A Vanished Arcadia: Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607-1767

by R. B. Cunninghame Graham

To add to the confusion, Don Pedro Cardenas escaped from Corrientes, and, having taken to himself a companion—one Francisco Sanchez de Carreras—raged through the city like a devil unchained. In his extremity, the poor Bishop went to the Jesuits for advice, informing them he could not stand the scandals that were taking place, and that he intended to leave the city after launching an interdict of excommunication upon all. Placed in the position of declaring openly either for Bishop or for Governor, the Jesuits refused an answer, knowing that anything they said would be brought up against them. All their advice to him was, ‘to trust in God, to persevere in his good efforts, to resign himself to divine will, which will, as the Bishop knew full well, worked sometimes in a mysterious fashion for the welfare of the soul.’ The Bishop answered this advice ‘fort sèchement’,[120] taking it for a reproach, and as a sort of thing not to be tolerated amongst professionals—as if one lawyer, having gone to another for his advice upon a private matter, had received for answer a lecture on conveyancing or a short treatise upon Roman Law.

Still, the occasion called for something to be done; so, calling an Indian servant, he stripped to the waist, and, to the horror and amazement of the public, appeared with naked feet and shoulders, dressed in a sack and armed with a heavy scourge. At the first blow he gave himself some canons of the Cathedral begged him to desist; but he, after prayer, replied that he intended, so to speak, to act as his own Pascal lamb, and wipe out the affront done to St. Francis in his unworthy blood.

A naked Bishop in a sack is almost sure to attract some observation even in Paraguay. Religious women not unfrequently have been attracted by such a spectacle, and so it proved on this occasion. Although the Jesuits and the saner portion of the population blamed the Bishop’s action, he made himself a host of partisans amongst the women of all classes, who followed him as they have often followed other thaumaturgists in times present and gone by.

His friend Don Melchior Maldonado, hearing what had passed, wrote to reprove him for his inconsiderate zeal. In his epistle he observed that, though some of the Apostles had scourged themselves, it was not their habit to appear half naked before a crowd of women; that our Lord Himself had not of His own accord taken off His garments for the scourger; that saints who scourged themselves had, as a general rule, chosen a private place for their self-discipline. This was quite reasonable, but the advice was little to the taste of the recipient, who hated criticism when levelled at himself.

If crosses make a saint, about this time Don Bernardino had his full share of them. News came from Itatines, where the two Jesuits had been marooned, that both of them were ill. Cardenas, who, we may remember, was homme à visions, called in the rector of the Jesuit college to inform him that the Company of Jesus had a new martyr in their ranks. Though martyrs (even to-day) enter the ranks of General Loyola’s army pretty frequently, it still seemed strange that the Bishop should know of this particular recruit before the rector. Pressed for an explanation, he replied that a pious person who was vouchsafed communication with the Lord in prayer had seen Father Domenecchi in heaven shining in glory and with a halo round his head.

Nothing could be more satisfactory. All the essentials of a well-attested miracle had been complied with. A man was dead, another man had seen the dead man in an ecstasy of prayer, and, to make all complete, refused to testify himself, sending the Bishop as a sort of pious phonograph. No true believer in such a case could doubt, and all went well till it appeared a man from Itatines, charged with a message to the Jesuit college, had passed the night before he gave his message at the Bishop’s house. In Holy Writ we read the wicked man shall have no rest; if this is so, it is as it should be, though generally the good seem just as troubled in their lives as the most erring of their brethren. He who would be a saint must be a-doing, year in, year out, just like a common workman, and Cardenas was no exception to the rule.

The pseudo-miracle not having been quite a success, he turned to other fields, and summoned all the inhabitants of Paraguay to attend at the Cathedral upon a certain day. The Governor, thinking there was a revolution likely to break out, fixed a review of all the troops for the same date. A Jesuit priest waited upon the Bishop to persuade him that the crowds which would assemble might break the peace. The Bishop reassured him, and sent him to the Governor to say that his intention was to preach to the people and explain to them the faith; further, that he intended on that day to raise his excommunication and be reconciled: only he asked him to allow the troops to attend and hear his sermon. The crowd was great; the Bishop mounted the pulpit, and, extending his forefinger in the attitude of malediction so dear to Bishops, straight began to preach. For a time all went well. The Governor, presumably, was waiting for the circulation of the hat—that awful mystery which makes all sects kin—when to his horror Cardenas began to enumerate all his offences: he was anathema, was excommunicated, a disbeliever, and had endeavoured to cast down that which the Lord Himself had set on high. The Bishop then informed the crowd that God was angry with the Governor, talked about Moses, and dwelt with unction on the fact that the great lawgiver had been swift to slay.

In a peroration which, no doubt, went home to all, he called upon his hearers, under penalty of a heavy fine and his displeasure, to seize the Governor, adding that if there was resistance ‘he should kill his brother, his friend, or his nearest relative.’[121] After these words he seized a banner from the hands of the astonished officer who stood nearest to him, and stood forth, like another Phineas, surrounded by his clergy, all of whom had arms beneath their cloaks.

A most dramatic scene, and probably almost successful, had but the Bishop only reckoned with two things: Firstly, he had forgotten that the Governor was an old Indian fighter, and ready for surprises; and, secondly, he had not taken into account the usual apathy of the common people when their leaders fight. Dumbly and quite unmoved the people stood, staring like armadillos at a snake, and made no sign. Then word was brought that the Governor had left the church and was assembling a force of arquebusiers.

Surrounded only by clergymen, Don Bernardino had to yield, and yielded like a Levite, with a subterfuge. He sent a priest to beg the magistrates to come to the Cathedral and reason with him. After a consultation this was done, and Cardenas consented to abate his fury and exhale his wrath. He said that Holy Writ itself gave leave to recur to force in self-defence (but did not quote the text), and that the Governor had meditated a like enterprise against himself; moreover, that, he being an excommunicated man, it became lawful for God’s vicegerent to lay hold on him.