The Jesuits, 1534-1921

Bishop Cheverus, who was then at Boston, was subsequently called to France to be Archbishop of Bordeaux and cardinal. Father Fenwick, without being consulted, was appointed to the vacant see. In fact, the first news he had of the promotion was when the Bulls were in his hands, so that no means of protesting was possible. He was consecrated on November 1, 1825, and his friend Bishop England travelled all the way from Charleston to assist as one of the Consecrators. At that time the diocese of Boston was synonymous with New England, but it had only ten churches, two of which were for Indians. Fenwick, however, set to work in his usual heroic fashion. He was particularly fond of the Indians, and bravely fought their battle against the dishonest whites. As the red men were the descendants of the Abenakis to whom the old Jesuits had brought the Faith, there was a family feeling in his defense of them. The same sentiment of kinship prompted him to establish a newspaper which he called "The Jesuit." It was a defiance of the bigotry of New England, of which there were to be many serious manifestations. "The Jesuit" was the pioneer of Catholic journalism in the United States.

Bishop Fenwick was averse to the crowding of Catholics in the large cities, and to segregate them he established the exclusively Catholic colony of Benedicta, but this scheme of a Paraguay in the woods of Maine had only a limited success. Prompted by the same motive of love of the Society he visited the place which Father Rasle had sanctified with his blood when the fanatical Puritans of Massachusetts put him to death in 1724. Father Rasle was the apostle of the Abenakis and had established himself at what is now Norridgewock on the Kennebec. Fenwick went there to pray. Although it was in the wilderness, he determined to make it a notable place for the future Catholics of America; and over the mouldering remains of Rasle and his brave Indian defenders, he erected a monument, a shaft of granite, on which an inscription was cut to record the tragedy. It was too much for the bigotry that then reigned in those parts, and the monument was thrown down; but Fenwick put it in its place again; at a later date when, in the course of time, it had fallen out of perpendicular, Bishop Walsh of Portland corrected the defect and amid a great throng of people solemnly reconsecrated it.

While he was Bishop of Boston, Fenwick made a pious pilgrimage to Quebec; the city from which the Jesuits of the old Society had started on their perilous journeys to evangelize the Indians of the continent. He saw there an immense building on whose façade were cut the letters I. H. S. "What is that?" he asked. "It is the old Jesuit College, now a soldiers' barracks," was the reply. His soul was filled with indignation and he exclaimed in anger, "The outrage that these men of blood should occupy the house sanctified by the martyrs Jogues, Brébeuf, Lalemant and the others." The good bishop was unaware that the martyrs had never seen the building. It was built after they had gone to claim their crowns in heaven.

During his episcopacy Knownothingism reigned, and in one of the outbreaks the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown was attacked at midnight. The sisters were shot at, the house was pillaged, the chapel desecrated and the whole edifice given over to the flames. The blackened ruins remained for fifty years to remind the Commonwealth of its disgrace, until finally the remnants of the building, which it had cost so much to erect, had to be removed to escape taxation. It was Fenwick who founded Holy Cross College, in Worcester, Massachusetts, an establishment which is the Alma Mater of most of the subsequent bishops of New England. It has also the singular distinction of being the only Catholic College exempted by law from receiving any but Catholic students. Fenwick is buried there. He died on August 11, 1846, after an episcopacy of twenty-one years.

Strange to say the Bull resurrecting the Society was not sent to America until October 8, 1814, and on January 5, 1815, Bishop Carroll wrote to Father Marmaduke Stone, in England, as follows: "Your precious and grateful favor accompanied by the Bull of Restoration was received early in December and diffused the greatest sensation of joy and thanksgiving, not only among the surviving and new members of the Society, but also all good Christians who have any remembrances of their services or heard of their unjust and cruel treatment, and have witnessed the consequences of their suppression. You may conceive my sensations when I read the account of the celebration of Mass by His Holiness himself at the superb altar of St. Ignatius at the Gesù; the assemblage of the surviving Jesuits in the chapel to hear the proclamation of their resurrection, etc."

On returning to America after the suppression of the Society in Belgium, Father Carroll had gone to live at his mother's house in Rock Creek, Maryland, for he no longer considered himself entitled to support from the funds of the Jesuits who still maintained their existence in the colonies. They had never been suppressed, whereas he had belonged to a community in the Netherlands which had been canonically put out of existence by the Brief. He spent two years in the rough country missions of Maryland and then went with Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and his cousin Charles Carroll to Canada to induce the Frenchmen there to make common cause with the Americans against Great Britain. The Continental Congress had especially requested him to form a part of the embassy. The mission was a failure and the Colonies had themselves to blame for it; because two years previously they had issued an "Address to the English People" denouncing the government for not only attempting to establish an Anglican episcopacy in the English possessions, but for maintaining a papistical one on the banks of the St. Lawrence. Clearly it would have been impossible for the French Catholics who had been guaranteed the free exercise of their religion to transfer their allegiance to a country which considered that concession to be one of the reasons justifying a revolution.

