The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Footprints of the Jesuits, by Richard W. (Richard Wigginton) Thompson

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The civil institutions of the United States could not have been formed without the separation of Church and State, and could not continue to exist if they were again united. Christianity could not maintain its primitive purity if politics and religious faith were mingled together; nor could the State preserve its capacity to provide for the general welfare if subjected to the dominion of ecclesiastical authority. Our success as a nation is mainly attributable to the fact that these sentiments are deeply imbedded in the American mind.

A party pledged to restore to the pope the temporal power which the Italian people have taken away, must necessarily be politico-religious in character, because it proposes to interfere with the temporal affairs of one of the European nations. And if the attempt to do this is justified upon the ground that such restoration involves religious duty, any one can see that the obligation is the same in the United States as in Italy, for the laws of God do not shift to suit the exigencies of human affairs.

In the times before the Reformation the temporal affairs of Governments were required to conform to the commands of the ecclesiastical authority—that is, the pope—and it was held to be a necessary and essential part of religion that this union should be continued, no matter what might be the degree of popular ignorance and humiliation. The founders of our Government started out upon a different theory, believing it to be[Pg 4] their duty to separate "the things of God" from "the things of Cæsar," so that each could reach perfection in its own distinct sphere. Therefore, it is clear that a politico-religious party in this country, pledged to unite Church and State in Italy, against the expressed will of the Italian people, not only must oppose one of the fundamental principles of our Government, but disturb the public peace.

To my mind it is also clear that a nation acts politically, and not religiously, when it decides upon the structure of its temporal Government—that is, whether its affairs shall be managed by an absolute or elective monarch, or by machinery provided by a written constitution. I have, therefore, refrained from the discussion or criticism of religious belief—as it is understood in the American sense—any further than it is made the pretext for the reversal of this opinion, so generally prevalent in this country. It would be an evil day for the people of the United States if they should be persuaded to permit any power whatsoever, whether temporal or spiritual, at home or abroad, to share with them any portion of their political authority, or to dictate, in any degree, the measures of their civil polity.

In reminding those into whose hands this volume may chance to fall, of their obligations of citizenship under our popular form of government, I have found it absolutely necessary to portray the character of the Jesuits, but for whom, in my opinion, there would be but little to disturb us. This society has nothing in common with American ideas or principles. It represents monarchism in its most despotic and obnoxious form, by requiring each of its members to impersonate the most abject servility, and to accept this humiliation as an absolutely necessary part of religious faith. It has had a[Pg 5] history unlike that of any other society in the world. In pointing out its origin and tracing its footprints among the nations, I have relied upon the most undoubted authority, much of which is furnished by Jesuit authors. A careful examination of the evidence will leave the mind of the reader in no doubt as to the odium which rested upon the society from the beginning, as well as the manner in which it has disturbed the quiet of the nations, defied the popes themselves when adverse to them, and disregarded the interest, welfare, and harmony of the Church it professed to serve, when required by its general.

I have deemed it important to trace out some of the leading events which have transpired under the pontificates of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII, up to the present time. In this way only is it possible to understand the full meaning of the revolution which led to Italian unity and the overthrow of the temporal power of the pope by Roman Catholic populations, and what is involved in the demand for its restoration. In doing this I have considered only such matters as are politico-religious, in the sense common among the people of the United States, and which can not be made a part of religious faith without doing violence to the recognized spirit of our civil institutions. Thus I have avoided any conflict with those who prefer the Roman Catholic to the Protestant form of religious belief, for the express reason that I have neither the purpose nor desire to question their right to do so. It seems to me that the constitutional guarantee which protects this right ought to be satisfactory to all, and can not be disturbed without imperiling our Government. Therefore, all I desire will be accomplished if I shall succeed in convincing thoughtful Roman Catholics that it will be far better[Pg 6] for all of us if they shall decline to accept the politico-religious teachings of the Jesuits as a part of their religious faith, and content themselves without interference with the political affairs of their Christian brethren in Italy. They may maintain fidelity to the Government as patriotically as professed Protestants, without abating their devotion to the spiritual doctrines which prevailed in their Church before the fall of the Roman Empire enabled the popes to place the crown of temporal royalty upon their heads. To this end I would, if permitted, appeal to that portion of our population in all sincerity, and invoke the exercise of their intelligence no less than their patriotism. And if any of them shall peruse this volume, and carefully consider its contents, they will see that what I have written centers in the hope that the Protestants and Roman Catholics of the United States shall live together in the concord of Christian fellowship, emulating each other in those things that shall tend most to promote their mutual happiness, and preserve for their common posterity the civil and religious liberty guaranteed by our Constitution and laws.

There are abundant evidences to show that the Jesuits have adopted a loose code of morality, upon which they have built up a system of "moral theology" as irreconcilable with the true teachings of the Roman Catholic religion as they are with the well-established doctrines of all Protestant Christians. But I have refrained from any discussion of these, not only because this is sufficiently done by Pascal and Bert, in France, and by numerous American authors, but because my main object is to show that the triumph of the Jesuits in this country would bring about such a condition of things as would imperil our civil institutions. They teach as religious doctrines necessary to salvation the following:[Pg 7] That the State must be reunited with the Church, and be required to obey its spiritual commands in the enactment of laws; that the Roman Catholic religion shall be established by law as the only true religion, and every other form of religious belief treated and punished as heresy; that, along with this destruction of the freedom of religious belief, there must be corresponding restrictions placed upon the liberty of speech and of the press; that the Roman Catholic Church shall be recognized as an organization exempt from obedience to all our laws relating to the ownership and management of real property; that the clergy of that Church shall be also exempt from obedience to the laws as other citizens, and shall obey only such as the pope may prescribe; and that our common-school system of education must be absolutely and entirely destroyed. If, in these things, the Jesuits should obtain success, our Government would necessarily come to an end; and what this volume contains has been written alone with the view of making this question plain and palpable to the ordinary reader. I have written from the standpoint of an American citizen, thoroughly impressed with the belief that this is the most prosperous country in the world, and not from that of a theologian. About the duties and obligations of the former to the Government, I assume to have learned something from both instinct and education; but about the metaphysical subtleties of the theologians, I do not trouble myself.

I know how difficult it is to escape the accusation of a persecuting spirit from those who, like the Jesuits, allow nothing for honest differences of opinion. This, however, ought not to be permitted to interfere with the plain and obvious duty of defending our civil institutions from any assault made upon them, no matter by[Pg 8] whom, or in whose name, the assailing forces shall be marshaled. With the consciousness, therefore, that this volume may subject me to the imputation of uncharitableness from some upon whom I would inflict no injury in return, I have expressed myself with candor and fairness, and have written nothing in malice.

The American people have imbibed, from association, the spirit of their civil institutions, and are ready at all times to repel any direct assault upon them. They are, however, so actively engaged in their various pursuits, that multitudes of them fail to realize the necessity of inquiring whether the conflict between opposing principles of government which resulted in our national independence, has or has not ended—whether, in other words, the victory the founders of the Republic won over monarchism, is or is not final.

Those who won this victory intended to provide against this seeming want of vigilance by means of some system of education, which should assimilate the principles and opinions of the people, as a perpetual bulwark against aggression. This would have been accomplished long ago if the paternal counsels of Presidents Washington and Madison had been heeded as they deserved to be,—that we should educate "our youth in the science of government,"[1] under the auspices and protection of national authority. Instead of this, we have considered ourselves sufficiently shielded by our system of public-school education, under State control, and have mainly relied upon this to fit our children for citizenship and self-government. Hitherto, we have not been se[Pg 16]riously disturbed by the apprehension that it would result in failure, and for that reason it has been maintained with great popular unanimity. It is now, however, assailed with violence, and, manifestly, with the purpose of destroying it entirely. Hence, we are all required, by obligations we can not rightfully evade, to rest long enough from our active avocations to discover, if possible, why this is—what motives impel the assailants—and whether or no they desire to substitute other principles of government for ours, by turning us back upon a course we have solemnly repudiated.

In addition to other works of like character but less ability, there is one, extensively circulated in this country, from the pen of a writer conspicuous for his learning and ability. The author asserts without disguise that what he calls "Catholicity"—that is, what the Roman popes taught when they were temporal monarchs—has been more beneficial to the world and more civilizing in its influences upon mankind than Protestantism, not alone in a social, but in a political, religious, and literary point of view. His argument proceeds from the Jesuit standpoint, and may be summed up in a single sentence,—that Protestantism has placed mankind in a far worse condition than they were when dominated over by papal kings.[2]

This work was intended to counteract the effect produced by the writings of Guizot, the great French historian, who maintained, by eloquent and matchless reasoning, that mankind had been improved, in every point of view, by the influences of Protestantism. Accordingly, it was translated from Spanish, in which language it was originally written, into French and German, and extensively circulated in France and Germany. It soon acquired the reputation among the Jesuits of being unanswerable, and on that account was regarded, in the conflict between progress and retrogression, like heavy ordnance in battle—a suitable weapon with which to attack Protestantism and its institu[Pg 17]tions in the seat of its greatest strength. Therefore it was translated into the English language, and printed by two publishing-houses in the United States, for circulation among the American people. An American preface is attached, wherein these propositions are affirmed: First, that Protestantism compels its votaries to infidelity, by its variations of belief; second, that civilization was not only commenced but was prospering under "Catholicity," when it was retarded by Protestantism, which is unfavorable and injurious to it; and, third, that the principles of Protestantism are incompatible with the happiness of mankind and "unfavorable to civil liberty."

This preface—which manifestly bears the Jesuit impress—was intended to notify American readers, beforehand, that the three foregoing propositions are maintained in the body of the work, and to prepare their minds for the acceptance of them. Its reprint and circulation in the United States could have had no other object than to inculcate the belief that what the people of this country have supposed to be the advantages they have derived from Protestant institutions are, in fact, absolutely injurious to them, and that their condition would be improved by the revival of such as existed during the Middle Ages, before the Reformation.

By giving prominence to political matters, and discussing them from the Jesuit point of view, this author presents a plain, distinct, and practical issue between progress and retrogression. He intends to make it as plain to the minds of his readers as it seems to be to his own, that Governments constructed upon the monarchical plan confer more happiness and prosperity upon society than those upon the Protestant plan of self-government. Evidently it was with the hope of disseminating this belief that this work has been reprinted and circulated in the United States so extensively that it is believed to have become a standard authority among the Jesuit enemies of Protestantism. If it does nothing else, however, it apprises our Protestant population that a powerful influence exists among them which is uncompromisingly hostile[Pg 18] to the principles which underlie the whole structure of their Government. And, being thus apprised, their indifference would be little less than criminal; because their adroit aggressors would construe it into fear of possible consequences, or assign it to their inability to combat successfully the arguments supplied by this work, whose author is an acknowledged monarchist.

The differences between popular and monarchical governments are well known, and appear at every point of comparison which has arisen during the course of events since the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The former have achieved their completest triumphs where Protestantism prevails, and in its presence the latter have been compelled either entirely to surrender their pretensions, or to abate their demands for absolutism. Until the Reformation became an accomplished fact, monarchism was maintained by uniting Church and State, and employing their joint authority to coerce obedience from the multitude. The dominion thus acquired condemned self-government by the people as both heresy and treason, punishable at the pleasure of those who held the reins of authority in their hands. It took many years of conflict to change this condition of affairs; and when the people of the United States were, in the course of events, placed in a condition to choose between this coercive system and that which was the natural outgrowth of Protestantism, and to construct a Government for themselves, their wisdom was sufficient to assure them that any plan of government they adopted would result in failure, unless they distinguished between their politics and their religion by separating the Church from the State, and by so framing their civil institutions as to reserve to themselves alone the entire sovereignty over them. If either of these essential prerequisites had been omitted, all exertions to better and improve their condition would have resulted in failure, as all readers of history know. Instead of failure, however, they created a Government which has survived the vicissitudes of more than a hundred years, is now supplying protection to more[Pg 19] than sixty millions of people, and has reached a most commanding position among the leading nations; if, indeed, its influence over the happiness and prosperity of mankind does not surpass that of any of them. Of this we may be assured, that the measure of its success has been such as to incite among other peoples the desire to imitate its example; and that the conflicts of opinion which now agitate the world give reasonable promise that the popular right of self-government may, in less than another century of time, be universally recognized. To this end the American people are obliged to contribute by warding off every blow aimed at their institutions by either domestic or alien adversaries, especially when these blows are aimed, as some of them are, at the fundamental principles of their government.

The influence of our example finds a striking illustration in the revolution in Italy in 1870, which abolished the temporal power, or kingship, of the pope, separated the State from the Church, and established a constitutional form of government in place of the absolute monarchism which had prevailed, almost uninterruptedly, for many centuries. The fires of this revolution had been burning for a long time, kindled originally by oppressions, which had been so magnified that the people could endure them no longer. Their culminating point was the passage of the Conciliar Decree, called a "Dogmatic Constitution," whereby it was declared that the pope was infallible, and could not err in matters pertaining to faith or morals; that is, within such spheres of governmental, social, and individual duties and obligations as the pope alone, for the time being, should decide to be included in his spiritual and pontifical jurisdiction. This act was considered the consummation of the "Jesuit plan," at which the Italian people had been so incensed but a short time before, that Pope Pius IX had been compelled to expel the members of that odious society from Rome. The consequence was that the fires which popular indignation had kindled grew hotter, and it became impossible to extinguish them except by assuring complete success to the revolution. There[Pg 20]fore, the ink with which this decree of papal infallibility was written was scarcely dry before the Italian people, with extraordinary unanimity, determined to reject it, not merely because it was the introduction of a new principle of faith hitherto unrecognized, but because they could easily see that it would place them, and their children after them, under Jesuit dominion and dictation. They realized that its acceptance would involve them in the obligation to submit to the absolute temporal rule of the pope, in whose selection they had no voice, and to those whom he should think proper to put over them, whether fit or unfit, and thus put an end to all popular demands for the right of political self-government. It involved no question of religious faith, as the faith had been handed down to them by their fathers; nothing whatsoever which involved their duty to God, otherwise than as presumptuous men, to answer their own selfish ends, were striving to convert the pope into a God upon earth, and themselves into his plenipotentiaries. Influenced solely by this conviction, and stimulated by the success the people of the United States had won, they merely abolished the temporal power of the pope, and created a constitutional form of civil government, which places satisfactory limitations upon the authority of their king, and establishes representative political institutions, which provide that their voice shall be heard in the enactment of public laws. In this they have taken a long stride in the direction of government "of the people, for the people, and by the people." They have cast off political absolutism—which the Jesuits commend to us as "Catholicity"—and have assumed the station and dignity of an independent people. They have converted a priest-ridden oligarchy into a nation. On this account, and this alone, they have made themselves the special objects of Jesuit malevolence, for the simple reason that the monarchical society of Jesuits has never, since its beginning, relented in its vindictive opposition to every form of civil government which recognizes the people as the source of political power. By the most fundamental principles of its organization it is for[Pg 21]bidden to sympathize with the sentiment of personal independence, or to allow its members to acquire the dignity of manhood necessary for participation in the affairs of government.

In the face of the fact that the Italian people have not changed the religious convictions they have maintained for hundreds of years with steadfast fidelity, and in the face also of the successes of Protestantism as universally recognized, the Jesuits employ the extorted decree of papal infallibility as the basis of an argument to prove that the pope is divinely endowed with such spiritual sovereignty over nations and peoples as entitles him to prescribe, at his own personal will and pleasure, such laws and regulations, concerning both faith and morals, as are necessary for the government of society and the conduct of individuals throughout the world. Within the circle of this extraordinary and unlimited jurisdiction, they make no distinction between spirituals and temporals,—never failing to make the power over the former sufficiently comprehensive to embrace the latter, accordingly as the pope himself shall decide. Hence they infer that this papal jurisdiction is not subject to any other limitation than such as he shall establish, and that it may, consequently, be rightfully enlarged so as to exact submission from all, and set aside all requirements in conflict with it. And the result they reach—as logically following this premise—is, that the refusal of obedience to the pope, within this comprehensive jurisdiction, violates the law of God, and is heresy. Therefore, as the Jesuits believe that the separation of Church and State by the Italian people is heresy, so they are required also to believe that all civil institutions which have grown out of that separation—like those of the United States—not only have the curse of God resting upon them, but that they are the divinely chosen messengers of heaven to bring them within this enormous circle of papal dominion.

In assigning these powers to the pope alone, they entirely ignore everything associated with the original and primitive[Pg 22] organization of the Christian Church, and especially the important fact that it was not until the beginning of the sixth century that the bishop of Rome succeeded in acquiring the distinctive title of pope.[3] Before that time they had exercised at Rome only such powers as metropolitan bishops elsewhere—each of them having been called papa or pope. When the Roman bishop acquired by usurpation the exclusive title of the pope, the other metropolitan bishops were reduced to a condition of inferiority and subordination, and he then required only the temporal power to assure to him the power and jurisdiction the Jesuits now claim for him. It took several hundred years of conflict within the Churches and with the civil powers to accomplish this, and was only accomplished at last by subduing impotent kings, and so uniting the power of the Church with that of the State as to hold ignorant populations in subjugation. And now that the Italians, after submitting to this humiliation for more than a thousand years, and finding all the sources of their prosperity withered up, have abolished and destroyed this illicit and usurped temporal power, and taken into their own hands the administration of their own temporal affairs—obeying the example set them by the people of the United States—the Jesuits employ all their energies to reverse this popular verdict, and plunge them again into the dreary chasm from which they have escaped.

The Jesuits are subtle disputants. When they talk about the papacy reconciling itself to any form of government, they reserve to themselves the meaning that it does not interfere—either in monarchies or republics—with such local and limited affairs as pertain to the common and ordinary interests of society in the management of counties, townships, cities, and municipalities. These may be conducted without complaint, under one form of government as well as another, and are held to be such temporal affairs as the pope may exclude from his spiritual jurisdiction without any vio[Pg 23]lation of the divine law. But when measures of public policy pass beyond these local and limited spheres, and involve matters which the pope shall decide to have relation to the Church, to the papacy, to faith, or to morals, his jurisdiction attaches, and, according to the Jesuits, he possesses the divine right to regulate and direct them. So that, when civil institutions are constructed—no matter in what form—by which Church and State are separated and the freedom of religious belief is guaranteed, as they are by the Constitution of the United States, they are brought within this unlimited jurisdiction of the pope, and he may pass such sentence of condemnation upon them as he shall deem necessary to maintain his own infallibility, as well as his spiritual and temporal power. If, in the execution of this extraordinary spiritual power, the pope and the Jesuit general at Rome shall unite in a decree that all such institutions shall be opposed, resisted, and overthrown, the Jesuit militia are always ready to pay obedience, because it is one of the fundamental maxims of their society, that when thus commanded, with reference to anything concerning the Church, the papacy, faith, or morals, disobedience is visited with divine displeasure.

Before he entered Rome with his victorious troops, and with the hope of pacifying the pope, Victor Emmanuel, the liberator of the Italian people, addressed an affectionate letter to Pope Pius IX, calling him "the chief of Catholicity," and expressing the hope and intention that nothing should be done inconsistent "with the inviolability of the sovereign pontiff and of his spiritual authority, and with the independence of the Holy See." But this kindly spirit was not reciprocated by the irascible pope, who excitedly rejected the overture of pacification. Thereupon the victorious troops entered the city of Rome, and terminated the temporal dominion of the pope, which had rested upon the Italian people with crushing weight for nearly fourteen hundred years. Then the pope, having lost his royal diadem—nothing more—and with the view of prescribing it as an article[Pg 24] of faith that it should be recovered again, caused his Cardinal Secretary of State to notify Victor Emmanuel to that effect. This he did as follows:

"I have the command from his holiness to declare, and the undersigned does hereby declare in the august name of his holiness, that such usurpation is devoid of all effect, is null and invalid, and that it can never convey any prejudice to the indisputable and lawful rights of dominion and of possession, whether of the holy father himself, or of his successors in perpetuity; and, although the exercise of these rights may be forcibly prevented and hindered, yet his holiness both knows his rights, intends to conserve them intact, and re-enter at the proper time into their actual possession."

These are expressive words, and every Jesuit interprets them to mean that, having the direct approval of an infallible pope, they impose the religious obligation of obedience upon all the members of their society, and that it will be offensive to God if they shall cease their struggle for the restoration of the temporal power before it is accomplished. Therefore they so enlarge the spiritual jurisdiction and authority of the pope as to make the question of the restoration of his temporal power an international one, so that he shall have the divine right to require all professing Christians to obey him in all matters relating to that question, no matter under what Government, or in what part of the world they may live. The refusal of this obedience is held by them to be heresy. Consequently, when the Roman Catholic people of Italy abolished the temporal power of the pope, remaining in all other respects faithful to the historic and traditional teachings of the Church, the Jesuits made an organized appeal to all the Roman Catholics throughout the world, to unite themselves into a politico-religious party, in order to restore the temporal power, and thereby to teach their Christian brethren in Italy that they have no right to govern themselves by laws of their own making, and that by irreligiously asserting that right, in imitation of the heretical people of the United States, they have themselves become[Pg 25] heretics. In point of fact, the Jesuit appeal is made to populations entirely foreign to the people of Italy, inviting these foreign populations to subvert the civil institutions the latter have established for themselves, by forcibly substituting the pope as an arbitrary and irresponsible monarch, without any constitutional check, for a constitutional king whose powers have been placed under satisfactory restraint. The pope himself, when he realized that he was about to lose his crown, talked about the two hundred millions of Roman Catholics scattered throughout the world, who were to be excited to this conflict with the Italian people; and the Jesuits consider themselves specially assigned to the duty of massing the forces of this great papal army, and directing its movements. In that capacity, and with that secret purpose, they have distributed themselves throughout the populous parts of the United States, crowding into our cities, and employing their tireless energies in the work of educating a considerable portion of our people, both old and young, in the religious belief that it is their Christian duty to snatch the crown from the head of the constitutional king of Italy, where those of their own religious faith have placed it, and restore it to the pope, from whose head they removed it by employing the same sovereign power which the people of the United States invoked when they laid the foundations of their own institutions.

It is a serious thing, too serious to be disregarded, to know that, under protection of the liberalism of our laws, there are scattered among our people those who are striving to entangle us in alliances which can have no other end than to disturb the quiet of the nation, and endanger the public welfare. The sacrifices made by the American people in behalf of the right of self-government entitle them to be left to themselves in the undisturbed enjoyment of that right. They have shown themselves wise enough to understand the causes which led to the decay of former nations, and discreet enough to avoid them. Among these causes the union of Church and State has always been conspicuously prominent;[Pg 26] wherefore they found it necessary to put an end to this union, by leaving the Church independent in the spiritual, and the State equally so in the temporal sphere. This separation constitutes a great and important political fact, wholly distinct from any of the forms or principles of religious belief, and practically embodies the American idea—perpetuated in Protestantism—that the right to perfect and untrammeled freedom of conscience is not derived by concession from either spiritual or temporal monarchs, but from the inalienable laws of nature. In view of the past experience of mankind, it seemed clear to them that the best form of government is that which guarantees this natural right to each individual, to be enjoyed as a political right, without any restraint whatsoever. In no other way can free popular government ever become possible. They believed also that mankind had been held long enough in inferiority and bondage by the combined influence of Church and State despotism, and that inasmuch as they had been providentially placed in possession of a new and undeveloped continent, it was not only wise but best for them and their posterity that, in establishing their Government, they should make the further union of Church and State impossible, unless some alien power should be strong enough to overthrow their institutions, or they should fall into decay by means of the corruptions engendered by this fatal union, as other Governments had fallen. It was an experiment, hitherto unsuccessful, and was consequently observed by multitudes throughout the world with intense solicitude. If there were any who considered the experiment injudicious, and likely to prove a failure, but little time elapsed before their doubts were dissipated by the results accomplished—results which all who are rightfully entitled to American citizenship, now accept as a precious inheritance from the founders of the Republic. Our institutions are no longer an experiment; they have become actual and accomplished reality. And it is not now the time for us to think of turning back to the bondage of monarchism, as we should indicate the desire to do by denying to the[Pg 27] people of Italy the right to imitate our example by separating Church and State, and governing themselves by laws of their own making. They who invite us to this are counselors of evil.

That the Jesuits are not content with the separation of Church and State is a fact too palpable for contradiction. Hence the readiness with which they engage in the organization, in this country, of a politico-religious party pledged to restore the pope's temporal power, notwithstanding such a party is condemned by the spirit of our institutions, and is regarded by the general public as impolitic, inexpedient, and hazardous; and inasmuch as they have chosen to thrust this issue upon us, we are not permitted to become indifferent to it, or shrink from our responsibility of citizenship under a Government entitled to our patriotic allegiance. Such an issue can not be evaded, and must be met with fearlessness and becoming candor. If one is informed that a poisonous viper is coiled up under a pillow upon which he is about to lay his head, he will instinctively strive after the means necessary to escape its fangs. So, when apprised that cunning and adroit adversaries, like the Jesuits, are plotting against cherished and vital principles of our institutions, the obligation to make ourselves familiar with their principles, policy, and history becomes imperative. Being forewarned, we shall have no excuse for not being forearmed.

We must do nothing, either now or hereafter, forbidden by our national character, or by the liberalism we prize so highly. Our Constitution amply protects the rights of free speech, free thought, and a free press, all of which must be held inviolable; but violence is manifestly done to the spirit of patriotism which guarantees this protection when it is demanded of any portion of our population that they shall participate in the work of undoing, in any degree whatsoever, what the founders of the Government considered fundamental. We are prohibited from submitting to anything that shall tend, even by possibility, to subject the people to any sovereignty, either spiritual or temporal, higher than[Pg 28] themselves, in such matters as involve their own happiness and welfare. It would be well, consequently, for those who are seeking to accomplish this, to learn that the world is large enough for them and us; that there are other fields wherein better grounds of hope are furnished for re-welding the fragments of shattered monarchies; and that, when they avail themselves of the tolerance of our institutions to assail their foundations, they become intruders into a peaceful and harmonious circle, where, but for them, universal peace and quiet would prevail.

In his conflict with the Italian people for the re-possession of the temporal power, by overthrowing the Constitutional Government they have established, the pope could not find another ally so formidable as the Jesuits, nor one with such implacable hatred of liberalism and popular government. Their society is so united and compact that its ranks can not be broken. They are everywhere the same, moved by a common impulse, under the dictation of their general in Rome. They are the deadly enemies of civil and religious liberty. Nothing that stands in their way can become so sacred as to escape their vengeance. Protestantism has borne no fruits to which they have ever been reconciled. They consider the Reformation which gave birth to it to have been criminal resistance to the only rightful authority upon earth—that which proceeds from Church and State combined. They believe that the condition of mankind during the Middle Ages, staggering under the weight of feudal oppression, was preferable to modern progress and enlightenment; that human happiness would be promoted by the return to that period; that the political right of self-government by the people can not be set up against the higher right of papal and monarchical power; that the progress of the advancing nations is delusive and unsubstantial; and that institutions which guarantee civil and religious freedom, if not arrested by some coercive power strong enough to put an end to them, will lead, through heresy, to social ruin and desolation. If, at the period of the Reformation, this society had not been[Pg 29] established for the express purpose of counteracting its influence, a knowledge of the difference between primitive Christianity and the prevailing dogmas might have led to such reforms as would have reconciled Christians to dwell together in peace and concord. But when a dove should have been sent forth bearing the olive-branch of Christian charity, this society sprang from the brain of a disappointed military adventurer, and began at once to scatter the seeds of strife and discord. Almost from the beginning it has been a disturber of the peace of nations, suffering only such as have bestowed patronage upon it to escape its maledictions and its plottings.

The members of this society are numerous and powerful in the United States. They are constantly increasing, mainly by accessions from their drilled and disciplined companions in Europe, but also by conversions of unsuspecting young men, who are seduced by their vain and supercilious pretensions as educators. They are, as they have always been, selfish and vindictive—restless under opposition, and compromising in nothing. They have neither country, nor homes, nor families, nor friendships beyond the limits of their order—none of the affections of the heart which give charm to life and social intercourse—being required to abandon all these and fit themselves for uninquiring obedience to their general, whose commands, whether right or wrong, good or bad, they have solemnly vowed to execute, without the least regard for consequences. Having persistently refused to become reconciled to the forms and methods of Christian civilization which prevail among our Protestant population, they employ all the resources they can command in endeavoring to arrest them. They insist that Church and State shall be united wheresoever they are separate, and that the basis of such union shall be the subordination of the State to the Church. Self-government by the people is held by them to be violative of the divine law, and on that account may rightfully be resisted as heretical, when its overthrow can be assured. They will allow no rights to exist in either States, peoples, or individuals, against what they consider the prerogatives of their so[Pg 30]ciety as defined by their general, who, in their estimation, possesses the divine right to enlarge or contract them at his own pleasure. There must be no limitation to the power and independence of the pope, either in the spiritual or temporal domain, except where the interests of their society command otherwise; they must be full, absolute, unquestioned, to the extent defined by himself. His liberty must be such that he may, at his own discretion, curtail the liberties of all others. His spiritual sovereignty must include whatsoever he shall embrace within it. Neither the existence nor the extent of this sovereignty must be brought in question before any human tribunal; but he alone shall define it, together with the character of the obedience he shall exact. And if, in the course of the papal economy, he should ever find it necessary to hold in one hand emblems of harmony and peace, this restless and uncompromising society stands always ready to place the rod of chastisement in the other.

The conflict of opinions, therefore, in which the Protestant people of the United States find themselves engaged is not of their own inviting. They are unwilling parties to it. It had its origin in the spirit of aggression which prevails among those who have stronger sympathy for an alien power than for the right of self-government, and, on account of their peculiar fitness for the work, it will engage every Jesuit tongue and pen in the land. Because of this, a sense of both duty and security demands that the history and character of this skilled and powerful adversary—alien in birth, growth, and sentiment—should be understood; as also the causes which have led to the expulsion of the Jesuits from every country in Europe, the public odium which has rested upon them for many years, their long-continued disturbance of the peace of nations, and the final suppression and abolition of their society by one of the best and most enlightened of the popes. In view of the obligation to preserve our civil institutions as they are, not only for ourselves and our children, but for the multitudes who shall seek shel[Pg 31]ter under them, we have no right to become either indifferent or inactive in the presence of such assailants, who complacently fling defiance in our faces, and seek to impregnate the free and pure atmosphere of our schools and seminaries of learning with the poison of monarchism. "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence," said Washington, "the jealousy of a free people ought ever to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Washington's Eighth and Madison's Second Message.

[2] Protestantism and Catholicity Compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe, By the Rev. I. Balmes.

[3] Universal Church History. By Alzog. Vol. I, p. 674. This recognized papal authority, in order to be as nearly exact as possible, fixes it in the year 510.

It is of little consequence to the general reader what place in history is assigned to Ignatius Loyola, apart from the fact that he was the founder and originator of the society of Jesuits, and lived long enough to stamp upon it the impress of his own personality. He availed himself of that organization to maintain among its members the vain and impious assumption of his equality with God, and in that way obtained such complete mastery over them that, in explanation and justification of their slavish obedience, they represent him as having possessed miraculous powers. They assign to him the performance of more miracles than Christ, and do not hesitate to record that he not only restored the dead to life, but, in one conspicuous case, gave life to a child born dead! The silly stories of this character, told of him in apparent seriousness, can have no other effect than to impose upon and encourage ignorant and superstitious people, and are undoubtedly repeated by his Jesuit biographers for this purpose. They seem never to have realized that the world has grown wiser, and that the period has passed when fictions and myths can be proclaimed as realities.

The life of Loyola was written, soon after his death, by Rabadenira, one of his Jesuit followers, who had known him intimately. Of course, under such circumstances, his statement of personal characteristics was presumably reliable. What he stated in the first edition was professedly based upon his own knowledge and what he had learned from Loyola's "intimate friends" and "inseparable companions." And with these facts before him and fully considered, he declared that his "sanctity was not justified by miracles." Some years after, however, it was deemed expedient that this concession should be withdrawn entirely, and another[Pg 33] more favorable to the Jesuits be substituted for it. Accordingly, in another edition of the same work, it is stated that Loyola's performance of miracles was "confirmed by the most authentic proofs and careful examination."[4] These statements are in direct conflict, and can not both be true. The first bears the impress of veracity because it is consistent with human experience, while the latter shows the tracings of Jesuit fingers too clearly to mislead any thoughtful and intelligent mind.

