The Footprints of the Jesuits

by Richard W. Thompson

This was the first experience that Loyola had in dealing with so conspicuous an adversary as Melchior Cano, and he realized the necessity of having him silenced in some way, so as to preserve his own personal influence. It furnished him, therefore, an opportunity—perhaps the first—to display his fitness for leadership, as well as to instruct his society in the indirect and artful methods by which he expected it, when necessary, to accomplish its objects. By means of the pope's bull approving the society, and the authority he claimed to have been conferred upon him by it, he succeeded in inducing the general of the Dominicans to cause Melchior to be made a bishop and sent to the Canaries, which removed him from Spain, and was equivalent to exile. The success he won in this way was, however, of short duration; for Melchior accepted his banishment for a brief period only, and, upon returning to Spain, he renewed his attack upon the Jesuits, which then became more violent and undisguised than before. He continued it as long as he lived, and at his death left this prophetic warning: "If the members of the society continue as they have begun, God grant that the time may not come when kings will wish to resist them, and will find no means of doing so!"[38]

Events, which deserve somewhat more particularity of detail, occurred also in Spain, at Saragossa, because they explain how the society was trained and disciplined from the beginning, under the inspiration of Loyola's immediate command. "As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined," is an adage no less applicable to a compact body like the Jesuits than to individuals. Loyola understood this, and lost no time, after he put his society in working order, to teach the members the art of circumventing their adversaries—an art which their successors, so far from forgetting, have improved upon. In this primary lesson he also taught them that they were justified in disregarding any human law that stood in the way of their success; that public opinion in conflict with their interests was entitled to no respect whatsoever; and that by steadfastly adhering to the principle of monarchism, upon which their society rested, they might confidently invoke the aid of monarchs to assure them success in any conflict with the people. And he taught them, moreover, that they were entitled to resist the authorities of the Church when the latter attempted to check their progress. And thus, almost in the infancy of the society, its founder fixed indelibly in the mind of every member the idea of their superiority over every department of society, over all the ancient monastic orders, and over even the Church itself, when its authority was employed to check their progress. All this will appear in the conflict about to be detailed.

The city of Saragossa was the capital of Aragon, where the law prohibited, by strict and explicit provisions, "the erection of a chapel or monastery within a certain distance of an established parish church or religious community." The Jesuits found a place they desired to occupy, but were forbidden to do so by this law, which all others had obeyed, and which the public desired to maintain for satisfactory reasons. The law, however, did not restrain them in the least; and in utter disregard of it, and in open defiance of the public authorities, they asserted the right to take possession of and erect a building upon it for their own uses. They proposed to encroach upon the rights of the Augustinians, when the Franciscans—both being ancient religious orders of monks—united with the former in resisting this threatened violation of public law, which had been, up to that time, universally acquiesced in by both these orders, and by the public as a prudential measure of public policy. But the Jesuits did not consider any law as of the least consequence when it placed obstructions in their path, and, consequently, persisted in their purpose despite the protests of the Augustinians and the Franciscans, all of whom were esteemed by the citizens of Saragossa for their sanctity. The controversy soon assumed such importance that the vicar-general of the Church issued a formal order, in the name and by the authority of the Church, whereby he prohibited the Jesuits from erecting their new building within the forbidden limits. Any other body of men, professing the least respect for the Church and its official representatives, would at least have hesitated after this. But the Jesuits paid no more respect to the ecclesiastical dignity and authority of the vicar-general than they had proposed to show to the existing public law, or to the two protesting monastic orders. The consequence was, that the vicar-general was constrained, in vindication of his authority as the representative of the Church, to denounce the Jesuits as heretics for their flagrant disobedience, and to threaten them with excommunication if they did not desist. He declared them accursed, and hurled the thunders of anathema against them. But the Jesuits, realizing how much strength lay in Loyola's single arm, remained unterrified. These thunders, which had caused even monarchs to quake, were powerless against his commands, which were communicated to his followers by the superior who watched over the interests of the society at Saragossa. The latter ordered the ceremony of consecrating the forbidden ground to proceed, in the face of both the law and the commands of the vicar-general; and the infatuated and disloyal Jesuits obeyed him. This was a new experience to the citizens of the capital of Aragon, who had witnessed nothing like it before, and they became incensed and thoroughly aroused. They took the side of the Augustinians and the Franciscans, and the "priests and religious" who defended them, and proceeded to display their indignation in such public and emphatic manner that it could not be mistaken. The historic statement is that "effigies of the Jesuits being precipitated into hell by legions of devils, were exhibited in the streets, and it was even inculcated among the people that the town was profaned by the presence of the Jesuits, who, it was declared, had brought heresy into it, and that the whole of Saragossa was under excommunication, and would so remain until they left it." This account is substantially given by all who have undertaken to write the history of the Jesuits, but it is taken from Daurignac, one of their ablest defenders, whose language is here quoted. He further explains the estimate in which the Jesuits were held by the people of Saragossa, while obedient to the faith of the Roman Church, in these words: "At length the populace, whose feelings had been thus worked upon, became more violent; and, proceeding to the house of the Jesuits, they threw stones, breaking the panes of glass, and threatening the inmates with their vengeance, while a procession, similar to the one already described, paraded around the ill-fated house, uttering cries of disapprobation, reproach, and condemnation."[39]

