The Jesuits, 1534-1921

The canonization of saints proceeds very slowly in the modern Church. Years and years are spent in preliminary investigations of the life, the holiness, the doctrines, and the miracles of the one who is to be presented to the public recognition of the Church. Theologians and canonists have to pass on all those points and those who testify speak only under the most solemn oaths and the threat of dire censure if they witness to what they know to be false. Infinite labor has been expended before the question is presented to the Holy See. Very many of these causes never reach even that stage, for everywhere, in its progress, stands an official called the Promoter of the Faith, but popularly known as the "Devil's Advocate," whose work consists in doing his utmost to throw obstacles in the way of the canonization. Nevertheless, the Society has a sufficient number on its roll of fame, in spite of its comparatively brief and perpetually perturbed existence, to convince the world that it is not the maleficent organization that it is credited with being.

At the head of the list come the two friends, Ignatius and Xavier, dying within four years of each other: the latter in 1552, the former in 1556. The third is Borgia, who died in 1572. He had set aside all the honors of the world, except that of actual royalty, in order to take the lowest place in the Society, but he became its chief. In charming contrast with these three great men, are the three boy saints: Stanislaus, Aloysius, and Berchmans, dying respectively in 1568, 1591 and 1621. Stanislaus, the little Polish noble, travelled all the way from Vienna to Rome on foot, a distance of 1500 miles, to enter the novitiate. He had no money, or guide, or friends, but he arrived safely, for the angels gave him Communion on his journey, and he has ever since been the darling of the beginners in religious life. Aloysius was of princely blood, but died nursing the sick in the hospital. He is the patron of youthful purity, and was never a priest, though an unwise writer makes a missionary of him. The third, John Berchmans, was neither prince nor noble. On the contrary, it used to be the delight of foreigners, when rambling through the little Flemish town of Diest, to see the name of "Berchmans" on the humble shops of hucksters and grocers, and to fancy that some of the little lads who clattered about in their sabots, on their way to school, were relatives of his. His sanctity has made his family name famous in the world. His beatification was especially welcome, because, as Berchmans was the very incarnation of the Jesuit rule, the Order cannot have been the iniquitous organization it is frequently said to be.

Then there are three Japanese Jesuits who were crucified at Nagasaki in 1597; and in 1616 came Alfonso Rodríguez, who had prepared Peter Claver to be the Apostle of the negro slaves in America, and who went quietly from his post at the gates of the College of Minorca to the gates of heaven. Peter Claver had to wait for thirty-eight years before going to join his venerable friend. Besides the two St. Francises of the early days, there are two more of that name in the Society: the Frenchman, John Francis Regis, who died in 1640, and the Italian, Francis Hieronymo, whose work ended in 1716. They were both preachers to the most abandoned classes. Hieronymo could gather as many as 15,000 men to a regular monthly Communion, and when he entered the royal convict ships, he converted those sinks of iniquity into abodes of peace and resignation.

It may be noted here that St. Francis Regis had a distinction peculiarly his own. Long after his canonization as a saint, he was proclaimed to have been actually expelled from the Society, and that the public disgrace was prevented only by his death, which occurred before the official papers arrived from Rome. This accusation is trident-like in its wounding power or purpose. It transfixes Regis, and kills his reputation for virtue; then it inflicts a gash on the Society by making it present to the Church, as worthy of being raised to the altars, a man whom it was unwilling to keep in its own houses; finally, it assails the Church and attempts to show that no respect should be had for its decrees of canonization. It was almost unnecessary for the learned Bollandist, Van Ortroy, to show that there is no foundation whatever for this story of the dismissal of St. John Francis Regis from the Society of Jesus.

Such are the canonized Jesuits. The Blessed are more numerous. There are ninety-one of them. First in time are the forty Portuguese martyrs under Ignatius de Azevedo, who were slain by the French Huguenots in a harbor of the Azores in the year 1570. Then follow the English witnesses to the Truth. The first to die was Thomas Woodhouse, who was executed in 1573. Between that date and 1582 four others were put to death; among them the illustrious Edmund Campion. Of those who died in the persecutions of Japan, between 1617 and 1627, there are thirty-one Japanese as well as European Jesuits. Rudolf Aquaviva was put to death in Madura in 1583, and John de Britto in 1693. Two Hungarians, Melchior Grodecz and Stephen Pongracz were slain in Hungary in 1619, and Andrew Bobola was butchered by the Cossacks in 1657. There are others among the Society's Blessed who were not martyred, but would have been willing to win their crown in that way, if God so wanted. They are Peter Faber, the first priest of the Society; Peter Canisius, the Apostle of Germany; and the Italian Antonio Baldinucci, a great missionary who used to whip himself to blood, to move the hearts of the hardened sinners around him, and who lighted bonfires of bad books and pictures and playing cards in the public squares to impress his excitable fellow-countrymen. His missionary methods were somewhat like those of Savonarola.

Those who are ranked as Venerable are fifty in number, including Claude de la Colombiére, the Apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Heart; Cardinal Bellarmine; Nicholas Lancicius, the well-known ascetical writer; Julien Maunoir, the apostle of his native Brittany; and José Anchieta, the thaumaturgus of Brazil. There are, however, a great many others under consideration, among them being the heroes of North America – Jogues, Goupil, Lalande, Brébeuf, Lalemant, Garnier, Daniel, Chabanel – who were slain by the Iroquois. In the conclaves of 1605, which elected Clement VIII and Leo XI, Bellarmine was very seriously considered as a possible pope, but the fact that he was a Jesuit was an obstacle in the eyes of many. When he died in 1621, there was a general expectation that he would be canonized for his extraordinarily holy life. In fact, Urban VIII who was so rigid in such matters placed him among the "Venerable" six years after his death. His case was re-introduced for beatification in 1675, 1714, 1752 and 1832, but nothing was done chiefly because it would have angered the French regalist politicians, as his name was associated with a doctrine most obnoxious to them. In 1920 the case was again taken up.

