The Footprints of the Jesuits

by Richard W. Thompson

Among the notable events connected with the latter was the arrival in China of some Dominican and Franciscan missionaries, and their surprise at discovering the idolatrous practices of the Jesuits. Having never suspected even the possibility of the teachings of the Church being so tortured as to furnish apology for idolatry, they considered the conduct of the Jesuits "a real scandal," which deserved to be rebuked. What seemed to them as especially censurable was the fact that the Jesuits had taught their neophytes to use the Chinese term "King-Tien," to express the idea of God—not as the Creator of the universe, but as the presiding Deity over a multitude of other deities, each having a separate sphere of sovereignty. To them it was not easy to conceive of anything more likely to undermine Christianity, because by limiting or lessening in any way the sovereign attributes of God, the whole Christian system would topple and fall. They, accordingly, notified the apostolic vicar in China, as the immediate representative of the Church there, of this unscrupulous and unchristian conduct of the Jesuits, in order, if possible, to apply the proper corrective and remove the "scandal" from the Church. The vicar did not have much to do to discover that the accusations of the monks against the Jesuits were true; and when this became known to him, he not only condemned their idolatry, but "severely censured them" for practicing it. The Jesuits, by way of defense, attempted to explain why they had applied an idolatrous Chinese term to the God of the Christians, and in doing so exhibited their accustomed sophistry—in which they have always been adepts—in such way as to convince the vicar, as well as the Dominican and Franciscan monks, of their entire want of sincerity and candor, to say nothing of their loss of Christian integrity. They pretended that "the honors paid to Confucius were merely civil ceremonies, with which the Christians did not associate any religious ideas whatever, and that the word King-Tien, in the Chinese language, simply conveyed the idea of God as understood by Christians." This, they said, they were informed by the Chinese mandarins and learned men. Hence, they argued that unless the idolatrous worship they had adopted were allowed to prevail, it would be impossible to obtain sufficient influence over the Chinese to draw them to Christianity—the precise meaning of which was, that unless they were permitted to practice the idolatrous rites of heathenism, the Chinese could never be induced to become Christians. This argument was thoroughly Jesuitical, and failed to mislead either the vicar apostolic or the Dominican and Franciscan monks, all of whom could see through the thin disguise with which the Jesuits attempted to conceal their ultimate purpose of bringing the Church authorities, with the pope at their head, in obedience to them. It did not require any Chinese learning for them to understand that it was impossible, in the nature of things, for the Chinese to have introduced into their language any word, or even any set of words, expressive of the idea of God as Christians understood it. They were familiar with the universal rule that the language of every people is constructed solely to express their own ideas, sentiments, and thoughts, and not such as prevail among those with whom they hold no intercourse. Candor and fair dealing with the Church and the cause of Christianity, therefore, required them to recognize the facts that the Chinese word King-Tien conveyed only the idolatrous idea of the superior godship of Confucius, and that it was so used in all the civic and other ceremonies of the Chinese. The result consequently was, that the vicar united with the monks in repudiating the position and doctrine of the Jesuits, and vigorously condemned and censured them for bringing the established worship of the Church into disrepute. This decision alone—made by the regularly constituted authorities of the Church—constitutes a most important and pregnant fact, which should not be overlooked by those who desire to understand the history of the most wonderful society the world has ever known.

This decision undoubtedly conformed to the opinion of the pope and of all the Church authorities throughout Europe, outside the circle of Jesuits. When announced by the apostolic vicar, with the approval of the monks, it should have put a stop to all further idolatrous proceedings on the part of the Jesuits. Any other body of men, who acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Church, would either have obeyed it by entirely abandoning the condemned practices at once, or, at all events, would have ceased to follow them until the prohibition was removed by the pope, whose superior jurisdiction could not be denied without rebellion against the Church. But the Jesuits did not belong to an order accustomed to submission to any other authority than that of their superior, whom each of them had solemnly sworn to recognize as equal to God, and to obey accordingly. They acquiesced in the decisions of the popes when they conformed with their own opinions and purposes; when they did not, they employed all their combined ingenuity and cunning to evade them. Consequently, they disobeyed the vicar, spurned the counsel of the monks, and persisted in continuing their idolatrous practices, under the pretense that they were awaiting the decision of the pope.[118]

