THE SUPPRESSION OF THE JESUITS
The Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, prior to Vatican II had always and everywhere been a major influence on Catholic lives. The Jesuits were excellent missionaries and strong Catholics, and for centuries after their founding were held in the greatest esteem by Catholics everywhere, and even by non-Catholics. They were a great aid to the popes and their missions and schools and colleges and seminaries became known world wide. They have had a vast influence on history, and thus are of great importance and interest to Catholics, who still use their teachings and writings today. But of even greater interest is the Suppression of their Order in 1773, which had a tremendous impact on the Catholic world then and even now. In this paper I shall present a basic account of the Jesuits before the Suppression, of the Suppression itself,with its causes and effects, and of the Order after the Suppression.
St. Ignatius Loyola founded "The Company of Jesus" in 1540, a society of missionaries to live as Christs on earth, and uphold His standards. This "Societas Jesu" was more instrumental than any other influence in the Counter-Reformation; and the re-conquest of southern and western Germany and Austria for the Church, as well as the upholding of the Catholic faith in France and other countries, is owed chiefly to their exertions. Their missionaries were sent among the pagans of India, Japan, China, Canada, Central and South America, and worked as well in the Christian countries. Portugal, at the time of the founding of the Jesuit Order, was in her heroic age. "Her rulers were full of enterprise, her universities were full of life, her trade routes extended over the then known world" (1912). The Jesuits played an admirable part in the restoration of Portugal's liberty, in 1640. France was always an important base to the Jesuits–in the early days they received their instruction there, and afterwards there were many missions and colleges in that country. The order had rapid success in Spain. The Spaniards of that day played the greatest roles in the Society, despite many serious troubles in their country. In Italy, the history of the Jesuits is mostly peaceful, and in Germany, Jesuit colleges grew so popular that they were demanded on every side. In England, it was very difficult to find an entrance, as the English Schism had begun. However, the English who fled to France found refuge and education. (It is likely that even Shakespeare was Jesuit-trained, and their influence can be seen in his writings.) But with the Restoration in 1660 came a period of greater calm, only to be followed by "...the worst tempest of all, Oates's plot, when the Jesuits lost eight on the scaffold and thirteen in prison in five years, 1678-83." (1912) This was followed, however, by a greater prosperity, which was interrupted by the Revolution of 1688. The number of Catholics in England was fewer but not wholly extinct. The Jesuits came to the United States in 1634 and worked amidst hardships and sufferings, converting many Indians and some Protestants. Unjust penal laws were passed against them and grew worse and worse. Many of their labors were unsuccessful due to the anti-Catholic administration. The Jesuits faced opposition, exiles, injustice, and persecutions; yet their missions, due to their courage and work and prayers, held strong. They had a great influence over all Catholics of Europe and America. The popes approved of their order; they were esteemed by all.
Paul III approved of the Society of Jesus, by his Bull of 27 September 1540, and allowed it to draw up rules and statutes to ensure its peace, its existence, and its government...the same pontiff by a brief of 15 November 1549 accorded very great privileges to this society... (1986)
Others of our predecessors have exhibited the same munificent liberality to this order. In effect Julius III, Paul IV, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Gregory XIV, Clement VIII and other popes have either confirmed or augmented, or more distinctly defined and determined, the privileges already conferred on these religious. (1986)
In the 18th century the Church began slipping back into some of the evils that had earlier afflicted her.