When the war was over, Carroll and five other Jesuits met at Whitemarsh to devise means to keep their property intact in order to carry on their missionary work. They had no other resources than the produce of their farms, for their personal support. The faithful gave them nothing. At this conference they decided to ask Rome to empower some one of their number to confirm, grant faculties and dispensations, bless oils, etc. They added that, for the moment, a bishop was unnecessary. The petition was sent on November 6, 1783, and on June 7, 1784, Carroll was appointed superior of the missions in the thirteen states, and was given power to confirm. There were at that time about nineteen priests in the country and fifteen thousand Catholics, of whom three thousand were negro slaves. In 1786 Carroll took up his residence in Baltimore and was conspicuously active in municipal affairs, establishing schools, libraries and charities. Possibly it was due to him that Article 6 was inserted in the Constitution of the United States which declares that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States;" and probably also the amendment that "this Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Its actual sponsor in the Convention was C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina.

Carroll was made Bishop of Baltimore by Pius VI on November 6, 1789, twenty-four out of the twenty-five priests in the country voting for him. He was consecrated on August 15, 1790, at Lulworth Castle, England by the senior vicar Apostolic of England, Bishop Walmesly. On the election of Washington to the presidency, he represented the clergy in a congratulatory address to which Washington answered; "I hope your fellow-countrymen will not forget the patriotic part in the accomplishment of the Revolution and the establishment of the government or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic Faith is professed."

He convoked the first Synod of Baltimore in 1791. There were twenty-two priests of five nationalities in attendance. He called the Sulpicians to Baltimore in 1791; the first priest he ordained was Stephen Badin, the beloved pioneer of Kentucky, and four years later the famous Russian prince, Demetrius Gallitzin. He also succeeded in having a missionary for the Indians appointed by the government. He had intended to have as his coadjutor and successor in the see, Father Lawrence Grässel, who had been a novice in the old Society and who at Carroll's urgent request, had come out to America as a missionary. Grässel, however, died before the arrival of the Bulls. Father Leonard Neale, a Maryland Jesuit, was then chosen and was consecrated in 1800. A year and two months after the re-establishment of the Society, namely on December 3, 1815, Carroll died. It was fitting that this son of Saint Ignatius should be called to heaven on the feast of the great friend and companion of Saint Ignatius, Saint Francis Xavier.

Apropos of this, a note has been quoted by Father Hughes (op. cit., Doc., I, 424) which is often cited as revealing a change in Carroll's attitude toward the Society after he became archbishop. Fr. Charles Neale had written to him as follows, "It is equally certain that I have no authority to give up any right that would put the subject out of the power of his superior, who must and ought to be the best judge of what is most beneficial to the universal or individual good of the members, of the Congregation." On the back of the letter appear the words "Inadmissible Pretensions," said by Bishop Maréchal to have been written by Carroll.

Archbishop Carroll's attitude to the Society is clearly manifested in his letter of December 10, 1814, addressed to Father Grassi, which says: "Having contributed to your greatest happiness on earth by sending the miraculous bull of general restoration, even before I could nearly finish the reading of it, I fully expect it back this evening with Mr. Plowden's letter." It should not be forgotten that Carroll was heartbroken when the Society was suppressed and that he longed for death because of the grief it caused him. The words "Inadmissible Pretensions" noted on Neale's letter referred to a formal protest made by Father Charles Neale against a synodial statute of the bishops convened at Baltimore. Neale, indeed, desired to exercise the special privileges of the Society and to govern as was done in the old Society or as in Russia, a procedure which incurred the disapproval of the General. Grassi writing to Plowden, in England, says: "He (Archbishop Carroll) considers Mr. Chas. Neale as a wrongheaded man, and persons who knew him at Liège and Antwerp are nearly of the same opinion." In brief, Neale's administration both as president of Georgetown and as superior of the mission was most disastrous (cf. Hughes, I, ii, passim).

