A Candid History of the Jesuits

by Joseph McCabe

And the year 1820 gives us some measure of their guilt in connection with the preceding years. The middle class was still strong enough, or humane enough, to put an end to the disgraceful horrors, and reaffirm the liberal constitution of 1810. The Cortes was summoned, and, although its members were still predominantly Catholic, it was determined, with only one dissentient, to expel the Jesuits. The terrified King yielded to the deputies, and in August the four hundred Jesuits were pensioned and ordered to quit the country. Unfortunately, the French King espoused the cause of his "cousin," and his troops restored the savage autocracy of Ferdinand and the power of the Jesuits. The reign of terror returned, and even the other Catholic monarchs of Europe were shocked by the outrages committed and permitted by Ferdinand. Again it is impossible to disentangle the share of the Jesuits in this comprehensive guilt. Their chief task was to educate the young in "better" sentiments. The College of Nobles and a large military college at Segura were entrusted to them, and they reoccupied their former colleges. But neither priests nor ruler put confidence in educational methods. It is enough to note that a conservative authority on Spain, Major Hume, says of the renewed reign of terror: "Modern civilisation has seen no such instance of brutal, blind ferocity."

This appalling condition lasted, almost continuously, until the death of Ferdinand in 1833. Then the country entered upon the long Carlist war, and the Jesuits were soon expelled for the third time. While Queen Christina allied herself with the Liberals, Don Carlos rallied to his standard the absolutists and Ultramontanes, and the great majority of the clergy supported him. It is usually and confidently said that the Jesuits, like the rest of the clergy, supported Don Carlos; but when we recollect their maxim of not taking sides openly in an ambiguous conflict, or taking both sides, we shall not expect to find any proof of this in the early stages. Not only the Liberals but the mass of the people in Madrid were persuaded that they were on the side of Don Carlos, and they saw hatred gathering on every side of them. In 1834 the cholera descended on the capital. Such occasions had generally served the Jesuits, but this fresh affliction only further irritated the people against them. The cry was raised that the Jesuits and the Carlists had poisoned the water-supply, and it seems that, by some strange accident or plot, children were found on the street with small quantities of arsenic. In the afternoon of 17th July the citizens flung themselves upon the houses of the Jesuits and other religious, and a fierce riot ensued. Fourteen Jesuits, forty-four Franciscans, and fifteen Dominicans and others were slain in the struggle. Some of their provincial houses also were sacked or closed, and the inmates had to fly for their lives.

In the following year, 1835, the Society was again proscribed, by the Regent Christina, and the Jesuits were scattered. They now sided openly with Don Carlos. Alleging, as usual, that they were indifferent to politics and must discharge the spiritual services demanded of them under any banner, they followed in the rear of the advancing Carlists and opened colleges in the districts conquered by them. One Jesuit guarded the conscience of Don Carlos, another was tutor to his children, and others ministered in his camps. At length an abler Christinist General, Espartero, cleared the Carlists from the Basque Provinces and closed the Jesuit houses. By the time of the revolution of 1848 there were none but a few disguised and timid survivors of the Society in Spain.

From Portugal the Jesuits were rigorously excluded during fifteen years after the restoration of the Society. John VI., a constitutional and sober monarch, refused to irritate his subjects by admitting them, and had no need of their stifling influence on education in Portugal. He resisted all the pressure of Rome in their interest, and observed the Liberal Constitution which he had accepted. His granddaughter Maria succeeded to his throne and policy in 1826, under the regency of her uncle, Dom Miguel. Here again the Jesuits were admitted in virtue of an act of treachery and throve in an atmosphere of savagery. Dom Miguel intrigued for the throne, and, when he took an oath to respect the Liberal Constitution, was permitted to occupy it. "His Jesuit training," says the Cambridge Modern History (x. 321), "would make it easy for him to rest content with the absolution of the Church for a breach of faith committed on behalf of the good cause." He at once violated his oath and turned with ferocity upon the Liberals. It is estimated by some of the Portuguese writers that more than 60,000 were executed, deported, or imprisoned in the next four years.

Such was the second of the leading Catholic monarchs to seek the aid of the Jesuits. None of the members of the old Portuguese Province could be discovered, or induced to resume work in a bitterly hostile world, and eight Jesuits had to be sent from France, in 1829, to begin the work of restoration. They make little pretence of an enthusiastic reception in this case. None of their former property was restored, and for a time they had to take refuge in the houses of rival orders. They had, however, their usual good fortune to attract the sympathy of noble ladies, and were enabled to secure their old house at Lisbon in the following year. When the King saw that no violent upheaval followed their arrival, he began to patronise them, and secured for them their famous college at Coimbra. In the same year they had the satisfaction of establishing a house at Pombal, where their old antagonist had died, and their superior describes, in an edifying letter, how he at once "ran to say a prayer over the tomb of the Marquis"; he was deeply pained, it seems, to find that the remains of Pombal had not even yet been interred, while the children of Ignatius were received with honour in his name-place.

But the ferocity of Miguel had already deeply stirred the population, and in the following year the defrauded young Queen's father, Don Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, crossed the ocean to secure her rights and the Constitution. The Jesuits were painfully perplexed. Don Pedro seems to have felt that he could not hope for a lasting triumph without the aid of the Jesuits, and he made a secret offer to them, in an autograph letter (in March), of his protection and favour if they would desert Miguel. The issue was uncertain, and, when Don Pedro entered Lisbon in July, the Jesuits assured him that his letter had reached their hands too late for them to consider his offer. They had remained ideally neutral in the war, and had nursed the cholera victims in both camps with religious impartiality.

The people of Lisbon saved Don Pedro from the dilemma which this excellent or prudent conduct imposed on him. On 29th July a mixed throng of soldiers and citizens assaulted and sacked the Jesuit residence. It would have gone very hard with the fathers themselves had not certain English naval officers chivalrously saved them. In the following May (1834) Don Pedro renewed the sentence of suppression. From their handsome college at Coimbra they were conveyed to Lisbon, to face the hoots and taunts of a rejoicing mob, and then to be deposited in prison. The French afterwards secured their release from prison, but they have never since had a legal existence in the land of Pombal.

We turn next to England, to study the fortunes of the followers of Ignatius up to the middle of the nineteenth century. In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Jesuits had availed themselves of the more tolerant spirit of the age of the Georges, and again increased to a considerable body. Their colleges in Spain, France, and Belgium received numbers of young Catholic aspirants, and we find that at the time of the suppression of the Society the English Province boasted 274 members, of whom 143 were actually in England. The suppression in Spain and France reduced their colleges; the two colleges at Bruges were violently closed by the authorities in 1773; there remained only a house at Liège and the English missions at Liverpool, Preston, Bristol, and a few other towns.

They continued to live in community in these residences after the abolition of the Society, and minister as secular priests. In 1794 their situation was again altered by the French invasion of Belgium, when the English fathers were expelled from their last continental seat, at Liège. The disaster proved, however, to be the starting-point of their more prosperous modern development in England. One of their old pupils, Thomas Weld, offered them a house and estate at Stonyhurst, near Preston, and on 29th August the refugees reached what was destined to be one of their most important centres. They opened a school—to be directed by certain "gentlemen from Liège"—and quietly awaited the future.