In that year Canisius opened the college of Innsbruck and directed the spiritual life of Magdalena, the saintly daughter of Ferdinand I. In 1564 he inaugurated the college of Dillingen and became administrator of the university of that place; he was also constituted secret nuncio of Pius IV to promulgate the decrees of the council in Germany. His mission was interrupted by the death of the Pope, and although Pius V desired him to continue in that office, he declined, because it exposed him to the accusation of meddling in politics. In 1566 he was theologian of the legate at the Diet of Augsburg and persuaded that dignitary not to issue a mandate against the so-called religious peace. He thus prevented another war and gave new life to the Catholics of Germany. In 1567 he founded a college at Würzburg, and evangelized Mayence and Spires. At Dillingen he received young Stanislaus Kostka into the Society conditionally and sent him to Rome; he settled a philosophical dispute at Innsbruck and established a college at Halle. At last in 1569 at his own request he was relieved of his office of provincial, which he had held for thirteen years; in 1570 he was court preacher of the Archduke Ferdinand II; in 1575 he was papal envoy to Bavaria, and theologian to the papal legate at the Diet of Ratisbon. He introduced the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin at Innsbruck, and at the command of the Pope built a college at Freiburg, where he remained for the rest of his life.
For years Canisius had urged his superiors and had also pleaded at the Council of Trent for the establishment of colleges of writers in various countries to defend the Faith. He was in constant touch with the great printers and publishers of the day, such as Plantin, Cholin and Mayer; he brought out the first reports of foreign missions, and induced the town council of Freiburg to establish a printing-press. All this time he was actively writing, and the list of his publications covers thirty-eight quarto pages in the "Bibliothèque des écrivains de la C. de Jésus." He was commissioned by Pius V to refute the Centuriators of Magdeburg — the society of writers who, under the inspiration of Flacius Illyricus, had undertaken to falsify the works of the early Fathers of the Church, century by century, so as to furnish a historical proof in support of Luther's errors. In 1583 he united in one volume the two books which he had previously issued in 1571 and 1577, styling them "Commentaria de Verbi corruptelis," having in the meantime published the genuine texts of Saints Cyril and Leo.
His "Catechism" was his most famous achievement. It consisted of two hundred and eleven, and later, of two hundred and twenty-two doctrinal questions, and was intended chiefly for advanced students; but there were annexed to it a compendium for children, and another for students of the middle and lower grades. It is recognized as a masterpiece even by Protestant writers such as Ranke, Menzel, Kawerau and others. Two hundred editions of it in one form or another were published during his lifetime in twelve different languages. "I know my Canisius" became a synonym in Germany for "I know my catechism." In brief, he did more than any other man to save Germany for the Church, and he is regarded as another St. Boniface. He died on November 21, 1597 and was beatified by Pius IX on April 17, 1864. The Catechism appears to have been first suggested by Ferdinand I to Le Jay who took up the work enthusiastically. But instead of crowding everything into one volume, he divided it into three: the first, a summa of theology for the university; the second, a volume for priests engaged in the ministry; while the third was for school teachers. He laid the matter before St. Ignatius, who assigned the first part to Laínez and the second to Frusius, then rector of Vienna. But as Frusius died, and Laínez was made General of the Society, Canisius undertook the entire work.
Apparently, it was from Le Jay also that the idea came of founding the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, though Cardinal Morone claims it as his conception. Le Jay, indeed, had discussed the matter with him, but had previously made a much more serious study of the question with Cardinal Truchsess, Archbishop of Augsburg. As the purpose of the Collegium was to supply a thoroughly educated priesthood to Germany, Truchsess could appreciate the need of it more than Morone, whose ideas about the need of good works, the vital question in Germany at the time, were extremely curious, according to his own account of a stormy interview he had with Salmerón on that topic. He reproached Salmerón for making too much of good works. Indeed Morone had been at one time under the surveillance of the Inquisition on account of certain utterances. His orthodoxy, however, must have been above suspicion, because of the exalted position he occupied.
Le Jay was broken-hearted when Maurice of Saxony, the leader of the imperial troops, swung his whole army over to the very Lutherans whom he had just defeated at Muhlberg. The awful condition of religion in the Empire preyed upon his mind to such a degree that he died at Vienna on Aug. 6, 1552, at the age of fifty-two. Canisius, who preached the funeral oration, said that he was "a worthy successor of Faber, and that his instinct was so correct that the character he gave to the college of Vienna over which he presided was adopted as the model throughout Germany." Ranke might be quoted on that point also. He points out that "at the beginning of 1551 the Jesuits had no fixed place in Germany — Le Jay was appointed rector only in June of that year — but in 1566 they occupied Bavaria, Tyrol, Franconia, a great part of the Rhine Province and Austria, and had penetrated into Hungary and Moravia. It was the first durable anti-Protestant check that Germany had received."
