The next disaster the order encountered was the displeasure evinced by Philip II. against Francis Borgia, the ex-Duke of Candia, one of his father’s testamentary executors, and who had a very great influence over the other sons of Charles V.[122] The Inquisition, that faithful satellite of the Spanish crown, to please the king, condemned two ascetic books by that same Borgia, who, a few years afterwards, was numbered among the saints who were worshipped; he himself narrowly escaped being captured as a heretic. Borgia bore all this with true Christian humility, as well as some opposition shewn him by his own subordinates, and was consoled by the Pope, who called him to Rome, and received him with the utmost kindness.
Again, in Montepulciano, a town fifteen miles distant from Sienna, the Jesuits were accused of immorality. One was charged with having pressed a woman to go home with him; another, of having issued from a brothel; a third, of having offered violence to a female; and Father Gombar, the Superior himself, of having illicit intercourse with several ladies, and particularly with one whose love-letters were found in his possession. All these were incontestible facts, proved by sworn witnesses. Now listen to the imperturbable impudence of the historian Sacchini upon this matter. The reason he assigns for all these calumnies is, that “the Jesuits confessed almost all the women in Montepulciano; that they induced many young ladies to consecrate themselves to God in monasteries, and married females to be chaste and faithful wives. Hence arose the grief and fury (dolor et furor) of those whose passions could no longer find aliment. They, therefore, plotted the expulsion of the fathers.” What a set of monsters were these citizens of Montepulciano!
But let us proceed. “The man accused of having solicited a woman to go with him, was a simpleton, who, meeting a female on the road, was asked where he was going, and had the imprudence to answer. It was an enemy of the order, dressed as a Jesuit, who was seen to leave the brothel. Gombar, the Rector, did indeed entertain himself rather long in the confessional, but then he was engaged in spiritual conversation with the ladies. Among other penitents, he had two sisters belonging to a very high family; and the father, not being able to undertake the charge of both, was forced to abandon one of them. The one that was dismissed, out of spite and jealousy, accused the other to her brother, who forbade her to confess any longer to Gombar. The letters were falsified, and every other accusation was mere calumny.”[123] After such justifications as these, few will doubt that the Jesuits were guilty. Gombar, at any rate, frightened by the public rumour, fled, and Lainez dismissed him from the Society, in spite of all his entreaties. The town-council stopped paying the Jesuit teacher the allowed salary. The College was deserted—no alms!—no friends! Poor Jesuits! they were starving. And Lainez, after trying in vain to regain for the College its former good name, by sending thither some of the best and most conspicuous of the Jesuits, suppressed it altogether in 1563. Let them after this proclaim their innocence!
Accusations of a like nature were brought against the Jesuits in Venice, and were corroborated by the Patriarch. Some of the senators proposed to expel the Jesuits from the states of the republic, or to make them submit to the Patriarch’s authority; but the authority and interference of the Pope brought matters again to an accommodation.
Further, all the Jesuits in the College of Milan were accused of unnatural crimes. Here, also, the facts were pretty well established. Crétineau himself is forced to admit the occurrence of individual crimes; but, although a certain bishop brought forth many young men as witnesses against the Jesuits, yet the cardinal, chosen by the Pope to examine into the case, absolved them.
Meanwhile, at the end of three years, Lainez thought it would be politic on his part to appear anxious to resign the office. Having consulted his brethren on the subject, they declared that the office should be perpetual. We shall here give Bobadilla’s answer, on account of its originality. The formerly fierce opponent of Lainez writes to him thus from Ragusa:—“My opinion is that the office of General should be perpetual, according to the letter of our Constitutions. Let, then, your reverence keep a firm hold of it for a hundred years, and if after your death you should return to life, my advice is that the office be again conferred upon you, that you may keep it to the day of judgment. And I beg of you, for the love of Christ, to keep it, and be of good cheer,” &c.
Lainez being now assured of the perpetuity of his office, leaving Salmeron to manage the affairs of Italy, set out for France, in order that he might take part in the famous colloquy or conferences of Poissy, of which more hereafter. From France he passed into Belgium, visited the Rhenish provinces, a part of Germany, and crossed the Tyrol on his way to Trent.
In all these places Lainez made good use of both his name and authority, endeavoured to acquire new protectors for his order, to increase its revenues, to establish new houses, never forgetting, either in his sermons or controversies, to throw out slanders, and vehemently to attack the Protestant cause. He at last arrived in Trent for the re-opening of the Council. This famous assembly, which so solemnly consecrated some of the greatest errors that had ever been given to the world—which interposed an impassable barrier between Christian and Christian, but which, nevertheless, the Court of Rome calls most holy, re-opened on the 18th January 1562. This last Council had been called for by Luther, by the Protestants, and all those princes who were desirous to check the despotism of the Court of Rome, and to give peace to the Church by mutual concessions between the opposing parties. Different successive Popes refused this as long as possible, dreading the total ruin of their authority. Yet this assembly, as Fra Paolo, its historian, judiciously remarks, had a result quite opposite from that which was expected. The Protestants took no part in the Council’s proceedings, the authority of the Popes was further extended and more firmly established than ever, and the hope of healing the schism in the Church was altogether blasted.
The Council commenced its sittings in Trent on the 13th December 1545, was thence transferred to Bologna in March 1547, against the will of the German and Spanish prelates, who continued at Trent, was interrupted on the 2d of June of the same year, re-opened in May 1551, was again suspended in April 1552, re-opened in Trent, as we have said, in January 1562, and finally closed on the 3d of December 1563. The Jesuits boast of having had the greatest share in drawing up the decrees and fixing the dogmas as they now stand. Salmeron, Brouet, and especially Lainez, exercised great influence; and, if there were any glory in upholding erroneous doctrines and the tyrannical authority of the Pope, it most undoubtedly belonged to them, nor are we disposed to envy them the distinction they thus gained.[124]