It is singularly strange that, in the present reading and enlightened age, these pretended miracles are cited by Jesuits to prove that divine power and authority were conferred upon Loyola, because God chose him to accomplish special objects in his name; when the very things which, as they allege, he was providentially appointed to defeat, have transpired in spite of him, his successors, and all their followers. The suppression of the Reformation and the extirpation of Protestantism—its legitimate fruit—were the avowed purposes of himself and his society, because, according to them, the curse of God rested upon these as the excess of unpardonable heresy. For the accomplishments of these objects he converted the members of his society into a compact body of militia, and placed in their hands weapons chosen by himself, instructing them that they were specially selected as the executioners of the Divine vengeance. Yet the Reformation progressed until it marked out new paths of advancement for the nations; and Protestantism has extended its beneficent influences until it is to-day the controlling power in human affairs, and has even taken possession of places where the papacy once ruled with sovereign and unchallenged authority. And the great work thus begun, in the face of Jesuit maledictions and curses, has not yet ended; for Protestantism still continues to build up new nations, elevate and improve peoples, and make mankind freer, happier,[Pg 34] and more prosperous; whilst there has not been a time since the Jesuits existed as a society when they have not been odious in all parts of the world, and have not been regarded as the plotters of mischief and disturbers of the public peace. How can a thoughtful mind account for these results by any known process of human reasoning, if it were true that Loyola had divine power conferred upon him expressly for the purpose of exterminating Protestantism as heresy? And how, if his society of Jesuits has been providentially endowed with faculties to consummate his ends, could it have happened that one of the wisest and best of the popes—for whom infallibility is now claimed—was constrained to condemn it by positive suppression, and to declare, under the solemn responsibilities of his sacred office, that it was not worthy of longer existence? But leaving these questions unanswered for the present, it is sufficient to say here that no qualities possessed by Loyola, whatsoever they were, can oblige the present age to recognize his society as entitled to any such prerogatives and immunities as exempt it from having its real worth tested by the rules universally accepted as applicable to human conduct and affairs. It must now be tried by these rules; and if it shall be found that its conduct has been marked by wrong and injustice, its boastful claim of superiority will appear to every investigator as merely vain and presumptuous.

That Loyola was shrewd and sagacious, and laid his plans with a full and intelligent comprehension of the ends he had in view, ought not to be denied. When engaged in framing the constitution of the Jesuits, he was familiar with the troubles existing in the Church, and with the prevailing public sentiment with reference to their causes; that is, the unfitness for the proper discharge of spiritual functions of those charged with their exercise. The Jesuits themselves assert this, in explanation of the necessity for the establishment of theirs as a new society, declaring that the numerous orders then existing—such as the Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans, Minorites, and others—were incompetent to arrest the[Pg 35] decline of the Church, on account of their own need of reform. This point in their history should invite the closest attention and scrutiny, because it shows, in a conspicuous degree, the basis of their assumed superiority over all other societies and orders which, in the course of time, have had the sanction of the Church. And this scrutiny is desirable, moreover, inasmuch as it will be seen that the pictures of demoralization prevailing among the clergy, as they were drawn by the reformers in their most vivid coloring, had their accuracy vouched for by Loyola himself, to justify the establishment of his society of Jesuits, not merely because it would constitute a distinct, independent, and superior organization, but would bring back all dissenters to obedience, which he made its main and fundamental principle.

One of the leading Jesuit authorities—an author upon whom the society relies to make known that part of its history considered favorable—endeavors to maintain the proposition that it was absolutely obligatory for Loyola to have been intrusted with the duty "of reforming the morals of the people of Rome," immediately within the shadow of the Vatican. He represents the task as "most difficult and important, as at that time the people were much demoralized, and indulged in the most frightful excesses," notwithstanding the papal Government, with plenary and absolute powers, had existed there during all the period of the Middle Ages—nearly a thousand years. Not content alone with asserting that the people were demoralized, this same author affirms, in addition, that Loyola "sought to reform the monastic orders, and reanimate the priesthood with a holy fervor,"[5] thus alleging that the monastic orders and the priesthood were demoralized like the people, and needed that a new guardian of their morals, other and better than any the Church had ever furnished, should be empowered to regulate their conduct. In further explanation of the reasons why Loyola[Pg 36] desired to establish the society of Jesuits, he represents him as having addressed directly to the pope, Paul III, this argument: "It appears that this society is absolutely necessary for the eradication of those abuses with which the Church is afflicted."[6] And at another place, referring to the condition of the Church in Germany, he says it was "mainly attributable to the ignorance of the people, and, more dangerous still, to the shortcomings of the priesthood, abandoned to the gratification of their own passions. In the entire city of Worms there was but one priest worthy of respect."[7] Neither Luther nor the reformers could have employed apter words to justify themselves; nor can those of the present time, who comment upon the vices which then prevailed among the clergy, express themselves in stronger language. The well-established historical fact is, that the same condition of things existed throughout the leading nations of Europe, beginning at Rome and reaching out in every direction, having the papacy as its common center. When the Jesuits, therefore, bestow their curses upon Luther and other reformers for having proclaimed the necessity for reform in the Church because of the demoralization of the clergy, they show their memories to be short in forgetting that their society was justified by its founder upon the plea of the same necessity.

Loyola was fully advised, also, of the progress made by the Reformation, and doubtless persuaded himself to believe that the necessity for reform would be made available by others of less ambition than himself, who would be likely to seek for it elsewhere than through the papacy, under whose auspices so many evils had grown up, unless he could check the progress of the Reformation by the creation of some new and opposing influences which he could himself control. There were no fundamental points of Christian doctrine involved; and, if there had been, the whole life of Loyola proves that he would have regarded them of inferior impor[Pg 37]tance, compared with his main purpose of preventing the enlightenment of society by free religious thought, and holding it in obedience to authority superior to itself. The friendly author already quoted declares his object to have been "to re-establish those principles of submission and discipline which alone can insure obedience to legitimate authority;"[8] that is, to the combined authority of Church and State, as no other was at that time considered legitimate by him, or has ever been by his society since then.

The acute and penetrating intellect of Loyola enabled him to foresee that, unless some new method of counteracting the effects of the Reformation should be discovered, the disintegration of the Church, already begun, could not be arrested. The difficulties surrounding this problem were increased by the fact that the papacy had been unable to put a stop to its own decline; and accordingly he taxed his inventive faculties, not to reform doctrine—for that was not needed beyond the points interpolated upon the primitive faith by the ambitious popes—but to prevent the decay of papal and ecclesiastical power. Undoubtedly it was his purpose that whatsoever plan he might adopt should supersede the old methods to which the Church had been long accustomed, and which had the sanction of numerous popes and many centuries of time. He intended to enter upon an experiment, the chief recommendation of which was, that it required new paths to be marked out in preference to those which had acquired the approval of antiquity. But he was careful to see, at every step he took, that whatsoever was done should inure to his own credit in the accomplishment of such ends as were suggested by the burning ardor and ambition of a soldier; in other words, that if good results ensued, they should be attributed to himself, and neither to the pope, nor to the Church, nor to the ancient monastic orders. Assuming, as he manifestly did, that all these combined had failed to check the advancing corruptions of the[Pg 38] clergy, which had grown up under their protracted auspices, his inventive and ambitious mind was animated by the hope of bringing the world to realize that he alone could give to the organized authority of Church and State the vigor and efficiency necessary to keep society in obedience. Having a mind thoroughly indoctrinated with the principle of absolute monarchism, he did not regard it as possible or desirable to accomplish this in any other mode than by making that the central and controlling feature of whatsoever plan should be adopted. Accordingly, in the constitution of the society of Jesuits, which was the product of his reflections, he provided for consolidating in his own hands, as superior or general, such absolute authority as would subject all its members to his individual will, so as to hold them, at all times and under all possible circumstances, in perfect and uninquiring obedience, surrendering their right to think as completely as if they had never possessed it. By this method he designed to annihilate all personal independence, so that freedom of thought should not, by any possibility, exist in the society. He meant to convert all who were brought within the circle of his influence, from thoughtful and reflecting men into mere human automatons, and so to mold and fashion them that each one should be reduced to a universal and common level of humiliating submission and obedience. Thus he hoped to arrest the further development of popular intelligence, so that those who had been lifted out of the old grooves of despotism might be plunged into them again, and such as had not should be held there in ignorance and superstition. This he supposed would defeat the Reformation, in which event he and his society, as the originator and executors of the plan, would enjoy the glory of the achievement. If he had ever exhibited any evidences of great sanctity of life, this presumption of selfish ambition might have been rebutted; but he was known only as an aspiring soldier, whose early life had been characterized by such follies and irregularities as prevailed about the courts of royalty at that[Pg 39] time. He had done nothing to raise him above the character of an adventurer.

There was nothing in the original Jesuit constitution necessary to Christian faith or to the established doctrines of the Roman Church. It provided for the organization of a select body of men, united together professedly to maintain what Loyola chose to call the greater glory of God—"ad majorem Dei gloriam"—by such undefined methods as might be, from time to time, made known to them by their general, and without fixing any limitation or restraint upon either his discretion or authority. There was no pretense of adding to or taking from the settled doctrines or dogmas of the Church; for that could have been done only by the pope, or by a General Council, or by the two powers acting conjointly—in unity. It would have been a direct censure of the Church to have assumed the necessity of this, or to have solicited authority to undertake it—equivalent to saying that it had failed to provide the necessary means of maintaining the true faith after many centuries of unlimited power. It was the duty of Loyola, as a faithful son of the Church, no less than it was the duty of those who were less pretentious, to have regarded its faith and doctrines as already perfect. To have done otherwise would have given aid and comfort to Luther and the Reformation. Hence his pretense of the necessity for the organization of a new society or order, with special methods of its own hitherto unknown, clearly indicated a desire to act apart from and independently of the existing methods and authorities of the Church.

No matter, however, what pretenses were made by Loyola, or what his secretly cherished designs were, there is not the least ground for doubt that his method of establishing and organizing a new society had no relations whatsoever to the principles of Christian faith—in other words, that the existing methods were competent for all practicable and necessary purposes without it. It was, consequently, temporal[Pg 40] merely; that is, it had reference exclusively to the management of men, so as to reduce them to uninquiring obedience to such authority as was set over them. There was nothing besides this which the Church and the ancient monastic orders did not already possess the power to accomplish. The "exercises" he prescribed were, it is true, spiritual in character—such as penance and mortification of the flesh—but the Church had already provided these, and they were rigidly observed by the monastic orders. The pledge to employ them, made by the members of the Jesuit society so as to promote their own spiritual welfare, was merely incidental to the duty they already owed to the Church. Consequently, while these "exercises" conformed to the existing obligations imposed by the Church, the new society projected by Loyola was intended to furnish the machinery necessary for exacting obedience—for training and disciplining all who could be influenced by it for that single purpose. And in order to accomplish effectually this obedience to himself and his new society, leaving out entirely both the Church and the pope, he originally designed that the members of the society should be responsible alone to their general, from whom all the laws and regulations for their government should emanate. The pope, as the head of the Church, had not the least authority over these members conferred upon him by the original constitution; nor was it intended that they should obey any other authority than that of their general, because he, and he alone, was recognized as the sole representative of God upon earth. There was nothing spiritual in all this, in the sense in which the Church had defined spiritual things and the Christian world understood them; but it made the society, as Loyola planned it, temporal merely—a mere police corps, drilled and disciplined to obedience alone, without the right either to inquire or decide whether the commands of their superior were right or wrong. It should surprise no intelligent man, therefore, at learning the fact that the pope hesitated about giving the society his approval, when Loyola first requested his pontifical ratification of its constitution.

That Loyola's original intention was that his new society should exact from its members a pledge of fidelity alone to himself and those who should succeed him in its government, and not to the Church or to the pope, is plainly to be seen in the fact that when he found a few sympathizing friends to unite with him, he did not submit the plan of organization to the pope for approval, so as to make it a religious order like the Dominican, Franciscan, and other ancient orders, but sought only from him permission for himself and friends to go as missionaries to the Holy Land, to labor for the conversion of the infidel Turks to Christianity. That he then contemplated acting, in so far as the movements and operations of his society were concerned, independently of the Church and the pope, is evidenced by the most undoubted authority. The author of the "Lives of the Saints," a work which has the highest indorsement, says: "In 1534, on the Feast of the Assumption of our Lady, St. Ignatius and his six companions, of whom Francis [Xavier] was one, made a vow at Montmartre to visit the Holy Land, and unite their labors for the conversion of the infidels; or, if this should be found not practicable, to cast themselves at the feet of the pope, and offer their services wherever he thought fit to employ them."[9]

It will be seen, therefore, that it was entirely conditional whether or no Loyola would make known to the pope his new society and the plan of its organization, and ask his pontifical approval. He had already formed the primary organization, and obtained from Xavier and his five other associates the necessary vow of obedience, by which they had placed themselves entirely under his dominion and control. If it should prove "practicable" for him to plant his new and independent society in the Holy Land, which presented a large and tempting field of operations, it was undoubtedly his secretly-cherished purpose to do so, without making his constitution known to the pope, and thus to[Pg 42] establish in Asia an organization independent of the pope, and submissive only to himself. But if found to be "not practicable," then, and only then, he and his companions would "cast themselves at the feet of the pope, and offer their services" to him and to the Church. His military ambition, not yet extinguished, was manifestly kindled afresh by the hope that a whole continent would be opened before him, where he would find the Oriental methods of obedience strictly consistent with those he desired to introduce, and where he could create, unmolested, such influences as, being introduced into Europe, might counteract those already produced by the Reformation. But not until he found that he was balked in this, did he intend to devote himself and his companions to the immediate work of attempting to arrest the progress of the Reformation in Europe, where the existing methods of resisting it were not under his control. It was worthy of the founder of the Jesuits to solicit the pope's approval of this great missionary scheme, and to conceal from him, at the same time, his secret purpose to act in the name of a new society, adverse to the ancient monastic orders and submissive to himself alone. That this concealment was studied and premeditated, there can be no reasonable doubt; and as it was the first step taken by Loyola in the execution of his plan, he thereby practiced such duplicity and deceit toward the Church and the pope, that these qualities may well be considered as fundamental in the society of Jesuits. And there is ample proof in the strange and eventful history of this society that it has been, from that time till the present, consistently faithful to this example of its founder.

His first successes were, doubtless, flattering to the pride, as well as encouraging to the hopes, of Loyola. Having succeeded in obtaining the consent of the pope that he and his companions should become missionaries to the Holy Land, without having revealed the existence or character of his society, they were all ordained as priests for that purpose, as none of them had been previously admitted to the priest[Pg 43]hood. Thus equipped, they took their departure for Palestine, with the plan and principles of their organization locked up in their own minds, and the ultimate design of their ambitious leader known, probably, to himself alone. They must have commenced their journey with joyful hearts and rapturous hopes, which soon, however, became chilled by what Loyola must have considered a sad misfortune, probably the first he had encountered since he had received the wound at the battle of Pampeluna, which disfigured his person so that he could share no longer in the gay festivities of the royal court. They were prevented from reaching Palestine by the war then in progress between the Emperor Charles V and the Turks, and, after an absence of about a year, were compelled to return to Europe disheartened, as may well be supposed, by their failure. This put a new aspect upon the fortunes of Loyola. His first advance towards independence and the acquisition of power had accomplished nothing favorable to his ambition, and, consequently, it became necessary for him to discover some more promising field of operations, where no such mishap as he had encountered would be likely to occur again. There was abundant room in Europe for missionary labor; but he was now, for the first time, confronted by the fact that his society could not engage in this work, in the presence of numerous religious orders already in existence, without obtaining for it the express approval of the pope, so that, by this means, it might be also stamped with a religious character, in so far as that approval would confer it. He, manifestly, had not calculated upon a crisis which would make it necessary to submit the provisions of his constitution to the pope, or to make them known to any others besides those who were to become members of his society, and were willing to yield up their manhood so completely as to vow uninquiring obedience and submission to him and his successors as the only representatives and vicegerents of God upon earth. It can not be supposed that a man of so much sagacity as he undoubtedly possessed, would not have foreseen the difficulty[Pg 44] in obtaining the approval of the pope to a constitution which humiliated him by assigning higher authority to the general of a new society than the Church had confided to him. But he had gone too far to retreat, and had too much courage to attempt it; for his courage was never doubted, either upon the battle-field or elsewhere; and when he found it absolutely necessary to visit Rome in order to obtain the pope's sanction, he did so, accompanied by Lefevre and Laynez, two of his companions. Before their departure, however, from Vicenza in Austrian Italy, where they were assembled, Loyola deemed it important to announce to his followers, probably for the first time, the name he had decided to give his society. He thus instructed them: "To those who ask what we are, we will reply, we are the Soldiers of the Holy Church, and we form 'The Society of Jesus.'"[10] This was evidently suggested by the necessities which then confronted him. He had not found it expedient to adopt such a designation, or to announce that they were "Soldiers of the Holy Church," until their attempt to obtain an independent position in Palestine had failed. Therefore, these avowals, made before going to Rome, are justly to be considered as mere expedients, suggested by the necessity of obtaining the pope's approval. The existing religious orders had taken their names from their founders; but Loyola's profane use of the sacred name of the Son of God, clearly indicated that he intended to set up for his society a claim for holiness superior to all others. Or it was assumed as a cover for practices, contemplated by him, that would not bear inspection in the light. That it was intended as a reflection upon the ancient monastic orders then existing, and to express superiority over them, can not be doubted. In any view, to say the least, it was impudent and presumptuous, and was generally offensive to the Christian world.

At the time of Loyola's visit to Rome, Paul III was pope. When his approval of the new society was solicited,[Pg 45] he deemed it indispensable, as a measure of precaution, that the question should be investigated with the greatest care; for until then no opportunity had been afforded him of knowing the ultimate purposes of Loyola, or the machinery he had constructed for executing them. Whether the pope suspected him of concealment or not, it is impossible now to tell; but that he had reason to do so is evident from the most favorable accounts given of the original official interview between them. Then it was that the pope was apprised, for the first time, that the constitution under which the society of Jesuits had been organized, required a solemn vow, by which all the members were pledged to "implicit and unquestioning obedience to their superior,"[11] without the possibility of equivocation or mental reservation; that is, to Loyola himself as the first general, and to his successors from time to time thereafter. It required but little deliberation upon the part of the pope to realize that neither the Church nor the papacy could derive any advantage from this, but rather injury; for the reason that it would create a society under the protection of both, and, at the same time, absolutely independent of both. He therefore hesitated, evidently supposing that his approval under those circumstances would drag him into deep waters from which it would not be easy to escape, and referred the question to a committee of cardinals for thorough and scrutinizing investigation, so that his final action should be based upon full information.

Loyola was too sagacious not to have anticipated this difficulty; but he manifestly hoped to escape it in some way, either by evading or bridging it over, or he would not have asked the pope to approve the original constitution which contained it. He certainly did not desire or contemplate any change in his original constitution or plan; and therefore, when Paul III hesitated and appointed a committee of cardinals to scrutinize them, he must have felt a degree of perplexity to which his proud and ambitious military spirit[Pg 46] had not been hitherto accustomed to submit unresistingly. He could not avoid seeing, however, that if the pope's final decision should be adverse to him, it would necessarily be the death of his society, upon which he had, with inordinate ambition, fixed his hopes. The occasion constituted the most serious crisis in his personal fortunes he had ever encountered. Success promised him a long list of triumphs; defeat, nothing but obscurity. He had no such intellectual resources as fitted him for rencounter with those who had, not having attended school until after he had reached the years of manhood, and not having then shown any special aptness for learning. Whatsoever capacity he possessed, tended in the direction of governing men, his faculty for which was developed during his service in the army; and he must therefore have experienced the consciousness that if he failed to obtain the sanction of the pope, his career would be seriously, if not entirely, checked. The future of the papacy depended upon the successful training of men to obedience; and Loyola, understanding this, could have had no difficulty in persuading the pope that a society like his, contrived especially to suspend the power of human reasoning and reduce its members to mere unthinking machines, would more assuredly produce that result than had been done by the very worst forms of absolute despotism which had, for so many centuries, held the Oriental world in subjugation.

But Loyola's embarrassment did not amount to discomfiture. He may never have held personal intercourse with Paul III before; but he understood the papacy, its wants and necessities, and had ample opportunity to study the character and penetrate the motives of the pope. For this he was specially fitted—few men have lived who excelled him in this respect—and, having constructed his society upon the theory that men were of no value unless persuaded to surrender up their personality to superiors, the occasion served him to address such arguments to the pope as would convince him that the obedience to authority he had introduced in his society was just what the existing exigencies of the[Pg 47] papacy required to save it from overthrow. It may easily be seen now—although the pope may not have then employed penetration enough to discover it—that he did not intend to deal unequivocally and in entire frankness with the pope, so long as there remained a prospect of obtaining his end otherwise. He evidently had an accurate conception of what is meant by the terms confession and avoidance, in the sense of seeming to consent while not consenting. Thus, in order to remove the objection of the pope and secure his approval, he suggested another and new obligation to be inserted in the constitution of his society, providing that the members should also take a vow "of obedience to the Holy See and to the pope pro tempore, with the express obligation of going, without remuneration, to whatsoever part of the world it shall please the pope to send them."[12] These words must be read critically in order that their meaning as intended by Loyola, and always since interpreted by the Jesuits, may not be misconceived. Their true import is, that whilst the members of the society were to pay obedience to the pope as well as to their general, it was qualified as to the former, and absolute as to the latter; that is, that as they were nominally to have two heads, the authority of both should, for all practical purposes, center in one. In point of fact, as amply demonstrated by subsequent experience, this new provision did not change the nature or limit the extent of the obligation of unquestioning obedience to the Jesuit general. Its most essential feature was that which required the members to go wheresoever ordered by the pope, without compensation; but with regard to this and all other duties, and the manner of discharging them, they were required to obey their general. They could receive no instructions except those which came from him, all of which they were required to obey as coming directly from God. This amendment created no special relations—or, indeed, any whatsoever—between the pope and the[Pg 48] society; for he held no direct intercourse with it. And it only created such relations between the pope and the general as obliged the latter to send the members wheresoever the former desired, without remuneration. They remained the slaves of the general, and not the slaves of the pope. They obeyed the general, and not the pope, unless ordered to do so by the general, in which case they paid obedience only to the latter. But Paul III did not detect the well-concealed purposes of Loyola, and may not even have suspected them, in view of his anxiety to arrest the disintegration of the Church and the threatened decay of the papacy. Howsoever this may have been, the cunningly-contrived concession made to him by Loyola was satisfactory to him, notwithstanding the opposition of one of the committee of cardinals, and he issued his pontifical bull approving the society of Jesuits as a religious order. This pledge of fidelity to the pope, however, has been kept or evaded accordingly as the interests of the society have from time to time demanded. Its history shows prominent instances when the decisions of the popes have been denounced and resisted, and when the popes themselves have been treated with contempt and defiance. When the Jesuits have found shelter and protection under the authority of the popes, they have exalted them to absolute equality with God; when otherwise, they have disobeyed and traduced them.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Crit. and Phi. Dictionary. By Bayle. Article "Loyola," Vol. III, p. 889, note.

[5] History of the Society of Jesus. By Daurignac. Vol. I, p. 14. This work was translated by Clements, and published in Cincinnati by Walsh, in 1865.

[6] History of the Society of Jesus. By Daurignac. Vol I, p. 22.

[7] Ibid., p. 40.

[8] History of the Society of Jesus. By Daurignac. Vol. I, p. 40.

[9] Lives of the Saints. By the Rev. Alban Butler. Vol. XII, article "St. Francis Xavier," December 3, p. 603.

[10] Daurignac. Vol. I, pp. 11-12.

[11] History of the Jesuits. By Nicolini. Page 27.

[12] History of the Jesuits. By Nicolini. Page 27.

All the circumstances which attended the origin and establishment of the society of Jesuits combine to explain, with unmistakable clearness, the motives which must have influenced the mind and incited the action of Loyola in every step he took. They plainly show that his leading and controlling purpose was to organize a body of men, each one of whom should be brought into implicit and unquestioning obedience to the authority of their general, and hold themselves in readiness so long as the society existed, to do, without the least inquiry into results, whatsoever he should command to be done, so that they should have no wills or opinions of their own upon any subject over which he should assert jurisdiction. By making this the central and most fundamental principle of the constitution, he placed his society in direct antagonism to all intellectual progress and enlightenment—to everything that tended to dignify and elevate mankind. No one, therefore, ought to wonder that it has produced more disturbance in the world than any other organization that has ever existed; or, if it were out of the way, could ever exist again.

The constitution was locked up in the secret archives of the society for more than two hundred years, many of its details having been unknown, it is said, even by a considerable portion of the members, whose submissive obedience must have reduced them to the condition of trained animals. This concealment by a society professedly religious could not have been favorable to Christianity, and must have been the consequence of some sinister motive, as subsequent developments have shown. This is a fair inference from the reluctance with which the constitution was surrendered when the French Government demanded its exposure. The[Pg 50] facts connected with the proceedings of the French Parliament, when they compelled the society to make it known, justify the belief that there must have been some special reason for its long concealment, and that the public odium, so long resting upon it in France, was attributable, among other things, to the secrecy of its proceedings. And when it is considered that the strong and vigorous measures adopted by the Parliament to extort the constitution by dragging it from its hiding-place, transpired at a time when Protestantism had no control whatsoever over the public affairs of France, it conclusively proves that the integrity of the society was suspected by the French people whilst they were faithful adherents of the Roman Church. Such a fact as this indicates—what every Jesuit stands ready to deny if necessary—that where the society was best known, it was most suspected and disliked.

The whole machinery of this society was admirably designed to accomplish its complete consolidation. Although Loyola was neither a theologian nor a learned man, having obtained almost his entire education after he was thirty years of age, yet he understood, far better than many who had acquired higher intellectual culture, the springs and motives of human conduct; and this, supplemented by cunning, which never deserted him, constituted his leading characteristic. As his sole object was to dominate over others by promising them a place in paradise as a reward for unmanning themselves, he studiously excluded all who could not be reduced to this low condition by training, discipline, and education. Accordingly, before an applicant could be admitted to probation, his whole life and character were closely scrutinized by the general, if it were in his power to do so; but if not, by persons selected as spies, who were "to live with him and examine him," so as to be able to penetrate his most secret thoughts.[13] Upon admission, he was required to confess to a rector, who was to be recognized by him as holding "the[Pg 51] place of Christ our Lord," and from whom nothing should be concealed—"not opposing, not contradicting, nor showing an opinion in any case opposed to his opinion."[14] When the probationer was found by these tests qualified for membership—that is, when it was ascertained that he had no will of his own, but was fitted by nature and inclination for a state of complete bondage—he was required to recognize the general of the society as occupying the place of God, and as possessing absolute authority over him, with the right to exact absolute obedience from him. He was reduced to the condition of a mere inanimate machine, with no discretionary power whatsoever over his own emotions, opinions, or actions. This obligation is thus expressed in the constitution: "He must regard the superior as Christ the Lord, and must strive to acquire perfect resignation and denial of his own will and judgment, in all things conforming his will and judgment to that which the superior wills and judges."[15] And, in order to assure, beyond the possibility of mistake, the complete surrender of all individuality, and to bring the probationer down to the lowest possible degradation, his uninquiring obedience is defined and exacted in these words: "As for holy obedience, this virtue must be perfect in every point—in execution, in will, in intellect—doing what is enjoined with all celerity, spiritual joy, and perseverance; persuading ourselves that everything is just; suppressing every repugnant thought and judgment of one's own, in a certain obedience; ... and let every one persuade himself that he who lives under obedience should be moved and directed, under Divine Providence, by his superior, just as if he were a corpse (perinde ac si cadaver esset), which allows itself to be moved and led in any direction."[16]

It would be hard to find, in any written or spoken language, words more expressive than these of the complete[Pg 52] eradication of all sense of personality, unless it be some elsewhere employed in the same society to express the same or equivalent ideas. In the Prague edition of the "Institutes," the following is given as the language of one of its decrees: "It behooves our brethren to be pre-eminent in true and absolute obedience, in abnegation of all individual will and judgment."[17] The Jesuit Bartoli, in his history of Loyola, expresses the meaning of the constitution in substantially the same words, thus: "An entire abnegation of their own will, of their own judgment."[18] Elsewhere he says the members must act "according to the pleasure of the superior."[19] Again: "What can be more complete than our submission to the orders of our superiors in everything that concerns our state of life, the places we are to dwell in, the employments, the offices we are to be engaged in."[20] And again, this submission to the will and judgment of the superior, or general, is called "renouncing our own judgment," "the annihilation of self," "complete obedience, entire dependence upon the will of others, perfect abandonment of personal reputation."[21]

This self-abnegation, this slavery of the mind, is a worse form of servitude than the slavery of the body. The latter places fetters upon the limbs, the former rivets shackles upon the mind. A brief comparison will illustrate this. The methods of punishing slaves for disobedience have varied accordingly as masters have been humane or otherwise. Some have been compelled to endure the torture of solitary imprisonment and starvation; others to wear iron fetters until they have eaten, by slow degrees, into their flesh; and multitudes have escaped only with the lash. In all this, merely the animal capacity for enduring physical suffering has been put to the test,—the minds of the victims having been left free to implore the mercy and protection of Providence, according[Pg 53] to their own wills and consciences. But this Jesuit method of training probationers and novices to secure their implicit obedience to their superiors, transcends anything pertaining, especially in modern times, to the relation of master and slaves. It trifles with the interests and destiny of the soul, its relations to God and to eternity, by substituting a mere man, with the passions and impulses of other men, as the final arbiter of human conduct, and with the power to open and close the doors of heaven at his own personal pleasure. It is for fitting him to assent implicitly to this that the Jesuit is required to abnegate his individual self, dismiss from his mind the idea that God gave him the priceless faculty of thought and reflection, and abase himself to such a degree that he has no will or judgment of his own concerning the future condition of his soul. By considering himself a mere corpse—dead to everything in life but humiliating obedience to the general—he consents to accept his commands as equal to those of God, and to recognize the sentence he might see fit to pass upon him in this life, in lieu of the judgment of God in the life to come.

There is a vast deal of cumulative evidence upon these points, which have evidently been considered fundamental and indispensable. Besides the foregoing humiliating vows, strict rules and regulations are established for the government of the novices. Number 34 is as follows: "At the voice of the superior, just as if it came from Christ the Lord, we must be most ready, leaving everything whatsoever, even a letter of the alphabet, unfinished, though begun." Rule 35 defines "holy obedience" to be "abnegating all opinion and judgment of our own contrary thereto [that is, to what they are commanded to do], with a certain blind obedience." Rule 36 is in these words: "Let every member persuade himself that those who wish to live under obedience, ought to suffer themselves to be borne along and governed through Divine Providence through the superiors, just as if they were a corpse, which may be borne as we please, and permits itself to be handled anyhow; or like an old man's stick, which[Pg 54] everywhere serves any purpose that he who holds it chooses to employ it in."[22] The same ideas exactly are expressed in one of the vows which Loyola made conspicuous, and which is given by Bartoli in his biography, as follows: "I should regard myself as a dead body, without will or intelligence, as a little crucifix which is turned about unresistingly at the will of him who holds it, as a staff in the hands of an old man, who uses it as he requires it, and as it suits him best."[23]

The human mind is not fertile enough in invention to discover a lower depth of humiliation than this—a more complete surrender of all the ennobling qualities and instincts of manhood. If these have ever been possessed, the remembrance of them is required to be obliterated, so that there may be no room in the mind for a single generous emotion. When Shakespeare conceived the idea of a "mindless slave," he must have had before his mind the portrait of a Jesuit, after he had been disciplined and fashioned under the master-hand of Loyola, who left his followers no personal sense of truth or right or justice, having made their abnegation so thorough that, even with the knowledge of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, they were trained to incline indifferently to either as commanded by their superiors. He allowed no hesitation, heard no reasons, accepted neither apology nor excuse. Their whole duty consisted in blind and uninquiring obedience to him in thought, word, and deed, no matter what consequences might follow, or what harm be inflicted. What of consciences they had left, were required to become so callous as to be insensible to either honor or shame, all conscientious sense being extinguished as if it had never existed—like the light of a candle blown out. Nowhere else in the world, within the confines of civilization, has such a point of the absolute annihilation of individuality been reached. Nowhere else is a man required to acknowledge himself a "corpse," a "dead body," a "little crucifix," a[Pg 55] "staff" in the hands of another, with no will, or thought, or sensibility, or emotion, except such as shall be dictated by those to whose mastery he has ignominiously submitted. It is the very perfection of tyranny, such as the most heartless despots known to history would have rejoiced to discover.