We omit the countless thousands of Jesuits who ever since the Society was established have striven in every possible way to realize its ideals; the heroes who have hurried with delight to the most disgusting and dangerous missions they could find in the farthermost parts of the world; who have died by thousands of disease and exhaustion in the pest-laden ships that carried them to their destination or flung them dead on some desolate coast; or those who have been slain by savages or devoured by wild beasts; or who died of starvation in the forests and deserts where they were hunting for souls; or have given their lives with joy for the privilege of ministering to the plague-stricken. Nor do we mention here the great phalanxes of the unknown who, without a single regret for what they might have been in the world, have endeavored to obey, to some extent, at least, that startling admonition that they hear so often: Ama nesciri et pro nihilo reputari: "Love to be unknown and to be reputed as nothing," – the men who have truly lived up to that ideal in the repulsiveness of hospitals and jails and asylums, or in the ceaseless drudgery and obscurity of the class-room and the unchanging routing of household occupations.

These men have seen themselves time and time again robbed of all their possessions, hounded out of their own countries and cities as if they were criminals, their names branded with infamy and a by-word for all that is vile, and they understood better and better, as time went on, what is meant by that page which stares at them from their rule book and which is entitled: "The Sum and Scope of Our Constitutions," and which tells them: "We are men crucified to the world, and to whom the world is crucified; new men who have put off their own affections to put on Christ, dead to themselves to live to justice; who, with St. Paul, in labors, in watching, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, shew themselves ministers of God; and, by the armor of justice, on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, by good success and ill success, press forward with great strides to their heavenly country, and by all means possible, and with all zeal, urge on others also, ever looking to God's greatest glory."

CHAPTER XII

FROM VITELLESCHI TO RICCI

1615-1773

Pupils in the Thirty Years War – Caraffa; Piccolomini; Gottifredi – Mary Ward – Alleged decline of the Society – John Paul Oliva – Jesuits in the Courts of Kings – John Casimir – English Persecutions. Luzancy and Titus Oates – Jesuit Cardinals – Gallicanism in France – Maimbourg – Dez – Troubles in Holland. De Noyelle and Innocent XI – Attempted Schism in France – Gonzáles and Probabilism – Don Pedro of Portugal – New assaults of Jansenists – Administration of Retz – Election of Ricci – The Coming Storm.

As Mutius Vitelleschi's term of office extended from 1615 to 1645, it coincided almost exactly with the Thirty Years War. Of course, the colleges, which had been established in almost every country in Europe, felt the effects of this protracted and devastating struggle, but, on the other hand, comfort was found in the fact that many of the great statesmen and soldiers of that epoch had been trained in those schools. There was, for instance, the Emperor Ferdinand, of whom Gustavus Adolphus used to say, "I fear only his virtues," and associated with him was Maximilian, the Great, who was so ardent in the practice of his religion that Macaulay describes him as, "a fervent missionary wielding the powers of a prince." He appointed the Jesuit poet, Balde, as his court preacher, and called to Ingolstadt the Jesuit astronomer, Scheiner, who disputed with Galileo the discovery of the sun-spots – as a matter of fact, the discoveries of both synchronized with each other, but Fabricius is asserted to have anticipated both. Scheiner suggested and planned the optical experiment which bears his name, and also invented the pantograph.

Tilly, one of the greatest warriors of his time, had first thought of entering the Society, but, on the advice of his spiritual guides, took up the profession of arms. According to Spahn "he displayed genuine piety, remarkable self-control and disinterestedness and seemed like a monk in the garb of a soldier" (The Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV, 724). As he was in command of the league of the Catholic states, and was ordered to restore the lands which had been wrested from their Catholic owners, of course, he gained the reputation of being a bitter foe of Protestantism – an attitude of mind which was attributed to his education at Cologne and Chatelet. Wallenstein, his successor, was educated at the Jesuit college of Olmütz and was a liberal benefactor of his old masters in the work of education. The fact that in 1633 they saved from the fury of a Vienna mob their rancorous enemy, the famous Count de Thurn, when he was taken prisoner by Wallenstein in the Bohemian uprising, ought to count for something in dissipating the delusion that Jesuits are essentially persecutors. When the Emperor Mathias sent them back to Bohemia and founded a college for them at Tirnau and affiliated it to the University of Prague, they showed their gratitude by sacrificing a number of their men in the pestilence which was then raging.

Richelieu, who was prominent in what was called the French period of the war, was particularly solicitous in protecting the interests of his former teachers. Although politically supporting the Protestant cause, he invariably stipulated in his treaties that the Jesuits should be protected in the territories handed over to Protestant control, even when they opposed him, as for instance, in the Siege of Prague, where Father George Plachy, a professor of sacred history in the university, led out his students in a sortie and drove back the foe – an exploit which merited for him a mural crown from the city while Emperor Ferdinand III sent an autograph letter to the General of the Society to thank him for the patriotism displayed by Plachy. Indeed, when the Protestant ministers of Charenton wanted Richelieu to suppress the Jesuits, he answered that "it was the glory of the Society to be condemned by those who attack the Church, calumniate the saints, and blaspheme Christ and God. For many reasons, the Jesuits ought to be esteemed by everyone; indeed there are not a few who love them precisely because men like you hate them."

