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

by G. B. Nicolini

And nevertheless, it was upon such testimony that the tribunal of the Consulta, composed of cardinals and prelates, condemned sixty unfortunate young men to suffer the last punishment of the law. We must further observe that, had those men who composed the tribunal, which they call Sacred, been judges, and not persecutors, had they had any sentiment of humanity in passing the sentence, even though the crime had been proved, they would have borne in mind the time and the motives which led the culprits to commit the murder, and would not have added another red page to the annals of their Church, already overcharged with innocent blood.[452]

Sinigallia, in which the executions were the most numerous, had not yet recovered from the horror inspired by such a bloody tragedy, and had not dried its tears for the cruel fate of its butchered citizens, and especially for the innocent and unfortunate Simoncelli,[453] when, to complete its miseries and insult its grief, there appeared a Papal ordinance, granting to the Jesuits £40,000 sterling to erect a college in the desolate city. Ah! so they reign in the Papal states!

When the Jesuits re-entered Naples in 1849, the superior held a sort of levee, when the generals of the army, the first magistrates of the kingdom, and all the civil and military authorities, went to pay their respects to those very humble monks. The addresses which were delivered on the occasion in praise of these men of Providence, these messengers of God, these restorers of all moral and sainted institutions, were, from their hyperbolical style, amusing in the extreme; and it is curious to find that some of them were repeated almost literally (plagiarism seems to become very fashionable now-a-days) by some bishops to Louis Napoleon, the saviour of society, the man of Providence, the pearl of chastity and virtue—just as was done to the fathers themselves.

If in Rome the Jesuits must shew deference to the chair of St Peter, in Naples they are masters of the situation. St Ignatius has superseded even St Januarius, and both have almost obliterated the name of Christ. The superstition and bigotry of that part of the peninsula exclusively under the sway of the Jesuits is almost incredible; and the government, conducted on those principles, has reached the highest point of immorality and corruption, and is held up by every honest person, no matter of what party, to the execration and contempt of Europe; while, to leave no doubt as to the influence which predominates there, the Pope, the Jesuits, and the priests, their abettors, represent Ferdinand II. as a model of Christian perfection, and the kingdom of the two Sicilies as the best governed in the world; the Roman states being of course excepted.

Unfortunately, the wretched Neapolitans, and the noblest and best amongst them, have to pay with their liberties and their lives for the eulogium awarded by the Jesuits to the merciless Bourbon. The policy of the Neapolitan governments is a disgrace to civilisation. A band of ruffians, under the name of police or government, seize upon all persons who have had the misfortune to displease them; their victims are thrown into prison, and are accused of imaginary crimes; while the accusers, changing themselves into witnesses, often into judges, in order to make good the charge, keep them chained for three or four years in Ischia, as in the case of Poerio and Dragonetti, and finally pass a sentence of death upon them, in order to give the pious and clement Ferdinand and his Jesuit confessor the merit of having commuted the infamous sentence into a horrid and perpetual imprisonment; and to all this complication of iniquities they give the name of a state trial. Such is the Neapolitan government under the conduct of the sons of Loyola.

But the malignant spirit of the Jesuits, in breaking forth from Naples and Rome, has lately made an inroad into a province which, till then, had been spared its pernicious influence. Among all the other provinces of Italy, Tuscany had been favoured with a comparatively just and tolerant government; and this, it was openly asserted, was owing to the absence of the Jesuits from the country. Now, whoever has followed the march of events there, must have been struck by the wide difference that exists between the former policy of the government and the new one introduced after Leopold II. had been some time at Gaeta, under the influence of Antonelli and the Jesuits. From that moment all things changed in Tuscany. The priests re-acquired an influence which they had never possessed since the time of Leopold I., and made it subservient to their unworthy ends. Madonnas became again miraculous. Feasts and processions were got up with the greatest pomp, and were numerously attended by all those who had anything to hope or fear from the government. A furious war was declared against all doctrines but those harmonising with the strictest ultra-Popish principles. Books and newspapers were interdicted, and no efforts were spared to bring the enlightened, lively, and intellectual people of Tuscany to limit their literary pursuits to the perfect knowledge of the Catechisms.