Far too little consideration is generally given, even by careful students of history, to this assumption of equality with Christ—this vain pretense of a state of divine perfection which recognizes a single human being as possessing upon earth the authority of God. Undoubtedly it is true that multitudes of individuals, of good intentions, have been misled by it into the false belief that the most prominent feature in the plan of Christ's atonement was the substitution for himself of a mere man, to whom alone, of all mankind, he assigned his own divine attributes. The original suggestion of such a proposition must have startled the Christian mind; and its establishment as an article of faith may be intelligently accounted for by the fact that the superstition and ignorance of the Middle Ages enabled monarchism in Church and State to perpetuate itself by requiring this dogma to be accepted as revealed by Christ himself. In evidence of its repugnance to the common sense of mankind, it is proper to observe that the Christian world has ever since labored hard to get rid of the delusion, and would in all probability long since have done so, but for the society of Jesuits, which has ceaselessly maintained it as an essential part of its machinery. That it is condemned and repudiated by reason, it requires no argument to prove in this enlightened age. If the Creator had designed that he should have such a representative upon earth after the ascension of Christ, he would have imparted his divine attributes to him by such manifestations of his own power as the world could not misunderstand—either by such simple and peaceful incidents as attested the birth and divinity of the Savior, or by such convulsions of nature as accompanied the delivery of the tables of the law to Moses. In the entire absence of any visible and intelligent evidences whatsoever of this divine[Pg 56] purpose, the pretension of it, as the mere means of acquiring authority over others and exacting obedience from them, is nothing less than presumptuous and vainglorious impiety. It seeks to dethrone God by abolishing the bar of judgment, where he has announced that all mankind shall appear; for what is it less than this to say that conformity to the commands of the Jesuit general assures, beyond any peradventure, admission to the kingdom of heaven? God manifestly reserved to himself this great prerogative; and he who claims it as pertaining to an earthly office of man's creation, arraigns the divine authority, and insults the Majesty of heaven by requiring that the Creator shall abdicate his throne. If, moreover, God had intended to confer divine attributes upon any individual man, it is contrary to a just estimate of his character, as well as to all human experience, to suppose he would have chosen the general of a society which has from its origin been a byword of reproach among the nations, upon which such a heavy weight of odium has rested that it has been ignominiously driven out of every nation in Europe; whose enormities compelled a good and virtuous pope to suppress and abolish it in order to assure the peace and welfare of the Church; and whose members are still skulking through these same nations, silently and secretly, as ghostly apparitions are supposed to move about in the night-time under the cover of darkness.

But the Jesuit constitution goes to even a greater extent of impiety. After a novitiate has, by the foregoing methods, been converted into an unthinking and unresisting piece of machinery, like a block of wood or marble carved by the hand of an artist, his course of future servility is so opened before him that he may fully understand how he shall give proof of fidelity to his vows, by doing whatsoever the general shall command, or by omitting to do whatsoever he shall forbid. Here the thoughtful reader to whom these revelations are new, no matter what form of religious faith he may profess, will be likely to pause in astonishment at the deliberately-avowed purpose to disregard the laws of States, of[Pg 57] social morality, and even of God, when the general shall command either of these things to be done. The following are the words of the constitution, as given by Nicolini:

"No constitution, declaration, or any order of living, can involve an obligation to commit sin, mortal or venial, unless the superior command it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of holy obedience, which shall be done in those cases or persons wherein it shall be judged that it will greatly conduce to the particular good of each, or to the general advantage; and, instead of the fear of offense, let the love and desire of all perfection proceed, that the greater glory and praise of Christ, our Creator and Lord, may follow."[24]

This language should be re-read and carefully scanned; for, at a single glance, it seems to have been written so as to furnish ground for equivocation, a practice in which the Jesuits, by long use, have acquired consummate skill. It may be easily interpreted, however, in the light of what Bartoli says. According to him, the novice is required to place himself "entirely in the hands of God, and of him who holds the place of God by his authority," which, of course, is the general or superior. After setting forth that the novitiate is required to take this vow, "In everything which is not sinful, I must do the will of my superior and not my own," he enlarges upon the obligations of the same vow with the following particularity: "If it seems to me that the superior has ordered me to do something against my conscience, or in which there appears to be something sinful, if he is of a contrary opinion, and I have no certainty, I should rely upon him. If my trouble continues, I should lay aside my own judgment, and confide my doubts to one, two, or three persons, and rely upon their decision. If all this shall not satisfy me, I am far from the perfection which my religious state requires. I must no longer belong to myself, but to my Creator, and to those who govern in his[Pg 58] name, and in whose hands I should be as soft wax, whatsoever he chooses to require of me."[25] Another vow, also given by Bartoli, shows that this same obedience is due as well to a vicious and immoral as to a virtuous superior; that is, that by the religion which the Jesuits profess, it makes no difference, in so far as the obligation of obedience to his interpretation of the laws of God and morality is concerned, whether he be wise or unwise, saint or sinner. It says: "To believe that a thing ought to be because the superior orders it, is the last and most perfect degree. We can not arrive at this degree without recognizing in the person of our superior, be he wise or imprudent, holy or imperfect, the authority of Jesus Christ himself, whom he represents."[26] And another vow, illustrating the character of this obedience, is thus given: "With regard to property, I must depend upon the superior alone, consider nothing as my personal property, and myself, in all that I am, as a statue, which allows itself to be stripped, no matter what the occasion may be, and offers no resistance."[27]

It requires but ordinary sagacity to interpret all this; its meaning is too plain to mislead. The constitution, according to Nicolini, prohibits the commission of sin—not absolutely, but conditionally; that is, "unless the superior command it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;" which imports, as even an uninstructed mind may see, that there are occasions when the sanction of Christ may be invoked to justify the commission of sin; or, in other words, when the general of the Jesuits, by virtue of his representing God upon earth, may, at his own personal will, convert vice into virtue! The Jesuit is not permitted to do anything on his own account, or upon his own judgment, that would amount to sin; but must do, upon the command of the general, what he, in his own conscience, believes to be sin; because, as the general stands in the place of God, he is bound to accept it as not sin. The word "unless," as employed in the constitution, is[Pg 59] a simple negation, which makes the plain meaning of the sentence this, that if the general does not command the members of the society to commit sin, they are not permitted to do of themselves what he considers to be sin; but if he does so command, in the name of Christ, then they may sin without fear of consequences, either in this world or in the world to come. Every instructed Christian mind, no matter what its form of faith, must consider this blasphemous, because it assumes that the general may successfully exercise the divine authority of Christ to authorize sin to be committed, or to condone and pardon it after commission. This assumption goes to the full extent of deciding what is and what is not sin, by considering it alone with reference "to the particular good of each" member of the society, or to its "general advantage," and not to the law of God. Whatsoever either of these shall require, if commanded by the general, "shall be done," if the command shall be given "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!" Nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of this. "No constitution, declaration, or any order of living"—not even the law of God—can be set up against the general! He occupies the place of God, and must be obeyed, howsoever the peace and welfare of the multitude may be imperiled, or the nations be convulsed from center to circumference. The society of Jesuits must obtain the mastery, even if general anarchy shall prevail, or all the world besides be covered with the fragments of a universal wreck!

There should be no mistake at this point, for the doctrine involved is vital to the Jesuits. Their society could no more exist without it than could a watch keep time after the removal of its mainspring. Although, unlike Nicolini, Bartoli does not give the precise words of the constitution, this important vow, as set forth by him in his life of Loyola, has substantially the same meaning. According to him, its import is plainly this, that the general, whether "wise or imprudent, holy or imperfect," stands in "the place of God;" that, whilst in the abstract it is sinful to commit sin, when[Pg 60] the act is performed upon individual judgment, yet, if the general shall order it, and the conscience of the Jesuit rebel against it because he considers it sin, he shall "rely" upon the general, and not upon himself; that is, he shall so close his mind that no conscientious convictions shall penetrate it. And until he has reached this condition of stupid and servile obedience, he is "far from the perfection which his religious state requires." And, to reduce the matter to the plainest and simplest proposition, the Jesuit is bound "to believe that a thing ought to be, because the superior orders it;" so that, if he shall order sin to be committed, the Jesuit is required not to consider it as sin because God, through the general, commands it! This is precisely as if it were said that sin may be justifiably committed in God's name, whensoever it shall be required by "the particular good of each," or by the "general advantage" of the society. It requires, of course, no argument to show that this authority of the general is considered comprehensive enough to justify resistance or covert opposition to the constitution and laws of any State, or the violation of any treaty, contract, or oath, which shall stand in the way of the society in its struggle after universal dominion.

Here we have information from two sources with reference to Jesuit doctrine upon a point of the very chiefest importance. Nicolini was a native Italian, and resided at Rome, where he undoubtedly had access to the best and most reliable sources of information. Bartoli was a Jesuit, and must have been familiar with the principles and teachings of the society, or he would not have been trusted and patronized by it as the biographer of Loyola. They do not disagree materially with regard to the general principle which forbids sin in an abstract form and upon individual responsibility, but justifies its commission when ordered by the general of the Jesuits. It is, therefore, obviously deducible from this general principle, as stated by both of them, that when the general shall require the perpetration of any crime, or the violation of any obligation, or oath, or constitution, or law,[Pg 61] or the performance of any act howsoever perfidious or shameless,—in all, or any of these cases, the Jesuit shall execute his commands without "fear of offense." The general is thus placed above all governments, constitutions, and laws, and even above God himself! There are no laws of a State, no rules of morality established by society, no principles of religious faith established by any Church—including even the Roman Church itself—that the Jesuit is not bound to resist, when commanded by his general to do so, no matter if it shall lead to war, revolution, or bloodshed, or to the upheaval of society from its very foundations. Everything is centered in the good of the society, and to that all else must defer. No wonder that the Jesuit casuists have found in this provision of their constitution the source of that odious and demoralizing maxim that "the means are justified by the end;" in other words, if, in the judgment of the general, the end is considered right, howsoever criminal or sinful, it becomes sanctified, and may be accomplished without "the fear of offense."

Nor is this all. After, as Nicolini says, "having thus transferred the allegiance of the Jesuit from his God to his general, the constitution proceeds to secure that allegiance from all conflict with the natural affections or worldly interests."[28] It does not allow anything—any affections of the heart or earthly interests of any kind or nature whatsoever—to intervene between the Jesuit and his superior. If he has family ties, he must break them; if friends, he must discard them; if property, he must surrender it to the superior, and take the vow of absolute and extreme poverty; he must, in fact, render himself insensible to every sentiment, or emotion, or feeling that could, by possibility, exist from instinct or habits of thought in his own mind. As it regards property, the constitution provides that "he will accomplish a work of great perfection if he dispose of it in benefit of the society." And continuing this subject, with reference to pa[Pg 62]ternal affections, it continues: "And that his better example may shine before men, he must put away all strong affection for his parents, and refrain from the unsuitable desire of a bountiful distribution arising from such disadvantageous affection."[29] He shall not communicate with any person by letter without its inspection by the superior, who shall read all letters addressed to him before their delivery; of course, permitting only such to be sent by or to reach him as shall be approved. "He shall not leave the house except at such times and with such companions as the superior shall allow; nor within the house shall he converse, without restraint, with any one at his own pleasure, but with such only as shall be appointed by the superior."[30] He shall not be allowed to go out of the house unless accompanied by two of the brethren as spies upon his conduct, and the neglect of either to report faithfully what the others have done and said is held to be sinful. And to make sure that all the members reflect only the opinions dictated by him, they are bound to absolute uniformity, as follows: "Let all think, let all speak, as far as possible, the same thing, according to the apostle. Let no contradictory doctrines, therefore, be allowed, either by word of mouth, or public sermons, or in written books, which last shall not be published without the approbation and consent of the general; and, indeed, all differences of opinion regarding practical matters shall be avoided."[31] Commenting upon these things, Nicolini most appropriately says: "Thus no one but the general can exercise the right of uttering a single original thought or opinion. It is almost impossible to conceive the power, especially in former times, of a general having at his absolute disposal such an amount of intelligences, wills, and energies."[Pg 63][32]

If there were any evidences to prove that the Jesuits, as a society, have abandoned any of the principles or policy which bear the stamp of Loyola's approval, there would be no necessity, other than that which incites to historic investigation, for a careful and critical investigation of them. But there are none. On the contrary, it will be seen that, from their very nature, they are not susceptible of change so long as the society shall exist. The memory of Loyola is still preserved with intense devotion. He is worshiped as a saint, and the words uttered by him are as much reverenced as those spoken by the Savior. It seems impossible, therefore, to escape the conviction that this extraordinary society is unlike any other now existing, or which has heretofore existed, in the world. That it was conceived by the active brain of an ambitious and worldly-minded enthusiast, who had been disappointed at not winning the military distinction he had expected, is an irresistible inference from facts well established in his personal history. His vanity and imperiousness suggested the starting-point of his organization, whereby man was treated as incapable of intelligent reflection—fit only to become the unresisting tool of those who venture profanely to affirm, contrary to any divine revelation, that God has endowed them alone with authority to subject the world to obedience. His plan of operations was, from the beginning, a direct censure of all the ancient religious orders, as it was also of the methods the Church had adopted after the experience of many centuries. When he conceived it, his chief purpose undoubtedly was, as heretofore explained,[33] to make himself and his successors independent of and superior to the pope and the Church. His contemplated antagonism to both was sufficiently indicated by the fact that his original constitution centered absolute and irresponsible power in the hands of the general of his society; and the subsequent introduction of the simulated vow of qualified fidelity to the pope—which was brought about by a degree of necessity[Pg 64] amounting almost to duress—has had no other effect than to tax the strategic ingenuity of more than one general by the invention of subterfuges to evade it. In furtherance of this idea, the society holds no intercourse with the pope, nor he with it. Its members are all independent of him. They are the creatures and instruments of the general alone. They obey him, and no other. If he, as the head of the society, does not think proper to execute the orders of the pope—as has often occurred—the question is alone between the pope and him, not with the society. The only point of unity is between the general and the members; and of this the society boasts with its habitual vanity. In enumerating the methods by which its duration is considered assured, Bartoli says: "The chief is a strict union between the members and the head, consequent upon entire dependence, which results from perfect obedience. Ignatius established a monarchical form of government in the society, and placed the whole administration of the order in the hands of the general, with an authority absolute and independent of all men, with the sole exception of the sovereign pontiff. The general then decided absolutely, both in the choice of the superiors, as well as in everything which concerns the members of the company."[34] This sufficiently shows that the pope deals alone with the general, and he alone with the society; except through the latter, the former can not reach the members, or communicate his will to them; and even when the pope communicates with the general, the whole obligation of the latter's obedience consists in sending the members of the society to whatsoever part of the world the pope shall direct without remuneration. And it is by these means that the society constitutes what Bartoli calls "one solid and durable whole," nominally with two heads, but practically paying obedience to but one.

It was scarcely necessary to say that the society existed under "a monarchical form of government," for it is impossible for such an organization to exist in any other form.[Pg 65] In fact, it surpasses in that respect any institution ever known, not excepting the most tyrannical despotisms by which the Oriental peoples were held in bondage for centuries. Until the time of Loyola no man ever conceived—or if he did, the avowal of it is unknown to history—the idea that the plain and simple teachings of Christ, which are easily interpreted, could be distorted into an apology for reducing mankind to a multitude of unthinking corpses or dead bodies, without thoughts, opinions, or motives of their own, so that they should submit implicitly to the dictation of a single man, who, to prepare them for perfect obedience, required that the best affections of their hearts should be extinguished, and nothing generous or kindly or noble be permitted to exist in them. Absolutism could not possibly be carried further, for there is no degree of humiliation lower than that the Jesuit is required to reach. Howsoever cultivated in art, or learned in letters, or courtly in manners, or fascinating in oratory he may become, his conscience is dwarfed into cowardice, and he has parted with his manhood as if it were an old garment to be cast aside at pleasure. No picture of him could be more true than that drawn by the friendly pen of Bartoli, who tells us, boastingly, that "the society requires no members who are governed by human respect."[35] It requires, according to this biographer of Loyola, only those who hold in utter contempt the opinions of the world, those who extinguish in their minds all sense of either praise or shame, and who close all avenues by which men's hearts are reached by noble or generous or patriotic impulses. They seem to think that God, after making man "in his own image" and with capacity for inspiring thoughts, paralyzed his best affections in mere sport, and left him only fitted for blind obedience to an imperious master, who requires him to sunder all the tenderest domestic relations as if they invited to impiety, and who treats all the highest social virtues as vices when they do not advance his ambitious ends, and any form of vice as virtue when it does.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Constitution. Part I, chap, i, § 3. Apud Nicolini: History of the Jesuits, p. 32.

[14] Constitution. Part IV, chap. x, § 5. Apud Nicolini: History of the Jesuits, p. 33.

[15] Const. Part III, chap. i, § 23. Ibid.

[16] Const. Part VI, chap. i, § 1. Ibid.

[17] The Jesuits, their Constitution and Teaching. By Cartwright. Page 15, note.

[18] History of St. Ignatius Loyola. By Bartoli. Vol. II, p. 46.

[19] Ibid., p. 47.

[20] Ibid., p. 49.

[21] Ibid., p. 51.

[22] History of the Jesuits. By Steinmetz. Vol. I, p. 251, N. 1.

[23] Bartoli. Vol. II, p. 93.

[24] Constitution. Part VI, chap. v, § 31. Apud Nicolini, p. 34.

[25] Bartoli, Vol. II, pp. 92, 93.

[26] Ibid., p. 95.

[27] Ibid., p. 94.

[28] Nicolini, p. 34.

[29] Constitution. Part III, chap. i, § 7-9. Apud Nicolini, pp. 34, 35.

[30] Const. Part III, chap. i, § 2, 3. Apud Nicolini, p. 36.

[31] Const. Part III, chap. i, § 18. Apud Nicolini, p. 36. These general matters are also treated of by Bartoli, Vol. II, chaps. iv and v, pp. from 33-78.

[32] Nicolini, p. 36.

[33] Ante, chap. ii, p. 41.

[34] Bartoli, Vol. II, p. 88.

[35] Bartoli, Vol. II, p. 85.

Any reader of the last two chapters can see—without the admission of Bartoli to that effect—that the government of the society of Jesuits is entirely monarchical, and founded upon the paternalism set up by imperial rulers in proof of their divine right to govern. Like these rulers, Loyola maintained that mankind were not competent to govern themselves, and therefore that Providence has ordained that they can be rightfully and wisely governed only by their superiors, no matter whether they acquire and maintain their superiority by fraud, intrigue, or violence. He had observed society when it was accustomed to pay but little attention, if any, to the structure and details of government, and left all matters of public concern to drift into channels created by those who ruled them with the view of preserving their own power. And hence he imitated their imperial example by making this principle of paternalism the fundamental basis of his society; but transcended the despotism of antiquity by enslaving both the minds and bodies of its members, and annihilating all sense of personality among them. This society, consequently, has never been reconciled to any other form of government than absolute monarchy, nor can it ever be, so long as it shall exist. Without absolutism in its most extreme form it would lose its power of cohesion and fall to pieces, as inevitably as a ship drifts away from its course when the rudder is broken.

Having become thus familiar with the constitution and organization of this society, and the principles which underlie them, it is equally important to discover how these were administered by Loyola himself, and his immediate successors; for otherwise its real character can not be known. It has a history of its own—created by itself, and, in a great measure,[Pg 67] when not subject to the inspection of others—and unless we shall become also familiar with this it will be hard, if not impossible, to understand the fierce and tireless animosity with which it has resisted all who have endeavored to block its way to universal dominion, including even popes and the Church. If any other society ever had such a history, it has not been written.

When Loyola obtained the approval of his society from Paul III, he undoubtedly accomplished a great triumph—greater than any he had previously known. It gave him the opportunity of foreseeing that, whensoever thereafter it should be demanded by his own or the interests of the society, he would have it in his power, with a servile host at his command, to create a factious rivalry to the papacy itself. It may be supposed that the pope acted with reference to what he regarded as the welfare of the Church, and under a due sense of his own responsibility; but Loyola experienced no such feeling. Backed by a mere handful of zealots, who were unable to withstand his importunities, and from whom he probably concealed his ulterior designs, he concentrated all his energies upon the single object of obtaining the centralization of power in his own hands, without troubling himself to inquire at whose expense it might be accomplished, or the means to be employed. The pope had his own character as the head of the Church to maintain, while Loyola was a mere "soldier of fortune," seeking adventure, and stimulated by personal ambition to acquire both power and fame by means of an organization with which the pope was not familiar, but which he had constructed in secret, so as to make possible any form of disguise or dissimulation necessary to accomplish his desired ends. It would be unfair to assert, in the absence of explicit proof, that the pope acted otherwise than with reference primarily to the interests of the Church, whilst at the same time he manifestly did not desire to weaken the papal—that is, his own—power. Although he ordered the assembling of what afterwards became the Council of Trent, he was not distinguished as a[Pg 68] reforming pope, inasmuch as he was understood to have been constrained to this act to counteract the imperial policy of Charles V, who had threatened a National Council in his own dominions. Yet it is possible that some reforms might have been introduced to which he would have given his assent, provided they had not lessened the authority of the papacy. Loyola was not influenced by any of these motives. He attributed the corruptions of the clergy and the disturbed condition of the Church to the imbecility of the popes, and their inability to contend successfully against the impending evils. And thus influenced, he evidently hoped to put in operation, through the agency of his new society, such instrumentalities as would counteract the existing evils in a manner that would assure the glory of the achievement to himself and his society. He doubtless desired in this way to obtain such fame as would overshadow the papacy itself. Of the contemptuous disregard and defiance of popes who have opposed Jesuit pretensions, we shall hereafter see many and convincing proofs.

It should not be forgotten, in this connection, that the infallibility of the pope was not, at that time, an accepted part of the faith of the Church. The effort to make it so would, if then made, have been fruitless, in view of the recent pontificates of John XXIII, and Julius II, and Alexander VI, and the decrees of the Councils of Constance and Basel, as well as the general sentiment of the Christian world. Although there were some in the Church who maintained this doctrine, yet it was far from being approved by the multitude, and never actually became part of the faith until within our own time, when it was dictated to the Council of the Vatican at Rome by Pius IX, and forced to a final decree without free discussion. Mr. Gladstone has given a list of heretical popes before the time of Loyola, none of whom could have been infallible, unless infallibility and heresy may mingle harmoniously together in the same mind at the same time. Gregory I regarded the claim of universality—a necessary incident to infallibility—as "blasphe[Pg 69]mous, anti-Christian, and devilish." Even Innocent III admitted that a pope could "sin against the faith, and thus become subject to the judgment of the Church." Hadrian VI declared that a pope could err in matters of faith. Zephyrinus and Callistus both taught heresy in maintaining "that God the Father became incarnate, and suffered with the Son." Liberius subscribed an Arian creed, the most noted of all heresies, and condemned the orthodox Athanasius. Felix II was an Arian, and yet has been placed upon the calendar of saints. Zosimus indorsed the heresy of Pelagianism. Vigilius was upon both sides of the controversy about the Three Chapters. John XXII condemned Nicholas III and Clement V as heretics. Honorius was condemned and excommunicated for heresy by a General Council at Constantinople. Consequently, Mr. Gladstone, whose great learning and wisdom is recognized by all, felt himself warranted in affirming that "the popes themselves, therefore, for more than three centuries, publicly recognized, first, that an Ecumenical Council may condemn a pope for open heresy; and, secondly, that Pope Honorius was justly condemned for heresy."[36]

The contest in England about "Catholic Emancipation," covered a period of more than a quarter of a century after the ill-fated union by which Ireland gave up her independence. It terminated so near the present time that there are some yet living who may remember the rejoicing it occasioned among the friends of Ireland. It involved a practical political question, although it had a semi-religious aspect. Upon the part of Ireland it was insisted that, as the Irish were recognized by the British Constitution as subjects of the United Kingdom, they were entitled to hold civil office and participate in the legislation of Parliament. This was for a long time successfully resisted by the English Gov[Pg 70]ernment and people upon the ground that, by the religion which the Irish professed, the pope was held to be infallible, and, consequently, as possessing the spiritual power to interfere with the temporal affairs and policy of Great Britain. As it had been always understood among European peoples that this was the legitimate consequence of that doctrine, it became absolutely necessary to the Irish cause to show that the religion which prevailed in Ireland did not include it; in other words, that the Irish people did not believe the pope to be infallible. In proof of this, it was insisted by the Irish hierarchy, with unusual earnestness, that the three leading universities in France, and three not less distinguished in Spain, had condemned and repudiated that doctrine, and that the Irish people accepted their opinions. In addition, several Irish bishops were examined before a committee of the House of Commons, and testified to the same effect. This turned the scale in favor of "Irish Emancipation," and the controversy ended by the passage of that measure by both Houses of Parliament.

There is nothing, therefore, to show, or tending to show, that Loyola considered Paul III, or any other pope, to be infallible. On the contrary, inasmuch as that doctrine was not a part of the faith of the Church, and he was not required to believe it, it is a fair inference, from all we can now learn of their intercourse, that he regarded the pope as fallible, and, consequently, wedded to a false and erroneous system of Church government, which had been attended with mischievous results, and for which he desired to substitute a better and more efficient system of his own, under his own direction. And all the contemporary facts combine to show that he intended, by the original Jesuit Constitution, to bring the pope, and through him the Church, to the point of recognizing him and his successors as infallible, because they were declared to stand in the place of Christ, and were to be obeyed accordingly. Whatsoever benefits he proposed to confer upon the Church, were intended by him to be conse[Pg 71]quential alone upon those he designed for himself and his society.

The amendment of the original constitution, so as to require fidelity to the pope, was simply a measure of policy and expediency on the part of Loyola, having been suggested to him, as we have seen, after he reached Rome and discovered that it was the only method of removing the scruples of the pope, and obtaining the approval of his new society. Interpreted, therefore, in the light of all the facts, this amendment amounts only and simply to a recognition of the pope as the head of the Church, but not infallible, because that was not then part of the faith of the Church. At the same time, however, Loyola was sagacious enough to provide in the body of the constitution for the infallibility of the general of his society by declaring him as equal to God, and as occupying the place and exercising the authority of Christ. He expected the pope to recognize this by his act of approving the original constitution and establishing the society as a religious order, in imitation of the ancient monastic orders. Whether the pope so understood the constitution or not, can not now be decided; but it is perfectly apparent that Loyola did, as is evidenced by the fact that the vow of each member pledged him to this belief as one of the absolutely controlling principles of the organization. But Loyola made a more conspicuous exhibition of his sagacity by providing, in the secret but practical working of the society, a loophole of escape from the pledge of obedience to the pope whensoever the general deemed this expedient, as, in the sequel, it will appear he frequently did. It is well to repeat here, for illustration, that the pope was not permitted to hold immediate or direct intercourse with the individual members of the society. He was required to regard them only as a company whose members had no power over themselves, and were expressly prohibited from setting up any individual claim to independent thought or action. The pope could consequently convey his desires, or opinions, or[Pg 72] commands to the society only through their general; that is, in Loyola's view, as well as in that of the society, the fallible head of the Church could make known his wishes to the infallible head of the society! If the latter occupied the place of God and pronounced his judgments—as the members declared by their vows, and the constitution asserts—then any violation of his commands upon their part was not only heresy within the society, but punishable by the general, no matter what the pope might do or say. The infallible head of the Jesuits became, consequently, in the estimation of the society, superior to the fallible head of the Church in everything that concerned the opinions, sentiments, or action of the members. A man would almost stultify himself who should argue that, in case of conflict between the pope and the general—which has frequently occurred—the society would hesitate about obeying the general and disobeying the pope.

This point requires deliberate consideration, for it is that at which the commanding ability and shrewdness of Loyola were exhibited most conspicuously. The society is allowed to know its general only upon all matters involving either duty or conduct. He, and not the pope, or any other authority upon earth, determines what the members shall or shall not do within the whole domain of individual or company action. The members are required and pledged by their solemn vows to think his thoughts, to utter his words, to execute his commands, and to suppress every emotion not in sympathy with his. And hence it has sometimes happened, in precise consistence with the plan of Loyola, that the Jesuits have obeyed the pope when commanded to do so by their general; whilst, at other times, his wishes have been disregarded and opposed by them because their general has so commanded. He alone is the god of the society, and nothing but his electric touch can galvanize their dead corpses into life and action. Until he speaks, they are like serpents coiled up in their wintry graves, lifeless and inactive; but the moment he gives the word of command, each member springs instantaneously to[Pg 73] his feet, leaving unfinished whatsoever may have engaged him, ready to assail whomsoever he may require to be assailed, and to strike wheresoever he shall direct a blow to be stricken. Summed up, it amounts to this, that if the pope decides according to the will of the general, he is obeyed, because in that case the members show obedience to the general, according to their vow, and not to the pope, whose wishes they know only through the general; whereas, whensoever the pope decides contrary to the will of the general, he is disobeyed if the general shall so require, because the members have religiously vowed to accept his commands as expressing the will of God infallibly. With them the highest tribunal in the world is that presided over by him. He alone is equal to God. From all other judgments there may be appeal; but his are irreversible.

The people of Europe were beginning to feel the influence of the Reformation—at the period here referred to—so extensively, especially in Germany, as to comprehend the fact that the evils which had afflicted them, as well as the decaying condition of the Church, were attributable to the long-continued union of Church and State. And their increasing intelligence caused them at least to suspect, if not absolutely to foresee, that a secret and mysterious society like that of the Jesuits would tend to increase rather than diminish these evils. That the Jesuits encountered this suspicion from the beginning, is as plainly proven in history as any other fact. Patient investigation will show how they were resisted in France, England, Germany, Spain, and Portugal, as plainly as the rivulet may be traced from its mountain sources to the sea. And he who does not take the pains to make himself familiar with the current of events to which this resistance gave rise, will fall far short of accurate knowledge of the philosophy of history. Nor, when he has acquired this information, will it surprise him in the least to know that, after Loyola had succeeded in providing for himself and his successors the means of possibly becoming superior to the pope and the Church, he encoun[Pg 74]tered also the formidable opposition of the existing religious orders, as well as almost the entire body of the Christian people, when he undertook to introduce his new and strangely-constituted society into the various States of Europe. Even then, before the Jesuits had practically exhibited their capacity for intrigue, the public mind became convinced that the organization contained elements of mischief, if not of positive danger, which it was the duty of society to suppress rather than allow to be developed. From that time up till the present, nothing has occurred to remove this general impression, but much to strengthen and confirm it. So steadfastly imbedded has it become in the minds of the English-speaking race that they have invented and added to their language the new word, "Jesuitism," to signify the extremest degree of "cunning, deceit, hypocrisy, prevarication, deceptive practices to effect a purpose." There was nothing in the life and character of Loyola to remove this impression; but, on the contrary, as all his movements were shrouded in mystery, and the public had no sympathy for him, nor he any for the public, his whole conduct tended to excite suspicion against him and his society. Accordingly, even with the aid he may be supposed to have derived from the indorsement of the pope, he had to fight his way inch by inch among the Christian peoples of Europe—a fact of commanding significance.