There is one of their pupils who, at this time, though a man of unusual ability, brought sorrow not only on the Society but also on the universal Church: Marc Antonio de Dominis. He was a Dalmatian, whose family had given a Pope and many illustrious prelates to the Church. He followed the course of the Jesuit college in Illyria, and amazed his masters by the brilliancy of his talents. He entered the novitiate, and contrary to the practice of the Society was immediately made a professor of sacred eloquence, philosophy and mathematics. Crowds flocked to hear him; meantime he distinguished himself in the pulpit. Apparently he was a priest when he became a novice. The fame he acquired, however, turned his head and he left the Society to become a bishop, and later an archbishop, in Dalmatia. But his utterances soon showed that he was at odds with the Church. He was with Venice in its quarrel with the Pope, and then relinquishing his archbishopric, he fled to England, where he was received with enthusiasm by James I, who kept him at court, showered rich benefices on him and made him Dean of Windsor. There he wrote a book entitled "De republica christiana" (1620), which denied the primacy of the Pope. Pursued by remorse he went to Rome and at the feet of Gregory XV implored forgiveness for his apostasy. But his repentance was feigned. His letters to certain individuals showed that he was still a heretic, and he was imprisoned in Sant' Angelo, where he died in 1624, giving signs at the last moment of genuine repentance.

The long Generalate of Vitelleschi was clouded by one disaster: the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Duchy of Lorraine. They had opposed the bigamous marriage of the duke, but his confessor, Father Cheminot, claimed that there were sufficient grounds for invalidating the first marriage, and took the opposite side. He was expelled from the Society or left it.

During Vitelleschi's time, the famous English nun, Mary Ward, appeared in Rome. She had been a Poor Clare, but found that it was not her vocation to be a contemplative, and she, therefore, proposed to establish a religious congregation which would do for women in their own sphere what the Jesuits were doing for men. For that end she asked for dispensation from enclosure, choir duty, the religious habit and also freedom from diocesan control. As all this was an imitation of the Society's methods, she and her companions began to be called by their enemies "Jesuitesses." Their demands, of course, evoked a storm, but Father Vitelleschi encouraged them, and Suárez and Lessius were deputed to study the constitutions of the new congregation. Nevertheless, although the women were the recipients of very great consideration from three Popes, Paul V, Gregory XV, and Urban VIII, the committee of cardinals to whom the matter was referred, refused in 1630 to approve of their rules. In 1639 the little group returned to England where, under the protection of Queen Henrietta Maria, they began their work, and were approved by the Holy See. At first, they were known in Rome as "The English Ladies." In Ireland and America they are "The Loretto Nuns" (A masterly review of this incident may be found in Guilday's "English Refugees," I, c. vi).

Vitelleschi died in February, 1645, and was followed in rapid succession by Fathers Caraffa, Piccolomini, Gottifredi and Nickel, whose collective terms amounted only to seventeen years. Caraffa governed the Society for three years; Piccolomini for two; and Gottifredi died before the congregation which elected him had terminated its work. Nickel was chosen in 1652. He was old and infirm and after nine years, felt compelled to ask for a Vicar-General to assist him in his work. The one chosen for this office was John Paul Oliva. He served three years in that capacity, but as he had been made Vicar with the right of succession, he became General automatically when Father Nickel died on July 31, 1664. This departure from usage had been allowed with the approval of Pope Alexander VII. Oliva was a Venetian and two of his family, his grandfather and uncle, had been Doges of the Republic. Before his election to the office of General he had been ten years master of novices and had also been named rector of the Collegium Germanicum. He was on terms of intimacy with Condé and Turenne; and Innocent X died in his arms. His election evidently gave great satisfaction. Princes and cardinals began to multiply the colleges of the Society throughout Italy, where they already abounded. Milan, Naples, Cuneo, Monbasileo, Volturna, Genoa, Turin, Savigliano, Brera and other cities all wanted them.

It is this period from 1615 to 1664, which, for some undiscoverable reason, is described both by Ranke and Böhmer-Monod as marking the deterioration and decay of the Society. An examination of this indictment is, of course, imperative; and though it must necessarily be somewhat polemical, it may be helpful to a better understanding of the situation and give a more complete knowledge of facts. Ranke begins his attack by throwing discredit on Vitelleschi, describing him as a man of "little learning," adducing as his authority for this assertion a phrase in some Italian writer who says that Vitelleschi was a man "di poche lettre ma di santità di vita non ordinaria." Now the obvious meaning of this is, not that he was a man of "little learning," but that "he wrote very few letters." As he belonged to an unusually illustrious family of princes, cardinals, and popes; and as he had not only made the full course of studies in the Society, but had taught philosophy and theology for several years and was subsequently appointed to be the Rector of the Collegium Maximum of Naples, which was the Society's house of advanced studies, and as he was, besides, the author of several learned works, it is manifestly ridiculous to class him with the illiterates. As a matter of fact, Mutius Vitelleschi was a far better educated man than Leopold von Ranke.

Father Nickel, in turn, is set down as "rude, discourteous, and repulsive; to such an extent that he was deposed from his office by the general congregation, which explicitly declared that he had forfeited all authority."

It would be hard to crowd into a whole chapter as many false statements as this much and perhaps over-praised historian contrives to condense in a single sentence. For apart from the inherent impossibility of anyone who was "rude, repulsive and discourteous" arriving at the dignity of General of the Society, it is absolutely false that Father Nickel "was deposed from his office and was explicitly told that he had forfeited his authority." Far from this being the case, it was he who had summoned the congregation in order to lay before it the urgent necessity of his being relieved from the heavy burden of his office. On its assembling, the first thing he did was to ask for a Vicar because his infirmities and his age – he was then seventy-nine years old – made it impossible for him to fulfill the duties of his office, or even to take part in the proceedings of the congregation. Moreover, it is absolutely calumnious to say that the congregation explicitly declared that he had forfeited all his authority. Even Ranke, who makes the charge, declares that he was guilty of no transgression; nor was the action of the congregation in defining the Vicar's position as "not being in conjunction with that of the retiring General," anything else than a desire to avoid having the Society governed by two heads. Nor did this denote "a change in the Society's methods;" for there had been a provision in the constitution from the very beginning for even the deposition of a general. Again, far from being repulsive in his manners, the congregation proclaimed him to have been the very opposite. Indeed, all his brethren sympathized with him, especially at that moment, because, besides the usual burden of his office and his age, he was afflicted by the sad news which had just reached him that three of the Fathers who were delegates to the congregation – the Vice-Provincial of Sardinia and his two associates – had been shipwrecked at the mouth of the Tiber. The words of the congregation's acceptance of his withdrawal denote nothing but the deepest reverence and affection. They are: Congregatio obsequendum duxit voluntati charissimi optimeque meriti Parentis, that is, "The congregation deemed it proper to comply with the desire of the most beloved and most deserving Father."

