History of the Jesuits: Their origin, progress, doctrines, and designs

by G. B. Nicolini

To keep these people in such a state of dependence and submission, the Jesuits had secluded them from the rest of the world. No individual could leave the Reduction without permission, and no European was allowed to visit these Reductions unaccompanied, or to have free intercourse with the inhabitants. The knowledge of any other than the native language was altogether banished, and aversion and prejudices against the Europeans as carefully cherished as in ancient Egypt.

Nor were the Reductions left unprotected against the possible attacks of foreign enemies. All able-bodied men were drilled to arms, and formed into a militia, having its regulations, its officers, its arsenal, its artillery, its ammunition. The officers were chosen by the soldiers; the arms and ammunition, not excepting the cannon, were manufactured in the Reduction, always by, and under the direction of, the Jesuits. On the afternoon of every Sunday, and other holidays, the militia assembled and executed military exercises and evolutions. When that militia was called forth for the service of the Spanish king, “they had always at their head and among their ranks, Jesuits, who prevented all contact with other Indians or with Europeans, and who answered for their virtue before God, as the Indians answered for their courage before men.”[293] Nor, indeed, did they fail in their duty when an occasion presented itself. Tribes of savages often attacked the Reductions, but were met with undoubted courage, and, generally speaking, were repulsed after sustaining severe loss.

But if, on the one hand, the Jesuits cherished among the people distrust and aversion towards strangers, they, on the other hand, diligently inculcated the exercise of hospitality and friendship among the different Reductions. On the great festival days, and especially on the day of the patron saint of any Reduction, the neighbouring ones went thither in solemn procession, and were received with all possible marks of love and friendship.

Such is a sketch of the civil government of the Reductions, and of the kind of life led by the inhabitants. Objections and reproaches, and perhaps not always unfounded, have been raised against such a system. It has been said that the inhabitants of the Reductions were low and abject slaves, led on by the scourge, deprived even of the faculty of thinking, and confined in a perpetual imprisonment, though within a large space. Quinet, with perhaps more eloquence than reason, exclaims, “Are we sure that it (Paraguay) contains the germ of a great empire? Where is the sign of life? Everywhere else, indeed, one hears at least the squalling of the child in the cradle; here, I greatly fear, I confess, that so much silence prevailing in the same place for three ages, is but a bad sign, and that the regime which can so quietly enervate virgin nature, cannot be any other than that which develops Guatmozen and Montezuma.” All this is very well said, and may be in part true. Doubtless, these people were kept in perpetual infancy. Doubtless, nothing great, nothing of a creating stamp, must be expected from them. Doubtless, they did not develop and expand the new element of life imparted to them, as other nations have done who were more left to themselves; nor did they exercise the noblest part of their nature—the intelligence—in that pursuit for which we think man was created—the search after truth. But surely there are nations who have been placed in worse circumstances, and subjected to more disastrous influences, and more deserving our pity and commiseration. Thus, if a nation, that has, through the free exercise of all its faculties and activities, arrived at a high state of civilisation and refinement, should be at once crushed, as France is at the present moment, under the iron hand of despotism, that people would be really miserable, and such doleful lamentations as those of the eloquent ex-professor of the College of France would not in this case be misplaced. But these Americans, who knew nothing of the pleasures of moral and intellectual refinement but what was presented to them by their instructors, and found therein contentment, we do not know how far they deserve to be pitied. Were these people, we ask in our turn, less happy or more miserable than those tens of thousands who wallow in vices of all sorts in the free and civilised towns of Paris and London? Are, then, squalid poverty, the groans of the oppressed, and reckless sensuality, necessary elements of national happiness? These are questions which in our opinion deserve some consideration; and although we think the human race has been destined by the Creator to greater and nobler purposes than the mere enjoyment of a material life; and although we know that humanity must progress in its career, and that this progress cannot be attained without great commotion and great evil, nevertheless, when we contemplate all the miseries which surround our state of civilisation, we freely forgive the Jesuits for having, in one part of the globe, let civilisation and progress sleep a while, to render these poor Indians happy.

Better founded are the charges brought by the pious and zealous against the Jesuits, with respect to the kind of religion they taught to their neophytes. In fact, though we cannot trace any such permanent system of gross idolatry as was practised by the order in the East Indies, nevertheless it is an undeniable fact, that what was taught by them under the name of the pure religion of Christ, was little else than a series of empty forms and superstitious observances, and that the worship which was rendered to God was little better than a continual and motley masquerade, if we may be allowed the expression. We shall not enter into details, the following passage from Crétineau sufficiently shewing what sort of Christians, if they can be called so at all, were those converted by the Jesuits. “Those Indians had a very limited intelligence; they only understood what fell under their senses; and the missionaries were so alarmed at their stupidity, that they asked themselves whether it was possible to admit them to the participation of the sacraments. They consulted, upon this point, the bishops of Peru assembled at Lima, who came to the decision that, baptism excepted, no act of Christian devotion should be imposed upon them, without infinite precautions.”[294] It is true that the panegyrist of the order adds, that the patience of the Jesuits was not discouraged for all this, and that they endeavoured to render them better Christians, and, we even believe, if the man who fulfilled all the imposed external ceremonies may be called a Christian, that they succeeded in their attempt.