The order of Dominicans had existed, under the patronage of the Church, for over three hundred years, and had made itself conspicuous for the part it took in the war of extermination prosecuted by Innocent III against the Albigenses, for having asserted the right to free religious thought and worship. The Dominicans were not restrained, therefore, by sympathy with any of the heresies which Loyola expressed the desire to suppress; so far from this, they sought after the most active and certain methods of putting an end to all heresy. Hence, it may be accepted as certain that they would willingly have accepted the Jesuits as coadjutors in the work of checking the progress of the Reforma[Pg 75]tion if they had not seen in Loyola something to excite their indignation rather than their friendship. The conduct of the Jesuits at Salamanca, in Spain, had this effect in a high degree. Melchior Cano, one of the most distinguished and orthodox of the Dominican monks, having seen and conversed with Loyola at Rome, under circumstances which enabled him to form an estimate of his character, did not hesitate to denounce the Jesuits as impostors. What he said of Loyola personally deserves special notice, and was in these emphatic words:

"When I was in Rome I took it into my head to see this Ignatius. He began at once, without preliminary, to talk of his virtue, and the persecution he had experienced in Spain without deserving it in the least. And a vast deal of mighty things he poured forth concerning the revelations which he had from on high, though there was no need of the disclosure. This induced me to look upon him as a vain man, and not to have the least faith in his revelations." Referring also to the Jesuits, as a society molded and governed by Loyola, he said "he apprehended the coming of Antichrist, and believed the Jesuits to be his forerunners," and charged them with "licentiousness," and the practice of "abominable mysteries."[37]

This was the first experience that Loyola had in dealing with so conspicuous an adversary as Melchior Cano, and he realized the necessity of having him silenced in some way, so as to preserve his own personal influence. It furnished him, therefore, an opportunity—perhaps the first—to display his fitness for leadership, as well as to instruct his society in the indirect and artful methods by which he expected it, when necessary, to accomplish its objects. By means of the pope's bull approving the society, and the authority he claimed to have been conferred upon him by it, he succeeded in inducing the general of the Dominicans to cause Melchior to be made a bishop and sent to the Canaries, which removed him[Pg 76] from Spain, and was equivalent to exile. The success he won in this way was, however, of short duration; for Melchior accepted his banishment for a brief period only, and, upon returning to Spain, he renewed his attack upon the Jesuits, which then became more violent and undisguised than before. He continued it as long as he lived, and at his death left this prophetic warning: "If the members of the society continue as they have begun, God grant that the time may not come when kings will wish to resist them, and will find no means of doing so!"[38]

Events, which deserve somewhat more particularity of detail, occurred also in Spain, at Saragossa, because they explain how the society was trained and disciplined from the beginning, under the inspiration of Loyola's immediate command. "As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined," is an adage no less applicable to a compact body like the Jesuits than to individuals. Loyola understood this, and lost no time, after he put his society in working order, to teach the members the art of circumventing their adversaries—an art which their successors, so far from forgetting, have improved upon. In this primary lesson he also taught them that they were justified in disregarding any human law that stood in the way of their success; that public opinion in conflict with their interests was entitled to no respect whatsoever; and that by steadfastly adhering to the principle of monarchism, upon which their society rested, they might confidently invoke the aid of monarchs to assure them success in any conflict with the people. And he taught them, moreover, that they were entitled to resist the authorities of the Church when the latter attempted to check their progress. And thus, almost in the infancy of the society, its founder fixed indelibly in the mind of every member the idea of their superiority over every department of society, over all the ancient monastic orders, and over even the Church itself, when its authority was employed to check[Pg 77] their progress. All this will appear in the conflict about to be detailed.

The city of Saragossa was the capital of Aragon, where the law prohibited, by strict and explicit provisions, "the erection of a chapel or monastery within a certain distance of an established parish church or religious community." The Jesuits found a place they desired to occupy, but were forbidden to do so by this law, which all others had obeyed, and which the public desired to maintain for satisfactory reasons. The law, however, did not restrain them in the least; and in utter disregard of it, and in open defiance of the public authorities, they asserted the right to take possession of and erect a building upon it for their own uses. They proposed to encroach upon the rights of the Augustinians, when the Franciscans—both being ancient religious orders of monks—united with the former in resisting this threatened violation of public law, which had been, up to that time, universally acquiesced in by both these orders, and by the public as a prudential measure of public policy. But the Jesuits did not consider any law as of the least consequence when it placed obstructions in their path, and, consequently, persisted in their purpose despite the protests of the Augustinians and the Franciscans, all of whom were esteemed by the citizens of Saragossa for their sanctity. The controversy soon assumed such importance that the vicar-general of the Church issued a formal order, in the name and by the authority of the Church, whereby he prohibited the Jesuits from erecting their new building within the forbidden limits. Any other body of men, professing the least respect for the Church and its official representatives, would at least have hesitated after this. But the Jesuits paid no more respect to the ecclesiastical dignity and authority of the vicar-general than they had proposed to show to the existing public law, or to the two protesting monastic orders. The consequence was, that the vicar-general was constrained, in vindication of his authority as the representative of the Church, to denounce the Jesuits as heretics for their flagrant[Pg 78] disobedience, and to threaten them with excommunication if they did not desist. He declared them accursed, and hurled the thunders of anathema against them. But the Jesuits, realizing how much strength lay in Loyola's single arm, remained unterrified. These thunders, which had caused even monarchs to quake, were powerless against his commands, which were communicated to his followers by the superior who watched over the interests of the society at Saragossa. The latter ordered the ceremony of consecrating the forbidden ground to proceed, in the face of both the law and the commands of the vicar-general; and the infatuated and disloyal Jesuits obeyed him. This was a new experience to the citizens of the capital of Aragon, who had witnessed nothing like it before, and they became incensed and thoroughly aroused. They took the side of the Augustinians and the Franciscans, and the "priests and religious" who defended them, and proceeded to display their indignation in such public and emphatic manner that it could not be mistaken. The historic statement is that "effigies of the Jesuits being precipitated into hell by legions of devils, were exhibited in the streets, and it was even inculcated among the people that the town was profaned by the presence of the Jesuits, who, it was declared, had brought heresy into it, and that the whole of Saragossa was under excommunication, and would so remain until they left it." This account is substantially given by all who have undertaken to write the history of the Jesuits, but it is taken from Daurignac, one of their ablest defenders, whose language is here quoted. He further explains the estimate in which the Jesuits were held by the people of Saragossa, while obedient to the faith of the Roman Church, in these words: "At length the populace, whose feelings had been thus worked upon, became more violent; and, proceeding to the house of the Jesuits, they threw stones, breaking the panes of glass, and threatening the inmates with their vengeance, while a procession, similar to the one already described, paraded around the ill-fated[Pg 79] house, uttering cries of disapprobation, reproach, and condemnation."[39]

In a matter which involved, as this did, the mere enforcement of a public law universally approved, the duty of the Jesuits was plain and simple, not admitting of any equivocation. Like all others who enjoyed the protection of law, they were bound to obey the public authorities, to which was superadded their obligation to obey also the vicar-general as the official organ of the Church. But the reader should not be so far misled as to suppose that they were influenced by any such idea, or that they were in the least discouraged by the severe ecclesiastical and popular rebuke they received at Saragossa. No man understood better than Loyola what complete control can be obtained over the sentiments, opinions, and conduct of individuals by educational training; and he had taken the precaution so to discipline the novices of his society, from the moment of their initiation, as to make their blind and passive obedience the effectual method of consolidating his influence and authority over them. It is perfectly apparent, from the occurrences at Saragossa, that one of the first lessons they had learned was that form of obedience which required them to disregard and defy any law whatsoever, when commanded by their superiors to do so, without inquiring or caring what consequences might follow, either to the public or to individuals. Consequently, when compelled by the combined influence of the public authorities, those of the Church, and the indignant population of Saragossa, to abandon the erection of their new building upon the forbidden ground, they treated it as mere suspension, and not abandonment, still intending, by some means or other, to overcome this array of adversaries and defeat the execution of the law. With this view they ceased operations, seemingly yielding to the existing necessity. At this point in their history, however, they learned their first lesson[Pg 80] in duplicity and deceit—and the sequel proves how well they learned it—by showing that, although apparently discomfited, they did not consider themselves as defeated. Loyola himself was not familiar with defeat, when success depended in any measure upon strategic intrigues with imperial rulers, all of whom fully understood that his society represented the most absolute monarchism then existing in Europe, and on that account, if no other, required them to extend to it every possible degree of protection, especially where, as at Saragossa, the people had taken active steps to require the enforcement of law. He had also prepared for escaping defeat in any matter concerning the Jesuits by fixing in their minds the conviction, as a religious sentiment, that there was no degree of courage so high and commendable as that exhibited by them when their obedience was carried to the extent of resisting whatsoever and whosoever stood in their way when commanded to do so for the interests of the society, which he required them to believe was for "the greater glory of God!" He had taught them to consider this as courage, but it was a misuse of terms so to call it; for, in its rightful sense, courage invokes the best and most ennobling faculties of the mind. Instead of this, the sentiment he inculcated proceeded from that indifference to public opinion and insensibility to shame which, as Bartoli concedes, is a necessary feature of Jesuit education. It is rather to be compared to the animal instinct of the tiger, which, after his coveted victim has once escaped, prompts him to approach it thereafter by stealthy steps, crouching in concealment until the time shall come when the final plunge may be successfully made.

The superior of the Jesuits at Saragossa was too well instructed in the policy dictated by Loyola not to understand wherein the main and real strength of the society consisted. Having, undoubtedly, full knowledge of the designs of Loyola, and molded to all his purposes, as the human form is chiseled from the lifeless block of marble, he proceeded at once to invoke the aid of the monarchical power of the Government of Spain, in order to bring the vicar-general of the[Pg 81] Church, the Augustinian and the Franciscan monks, together with the priests and religious who adhered to them, and the people and local authorities of Saragossa, into absolute humiliation at his feet. For the first time, therefore, there was then opened to the Jesuits a new and broad field, wherein they were incited to display their wonderful capacity for intrigue. They were to be practically taught with what facility they could obtain the intervention of monarchical power to trample upon the rights of the ancient religious and monastic orders, violate the public laws, defy the ecclesiastical representatives of the Church, and make the people realize how powerless they were to influence the policy of the society, to modify its principles, or to impede its progress to the ultimate dominion it had started out to obtain.

Charles V was then emperor; but, as he was absent from Spain, his daughter, the Princess Jane, was the acting regent, with the full possession of imperial power. The superior of the Jesuits at Saragossa appealed to her by arguments which, although not preserved, may be fairly presumed to have centered in the necessity for establishing and preserving the society as the best and most certain method of perpetuating the monarchical principle, so absolutely essential to kings that, if it were destroyed, they could not exist; or, if they did exist, it would be with greatly diminished powers, and subject, in some degree, to the control of popular opinion. The regent was fully informed of the determination of her imperial father to maintain this principle at every hazard, and was aware of the fact that he was not at all choice about the methods of doing so. She understood how well fitted he was, by his vacillating course, for any emergency he might encounter; and that she was not mistaken in his character, history attests by the facts that, although a native of the Netherlands, he persecuted his own countrymen for daring to assert freedom of conscience for themselves; and at one time plotted with the king of France against the pope, at another with the pope against the king of France, and at still another succeeded in enticing the Protestants of Germany into an[Pg 82] offensive alliance against both. As the representative of such a monarch—so unscrupulous about the means employed, either by himself or by others, in his behalf—the regent became a willing and easy convert to the appeal of the Jesuit superior. Holding both the law and public opinion in contempt, and looking upon the people as having no rights which kings were bound to recognize, she took the side of the Jesuits at Saragossa, and at once inaugurated the measures necessary to secure their triumph over all their adversaries. The pope's nuncio in Spain was easily brought to the same side, because it was the royal side; and, thus supported, the Jesuits soon reached the end they had sought after so anxiously by their triumphal re-entry into Saragossa, and the compulsory submission of the vicar-general, the Augustinians, the Franciscans, the priests, and the people! No combination which all these could then form could any longer resist the power and insolence of the Jesuits, when backed by the enormous monarchical power which Charles V had placed in the regent's hands. Daurignac, the Jesuit historian, tells all this in praise of his society, boastingly informing his readers how the vicar-general was "compelled to remove the ban of excommunication," and how the Jesuits were thereby enabled peacefully "to take possession of their house," and occupy it without further resistance. Of course, their adversaries were all subdued, not because of any change of opinion with regard to the Jesuits, but because they feared to disobey the regent, who held in her hands the power of the merciless Charles V. And the Jesuits, with the vanity inspired by success, marched the streets of Saragossa, through the subdued and humiliated crowd, in such conspicuous exultation as told emphatically with what indifference and contempt they looked upon human institutions and laws, or the rights of the monastic orders, or the sanction of local ecclesiastical authority, or municipal regulations, or the interests and sentiments of the people, or all these combined, when they undertook to place a check upon their ambition, or sub[Pg 83]ject them to any other obedience than that they had vowed to their superior.[40]

These details, under ordinary circumstances, might seem tedious to the general reader, but they are justified by their necessity in showing how the Jesuits obtained their first signal triumph. There has been a long list of similar triumphs since then to which this contributed. The events themselves, in so far as they involve merely the occupation and use of a piece of ground, are comparatively insignificant; but they serve, far better than many of greater magnitude, to display the prominent and most dangerous characteristics of the Jesuits. They show their absolute disregard of all rights and interests in conflict with their own, and how thoroughly Loyola succeeded in making this the governing and cardinal principle of the society; and their significance is increased by the fact that the affair at Saragossa inaugurated a policy which the Jesuits have steadily pursued throughout their history, varying their methods according to the character of the objects they have endeavored to attain. In this sense, they are introductory to a proper estimate of them.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion. By Gladstone. Pages 94 to 102. It is here stated that the "Jesuit General Linez [Laynez], strongly advocated papal infallibility in the Council of Trent, ... but the Council left the question undecided."

[37] History of the Jesuits. By Steinmetz. Vol. I, p. 378.

[38] History of the Jesuits. By Steinmetz. Vol. I, pp. 380-381.

[39] History of the Society of Jesus. By Daurignac. Vol. I, pp. 82-83.

[40] Daurignac, Vol. I, pp. 84, 85.

The assistance rendered to the Jesuits at Saragossa by the regent, in the name of the Emperor Charles V, very greatly encouraged them. It gave them assurance of royal sympathy with the monarchical principles of their constitution, and taught them how to invoke that sympathy successfully in future controversies with their adversaries, although the latter might be ecclesiastics in the active service of the Church.

At Toledo, in Spain, they also encountered formidable opposition. On account of divers abuses and "many superstitious practices" which prevailed among them, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo was constrained to condemn and reprove them in a public ordinance, whereby he prohibited the Christian people from confessing to them "under pain of excommunication," and required "all curates to exclude them from the administration of the sacraments." It should be understood from this, of course, that they must have been guilty of some extraordinary and flagrant conduct, or they would not have been so harshly dealt with by so distinguished a functionary of the Church as a cardinal-archbishop, to whom the management of the affairs of the Church at Toledo was confided. No other supposition can be indulged, especially in view of the fact that, besides this emphatic denunciation, he placed their college at Alcala under interdict. It is impossible, therefore, to escape the conclusion that their conduct had brought reproach upon the society and inflicted injury upon the Church. But again, as at Saragossa, the Jesuits were not discomfited by being placed under the ban of ecclesiastical censure, and organized resistance against the[Pg 85] cardinal-archbishop, as they had done against the vicar-general at Saragossa. Their first effort was to seek the intervention of the pope—whom they supposed to be under the influence of Loyola—that of his nuncio in Spain, and that of the Archbishop of Burgos. They hoped in this way to overcome all opposition. But the effort was unavailing, for the reason that the cardinal-archbishop was so thoroughly convinced of their unworthiness that he could not be moved from his purpose, and sternly persisted in condemning them. Thus failing to obtain the desired assistance from the authorities of the Church, they invoked aid from the temporal and monarchical power of the Government, as they had done at Saragossa. They had become well assured, by their success with the regent, that all who served Charles V were in constant readiness to do whatsoever was necessary to protect their society, even against the highest officials of the Church, because of its tendency to preserve and perpetuate the principle of monarchism. They felt entirely secure under royal and imperial protection, understanding perfectly well the powers wielded by the monarchs of that period, especially that of Charles V in Spain. Accordingly they succeeded in having proceedings instituted against the cardinal-archbishop, who was summoned before the royal court of Spain to show cause why he had placed any impediments in the way of the Jesuits—why, in other words, he had dared to deny their absolute dominion over the regularly-constituted ecclesiastical tribunal at Toledo. Loyola understood how to influence the court of Spain, and felt entirely convinced, doubtless, that, with Charles V upon his side, he could easily bring all his enemies at his feet; and, in this instance, he was not disappointed. The royal court decided in favor of the Jesuits, and the cardinal-archbishop was condemned and silenced. In order to escape the prison of the Inquisition, he yielded obedience at last, and the Jesuits achieved another triumph over a distinguished ecclesiastic of the Church.[Pg 86][41]

The patronage of the king of Portugal enabled them to enter Portugal without difficulty. This so excited their anticipations of a brilliant and successful future, that they devoted themselves to the acquisition of riches, and fell into such vices as, in that day, almost invariably accompanied success among both clergy and laity. Nicolini says that, after having obtained "immense wealth" in Portugal, they "relaxed in the strictness of their conduct, pursued a life of pleasure and debauchery," until the king "began to frown upon them," and the people to withdraw their respect. They had a college at Coimbra which, according to him, bore very little resemblance to a cloister. Being no longer able, as in Spain, to appeal with confidence to the royal power for protection—as the confidence of the king of Portugal in their Christian integrity had become shaken—Loyola, yet alive, was forced to remove the provincial and rector of the college, out of seeming deference to public opinion. The new rector, by running and screaming through the streets like a madman, and flagellating his naked shoulders until they were covered with blood and dust, so succeeded in arousing the fears and superstition of the Jesuits that they were induced to introduce such reforms in the college as enabled them, in some degree, but not entirely, to regain their influence.[42]

It is not a little puzzling to those who have not investigated the history and character of the Jesuits, to understand how the immense wealth they acquired in Portugal and elsewhere was obtained, when each member was required to take a vow of "extreme poverty." There is, however, nothing easier for a Jesuit than to satisfy his own mind upon this subject, by aid of the casuistical method of reasoning which enables him to escape this, or any other difficulty. Bartoli, the biographer of Loyola, explains it in a few words. "The vow of poverty," says he, "does not deprive the person who is under trial of the ownership of the property which he[Pg 87] previously possessed, nor of the possibility of acquiring more, until he has obtained a fixed and determined position, although he is indeed deprived of the use of his property, and can not, any more than a professed religious, dispose of a single farthing without the consent of his superior."[43] And he repeats the same idea at another place, by saying, "The vow of poverty does not preclude the possession of property."[44] Uninitiated minds may be embarrassed by this, but it is plain and simple to a Jesuit. He understands that his vow of "extreme poverty" does not require him to part with the property he has, or prohibit him from obtaining more if he can. There is but a single condition attached—that it shall be at the disposal of the superior. And thus, by the help of the casuists, this wonderful society, composed only of those who have solemnly vowed their absolute disdain of wealth, has, at several periods of its history, become the richest in the world, and would be so again if allowed to have its own way. The vow of "extreme poverty" means, therefore, in the minds of Jesuits, splendid palaces, marble churches, magnificent universities, and, in fact, the absorption of as much wealth as can be acquired through every variety of intrigue, by a body of men who boast that they have plucked every human sympathy from their hearts, and look upon all the tenderest relations of society with contempt. No written language furnishes words to convey fully to ordinary minds the Jesuit idea of "extreme poverty." One of the Jesuit fathers, quoted by Bartoli, calls it "a rich poverty," as he also does the bondage of the society "a free slavery."[45] By familiarizing ourselves with this wonderfully dexterous use of words, we may soon learn to understand what is meant by white darkness and the blackness of sunlight.

In all the countries of Europe the first impressions with reference to the Jesuits were extremely unfavorable to them, and the most decided among those most conspicuous for devo[Pg 88]tion to the Church. There was nothing in the life of Loyola to inspire confidence, either in him or in his plan of operations. He was looked upon as an adventurer, who had abandoned a military life only because his person was disfigured by a wound, in order to acquire distinction in some other pursuit. Some of the ecclesiastics—as in the case of Melchior the Dominican—were disposed to rebuke his presumptuousness in assuming sanctity and superiority; while others of them, like the vicar-general at Saragossa and the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, considered his teachings as tending to encourage heresy, not only because of their novelty, but because they blasphemously recognized him and all subsequent superiors of the Jesuits as equal to God in both attributes and power. They could not persuade themselves to believe that Christianity required them to recognize Loyola as infallible, whilst the pope, by the existing faith of the Church, remained fallible. Loyola was thus surrounded with embarrassments which would have subdued the courage of almost any other man. He, however, was rather strengthened than weakened by opposition; for he belonged to that class of men who need the excitement of conflict and the spur of necessity to develop their commanding qualities. He had laid his plans well and skillfully, and, with a perfect knowledge of the condition of society, had prepared to derive power from the only sources recognized as possessing it; that is, from the pope as head of the Church, and monarchs as the possessors of absolute dominion. So long as he could avail himself of their united support, he had little or no fear of the people, whom he could readily resist and humiliate as he had done at Saragossa. He soon realized that he could easily brush opposing ecclesiastics out of his way, so long as he could retain monarchism as the leading and central principle of his society; and hence he directed all his efforts to the suppression of the Reformation, and to the continued union of Church and State, so as to give additional strength to monarchism, upon which, as a reserved force, he could fall back whensoever the interests of his society and the[Pg 89] exigencies of his affairs required it. Whilst the bulk of society were unable to penetrate his secret purposes and motives, enough transpired, even during the life of Loyola, to excite general suspicion against his own and the integrity of his society, on which account it was that he encountered such formidable opposition to the introduction of his society into Spain, and its loss of influence and reputation in Portugal, both of which States were eminently devoted to the Roman Catholic religion. In obedience to the general rule, that "the same causes produce the same results," the opposition to Loyola and his society became more violent and protracted in France than in either Spain or Portugal. The reason for this may be found in the peculiarity of the Church organization existing there; but from whatsoever cause it may have arisen, the long and tedious controversy which at last secured the admission of the Jesuits into France, is not merely historically instructive, but throws a flood of light upon Jesuit policy and character.

The French Christians had for a long period refused to concede to the pope the right to interfere with the temporal affairs of that kingdom. This attitude was so persistently maintained by them that what they considered their "liberties" came to be generally recognized as the foundation of the French or Gallican Church, as distinguished from the Papal Church at Rome. They regarded themselves under the jurisdiction of the pope in spiritual matters—that is, in so far as religious faith was concerned—but maintained that the domestic policy of France, in the management of her own temporal and internal affairs, could not be so mingled with Christian faith as to confer upon the pope any right to dictate or interfere with that policy. Upon these points there was entire unanimity among them before the time of Loyola, or if any opposing sentiment existed it was too inconsiderable to influence the public judgment.

When the attempt was first made to introduce the Jesuits into France the knowledge of their operations elsewhere led to the belief—at all events, the fear—that the society could[Pg 90] not exist there without conflicting with the Gallican liberties, and subjecting the French Christians to foreign authority more odious than that of the pope, to whom they had steadily refused the concession of any temporal power over them. They were willing then, as they had always been, to look to the pope for the regulation of all affairs of the Church that concerned religious faith; but it was impossible for them to admit the superior jurisdiction claimed by Loyola without conferring upon him authority and distinction they had denied to the pope, and creating a threatening antagonism to the liberties they had long enjoyed, and which distinguished them from other Roman Catholic populations of Europe. They could readily see that if the Jesuits, under the guidance of an ambitious adventurer like Loyola, were permitted to establish this jurisdiction, it would surely lead to interference by his society with the temporal affairs and interests of the kingdom. Consequently the Gallican Christians, backed by their highest ecclesiastical authorities, sternly resisted the introduction of the Jesuits into France. They could not have done otherwise without a tame and absolute forfeiture of their boasted liberties. As neither Loyola nor his followers had any respect whatsoever for this Christian sentiment, notwithstanding it was maintained with extraordinary unanimity in France, and persisted in the effort to plant the Jesuit society in the midst of it with the view of its extermination, an exciting and angry struggle ensued, in which the Jesuits displayed their habitual disregard of public opinion, and whatsoever else stood in the way of their success. Neither the interests of the French Church, nor the sentiments and wishes of the French people, nor the possibility of imperiling the cause of Christianity, nor any other consideration beside that of their own triumph, weighed the weight of a feather with them when in conflict with their secret plans and purposes.

The Jesuits sought the aid of the pope, and through him that of the king of France, so that by the combined influence of the spiritual and the temporal powers, they might[Pg 91] bring to bear upon the French Church and people such pressure as would render them powerless to resist encroachment upon liberties long held in religious veneration. Their manifest object was to center this union of Church and State upon what they considered the only "legitimate authority," with the special view of engrafting upon the faith of the Gallican Christians the principle of "uninquiring obedience" to whatsoever policy should be dictated by the interests of that combination, whether relating to spiritual or temporal affairs. Realizing how readily the pope yielded to the entreaties and influence of Loyola in approving his society, it was doubtless supposed that he would as readily be persuaded to secure the co-operation of the king, whose temporal power would thus be invoked to bring the French Church and people to obey whatsoever the Jesuits should dictate. The scheme was adroitly planned, and displayed, not only the despotic policy of the Jesuits, but their unsurpassed capacity for cunning and intrigue.

During the reign of Henry II, France had become, in a large degree, relieved from the complications in which she had been involved in the lifetime of Francis I, his father, growing out of the protracted controversy in which the Emperor Charles V and the pope both bore conspicuous parts. He was enabled therefore to turn his attention to internal and domestic affairs, which placed him in a condition favorable to the adoption of any methods of procedure that promised to bring society into perfect obedience to monarchical dominion; or, as he, along with Loyola and the Jesuits, regarded it, to "legitimate authority." Loyola could not fail to realize that the occasion was most opportune for him, and therefore availed himself of it with the utmost promptitude, taking advantage of everything seemingly favorable to the ends he desired to accomplish. The Reformation had progressed with astonishing rapidity, and nothing aroused his ambition so much as the hope of arresting its progress; for without the stimulating influence of that object his occupation would have been threatened with a speedy ending, and[Pg 92] his society would have expired almost at its birth. This would have caused him to sink down into an inconspicuous position, condemned alike by ecclesiastics and people as a disturber of the public peace.

In addition to what the Reformation had accomplished in Germany—where its defenders had been inspirited by the presence, intrepidity, and eloquence of Luther—its influences had become so extended in France as to alarm all who saw in it the probable loss of power, and the end of those oppressions by which they had so long and successfully maintained their authority. Protestant churches were erected, not only in Paris, but in all the principal cities and in every province of France. Henry II saw all this with intense dissatisfaction, and was therefore in a condition to look favorably upon suggestions from any quarter that would give promise of forcing back the advancing tide of popular enlightenment and Protestant progress. He inherited from his father the most intense malignity toward what he called the "new religion," mainly on account, unquestionably, of its tendency to endanger the absolutism of monarchy. And he also inherited a persecuting spirit, which, by indulgence, had outgrown that of his father. All students of French history are familiar with the chief events of his reign, which caused Henry of Navarre—afterwards Henry IV—Anthony de Bourbon, Louis de Condé, Admiral de Coligny, Francis d'Andelot, and other lords, to unite with the reformers, and place themselves in the lead of the Huguenots. With such accessions as these, the persecuted Protestants of France became formidable in all parts of the country, and Henry II found employment for all his royal resources in contriving methods for their suppression, an object of which he seldom lost sight. Wheresoever Protestantism appeared, the spirit of persecution rose up to extinguish it. An eminent French historian says: "During the reign of Francis I, within the space of twenty-three years, there had been eighty-one executions for heresy. During that of Henry II, twelve years, there were ninety-seven for the same cause; and at one of these execu[Pg 93]tions Henry II was present in person on the space in front of Notre Dame, a spectacle which Francis I had always refused to see." He states also that during the reign of Henry II, and the year before his death, "fifteen capital sentences had been executed in Dauphiny, in Normandy, in Poitou, and at Paris," and that, within that period, the penal legislation against heretics had been greatly increased in severity.[46]

Francis II was distinguished for nothing so much as for his uncompromising animosity to the Reformation, to all its legitimate fruits, and to those who professed Protestantism. He was entirely under the dominion of the Guises, who were the bloodiest and most unrelenting persecutors in France. To signalize his submission to them, he issued a royal proclamation, which they dictated, for razing to the ground and demolishing the houses in which the Protestants met for religious worship. Protestant assemblages were declared unlawful, and those who attended them were punishable with death, as were also those who sheltered and protected them. In about five months of this merciless reign, "eighteen persons were burned alive for heresy"—that is, for having professed the Protestant religion.[47]

In this condition France opened a broad and attractive field of operations for the Jesuits. Keeping steadily in view the principal and primary purpose of their organization—the suppression of the Reformation—they must have thirsted for an opportunity to bring their peculiar tactics into practice, not only for the accomplishment of this cherished object, but to reduce the Gallican Christians into such obedience to the papacy as would subject the temporal affairs of France to the dominion of Rome, when they expected to become, through the influence of Loyola over the pope, the chief agents in executing the papal mandates. The Cardinal of Lorraine—one of the Guises—was in full sympathy with[Pg 94] them; and as he had been instrumental in dictating the persecuting policy of Henry II and Francis I, he must have rejoiced at the opportunity of obtaining Jesuit assistance in a work so congenial to himself and them. He was "inordinately vain; intensely selfish; an adept in the art of dissimulation, which he used without scruple,"—and these qualities must have commended him to the Jesuits, as they, on account of possessing the same, were doubtless commended to him. That he was ambitious and a special favorite of the pope is indicated by the multiplicity of offices he filled at the same time. Besides being cardinal, he held two archbishoprics, six bishoprics, and was abbot for each of four monasteries.[48]

Such a man as the Cardinal of Lorraine could, of course, render most essential aid to the Jesuits, as the Jesuits could to him. He and Loyola were "par nobile fratrum," each possessing such qualities as fitted him to become a proficient auxiliary of the other in the pursuit of a common object. After he had succeeded in combining against the French Protestants all who were under royal influence, he hastened to Rome, where, under the immediate auspices of the pope, he desired to arrange with Loyola personally for the introduction of the Jesuits into France. To facilitate the measure, he proposed the establishment of the Inquisition in France, with the purpose of disposing of heretics according to the method employed against the Albigenses by Innocent III, and which had been, after many years of disuse, successfully revived in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, under papal patronage and protection. He was received with marked distinction at Rome by both the pope and Loyola; and, having experienced no difficulty in obtaining their approval of his proposed plan of operations, he returned to France to carry it into execution by exterminating Protestantism, destroying the liberties of the Gallican Christians, and re-establishing the unity of religious[Pg 95] faith by inquisitorial compulsion. He found the king still in full sympathy with him, and consequently had no difficulty in procuring from him royal letters-patent, by which he gave his consent to the Jesuits to enter France as an organized religious society, to build a house and college in Paris, and to "live therein according to their rules and statutes."[49]

These facts—narrated with all possible brevity—show the extraordinary means of which Loyola availed himself, in his lifetime, to force his society into France in opposition to the Gallican Church, the almost entire body of the Gallican Christians, and the people. Relying upon the aid of the pope, the king, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and such courtiers as crowded about the royal palace and echoed the royal will, he expected to overcome all opposition, and, by employing the terrible machinery of the Inquisition, to make himself master of France, or prepare the way for his successors to do so. And thus the founder and builder of the Jesuit society himself stamped upon it one of its leading and most distinguishing characteristics—the utter disregard of everything that does not contribute to its own ends and objects.