Böhmer-Monod, likewise, in spite of their joint claim to sincerity and lack of bias, are especially denunciatory of the character of the Society at this juncture. "It is no longer," they say, "an autocracy, but a many-headed oligarchy, which defends its rights against the General as jealously as did the Venetian nobles against the doges. The military and monastic spirit has relaxed and a spirit of luxurious idleness and greed of worldly possessions has taken its place. Not only the writings of the enemies of the Jesuits, but the letters of their own Generals go to prove it. Thus, Vitelleschi wrote, in 1617, that the reproach of money-seeking was a universal one against the Society. Nickel also sent a grand circular letter to recall the Order to the observance of Apostolic poverty. Indeed, John Sobieski, a devoted friend of the Order, could not refrain from writing to Oliva: 'I remark with great grief that the good name of the Society has much to suffer from your eagerness to increase its fortune without troubling yourselves about the rights of others. I feel bound, therefore, to warn the Jesuits here against their passion for wealth and domination, which are only too evident in the Jesuits of other countries. Rectors seek to enrich their colleges in every way. It is their only thought.' But these reproaches made no impression on Oliva who was a sybarite leading an indolent life at the Gesù or in his beautiful villa of Albano. Even if he were the proper kind of man, he would have been powerless, for, in 1661 Goswin Nickel was deposed solely because of his rigidity towards the most influential members of the Order. The Constitution of the Order was changed, for Oliva was made General because he had humored the nepotism of the Pope."

The answer to this formidable arraignment is: – First, the General of the Society cannot be an autocrat. He must rule according to the Constitutions; failing in this, he may be deposed by the general congregation. Secondly, the society can never be ruled by an oligarchy, especially by "an oligarchy with many heads" which is a contradiction in terms. The only oligarchy possible would be the little group around the General known as the assistants, representing the different national or racial sections of the Society. But they are invested with no authority whatever. They are merely counsellors, are elected by the Congregation, and ipso facto lose their office at the death of the General, though of course they hold over until the election of his successor. The metaphor of the Venetian nobles and the doges has no application in the Society of Jesus.

Nor is it true that after Vitelleschi's death, "it lost its monastic spirit" for the simple reason that it never had that spirit. The Jesuits are not monks and their official designation in ecclesiastical documents is Clerici Regulares Societatis Jesu (Clerks, or Clerics, Regular of the Society of Jesus). It is precisely because they broke away from old monastic traditions and methods that they were so long regarded with suspicion by the secular and regular or monastic clergy, especially as the innovation was made at the very time that Martin Luther was furiously assailing monastic orders. If, however, by "the monastic spirit" is meant the religious spirit, and that is possibly the meaning of the writers, it will not be difficult to show that piety and holiness of life had not departed from the Society. For instance, some of the greatest modern ascetic writers appeared just at that time in the Society. Thus, Suárez died in 1617, and Lessius in 1623, both of whom may some day be canonized saints. To the latter, St. Francis de Sales wrote to acknowledge his spiritual indebtedness to the Society. Living at that time also were Bellarmine, Petavius, Nieremberg, Layman, Castro Palao, Surin, Nouet, de la Colombiére, and others equally spiritual. Álvarez de Paz died in 1620, Le Gaudier in 1622, Drexellius in 1630, Louis Lallemant in 1635, Lancisius in 1636, de Ponte in 1644, Saint-Jure in 1657. Meantime, the famous work on "Christian Perfection" by Rodríguez, who died in 1616, had been making its way to every religious house in Christendom. There was also a great number of holy men in the Society at that moment. Had that not been the case, Cardinal Orsini, who died in 1627, would not have asked for admission; nor Charles de Lorraine, Prince Bishop and Count of Verdun, who had entered a few years before; nor would the Pope have made the great Hungarian Pazmany a cardinal in 1616, and Pallavicini in 1659. Blessed Bernardino Realini was not yet dead; St. John Berchmans was living in 1621; and St. Peter Claver died in 1654, before his adviser St. Alphonsus Rodríguez; St. John Francis Regis made his first vows in 1633, and Vitelleschi himself is admitted to have been a man of extraordinary sanctity. A religious order with such members is the reverse of decadent.

The "military spirit" which the Society was reproached with having lost was no doubt the daring "missionary spirit" which won her so much glory in the early days. But it was by no means lost. Andrada made his famous journey to Tibet in 1624; de Rhodes started about 1630 on his famous overland trip from India to Paris, and then set off for Persia where he died; the missionaries of North America were exploring Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes and searching for the Mississippi; those of South America were following the wonderful Vieira through thousands of miles of forests and along endless rivers in Brazil; others were searching the Congo or Gold Coast or Abyssinia for souls; Jerónimo Xavier and de Nobili were in India; others again in Persia and the Isles of Greece; and Ricci and Schall and their companions were converting China. There were martyrdoms all over the world, like those of Brébeuf and his companions in Canada; Jesuits were laying down their lives in Mexico, Paraguay, the Caribbean Islands, the Philippines, Russia, England, Hungary, and above all in Japan, where every member of the Society was either butchered or exiled; while thousands of their brethren in Europe were clamoring to take their places in the pit or at the stake. That condition of things would not seem to connote degeneracy or decadence.