Leonard Neale, like Carroll, was an American. He was born near Port Tobacco in Maryland in 1746, and with many other young Marylanders, was sent to the Jesuit College of St. Omers in France. After the Suppression he went to England, where he was engaged in parochial work for four years. From there he was sent to Demerara in British Guiana and continued at work in that trying country from 1779 to 1783. His health finally gave way, and he returned to Maryland and joined his Jesuit brethren. He distinguished himself in the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, and remained in that city, for six years as the vicar of Bishop Carroll. In 1797 another epidemic of fever occurred and he was stricken but recovered. In 1798 he was sent to Georgetown College as president, and in 1800 while still president he was consecrated coadjutor of Archbishop Carroll. He continued his scholastic work until 1806, succeeding to the See of Baltimore in 1815. He was then seventy years old and in feeble health. He died at Georgetown on June 18, 1817. Bishop Maréchal who had been suggested to the Pope by Bishop Cheverus of Boston, had already been named for the See.

Bishop Maréchal was a Sulpician. He had left France at the outbreak of the French Revolution and after spending some years in America as a professor both at Georgetown and Baltimore, returned to his native country, but was back again in Maryland after a few years. Neale wanted him to be Bishop of Philadelphia, but the offer was declined, and he was made coadjutor of Baltimore with the right of succession. He was consecrated on December 14, 1817, and occupied the see until 1826. Unfortunately, the whole period from 1820 was marked by misunderstandings with the Society. In spite of this controversy, which was unnecessarily acrimonious at times, Archbishop Maréchal was anxious to have the Jesuit visitor Father Peter Kenny appointed Bishop of Philadelphia. (cf. Hughes, op. cit., Documents, for details of the controversies.)

CHAPTER XXIV

THE FIRST CONGREGATION

Expulsion from Russia – Petrucci, Vicar – Attempt to wreck the Society – Saved by Consalvi and Rozaven.

The superiors-general who presided over the Society in Russia were Stanislaus Czerniewicz (1782-85), Gabriel Lenkiewicz (1785-98), Francis Kareu, (1799-1802), Gabriel Gruber, (1802-05), and Thaddeus Brzozowski, (1805-20). The first two were only vicars, as was Father Kareu when first elected, but by the Brief "Catholicæ Fidei" he was raised to the rank of General on March 7, 1801. His two successors bore the same title. Father Brzozowski lived six years after the Restoration. But those years must have been a time of great suffering for him. Over the rapidly expanding Society, whose activities were already extending to the ends of the earth, he had been chosen to preside but he was virtually a prisoner in Russia. It soon became evident that such an arrangement was intolerable and not only was there an exasperating surveillance of every member of the Order by the government, but even when Brzozowski himself asked permission to go to Rome to thank the Holy Father in person for the favor he had conferred on the Society by the Bull of Re-establishment, he was flatly refused. Hence it was resolved that when he died, a General had to be elected who would reside in Rome, no matter what might be the consequences in Russia.

The difficulty, however, solved itself. Though officially the head of the Orthodox Church, Alexander cared little for its doctrines, its practises or its traditions, and he set about establishing a union of all the sects on the basis of what he considered to be the fundamental truths of religion. He is even credited with the ambition of aiming at a universal spiritual dominion which would eclipse Napoleon's dream of world-wide empire built upon material power. Whether this was the outcome of his meditations, – for after his fashion, he was a religious man, – or was suggested to him by the Baroness Julia de Krudner, who was creating a sensation at that time, as a revivalist, cannot be ascertained. There is no doubt, however, that he fell under her sway.

Mme. de Krudner had given up pleasures and wealth to bring back the world to what she called the principles of the primitive Church. She travelled through Germany and Switzerland with about forty of her admirers, who kept incessantly crying out: "We call only the elect to follow us." She established soup-kitchens wherever she went, and her converts knelt before her, as this slim diet which they regarded as a gift from heaven was doled out to them. Naturally this attraction worked first on the poor, but the baroness soon reached the upper grades of society. Her opportunity presented itself at Vienna, where the allied sovereigns were in session to determine the political complexion of the world, after they had disposed of Napoleon. They did her the honor of attending some of her meetings, and Alexander who showed himself greatly interested, became the special object of her attention. She styled him: "The White Angel of God," while Napoleon was set down as "The Dark Angel of Hell."

Such a serious writer as Cantù is of the opinion that it was the baroness who drew up the scheme of the Holy Alliance, in which the four monarchs agreed to love one another as brothers; to govern their respective states as different branches of the great family of nations, and to have Jesus Christ, the Omnipotent Word, as their Sovereign Lord. But immediately after making this pious pact they began to distribute among themselves the spoils of war. Prussia took Saxony; Russia, Poland; Austria, Northern Italy; and England, Malta, Heligoland and the Cape. Thus was virtue rewarded.