But the enemies of the Jesuits in France were not so easily reduced to submission as the Cardinal of Lorraine, the pope, and Loyola had supposed. The powerful combination they had formed, with the assistance of the king and his courtiers, was not sufficient to remove or counteract the deep-seated antipathy existing in France against the Jesuits. The orders of the king were not mandatory without the approval of Parliament, which was the highest public representative body in France. When the letters-patent of the king, admitting the Jesuits, came before Parliament, they were rejected with great unanimity, for the avowed reason that their introduction into France would be prejudicial to the public welfare and the Gallican Christians.[50] The bulk of the French clergy, and the entire faculty of the Uni[Pg 96]versity of Paris, also took strong and decided grounds against the Jesuits. The king, offended by this opposition to his royal will, and assuming an air of monarchical supremacy, commanded Parliament to register his letters-patent. But Parliament again refused, and appealed for advice to the Archbishop of Paris—the chief ecclesiastical functionary of the Church. The archbishop also decided against the Jesuits. The Faculty of Theology in the university unanimously charged them, among other things, with arrogant presumption in assuming "the unusual title of the name of Jesus," and with admitting into their society "all sorts of persons, however criminal, lawless, and infamous they may be." They further declared the society to be "dangerous as to matters of faith, capable of disturbing the peace of the Church, overturning the monastic orders, and were more adapted to break down than to build up." This severe indictment is made more important and conspicuous by the fact that it was not preferred by Protestants, but by Roman Catholics, who had for many centuries faithfully adhered to such teachings of the Church as had universally prevailed, before the popes, in imitation of temporal monarchs, had built up the papal system. In addition to all this, the Archbishop of Paris issued an interdict against them, forbidding their exercise of any of the sacred functions.[51] The Bishop of Paris followed with other interdictions, and the entire clergy denounced the Jesuits in the pulpits. Placards in censure of them were hawked about the streets. At last the public indignation against them became so intense and violent that they were driven out of Paris, and compelled to seek shelter elsewhere. They did this, however, as they had done when forced by the popular tumult to leave Saragossa; that is, with the seeming appearance of submission, but with the real purpose of renewing their efforts when some occasion attended by more favorable circumstances should arise—[Pg 97]when the royal authority could be more successfully employed to defy the Gallican Church and the popular sentiment. This was at that time, has been ever since, and is to-day, an essential part of Jesuit tactics, in the pursuit of which they are persistent and tireless. And where they have had the united aid of popes and monarchs, of Church and State, they have generally succeeded among populations not awakened by Protestant influences to a just appreciation of their own rights and dignity. In the case we have been considering they did not have very long to wait before the king, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and their allies, patronized by the pope, secured for them a conspicuous triumph over public opinion in France. The combination formed for that purpose needed their assistance in the bloody and congenial work of persecution, and this furnished a pretext for their introduction into France, notwithstanding the odium in which they were almost universally held. Nicolini says: "Soon they were called into France to help and cheer that atrocious and cruel hecatomb, that bloody debauch of priests and kings—the Saint Bartholomew."[52]

Thus far a clear and distinct view is furnished of the estimate in which the Jesuits were held during the lifetime of their founder by those who were steadfastly obedient to the Christian teachings of the Roman Church. None of the opposition here noted came from Protestants, but alone from those attached to the Church which the Jesuits professed to be serving. It originated with those who had a most favorable opportunity of becoming familiar with the general character and purposes of Loyola, many of whom, in all probability, had opportunities of seeing and conversing with him, as Melchior, the Dominican monk, had done. His boasts of extraordinary sanctity, of his frequent interviews with Christ and the Virgin Mary, and his impious pretense that he occupied the place of God in the world, and, like him, possessed miraculous powers, misled very few besides those who became[Pg 98] his minions, or those who expected to profit by alliance with him. We shall see all this still more fully in the subsequent events which attended the final introduction of the society into France, all of which combine to show the methods by which, in the course of time, it became odious to the Christian populations of Europe, was expelled ignominiously from all the Christian nations, and was, at last, when its iniquities could be patiently borne no longer, suppressed and abolished by a pope distinguished for his Christian virtue and purity of life.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] History of the Jesuits. By Nicolini. Page 80. History of the Jesuits. By Steinmetz. Vol. I, pp. 382-83.

[42] Nicolini, pp. 82-83.

[43] History of St. Ignatius Loyola. By Bartoli. Vol. II, p. 57.

[44] Ibid., p. 58.

[45] Ibid., p. 234.

[46] Outlines of the History of France. Abridged from Guizot, by Gustave Masson. Pages 283-285.

[47] Ibid., p. 287.

[48] Church of France. By Jervis. Vol. I, p. 129. History of the Jesuits. By Steinmetz. Vol. I, p. 390, and note 1.

[49] Steinmetz, Vol. I, pp. 391-92.

[50] Ibid., p. 392.

[51] Steinmetz, Vol. I, p. 395; Nicolini, p. 86; Apud Cretineau, Vol. I, p. 320; Coudrette, Vol. I, p. 42.

[52] Nicolini, p. 88.

The facts stated in the last chapter prove incontestably that the persistent efforts of the Jesuits to procure the establishment of their society in France as a recognized religious order were insidious and stealthy, if not incendiary, from the beginning. The Bishop of Clermont—influenced, probably, by the Cardinal of Lorraine—was favorable to them; and being the owner of a house in Paris, he offered it to them, that they might inaugurate the Jesuit method of education. But neither the French Parliament, nor the universities, nor the Gallican Church could be prevailed upon to withdraw their opposition. Consequently, in order to accomplish by indirection what was forbidden by law and the public sentiment, the Jesuits opened a college at Clermont, within the diocese and under the patronage of the bishop, and beyond the limits of the city of Paris.[53]

By the time of the death of Henry II the growth of Protestantism in France had become conspicuously marked. The Jesuit historian, Daurignac, represents this as a "calamity"—as a "deplorable state of things"—which it became necessary to counteract by the most active and efficient means. But as nothing could shake the stability of the people of Paris, it was deemed necessary to reach the population of that city by gradual approaches, after the manner of military commanders. Accordingly the Bishop of Pamiers was induced to solicit the assistance of the Jesuits in his diocese, and had no difficulty in finding enough of them to engage in that mission, for they were held in constant readiness to obey the orders of their superior. These Jesuit missionaries[Pg 100] are represented as having caused many who had professed Protestantism to renounce their "heretical errors," and as having commenced their educational plan of operations by establishing a college at Pamiers. Whatsoever else they did, they obeyed implicitly the teachings of their society, for it is boastingly said that they caused the Protestants to be treated as possessing no rights of citizenship worthy of regard; for "their books were destroyed and their preachers compelled to flee."[54] But the Jesuits were still unable, by these violent means, to obtain entrance into Paris, the combined opposition of the Gallican Christians and the Protestants—who had, by this time, become sufficiently numerous to take part in the controversy—being sufficiently formidable to keep them out.

While there is no evidence of a direct and positive alliance between the Gallican Christians and the Protestants, yet it is apparent that their united opposition to the Jesuits had created between them such common sentiments as materially softened the asperities which had previously separated them. This is seen in the fact that large and influential numbers of the former—notably many in Parliament and attached to the universities—became disposed to grant to the latter "entire freedom in the propagation of their doctrines and control of their clergy."[55] Even the king, bigot as he was, was constrained, in consequence of their rapidly increasing influence, to grant some concessions to the Protestants which it would have been far more agreeable to him to have withheld. They had rendered such essential service to the State as soldiers in the army of Francis I—who rewarded their patriotism by persecution—and had shown such marked courage in battle, that he was obliged, manifestly against his will, to recognize them as a power neither to be despised nor trifled with, unless a force could be employed to crush them out entirely. This was especially the case after the Prince of Condé became the acknowledged leader of the Huguenots. Fear, therefore, far more than the spirit of toleration, influ[Pg 101]enced the king in conceding to the Protestants the rights of citizenship, which he so grudgingly granted that his concession was almost a denial. That which was considered the most valuable was the allowance to the Protestants of the right to assemble in open conference at Poissy, and to consider and discuss such matters as pertained to their own interests and religious opinions. The sincerity and honesty of their religious convictions inspired them with the belief that if they could ever be submitted to the arbitrament of reason, they would, if not fully justified, be found entitled to legal protection in the open profession of them. On this account they considered the conference at Poissy as a favorable omen, and hailed its assembling with satisfaction. Their flattering anticipations, however, were not realized. It was not intended that reason and argument should avail anything in the presence of the only "legitimate authority"—that of Church and State; and the Jesuits were standing ready and filled with the most anxious solicitude to demonstrate that the highest duty of life consisted of "uninquiring obedience"—the closing of every avenue through which the light could reach the minds and consciences of the multitude. Evidences of this are found in what transpired at Poissy, where, for the first time in the history of France, the general of the Jesuits was allowed to appear in a public assemblage as the representative of the order, and to suppress any inquiry whatsoever into the matters which the conference was especially appointed to consider, except by ecclesiastics. From that time forward the Protestants were reminded at every step they took that the sleepless eyes of the Jesuits were constantly upon them, ready to drive them to their hiding-places, turn them over to the Inquisition, or hunt them, with tireless vigilance, to the point of entire extermination.

Referring to the conference at Poissy, and the liberality indicated toward the Protestants by the king when he consented that they should attend it, Daurignac instructs his readers that the pope "beheld with pain and regret" this[Pg 102] tendency toward liberalism and free religious thought; and that, in order to check the progress of events in that direction, he commanded Laynez—the immediate successor of Loyola as general of the Jesuits—to attend the conference at Poissy, with the view of preventing any adjustment of the existing religious differences, and deferring the final determination of them until they could be decided by the Council of Trent. Nobody can doubt that the object of the pope was to bring matters into such a condition as should require universal obedience to the decrees of that Council, by persuasion if possible, but by coercion if necessary. With the same end in view, the court of France continued its efforts to establish the Jesuits in Paris, well understanding what efficient aid they would willingly render in the work of suppressing every tendency toward liberalism and freedom of religious belief. The hostility of the Parliament toward the Jesuits, however, was so decided and violent that it still refused to yield obedience to the royal command; and affairs remained in this condition until the death of Henry II led to the introduction of other influences. It was then deemed necessary to invoke the aid of Catharine de Medicis, mother of the new king, Francis II, "to show a bold front against the incursions of heresy by at once compelling the Parliament to acknowledge and receive the Jesuits."[56] It was not difficult to enlist the aid of Catharine, who was always ready to promise anything either to mislead or destroy the Protestants, greatly preferring the latter. By her influence and authority royal orders were issued commanding the Parliament to ratify and register the letters-patent to the Jesuits which had been prepared by Henry II before his death. It should not be overlooked that this was an effort to force the Jesuits into Paris against the repeated remonstrances of Parliament, the universities, the leading ecclesiastical authorities of the Gallican Church, the whole body of the Gallican and Protestant Christians; and, in fact, against the existing laws and the[Pg 103] public sentiment of the people. A fact like this not only tends to show, but is convincing proof, that the Jesuits were ready to defy all these influences, and to disregard every existing law or custom that imposed the least restraint upon them, their controlling object being not only to aid the king and the pope in destroying the "liberties" of the Gallican Church and Christians, and thus subjecting France to the temporal domination of the papacy, but to destroy forever the free religious thought which Protestantism had introduced. "But," says the Jesuit Daurignac, evidently with regret, "the Parliament was as intractable as ever," still refusing to obey the mandate of the king, or to allow the Jesuits to enter Paris. If all this opposition to the wishes of the Parisian people had been the result of impulse, arising suddenly out of rapidly passing events, it might be passed over as a sudden outbreak and forgotten. But it was the result of a fixed, settled, and determinate papal policy, which had already had several centuries of growth, and which it was deliberately resolved to persist in until the heresy of Protestantism should be exterminated, and free religious thought made impossible. Such a contest as that was most congenial to the Jesuits, because they saw, in the achievement of these results, the fulfillment of the highest objects of their society. With a stake like that in view, backed by the king and the pope, they persisted in their course with untiring vigilance, considering the most serious difficulties they encountered as mere trifles compared with the end they hoped to reach. That they might be assured of the royal sympathy, the king, Francis II, was easily induced by Catharine de Medicis to issue "new letters-patent, with orders for their immediate enrollment by Parliament, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the assembly and of the Bishop of Paris."[57] But Parliament, still unyielding, submitted them to the four Faculties of the university, "thus indicating," says Daurignac, "a disposition 'not to submit even to the authority of royalty,'"[Pg 104] a most grievous offense, which, in those days, was considered a flagrant sin. The conclusion of the four Faculties was that the Jesuits were "inadmissible," based upon satisfactory reasons which were fully assigned. This obstinacy was unpardonable, and, inasmuch as it could not be overcome by direct means, the Jesuits, at last, were driven to the necessity of resorting to indirection, manifestly intending, if thereby successful, to regain whatsoever ground they might be compelled to lose. Accordingly they changed their tactics, and in order to remove the existing obstacles, declared, in a petition to the king, that if admitted into Paris they would conform to the laws of the country, and "to the Church of France," a purpose they had never avowed before, and which subsequent events proved they did not then intend to fulfill. But the Parliament was not entrapped by this Jesuitical device, and, in response, proposed to the king that they would withdraw their objection to the Jesuits upon the condition that they should cease "to apply to the society the name of Jesus; and that, moreover, they should not be considered as a religious order in the diocese of Paris, but be designated simply as members of a society,"[58] with civil rights exclusively. This probably was a mere subterfuge, inasmuch as the Jesuits could not have consented to the proposition without self-destruction. It shows, however, how intense was the opposition to the society.

The whole Christian population of Paris, including both the Gallicans and Protestants, were thrown into a condition of intense excitement when Charles IX ascended the throne as the successor of Francis II. The Protestants were in fear of total extermination; and the Gallican Christians were convinced that the main object of the Jesuits, the pope, and the monarchical rulers of the country, was to change the destiny of France by bringing the country into humiliating obedience to Rome, both in religious and temporal affairs, without any regard whatsoever to their system of Church[Pg 105] government, or to the integrity of their ancient Christian faith. Charles IX was a mere child, only nine years of age, and was, consequently, the mere creature of his mother, Catharine de Medicis, whose familiarity with court intrigues enabled her, as guardian of the king, to grasp all the powers of queen regent, without reference to the sentiments or will of the French people. She relied solely upon the possession of the powers and prerogatives of royalty to maintain her authority; and, being an Italian, her character resembled as nearly that of the prince portrayed by Machiavelli, her countryman, as that of any other ruler who ever governed. She was always profuse in her promises when she considered them necessary to gain her objects; but never regarded herself bound by them beyond her own pleasure. She violated them at will, whensoever her royal or personal interests required it. In her dealings with the French Huguenots she practiced treachery and perfidy to an extent which would have brought a blush to the cheek of a Turkish sultan. She was, therefore, a fit instrument in the hands of the papal authorities and the Jesuits to bring France and the French Christians in subjugation to Rome—an object which, as an Italian and foreigner, was especially attractive to her. She caused the king to yield, or readily yielded herself, as the king had no will of his own, to the entreaties of the Jesuits by again requiring of Parliament that it should consent to their establishment in Paris without further delay. But the Jesuits were still so obnoxious that Parliament continued to hesitate, and demanded an explanation of the reasons for a step of such doubtful propriety, and so in conflict with public opinion. In explanation, one of the leading Jesuits, with "much eloquence," it is said by Daurignac, "clearly and energetically exposed the plans and projects of the Calvinists," or Protestants, and "the machinations and collusions existing between them and the university for the purpose of obtaining their ends;" that is, their united efforts to establish in France the freedom of religious belief—a form of heresy which the disciples of Loyola had solemnly sworn[Pg 106] to eradicate. This open avowal of the only motive which influenced the Jesuits surrounded the controversy with so much delicacy and importance, that it was referred by the Parliament to the States General, as the representative of the whole nation, or to the next National Council of the Church. Thus we find constantly accumulating the most conclusive evidence to show the persistence of the Jesuits, and how steadily and earnestly they were resisted by the best and most enlightened part of the French people.

The Jesuits were unquestionably much discomfited and chagrined at this continued resistance, and were constrained to seek assistance from every available quarter. The nobility of Auvergne were consequently persuaded to interpose in their behalf by soliciting the admission of the society into all the towns of that province, evidently supposing if that were done that the Jesuits would soon diffuse themselves throughout the whole country. That the entire destruction of Protestantism was the only and ultimate end they contemplated is sufficiently proven by the fact that in their petition to the king, wherein they asked for the introduction of the Jesuits, they said: "Unless the king wishes the whole of Auvergne to fall into heresy, it is necessary that the Society of Jesus should be admitted into France."[59]

These proceedings were soon followed by the National Council of the French Church at Poissy, to which, as we have seen, the Protestants had looked forward with so much anxiety, anticipating it as an occasion when they would be permitted to make known the reasons of their religious belief. It was attended by the queen regent, the king, and the entire royal court, representing monarchical power; by five cardinals, forty archbishops and bishops, and numerous doctors, in behalf of the Church; by several Calvinist ministers, representing that form of faith; and by Henry, King of Navarre, and the Prince of Condé, representing the Huguenots and the general Protestant sentiment in favor of[Pg 107] religious liberty. Such a body, under ordinary circumstances, might have enabled the Protestants to realize their hopes, at least to the extent of convincing the authorities of the Government that they were loyal to it, and obedient to all its commands, except in the single particular of desiring to be left free to follow their own consciences in the worship of God. But Laynez, the Jesuit general, was also there, to demand conformity to the requirements of the papacy and of his society, that no discussion should be tolerated, and that "uninquiring obedience" to authority should be exacted from all. To him and to his society it was impossible to preserve the union of Church and State without this; and if this were not done, its joint monarchism would be endangered. Accordingly he took especial pains to point out to the king and queen-mother "the indecency and danger" of the free discussion of questions of religious faith, by those who were disposed to defend Protestantism, in such an assembly. Daurignac says that Laynez was "shocked and grieved by the fearful blasphemies which had fallen from the lips of one Peter Martyr, an apostate monk," who had ventured to express his opinions freely. He considered it improper for any but theologians—that is, those whose minds had been already molded and fashioned to obedience—to be present upon such occasions. This rebuke offended the queen-mother, who withdrew from the Council. But this did not disconcert the Jesuit general, who was not so easily turned from his purpose. He knew the character of her majesty thoroughly, and said to the Prince of Condé, "She is a great dissembler," believing, as he undoubtedly did, that whatsoever she might then do or say, he would, in the end, bring her into obedience to the Jesuit purposes. He soon had convincing proof of his power; for the queen, the king, and the nobles never afterwards appeared in the Council, and the Jesuit general had the matter in his own hands.[60] Instead of bringing the conference to any practical results,[Pg 108] favorable in the least degree to freedom of conscience, Laynez succeeded in causing it to contribute to measures having reference to the admission of the Jesuits into all parts of France.[61] The Protestants were dismayed, and the Jesuits were triumphant. Laynez then became the leader of the orthodox party, and from that time commanded an influence which Loyola himself did not acquire. We shall see hereafter how far-reaching and controlling this influence was.

After Laynez left the Council at Poissy, flushed with triumph, he repaired at once to the General Council of Trent, which was then in session, as a special legate of the pope—Pius IV—who had discovered in him such qualities as he supposed might become available in helping the sinking fortunes of the papacy. This was the first appearance of a Jesuit general in such a body, or in other general ecclesiastical assemblages, and consequently dates the beginning of a new era in the history of the Roman Church. Christianity had prevailed for more than fifteen hundred years without the aid of such a society as the Jesuits; but as that wonderful organization had been conceived by the restless brain of Loyola for the sole purpose of suppressing the Reformation and all its enlightening influences, it was readily accepted by the papal authorities as a valuable help, after the pope had given it his indorsement. Hence, Laynez was received by the Council of Trent with unusual manifestations of joy and enthusiasm. The prelates of the Council had undoubtedly been notified of his success at Poissy in obtaining the mastery over Catharine de Medicis, and, through her, over the king and court of France, as well as over the Protestants. Preference was shown him over all the representatives of the ancient religious orders of the Church, and when the latter complained of this, upon the ground that the Jesuit society was only of recent origin, the Council decided against them on account of the important services which the Jesuits, by means of their compact organization, would be[Pg 109] able to render the cause of the papacy. And to manifest this preference of the Jesuits over the other orders, so that it could not be mistaken, a pulpit was prepared for Laynez in a conspicuous place in the Council chamber, so that whatsoever he said should be distinctly heard.[62] The monastic orders were not satisfied with the inferior position thus assigned to them, and murmured, but could not help it.

Such a reception as this by so distinguished a body of prelates as the Council of Trent, was well calculated to incite the pride and ambition of the Jesuits—especially of Laynez—and to create in their minds the belief that if they continued to pursue the cautious but aggressive policy of Loyola, they would bring the pope and all the ecclesiastical authorities of the Church into obedience to them. Manifestly, the society considered this the ultimate end contemplated by Loyola; and Laynez was sufficiently skilled in the methods of government to understand the necessity of obtaining from the Council of Trent the recognition of the superiority of the Jesuits over the monastic orders. He had not yet succeeded in accomplishing the admission of the society into France, and this he evidently regarded as an important step in that direction. Flattering as was his reception by the Council, it was not all he desired. He considered an additional step necessary to obtain from the Council a full approval of the reasons assigned by Loyola to justify the establishment of his society. Accordingly, after the Council had passed upon the questions of faith and dogma, it proceeded to investigate "the causes of the evils which afflicted the Church." This opened an exceedingly broad field of inquiry, and resulted, doubtless as Laynez desired, in the conclusion stated by Daurignac, "that these causes were, principally, the ignorance and immorality of a great portion of the clergy and the monastic orders," and that "the best remedy for this great evil was to prepare Christian generations by a good system of education;"[63] that is to say, that any effort to re[Pg 110]form the existing clergy and ancient orders would be unavailing, but that the remedy lay in educating other and future generations. It is easy to see that this conclusion was unavoidable under the doctrine established by the same Council, and affirmed also by the Jesuits, that the clergy who lead virtuous and those who lead vicious lives, possess the same power and authority in the Church.

This was a great triumph for Laynez and his society, inasmuch as it was a specific approval by the Council of Trent of the grounds upon which Loyola had justified the creation of the Jesuit society; that is, the incompetency of the Church to reform itself without extraneous aid, apart from the existing clergy and the monastic orders, and the necessity for an educational organization, like that of the Jesuits, to be maintained by authority and discipline for that purpose.[64] And thus equipped by so important an indorsement, the Jesuits at once assumed to have been constituted, with Divine approval, the exclusive educators of the world, and to be endowed with authority to enter every nation at will, and so to train and discipline the "Christian generations" as to bring them down to a common level of obedience to the united authority of Church and State.

Without the indorsement obtained by the Jesuits from the Council of Trent, they might have been kept out of Paris entirely, or, at all events, their entry into that city would have been greatly delayed. As it was, the antipathy against them remained so great and universal among the Gallican Christians, that their admission at last was obtained only upon the condition that they should take a solemn oath to do nothing to impair the liberties of the Gallican Church; that they would submit to the laws of the nation, which recognized the pope as the head of the Church, but denied to him the power to excommunicate the king; or to lay an interdict upon the kingdom; or to exercise any jurisdiction over temporal matters; or to dismiss bishops from their[Pg 111] office; or to exercise any authority by a legate, unless empowered by the king; and that they would, moreover, maintain those provisions of law which assigned to a General Council of the Church power superior to that of a pope—in other words, that papal infallibility was not a part of Christian faith.[65] There is abundant reason for believing, in view of both preceding and subsequent events, that when the Jesuits took this oath, they had not the least idea of being bound by it. No Jesuit's conscience was ever bound by such an oath.

The authority of Laynez, under the circumstances related, became potential enough to enable him to influence the decisions of the queen-mother and the court of France, and finding himself thus sustained, it was not long before the Jesuit policy began to bear its legitimate fruits. Of course, his most heavily charged batteries were immediately opened upon the Protestants, to whose heresies he traced all the existing evils of the times. An occasion for this soon occurred. The Protestants petitioned for "places of worship;" that is, merely to be allowed to worship at designated places according to their consciences. Laynez fully understood the meaning of this, and the ends it would ultimately accomplish if the Protestant petition were allowed. His keen sagacity enabled him to know that if the differences between Protestantism and the papacy became the subject of intellectual discussion, upon a forum where human reason had the right to assert itself, the triumph of the former over the latter would be assured. Therefore, true to his own instincts and the teachings of his society, he remonstrated with Catharine de Medicis against granting the prayer of the Protestants, and in his memorial upon the subject "pointed out to her so forcibly the danger to the Church and State that such a concession would entail, that, appreciating his arguments, she refused to sanction the erection of Protestant places of worship."[Pg 112][66]

These facts—related upon Jesuit authority, and boasted of by their historians—furnish the most palpable and incontestable proof of the conspiracy of Catharine de Medicis and the Jesuits, after the latter obtained admission into France, to suppress the freedom of religious worship, and so to mold the policy of Church and State as to render its existence impossible. It was an odious and revolting conspiracy; but the objects to be accomplished justified it in the eyes of the queen, of Laynez, and of all his followers. It was the cardinal point of the professed Jesuit policy—the most prominent feature of their organization. No imagination is fertile enough to picture the condition into which the civilized world would have been plunged if this conspiracy, besides its temporary and bloody triumph in France, had become sufficiently powerful to dictate the Governments of modern States. The Gallican Christians had for centuries successfully resisted all attempts of the papacy to interfere with the temporal affairs of France; and whilst they disagreed with Protestants upon questions of religious faith, the two forces were united in opposition to the Jesuits, because of the direct hostility of the latter to both. Each could see that the entrance of the society into France, under the control and dominion of an alien power, would be the introduction of a disturbing and hostile element, which would put an end to the concord and harmony then rapidly springing up between the two Christian bodies. This the Jesuits intended to prevent by whatsoever means they could manage to employ; for, from the beginning of their existence, they have opposed everything they could not subjugate. Therefore they realized the importance of having the monarchical power upon their side—especially when they saw it wielded by such a queen as Catharine de Medicis—so that by conspiracy with it against the Gallican Christians and the Protestants, they could destroy the liberties of the former, and entirely suppress the spirit of free inquiry asserted by the latter. Keeping these objects always before them, the Jesuits considered them of sufficient magnitude to justify any form of intrigue; and[Pg 113] they were sufficiently familiar with the qualities of the queen to know that she possessed such love of power and capacity for conspiracy that they could successfully play upon her ambition and prejudices to accomplish their purposes.

There is no intelligent reader of French history who is not familiar with the steps taken by this perfidious queen regent, after the admission of the Jesuits into Paris, to bring about the terrible Massacre of St. Bartholomew—an event so closely allied with others, of which they were the undoubted authors, that one must close his eyes not to see the evidences which point to their agency in that infamous transaction. They needed such bloody work to give them the mastery over France; and although they have since then been more than once expelled in disgrace from French soil, they have returned again and again to torment her people, who still continue to realize, under their Republic, how unceasingly they labor for the entire overthrow of every form of popular government.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] Daurignac, Vol. I, p. 36.

[54] Daurignac, Vol. I, pp. 103-104.

[55] Ibid., p. 104.

[56] Daurignac, Vol. I, p. 105.

[57] Daurignac, Vol. I, p. 105.

[58] Daurignac, Vol. I, p. 106.

[59] Daurignac, Vol. I, p. 107.

[60] Daurignac, Vol. I, pp. 108-109.

[61] Church in France. By Jervis. Vol. I, p. 146.

[62] Daurignac, Vol. I, pp. 111-112.

[63] Ibid., p. 114.

[64] Daurignac, Vol. I, pp. 177-178.

[65] Nicolini, pp. 177-178.

[66] Daurignac, Vol. I, p. 110.

The Jesuits encountered less difficulty in establishing themselves in Germany than in either Spain, Portugal, or France. Race differences may have occasioned this. The populations resting upon the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic descended from the early Celts, and became readily Latinized. They accepted the traditionary religion of Rome; knew comparatively little of the Bible, which was a sealed book to them; and received their Christian faith only from the Roman clergy. There was no word in any of their languages which signified liberty in the sense of a right derived from the law of nature. With them, liberty conveyed the idea of a franchise, granted by authority, and subject to be withdrawn at pleasure. Hence they yielded implicit obedience to Rome, and accepted it as consistent with the Divine will that no other than the Romish religion should be recognized or tolerated, and that force might be justifiably employed to suppress all others when it was deemed necessary to do so. Consequently they were inclined at first to resist—or, at least, to look suspiciously upon—the Jesuits, inasmuch as Loyola had declared it to be the controlling reason for the creation of the society that the ancient monastic orders and the clergy had by their vices endangered the Church. This seemed heretical, and therefore they practiced towards him and his followers at first their accustomed intolerance. They preferred the old system, to which they had become accustomed, to anything new, with regard either to the Church or the faith. Accordingly we find that among the Latin populations the influence of the pope became necessary to the[Pg 115] admission and establishment of the Jesuit society. They yielded only to his authority, because they regarded disobedience of him as heresy.

It was otherwise with the Germans. As the descendants of the old Teutons, they had some conceptions of natural liberty, and had indicated a desire for popular government by the election of their kings. The Scriptures had been placed in their hands as early as the fourth century, when Bishop Ulfilas translated the Gospels and part of the Old Testament into the Gothic language, thereby making them accessible to the people, and stimulating the desire to read and understand them. This created a sense of individuality, which soon became more diffused than elsewhere in Europe, thus making the Germans an intelligent and tolerant race. Their tolerance, therefore, when the Jesuits appeared, prevented any popular commotion. By that time the influences of the Reformation had become greatly extended, and had impressed the minds of a large number of the German people. Protestantism had become established, and the population was divided into two religious parties—Roman Catholic and Protestant. But these parties, influenced towards each other by the old Teutonic liberality and tolerance, lived together in perfect peace and harmony, each maintaining its own religious faith and worship without interference by the other. There were also divisions among the Protestants—some being the followers of Luther, and others of Calvin. But there was no religious strife between Roman Catholics and Protestants. According to the German custom of that period, there were earnest disputations about doctrines, but no tumult—nothing to disturb the quiet of society. Persecution on account of religious differences was entirely unknown; a persecutor would have been considered a public enemy. The true spirit of Christianity prevailed—the natural consequence of the same form of religious liberty provided for by the institutions of the United States, and which might now exist throughout the Christian world, but for the bane[Pg 116]ful influences of Jesuitism. The Venetian ambassador, then in Germany, thus describes the peaceful condition of the German Christians:

"One party has accustomed itself to put up with the other so well, that, in any place where there happens to be a mixed population, little or no notice is taken as to whether a person is a Catholic or Protestant. Not only villages, but even families, are in this manner mixed up together, and there even exist houses where the children belong to one persuasion while the parents belong to the other, and where brothers adhere to opposite creeds. Catholics and Protestants, indeed, intermarry with each other, and no one takes any notice of the circumstance, or offers any opposition thereto."[67]

The German author to whom we are indebted for the above extract says, in addition, "Even many princes of the Catholic Church in Germany went even a step further, and appointed men who were thorough Protestants to situations at their courts as counselors, judges, magistrates, or whatever other office it might be, without any opposition or objection being offered thereto." And these, he adds in a note, "were not at all exceptional cases."[68]

Notwithstanding Germany was enjoying this state of calm and repose, under the influence of that religious toleration which is the natural outgrowth of all the teachings of Christ, and has the full sanction of his example, it afforded neither pleasure nor satisfaction to the ecclesiastical supporters of the papacy at Rome. They saw in it the threatened destruction of the papal system, and the ruin of their ambitious hopes, unless, by some means, this spirit of religious toleration and liberalism could be entirely extirpated. They regarded Protestantism and the liberty which gave birth to it as heretical, as the worst and most flagrant violations of God's law. How to put an end to this liberty, and destroy[Pg 117] all its fruits, was the practical question which agitated the mind of the pope. He was willing enough to imitate the example of Innocent III in his treatment of the Albigenses, by beginning the work of persecution in Germany, and turning over the Protestants to the Inquisition, for that would have conformed to the Canon law. But there were difficulties in the way not easily overcome. The Inquisition was not likely to carry on its murderous work as successfully in Germany as among the Latin races trained to obedience. The Germans were not so docile and submissive. And, besides, the influences of the Reformation, under the impulse given them by the courageous example of Luther, had reached some of the most powerful princes in Germany, who would have stood as a strong wall of protection against all such assaults. They were not willing to obey the pontifical command when it required that papal emissaries should be allowed at pleasure to burn their own subjects at the stake, and desolate their homes. Excommunication had nearly run its course. It had been so frequently employed to promote the personal ambition of popes, and for trifling and temporal purposes, that it was fast coming into disrepute. Its influence was so impaired that it had, in a large degree, lost its effectiveness. Protestant Churches could not be closed by edicts of interdict. The attempt to release the German people from allegiance to their princes, would have been as ineffectual as the command of King Canute when he ordered the waves of the ocean to retire. Any form of papal malediction and anathema would have been unavailing.