As for the "grand circular letter," which Father Nickel sent out to the whole Society, that document was nothing but an academic disquisition on the relative importance of poverty as against the two other vows. It was not a censure of the Society for its non-observance of poverty. With regard to Sobieski, it is impossible to imagine that he ever uttered such a calumny against his most devoted friends. They had trained him intellectually and spiritually; just before the great battle with the Tatars, he spent the whole night in prayer with his Jesuit confessor, Przeborowski, and in the morning he and all his soldiers knelt to receive the priest's blessing. Finally, when the bloody battle was won, they knelt before the altar, at the feet of the same priest, and intoned a hymn of thanksgiving to God for the glorious victory. When Przeborowski died, Father Vota took his place, and it was he who induced the hero to join the League of Augsburg, thus helping him to win the glory of being regarded as the saviour of Europe, when on September 12, 1683, he drove back the Turks from the gates of Vienna. As Sobieski died in Vota's arms, it is not very likely that he ever regarded his affectionate friends as "greedy and rapacious."

What Böhmer-Monod says regarding Vitelleschi's encyclical to the Society on the occasion of his election is equally unjustifiable. Not only does the General not denounce the Society for its degeneracy, but he explicitly says, "Although I am fully aware that there is still in the body of the Society the same spirit that animated it at the beginning, and moreover, that this spirit not only actually persists, but is conspicuously robust and full of life and vigor; nevertheless, as each one desires to see what he loves absolutely and in every respect perfect, we should all, from the highest to the lowest, strive to the utmost to have it free from the slightest stain or wrinkle. To urge this is the sole purpose of this epistle." Later on he says, "There are three things which help us to conserve this spirit: prayer, persecution and obedience." The second, at least, has never failed the Society.

That there was no such decadence or degeneracy later is placed beyond all possibility of doubt by a man whose integrity cannot for a single moment be questioned: Father John Roothaan, General of the Society, who wrote to all his brethren throughout the world concerning the third century in the life of the Order. Had he made any misstatement, he would have been immediately contradicted. As for his competency in the premises it goes without saying that no one had better means than he for becoming acquainted with the condition of the Society at that period. He testifies as follows:

"When the Society began its third centenary, it was flourishing and vigorous as it always has been in literature, theology, and eloquence; it engaged in the education of youth with distinguished success, in some countries without rivals; in others it was second almost to no other religious order; its zeal for souls was exercised in behalf of men of every condition of life not only in the countries of Europe, Catholic and Protestant alike, but among the savages of the remotest part of the world, nor was the commendation awarded them less than the fruit they had gathered; and what is most important, amid the applause they won and the favors they were granted, their pursuit of genuine piety and holiness was such, that although in the vast number of more than twenty thousand then in the Society there may have been a few, a very few, who in their life and conduct were not altogether what they should have been, and who in consequence brought sorrow on that best of mothers, the Society, nevertheless there were very many in every province who were conspicuous for sanctity and who diffused far and wide the good odor of Jesus Christ. It waged a bitter war against error and vice; it fought strenuously in defence of Holy Church and the authority of the See of Peter; it displayed a ceaseless vigilance in detecting the new errors which then began to show themselves, and whose object was to overturn the thrones of kings and princes and to revolutionize the world; and it bent every one of its energies of voice, pen, counsel and teaching to refute and as far as possible to destroy those pernicious doctrines. Hence it was sustained and favored by the Sovereign Pontiffs and by the hierarchy of the Church and its authority was held in the highest esteem by princes and people alike. It seemed like a splendid abiding-place of science and piety and virtue; an august temple extending over the earth, consecrated to the glory of God and the salvation of souls."

The characterization of Oliva, by Böhmer-Monod as "a sybarite leading an indolent life at the Gesù or in his beautiful villa at Albano," is nothing else than an outrage. Sybarites do not live till the age of eighty-one; nor are they summoned to fill the office of "Apostolic Preacher" by four successive Popes – Innocent X, Alexander VI, Clement IX, and Clement X; nor do they write huge folios of profound theology; nor do they act as advisers to popes, kings, and princes; nor could they govern fifteen or twenty thousand men scattered all over the world, all of whom looked up to them as saints. Such in fact was this really great man, and falsehood could scarcely go further, than to pillory him in history as a degraded voluptuary. As for his luxurious villa, it will suffice to say that the individual who conceived that idea of a Jesuit country-house, never saw one. It is never luxurious; but always shabby, bare and poor.

The whole available income of the English province at this period (1625-1743) may be found in Foley's "Records" (VII, pt. I, xviii), and is quoted in Guilday's "English Refugees" (I, 156). "The entire revenue in 1645 for colleges, residences, seminaries under their charge, as well as fourteen centres in England and Wales is recorded at something like £3915. This sum maintained 335 persons, which at the present rate of money would be at £34.10 per head. In 1679 after the Orange Rebellion this sum was reduced." What was true of the English province, may also in great measure be predicated of the rest, especially of the one in which the General resided.

Another curious instance of this systematic calumniation is found in the preface of a volume of poems of Urban VIII, edited in 1727 by a professor of Oxford, who was prompted to publish them, we are informed, "because the poems would be an excellent corrective of the obscenity and unbridled licentiousness of the day." But while thus extolling the Pope, this heretical admirer of His Holiness, goes on to say that the Pontiff was particularly beloved by Henry IV, and when that monarch was attacked by an assassin, "the Jesuits, the authors of the execrable deed, were expelled from the kingdom, and a great pillar was erected to perpetuate their infamy. Whereupon Urban, who was then Cardinal Barberini, was sent to France, and induced Henry to destroy the pillar, and recall the Jesuits without inflicting any punishment on them."

