"Joseph Mosley, S. J. forever, as I think and hope."
It must have been a very hard trial for the Jesuit vicars Apostolic in the various foreign missions to be the executioners of their own brethren in carrying out this decree. One of these sad scenes occurred in Nankin, where Mgr. Laimbeckhoven, S. J., was vicar. He did not live to see the Restoration, for he died in 1787.
[CHAPTER XX]
THE SEQUEL TO THE SUPPRESSION
Failure of the Papal Brief to give peace to the Church — Liguori and Tanucci — Joseph II destroying the Church in Austria — Voltaireanism in Portugal — Illness of Clement XIV — Death — Accusations of poisoning — Election of Pius VI — The Synod of Pistoia — Febronianism in Austria — Visit of Pius VI to Joseph II — The Punctation of Ems — Spain, Sardinia, Venice, Sicily in opposition to the Pope — Political collapse in Spain — Fall of Pombal — Liberation of his Victims — Protest of de Guzman — Death of Joseph II — Occupations of the dispersed Jesuits — The Theologia Wiceburgensis — Feller — Beauregard's Prophecy — Zaccaria — Tiraboschi — Boscovich — Missionaries — Denunciation of the Suppression in the French Assembly — Slain in the French Revolution — Destitute Jesuits in Poland — Shelter in Russia.
Clement XIV did not give peace to the Church as he had hoped. On the contrary, distressing scandals were continually occurring in the Holy City itself under his very eyes. Infamous books and pamphlets directed against the Church were hawked about the streets, and actors and buffoons parodied the most sacred ceremonies in the public squares. Elsewhere the same conditions obtained. Tanucci who had governed Naples for over forty years was continuing his ruthless persecution of every thing holy, and enriching himself by the spoliation of ecclesiastical property. Even St. Alphonsus Liguori could not obtain from the Pope the recognition of the Redemptorists as a congregation because Tanucci opposed it. Doctrinal views leading to schism in the Church were openly advocated in the schools and universities of Austria, in spite of the entreaties and threats of the Sovereign Pontiff. Maria Theresa had proved feeble or false, and her son Joseph II was in league with the Bourbon princes in their work of destruction. In Portugal, Pombal was still raging like a wild beast; filling the schools with the disciples of Voltaire, flouting the papal nuncio, and keeping in dark and filthy dungeons the members of the detested Order which he had exterminated. The Philosophers and Jansenists were rejoicing in their triumph, and were suppressing all religious communities and seizing their property; the morality and orthodoxy of Poland were being rapidly corrupted; Catherine of Russia was creating bishops and establishing sees as the fancy prompted her, and Freemason lodges were multiplying all over Europe. Worst of all, the Pope's own household with but few exceptions kept aloof from him and were silent about what he had done, while many bishops of various countries of Europe and the entire episcopacy of France endorsed the sentiments expressed in the terrible letter of the Archbishop of Paris, denouncing the Suppression.
Ineffably shocked by all this, the Pope began to show signs of depression, and everyone was in consternation. St. Alphonsus Liguori, especially, was anxious about him and kept continually repeating: "Pray for the Pope; he is distressed; for there is nowhere the slightest glimmer of peace for the Church. He is praying for death, so crushed is he by the sorrows that are overwhelming the Church; he remains continually in seclusion; gives audience to no one; and attends to no business. I have heard things about him from those who are at Rome that would bring tears to your eyes." His mind was unbalanced, and one of his successors, Pius VII, related later what he had been told by a prelate who was present at the signing of the fatal Brief: "As soon as he had affixed his signature to the paper he threw the pen to one side and the paper to the other. He had lost his mind." Before that, Pius had said the same thing to Cardinal Pacca at Fontainebleau, when in an agony of remorse for having signed the Concordat with Napoleon: "I cannot get the cruel thought out of my mind. I cannot sleep at night and I am haunted by the fear of going mad and ending like Clement XIV." Another writer who received his information from Gregory XVI tells the same sad story (de Ravignan, Clément XIII et Clément XIV, I, 452). St. Alphonsus Liguori was with the Pope when he died, but according to a Redemptorist writer, it was "in spirit," and not by bodily bilocation. The end came in September 22, 1774, thirteen months after the unfortunate Brief was issued.
Of course, when he died, the report went abroad that the Jesuits had poisoned him, by administering a dose of aqua toffana, but although no one has ever found out what aqua toffana is or was, and as there were no Jesuits in Rome at the time, the story was nevertheless believed by many and was adduced as a proof of the wisdom of the Pope in suppressing the iniquitous organization. The Jansenists even made a saint of the dead Pontiff and circulated marvellous romances about the incorruption of his body and the miracles that were wrought at his tomb.
Cantù in his "Storia dei cent' anni" says that "the Pope whose health and mind were grievously affected, died in delirium, haunted by phantoms, and begging for pardon. It was claimed that he had been poisoned by the Jesuits, but the truth is that the physicians found no trace of poison in the body. Had the Jesuits possessed the power or the will to do so, one might ask why they did not do it before and not after Clement had struck them. But passion often makes light of common sense." The post-mortem which was made in the presence of a great many people showed that the sickness to which he had succumbed arose from scorbutic and hemorrhoidal conditions from which he had been suffering for many years, and which were aggravated by excessive work and the system he had followed of producing artificial perspiration even in the heats of summer."