At the suggestion of Galitzin, his minister of worship, Alexander had begun a devout course of Bible reading as a means of lifting himself out of the gloom into which he seemed to be plunged after the war. It had apparently some beneficial effect on him, and he became an enthusiastic advocate of the practise for all classes of people. The English Bible Society was to help the propaganda and the Catholic Archbishop of Mohilew and his clergy strongly supported the imperial project. Necessarily the Jesuits had to antagonize this wholesale diffusion of corrupt versions of the sacred text, and they endeavored to point out the folly of leaving its interpretation to ignorant people. The consequence was that they provoked the anger not only of the Bible Society and of the emperor, but also both of the Russian and partly of the Catholic clergy. The troublesome Siestrzencewicz, Archbishop of Mohilew, not only strongly favored the project but suggested to Galitzin that the attitude of the Jesuits furnished an excellent opportunity to get rid of them. There was another reason also why the blow was sure to fall. A Catholic Polish woman named Narychkine it is said had been dissociated from the czar by a refusal of absolution at Easter time. The confessor was the Jesuit, Father Perkowski, and, of course, as all his associates would have acted in the same way, the whole Society came under the ban.

Zalenski, in his "Russie Blanche," finds another reason for this loss of Alexander's favor. He was not only not a Romanoff but had not a drop of Russian blood in his veins, except through his father Paul, the alleged bastard son of Catherine before she became empress. He was aware that the Jesuits knew of this family stain, though not a word was ever uttered about it. It made him uncomfortable, nevertheless, and he was quite willing to rid himself of their presence.

As he had officially proclaimed that all religions were alike, many who had professed allegiance to the Greek Church under political pressure became materialists or atheists, and some distinguished women became Catholics. No attention was paid to the atheists, but these conversions to the Faith were blamed on the Jesuits, particularly on three French fathers, among whom was Rozaven. Count de Maistre, who was in St. Petersburg at the time, declares emphatically that they had nothing to do with it. The feeling against them, however, was very intense and only lacked an occasion to show itself. It came when a nephew of Galitzin, announced that he was going to become a Catholic. This was too much for the minister of worship to put up with and although the lad, who was a pupil of one of the Jesuit colleges, had let it be known that the Fathers had absolutely nothing to do with his project and that his resolution was only the result of his own investigations, he was not believed, and a ukase, dated December 25, 1815, was issued, proclaiming their expulsion from the country. This was seventeen months after the Re-establishment.

The decree called attention to the fact that "when the Jesuits were expelled from all the other nations of Europe, Russia had charitably admitted them and confided to their care the instruction of youth. In return, they had destroyed the peace of the Orthodox Church and had turned from it some of the pupils of their colleges. Such an act, said the document, explains why they were held in such abhorrence elsewhere. The ukase bubbles over with piety, deploring the "apostacies" that had taken place, and then goes on to state that: first, the Catholic Church in Russia is hereby re-established on the plan which had been adopted since the time of Catherine II until the year 1800; secondly, the Jesuits are to withdraw immediately from St. Petersburg; thirdly, they are forbidden to enter either of the capitals.

It is noteworthy that the decree of banishment is not stocked with calumnies like those issued by the Catholic courts of Europe. It was based purely on religious ground. Nor was the expulsion characterized by any exhibition of brutality as in Spain, Portugal and France; for although the police descended on the houses, in the dead of night, and drove out the occupants, an almost maternal care was taken against their suffering in the slightest degree on their way to the places of their exile. Of course, all their papers and books were seized but perhaps the Fathers were glad of it; for although, since Catherine's time, they had been brought into closest contact with the hideous skeletons of her court and those of her successors, no mention was made of any family scandal in the voluminous correspondence that had been so suddenly seized by the government. As regards the charge of proselytism, there is a letter from Father Brzozowski to Father de Clorivière, dated February 20, 1816, which stated that not only did none of the Fathers ever attempt to influence their pupils, but that during the thirteen years of the existence of the College of St. Petersburg, no Russian Orthodox student had been admitted to the Church. It goes on to say that for a long time the storm had been foreseen and that everyone was prepared for it.

Before the final blow came, Father Brzozowski petitioned the emperor at least to permit the Fathers to continue their labors in the dangerous mission of the Riga district, in the Caucasus, and on the banks of the Volga, in all of which places, their success in civilizing and christianizing the population had been officially recognized by the emperor. But the request was not granted, and in 1820, just as Father Brzozowski was dying, the Jesuits were ordered out of the empire, and all their possessions were confiscated. The loss was a grievous one in many respects, but it had its compensations. For, in the first place, it effectually settled the question of the General's residence. Secondly, as the Jesuits living in Russia were almost of every nationality in Europe and as many of them were conspicuous for their great ability in many branches of learning, a valuable re-inforcement was thus available for the hastily formed colleges in various parts of the world. Thirdly, the traditions of the Society had remained unbroken in Russia, and the example and guidance of the venerable men who were there to the number of 358 would transmit to the various provinces the true spirit of the Society. In any case Alexander's successor would have expelled them, for he was a violent persecutor of the Church, and, moreover, Freemasonry and infidelity had been making sad havoc with what was left of the religion of the nation.