For a person of ordinary intelligence, the conclusion would be that Barberini recognized that the Society had been grossly calumniated; if not, he had a curious way of showing his affection for the King by bringing back his deadly enemies and destroying the pillar. The author of this effusion also fails to inform his readers that Pope Urban VIII was a pupil of the Jesuits; that during all his life he was particularly attached to the Order; that one of his first acts after ascending the pontifical throne was to raise Francis Borgia to the ranks of the beatified; that the Jesuit, Cardinal de Lugo, was his particular adviser, and that in the reform of the hymnody of the Breviary, he entrusted the work exclusively to the Jesuits. With regard to the expulsion of the Society from France, Henry IV had no hand in it whatever. That injustice is to be laid to the score of the parliament of Paris over which Henry had no control. Far from being an enemy he was the devoted and affectionate friend of the Society, as well he might be, for it was the influence of the Spanish Jesuit, Cardinal Toletus, that made it possible for him to ascend the throne of France.

Long before his election as General, Oliva had achieved considerable reputation as an orator; and, as his correspondence shows, he was held in the highest esteem by many of the sovereigns of Europe for his wisdom as a counsellor. Unfortunately, however, nearly all the trouble that occurred in his time originated in the courts of kings. Thus in France, Louis XIV made his confessor, Father François Annat, a member of his council on religious affairs, with the result that when the king fell out with the Pope, Annat's position became extremely uncomfortable; but it is to his credit that he effected a reconciliation between the king and the Pontiff. After Annat, François de Lachaise was entrusted with the distribution of the royal patronage, and, of course, stirred up enmity on all sides. In Portugal, Don Pedro insisted upon Father Fernandes being a member of the Cortes; but Oliva peremptorily ordered him to refuse the office. In Spain, the queen made Father Nithard, her confessor, regent of the kingdom, and, German though he was, grand inquisitor and councillor of state. When he resisted, she appealed to the Pope, and the poor man was obliged to accept both appointments. Of course he aroused the opposition of the politicians and resigned. The queen then sent him as ambassador to Rome, and on his arrival there, the Pope made him a cardinal. He wore the purple for eight years and died in 1681. The saintly Father Claude de la Colombiére, the spiritual director of the Blessed Margaret Mary, also enters into the category of "courtier Jesuits." He was sent to England as confessor of the young Duchess of York, Mary Beatrice of Este, and though he led a very austere and secluded life in the palace, he was accused of participation in the famous Titus Oates plot, about which all England went mad; and although there was absolutely no evidence against him, he was kept in jail for a month, and in 1678 was sent back to France.

It was Father Petre's association with James II of England that gave Oliva most trouble. He was not the confessor, but the friend of the king, who had taken him out of the prison to which Titus Oates had consigned him. James wanted to make him grand almoner, and when Oliva protested, Castlemain, the English ambassador at Rome, was ordered to ask the Pope to make him a bishop and a cardinal. When that was prevented an attempt was made to give him a seat in the privy councils. Crétineau-Joly not only questions Petre's sincerity in these various moves, but accused the English provincial of collusion. Pollen, however, who is a later and a better authority, insists that, if we cannot aquit Petre of all blame, it is chiefly because first-hand evidence is deficient. Petre made no effort to defend himself but the king completely exonerated him. The king's evidence, however, counted for nothing in England with his Protestant subjects. The feeling against Petre was intense and William of Orange fomented it for political reasons, and the most extravagant stories were accepted as true; such, for instance, as that the Jesuits were going to take possession of England, or that the heir-apparent was a supposititious infant. Finally, when James fled to France, Petre followed him and remained by his side till the end. "He was not a plotter," says Pollen, "but an easy-going English priest who was almost callous to public opinion." It is perfectly clear that he had nothing to do with the foolish policies of James. On the contrary, he had done everything in his power to thwart them. "Had I followed his advice," James admitted to Louis XIV, "I would have escaped disaster."

A romantic figure appears at this time in the person of John Casimir, who after many adventures ascended the throne of Poland. In spite of the remonstrances of his mother he not only refused to dispute the claim of his elder brother, but espoused his cause, fought loyally for his election and was the first to congratulate him when chosen. He then withdrew from Poland and we find him, first, as an officer in the imperial army, and at the head of a league against France. Afterwards, while in command of a fleet in the Mediterranean, he was driven ashore near Marseilles by a storm; he was recognized and kept in prison for two years, but was finally released at the request of his brother. In passing by Loreto, on his way home, the fancy of becoming a Jesuit seized him. He applied for admission and was received, but left three or four years afterwards, and, though not in orders, was made a cardinal. When the news of his brother's death arrived, he returned the red hat to the Pope and set out for Poland to claim the crown, and simultaneously that of Sweden. The latter pretence, of course, meant war with Gustavus Adolphus, who forthwith invaded Poland, but Casimir drove him out and also expelled the Prussians from Lithuania. Probably on account of the dissensions in his own country which gave him occupation enough, he ceased to urge his rights to the throne of Sweden, and after some futile struggles relinquished that of Poland likewise.

In the Convocation of Warsaw where he pronounced his abdication, he is said to have made the following utterance which sounds like a prophecy but which may have been merely a clever bit of political foresight. "Would to God," he exclaimed "that I were a false prophet, but I foresee great disasters for Poland. The Cossack and the Muscovite will unite with the people who speak their language and will seize the greater part of Lithuania. The frontiers of Greater Poland will be possessed by the House of Brandenburg; and Prussia, either by treaty or force of arms, will invade our territory. In the dismemberment of our country, Austria will not let slip the chance of laying hands on Cracow." John was the last representative of the House of Vasa. He was succeeded by Michael, who reigned only three years (1669-72) and then the great Sobieski was elected after he and his 20,000 Poles had routed an army of 100,000 Tatars – an exploit which made him the country's idol as well as its king.

