward the Jesuits intrigue or rebel wherever
they have large local support and are not subject to a powerful
Catholic monarch. On the distant missions the sequel was worse than
in Europe. The removal of the Spanish and Portuguese fathers had
demolished most of the missionary provinces, and the condemnation of
their rites had greatly reduced the missions of the French and German
Jesuits. But a few of them still lingered at the court of the Chinese
Emperor or worked secretly in the provinces, and there were more in
Tong-King and India. They resisted the papal brief for three years,
at least in China. From every mission they held they were reported to
the propaganda for insurrection, and the letters which are sometimes
quoted to show how meekly they accepted the sentence were written by
exceptional individuals. A small minority of them were for submission.
Most of them made a hypocritical plea that the emperor (who no longer
recognised their existence as priests, it will be remembered) would not
suffer them to obey.
When, in 1776, they were forced to yield, they fell into three parties
and entered upon a long and scandalous quarrel about the division of
their property. As late as 1785 one of the ex-Jesuits dragged the
former superior of the Peking mission into the Chinese civil court and
exposed the quarrel. Bourgeois had the disposal of their property,
goods, shops, etc., which were valued at half a million francs, and he
rewarded the members of his own party with a thousand _taels_ each,
and left his opponents in great privation. In 1786 the propaganda
forced them to hand over their missions, which they still controlled,
in secular dress, to others, but they continued for several years to
quarrel with each other and with the other missionaries. The last
chapter of their Asiatic missions is little less than sordid, and it
is sheer deceit to conceal these facts and offer us only one or two
edifying letters written by the better fathers.
At the time of its abolition the Society numbered 22,589 members
(of whom 11,293 were priests), and owned 669 colleges and 869 other
residences (of which only 24 were "houses of the professed"). It is
needless to add any reflections on the suppression. The papal brief
is the supreme judgment on the Jesuits in the first phase of their
existence. However many devoted and austere members there were among
the twenty thousand, the Society was incurably corrupt. There was
no serious ground to think, after earlier experience, that reform
would succeed; they would not reform themselves--the decrees of their
Congregations were waste paper--and they resisted every papal effort to
reform them. The Society, as a body, was committed to the pursuit of
wealth and power, and in this pursuit it acted invariably as if the end
justified the means. The germs planted in it by Ignatius had ripened.
His followers had sought the wealthy and the powerful, had veiled their
actions in secrecy, and had trampled on their own rules and the rules
of the Church when the end required it.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 38: See a full account in Döllinger and Reusch's _Geschichte
der Moralstreitigkeiten in der Römisch-Katholischen Kirche_ (1889), i.
120-273.]
[Footnote 39: Two works will give the reader ample material for forming
an idea on the subject. From the Jesuit side there is Crétineau-Joly's
work, _Clément XIV. et les Jésuites_ (1847), though the work is little
more than a reproduction of the fifth volume of the same writer's
_Histoire ... de la Compagnie de Jésus_, and is quite unprincipled
in many of its statements. The other work (_Histoire du pontificat
de Clément XIV._, 1852) is a reply to the preceding, written by the
learned and conscientious Prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives,
Father Theiner. Both contain copious extracts from contemporary
documents, especially the correspondence of the ambassadors. The work
of St. Priest, _Histoire de la chute des Jesuites_, is interesting and
lively, but gossipy and unreliable.]
[Footnote 40: The retreat is a period, generally a fortnight, in
which priests and nuns devote themselves entirely to prayer and
contemplation. It is usual to do so annually; to go into retreat
twice in six weeks would be regarded as extraordinary and, in the
circumstances, very significant.]