Brzozowski when dying, had named as Vicar, Father Petrucci, the master of novices at Genoa, a most unfortunate choice; for Petrucci was not only old and ill, but was woefully lacking in worldly wisdom, and proved to be a pliant tool in the hands of designing men. His appointment went to show the impossibility of directing the Society in pent-up Russia, where the General could not be sufficiently informed of the character of the various members of the Order. The congregation was summoned for September 14, 1820, but although there were already in Rome on August 2 seventeen out of the twenty-one delegates, Cardinal della Genga wrote to Petrucci to say that the Pope wanted the congregation to be delayed, because he desired time for the arrival of the Polish Fathers who represented a notable part of the Society.

As no one ever questioned the fact that the Polish province, which alone had remained intact in the general wreck, was a notable part of the Congregation and of the Society, and as, moreover, the Polish delegates would have no difficulty in reaching Rome before September 14, everyone suspected that something sinister was being attempted. That Petrucci and Cardinal della Genga were in league with each other in this matter was clear from the fact that Petrucci, without consulting any one of his colleagues, immediately dispatched letters to all the provinces announcing the prorogation of the congregation, protesting meantime that the office of vicar was too great for one of his age and infirmities. It was also remarked that with the cardinal was a small group of malcontents composed of Rizzi, Pancaldi, who was only in deacon's orders, Pietroboni and a certain number of Roman ecclesiastics, some of them prelates who, like della Genga, did not of course belong to the Society.

These conspirators kept the minds of the waiting delegates in a feverish state of excitement by giving out that there was a great fear, not only in the public at large, but even in the papal court, that a Paccanarist might be elected. Indeed there were already three of them among the electors: Sineo, Rozaven and Grivel, and hence it was desirable to delay the congregation until it would be sure that no others would arrive. Over and above this, some of those recently admitted to the Society maintained that only those who belonged to the old Society or had been a long time in Russia should be accepted as delegates. Doubts were raised also as to whether those who had taken their vows before the formal recognition of the Society in Russia in 1801, or the recognition in Sicily in 1804, were to be considered as Jesuits or as secular priests.

In brief, Rizzi and his associates had so filled the minds of outsiders with doubts, that some prelates and even a cardinal advised that the questions should be submitted to the Pope for settlement. Finally, on the day originally fixed for the congregation, namely, September 14, Cardinal della Genga sent three letters to the Fathers at Rome. In the first he said that the Pope was convinced that the meeting of the delegates should be postponed, and that he had given to the Vicar, Petrucci, all the faculties of a regularly elected General. The second letter was directed to the assistants, who were informed that it was the wish of His Holiness that all the irregularities which della Genga declared existed in the congregation should be remedied, and to that end, he had appointed a committee composed of himself, Cardinal Galiffi and the Archbishop of Nanzianzum, together with Petrucci and Rizzi to consider them. This committee, moreover, was to preside at the election. The third letter ordered that new assistants should be added to those already in office, making seven in all, a thing absolutely unheard of in the Society until then.

Rizzi and Petrucci were in high spirits when this became known, but not so the other delegates, and they determined to appeal directly to the Pope. Then a doubt arose as to which cardinal was to present the appeal. Mattei and Litta, the staunch friends of the Society were dead and Pacca leaned slightly to Rizzi's views. There remained Consalvi. To him Father Rozaven wrote the appeal, but, two of the assistants and Petrucci refused to sign it. Consalvi received the petitioners with the greatest benignity, promised to present the document to the Pope, and bade the Fathers not to be discouraged. He explained the situation to the Holy Father, who immediately approved of the request, and issued the following order: "Having heard the plea, We command that the general congregation be convened immediately, and that, as soon as possible, the General be elected, all things to the contrary notwithstanding." "Everyone," wrote Rozaven, "was delighted, except of course, Petrucci, the provincial of the Italian Province, Pietroboni, and those who had been misled by Rizzi."