In becoming General, Oliva inherited the suffering inflicted on the Society by the English persecutions which had been inaugurated by Elizabeth and continued by James I. A lull had occurred during the reign of Charles I, probably because the queen, Henrietta Maria, was a Catholic; and in 1634 there were as many as one hundred and sixty Jesuits in the British dominions; but Cromwell was true to his instincts, and, between the time of the Long Parliament and the Restoration of the Stuarts, twenty-four Catholics died for the Faith. Naturally, the Jesuits came in for their share. Thus Father James Latin was put in jail on August 3, 1643, and was never heard of afterwards. "From which," says O'Reilly, "it is easy to conjecture his fate." William Boyton was one of the victims in a general massacre that took place in 1647, in the Cashel Cathedral; and two years afterwards, John Bathe and Robert Netterville were put to death by the Cromwellians in Drogheda. Bathe was tied to a stake and shot, while Netterville, who was an invalid, was dragged from his bed, beaten with clubs and flung out on the highway. He died four days afterwards.

The Stuarts were restored in 1660, but the easy-going Charles II made no serious effort to erase the laws against Catholics from the statute-book, and from time to time proclamations were issued ordering all priests and Jesuits out of the realm. Two occasions especially furnished pretexts for these expulsions. One was the "Great Plague," and the other was the "Great Fire," for both of which the Jesuits were held responsible. No one knew what was going to happen next, when there appeared in England an individual to whom Crétineau-Joly devotes considerable space, but who receives scant notice from English writers. He announced himself as Hippolyte du Chatelet de Luzancy. He was the son of a French actress, and was under indictment for forgery in his native country; added to these attractions, founded or not, he claimed to be an ex-Jesuit. Of course, he was received with great enthusiasm by the prelates of the Established Church, for he let it be known he was quite willing to accept any religious creed they might present to him. The Government officials also welcomed him. His first exploit was to accuse Father Saint-Germain, the Duchess of York's confessor, of entering his apartment with a drawn dagger and threatening to kill him. Whereupon all England was startled and the House of Lords passed a bill consigning all priests and Jesuits to jail. Saint-Germain was the first victim. Luzancy was then called before the privy council and told a blood curdling story of a great conspiracy that was being hatched on the Continent. It implicated the king and the Duke of York. The story was false on the face of it, but Luzancy was taken under the protection of the Bishop of London; he was given the degree of Master of Arts by Oxford and was installed as the Vicar of Dover Court, Essex. A most unexpected defender of the Society appeared at this juncture in the person of Antoine Arnauld, the fiercest foe of the Jesuits in France. He denounced Luzancy as an imposter, and berated the whole English people for accepting the conspiracy myth. His indignation, however, was not prompted by any love of the Society, but because Luzancy claimed to have lived for a considerable time with the Jansenists and with Arnauld, in particular, at Port-Royal.

It was probably the success achieved by Luzancy that suggested the greater extravagances of Titus Oates. Titus Oates was a minister of the Anglican Establishment, and first signalized himself in association with his father, Samuel, who also wore the cloth, by trumping up an abominable charge against a certain Protestant schoolmaster, for which the father lost his living, and the son was sent to prison for trial. Escaping from jail, Titus became a chaplain on a man-of-war, but was expelled from the navy in a twelve-month. He then succeeded in being appointed Protestant chaplain in the household of the Duke of Norfolk and was thus brought into contact with Catholics. He promptly professed to be converted and was baptized on Ash-Wednesday 1677. The Jesuit provincial was induced to send him to the English College at Valladolid, but the infamous creature was expelled before half a year had passed. Nevertheless, he was granted another trial and was admitted to the Seminary of St. Omers, which soon turned him out of doors.

Coming to London, he took up with Israel Tonge who is described as a "city divine and a man of letters," and together they devised the famous "Popish Plot," each claiming the credit of being its inventor. It proposed: first, to kill "the Black Bastard," a designation of Charles II which they said was in vogue among Catholics. His majesty was to be shot "with silver bullets from jointed carbines." Secondly, two Benedictines were to poison and stab the queen's physician, "with the help," as Titus declared, "of four Irish ruffians who were to be hired by Doctor Fogarthy." The Prince of Orange, the Lord Bishop of Hertford and several minor celebrities were also to be put out of the way. Thirdly, England, Ireland and all the British possessions were to be conquered by the sword and subjected to the Romish obedience. To achieve all this, the Pope, the Society of Jesus and their confederates were to send an Italian bishop to England to proclaim the papal programme. Subsequently, Cardinal Howard was to be papal legate. Father White, the Jesuit provincial, or Oliva, Father General of the Order, would issue commissions to generals, lieutenant generals, naval officers. When the king was duly assassinated, the crown was to be offered to the Duke of York, after he had approved of the murder of his royal brother as well as the massacre of all his Protestant subjects. Whereupon the duke himself was to be killed and the French were to be called in. The Jesuit provincial was to be made Archbishop of Canterbury, and so on.

No more extravagant nonsense could have been conceived by the inhabitants of a madhouse. Nevertheless, "all England," says Macaulay, "was worked up into a frenzy by it. London was placed in a state of siege. Train bands were under arms all night. Preparations were made to barricade the main thoroughfares. Patrols marched up and down the streets, cannon were planted in Whitehall. Every citizen carried a flail, loaded with lead, to brain the popish assassins, and all the jails were filled with papists. Meantime Oates was received in the palaces of the great and hailed everywhere as the saviour of the nation." The result of it all was that sixteen innocent men were sent to the gallows, among them seven Jesuits: William Ireland, John Gavan, William Harcourt, Anthony Turner, Thomas Whitebread, John Fenwick and David Lewis, besides their illustrious pupil, Oliver Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh. As the saintly prelate has been beatified by the Church as a martyr for thus shedding his blood, inferentially one might claim a similar distinction for all his companions. On the list are one Benedictine, one Franciscan and six secular priests. The Earl of Stafford who was sentenced like the rest to be hanged, drawn and quartered was graciously permitted by his majesty to be merely beheaded. For these murders Oates was pensioned for life, but in 1682 Judge Jeffries fined him one hundred thousand pounds for scandalum magnatum and condemned him to be whipped, pilloried, degraded and imprisoned for life. "He has deserved more punishment," said the judge, "than the law can inflict." But when William of Orange came to the throne he pardoned the miscreant and gave him a pension of three hundred pounds.