However, it seems that the Jesuits had so completely perverted the true spirit of the Christian religion, that even Roman Catholic bishops, who, as every one knows, are not very scrupulous in these matters, were shocked and indignant at their conduct, and made an attempt to put a stop to it. Bernardin of Cardenas, Bishop of Paraguay, and John Palafox, Bishop of Angelopolis, were the most prominent in their efforts to put a stop to the Jesuitical superstitions; but both were unsuccessful; both were worsted in the contest; both were obliged to wander as poor exiles out of their dioceses; and both were at last compelled to give up their bishoprics. The history of Palafox in particular deserves to be briefly told.

Palafox was a man of the greatest piety, of a pure and uncontaminated life, and, after his death, was even proposed for canonisation. He bore no ill-will to the Jesuits; on the contrary, as a good Papist which he was, he even overrated their merits. In his letter to the King of Spain, he says of them, “The Company of the holy name of Jesus is an admirable institution, learned, useful, sainted, worthy not only of the protection of your majesty, but of all the Catholic prelates.”[295] A man who thus speaks of the order cannot be suspected of enmity; and it must be inferred that he would not have attacked the Society, unless constrained by duty or necessity. He attempted at first to bring them to reason by remonstrance.[296] He afterwards wrote a strong letter to Pope Innocent X., and asked for a reform of the Society, indispensable, he said, for the good of the Christian community. The result was, that the Jesuits raised such a storm, and excited so many bad passions against the virtuous prelate, that he, “not to be imprisoned or murdered, was obliged to fly, and to wander,” as he wrote to the Pope, “through inhospitable mountains and forests; to appease his hunger with the bread of affliction; to quench his thirst with the water of his eyes; to have no other house than caverns and the hard ground; and to pass his life with serpents and scorpions.”[297] Such was the life to which the Jesuits had reduced the poor bishop. But even this did not satisfy them. To satiate their spirit of revenge, they did not scruple to profane the episcopal dignity, and the most sacred mysteries of that religion which they professed to uphold. In 1647, on the day of the festival of their founder Loyola, the pupils of the college got up a procession, of which the following were the principal features. One of the scholars had the crozier hanging from the tail of his horse, and the mitre at the stirrup. Another carried an image of the bishop in caricature; others carried indecent images of highly respectable priests. This one gave a blessing with the horns of a bullock, saying, “Such are the true armorial of the Christians.” That others held up with one hand the image of the Saviour, and with the other an infamous thing which decency forbids us to name. All of them shouted out the Lord’s Prayer, at the end of which they repeated with thundering shouts, “Libera nos a Palafox—Deliver us from Palafox.”[298]

At last, the Court of Rome, in order to protect him, transferred him to the see of Osma in Spain, where he gave such proofs of virtue and piety, that he died in the odour of sanctity, received subsequently the title of Servus Dei and Venerabilis, and, about sixty years after, was proposed for canonization.[299] But can it be believed—would any one imagine—that Jesuits of the third generation would step forward to renew their attack against the ancient opponent of the order, and oppose his canonisation? And yet such was the case. The General of the Company actually interfered, and by the mouth of the promoter of the faith—promotore della fede,[300] calumniated his doctrines, his conduct, his life; and succeeded in postponing the canonisation till the storm which was gathering broke forth, and dispersed for a while the hated Company of Jesus.[301] This example goes far to shew how deeply is rooted in the heart of the Jesuit the spirit of hatred and revenge!

We have reported at some length the incidents connected with Palafox, as peculiarly exemplifying both the character of that individual, and the nature of the facts and the scandal they produced among the Papists themselves, and which is not yet alleged. But this is merely one example, amongst thousands, of the domineering and persecuting spirit of Jesuitism. “The innumerable and continual proceedings that were brought against you at the Court of Rome,” says Gioberti, addressing the order, “bear witness of the kind of concord and good friendship which the Company maintained with their companions in the priesthood and apostolate. The first cause of the quarrel has always been, that your missionaries wanted to be alone, and to exclude the other orders from any participation in the missions; and for this they first of all applied to the Holy See; and when they did not succeed there, they had recourse to all sorts of tricks, insidious calumnies, persecutions, and acts of violence.”[302] So speaks a man who glories in being a truly good Roman Catholic, and who enumerates many bishops, vicar-generals, popes, legates, &c., who had been sorely persecuted by the fathers. In fact, here is the policy adopted by the Jesuits towards the superior ecclesiastical authorities everywhere, and more especially in the East and West Indies. We beg the especial attention of our readers to the following statement, because it serves to explain the apparent anomaly existing among Popish bishops and other functionaries, in respect to the favour or hatred shewn by them to the Jesuits.