The congregation met on October 9. Twenty-four professed Fathers were present and they elected Father Aloysius Fortis as General. Petrucci protested the legality of the election, but when the usual delegation presented itself to the Pope, they were received most cordially and he referred them to Consalvi for the decree of "sanation," if any were needed. "He is altogether devoted to you," said the Pope, "and watches with the greatest concern over your interests." Now that the congregation was regularly constituted, the Fathers proceeded as quickly as possible to the punishment of the conspirators. Both Petrucci and Pietroboni were deposed from their respective offices as Vicar and provincial, and other disturbers were expelled from the Society; – the Pope highly approving of the action. It was Cardinal Consalvi who had averted the wreck.

In view of the great cardinal's attitude in this matter, it is distressing to find Crétineau-Joly declaring that Consalvi acted as he did because he was a diplomat, a man of the world rather than an ecclesiastic. He cared little for the Jesuits (il aimait peu les Jésuites) whom he regarded as adding a new political embarrassment to the actual complications in Europe, but he knew how to be just, and refused to be an accomplice in the plot (VI, 1). This is a calumny. We have the Pope's own words about Consalvi's concern for the Society, and in the "Memoirs" edited by Crétineau-Joly himself the exact opposite is asserted. Thus on page 56, we read: "he made the greatest number of people happy and in doing so was happier than they, because he was thus making them venerate the Church, his Mother." On page 11, he says that whenever Consalvi wrote about Napoleon "he placed himself in the presence of God in order to be impartial in judging his persecutor." On page 180: "He lived without any concern for wealth; he never asked or received any gifts. He realized what St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius III said of a Cardinal Cibo in their day: 'In passing through this world of money, he never knew what money was. He was prodigal in his benevolence and died virtually a poor man." These are not the traits of a "man of the world and a politician."

As for "his not liking the Jesuits," we find in those "Memoirs," which were finished in 1812, and consequently eight years before the meeting of the congregation, the following words (II, 305): "When Pope Pius VII returned to Rome in 1801, he received a letter from Paul I, the Emperor of Russia, asking for the re-establishment of the Jesuits in his dominions. The Pope was delighted to have the chance to gratify the Czar and also to perform a praiseworthy (louable) action; – for it was restoring to life an Institute which had deserved well of Christendom and whose fall had hastened the ruin of the Church, of thrones, of public order, of morality, of society. One can assert this without fear of being taxed with exaggeration or falsehood by honest and reasonable men and by those who are not imbued with a false philosophy or party spirit."

He then narrates how cautious the Pope had to be before granting Paul's request, "so as not," Consalvi says, "to arouse the antagonism of the enemies of the Society: the philosophers and haters of religion and of public order, who, as they had forced its condemnation from Clement XIV, would now employ all the machinery of the courts which had asked for the suppression to prevent its rehabilitation. The Pope succeeded, but a few years afterwards, when the Emperor of Austria asked for the Jesuits, his ministers brought about the failure of the project. They consented to accept the Jesuits, but in such a fashion and under such a form that they could no longer be Jesuits. The Pope would not consent to such conditions, and as the imperial court would not accept them as they were, the matter was dropped." In other words, Pope Pius VII and his great cardinal believed with Clement XIII that no changes should be made in their Institute. Sint ut sunt aut non sint. Let them be themselves or not at all. To assert that in the heart of the great champion of the Faith, Consalvi, there was little love for the Jesuits is to say what is contrary to facts.

The new General, Father Aloysius Fortis, was born in 1748 and was consequently seventy-two years of age when he was elected. In spite of his age, however, he was in vigorous health and governed the Society for nine years. He had been in the old Society for eleven years before the Suppression. In 1794 he was associated in Parma with the saintly Pignatelli, who twice foretold his election. He had been prefect of studies in the scholasticate at Naples, and when the Society was re-established he was named as Father Brzozowski's vicar in Rome. In 1819 Pius VII appointed him Examinator Episcoporum. Hence his election was naturally gratifying to the Pope, and he gave evidence of it by the joy that suffused his countenance when the formal announcement of the result was made to him. The eagerness with which he affixed his signature to the official document also testified to his satisfaction. In the Professed House, the Fathers acclaimed the choice with enthusiasm, as did the throngs of people who had immediately flocked to the Gesù to hear the announcement. They have chosen a saint was the universal cry. The Emperor of Austria, Francis I, Frederick, the Prince of Hesse, and Duke Antony, who was soon to be King of Saxony, all expressed their pleasure at the promotion of Father Fortis.

The letter written by Antony is worth quoting. "I have read with the greatest joy, in the public press," he said, "of the election of a man of whom it may well be said he is Fortis by name and fortis by nature. I am aware that his humility would prompt him to differ with me, but I hoped that such would be the choice, and now my desire has been fulfilled. God who directed this election will give you that strength which you think you lack to fulfill the duties of your office. Now more than ever I commend myself to the fervent prayers of yourself and your associates. I have a claim on them, for ever since my earliest youth, I have been most devoted to the Society, to which I owe my religious training."