The influence of the too notorious Bocella, by his own confession a Jesuit, was, above all, fatal to the country. While he was the chief adviser of the Grand Duke, the Grand Duchess went in procession to worship a miraculous Madonna at Rimini, and Leopold himself ordered a sumptuous and extraordinary feast for another Madonna in Florence, to whose church he repaired in state. But at the same time, the most respectable citizens of Florence, Count Guicciardini and others, were prosecuted and exiled for the heinous crime of reading the Bible; and two unfortunate and inoffensive creatures—the Madiais—have been condemned to the punishment of malefactors (hard labour), for having in their possession the sacred volume, and for discussing and endeavouring to prove its veracity. Later still, an ordinance of the Grand Duke re-establishes capital punishment, which had long since been abolished; while another ordinance of the minister of police expels from the hospitable soil of Tuscany hundreds of unfortunate Italians, who had sought there a refuge against the ferocious and relentless persecution of the Roman Court. Such are the effects of the influence of the Jesuits.

What will become of Lombardy, already so wretched, now that Austria has decided on re-establishing the Jesuits there on an extended scale, it is disheartening to contemplate; while, on the other hand, it is cheering in the extreme for an Italian, and for every true friend of civil and religious liberty, to see the conduct of the Piedmontese government towards the Jesuits and the priesthood.

The Jesuits, after their expulsion, were never permitted to re-enter the kingdom, and the priests are now subjected, like other citizens, to the laws of the land, and are obliged to submit to that equality which they consider as a disgrace to their privileged caste. For it must be borne in mind that the priest, and the conscientious one more than others, considers himself a superior being, a man far above any layman, even though he were a king. He imbibes this idea from childhood, when he begins to dress in a peculiar garb, and is accosted by a respectful appellation. According to the canonical law (and in Italy that law is universally respected and strictly enforced, except, indeed, in Piedmont), the moment an infant assumes the garb of a priest, and receives the first order (tonsura), he is no more subject to the civil authorities; he is henceforth only amenable to the ecclesiastical court, and whoever strikes him, incurs de facto excommunication. After he has been consecrated priest, he pretends, or in reality believes, that it is in his power to oblige the Almighty to descend from heaven into his hands, and that at his bidding the flesh and blood of the Divine Redeemer is transubstantiated into bread and wine, and in that form goes to sanctify his breast. Again, he believes, or feigns to believe, that it rests with him to open or shut the gates of heaven, and that he has the power of bestowing everlasting beatitude or dooming to eternal damnation, according as he absolves from sin or refuses absolution. In fact, he puts himself in the place of God, of whom he calls himself the Anointed, and whose name he often usurps. When we consider all this, we do not wonder that the priests cannot endure equality of rights with other citizens. We are rather astonished that serious and enlightened people of this country can for a moment entertain the idea that the Irish Roman Catholic priests are sincere when they ask for equality of rights. Look to Piedmont; there the Romish priesthood enjoy this equality—nay, more than equality. Their religion is acknowledged to be the religion of the state; and many are the writers who have lately been condemned for disparaging it. They possess, also, some other less considerable privileges over the other citizens; and yet they are far from being satisfied. On the contrary, they accuse the government of tyranny. The bishops are in open rebellion against the sovereign; priests and curates oppose the laws of the country. The pulpit, the confessional, are made subservient to their hatred of the new state of things; and all this because the legislature attempts, not to deprive them of any right, or subject them to any incapacity, but to introduce equality, and to subject ecclesiastics of all sorts to the common law. The rage of the priesthood at this sacrilegious audacity on the part of the parliament, in seeking to assimilate them to other men, is such, that they have launched a solemn act of excommunication against all those who shall read the newspapers advocating such infamous measures. The Jesuits are at the bottom of all this, and their intrigues brought Piedmont but the other day to the brink of ruin. Fortunately, public opinion declared itself so strongly, and the king shewed such firmness, that their machinations proved abortive. It must be remarked in all this, that when the liberal newspapers reproach the clerical party with their acts or words, they always stigmatise them with the name of Jesuits—so universally is the abhorred name coupled with all that is bad, cunning, and criminal!