In his "Popish Plot," Pollock continually insists, by insinuation rather than by direct assertion, that Oates was a novice of the Society. Thus, we are told that he was sent to the "Collegio de los Ingleses at Valladolid to nurse into a Jesuit;" and subsequently "the expelled novice was sent to complete his education at St. Omers." But, in the first place, a "Collegio" at Valladolid or anywhere else can never be a novitiate, for novices are forbidden all collegiate study; secondly, St. Omers in France was a boys' school and nothing else; thirdly, the description of Oates by the Jesuit Father Warner absolutely precludes any possibility of his ever having been admitted as a novice or even as a remotely prospective candidate.

Warner's pen picture merits reproduction. Its general lines are: "Mentis in eo summa stupiditas; lingua balbutiens; sermo e trivio; vox stridula, et cantillans, plorantis quam loquentis similior. Memoria fallax, prius dicta numquam fideliter reddens; frons contracta; oculi parvi et in occiput retracti; facies plana, in medio lancis sive disci instar compressa; prominentibus hic inde genis rubicundus nasus; os in ipso vultus centro, mentum reliquam faciem prope totam æquans; caput vix corporis trunco extans, in pectus declive; reliqua corporis hisce respondentia; monstro quam homini similiora." In English this means that the lovely Oates "was possessed of a mind in which stupidity was supremely conspicuous, a tongue that stuttered in vulgar speech; a voice that was shrill, whining, and more of a moan than an articulate utterance; a faulty memory that could not recall what had been said; a narrow forehead, small eyes, sunk deep in his head; a flat face depressed in the middle like a plate or a dish; a red nose set between puffy cheeks; a mouth so much in the centre of his countenance that the chin was almost as large as the rest of the features; his head bent forward on his chest; and the rest of his body after the same build, making him more of a monster than a man." If the English provincial could for a moment have ever dreamed of admitting such an abortion into the Society, he would have verified his name of Father Strange. On the other hand it was natural for the fanatics of that time to adopt Oates.

During Oliva's administration, and in spite of his protests, Father Giovanni Salerno and Francisco Cienfuegos were made cardinals; under Peter the Great a few Jesuits were admitted to Russia, but the terrible Czar was fickle and drove out his guests soon after. There was also some missionary success in Persia, where 400,000 Nestorians were converted between the years 1656 and 1681, the date of Oliva's death.

Charles de Noyelle, a Belgian, was now appointed Vicar; and at the congregation which assembled in 1682 he was elected General, receiving every vote except his own. He was then sixty-seven years old. His first task was to adjust the difficulty between Innocent XI and Louis XIV on the question of the régale, or the royal right to administer the revenues of a certain number of vacant abbeys and episcopal sees claimed by the kings of France. Such invasions of the Church-rights by the State were common extending as far back as the times of St. Bernard. By 1608 the French parliament had extended this prerogative to the whole of France; but the upright Henry IV, half Protestant though he was, refused to accept it; whereas later on the Catholic Louis XIV had no scruples about the matter, and issued an edict to that effect. The Pope protested and refused to send the Bulls to the royal nominees for the vacant dioceses, with the result that at one time there were thirty sees in France without a bishop. Only two prelates stood out against the king and, strange to say, one of them was Caulet, the Jansenist Bishop of Pamiers; who, stranger still, lived on intimate terms with the Jesuits.

So far the Jesuits had kept out of the controversy, but, unfortunately, Father Louis Maimbourg published a book in support of the king, and, eminently distinguished though he was in the field of letters, especially in history, he was promptly expelled from the Society. The king angrily protested and ordered Maimbourg not to obey, but the General stood firm and Maimbourg severed his connection with his former brethren. As substantially all the bishops were arrayed against the Pope, copies of the Bull against Louis were sent to the Jesuit provincials for distribution. The situation was most embarrassing, but before the copies were delivered, they were seized by the authorities. In retaliation for the Bull, the king took the principality of Benevento, which was part of the patrimony of the Church, and thus drew upon himself a sentence of excommunication. As this document would also have been refused by the bishops, it was entrusted to a Jesuit Father named Dez, who was on his way from Rome to France.

For a Frenchman to be the bearer of a Bull excommunicating his king, especially such a king as Louis XIV, was not without danger; but Dez was equal to the task. He directed his steps in such a leisurely fashion towards Paris that his brethren in Italy had time to appeal to the Pope to withdraw the decree. Fortunately the Pope yielded, and the excommunication was never pronounced; much to the relief of both sides. It would probably have ended in a schism; as a matter of fact it provoked the famous Assembly of the Clergy of 1682 which formulated the Four Articles of the Gallican Church. These Articles were then approved by the king and ordered to be taught in all theological schools of France – a proceeding which again angered the Sovereign Pontiff, who refused to confirm any of the royal nominees for the vacant bishoprics. The contest now became bitter, and it is said that Father Lachaise, whether prompted by the king or not, wrote to the General asking him to plead with the Pope to transmit the Bulls. That brought down the Papal displeasure not only on Lachaise personally but on all the Jesuits of France.

In 1689 the Pope died, and the king, who was by this time alarmed at the lengths to which he had gone, suggested that each of the bishops whom he had named should write a personal letter to the new Pontiff, Alexander VIII, disclaiming the acts of the Assembly of the Clergy of 1682. Subsequently, the king himself sent an expression of regret for having made the Four Articles obligatory on the whole kingdom; he thus absolutely annulled the proceedings of the famous gathering. The régale, however, was and is still maintained as a right in France whether it happens to be monarchical or republican. At present, it holds all church property but has nothing to say about episcopal appointments.