In the congregation, Father Fortis proposed a resolution or a decree, as it is called, which is of supreme importance, and which was, it is needless to say, unanimously adopted. It runs as follows: "Although there is no doubt that both the Constitutions given by Our Holy Founder and whatever in the course of time the Fathers have judged to add to them have recovered their force at the very outset of the restored Society, as it was the manifest wish of our Holy Father, Pius VII, that the Society re-established by him should be governed by the same laws as before the Suppression, nevertheless, to remove all anxiety on that score, and to put an end to the obstinacy of certain disturbers of the peace, this congregation not only confirms, but as far as necessary decrees anew, in conformity with the power vested in the General and the congregations by Paul III, and reaffirms that not only the Constitutions with the declarations and the decrees of the general congregations, but the Common Rules and those of the several offices, the Ratio Studiorum, the ordinations, the formulas and whatsoever belongs to the legislation of Our Society are intact, and it wishes all and each of the aforesaid to have the same binding force on those who live in the Society that they had before Clement XIV's Bull of Suppression."

Although Fortis was gentle and humble he admitted no relaxation, especially in the matter of poverty, and those who were unwilling to put up with the requirements, he allowed to leave the Order. "We want fruits," he used to say, "not roots." Again, in spite of his new dignity and of his great natural gifts he was always the same simple Father Fortis. He was such an ardent lover of poverty that he kept his clothes till they were threadbare and torn, and had to be stolen out of his room to be replaced by others more befitting his station. In 1821 he united into a vice-province the various members of the Society scattered through Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Germany and gave it a name descriptive of its composition: "The Vice-Province of Switzerland and the German Missions." In 1823 the Province of Galicia was established. In it were many of the old Fathers of Russia, but the number was so great that many had to be sent to Italy, France and elsewhere. Sicily, especially, was benefited in this way. From the province thus established three others sprung in a short time: Germany, Belgium and Holland.

Father Fortis died on January 27, 1829. The grief for his loss was general and none felt it more keenly than the King of Saxony, who wrote another affectionate letter to express his sorrow. It is worthy of note that, although the royal family of Saxony is still Catholic, no one who has been trained in a Jesuit School is eligible there to any ecclesiastical office. It is a curious condition in a kingdom which in 1821 was ruled by a sovereign who exulted in the fact that he was a Jesuit alumnus.

Chief among the distinguished Jesuits in the congregation of 1820 was, without doubt, the Frenchman, John Rozaven. He was born at Quimper in Brittany, March 9, 1772. His uncle had belonged to the Society when it was suppressed in France in 1760, and had then become a parish priest at Plogonnec. While there, he was elected, in 1789, at the outbreak of the Revolution to be a representative at the Etats Généraux. He accepted the constitutional oath, but soon retracted. He had to atone for his treason to the Church, however, by being made the victim of his bishop, who, like him, had joined the schism but had not recanted. On account of this ill-feeling, Rozaven left the country, taking with him the future Jesuit, his nephew, who was living with him at that time. They both disappeared on the night of June 20, 1792, and on the 24th arrived at the Island of Jersey. From there they went to London and after a few months made their way to the Duchy of Cleves.

Hearing that there was a French ecclesiastical seminary at Brussels, young Rozaven entered it, was ordained sub-deacon, but was obliged to leave after six months, because of the arrival of the French troops. He and his uncle then took up their abode in Paderborn and lodged in an old Jesuit establishment where they lived for four years, at which time the young man was ordained priest and then left his uncle in order to join the Fathers of the Sacred Heart under Father Varin. When informed of the existence of the Jesuits in Russia, John applied for admission and was received on March 28, 1804. He was subsequently made prefect of studies and professor of philosophy in the College of Nobles at St. Petersburg. In the course of his ministerial work, he brought to the Faith the Princess Elizabeth Galitzin, well-known as one of the first of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. The famous Madame Swetchine was another of his converts. He was the professor of the young Galitzin who had created such an uproar in St. Petersburg by his supposed part in the conversion.

At the death of Father General Brzozowski, Rozaven was sent as a delegate to the congregation and, as we have seen, it was his wisdom and courage that saved the Society from shipwreck on that occasion. He was elected assistant to the General, and, with the exception of one short visit to France, remained for the rest of his life in Rome. He was too valuable an aid for the General to be allowed even to be the official visitor to France although everyone there was clamoring for him. It was he who demolished the philosophical system of de Lamennais, and at the same time restrained the hotheads of the French provinces from accepting and teaching the new doctrine. His "Examen of Certain Philosophical Doctrines" came out in 1831, and although his office of assistant gave him plenty of occupation, he taught theology, was a member of several pontifical congregations, and heard as many as 20,000 confessions a year. This immense labor was made possible by his rising at half past three in the morning, and by the clock-like punctuality and system with which he addressed himself to the various tasks of the day. In the cholera epidemic of 1837, despite his sixty-five years of age, he plunged into the work like the rest of his brethren and heard 23,000 confessions during the continuance of the plague.

