The Footprints of the Jesuits

by Richard W. Thompson

RE-ESTABLISHMENT.

If it be conceded, as the Jesuits insist, that Clement XIV was prompted by unworthy and impure motives to abolish their society, and that, in consequence, he afterwards became demented from remorse, nevertheless the decree of abolition was an official act not subject to review or reversal by any authority known to the Church. No appeal from it was authorized by any existing law or Church regulation. He exercised a power which had been always understood to belong to the popes—of the same nature and import precisely as that exercised by Paul III when he established the society. No matter whether it be called a bull, a brief, or by some other name, it was undoubtedly an official decree, pronounced by the head of the Church, acting within his proper, well-established, and recognized pontifical jurisdiction. Consequently, its nature can not be changed, nor can its scope and effect be limited, by any view that can be taken of his motives, any more than can the decree of a competent judicial tribunal be impaired in its force and effect by the motives or inclinations of the judge who pronounces it. There can, therefore, be no escape from either of these propositions: First, that the decree, having been issued in conformity with the law and custom of the Church, was valid; and, second, that after its issuance, the Jesuit society could no longer exist as a religious order, under the Canon law of the Church.

It is not necessary to inquire whether or no this decree was binding upon subsequent popes; that has been of no practical importance since the new decree of Pius VII re-establishing the order, after it had been forty-one years abolished. Until the time of that new decree, the Church and all its members were bound, under its existing laws and discipline, to recognize the abolition of the society as legitimate and proper. In point of fact this was the case, the only exceptions being the Jesuits themselves, and such as they could influence. Pius VI, the immediate successor of Clement XIV, although he discharged from prison some of the Jesuits who had been arrested and confined, suffered the decree of Clement XIV to have full effect during his pontificate, and held on to the confiscated property of the Jesuits for the benefit of the Church. The Christians of Europe were satisfied with this condition of things, and indicated this, not merely by their silent acquiescence, but by acts of positive approval. The Jesuits, however, refused to be reconciled, and exhibited their discontent by such measures of resistance as proved, beyond question, their malevolent hatred of Clement XIV and their contempt for the authority of the Church and the pope, when it was employed to curb their ambition or to impose upon them any form of restraint. Instances of their disobedience to popes have already been cited; but at this particular crisis in their history their desperation became such that they recognized nothing as meritorious, either in the Church or any of the popes, except what tended to restore to them the power they had forfeited by the criminality of their conduct. Their society was abolished pursuant to the law of the Church, and by its highest authority; but they had no respect for either—not a whit more than they had for the papal decrees by which their practice of the heathen rites in India and China was forbidden. They sought after no other end than their own triumph, and to achieve this they plotted with whomsoever would consent to aid them, and threw themselves into the arms and under the protection of the enemies of the Church, with the facility of such deserters as pass from camp to camp to find shelter for themselves. This part of their history presents their leading characteristics in a striking light, and is, perhaps, more instructive than any other, because it shows with conspicuous prominence the little esteem in which they hold the Church and its legitimate authority when in conflict with their own purposes and designs, and how ready they are to curse the popes who oppose them, whatsoever their Christian virtues, and to praise all who favor them, whatsoever their vices.

To give effect to the decree of abolition, the general of the Jesuits was arrested and held in confinement; the members were dispersed among different ecclesiastical establishments in Rome; their buildings were taken possession of; seals were placed upon their papers; and their schools were turned over to the management of others. Proceedings were instituted against Ricci, the general, and other members of the society, and he and the secretary, together with several of the prominent fathers, were sent to the Castle of St. Angelo, and held as State prisoners. The crimes charged against them, and of which they were convicted, were "that they had attempted, both by insinuations and by more open efforts, to stir up a revolt in their own favor against the Apostolic See; that they had published and circulated through all Europe libels against the pope," in one of which Clement XIV was charged with having been elected by simony, and that three of the most prominent Jesuits, "Favre, Forrestier, and Gautier, were loudly repeating everywhere that the pope was the Antichrist."[145]