Under normal conditions, Spain would of course, have received these distinguished sons of hers with open arms; but, unfortunately, a deplorable state of affairs prevailed in the highest circles both of Church and State, almost as open and as shameless as in other parts of Europe. Princes and nobles held the titles of bishops and archbishops and appropriated the revenues of dioceses. That alone made any effort in the way of reform impossible. Added to this, Bobadilla's indiscretion in attacking the policy of Charles V in Germany had, as we have already said, predisposed that monarch, and consequently many of his subjects, against the whole Society; but as the Emperor did not openly interfere with them they established colleges in Barcelona, Gandia, Valencia and Alcalá, as early as 1546; but two years later, when they made their appearance in Salamanca, they found an implacable foe in the person of the distinguished Dominican theologian, Melchior Cano.
From the pulpit and platform and in the press Cano denounced and decried the new religious, not only as constituting a danger to the Church, but as being nothing else than the precursors of Antichrist. His own Master-General wrote a letter eulogizing the Society and forbidding his brethren to attack it; but this had no effect on Melchior, nor did the fact that the new Order was approved by the Pope avail to keep him quiet. Finally, in order to mollify him he was made Bishop of the Canaries, but he actually resigned that see in order to return to the attack. His hostility continued not only till his death, but after it; for, before he departed, he left in the hands of a friend a document which was of great service to the enemies of the Society at the time of the Suppression. "God grant," he wrote, "that I may not be a Cassandra, who was believed only after the sack of Troy. If the religious of the Society continue as they have begun, there may come a time, which I hope God will avert, when the Kings of Europe would wish to resist them but will be unable to do so." One of the reasons of Cano's hostility to the Society was that the Fathers urged Catholics to frequent the sacraments (Suau, Vie de Borgia, 136). This opposition of Cano was backed by the Archbishop of Saragossa, who was Francis Borgia's uncle. Bands of street children carrying banners on which hideous devils were painted marched to the new church of the Society and pelted it with stones. Then the mob drove the luckless Fathers out of the city; when Borgia's sister sheltered the exiles in her castle her uncle, the archbishop, excommunicated her. But that was the way of the world in those days. Even the illustrious Cardinal Carranza was kept in the prison of the Spanish Inquisition for seventeen years, because of something discovered in his writings by his brother Dominican Melchior Cano (Suau, op. cit., 136).
Little by little, however, the prejudices were dissipated, and both Alcalá and Salamanca called Strada to lecture in their halls. Nevertheless, each new success only raised a fresh storm. Thus it was bad enough when the rector of the University of Salamanca, Anthony of Córdova, who was just about to be made a cardinal, entered the Society; but the excitement became intense when, in 1550, Francis Borgia, who was Duke of Gandia, Viceroy of Catalonia, a friend of the Emperor, a soldier who had distinguished himself in the invasion of Provence, and whose future usefulness was reckoned upon for the service of his country, let it be known that he, too, was going to become a Jesuit. To prevent it, the Pope was urged to make him a Cardinal, but Borgia, who was then in Rome, fled back to Spain. When, however, he finally appeared as a member of the Order, houses and colleges were erected wherever he wished to have them: at Granada, Valladolid, Saragossa, Medina, San Lucar, Monterey, Burgos, Valencia, Murcia, Placentia and Seville. In 1556 Charles V was succeeded by Philip II, who asked that the cardinal's hat should be given to Borgia, but the honor was again refused. On three other occasions the same offers and refusals were repeated.
By the time Francis Borgia became General of the Order it had already developed into eighteen provinces, with one hundred and thirty establishments, and had a register of three thousand five hundred members. Besides attempting to convert the Vaudois heretics, the Society maintained the missions of Brazil and the Indies and established new ones in Peru and Mexico; by the help of the famous Pedro Menéndez, who is the special object of hatred on the part of American Protestant historians, it sent the first missionaries to what is now Florida in the United States. Segura and his companions were put to death on the Rappahannock; and Martínez was killed further down the coast, while Sánchez, a former rector of Alcalá, reached Vera Cruz in Mexico in 1572 with twelve companions to look after the Spaniards and natives and to care for the unfortunate blacks whom the Spaniards were importing from Africa.
When Pius V was elected Pope, there was a general fear that he would suppress the Society; but the Pontiff set all doubts at rest when, on his way to be crowned at St. John Lateran, he called Borgia to his side and embraced him. He also made Salmerón and Toletus his official preachers, and gave the Jesuits the work of translating the "Catechism" of the Council of Trent and of publishing a new edition of the Bible. He was, however, about to revoke the Society's exemption from the office of choir; but Borgia induced him to change his mind on that point, and even obtained a perpetual exemption from the public recitation of the Office, as well as the revocation of the restriction of the priesthood to the professed of the Society. Moreover, when there was danger of a Turkish invasion, Borgia was sent with the Pope's nephew to Spain and France to organize a league in defence of Christendom, while Toletus accompanied another cardinal to Germany.