The popes were compelled to deal slowly and cautiously with such questions on account of the difficulty of access to such remote countries as India and China, and the unavoidable delays in transmitting intelligence between them and Rome. Precautionary measures were adopted by sending special prelates of the Church, chosen by the pope for that purpose, not only with directions to investigate and report the facts, but with authority to establish temporary regulations which should become operative while waiting the pope's approval, and final when that was given. One of these prelates was a Spanish Dominican, named Morales, who was sent to China in 1633 by Pope Urban VIII. This was twelve years after the matter had been submitted to Paul V, and was rendered necessary by the fact that it had remained undecided during the pontificate of Gregory XV. When Morales reached China, he entered upon the necessary examination with sufficient care to become convinced of the unchristian conduct of the Jesuits, and, accordingly, condemned their ceremonies as idolatrous. This incensed the Chinese authorities—who are supposed to have been influenced to this by the Jesuits—and "the Dominicans and the Franciscans were driven from the country," leaving the Jesuits alone to follow their idolatrous practices without the interference of the monks or of Morales, who, being a Dominican, was included among those expelled. Morales had then spent twelve years in China, and all that time was laboring with the Jesuits to induce them to give up their participation in the worship of Confucius; but his efforts were wholly unavailing. They had brought themselves into favor at the court of the Chinese emperor, and were unwilling to surrender the advantages thus obtained, preferring them to the service of the Church. There was, therefore, no other course left to Morales, after his expulsion from China, but to proceed to Rome and report to the pope, who was then Innocent X. This he did in 1645, when he fully laid before the pope what he had observed in China, making known, of course, the fact that he had been banished on account of his fidelity to the trust assigned him. It was impossible for the pope to abandon the matter at this point, and he accordingly submitted to the Congregation of the Propaganda, to be decided for his information and guidance, these two questions: "Is it permissible to prostrate one's self before the idol Chachinchiam? Is it permissible to sacrifice to Keumfucum; that is, Confucius?" By these questions the Jesuit methods of procedure in China were brought directly before this established tribunal of the Church at Rome, so that the decision of them by the pope was unavoidable. What that decision was, is shown by the following statement made under the immediate auspices of Archbishop Hughes, of New York, in the "Lives and Times of Roman Pontiffs," by De Montor: "On the reply of the Congregation, the pope issued a decree forbidding missionaries of any order or institute to do either of those things, until the Holy See gave a contrary order."[119] Thus, whatsoever other popes may have done or omitted to do, Innocent X solemnly decreed that the Jesuit practices were wrong and would be no longer tolerated by the Church. He had not then learned—what became perfectly apparent to many of his successors—that the Jesuits were as familiar with the various methods of brushing papal decrees out of their way as they were with the frauds and hypocrisies by which they duped and misled the heathen at the expense of the Christian cause.

There seems to have been some unnecessary delay, and possibly some undue prevarication, in the manner in which the popes disposed of these troublesome matters. De Montor represents that several of the popes who succeeded Innocent X permitted the Jesuits to continue their idolatrous ceremonies; to wit, Alexander VII, Clement IX, Clement X, Innocent XI, Alexander VIII, and Innocent XII. This general statement, however, is misleading, and calculated to do injustice to these popes, unless taken in connection with the fact that none of them went further than to say that the Jesuits might unite with the Chinese in their civil ceremonies, when they were, in no sense, religious. None of them undertook to decide whether the sacrifice to Confucius did or did not involve religious worship; for that was the question directly submitted to them, and with regard to which the utmost pains were taken to procure accurate and reliable evidence. But it is undoubtedly true that the Jesuits misconstrued what had been done by these six popes, and perverted their meaning to suit themselves, by continuing their idolatrous practices with increased impunity. And they did this to such an extent, and so openly, that in 1693, Maigrot, Apostolic Vicar, Doctor of the Sorbonne, and Bishop of Conon, was constrained, as the representative of the Church, to forbid the idolatrous ceremonies of the Jesuits by a special prohibitory decree. The date of this decree is important, inasmuch as it shows how many years it took and how hard it was to bring the Jesuits into subordination to the Church; in other words, how little they cared for the Church, or the popes, or vicars apostolic, or the ancient monkish orders, when either of them alone, or all combined, ventured to place the least impediment in their path. The question with regard to the idolatrous practices of Nobili arose first in 1618, and was submitted to Paul V in 1621. Hence, up to the time of his official decree of condemnation by Maigrot, as vicar apostolic, seventy-two years—nearly three-quarters of a century—had elapsed, during all which time the Jesuits had enjoyed an uninterrupted triumph over the Church, the popes, and Christianity.

This condition of things made it absolutely necessary that the severe and protracted strain upon the authority of the Church should, in some way, be brought to an end, and that the stigma the Jesuits had inflicted upon Christianity should be removed. Consequently, Pope Clement XI—after eight more years of delay—appointed a new vicar apostolic and legate in the person of the distinguished Cardinal De Tournon, in order to insure a complete and thorough investigation of the conduct of the Jesuits in India and China. He was empowered to represent fully the authority of the Church and to act in the place of the pope. De Tournon entered upon his mission with zeal, and having, after investigation, found all the accusations against the Jesuits completely verified, issued a decree, in June, 1704, whereby he condemned in the strongest and most explicit terms the Chinese and Malabar rites practiced by the Jesuits. This decree is given by Nicolini, and a perusal of it will show the degraded state into which the Jesuits had brought the professedly Christian worship—even to the adoption of the superstitious and immoral customs of the idolaters.[120] Up till this time the Jesuits had enjoyed nearly a hundred years of impunity, and as the Church had been unable, during this long period, to impose upon them any restraint they had not contrived the means to defy, their idolatrous worship and demoralizing doctrines could no longer be tolerated without incalculable harm. Therefore, the severe measures adopted by De Tournon, by the express authority of Clement XI, were fully justified.