In a matter which involved, as this did, the mere enforcement of a public law universally approved, the duty of the Jesuits was plain and simple, not admitting of any equivocation. Like all others who enjoyed the protection of law, they were bound to obey the public authorities, to which was superadded their obligation to obey also the vicar-general as the official organ of the Church. But the reader should not be so far misled as to suppose that they were influenced by any such idea, or that they were in the least discouraged by the severe ecclesiastical and popular rebuke they received at Saragossa. No man understood better than Loyola what complete control can be obtained over the sentiments, opinions, and conduct of individuals by educational training; and he had taken the precaution so to discipline the novices of his society, from the moment of their initiation, as to make their blind and passive obedience the effectual method of consolidating his influence and authority over them. It is perfectly apparent, from the occurrences at Saragossa, that one of the first lessons they had learned was that form of obedience which required them to disregard and defy any law whatsoever, when commanded by their superiors to do so, without inquiring or caring what consequences might follow, either to the public or to individuals. Consequently, when compelled by the combined influence of the public authorities, those of the Church, and the indignant population of Saragossa, to abandon the erection of their new building upon the forbidden ground, they treated it as mere suspension, and not abandonment, still intending, by some means or other, to overcome this array of adversaries and defeat the execution of the law. With this view they ceased operations, seemingly yielding to the existing necessity. At this point in their history, however, they learned their first lesson in duplicity and deceit—and the sequel proves how well they learned it—by showing that, although apparently discomfited, they did not consider themselves as defeated. Loyola himself was not familiar with defeat, when success depended in any measure upon strategic intrigues with imperial rulers, all of whom fully understood that his society represented the most absolute monarchism then existing in Europe, and on that account, if no other, required them to extend to it every possible degree of protection, especially where, as at Saragossa, the people had taken active steps to require the enforcement of law. He had also prepared for escaping defeat in any matter concerning the Jesuits by fixing in their minds the conviction, as a religious sentiment, that there was no degree of courage so high and commendable as that exhibited by them when their obedience was carried to the extent of resisting whatsoever and whosoever stood in their way when commanded to do so for the interests of the society, which he required them to believe was for "the greater glory of God!" He had taught them to consider this as courage, but it was a misuse of terms so to call it; for, in its rightful sense, courage invokes the best and most ennobling faculties of the mind. Instead of this, the sentiment he inculcated proceeded from that indifference to public opinion and insensibility to shame which, as Bartoli concedes, is a necessary feature of Jesuit education. It is rather to be compared to the animal instinct of the tiger, which, after his coveted victim has once escaped, prompts him to approach it thereafter by stealthy steps, crouching in concealment until the time shall come when the final plunge may be successfully made.

The superior of the Jesuits at Saragossa was too well instructed in the policy dictated by Loyola not to understand wherein the main and real strength of the society consisted. Having, undoubtedly, full knowledge of the designs of Loyola, and molded to all his purposes, as the human form is chiseled from the lifeless block of marble, he proceeded at once to invoke the aid of the monarchical power of the Government of Spain, in order to bring the vicar-general of the Church, the Augustinian and the Franciscan monks, together with the priests and religious who adhered to them, and the people and local authorities of Saragossa, into absolute humiliation at his feet. For the first time, therefore, there was then opened to the Jesuits a new and broad field, wherein they were incited to display their wonderful capacity for intrigue. They were to be practically taught with what facility they could obtain the intervention of monarchical power to trample upon the rights of the ancient religious and monastic orders, violate the public laws, defy the ecclesiastical representatives of the Church, and make the people realize how powerless they were to influence the policy of the society, to modify its principles, or to impede its progress to the ultimate dominion it had started out to obtain.