Especially in France, many of the bishops were little different from wealthy noblemen, and some had been infected by liberalism...the faith of the ordinary people and the parish priests was still strong, but the leadership, where it was not corrupt, was too often weak. (1986)
St. Ignatius' order was hated by the Bourbons because it represented a sovereign and spiritually powerful force "...which commanded the loyalty and love of Catholics throughout Europe and the New World." (1986) Père Antoin La Vallette, the superior of the Martinique missions, had great success with the vast Jesuit mission farms, but his success encouraged him to go too far. There was an unfortunate bankruptcy, the Jesuits were accused and many joined in favor against them-the Jansenists, the Sorbonnists, the Gallicans, the Philosophes, and the Encydopedistes. The Jesuit colleges were closed and the Fathers were compelled to renounce their vows under the pain of banishment. At this same time, in Portugal, Carvalho was minister, and his quarrel with the Jesuits began with a dispute over an exchange of territory with Spain. The Portuguese believed the Jesuits were mining gold, and thus the Indians of their missions were "ordered to leave the country. The Jesuits tried to lead them out quietly but the Indians rose in revolt due to the harsh conditions imposed upon them by the Portuguese." The so-called war of Paraguay ensued, which, of course, "was disastrous to the Indians." (1912) Portugal's quarrel with the Jesuits was gradually pushed to extremities, and the weak Portuguese king, Joseph I, was persuaded to remove them from the Court. The Fathers were first barred from undertaking the administration of material and temporal help to their missions, and then they were deported from America. The Suppression in Spain, and in Naples and Parma, its quasi-dependencies, was conducted in secret. The autocratic kings and ministers intentionally kept their deliberations to themselves. The council resolved to incriminate the Society, and by January 29, 1767, its expulsion was settled. Parma immediately drove all the Jesuits out of its territories, confiscating all their possessions. Pope Clement XIII was harassed from this time until his death, with the greatest violence and insolence-the Bourbon representatives insulted him to his face, and Portugal had already risen in schism. Upon his death, the Bourbon courts "succeeded in excluding any of the party... who would have taken a firm position in defense of the order, and finally elected Lorenzo Ganganelli, who took the name Clement XIV." (1912) Before his election, Ganganelli had in some way promised to suppress the Society upon his becoming pope. He kept his promise, though he delayed it as long as he could. In 1772, Charles III of Spain sent a new ambassador to Rome, by the name of Don Joseph Monino, "a strong, hard man, 'full of artifice, sagacity, and dissimulation, and no one more set on the suppression of the Jesuits.'" Monino took the lead and finally, by September 6, gave the pope a paper suggesting the line he should follow in drawing up the Brief of the Suppression. "In the Brief of the Suppression, the most striking feature is the long list of allegations against the Society, with no mention of what is favorable; the tone of the brief is very adverse. On the other hand the charges are recited categorically; they are not definitely stated to have been proved. The object is to represent the order as having occasioned perpetual strife, contradiction, and trouble." (1912) The way in which the Brief is written avoids many difficulties, especially the open contradicting of preceding popes, who had so often commended and confirmed the Society. To quote the Brief itself:
...the truly faithful hope to see the day dawn which will bring peace and calm. But under the pontificate of our predecessor Clement XIII, the times grew more stormy. Indeed, the clamors against the society augmented daily. In some places there were troubles, dissensions, dangerous strifes and even scandals which, after completely shattering Christian charity, lighted in the hearts of the faithful, party spirit, hatred and enmity. (1986)
...the tenor and even the terms of these apostolic Constitutions show that even at its inception the society saw spring up within it various germs of discord and jealousies, which not only divided the members, but prompted them to exalt themselves above other religious orders, the secular clergy, the universities, colleges, public schools and even the sovereigns who had admitted and welcomed them in their realms. (1986)
The Brief of the Suppression stated that all members of the Society who had only made simple vows and who were not yet in Holy Orders were to depart from their houses and colleges freed from their vows, and that they were at liberty to embrace whatever state they judged most conformable to their vocation, strength, and conscience. Those professed in the Order were to either leave their houses and colleges and enter some religious order approved by the Holy See, or (if they had made their solemn vows) to remain in the world as secular priests or clerics, and wholly under the jurisdiction of the local authority. St. Alphonsus di Liguori says on the subject:
Poor Pope! What could he do in the circumstances in which he was placed, with all the Sovereigns conspiring to demand this Suppression? As for ourselves, we must keep silence, respect the secret judgment of God, and hold ourselves in peace. (1912)
Following the Brief of the Suppression was a protest against it, in 1775, by Lorenzo Ricci, General of the Society of Jesus, who wrote the document in all honesty, believing it absolutely necessary. He made two declarations and assertions:
1.) I declare and assert that the Society of Jesus has given no reason for its suppression. I declare and affirm this with that certainty which a well-informed superior can have of what is going on in his order.
2.) I declare and assert that I have not given the least reason for my imprisonment. I declare and assert this with that highest certainty and evidence which everyone has concerning his own actions. I make this second assertion only because it is necessary for the reputation of the suppressed order whose superior general I have been.
He continues to say that he does not judge the thoughts behind it, as only God knows the thoughts of man; only God sees the errors of the human mind. Then he says he sincerely pardons all those who
tortured and insulted me with all the evil they heaped upon the Society of Jesus, by the severity they have employed against the members of the order, by the further suppression of the Society, and the circumstances which accompanied this suppression; finally, by my imprisonment and the hardships added to it, and by the damage they have done to my good reputation. (1986)
The protest, however, did not succeed in revoking the Brief of the Suppression.