Howsoever sick at heart the pope may have been at this prospect so fatal to his ambition, he was not reduced to entire despair. He did not abandon the hope of bringing back the German princes to the old religion, and employing them as secular aids in such measures of coercion as should be found necessary to reduce the people into obedience. He found the old ecclesiastical weapons somewhat blunted, and looked around for others. Fortune seemed, at last, to smile upon the pope when, casting his eyes around, they rested[Pg 118] upon the Jesuits—the freshly enlisted "militia of the Church"—who, without any sense of either pride or shame, were trained to implicit obedience, without stopping to inquire whether the work required of them was good or bad, noble or ignoble. Called upon by the pope, probably at the suggestion of Loyola himself, the Jesuits were as ready to obey as the latter was to command, even to the extent of conspiring against the peace of Germany, or any other country where barriers had been constructed to protect society against aggression. But the method of procedure was by no means clear. Courageous as Loyola was, he could not venture to send his small army into Germany with an open display of the instruments of persecution in their hands. They could not go as the open defenders of the papal dogmas, for they were unable to speak or understand the German language. If they had even been able to make known their opinions and purposes, they could not have withstood the intense indignation and fiery eloquence of the disciples of Luther and Calvin. The occasion, therefore, demanded of Loyola the exercise of his keen penetration—of that wonderful sagacity which never deserted him, and which, at his death, he succeeded in imparting to his successor. The manner of procedure he finally adopted is suggestive of serious reflection, especially to the people of the United States.

If it be true that "history repeats itself," and that nations, moving in fixed cycles, follow each other in their courses, the remembrance of the fact that many of them, once prosperous, have passed out of existence, admonishes us to inquire with exceeding caution into the relations which these same Jesuits have created between themselves and our institutions. They have not changed, but are still the infatuated and vindictive followers of Loyola, and it is well for us to know whether there are not evidences that, if permitted, they may repeat here what their society, at the command of its founder, attempted in Germany, under the pretense that God had appointed them to conspire against any free and[Pg 119] independent nation they could not otherwise subjugate. The people of the United States spend their time in the pursuit of a thousand objects, and in the investigation of a thousand questions, not the thousandth part as important to them as this.

Military men have long been accustomed to reserve sappers and miners as helps in the emergencies of war. These always attack under cover, approaching by slow and stealthy degrees, like the tiger or the cat. They do not take the chances of actual conflict, and never expose themselves to the leaden hail of battle. When the walls of a fortress can not be battered down by direct assault, they secretly undermine them; and when the fuse is lighted, the magazine exploded, and the dead scattered in all directions, they return to their hiding-places unharmed, to share in the rewards of victory.

Loyola was a skillful and courageous soldier, perfectly familiar with all the plans and strategies of war. In the organization of his society, he had availed himself of his knowledge both of the motives of men and of the movements of armies. Hence, when he submitted to the pope his proposed methods of operation, he took the precaution to impress him with its importance and necessity, by declaring that, as its head, he should consider himself "as the representative of Christ, the commander-in-chief of the heavenly hosts," and as engaged in "the war service of Christ," with an army bound by solemn oaths to obey him implicitly "in every particular, and on all occasions."[69] Hence, also, speaking of his society, he said: "We must be always ready to advance against the enemy, and be always prepared to harass him or to fall upon him, and on that account we must not venture to tie ourselves to any particular place;"[70] that is, that Jesuits must secretly skulk about over the world, without habitations or homes, and, paying no allegiance to any opposing authority, to "harass" Protestants wheresoever they are[Pg 120] found—like freebooters upon the sea—leaving no tracks behind them.

The "chief thing" with the Jesuits, says Greisinger, was to obtain the sole direction of education, so that by getting the young into their hands, they could fashion them after their own pattern, and, by holding them down to the low standard of passive and "uninquiring obedience," fit them to become subservient slaves of monarchical and papal power. Nobody need be told the impressible character of the youthful mind, or how the stamp made upon it becomes indelible. Loyola understood this, and, realizing the impossibility of arresting the progressive advancement of Germany under Protestant influences, or to uproot the tolerant spirit that prevailed there among both Protestants and Roman Catholics, by any of the usual methods of papal coercion, he insidiously planned the scheme of bringing Germany back to papal obedience by Jesuitical training in the German schools. The process was slow, it is true, but the stake was great; and no man could have known better than he how surely it would be won, if the minds of the young could be cramped and dwarfed by Jesuit teaching.

In the Jesuit seminaries and schools, at the period here referred to, the Latin language—being the language of the Church—grammar, and rhetoric were taught, preparatory to a college course, which last was confined to philosophy and theology. The latter was regarded as the most important, because it culminated in obedience to papal authority, and was centered in the idea that it was impossible to reach heaven by any other methods than those prescribed by the Roman Church. Of course, no education could be perfected, in the estimation of the Jesuits, that did not conform to their own standard by requiring the pupils to surrender their manhood into the keeping of their superiors, as they had done themselves, and thereby become pieces of human machinery, to be moved about at the will and pleasure of those whom they were taught to regard as God's vicegerents upon earth. No matter where Jesuit colleges or schools have ex[Pg 121]isted, or yet exist, this has always been the primary and chief object and end of the education furnished by them. When it stops short of this, it is a failure; but when this object is accomplished, the society exultingly adds its fresh recruits to the papal militia, to be marshaled against Protestantism, enlightenment, and popular government, under commanders who never tolerate disobedience.

Pope Julius III—successor of Paul III—in aid of the conspiracy against Germany, granted an extension of the privileges originally conferred upon the Jesuits, and, at the suggestion of Loyola, authorized him to establish a German college (Collegium Germanicum) in Rome. The object of this was, not to teach the German language to the Spanish, French, and Italian pupils then being educated in Rome in the Collegium Romanum, but to procure German youths to be taught there under Jesuit auspices and the patronage of the pope, so that upon their return home they would disseminate Jesuit opinions and influences among the people, and thus arrest the progress of Protestantism, and put an end to the religious toleration prevailing among the Protestant and Roman Catholic Germans. In execution of this purpose, steps were at once taken to procure from Germany some young men, to be brought to Rome and put in training for the ecclesiastical subjugation of their countrymen. That such was the sole object will not be doubted by any intelligent investigator of the facts. Germany was well supplied with colleges and schools, where the standard of education was higher than at Rome; but they were under Protestant management and control, and therefore considered heretical. It was the odious form of heresy embodied in Protestantism that Loyola and his followers were sworn to exterminate, and these young Germans were carried to Rome that they might be disciplined and educated for that purpose—to undermine the institutions of their own country! Have the Jesuits ever changed their purpose to make the extermination of Protestantism a leading and central feature of their educational system? Have they abandoned any of[Pg 122] the methods employed by Loyola himself for that purpose? We shall see as our investigations proceed.

But the institution of a Jesuit college at Rome was not the only means employed, inasmuch as more immediate and active measures were considered necessary. Therefore, whilst that was left to bear its fruits at a later period, the Jesuits sent into Germany some of their prudent and sagacious members, such as they supposed would be likely to exercise influence over the princes, so that through them the whole German population might be reached. These princes were the acknowledged representatives of monarchism, and it was believed that if they could be persuaded to accept the Jesuit emissaries as their allies, the usual methods of papal compulsion could be employed with impunity. In this the Jesuits calculated sagaciously, and were enabled to establish several colleges in Germany, and ultimately to begin an open and direct war upon Protestantism. They did not invoke the aid of reason. They neither invited nor allowed calm discussion with learned Protestant theologians, but relied entirely upon the united authority of the pope and the princes—that is, upon monarchical power. Finding the Lutherans and the Calvinists divided upon theological questions, they availed themselves of every opportunity to incite them to mutual strife, insisting, as they have ever since continued to do, that there can be but one true form of Christian faith, which every human being is obliged to accept, or to offend God. Seemingly insensible to the fact that the Creator has made the minds of men to differ as their faces and features, they were sagacious enough to know that differences of opinion upon religious as upon all other subjects could be prevented only by force and coercion. Therefore, to compel uniformity of faith and to uproot Protestantism, they persuaded some of the princes, especially those of Bavaria, to believe that the principle of monarchy was endangered, and would be entirely destroyed, if the influences of the Reformation were not obliterated. That such was, and yet is, the natural effect of these influences is true; and there[Pg 123]fore, as these princes could easily see that, if popular institutions were established in Germany, their princely occupations would be threatened, they became the willing tools of the Jesuits. The Duke of Bavaria was one of the most submissive, as he was the most willing to become a persecutor. He had been educated by the Jesuits, and consequently was soon induced to exhibit "the utmost earnestness" in adopting measures for destroying all the influences of the Reformation, and putting an end to Protestantism.[71] He was resolved, says Nicolini, "not to leave a vestige of those new doctrines which, for the last forty years, had been spreading so fast in his kingdom." Neither he nor the Jesuits made the least disguise of the fact that all their efforts were directed to the single object of preventing the freedom of religious belief. His first step to this end was to require that the Profession of Faith prescribed by the Council of Trent should be subscribed and adhered to; that is, that Protestants should renounce the religion which their consciences approved, and accept that which their consciences did not approve. That the people might be brought into obedience and forced to this, "he sent through all the provinces swarms of Jesuits, accompanied by bands of troopers, whose bayonets came to the aid of the preachers when their eloquence was unsuccessful in converting the heretics"—that is, the Protestants. Those who remained unsubdued were expelled from their estates. Prohibited books were seized and burned. All the ancient practices were revived. And, "above all," says Ranke, "the Jesuit institutions were promoted; for by their agency it was, that the youth of Bavaria were to be educated in a spirit of strict orthodoxy"—which meant then, what with the Jesuits it still means, opposition to religious freedom.

For a time the Jesuits were restrained in Austria by Ferdinand I and Maximilian; but during the reign of Ru[Pg 124]dolph II they became bolder and more exacting. The provincial of the society obtained great influence over Rudolph, and was urgent in his demands that he should extirpate heresy from his dominions. At last he succeeded in inducing Rudolph to inaugurate a general persecution of the Lutherans, and "the greatest atrocity and the utmost rigor were displayed in destroying every trace of Protestantism." The work of extirpation began in the cities. "The Reformed clergy were removed, and their places filled by Catholic priests." A religious formula was prescribed, which required universal assent to the doctrine "that everything is true which the Church of Rome has laid down as the rule of life and doctrine," and that "the pope is the head of one Apostolic Church." The Protestants were expelled from all offices of State. Papists alone could become burghers. Doctors' degrees in the universities were conferred only upon those who subscribed to the Roman Confession of Faith. The Jesuit schools were governed by regulations "which prescribed Catholic formularies, fasts, worship, according to the Catholic Ritual," and all the pupils were taught the Jesuit Catechism. All Protestant books were seized and taken away from booksellers' shops, and all that were found in the custom-houses were confiscated. And the historian, summing it all up, says: "All through Germany the same proceedings were resorted to, and everywhere we find the Jesuits foremost in the reaction. There was no bishop, no prince, who went to visit a province upon religious concerns, who did not bring with him a troop of Jesuits, who, on his departure, were often left there with almost unlimited powers."[72]

The task of becoming familiar with the history of those times is formidable; but its performance will amply repay the careful and thoughtful student, inasmuch as the events which then transpired materially influenced the subsequent[Pg 125] condition of the world. Especially did they influence that current of affairs which caused the most enlightened nations to drift towards religious freedom and popular government, the two great and inseparable factors in modern progress. At the period here referred to, true Christian civilization, as inspired by the charity and gentleness exhibited in the life of Christ, seemed to hang, for a time, at equipoise in the balance. The struggle for mastery between the light of the Reformation and the darkness of the Middle Ages was long and fierce, and occasionally doubtful. One can not fail to see that the spirit of liberty had been so nearly crushed out by the monarchism of Church and State, that it required the finger of Providence to point out the way to the revival of primitive Christianity, and the restoration of its beneficial influences upon the consciences and lives of the vast multitudes who had been long held in inferiority. The student will find the conflict instructive at every point. It will bring into view perfidy and treachery where there ought to have been confidence and fair dealing, shameful betrayals of the cause of truth and justice, and the heartless sacrifice of many thousands of inoffensive people. It will show popes and kings uniting their power in the cause of oppression and wrong, and shamelessly practicing vices condemned equally by the laws of God and man. Many figures conspicuous in history will appear, among them that of the great Emperor Charles V. He will be seen procuring imperial dominion over a people he did not know, and whose language he could neither speak nor understand; quarreling with the pope one day and threatening to subvert his throne, and becoming reconciled the next, in order that monarchism should be strengthened; sending savage hordes of armed men to crush out the spirit of religious liberty in his native Netherlands by blood and murder; promising protection to the German Protestants in order to obtain their assistance in his war against the Turks, and afterwards betraying and persecuting them for heresy; uniting for a time with the pope against the king of France, and then with the king of France against[Pg 126] the pope; forcing the pope to convene a General Council, and pretending to grant by his famous "Interim" some shadowy rights to Protestants, in order that they might ultimately be compelled to accept the faith as the Council should decree; and at last, when his successes were turned into adversities and his tortuous policy involved him in disappointment, abdicating his royal authority, retiring to a monastery, and confiding the infamous work of persecuting Protestants and desolating his native land to his cold-blooded and murderous son. Then, as the scene shifts, Philip II will appear, with his vicegerent, the Duke of Alva, and his bloodthirsty crew, the sounds of whose warlike bugles were drowned by the piercing cries of their Protestant victims. Then may also be seen, passing in panoramic view, the whole land of the Netherlands drenched in the blood of innocent and persecuted Protestants; the Spanish and Italian Inquisitions carrying on their horrible work with so much activity that its machinery was never still; France trembling upon the threshold of ruin, and her kings and queens forming leagues with the Huguenots, to be immediately and perfidiously violated; and Germany, torn into factions by the discord between princes and people which was born of Jesuit intrigue, offering a tempting field to the emissaries of the papacy, wherein usurped and illegitimate authority might revel whilst the "sacred militia" of Loyola rejoiced at the triumph they had won over Protestantism and free religious thought.

Through all these courses of events the Jesuits steadily appeared—alike indifferent to the wounds they inflicted upon the Church and the agonies of their unnumbered victims. As confessors and confidants of kings, their exertions to enshroud the world in the pall of monarchism were ceaseless and untiring. They climbed into offices of state, and molded the temporal policy of popes and kings. They moved sovereigns from right to left, forward or backward, as children amuse themselves with toys. They exchanged the humble worship of the altar for the glitter of courts, as if[Pg 127] Christ in his life had set the example of ambitious display. They enrolled sovereigns and princes in the ranks of their defenders, and by their help drove Protestant preachers from their pulpits, Protestant professors and teachers from their colleges and schools, and Protestant people into the deepest depths of humiliation, by such measures of compulsion and repression as it must have required the inventive faculties of fiends to discover. All these things transpired in Europe during the terrible conflict between Protestantism and reaction. But in no other portion of the Continental States was the difference between the opposing forces more distinctly marked than in Germany, after the Jesuits, by means of their control of education, became enabled to check the progress of popular enlightenment, and force the nation back again into the old grooves of ignorance and superstition.

From the first entry of the Jesuits into Germany the peace of the country was seriously disturbed. We have seen how thoroughly reconciled to each other were those of all the shades of religious faith. Members of the Church of Rome and Protestants were in perfect accord upon all matters involving the welfare of Germany, neither concerning themselves about the religious opinions of the other. In this respect it was as it should have been, and ought yet to be throughout the Christian world. And the happiness and progressive prosperity of Germany was assured by it, until the spoiler came in the form of Jesuitism, not as the bearer of messages of peace and good-will from Rome, but the vast progeny of evils which, in the age of fable, were supposed to have escaped when Pandora's jar was broken. They let these loose upon the land without shame or remorse, until society was convulsed from center to circumference, peaceful homes were desolated, hearts that had rejoiced were broken,—all under the irreverent pretense that it was for "the greater glory of God!"

Let it not be forgotten that Germany was indebted to Protestantism for her condition of peace and prosperity. We have seen that the demoralized condition of the clergy[Pg 128] was employed by Loyola to justify the papal approval of his society, and the learned Jesuit historian, the Abbé Maynard, is forced to admit that when Luther gave the first impulse to the Reformation, "the clergy of Germany offered a sad example of corrupted faith and relaxed morals." He calls it a "mournful period,"[73] notwithstanding for a thousand years these and other evils had been growing and spreading under the patronage of Rome. The papacy then dictated the Christianity of Germany. Mark the difference when Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, and Carlstadt announced the necessity for reform, and put the ball of the Reformation in motion. The great Ranke, whose impartiality has extorted even Jesuit praise, when referring to the effect produced by the Reformation in Germany, says:

"In short, from west to east and from north to south, throughout all Germany, Protestantism had unquestionably the preponderance. The nobility were attached to it from the very first; the body of public functionaries, already in those days numerous and important, was trained up in the new doctrine; the common people would hear no more of certain articles—such, for instance, as purgatory—or of certain ceremonies, such as the pilgrimages; not a man durst come forward with holy relics. A Venetian ambassador calculates, in the year 1558, that but a tenth part of the inhabitants of Germany still clung to the ancient faith."[74]

Maynard also refers to this approvingly, and the Jesuits make it a matter of boasting, in order to support their claim to superior merit for having extirpated so much Protestant heresy, and for bringing back such multitudes of people to papal obedience. Nine Protestants to one papist! Germany, then, was a Protestant nation, governed by Protestant authorities, under Protestant laws, tolerant towards all who adhered to the ancient faith, allowing no interference with the freedom of religious opinions, happy, prosper[Pg 129]ous, and free, under her own institutions. In these respects she was in the same condition as the United States is to-day, so far as she could be in the absence of written constitutional guarantees.

What people upon earth, other than the Germans themselves, had the just right, under the law of nations or any other human law, to interfere with their condition, or to plot, openly or secretly, against their independence? What was all this, however, to the pope or to the Jesuits? From whence did they derive the authority to form a conspiracy at Rome to invade Germany, overthrow her existing institutions, bind the limbs of her people with fetters they had already broken, to gather up the rusty iron they had cast away, and reforge it into manacles to hold them in obedience to an alien and foreign power? Was this conspiracy commanded by the law of God? If it was, wherein is that law changed? If not changed, and God's laws are all immutable, may not the Jesuits of to-day enter into fresh conspiracies to subvert the present institutions of Germany, or of Great Britain, or of the United States, or of any other nation that maintains the principles of Protestantism and the freedom of conscience?

These questions command the most serious thought, and are pregnant with considerations we are not allowed to put aside. Before this volume closes, answers to all of them may be so plainly discovered as to enable the friends of free thought and popular government to see wherein their greatest danger lies. "The Jesuits," says Ranke, "conquered the Germans on their own soil, in their very home, and wrested from them a part of their native land." Will there not be other conquests to be achieved by them so long as the freedom of conscience is sheltered and guaranteed by Protestant institutions?

FOOTNOTES:

[67] History of the Jesuits. By Greisinger. Page 212.

[68] Ibid., p. 213, note.

[69] Greisinger, p. 48, etc.

[70] Ibid., p. 63.

[71] History of the Popes. By Ranke. Book V, p. 172, etc. Lea and Blanchard's edition. Nicolini, p. 199. Greisinger, p. 211, etc. History of Germany. By Lewis. Chap, xvii, p. 398, etc.

[72] Nicolini, pp. 201-202. For these particulars see also Ranke, Griesinger, Steinmetz, and Lewis.

[73] The Studies and Teachings of the Jesuits. By M. L'Abbé Maynard. Page 89.

[74] Ranke, Book V, p. 165.

The conspiracy to overthrow the Protestant institutions of Germany furnished a precedent in dealing with other Governments. That against England was characterized by some peculiarities, owing to its having been subject to the spiritual dominion of the pope until the reign of Henry VIII, and afterwards under that of Mary. As there are no instances in history where a people have surrendered the control over their institutions without a struggle, unless previously reduced to absolute imbecility, the inauguration and progress of this conspiracy furnish a great many "object-lessons" of special interest to all in the United States who hold in kindly remembrance the struggles of our English ancestry for liberty.

When Henry VIII quarreled with the pope, it was only about his divorce. Religion was not involved. He maintained the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church until his death. But in order to give license to his passions, he caused himself to be recognized by a submissive Parliament as taking the place of the pope in the religious affairs of England—not, however, as the head of the National Church, which did not distinctively exist as such until the subsequent reign of Edward VI. As between him and the pope, the dispute was about authority, not doctrine. It excited intense anger in the minds of both, and this was soon imparted to their respective adherents. Each was familiar with the methods of persecution and the implements of coercion, long in use to produce uniformity of faith, and they were equally ready to employ them. There were, however, differences between them worthy of being noted. The highest aspiration of[Pg 131] Henry was to govern England; the pope reached out after the spiritual government of the world. The pope, without the sanction and authority of the Church, claimed personal infallibility; Henry did not. They were consequently formidable antagonists. Trained within the same circle of events, with minds disciplined by the same doctrinal teachings, and entirely agreed about the employment of compulsion in matters of faith, each dealt with the other as a mere competitor for power.

The pope—Paul III—endeavored to bring his royal antagonist to terms by excommunication; but Henry defied it and its accompanying anathemas. In proportion as the passions of the pope became intensified by resistance to his spiritual authority, the measures designed to reduce England to obedience became more violent. Henry was denounced as a traitor to heaven and the Church, and threatened with all the consequences implied by that denunciation. The pope endeavored to induce the Emperor Charles V and Francis I of France to invade England, make conquest of the country, and bring it again into obedience to him; but these monarchs feared the consequences, and prudently declined the undertaking. Disappointed in this, the pope hastened to solicit the aid of Loyola, who without delay provided Jesuits to be sent to England as spies, and to plot secretly against Henry. These emissaries were privately instructed by Loyola himself; and inasmuch as these instructions have been made known, and are admitted by the Jesuits, they serve to show the uses to which Loyola intended to put his society. The philosophy of history is often left unperceived by omitting to observe the force of such evidence as this.

After counseling them to practice great prudence and circumspection in conversing with others, so as to unveil "the depth of their sentiments"—that is, to draw out their secret thoughts—Loyola proceeded to instruct them that, "in order to conciliate to yourselves the good-will of men in the desire of extending the kingdom of God, you will[Pg 132] make yourselves all things to all men, after the example of the apostle in order to gain them to Jesus Christ." And he tells them further that "when the devil attacks a just man, he does not let him see his snares"—therefore they must imitate him, in order to entice men into Jesuit snares![75] Taken as a whole, these instructions were manifestly designed so to train all Jesuits as to make them, according to Nicolini, "crafty, insinuating, deceitful." Cretineau, a Jesuit, attempts to argue, continues Nicolini, that they had reference to religious and not to political matters, and this is the only defense he offers for them. But this is itself Jesuitical, inasmuch as these emissaries were sent to England upon a mission involving politico-religious affairs—that is, the policy established by the Government of England in regard to the relations between it and the pope. Whether right or wrong, the English people established these relations for themselves, as they had the undoubted right to do, and no alien or foreign power, whether employed by the pope or any other monarch, could rightfully interfere with them.

These emissaries of Loyola and the pope visited Ireland and Scotland; but with the exception of intriguing with James V of Scotland, their mission was ineffectual, and they returned to Rome. Henry was not seriously disturbed by them. Nor was there any other attempt to introduce the Jesuits into England until after the death of Queen Mary, whose persecution of the Protestants was sufficiently satisfactory to the papacy without their aid. Their introduction during her reign had been opposed and defeated by Cardinal Pole, an Englishman; but whether he was hostile to them, or considered the existing system of persecution perfect enough without them, is not clearly shown.

We are thus brought to a portion of English history specially interesting and instructive to all who hold in admiration the civil institutions of the United States; for they have read history to but little purpose who do not know how[Pg 133] the events of that period gave stability to principles which now constitute fundamental parts of our national polity. In tracing our pedigree back to its English source, it is as easy to see our intimate relations with the Elizabethan era as it is to follow the little rivulets in the valleys or upon the mountains in their courses to the sea. On this account some particularity of detail is rendered necessary, or else some matters of historic interest, not generally observed, may be omitted.

During the reign of Elizabeth the papal authorities renewed their exertions to put a stop to Protestantism in England, and sent more Jesuits there for that purpose. "These satellites of the pope," says the historian, "entered the country under fictitious names, and as stealthily as nocturnal robbers, mendacious in every word they uttered, and exciting the people to rebellion against the 'impious' queen."[76] The vigilance of Elizabeth, however, was of such a character that she was not easily taken by surprise, and their plottings against her became less effective than they and the pope had anticipated. Accordingly other Jesuits were sent to Scotland to encourage Queen Mary, and hold her steadfast in the faith; but they were unsuccessful in the attempt to stir up rebellion there, and being fearful of detection and arrest, escaped out of the country as fugitives from justice. Nevertheless they accomplished one thing, which was to carry away with them several young English noblemen, to be educated by the Jesuits in Flanders, so as to fit them for treason against their own country—repeating in this the experiment Loyola had made in Germany. All these movements, although not immediately followed by any direct consequences, tend to show how ready the Jesuits were to make secret and incendiary war upon anything or any country upon which the pontifical curse was resting. And they show, moreover, their subtle methods of procedure—how they were trained and educated in adroitness[Pg 134] and cunning, the more easily to mislead others; how they raised hypocrisy and deceit up to the side of virtue; how they endeavored to attach to falsehood the merit which belongs alone to truth; and how, in order to be "all things to all men," they were required to be what they were not, or not to be what they were, in order by deception to accomplish the subjugation of England to the authority of the pope.

The Jesuits endeavored to become the educators of English youths as they had those of Germany. They understood, and have not yet forgotten, the value of this. The pope therefore established an English college at Rome, to educate young Englishmen for the traitorous purpose of destroying English institutions. Loyola conceived this idea as a covert and strategic method of uprooting obnoxious Governments, and the pope accepted it as an effective plan of conspiracy. This college became a hotbed of treason. The young men were doubtless instructed that the gates of heaven would be opened to them in no other way, and that country and patriotism were unmeaning phrases, of no significance when weighed in the scale against the interests of the papacy and the Jesuits. None have better understood than they "that he who guides the youth, directs the destinies of man."

The young Englishmen, educated at this college in Rome to hate their country and its sovereign, reached the highest round in the ladder of collegiate culture when they were brought to realize this as the central feature of religious faith. It takes a peculiar training to pluck out entirely from the mind all the tender and holy memories of home and country, of family and friends; and no others in the world except the Jesuits have ever undertaken it. They boast of this as one of the prominent principles of their system, and the distinguishing merit of their society. By means of it they succeeded well at Rome, and sent back to England a swarm of conspirators, charged with the special duty of winning a conquest over the Government, plucking[Pg 135] Protestantism up by the roots, and re-establishing the papal scepter, which Henry VIII, in the pursuit of his illicit amours, had broken.

Elizabeth, as queen, was the great obstacle to papal success. Her position was a peculiar one. At the beginning of her reign she had been tolerant towards her Roman Catholic subjects, and they were permitted to enjoy their religion and mode of worship without interference, notwithstanding the severities practiced towards the Protestants during the preceding reign of Mary. All historians agree, and the Roman Catholic Lingard is candid enough to admit, that she retained in her royal council eleven of those who had served under Mary, and appointed only eight of her own selection—an extraordinary instance of impartiality and conservatism. She preferred the reformed religion, but "contrived," says Lingard, "to balance the hopes and fears of the two parties,"[77] which she must have done from an honest purpose to see that justice should be shown to both, and that religious strife and discord should cease. Her want of success in this most desirable object can be attributed to no other cause than the machinations of the Jesuits; for, whatsoever may be thought of the fierce and angry controversy which followed, the evidence is conclusive that they were the main reliance of the pope in the subsequent inauguration and prosecution of civil war in England. If it had not been their special avocation to enter into plots and conspiracies against all governments and peoples who rejected the absolute rule of the pope in doctrine and morals, and if they had not actively engaged in that work during the reign of Elizabeth, the memory of Mary's bloody and persecuting reign might, in a large degree, have been blotted out, and this impartial policy of Elizabeth might have induced the Christians of different religious faiths to live in peace and mutual toleration, as they did in Germany before that coun[Pg 136]try was blighted by the curse of Jesuitism. But taught by the Jesuits not to submit to equality merely, but to demand absolute and unqualified superiority and dominion by the entire suppression of Protestantism, the English Roman Catholics were encouraged to form leagues and combinations and conspiracies against the queen, Protestantism, and the Government.

Under these circumstances, Elizabeth could not have remained unresisting if she had desired. To have done so would have been a treasonable abandonment of the country of which she was the legitimate sovereign. Not only was she assailed in all her rights as queen, but the pope, adopting the views and opinions of the Jesuits, impudently attempted to justify resistance to her authority upon the ground that she was an illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn, and therefore had no just right to exact obedience to her authority. He went further than this, and claimed jurisdiction over her conscience by commanding her to accept "the communion of the Roman Church," which, with queenly dignity, she refused. He required her to send ambassadors to the Council of Trent, and this she also declined to do. When she imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots, he usurped jurisdiction over the case, although Mary was an English subject, and undertook to procure her release, for the reason only that she preferred Romanism to Protestantism. He sought the aid of the kings of France and Spain to make war upon England in the name of religion, to release Mary, dethrone Elizabeth, and seize upon her crown. Failing in all these things, and being baffled by Elizabeth, he caused a prosecution to be instituted at Rome to try "in the papal court" her title to the crown—a sham and farce as ineffective as it was ridiculous and discreditable. It is difficult to imagine a more presumptuous and impotent proceeding; but it is instructive as showing the pretensions of the popes of that period.

In the papal indictment Elizabeth was accused, among other things, of rejecting the ancient and supporting the[Pg 137] new worship; of having "received the sacrament after the manner of heretics;" of having "chosen known heretics for the lords of her council;" and of having "imposed an oath derogating from the rights of the Holy See." The queen, of course, did not appear; but, nevertheless, she was held to be in default, and the trial was conducted in the papal form. Twelve English Roman Catholics, who are represented as "exiles for their religion," were examined as witnesses, and, after their evidence was heard and considered, "the judges pronounced their opinion that she had incurred the canonical penalties of heresy." The major one of these, which included all the minors, was the forfeiture of her crown; that is, her actual dethronement. It is to be supposed that, in the decree of the Roman Curia, all this was recorded in solemn form. But this decree, like those of other courts, did not execute itself. Therefore, the pope provided for its execution by issuing his pontifical bull, with all necessary gravity and composure, whereby he pronounced Elizabeth guilty of heresy, deprived of her "pretended" right to the crown of England, and absolved her subjects from all allegiance to her.[78]

Notwithstanding the long period intervening between those and the present times, we are not relieved from the obligation and necessity of understanding fully upon what pretense of authority Pius V assumed the prerogative right to pluck from the head of the English queen a crown placed there with practical, if not absolute, unanimity by the English people. It is not enough to say that these things occurred in another age and under circumstances peculiar to that age. This may sufficiently explain the conduct of individuals, and the character and structure of governments, all of which have ever been, and will continue to be, liable to change. But the laws of God, founded in divine wisdom, are not subject to these changes. The creative power of the Deity alone can change them. It is the special boast of the[Pg 138] papists and the Jesuits that the system of laws which governs the papacy has the stamp of Divine approval upon it, and that, therefore, it has always been, and still remains, the same—"Semper eadem," is their motto. Hence it is important to us to know the nature and extent of the spiritual powers asserted by Pius V over the English Government and people, in order to ascertain whether, if a parallel case existed to-day, or may exist hereafter, the same papal powers may not be again invoked. The question which most concerns us is not whether they may or may not be asserted, but whether or no they have been embodied in the Canon law of the Roman Church, and have been thereby stamped with the character of perpetuity. No special pleading, however adroit, can make the issue otherwise.