The Jesuits again evidenced their perverse and stubborn nature by impudently appealing from the decree the pope had authorized De Tournon to make in his name, to the pope himself, manifestly hoping either to bring him over to their side, or to procrastinate his final decision indefinitely. They repeated their favorite argument, that Christianity could not be propagated in India and China without making the worship of idols part of its religious ceremonies. They also impeached the character of the evidence upon which De Tournon had relied, by insisting that it was obtained from those who did not understand the people of India or China, or their languages. In all this they persisted in assuming that, in order to convert a heathen people, Christianity must be first converted into heathenism, that it may furnish a starting-point for obtaining ultimate dominion over them. This meant that heathens must be converted to Christianity by the Jesuits alone, inasmuch as none others besides them had endeavored to engraft upon Christian faith and worship any idolatrous ceremonies, or the duty and necessity of falsehood and hypocrisy, as means to an end. But the pope was not misled by this demoralizing subterfuge, and, after hearing them fully and giving all proper consideration to what they said, he brushed it all aside by giving his express and unreserved approval to the decree published by De Tournon as his legate. De Montor admits this; but there is abundant evidence of it apart from this admission. In his life of Clement XI he says:

"But Clement, having examined the affair in 1710 and 1712, confirmed all the decrees that had been made against the ceremonies, as well as the edicts of Cardinal De Tournon; and on the 19th of March, 1715, by the constitution Ex illa die (found in Vol. X of the Bullarium Romanum), he more vigorously condemned those rites; and he established the form of the oath which thenceforth was to be taken by every missionary in the Indies, promising that observance in their own names, and in the names of their order."[121]

No language could be plainer or more emphatic than that here employed by the pope. It was not uttered in a mere brief, which the Jesuits insist may be changed to answer any subsequent emergency, but in a formal pontifical bull, issued ex cathedra, and which, if the popes were all infallible, must be accepted as of divine authority. But whether called by one or the other of these names, it was the solemn official act of a pope—the head of the Church—and as such, according to the teachings of the Church, was final and binding upon all who professed fidelity to it. And it would have been so regarded by any of the ancient monastic orders, and by all who had respect for the authority of the Church. But the Jesuits did not represent either of these classes; and as the power of the pope was not sufficient to change their course, or unsettle them in their purposes, they continued to persevere in their disobedience, with an utter disregard of consequences. They went to the extent of persuading the Emperor of China to order the arrest of De Tournon, which was done by the Bishop of Macao—who was one of their tools—who caused him to be loaded with chains, and thrown into prison, where, from "ill treatment," he died.[122]

These incidents, so unfavorable to the peace of the Church, threw the questions into abeyance again during the succeeding pontificate of Innocent XIII, after which it assumed such magnitude and importance that Benedict XIII was compelled to deal with it both energetically and sternly. This he did by further confirming the decree of Cardinal De Tournon, and the bull of Clement XI, reasserting the unchristian practices and conduct of the Jesuits. But even this did not overcome their obduracy; and the next pope, Clement XII, was compelled to issue still another bull, confirming those of Benedict XIII and Clement XI.[123] The world has never furnished another instance of such flagrant and persistent disobedience as this. Even another pope, Benedict XIV, found it absolutely necessary to issue two additional bulls of censure and condemnation against the Jesuits, in both of which the decree of De Tournon was approved by words of express reaffirmance. He intended and expected to settle the matter finally, and terminate the long-continued disregard of the Church authority by the Jesuits. Nevertheless, like his predecessors for many years, he was compelled to realize that he was dealing with an adversary whose ambition was insatiable, and whose capacity for intrigue was without limitation and as untiring as the wind. De Montor tells the result, but omits any comment upon the triumph of the Jesuits over all the popes who passed censure upon them and sought to impose restraints upon their conduct. He speaks of the "discord between the other missionaries and the Jesuits, the former reproaching the latter with not fully and frankly observing the bull," and makes the discomfiture of the popes palpable by adding, "These disputes lasted till the dissolution of the society."[124] This is equivalent to saying that the only way to bring them into obedience to the Church was to dissolve them. We shall hereafter see, however, that they did not even obey the act of dissolution.