Charles V was then emperor; but, as he was absent from Spain, his daughter, the Princess Jane, was the acting regent, with the full possession of imperial power. The superior of the Jesuits at Saragossa appealed to her by arguments which, although not preserved, may be fairly presumed to have centered in the necessity for establishing and preserving the society as the best and most certain method of perpetuating the monarchical principle, so absolutely essential to kings that, if it were destroyed, they could not exist; or, if they did exist, it would be with greatly diminished powers, and subject, in some degree, to the control of popular opinion. The regent was fully informed of the determination of her imperial father to maintain this principle at every hazard, and was aware of the fact that he was not at all choice about the methods of doing so. She understood how well fitted he was, by his vacillating course, for any emergency he might encounter; and that she was not mistaken in his character, history attests by the facts that, although a native of the Netherlands, he persecuted his own countrymen for daring to assert freedom of conscience for themselves; and at one time plotted with the king of France against the pope, at another with the pope against the king of France, and at still another succeeded in enticing the Protestants of Germany into an offensive alliance against both. As the representative of such a monarch—so unscrupulous about the means employed, either by himself or by others, in his behalf—the regent became a willing and easy convert to the appeal of the Jesuit superior. Holding both the law and public opinion in contempt, and looking upon the people as having no rights which kings were bound to recognize, she took the side of the Jesuits at Saragossa, and at once inaugurated the measures necessary to secure their triumph over all their adversaries. The pope's nuncio in Spain was easily brought to the same side, because it was the royal side; and, thus supported, the Jesuits soon reached the end they had sought after so anxiously by their triumphal re-entry into Saragossa, and the compulsory submission of the vicar-general, the Augustinians, the Franciscans, the priests, and the people! No combination which all these could then form could any longer resist the power and insolence of the Jesuits, when backed by the enormous monarchical power which Charles V had placed in the regent's hands. Daurignac, the Jesuit historian, tells all this in praise of his society, boastingly informing his readers how the vicar-general was "compelled to remove the ban of excommunication," and how the Jesuits were thereby enabled peacefully "to take possession of their house," and occupy it without further resistance. Of course, their adversaries were all subdued, not because of any change of opinion with regard to the Jesuits, but because they feared to disobey the regent, who held in her hands the power of the merciless Charles V. And the Jesuits, with the vanity inspired by success, marched the streets of Saragossa, through the subdued and humiliated crowd, in such conspicuous exultation as told emphatically with what indifference and contempt they looked upon human institutions and laws, or the rights of the monastic orders, or the sanction of local ecclesiastical authority, or municipal regulations, or the interests and sentiments of the people, or all these combined, when they undertook to place a check upon their ambition, or subject them to any other obedience than that they had vowed to their superior.[40]

These details, under ordinary circumstances, might seem tedious to the general reader, but they are justified by their necessity in showing how the Jesuits obtained their first signal triumph. There has been a long list of similar triumphs since then to which this contributed. The events themselves, in so far as they involve merely the occupation and use of a piece of ground, are comparatively insignificant; but they serve, far better than many of greater magnitude, to display the prominent and most dangerous characteristics of the Jesuits. They show their absolute disregard of all rights and interests in conflict with their own, and how thoroughly Loyola succeeded in making this the governing and cardinal principle of the society; and their significance is increased by the fact that the affair at Saragossa inaugurated a policy which the Jesuits have steadily pursued throughout their history, varying their methods according to the character of the objects they have endeavored to attain. In this sense, they are introductory to a proper estimate of them.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion. By Gladstone. Pages 94 to 102. It is here stated that the "Jesuit General Linez [Laynez], strongly advocated papal infallibility in the Council of Trent, ... but the Council left the question undecided."

[37] History of the Jesuits. By Steinmetz. Vol. I, p. 378.