The question tried and decided at Rome by the Papal Curia, in so far as it involved the right to the English crown, was exclusively political, and the pope could not rightfully change its character by assuming that it was brought within his spiritual jurisdiction by virtue of the universality of his spiritual powers. It was an English and not a Roman question. By the existing laws of England, Elizabeth was the rightful and hereditary heir to the throne, and had possession of the crown. It had been so decided by the Parliament, and ratified by the people with a unanimity almost unknown in those times. She was queen, not only de facto, but de jure. By what mode of reasoning or by what perversion of language could the pope take to himself jurisdiction over such a question? England was governed by laws, and whether they appear to us now to have been right or wrong, they were her own laws, enacted by her rightful authorities. They were exclusively political laws, provided for her own Government and people. The pope was the spiritual head of the Church at Rome, with a recognized jurisdiction over the spiritual welfare of those who regarded themselves as within that jurisdiction. By the methods of reasoning then adopted by the English nation, and now familiar to all intelligent American minds, all who chose to remain within[Pg 139] that spiritual jurisdiction had the perfect right to do so; all who did not, had an equal right to withdraw from it. Rights of this character concern individuals, not nations, except as their populations shall decide, in which case they may submit or not to this jurisdiction at their pleasure. The English nation, by its domestic laws, had established a system of government suitable for itself, and had placed its crown upon Elizabeth's head. To say that the pope had the divine right, as the spiritual head of the Church at Rome, to set this National Government aside, and substitute for it another dictated by himself, and after the papal model, means this, and only this: that his spiritual power includes political and temporal power over all nations, to the extent of requiring them to adopt whatsoever form of religious faith the popes shall prescribe, to the absolute exclusion of all other forms. And it allows him, moreover, to employ for that purpose, against every domestic law to the contrary, all the papal machinery of coercion. The decree pronounced at Rome against Elizabeth affirms, in effect, that such is the Canon law; that is, the law of the Church. Have the provisions of that law been authoritatively changed or abrogated since the time of Pius V and Elizabeth? It may be necessary to find an answer to this question when we come to see, as we shall, that, at Jesuit dictation, it has been authoritatively announced that the time has come, or is rapidly approaching, when the Canon law of the Roman Church shall be introduced into the United States, to supersede such of our laws, National and State, as are in conflict with it. For the present, we must not pass by too rapidly the conflict between the pope and Elizabeth—to the principles involved in which enough consideration is not generally given—in order that we may comprehend fully what it meant, and how, in the end, it turned the nations upon their progressive courses, and brought them where they now are. In all history there are few more instructive lessons.

In carrying on the war against Elizabeth, the Jesuits did not forget the work of educating young Englishmen so[Pg 140] as to make them believe that treason was one of the highest virtues when dictated by what they chose to consider the interests of religion; that is, of the papacy or of their society, just as we have seen they did in Germany. Among other seminaries of learning, they had one at Rheims, in France, established by the Cardinal of Lorraine, one of the most vindictive persecutors of the Huguenots. They had another at Douay, also in France. From these, colonies of Jesuits were sent to England every year, instructed and trained to subvert the English Government, and particularly to vilify and calumniate Elizabeth by accusing her of leading a "licentious and voluptuous private life." It is not easy to understand what force was intended to be given to this accusation, as an argument against her right to the crown, in view of the fact that a life tenfold more licentious and voluptuous than that falsely charged against Elizabeth did not invalidate the right of Pope Alexander VI to the papal crown and the headship of the Church at Rome. Nevertheless, the Jesuits availed themselves of it, without regard either to its truthfulness or their own consistency. They were educated to this peculiar kind of work, and it was considered their duty to educate others in the same way, leaving the consequences to take care of themselves. Hume gives this account of these Jesuit emissaries to England: "They infused into all their votaries an extreme hatred against the queen, whom they treated as a usurper, a schismatic, a heretic, a persecutor of the orthodox, and one solemnly and publicly anathematized by the holy father. Sedition, rebellion, sometimes assassination, were the expedients by which they intended to effect their purposes against her,"[79] pretending to find in the existing state of things in England justification for all this, even for the assassination of the queen.

Two Jesuit leaders—Campion and Parson—were sent from Rome to give direction to the movements of the con[Pg 141]spirators already there. In order more effectually to encourage treason and sedition, they "pretended to be Protestants," not being ashamed of this false profession, because the obligation to practice deception when necessary was instilled into their minds by Jesuit training, and, on that account, created no compunctions of conscience. When Parson reached Dover, the better to practice his disguise, he wore the uniform of an English army officer, and pretended to be such. In this way he deceived the inspecting officer, and arranged with him for the safe passage of Campion, whom he represented as a fellow officer, who would follow in a few days. It may thus be seen how easy it is to be "all things to all men," when those who desire to become so have quieted their consciences with the belief that falsehood and deception may be rightfully employed in promoting "the greater glory of God." Howsoever incomprehensible may be the casuistry by which the mind can be brought to this belief, it is perfectly plain to a Jesuit, and is doubtless explained in their schools.

It is exceedingly difficult to separate the true from the false in the history of the times here referred to. The passions of the rival parties became so intense as seemingly to render agreement between them impossible, either with regard to facts or conclusions. It may not even be safe to assume that the truth lies midway between the extremes. But there is always, in the influences and effects produced by any given period of time, that which explains the motives and purposes of the chief actors. By careful investigation of these, we acquire a knowledge of the philosophy of history. Conducting our investigations in this spirit, we can not fail to conclude that the interference with the domestic and internal affairs of England by an alien and foreign power, was a flagrant act of usurpation, unless the spiritual authority of the pope gave him rightful jurisdiction over temporal and political questions in that country. And if he did rightfully possess this jurisdiction in 1570, when Pius V fulminated his pontifical bull against Elizabeth, and derived it from the[Pg 142] divine law, we, of the present age, and especially in the United States, can not refrain from inquiring whether, from the Jesuit standpoint, Leo XIII does not possess the same jurisdiction derived from the same law? Without pressing this inquiry here, however, it is deemed more essential to ascertain still more minutely how far the Jesuits were responsible for sowing the seeds of discord and civil war in England, when otherwise Protestants and Roman Catholics might, at the Elizabethan period, have lived and associated harmoniously together, as they did in Germany before the Jesuits appeared there. Many intelligent readers of history fail to give due consideration to the events of this important period.

We have seen—upon the authority of Lingard, a papal historian—that Elizabeth was, at the beginning of her reign, desirous of holding an equal balance between the rival bodies of Christians. Her mind was not fully made up with regard to her own faith, although it is probable she was inclined to Protestantism. There were reasons for this, some of which may have been controlling with a masculine mind like hers. The relations between her father, Henry VIII, and the papacy must have created impressions not favorable to the pope as a sharer in her governing power over the English people. And the reign of her sister Mary must have tended to strengthen, rather than remove, these impressions. She could not have failed to know that Mary's marriage to Philip II of Spain had brought with it to England a series of calamities, the remembrance of which must have made her not only sorrowful, but indignant. If Mary's natural inclination had been kindly and her heart benevolent, it must have been apparent to Elizabeth that these good qualities had been exchanged for others of the very opposite character, which had incited her to prosecute her Protestant subjects in the spirit of intense religious bigotry, and as if God were acceptably served by shedding blood. And when, upon coming to the throne as the immediate successor of Mary, she found herself confronted by the terrible condition[Pg 143] into which England had been thrown—with every evil passion aroused, and little ground for hope of the future—nothing was more natural than the belief that this state of things had been produced, mainly if not entirely, by the unfortunate marriage of Mary with Philip II, who possessed such a combination of bad qualities as left room for scarcely a single good one. Sullen, morose, and selfish, Philip separated himself from everything in life calculated to encourage good or benevolent emotions, and gave free play to that bad ambition which led him to desolate the Netherlands by cruelties as unparalleled as they were atrocious. He had no affection for Mary, being incapable of any such emotion. His marriage with her was a matter of policy alone—one of those political unions which, in the course of time, have produced evils to all the Governments of Europe. He had inherited religious fanaticism from his father, Charles V, but without any of the better qualities of the latter; and gave such excessive indulgence to his hatred of Protestants that nothing rejoiced him so much as to know that the dungeons of the Inquisition were crowded with them, and that none of them escaped the rack, the thumb-screw, and the flames. The best people in England—Roman Catholics as well as Protestants—had feared, when this ill-fated marriage was proposed, that the bloody scenes so often witnessed on the Continent would be repeated there, and for that reason opposed it. But State policy prevailed, and the popular will was of no avail. England, thus united with Spain, became subject to the influence of Philip, who employed it over Mary, to make her, like himself, the obedient instrument of papal outrages. English persecution hitherto had one distinguishing characteristic, in this, that Henry VIII had visited his vengeance upon both Protestants and Roman Catholics, who were bound alike to the stake and burned to death because of resistance to his royal power and assumed right, in imitation of the pope, to hold the consciences of individuals in subjugation. Elizabeth knew all this. Her strong and sagacious mind was penetrating enough to foresee that,[Pg 144] unless this disheartening course of events could be in some way changed, England would remain where Mary had left her—a mere appendage to the papacy—and thereby reduced to a condition of inferiority among the nations from which she might never recover.

When Philip proposed to marry Elizabeth—for whom he had no more affection than he had for her sister—she was brought to realize, if she had not already done so, that the future destiny of England was mainly in her hands. From motives of policy she took time to deliberate before accepting or rejecting this proposition of marriage by Philip. Whilst holding it under advisement, she suggested that it would violate the law of the Church, inasmuch as their relationship brought them within the prohibited degrees. But when Philip proposed that he would obtain a dispensation from the pope, she saw at once that it was a well-matured scheme to bring her to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the pope over English affairs of State, and consequently declined Philip's proposal. And thus was broken the alliance between the two crowns of England and Spain, and Elizabeth was left to protect herself against foreign interference in taking care of the internal affairs of her own country. The occasion demanded that she should assert herself by taking the affairs of the nation in her own hands, and the result has long since proved how well and conspicuously she did so.

Elizabeth was wise. Her bitterest enemies concede this. Whilst she may have inclined to Protestantism, she had not, at the beginning of her reign, acquired any positive dislike to the Roman Catholic religion. On the contrary, the Roman Catholic bishops and lords were disposed to regard her exhibition of tolerance as indicating that she would, at least, act with justice and impartiality towards them. Camden, the historian, says that, during Mary's reign, Elizabeth had intimated to Cardinal Pole that she had a disposition to prefer Roman Catholicism. Howsoever this may have been, she not only sometimes attended confession, but assisted at divine service after the manner of the Roman Church.[Pg 145] Lingard says: "She continued to assist, and occasionally to communicate, at mass; she buried her sister with all the solemnities of the Catholic ritual; and she ordered a solemn dirge and a mass of requiem for the soul of the Emperor Charles V."[80] Influenced by these considerations, and probably by others of the same character, the House of Lords—composed entirely of Roman Catholics—declared in her favor, and the Commons having readily and unanimously approved their decision, she was proclaimed queen "with the acclamations of the people." Thus her right to the crown was settled by the highest authority in the kingdom. There was not a murmur of discontent. Some regretted the death of Mary, but there was a general desire that the barbarities practiced during her reign should cease. In that desire Elizabeth manifestly shared, as is well established by the fact, already stated, that she retained thirteen of Mary's counselors, and appointed only eight Protestants. She could have meant nothing else by this than to express the desire that religious persecution should cease, and that the two religious parties should in the future live in peace with each other, and thus enable the country to develop into greatness.

The first attack upon her right to the crown was made by Henry II of France, and not by her Roman Catholic subjects. Henry was thoroughly indoctrinated with the persecuting spirit which prevailed in France among the defenders of the papacy, and was dominated over by the Guises, one of whom was the Cardinal of Lorraine, and patron of the Jesuits. His persecution of the Reformers has been previously mentioned. In assailing the title of Elizabeth, Henry II had undoubtedly several objects in view, the chief of which were to humiliate England and probably establish French sovereignty over it, to continue the policy of Mary in persecuting the Protestants, and to place the crown of Elizabeth upon the head of Mary Queen of Scots. Whether[Pg 146] one or all these motives influenced him, he solicited the aid of the pope, and made himself a party to the conspiracy against the peace of England by endeavoring to obtain a papal decree that Elizabeth was a bastard, and therefore not lawfully queen. Consequently, when, after her rejection of Philip's proposal of marriage, she saw the Roman Catholic powers, with the pope at their head, conspiring against her, she resolved that her own safety and that of England required her to dismiss the Roman Catholic members of her council, declare her purpose to protect and encourage the Reformed religion, and submit the matter to the people by means of a Parliament to be assembled for that purpose. This precautionary measure was most commendable, inasmuch as it proposed to submit to Parliament the question whether or no the two religions were equally entitled to legal protection. In order that her purposes might be fully understood, she issued a proclamation allowing divine service to be performed in the English tongue, and the Scriptures to be read by the laity—a privilege hitherto denied them. In order to allay all undue excitement, she expressly prohibited religious "controversy by preaching," until the meeting of Parliament. When the new Parliament did assemble, it was addressed in her behalf by the Keeper of the Great Seal, who announced to the representatives of the people that the queen had commanded him to exhort them "to take a mean between the two extremes of superstition and irreligion, which might reunite the partisans of both the one and the other religion in the same public worship."[81]

The conciliatory course of Elizabeth, as indicated by her proclamation and this address to Parliament, exhibited a degree of liberality to which the English people had been unaccustomed during the reign of Mary. It is a reasonable supposition that, if her suggestions had been accepted in the spirit in which they were offered, England would have[Pg 147] bounded forward far more rapidly than she did to the condition she subsequently reached through severe and protracted trials. The times were suited to the introduction of compromising measures of peaceful policy. The people were tired of commotion, persecution, and bloodshed on account of religious differences, and would readily have acquiesced in any amicable plan of adjustment. But, unfortunately for England, and the world as well, neither the interests nor the wishes of the people were of sufficient avail to bring quiet to the country. The course of subsequent events may be easily traced. The papal machinery of Church government had been so constructed at Rome that, in order to keep the people in subjection, it had deposited unlimited powers in the hands of the prelates. The Roman Catholic bishops of England, as well as elsewhere, had been accustomed to rule with a rod of iron, and the time had not arrived when they could be reconciled to any diminution of their ecclesiastical authority. They became "alarmed," says Lingard, at the position taken by Elizabeth. They undoubtedly viewed it only in its relation to themselves and the interests of the Church at Rome—or, rather, of the papacy—without bestowing a moment's thought upon the general welfare of England. They regarded conciliation as a form of heresy not to be tolerated. What they desired was the extirpation of Protestantism and the unity of the Roman Church, assured by the establishment of its religion to the exclusion of any dissenting faith. Accordingly, they assembled themselves together to consult "whether they could in conscience officiate at the coronation" of a queen who proposed so to adjust religious differences as to put an end to all interference with the right of individuals to freedom of conscience. Upon various pretexts they decided not to attend, or to take part in, the ceremony of coronation. Consequently, the ceremony was performed with the attendance of only a single bishop, and was made "to conform to all the rites of the Catholic pontifical." This decision and con[Pg 148]duct of the bishops "created considerable embarrassment," and might have produced serious consequences but for the withdrawal of this single bishop from his associates.[82]

The non-attendance of the Roman Catholic bishops upon the coronation of Elizabeth was a signal for opening the old strife. It was unquestionably intended upon their part to array their followers in opposition to the conciliatory measures of the queen; and it did not take long, in those days, to be so understood upon both sides. The consequence was that the public excitement was imparted to Parliament, and led to the repeal of several of the statutes of Mary, and the substitution for them of others whereby the Reformed religion was made national, and penalties prescribed for refusing so to recognize it. This, of course, led to severe measures and to persecution, in imitation of the example set during the reign of Mary, and produced the unfortunate condition of affairs with which all readers of English history are familiar. Upon which side, during the long controversy that followed, the responsibility rested most heavily, is not easily decided. Wrongs were undoubtedly inflicted by both sides. But whatsoever these were, they grew out of the spirit of that age, and had their origin, as we have seen, in the influences created by the papacy, aided by Jesuit intrigues. The fact, however, which most nearly concerns our present inquiries is what has just been stated, that the first step taken in the direction towards the renewal of religious agitation was the organized opposition of the bishops to Elizabeth, formed for the purpose of defeating the measures of pacification she had proposed to Parliament. It is impossible not to have known that the defeat of those measures by the combined opposition of the bishops would lead to a revival of the hatreds which had been encouraged under Mary, and, therefore, to oppose them was to invite that revival for which, consequently, these bishops were responsible.

Whether the Protestants would have accepted or rejected[Pg 149] the proposition of Elizabeth can not now be decided with positive certainty; all the probabilities indicate that they would have accepted them. One thing, however, is certain, they were rejected by the Roman Catholics under the lead of their bishops. This, of course, revived the old animosities, but with increased violence. Throughout all the departments of society passion became greatly intensified. Nevertheless, the questions involved were English questions alone. They were primarily and chiefly political, although having politico-religious aspects. But they involved only the internal and domestic condition of England. No alien or foreign power had the right, by international or other law, or consistently with what is now universal usage among civilized nations, to interfere with them. But we have seen that they were interfered with, not only by a direct attempt to make the policy of the country conform to that dictated by a foreign power, but in the threatening form of a conspiracy between the king of France and the pope, to impeach the title of Elizabeth upon the ground that she was a bastard, to which she could not have submitted without disgrace. We have also seen how this conspiracy moved stealthily forward, step by step, until she was tried at Rome by an alien tribunal, pronounced a usurper by a decree which declared her crown to have been forfeited and her subjects released from their natural and lawful allegiance. And in order that her escape from the wrath and vengeance of the pope should become impossible, swarms of incendiary Jesuits were turned loose upon the country, to fan the flames of discord, stir up rebellion and civil war, and carry into execution the judgment and sentence of the papal court at Rome. If Elizabeth erred in defending herself and her kingdom against this formidable and dangerous combination, her error was upon the side of patriotism; and she is scarcely censurable for it, inasmuch as the life of the nation, and probably her own life, were the stake for which her enemies were playing. And whether it be true or not, that the Jesuits attempted her assassination—as some his[Pg 150]torians allege—it must be accepted in her praise that, although a woman, she taught her assailants that she was "every inch a queen," and that England under her reign became enabled to convince all these rival powers that she was competent to conduct her own affairs and take care of herself—facts sufficiently demonstrated by her advanced position among the modern progressive nations.

Every American mind should be duly impressed by this portion of English history, showing, as it does, how fierce and protracted was the struggle which led, in the end, to popular government, and the civil and religious freedom which it alone has guaranteed. Elizabeth was undoubtedly a great queen—great in the qualities of her intellect, in the steadfastness of her purposes, in that manly courage which "mounteth with occasion." When she became queen, the people of England, both Protestants and Roman Catholics, were tired of religious persecution, and anxious to put an end to it. She favored and recommended to Parliament measures of pacification, in the spirit of liberality and toleration. If, obeying the dictates of her own conscience, she preferred Protestantism to Roman Catholicism, she had such respect for the conscientious convictions of others as to desire that all her subjects should be secured in the right to accept either the one or the other at their own discretion. By the avowal of these and other kindred purposes, she incurred the opposition of the Roman Catholic bishops, who, in concert with foreign powers, and backed by the pope and his Jesuit militia, brought on a civil war which afflicted England with a long train of evils and calamities. Under the influence of her liberalism, the bulk of the population became tolerant of each other, and, by the great unanimity with which they accepted her as queen, indicated the desire that the protection of the Government should be given to both forms of worship. And it may be accepted as a fair inference from what then transpired, that she was defeated in her plan of conciliation only by the animosities engendered by the English bishops, the pope, and the Jesuits.[Pg 151] Her defeat, however, was not final; and having survived the machinations of all her enemies, even the excommunication and anathemas of the pope, together with the stealthy plottings of the Jesuits, the pages which record the events of her reign constitute some of the brightest in English history. They teach a philosophy that will not be forgotten so long as free popular institutions shall continue to exist.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Nicolini, p. 65. Steinmetz, Vol. I, p. 302.

[76] Nicolini, pp. 151, 152, note.

[77] History of England. By Lingard. Vol. VI, p. 4. See, also, Hume, Vol. IV, p. 4.

[78] Lingard, Vol. VI, p. 110. Nicolini, p. 153.

[79] History of England. By Hume. Vol. IV, p. 182.

[80] Lingard, Vol. VI, p. 4.

[81] History of England. By Rapin. Vol. VIII, pp. 217 to 232.

[82] Lingard, Vol. VI, p. 5.

The reader who shall intelligently trace the history of the Jesuit through their conspiracies against the peace of Europe, and especially their tireless efforts to eradicate everything that tended to freedom of conscience and the public enlightenment, will not wonder that, during the last century, it became necessary to the interests of society and the Church that one of the foremost of the popes should suppress and entirely abolish the order. And as that event was brought about, not alone on account of the odium they incurred by intermeddling with the temporal affairs of States, but because they pursued practices which shocked the whole Christian world, their society can not be thoroughly understood without becoming familiar with the history of their missionary enterprises. As they prosecuted these among ignorant and illiterate multitudes of peoples, where no watchful eye could observe them, they have mainly become their own historians; yet there is enough to be discovered to show that, at every stage of their development, they have been true to the injunction of their founder, to be "all things to all men."

Loyola considered his society superior to the ancient monastic orders. We have seen that he looked upon the latter as corrupted, and no longer worthy to be intrusted with the work of Christian missions, on which account he claimed for his society superior jurisdiction in the missionary field. There, among populations unable to detect imposture, his followers had their own way, made their own history, and executed their own purposes, without intelligent popular inspection. Consequently, when he realized the odium his[Pg 153] society had encountered among European peoples, he considered it necessary to remove this by setting up for it exaggerated claims of merit in the missionary work. By this means he evidently hoped to be able to appeal successfully to the pope and the Church to protect the Jesuits from the rising indignation of such Christians as had resisted their introduction into France. Hence it became a fixed Jesuit habit, and yet is, to shield the society under pretense that it is a necessary part of the Church machinery, and that the Church can not exist without it. And out of that same necessity must have grown that multitude of miracles, said to have been performed in remote and unfrequented parts of the world, and in the manufacture of which the Jesuits have acquired the reputation of being thorough adepts. It was not a difficult matter in those days to impose upon superstitious people by the claim of miraculous powers. None understood this better than the Jesuits.

The first important mission of the Jesuits was to the East Indies, in charge of Francis Xavier, one of the most impressible of Loyola's converts. This mission is of chief importance, inasmuch as it was initiatory, and conspicuously displays the operations of the society whilst under the immediate personal charge of its founder. It indicates the methods of the Jesuit missionary system, and how they were made to conform to the main purpose of acquiring dominion, with but little regard to the means employed. There are very few of the present age who do not regard many of the recorded events as apocryphal—notwithstanding, the overcredulous have accepted them as true for many centuries. They are only important now because we learn from them the prominent characteristics of the Jesuits, and the real foundation of the reputation to which they so boastingly lay claim.

The Portuguese had, some years before, acquired the occupancy of territory in India, with a commercial capital and an episcopal see at Goa. By means of these influences a number of the natives had professed Christianity, and, along[Pg 154] with all the Portuguese Christians, paid spiritual allegiance to the pope. But the condition of society was by no means favorable to the practice of the Christian virtues. On the contrary, it had become greatly demoralized, rivaling Rome and the principal cities of Europe in that respect. In "The Lives of the Saints"—a work of standard ecclesiastical authority in the Roman Church—the author represents "revenge, ambition, avarice, usury, and debauchery," as extensively prevailing at Goa. According to him, the Indians who had professed conversion were so influenced by the example of the Portuguese that they had "relapsed into their ancient manners and superstitions." Even those who professed to be Christians "lived in direct opposition to the gospel which they professed, and by their manners alienated the infidels from the faith."[83]

Those familiar with the condition of ecclesiastical affairs in Europe at that time, and especially with the immorality prevailing at Rome, will not be surprised at this description of things at so remote a place as the Portuguese possessions in India. Of course, such tendency to demoralization could not long exist anywhere without producing absolute social degradation. To prevent this, the king of Portugal made an attempt to reform these abuses, influenced probably by the twofold purpose of desiring to spread Christianity and to improve the commercial interests of his subjects. Xavier, therefore, was sent to India under his auspices, and was better fitted for that purpose than Loyola himself would have been, because he was less ambitious, less selfish, and more conscientious. Whilst he possessed some commendable traits of character and wonderful energy, much that has been written about him by papal and Jesuit authors can only be considered as imaginary, and as deserving no permanent place in history. The character assigned to him is perfectly angelic, with scarcely any mixture of humanity; and, like[Pg 155] Loyola, he is represented as having performed a vast number of miracles, even to the extent of restoring the dead to life! With regard to these, he is said to have resembled Loyola in another respect—in that he, too, performed more miracles than Christ! It is not difficult to perceive the object of all this, when it is considered that the pretenses were set up at a time when an unenlightened public were easily misled by them. They, like the innumerable myths of the Middle Ages, answered the ends of their inventors, and are no further useful now than as they serve to show, not only the character of the society which required them to be accepted as absolutely true, but that of those who invented and employed them to mislead the credulous and unsuspecting multitude. The entire account of Xavier's mission is so mixed up with these idle tales that the time spent in their perusal would be wasted, but for the reason that they bring prominently before us some of the distinguishing characteristics of the Jesuits, under the tuition and during the lives of the founder of their society and his most confidential colleague.

When he reached Goa, Xavier found the Portuguese Christians in the demoralized condition already mentioned. The order of Franciscans had there an established monastery, which, as we may suppose, needed to be reformed, inasmuch as they do not seem to have been excepted from other professing Christians in the general charge of immorality. We do not learn from Jesuit authors how far this order was in fact reformed, since the eulogists of Xavier consider it to have been his greatest glory that he brought vast multitudes of the natives into the Christian fold, and thereby established Jesuit authority and dominion in India in place of that which the Church, under the patronage of the pope and by means of the long-established religious orders, had already acquired there. This was manifestly the view which Xavier himself took of his mission, as is plainly shown by his conduct. Instead of co-operating with the established Church authorities and with the monks at Goa,[Pg 156] he entered upon an independent course of his own, whereby he evidently intended to indicate the superiority of his Jesuit methods. He roamed the streets with a bell in his hand, and when the ringing attracted a crowd of curious lookers-on, he invited them "to send their children and slaves to catechism," so as to learn the truths of Christianity from him. When the children gathered around him, prompted alone by curiosity, he taught them "the Creed and practices of devotion," which, of course, could have been nothing more than the simplest form. After following this method for some time, he engaged in public preaching, and it is gravely said that "in half a year" he accomplished the "reformation of the whole city of Goa," which must have included the native along with the Portuguese population. The whole story is told after the manner of the romance-writers.

Reflecting people, who read of the immense multitudes converted to Christianity under his eloquent preaching, not only at Goa, but in other parts of India, will naturally wonder how all this could have occurred when the natives did not understand his language, nor he theirs! But the Jesuits have no difficulty on that score—nor, indeed, on any other—when the simple invention of a miracle will serve their purpose. Xavier became as famous as Loyola in this respect. Butler represents him as having "baptized ten thousand Indians with his own hand in one month," and "sometimes a whole village" in a single day; and as "having preached to five or six thousand persons together," but without stating in what language he preached. Seeming, however, to anticipate that there might be some to inquire how much of real Christianity there was in these professed conversions, and how he could have preached with so much effect to those whose language he could not speak and who could not understand his, he endeavors to remove the difficulty—evidently following the Jesuit story—by declaring that, while in India, "God first communicated to him the gift of tongues," so that "he spoke very well the language of those barbarians without having learned it, and had no need of an interpreter when he[Pg 157] instructed them!"[84] It is impossible now to decide how this statement originated. Xavier reported only to Loyola—not to the pope or the Church—and whatsoever was circulated in Europe to aid the cause of the Jesuits, and to gain them popularity on account of the success of their missions, was derived from him. But whether it originated with Xavier or Loyola, or was invented after the death of both, neither the repetition of it now, nor its recent appearance in an authoritative ecclesiastical volume, published and extensively circulated in the United States, can relieve it from the suspicion of a fabulous origin.

During the brief stay of Xavier at Goa, he availed himself of the opportunity of setting an example which the Jesuits of every subsequent period have been prompt to imitate—an example which gives practical interpretation to the Jesuit vow of "extreme poverty." The Franciscan monks had erected a seminary, where they taught the native youths at least the rudiments of a Christian education. But Xavier was not satisfied with this, having manifestly conceived the idea, still maintained by the Jesuits, that the cause of education should be intrusted solely to them, on account of their superiority over all others, including every religious order. Influenced presumably by this consideration alone, he conceived a plan of having the Franciscan seminary turned over to him, with the view of converting it into a Jesuit college. Claiming that he was a more immediate and responsible representative of the Church than any of the monastic orders, inasmuch as the brief of the pope conferred special missionary prerogatives upon him, he succeeded in effecting his purpose by inducing the Franciscans to transfer the building to him. Whereupon the Franciscans were left to engage in such other methods as they could to minister to the Portuguese Christians and convert the natives, whilst Xavier was permitted to establish his Jesuit college, so that[Pg 158] whatsoever renown should follow the Indian missions might inure to the benefit of the Jesuits, and not to that of the monastic orders. The Jesuits have never since then lost sight of this idea or failed to profit by it, always taking care in making up the history of these missions to place their society in the front and the monastic orders in the background, notwithstanding the latter preceded them in India. They seem disinclined to allow the least credit to any of the missionary agencies which the Church had been accustomed to employ.

Having obtained possession of the Franciscan seminary at Goa, Xavier decided that the building should be improved, so as to impress the simple natives with the superiority of the Jesuits over the monks. To an ordinary mind this would appear to be a difficult thing to accomplish, inasmuch as it is not probable that voluntary contributions could have been procured in such a community. But to Xavier it was easy to overcome so trivial a difficulty as this, as it always has been to the Jesuits, without finding the least impediment in the vow of "extreme poverty." All he had to do was to employ the Portuguese troops stationed at Goa "in pulling down the heathen temples in the neighborhood of Goa, and appropriating their very considerable property, for the use and benefit of the new college."[85] Admirable strategy! The poor natives were powerless to resist the Portuguese troops with arms in their hands, and were compelled to stand by in silence and see their property despoiled without compensation, all under the pretense that "the greater glory of God" required it, when, in fact, it was prompted by Jesuit ambition. Xavier must have felt gratified at his inexpensive mode of improving his new college, and Loyola undoubtedly rejoiced when the fact was reported to him. The former, therefore, having so successfully occupied the missionary field at Goa by this display of Jesuit power to the natives, and by reducing the Franciscan monks to inferiority, has[Pg 159]tened to other parts of India, to carry on the work he had begun under such flattering auspices.

He proceeded to the coast of Malabar, where the missionaries previously sent from Goa, under the authority and within the jurisdiction of that episcopal see, had baptized a large number of the natives, whom they claimed to have been converted to Christianity under the methods employed by them. But in order to make it appear that these missionaries were inefficient and incompetent, the Jesuits pretend that these professed converts still "retained their superstitions and vices,"[86] and that it was absolutely necessary they should be brought under the influence of Xavier. The purpose of this, at that time, was to prove to the Christian world that the Church and the papacy had failed to accomplish any good missionary results through the agency of the monks, and that the Jesuits were absolutely indispensable. In this way it was hoped, doubtless, to overcome the prejudice existing against the society in Europe. Therefore, Xavier is represented as having saved the Malabar converts from relapsing into heathenism, and increased the number of natives who submitted to baptism. Whilst all this is spoken in his praise, it is quite certain, from the most favorable accounts, that they entertain but little, if any, just conception of the ceremony of baptism, or, indeed, of any of the fundamental principles of Christianity.