After the Society was suppressed, great changes took place. In Austria and Germany the Jesuits were mostly allowed to teach (but with secular clergy as superiors). But in Russia, and until 1780 in Prussia, the Empress Catherine and King Frederick II wished to maintain the Society as a teaching body. They forbade the bishops to broadcast the Brief until their placet was obtained. The English Jesuits succeeded in obtaining oral permission from Pius VII for their aggregation to the Russian Jesuits, May 27, 1803. The commission was kept entirely secret. In their zeal for the re-establishment of the Society some of the ex-Jesuits united themselves into congregations that might, while avoiding the now-unpopular name of Jesuits, preserve some of its crucial features. Thus came about the Fathers of Faith (Pères de la Foi)., founded with papal sanction by Nicholas Paccanari in 1797. Soon after the Jesuits were restored, Russia expelled them from the country altogether. It seems a remarkable providence that Russia, contrary to all precedent, should have protected the Jesuits just at the moment when every other nation turned against them, and reverted to her usual hostility when the Jesuits began to find toleration elsewhere. For, after decades filled with trials and hardships and new elections, Pope Pius VII had resolved to restore the Society during his captivity in France; and after his return to Rome he did so with little delay, on August 7, 1814, by the Bull Solicitude Omnium Ecclesiarum. In France, the Society began again in 1815 with the direction of some petits séminaires and congregations, and by giving missions. They were attacked by the liberals, but still began to recover influence. In Spain, the course of events was similar. The Society was attacked at times, many Jesuits were killed in revolutions; they were banished and often driven out, with great cruelty and violence, but managed to keep some hold. In Italy they were expelled from Naples (1820-1821) but in 1836 they were allowed into Lombardy. Driven out by the Revolution of 1848 from almost the entire peninsula, they were able to return when peace was restored, except to Turin. Then with the slow yet steady growth of United Italy they were gradually suppressed again by law everywhere, and finally at Rome in 1871. And yet nowhere did the Fathers get through the troubles unavoidable with the interim more easily than in conservative England. The college at Liege continued to train their students in the old way, while the English bishop permitted the ex-Jesuits to maintain their missions and a sort of corporate discipline. But there were difficulties in recognizing the restored order, lest this should impede Emancipation, which remained in doubt for so many centuries. The Jesuits in the United States had retained much of their positions from before the Suppression even during the interim. After 1814 there was not much change, but their missions grew and they again began to thrive. It is written:
Though the Jesuits of the 19th century cannot show a martyr-roll as brilliant as that of their predecessors, the persecuting laws passed against them surpass in number, extent, and continuance those endured by previous generations. (1912)
And the Jesuits of the 20th and 21st centuries leave a great deal to be desired, for they have strayed from their original Constitution and discipline, and no longer represent to us what their founder intended.
Perhaps, if the Suppression of the Jesuits had never occurred, life would be very different now. Perhaps, if Jesuit influence had remained what it was, the Declaration of Independence would not have been so liberal; perhaps there would have been a different outcome of world powers; or perhaps even some of the current wars would not be taking place. But God allowed it to happen, and we know there is a reason. Therefore, as St. Alphonsus di Liguori said, we must remain at peace in ourselves and respect the secret judgment of God. We must do this, hoping and praying all the while for better days, when the Immaculate Heart of Mary shall triumph and the world shall be Catholic once more.
Rose F. Carroll resides with her family in St. Mary's, Kansas, where she is a junior at St. Mary's Academy.
Barry, Colman J., O.S.B., Readings in Church History. Collegeville, Minnesota: Christian Classics, 1985. Pope Clement XIV: Brief "Dominus ac Redemptor," Suppressing the Society of Jesus, 21 July 1773 from Thomas J. Campbell, S.J., The Jesuits 1534-1921 (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1921); Lorenzo Ricci, General of the Society of Jesus: Protest Against the Suppression of the Society, 19 November 1775 from Hubert Becker, Die Jesuiten (Munich: Koesel, 1951). Trans, by Bro. Conrad Zimmermann, O.S.B.
Carroll, Anne W. Christ the King: Lord of History. Manassas, Virginia: Trinity Communications, 1986.
Herbermann, Charles G., et al., The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912.
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