This consideration induced pope Paul III to approve the new order by the bull Regimini, 1540; and the popes, his successors, by long experience, being sensible of the great advancement of religion, owing chiefly to the labours of the Jesuits, favoured them with the most distinguishing marks of their good-will and protection. The fathers of the council of Trent call it a holy institution, and, by an extraordinary privilege, dispense with the religious of this society in the general law they had made for other orders concerning their vows. The great promoter of piety and church discipline, St. Charles Borromœus, took care to inform the fathers of that council how much he esteemed this order, and how desirous the pope was to favour those religious, on account of the visible advantages arising to the church from their zealous endeavours. The ambassadors sent by other princes to represent them in that council had the same favourable opinion of the Jesuits, as plainly appears from their proposing the establishment of these religious in Germany, as the most efficacious means to restore religion and piety in the empire.
However, it cannot be denied, but the novelty and singularity of this order, the many privileges granted them by the popes, and the great extent and generality of the exercises in which they are conversant, according to their calling, exposed them to the jealousy and opposition of other religious orders. The universities, the mendicant orders, and others, tried all means to hinder their establishment in France: your majesty's parliaments, in their remonstrances, laid open the many inconveniences, that might attend their being admitted into this kingdom: Eustace de Bellay, the then bishop of Paris, opposed them, and even the clergy of France, in their assembly at Poissy, anno 1561, expressed a diffidence and apprehension, that the Jesuits might encroach upon their rights; for, though they consented to their admission, they did it with such restrictions and limitations as then seemed proper to secure the rights and jurisdiction of the bishops.
Anno 1574, the clergy of your kingdom, having been apprised of the credit and the approbation this institution had gained in the council of Trent, in conformity to the judgment of that general assembly, declare by their deputies, upon the article concerning the profession of novices after one year's probation, that, by this rule, their intention was not any way to derogate from or to make any change in the good constitutions of the clerks of the society of Jesus, approved by the holy apostolic see.
It appears even, that the Jesuits, by their behaviour, had got the better of those prejudices, which had formerly been conceived against their order, seeing that, in the year 1610, when so great a storm was raised against them, Henry de Gondy, bishop of Paris, gives their
character in words very different from those of his predecessor, Eustace de Bellay, viz. that the order of the Jesuits was greatly serviceable both to church and state, on account of their learning, piety, and exemplary behaviour.
Hence it was, that, in the general assembly of the states, anno 1614 and 1615, both the clergy and the nobility so pressingly desired the re-establishment of the Jesuits, for the instruction of youth, in the city of Paris, and the erection of other colleges in the different towns of the kingdom: this they recommended to their deputies as a matter of the greatest concernment, desiring they would most earnestly address his majesty, in order to obtain a favourable and speedy answer; the assembly being sensible how greatly the order of the Jesuits, by their learning and industry, had contributed, and, with God's assistance, would again contribute towards the maintaining of faith and religion, the extirpation of heresies, the restoration of piety and morality, &c. Again, in the assembly of the clergy, anno 1617, we find the Jesuits' schools proposed as the most proper means to revive and imprint piety and religion in the minds of the people.
Nothing, perhaps, is better calculated to convince us how high an idea your majesty's royal predecessors had of the usefulness of this body of men, than the patents, which they were pleased to grant, for the erecting many of their colleges in your dominions: this was particularly remarkable in the letters patent, granted by your majesty's great grandfather Louis XIV, of glorious memory, for their establishment in the college of Clermont, wherein he says, that in this he had no other view than to
support, countenance, and encourage those religious in their laborious employments for the education of youth in all useful sciences, and particularly in the knowledge of whatever may concern their duty towards God, and towards those who are placed over them for the government of the people. But this he afterwards expressed in a more emphatic manner, when he was pleased to give his own august name to that college.
The Jesuits are also of great service in our dioceses, by enforcing and giving new life and vigour to piety and religion, by their sermons, their spiritual instructions, their missionary excursions, their congregations, spiritual retreats, &c., performed with our approbation and authority.