The society generally, but not unanimously, exhibited this same spirit of resistance to the pope and the authority of the Church. By the decree of abolition the members were allowed to act as secular priests, and exercised sacerdotal functions, subject to the authority of the Church. A few of them availed themselves of this provision, and "settled themselves quietly in different capacities." Others endeavored insidiously to preserve the principles of their constitution and organization, by abandoning the name of Jesuits, and adopting other titles. "But," says Nicolini, "the greater part, the most daring and restless, would not submit to the Brief of Suppression; impugned its validity in a thousand writings; called in question the validity of Clement's election, whom they called Parricide, Sacrilegious, Simoniac, and considered themselves still forming part of the still existing company of Jesus."[146]

Catharine, Empress of Russia, had given some protection to the Jesuits before their suppression, and Ricci, the general, admitted in his examination that he had held correspondence with Frederick of Prussia after the decree. How is it to be accounted for, in any mode consistent with due respect for the Church, that the Jesuits in Russia did not withdraw themselves from the protection of the emperor, and that others sought shelter and protection in Prussia, after the decree of the pope had declared the order to be forever abolished throughout the world? Russia had long before rejected all the overtures of the Roman Church, and established the Greek faith as the religion of the State, with the reigning sovereign as the spiritual head of the national Church. The Church of Rome taught that the Russians were schismatics, and therefore heretics. The Prussians were Lutherans—that is, Protestants—and were, consequently, looked upon at Rome as the deadly enemies of the Church, and were, besides, under the ban of excommunication for heresy. Consequently, an alliance of the Jesuits with either Russia or Prussia, after their suppression, could be looked upon in no other light than as an act of rebellion against the authority of the Church and the pope—a desire to pass from the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome to that of alien authority arrayed against it. It amounted to a desire to exchange their allegiance from what they had considered legitimate authority to that of schismatics and heretics. It is impossible for the Jesuits to escape this view of the attitude they occupied after their abolition. They were simply rebels against the Church.

The Jesuits in Silesia, in Prussia, refused positively to obey the decree of Clement XIV—paying no more regard to it than if it had been issued by the chief of an Arab tribe. They continued to hold on to their convents and houses in the same manner as before their suppression, in doing which they directly defied the pope. They relied upon the Lutheran Frederick for protection, preferring that to obedience to the pope. Frederick willingly gave them this protection, because he was induced to believe that he could employ them for the twofold purpose of strengthening monarchism, to which they were pledged by their constitution, and of supplanting the Roman by the Protestant form of Christianity. The Jesuits flocked, therefore, to Silesia from all quarters, seeking this Protestant protection, which caused Voltaire to remark, in his caustic style, that "it would divert him beyond measure to think of Frederick as the general of the Jesuits, and that he hoped this would inspire the pope with the idea of becoming mufti."[147]

The Kings of France and Spain called the attention of Pius VI—after the death of Clement XIV—to this disobedience of the Jesuits, and urged upon him the necessity of requiring that the decree of Clement XIV should be strictly enforced against them. But the attitude occupied by Pius VI required him to observe extreme caution in administering the affairs of the Church. As he had not been directly allied with either of the factions among the cardinals at the time of his election, he felt constrained to adopt a conservative and moderate course, whereby he might, if possible, restore harmony in the Church. He therefore refrained from identifying himself with the sovereigns who were hostile to the Jesuits, and yet did not openly espouse the Jesuit cause. Whatsoever his personal inclinations may have been, he could not, as pope, venture to impugn the motives of his predecessor, or assail the fairness and integrity of the decree abolishing the Jesuits. He could not fail to realize that Clement XIV—a canonically elected pope, with all the powers of that office in his hands—had taken the precaution to declare that he intended the suppression to be absolute, final, and forever. He knew also that, as the Jesuits had derived the authority to exist as a religious order from the approval of one pope, it was clearly competent for another pope to withdraw that approbation and to dissolve the order, whensoever it became obvious to him that the good of the Church required it. Under these circumstances, even if he had desired to do so, he manifestly was not inclined to strike what might prove to be a fatal and deadly blow at the dignity of the papal office and the authority of the Church, which he undoubtedly desired to maintain in all its completeness. Consequently, he not only continued to preserve to the Church the confiscated property of the Jesuits, but left the decree suppressing the order in full force, in all its entirety, during his pontificate, which terminated during the last year of the eighteenth century.