When the Revolution of '48 broke out, Rozaven remained at Rome more or less secluded, but at last, when there was danger of his being taken to prison, a friend of his, the Count Rampon, said: "You will come to my château and I shall see that you are not molested." The protection was accepted, and a few nights after, a banquet was given at the château, to which the French ambassador and several conspicuous anti-Jesuit personages had been invited. When the guests were seated it was remarked that there was an empty place near the Count. "Are you waiting for someone else?" they asked. "Yes," he said, "I have here a very remarkable old gentleman whom I want to present to you. He is my friend and more worthy of respect than anyone in the whole world." Then leaving the room, he led Father Rozaven in by the hand and said to his guests in a loud voice: "Gentlemen, I have to present my friend, Father Rozaven, who has deigned to accept my hospitality. He is here under my protection and I place him under yours. If, contrary to my expectation, hatred pursues him into my house, the Count Rampon will defend his guest to the last drop of his blood." Then making a step backward, he swung open a door which revealed a formidable array of muskets, pistols and swords which would be available if the contingency he referred to arose. It is needless to say that Father Rozaven was treated with the most distinguished consideration, not only at the banquet but subsequently.

From there he went to Naples but, later, joined Father Roothaan in France. When Pius IX returned to Rome, the Father General and his faithful assistant returned also. But Rozaven had reached the end of his pilgrimage. In 1851 he fell seriously ill and breathed his last on April 2, at the age of seventy-nine. He had put in thirty years of incessant work since the time he had fought so valiantly in the twentieth congregation.

Besides Rozaven, there was present at the twentieth congregation the distinguished English Jesuit, Charles Plowden. He was born at Plowden Hall, Shropshire, in 1743, of a family which had not only steadfastly adhered to the Faith in all the persecutions that had desolated England, but had given several of its sons to the Society of Jesus and some of its daughters as nuns in religious orders. He entered the Society in 1759, and was ordained in Rome three years before the Suppression. He was in Belgium when the Brief was read and was kept in prison for several months. After teaching at Liège, he returned to England where he was appointed chaplain at Lulworth Castle, and as such preached there at Bishop Carroll's consecration. He had much to do with the establishment of Stonyhurst and was the first master of novices in England after the re-establishment, subsequently he was rector of Stonyhurst and provincial. It was he who, with Fathers Mattingly and Sewall, called upon Benjamin Franklin in Paris to persuade him to crush the scheme of making the Church of the United States dependent upon the ecclesiastical authorities of France. He died at Jougne, in France, on his way home from the congregation and was buried with military honors, because his attendant had informed the authorities of the little town that the dead man had been called to Rome for the election of a General. They mistook the meaning of the word "General", and so buried the humble Jesuit with all the pomp and ceremony that usually accompany the obsequies of a distinguished soldier.

On August 20, 1823, Pius VII, the great friend of the Society, died and it was with no little consternation that the Jesuits heard of the election of Leo XII. He was the same Cardinal della Genga who had endeavored to control the twentieth congregation and was supposed to have revealed his attitude towards the Society years before, when he advised Father Varin not to attempt to form a union between the Fathers of the Faith and the Jesuits in White Russia. Father Rozaven, especially, had reason for apprehension, for it was he who had thwarted della Genga's plans at the election of Fortis; but the fear proved to be groundless, and Rozaven hastened to assure his friends in France that in the three years that had intervened since that eventful struggle, God had operated a change in the mind of della Genga. As Sovereign Pontiff he became one of the most ardent friends of the Society.

CHAPTER XXV

A CENTURY OF DISASTER

Expulsion from Holland – Trouble at Freiburg – Expulsion and recall in Spain – Petits Séminaires – Berryer – Montlosier – The Men's Sodalities – St. Acheul mobbed – Fourteen Jesuits murdered in Madrid – Interment of Pombal – de Ravignan's pamphlet – Veuillot – Montalembert – de Bonald – Archbishop Affre – Michelet, Quinet and Cousin – Gioberti – Expulsion from Austria – Kulturkampf – Slaughter of the Hostages in the Commune – South America and Mexico – Flourishing Condition before Outbreak of the World War.