The Footprints of the Jesuits

by Richard W. Thompson

One can not refrain from wondering why Pius VII did not pause long enough to inquire, "Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, that he is grown so great?" What source of pontifical authority existed in his behalf that did not also exist in behalf of Clement XIV? The one was no more pope than the other—no more infallible than the other—possessed no higher official prerogatives than the other. They were equals in power and official dignity. If Clement XIV had suspended the society, then it would have been within the power of Pius VII to set aside the suspension and revive the society. But he went further, and in the most emphatic and express terms, suppressed, abolished, annulled, and extinguished it forever. His official act was valid, complete, and final, in compliance with the Canon law and established custom. The society, therefore, had no legal existence according to the law of the Church, but was dead and extinct when Pius VII became pope. Its constitution was then a nullity. He had rightfully only the power possessed by Paul III when he first established the society; and by exercising this power could have organized a new society and granted it a new constitution. Instead of this he "re-established" the defunct society, at the request of King Ferdinand, thereby assuming the prerogative right to review and annul what Clement XIV had done within the scope of his legitimate authority. In order to do this, he had further to assume that Clement XIV had exceeded his authority, and had acted injuriously towards the Church, by depriving it of "the vigorous and experienced rowers" necessary to save it from "shipwreck and death." This was, in effect, to approve the Jesuit defamation of Clement XIV, and to deny his infallibility. It was, moreover, an implied approval of the rebellion of the Jesuits against the authority of the Church during the forty-one years that had elapsed after the abolition of their society. It was an attempt to cover up, sanction, and legitimate that rebellion, and to reward the society for its persistent defiance of the Church and the Canon law, by galvanizing its dead body into life.

The Jesuits themselves are sensible of this difficulty, and are perplexed by it. In dealing with it, Daurignac displays more ingenuity than candor. Referring to the existence of the Jesuits in White Russia, after the decree of abolition and in violation of it, he ventures to say: "The position of the Jesuits in White Russia was an anomaly. Clement XIV had authorized them to remain in statu quo."[155] He fails to give any authority for this, for the obvious reason that there is none. Nothing can be found to verify it. It is undoubtedly of Jesuit manufacture, being contradicted by everything done and said by Clement XIV. The language of his decree is conclusive upon the point that his object was to destroy the society and put an end to it forever—not allowing it to exist anywhere. He makes neither exception nor reservation. Any other pretense is a palpable perversion of his meaning. Daurignac manifestly realized this difficulty, and made an additional effort to escape it by attempting to impair the official force and effect of the decree of abolition. He says elsewhere: "In view of the future, he [Clement XIV] would not suppress the society by a bull, which would be binding upon his successors. He had suppressed it by a brief, which could be revoked without difficulty whenever public feeling might allow it."[156] The Jesuits have an "exchequer of words" from which they draw at pleasure, employing them to express or conceal the truth as shall be necessary to advance their interests or improve their fortunes. Here there is an attempt to interpret the meaning of the decree, not by the plain language it contains, but by the name given to the instrument itself. In what does the difference between a bull and a brief consist? If there is any, it must arise out of the subject-matter involved, and not otherwise. One can conceive that a pope may regulate some inferior affairs, touching matters not essential to the universal Church, by an order or decree called a brief, in which case he or his successors may revoke it. But where such an order or decree concerns the universal Church, it must be considered a bull, because in that case, according to the Jesuit theory, it partakes of infallibility, and can not be revoked—for the reason that whatsoever is infallible must stand for good or bad. The decree of Clement XIV is found in the "Roman Bullarium," preserved in the Vatican at Rome.[157] There could have been no other purpose in placing it there than to attach to it the same dignity and effect as the bulls of other popes among which it is recorded. When thus deposited it was undoubtedly considered irrevocable, because it related to a religious order which could exist only by authority of the pope representing the whole Church. When the pope acts with reference to a religious order, he decides whether or no it is capable of fulfilling its professions. He then acts with reference to faith, and his act is therefore ex cathedra. Upon this ground, according to Jesuit teaching, he is infallible in whatsoever opinion he expresses, because it is within the domain of both faith and morals. Hence, in the discussion of the question "When does the Church speak infallibly?" a recent Roman Catholic author of accepted authority says that, as the Church can never be "an unreliable guide, it follows that she can not err when she seals a religious order with her formal approbation."[158] Of course, no argument is necessary to prove that if the pope is infallible in establishing a religious order, he is equally so in abolishing and annulling an existing one, upon the ground expressed by Clement XIV, that the good of the universal Church and the cause of Christianity demanded it, and also upon the additional ground that the subject-matter is the same. This proposition can not be escaped by substituting assertion for argument.

This same Jesuit author, Daurignac, is inconsistent. Seeming to forget that he had called the decree of Clement XIV a mere brief, which any of his successors could annul, when he comes afterwards to speak of that issued by Pius VII, he calls it a "bull," and frequently refers to it as such.[159] Having previously laid his foundation by insisting that Pius VII regarded the preservation of the Jesuits by the Emperor of Russia as "the interposition of Divine Providence in behalf of the society"[160]—that is, that Clement XIV had incurred the Divine displeasure when he abolished the society—he never loses sight of the idea that the decree of Pius VII bears the stamp of infallibility, and can neither be annulled nor modified. This is a subtle method of statement, but is without the force of argument. It is simply Jesuitical.

These matters derive their present importance from the fact that they show how the Jesuits have become familiar with crooked paths. They show also the wonderful adroitness with which they have pursued these paths for many years, and how they have surmounted difficulties which would have overwhelmed any other body of men. As they have never been known, at any period of their history, to abate any of their demands or pretensions, they are to-day, as they have always been, a standing menace against every form of popular self-government and whatsoever else is the fruit of the Reformation. Their rules of conduct are still derived from the teachings of Loyola, who, accepted by them as occupying the place of God, they regard as higher authority than any human law or any Government where the sovereign power is guaranteed to the people.

FOOTNOTES:

[145] Nicolini, p. 411.

[146] Nicolini, p. 422.

[147] Nicolini, pp. 424-425.