The Jesuit writers have taxed their ingenuity to the utmost to explain the attitude of Pius VI towards their society. They have struggled hard to prove that, notwithstanding he caused the decree of Clement XIV to be executed, he was in fact opposed to it. One of them, heretofore cited—whose work abounds in a mixture of apologies for their conduct and vilification of their adversaries—says: "In the opinion of Pius VI the Society of Jesus was disbanded only for a time; it was not abolished."[148] To this it may be answered, in the first place, there is nothing to show that Pius VI ever so committed himself; in the second place, that Clement XIV decreed that it should be abolished forever; and in the third place that, if he had considered the society as suspended merely for a time, he would have revived it by his own decree, or fixed the tenure of suspension. But this method of treating the question is trifling with a serious matter which should be treated with fairness and candor. It is equivalent to saying that Pius VI executed the decree of his predecessor, which absolutely abolished the society forever, when in his conscience he did not approve it. If he did entertain this opinion, it is not shown to have been authoritatively announced by him; and to allege that he did, in the absence of proof to that effect, has the appearance of attempting to substitute fiction for fact—to make history rather than to record it.

The Jesuits, however, draw inferences of the favorable estimate of their society by Pius VI from his kind treatment of Ricci, the general, while confined in the castle of St. Angelo, and his release from confinement of the other Jesuits who had been arrested. This is far-fetched, inasmuch as it may well be attributed alone to motives of benevolence. But in no event are these such acts as could limit, in the least degree, the effect of the decree of abolition so long as it continued in force, as it did during the pontificate of Pius VI. Besides, the propriety of punishing individuals must have depended upon their personal agency in the offenses charged against the society as an organized body. The Jesuits derive more support to their claim that Pius VI favored them by quoting language alleged to have been uttered by him, which, if actually spoken, would place him in the attitude of being upon their side and condemning the decree of his predecessor, but without the courage to relieve them from the condemnation of their conduct or from the Act of Suppression. This is not very complimentary to Pius VI, for it represents him as saying, "I approve of the Society of Jesus residing in White Russia,"[149] at the same time that he continued his assent to their abolition in all the Roman Catholic States. The question whether or no he made this remark is in too much doubt to give full credit to it. It is not pretended that the words were written, but only that they were spoken in the presence of a single witness, who is said to have attested their utterance. This would place him in the attitude of performing a public act contrary to his private judgment, which might well enough be done where temporal matters only were involved, but not by a pope concerning spiritual matters. Hence, it is scarcely to be supposed that Pius VI ever uttered these words. But they amount to nothing which reaches the dignity of an official act if he did, for the plain reason that the decree of abolition having been a solemn official act, under "the seal of the Fisherman," if subject at all to revocation or modification by any of the successors of Clement XIV, could only have been so dealt with by an official act of corresponding solemnity. For some causes judicial decrees may be changed or annulled, but only by other judicial decrees, and it will not be pretended, even by Jesuits, that a decree pronounced by a pope under the authority of the Canon law and the unvarying custom of the Church, is of less dignity than the decrees of the civil courts. What is said by De Montor disproves the allegation of Daurignac. He tells us that when the Jesuit general in Russia took such steps as would have enlarged the society by the admission of neophytes, Pius VI commanded him to cease. Whilst in this he does not seem to have condemned the existence of the Jesuits in Russia, it emphatically approves the decree of abolition by executing it elsewhere.