The first effort of Xavier upon the Malabar Coast was at Cape Comorin, in a village "full of idolaters," to whom he preached; but as they were unable to understand what he said, they remained unmoved, having been probably attracted, like the people of Goa, by his bell-ringing in the streets. Why the "gift of tongues" was then withheld from him is not easy to determine, unless it was that he might be furnished an opportunity of impressing the ignorant natives with sentiments of awe by performing a miracle. At all events, Butler records what happened in these words: "A[Pg 160] woman who had been three days in the pains of childbirth, without being eased by any remedies or prayers of the Brahmins, was immediately delivered, and recovered upon being instructed in the faith, and baptized by St. Francis [Xavier], as he himself relates in a letter to St. Ignatius [Loyola]." How she was instructed in the faith is, of course, not explained, it being left to the imagination of the reader to conceive by what extraordinary process this ignorant woman was instructed in the Christian faith, so that she could be rightfully baptized into the Church, when she did not understand the language in which she was addressed. If she even realized that her safe delivery and instantaneous restoration were occasioned by his intervention, there was no possible mode of conveying to her mind the idea that it was God's work and not Xavier's, for there was no word in any of the languages of India signifying the Deity in the Christian sense. The whole story is not only preposterous, but puerile. But it bears the unmistakable stamp of Jesuitism, like others of the same general character. For example, it is seriously recorded by the same author, that after the happening of this event, "the chief persons of the country listened to his doctrine, and heartily embraced the faith." He preached to those who had never before heard of Christ, "and so great were the multitude which he baptized, that sometimes, by the bare fatigue of administering that sacrament, he was scarcely able to move his arm, according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe." He healed the sick by baptism, and where his presence was impracticable, he sent a neophyte to touch them with a cross, when, if they signified a desire to be baptized, they were restored to health. In addition, it is also said that he brought back to life four persons who were dead, during the fifteen months he remained upon the Malabar Coast.[87]

He had preached at Travancore, near Comorin, where he was more favored by having the "gift of tongues" given[Pg 161] to him, so that he could speak in one language as well as another. Thus endowed, as the Jesuits insist, with divine power, he dispersed and drove out of the country "a tribe of savages and public robbers," who were in search of plunder, by approaching them with a crucifix in his hand, although they had never heard of a crucifix before, and had no means of knowing what it signified. When the people of a village near Travancore remained uninfluenced by his preaching—an event not at all wonderful considering their utter ignorance of Christianity—he is represented as having again resorted to a miracle, which was the never-failing Jesuit resource. He had a grave opened, which contained a body interred the day before, and, after putrefaction had commenced, restored it to life and "perfect health." Near the same place he also brought back to life a young man whose corpse he met on the way to the grave. "These miracles," says Butler, "made so great an impression upon the people that the whole kingdom of Travancore was subjected to Christ in a few months, except the king and some of his courtiers."[88]

Every enlightened mind will reject such tales as pure fictions—as absolutely incredible. They trifle with serious things, and their inventors act in imitation of those who make merchandise of human souls. It directly impeaches the wisdom of Providence to pretend that he permitted miracles to be performed in his name—even the dead to be raised to life—to influence the destiny of an ignorant heathen population utterly unable to appreciate the character and teachings of Christ, whilst, at the same time, he permitted almost every variety of vice and corruption to prevail among the intelligent populations of Europe, and to fester about the very heart of the papacy itself.

The accounts of what was done by Xavier in the various parts of India are of the same general character as the foregoing, the chief variations being in the kind of miracles performed by him. To minds capable of subjecting them to[Pg 162] the test of reason and common sense, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that they were either invented by Xavier himself, and sent to Europe to aid Loyola in giving popularity to the Jesuits, or were made up by them after his death for the same purpose. In point of fact, his whole claim to be considered as the "Apostle of the Indies" rests upon a flimsy and unsubstantial foundation. This is especially so, in view of the fact that the multitudes he pretended to convert were turned into professing Christians by the simple ceremony of baptism. Some of them may possibly have been able to repeat the invocations "Our Father" and "Hail Mary," but without any intelligent conception of the difference between the one Omnipotent God of the Christians and the many gods they had been accustomed to worship, or of the meaning of the words uttered to them by Xavier, or of the sacraments he administered, or of any of the attributes of the Deity, or of a single essential principle in the Christian Creed. Nevertheless, other accounts are added, whereby he is represented as having visited other places upon the Indian coast, where like results are said to have been produced, until, after having remained about seven years in the East Indies, he went to Japan to bring that idolatrous nation under the same influences, leaving the bulk of his Indian converts to succumb to the dominion of the Brahmins, and sink back into heathenism. He did not seem to realize that true conversion to the Christian faith involves the sympathetic emotions of the heart, the intelligent action of the mind, and that without these, no signs, or genuflexions, or empty words spoken merely from the lips, can give substantial value to the profession of it. A knowledge of the manual of arms does not impart to a coward the bravery of a true soldier, nor does the repetition of a few familiar words convert a parrot into an intelligent being. And not a whit more can a heathen, who never heard of Christ, be converted into a Christian by any form of words, or by any bodily gestures, unless his mind has been touched and his heart stirred by some knowledge of[Pg 163] what and who God is, and of the wisdom of his providences displayed in the creation and government of the universe.

One would suppose that the "gift of tongues," when once conferred upon Xavier, remained with him, inasmuch as he could not convey his thoughts to the multitudes of people in any other way. But, strange to say, it was otherwise. This miraculous gift was a mere "transient favor,"[89] conferred only for a season, during his intercourse with some of the heathen populations of India, and withdrawn as miraculously as it had been given. What strange infatuation it must be to accept it as true that, after he had been divinely endowed with the faculty of preaching to the people of India in their own languages, he should have entered upon his mission to Japan without any knowledge whatsoever of the Japanese language! Although that language is one of the most difficult in the world, and wholly unlike any spoken then or now in Europe, yet that fact was of trifling consequence to such a man as the Jesuits represent Xavier to have been. He undertook this mission as if nothing were in the way, relying, as may be inferred from the Jesuit accounts, upon his miraculous powers to convert to Christianity an idolatrous people he had never seen, and of whom the world at that time knew but little. It is solemnly averred that in forty days (!) he acquired a sufficient knowledge of the Japanese language to translate into it the Apostles' Creed, and an exposition of its meaning by himself. With this he began to preach, and "converted a great number." Still the intensity of his zeal made him impatient, and, being unwilling to await the slow process of appealing to the intelligence of the Japanese people, he resorted again to the familiar expedient of miracles, which had accomplished so much in India. Accordingly, we are told that, "by his blessing, a child's body, which was swelled and deformed, was made straight and beautiful; and, by his prayers, a leper was healed, and a pagan young maid of quality, that had been[Pg 164] dead a whole day, was raised to life."[90] The Jesuits have never hesitated to assign to Xavier, as they did to Loyola, the performance of some miracle, when anything had to be done that could be accomplished in no other way. The aggregate number of miracles attributed to them exceed all that are recorded in the Gospels. And neither Xavier nor Loyola ever hesitated to avow their authority to perform them, in verification of the Jesuit doctrine that God had transferred his divine attributes to each of them.

Such recitals are calculated to tax the patience of enlightened readers of this day; but without them it is not possible to obtain accurate knowledge of the record the Jesuits have made up to inform the world of the glorious achievements of their society, and to keep out of view the enormities for which they have been, in the course of their history, condemned by every Christian nation and people of Europe. They are necessary also to a proper understanding why Xavier was beatified and canonized; for these and other kindred fables were held to be sufficiently attested to cause his name to be enrolled among the saints.

The difficulty of conveying to the minds of the Japanese people any proper idea of God, when their language contained no word to express it, has already been suggested with regard to India. He told them, says Butler, that "Deos" meant God. But it is impossible that this or any other single word can so signify the Deity as to convey to an ignorant, idolatrous people any just conception of the Creator of the world, or of his Divine attributes, or of their own responsibilities to him either in life or death. But the wonderful exploits of Xavier were not balked at this or any other point. The "gift of tongues" had once been given to him, whereby he was enabled to preach to any people without any previous knowledge of their language. This gift, however, as we have seen, was only a "transient favor," granted for a season, or some special occasion, and taken[Pg 165] away. And, notwithstanding, in consequence of this, it had become necessary that he should learn the Japanese language in forty days, so as to be able to speak and write it, it still became necessary also that he should again have the power conferred upon him to understand and speak all languages. Consequently, we learn from Butler that "at Amanguchi God restored to St. Francis the gift of tongues; for he preached often to the Chinese merchants who traded there, in their mother tongue, which he had never learned."[91] To appreciate the character of this statement, it should be borne in mind that, at that time, he had never visited China. And it is proper to observe that, notwithstanding this providential preparation for missionary labors in that country, he never did visit there.

It converts serious things into mockery to pretend that God conferred this gift upon Xavier in order to fit him specially for the conversion of the Chinese, and yet that he so disposed his providences with reference to him that he was never able to enter that empire, or to hold direct intercourse with its people. If it had been the Divine decree that he should be set apart for this great work by this miraculous preparation, no earthly impediment would have been likely to arrest him, or keep him out of China; for God's fixed purposes are not subject to fluctuation to suit the exigencies of human affairs. But, notwithstanding he made several earnest efforts to get there, he signally failed in all of them. He returned from Japan to India, and, after remaining a short time at Goa, resorted to the expedient of attempting an entrance into China by indirection, because the authorities there were inimical to the Portuguese. He conceived the idea of procuring the organization of a diplomatic mission, and having himself attached to it, so that, by this means, he could enter the country. This plan having failed, he endeavored to accomplish his object "secretly," says Butler, making the effort to be landed somewhere upon the Chinese[Pg 166] coast, "where no houses were in view." Every step he took, however, proved abortive, and he died before reaching China, thus leaving wholly unaccomplished what the Jesuits allege was the foreordained purpose of Providence.

The death of Xavier occurred in 1552, and his remains were taken to Goa about three months after, when, according to the Jesuit account, his flesh "was found ruddy and fresh-colored, like a man who is in sweet repose!" When it was cut, the blood ran! And so necessary is it deemed by the Jesuits that his body shall appear to have been absolutely incorruptible—as an argument to prove that their society is under the special protection and guardianship of God—it is seriously affirmed that "the holy corpse exhaled an odor so fragrant and delightful that the most exquisite perfume came nothing near it." When the body reached Malacca, a pestilence then wasting the city, suddenly ceased, the effect alone of its mere presence! It was transported to Goa—"entire, fresh, and still exhaling a sweet odor"—and deposited in the church of the Jesuit college he had dextrously obtained from the Franciscan monks. Upon this occasion we are told that "several blind persons recovered their sight, and others, sick of palsies and other diseases, their health and the use of their limbs!" His relics, by order of the King of Portugal, were visited in 1774—one hundred and ninety-two years after his death—when "the body was found without the least bad smell, and seemed environed with a kind of shining brightness, and the face, hands, breast, and feet had not suffered the least alteration or symptom of corruption!"[92]

In view of the universal experience of mankind and the enlightenment of the present age, it is difficult to treat the foregoing statements seriously, they are so palpably the product of Jesuit imposture. And yet they are published in this country, and recommended as positive truths, by the highest ecclesiastical authority, as if some intelligent provi[Pg 167]dential object would be accomplished by believing them. Notwithstanding, however, that every man of common sense will reject them, they are indispensable to a proper understanding of the methods employed by the Jesuits in setting forth the claims of their society to providential favor. And although the vagaries of the wildest enthusiasts are more credible, because they do not sport with sacred things, their recital puts us in possession of some of the means of unraveling the nets this wonderful society has cunningly woven.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] Lives of the Saints. By the Rev. Alban Butler. Vol. XII, article "St. Francis Xavier," December 3, p. 608.

[84] History of the Saints. By the Rev. Alban Butler, Vol. XII, article "St. Francis Xavier," December 3, p. 610.

[85] Griesinger, pp. 88-89.

[86] Butler, pp. 608, 609.

[87] Butler, p. 609

[88] Butler, p. 611.

[89] Butler, p. 614.

[90] Butler, p. 615.

[91] Butler, p. 616.

[92] Butler, pp. 620-622.

The Jesuits had a fairer and better field for the display of their peculiar characteristics, and for the successful establishment of the principles of their constitution, during the existence of the Government founded by them in Paraguay, than ever fell to the lot of any other society or select body of men. It is not too late to try them by the results they then achieved, so as to assure ourselves of what might reasonably be expected if the modern nations should so far forget themselves as to allow that sad and disastrous experiment to be repeated.

After the Portuguese obtained possession of Brazil, they inaugurated measures necessary to bring the natives under their dominion. The problem was not of easy solution. The Indians had no conception of the principles of international law, which the leading nations had established to justify the subjugation of the weak by the strong, and consequently had to be brought by slow degrees under such influences as should persuade them to believe that their conquerors were benefactors, and not enemies. The pretense of title, based upon the grant of the Pope Alexander VI, was not openly avowed. If it had been, the native population, in all probability, would have united in sufficient numbers to drive the invaders into the sea. Pacific means of some sort had to be employed, so as to delude the multitude of natives into a condition of apparent but false security.

Spain had also acquired possessions in other parts of South America, and the methods of colonization adopted by the two Governments were substantially the same. Charles V of Spain and John III of Portugal were both religious[Pg 169] fanatics, and although their chief purpose was to obtain wealth from the mines of America, each of them professed to desire, at the same time, the civilization of the natives. Hence, as this could not be accomplished without the influences of Christianity, all the expeditions sent out by them to the New World were accompanied by ecclesiastics, and were therefore under the patronage and auspices of the Church of Rome. The controlling idea of the period was that the Church and the State should remain united, so that wheresoever the latter should obtain temporal and political control, the former should be constantly present to decide and direct everything pertaining to faith and morals; that is, to keep both the State and the people in obedience to the Church. With these objects in view, missionaries were sent out by the Church with the first Spanish and Portuguese adventurers, and every step was avowedly taken in the name of Christianity. So deeply was this sentiment embedded in every mind that the memory of some favorite saint was perpetuated in the names of nearly all the newly-established cities. These missionaries were taken mainly from the ancient monastic orders—the Dominicans, Franciscans, etc.—and had been regarded by the popes for many years as not only the most faithful, but the most efficient coadjutors of the Church in the work of extending Christianity over the world. We have elsewhere seen that the Jesuits did not sympathize with this belief, and that Loyola had urged upon the pope the necessity of creating his new society upon the express ground that these ancient orders had become both inefficient and corrupt. When the New World, therefore, was about to be opened before them, the followers of Loyola endeavored to seize the occasion to supplant the monkish orders, if possible, and take into their own hands exclusively the dissemination of Christian influences among the native populations. In this respect the Jesuits displayed more zeal for their own success than for that of the Church, and made the cause of Christianity secondary to their own interests. The history of their missions in South America will abun[Pg 170]dantly show this, as it will also display their insatiable ambition and unparalleled superciliousness.

The first Jesuits were sent to South America by the King of Portugal. They found a large district of country washed by the waters of the Rio de la Plata and its tributaries, which had not been reached by either the Spaniards or the Portuguese, but remained in the exclusive possession of the Indians, who had never felt the influence of European civilization. The natives generally had been treated by the invaders with extreme cruelty, having been often reduced to slavery and forced to submit to a variety of oppressions and indignities. All the resources of the country susceptible of being converted into wealth were seized upon to supply the royal treasuries of the Christian kings who tyrannized over them. The whole history of that period shows that, unless some counteracting influences had been introduced, those who professed to desire the civilization of the natives would, in all probability, have added to the degradation and misery in which they were found when first discovered. The Jesuits desired to apply some corrective, and there is no reason why the sincerity of their first missionaries in this respect should be suspected. It can not be justly charged against them that they were disposed to treat the native populations with cruelty, or to do otherwise than subject them to the influences of the Jesuit system of education and government. Whatsoever faults of management are properly attributable to them—and there are many—are easily traceable to that system itself, which, from its very nature, has always been, and must continue to be, inflexible. Inasmuch as blind and uninquiring obedience to the superior is the most prominent and fundamental principle of the society, everything, in either government or religion or morals, must bend to that, or break. There is no half-way ground—no compromise—nothing but obedience. Everything is reduced to a common level, leaving individuals without the least sense of personal responsibility except to those in authority above them. For these reasons, it is necessary to remember, whilst examining[Pg 171] the course and influences of the Jesuits in Paraguay, that whatsoever transpired was in obedience to the command of the superior in Rome, who held no personal intercourse with the natives, and whose animating and controlling purpose was to grasp the entire dominion over the New World in his own hands. It was chargeable to the constitution and organization of the society, which, as already explained, so emphatically embodies the principle of absolute monarchism as to place it necessarily in antagonism with every form of liberal and popular government. If the Government they established in Paraguay, and maintained for one hundred and fifty years, had not been monarchical, it could not have had Jesuit paternity or approval. If, from any cause, at any period of its existence, it had become otherwise by the introduction of popular features, it would have encountered Jesuit resistance. Monarchism and Jesuitism are twin sisters. Popular liberty and Jesuitism can not exist in unity; the former may tolerate the latter, but the latter can not be reconciled without exterminating everything but itself. Whatsoever institutions existed, therefore, in Paraguay whilst the country was under the exclusive dominion of the Jesuits, must be held to have been in precise conformity to the Jesuit constitution, and of such a character as the society would yet establish wheresoever they possessed the power either to frame new institutions or to change existing ones.

The Jesuit idea of exclusiveness and superiority influenced the conduct of their missionaries in Paraguay as elsewhere. But for this, different results might have ensued. If they had been content to recognize the monastic orders as equally important and meritorious as their own in the field of missionary labor, and the ancient machinery of the Church as retaining its capacity for effectiveness in spreading Christianity throughout the world—if, in other words, they had been content to recognize any merit as existing elsewhere than among themselves—the natives might have been subjected to a very different destiny from that which, in the end, overwhelmed them. But they were not permitted, by[Pg 172] the nature and character of their order, to entertain any such feelings, or to cherish any ideas of success other than those which promised to inure to their own advancement. Accordingly we find them—as explained by one of their modern defenders of high celebrity—basing their claim to exclusive jurisdiction over the natives of Paraguay upon the express ground that the ecclesiastical influences sent out under the auspices of the Church and the patronage of the Spanish and Portuguese kings, had become injurious rather than beneficial to the natives, in consequence of the most flagrant corruption. In explanation of the course pursued by the Jesuit missionaries, he says: "One of the first experiences of the missioners was, that it was in vain to hope for any permanent fruit among the Indians, unless they were separated from the evil influences of the Europeans, who swarmed into the New World, carrying with them all the vices of the Old, and adding to them the licentiousness and cruelty which the freedom of a new country and the hopes of speedy riches bring with them."[93] This same author also speaks of "the hordes of adventurers who flocked over to the New World, the scum of the great cities of Europe," in order to show that by intercourse with them the natives knew "little more of the Christian name than the vices of those who professed it."[94] To let it be known that "lay adventurers" are not alone referred to, he mentions expressly the "worldly and ambitious ecclesiastics and religious," who were "forgetful of the spirit of their calling, or apostates from their rule."[95] He casts a variety of aspersions upon the characters of the Bishops of Assumption and of Buenos Ayres, and maintains the proposition with earnestness, that if the Indians were allowed to have unrestrained intercourse with the Spaniards, "they would derive the worst consequences from their bad example, which is entirely opposed to the principles of morality."[Pg 173][96]

In this the Jesuits displayed their wonderful astuteness, and it may be supposed that they employed these and other kindred allegations with effect in Spain, inasmuch as they succeeded in obtaining from the king a special "prohibition for Europeans to set foot in" Paraguay, so that they could thereby secure exclusive control of the natives and bring them under Jesuit influences alone, independent of the monastic orders and the ecclesiastical authorities of the Church.[97] This was a great stroke of policy upon their part, because by ignoring the Church, its ecclesiastics, and the monastic orders, they were enabled to assume prerogatives of the most extravagant character, and to hold themselves out to the natives as the only Europeans worthy of obedience and the only true representatives of Christian civilization. Not only, therefore, in the manner of securing the royal approval of their exclusive pretensions, but in the character of the Government established by them, did they exhibit their chief characteristics of ambition, vanity, and superciliousness—characteristics they have never lost.

The Government established by them in Paraguay was essentially monarchical. It could not have been otherwise under the principles of their constitution. Under the false name of a Christian republic, it was, to all intents and purposes, a theocratic State, so constructed as to free it from all European influences except such as emanated from their superior at Rome. All the intercourse they had with the Church and the pope was through him, and whatsoever commands he gave were uninquiringly obeyed by them, without stopping to investigate or concerning themselves in the least to know whether the Church and the pope approved or disapproved them. In order to impress the natives with the idea of their independence and of their superiority over the monastic orders and the Church ecclesiastics, they practiced the most artful means to persuade them to hold no intercourse with[Pg 174] either Spaniards or Portuguese, upon the ground that they could not do so without encountering the example of their vices and immoralities. The unsuspecting Indians were easily seduced by acts of kindness, and the result was that, in the course of a brief period, they succeeded in establishing a number of what were called Reductions—or, more properly speaking, villages—with multitudes of Indians assembled about them; the whole aggregating, in the end, several hundred thousand. These constituted the Jesuit State, and were all, by the mere ceremony of baptism, brought under Jesuit dominion. At each Reduction the natives were allowed to select a secular magistracy, with limited and unimportant powers over such temporal affairs as could be intrusted to them without impairing the theocratic feature of the Government. But in order to provide against the possibility of permitting even these few temporal affairs from being conducted independently of them, they adopted the precaution of providing that, before any important decisions were carried into effect, they should obtain their sanction—as "spiritual shepherds." There never was anywhere a more thorough and complete blending of Church and State together.

Although this new State was established under the pretense that it was necessary to protect the natives against the bad influences of the Spaniards and the Portuguese, the approval of it by the King of Spain, Philip III, was obtained by the promise that "every adult must pay him the tribute of one dollar"—a consideration of chief importance with him. Philip IV was equally disposed to favor the Jesuits, presumably for the want of proper information; for it would have required but little investigation at that time to have discovered that the only motive of the Jesuits for securing royal approbation in Europe was that they might ultimately acquire power to plot against European royalty itself when it should stand in the way of their ambition. To show how little obedience was paid to the public authorities of either Spain or Portugal, it is only necessary to observe that each Reduction[Pg 175] was governed by a Jesuit father, supported by a vicar and a curate as assistants, but whose chief duty was espionage. This governing father was under the orders of a superior, who presided over a diocese of five or six parishes, the supervision and management of the whole being lodged in the hands of a provincial, who "received his orders direct from the general in Rome."[98] If, therefore, the kings of Spain and Portugal supposed that the Jesuits in Portugal intended to pay fidelity to them, or to either of them, they were deceived—as, in the course of events, they discovered. They obeyed their general in Rome, and him alone.

The praise ought not to be withheld from the Jesuits, that the natives who were thus brought under their influences were better and more kindly treated than those who were compelled to submit to the dominion of Spaniards and Portuguese beyond the limits of Paraguay. They "partook of their labors, of their amusements, of their joys, of their sorrows. They visited daily every house in which lay a sick person, whom they served as the kindest nurse, and to whom they seemed to be ministering genii." By these and other kindnesses they brought the Indians to look upon them with a feeling bordering upon idolatry. But whilst they were friends, they were also sovereigns, and "governed with absolute and unquestioned authority."[99] This was a necessary and indispensable part of their system of government, which embodied the Jesuit idea of a Christian republic. It was in everything pertaining to the management of public affairs an absolute monarchy, with all its powers centered in the general at Rome, whose authority was accepted as equal to that of God, and to whose command obedience was exacted from all.

Apart from this governing authority, universal equality prevailed. The principles of socialism or communism—very much as now understood—governed all the Reductions.[Pg 176] Everything necessary to the material comfort and prosperity of the Indians was in common. Each family had a portion of land set apart for cultivation. They also learned trades, and many of them, both men and women, became experts. But the earnings of the whole were deposited in common storehouses at each Reduction, and distributed by the Jesuits in such portions to each individual as necessity required. "Even meat was portioned from the public slaughter-houses in the same way." The surplus produce remaining after these distributions was sent to Europe, and sold or exchanged for wares and merchandise, solely at the discretion of the Jesuits. Everything was conducted in obedience to them, and nothing contrary to their orders was tolerated. Rigid rules of conduct and hours of labor were prescribed, and the violators of them were subject to corporal punishment. Houses of worship, colleges, and palatial residences for the Jesuit fathers, were built by the common labor and at the expense of the common treasury. Suffrage was universal; but "the sanction of the Jesuits was necessary to the validity of the election." In fact, says Nicolini, "the Jesuits substituted themselves for the State or community"[100]—a fact which fully establishes the monarchical and theocratic character of the Government.

In order to teach the confiding Indians that obedience to authority was their chiefest duty, they were subjected to rules of conduct and intercourse which were enforced with the strictest severity. They were watched in everything, the searching eyes of the Jesuits being continually upon them. They constituted, in fact, a state of society reaching the Jesuit ideal completely; that is, docile, tractable, submissive, obedient, without the least real semblance of manhood. Having thus completed their subjugation, energetic measures were adopted to render any change in their condition impossible. For this purpose care was taken to exclude all other than Jesuit influences, and to sow the seeds of dis[Pg 177]affection towards everything European, the object being to surround them with a high wall of ignorance and superstition, which no European influences could overleap, and within which their authority would be unbounded. They were instructed that the Spaniards and the Portuguese were their enemies, that the ecclesiastics and monkish missionaries sent over by the Church were unworthy of obedience or imitation, and that the only true religion was that which emanated from their society and had their approval. If these simple-minded people were taught anything about the Church, it was with the view of convincing them that the Jesuits represented all its power, authority, and virtue, and that whatsoever did not conform to their teachings was sinful and heretical. If they were told anything about the pope, it was to represent him as inferior to their general, who was to be regarded by them as the only infallible representative of God upon earth. That all other ideas should be excluded from their minds, they were not permitted to hold any intercourse whatsoever with Europeans; for fear, undoubtedly, they might hear that there was a Church at Rome, and a pope higher than their general. They were not allowed to speak any language but their own, so as to render it impossible to acquire any ideas or opinions except such as could be expressed by means of its limited number of inexpressive words; that is, to keep them entirely and exclusively under Jesuit influences. To sum up the whole, without further detail, the Indians were regarded as minors under guardianship, and in this condition they remained for one hundred and fifty years, without the possibility of social and national development. They were saved, it is true, from the miseries of Portuguese slavery, but kept in such a condition of inferiority and vassalage as unfitted them for independent citizenship. Their limbs were unchained; but their minds were "cabined, cribbed, confined," within bounds too narrow for matured thought, sentiment, or reason.

It would not be fair to say that the first Jesuit mission[Pg 178]aries to Paraguay may not have been animated by the desire to improve the condition of the Indians, or to withhold from them the meed of praise justly due for the humanity of their motives. It is undoubtedly true, as already intimated, that they did shield them from many of the cruelties to which they had been subjected under the Spanish and the Portuguese adventurers, who overran large portions of South America in the search after wealth. But it can not be too indelibly impressed upon our minds, in this age, that they acted in strict obedience to the Jesuit system, which permitted no departure from absolute monarchism, and centered all the duties of citizenship in obedience to themselves as the sole representatives of the only authority that was or could be legitimate. And not only did their strict adherence to their system make it necessary for them to hold the Indians in subjugation and treat them as inferior subjects, but it involved them, at last, in collisions with the Spaniards and Portuguese, and obliged them to treat the latter especially as enemies, and to impress this fact upon the minds of the whole Indian population. The consequence of this was to create an independent and rebellious Government within the Portuguese dominions, which necessarily brought the Jesuits in conflict with the legitimate authority of the Portuguese Government. The Jesuits foresaw this, and prepared for it. It is a fair inference from all the contemporaneous facts that they desired it. At all events they subjected the Indians at the Reductions to military training and discipline, so as to be prepared for such emergencies as might arise out of their relations with both the Spaniards and the Portuguese. One would suppose that in a Government so far separated from the rest of the world, and governed by those who professed to be laboring alone for "the greater glory of God," the arts of peace would be chiefly, if not exclusively, cultivated. But the successors of the first Jesuit missionaries thought otherwise. Consequently, besides refusing to allow the Indians any intercourse with the Europeans, they would not permit them even to leave the Reductions without permis[Pg 179]sion, or to receive any impressions except those emanating from themselves, or to do anything not dictated by them. The result was what they designed, that the Indians came to look upon all Europeans, whether ecclesiastic or lay, as enemies, and the Jesuit as their only friends. They readily engaged, therefore, in the manufacture of arms and ammunition, and submitted to military discipline until they became a formidable army, subject, of course, to the command of their Jesuit superiors. The sequel of Jesuit history proves that in all this they were unconsciously creating an antagonism which, in the end, overwhelmed them.

A violent feud sprang up between the Jesuits and the Franciscan monks, which undoubtedly arose out of the claim of superiority and exclusiveness set up and persisted in by the former. It may well be inferred that the Jesuits were chiefly to blame for this feud, for the reason that the Franciscans retained the confidence of the Church authorities, and the Jesuits did not. At all events, however, they were in open enmity with each other, and prosecuted their controversy with an exceeding degree of bitterness upon both sides. A distinguished citizen of the United States, who represented this country as Minister to Paraguay, alluding to this fact, says: "The Franciscan priests in the capital regarded them [the Jesuits] with envy, suspicion, and jealousy. These last fomented the animosity of the people against them, so that Government, priests, and people regarded with favor, rather than otherwise, the destruction of the missions, and the expulsion of their founders."[101] Notwithstanding these hostile relations, however, between the Jesuits and the Franciscans, and the disturbed condition of affairs existing between the former and the Portuguese authorities, neither the pope nor the King of Spain withdrew their patronage entirely from the Jesuits for some years, and not until it was made manifest that they had become an independent power, which might, if not checked, result in complications injurious alike[Pg 180] to the Church and the State. But the time arrived, after a while, when it became necessary to impose severe restraints upon their ambition, and to teach them that neither the powers of Church nor State were concentrated in their hands. They were required to learn—what they had seemed not before to have been conscious of—that the authority they exercised in Paraguay was usurped, and that if they desired to continue there as a society, they must submit to be held in proper subordination. Being unable or unwilling to realize this, they invited results which they manifestly had not anticipated.

When the protracted controversy between Spain and Portugal, about the boundaries of their respective possessions in South America, reached an adjustment, it furnished an occasion for testing the obedience of the Jesuits to royal authority. The two Governments, after the usual delay in such matters, came to an amicable understanding, and arranged the boundaries to their mutual satisfaction. It placed a portion of the Jesuit missions under the jurisdiction of the Portuguese, which they had supposed to belong to Spain. The Jesuits refused to submit to this, and inaugurated the necessary measures to resist it, being determined, if they could prevent it, not to submit to the dominion of Portugal. Their preference for Spain was because of the fact that the king of that country was more favorably inclined to them than the Portuguese king. But the history of the controversy justifies the belief that they would not even have submitted to the former unresistingly, inasmuch as it had undoubtedly become their fixed purpose to retain the independence they had long labored to establish, by maintaining their theocratic form of government. They had been so accustomed to autocratic rule over the natives, that they could not become reconciled to the idea of surrendering it to any earthly power. In this instance, however, they encountered an adversary of whose courage and capacity they had not the least conception, and whom they found, in a brief period, capable of in[Pg 181]flicting a death-blow upon the society. This was Sebastian Cavalho, Marquis of Pombal, who was the chief counselor of the Portuguese king.

Cavalho—better known as Pombal—and the King of Portugal, were both faithful members of the Roman Church, and conducted the Government in obedience to its requirements. But neither of them was disposed to submit to the dictation of the Jesuits of Paraguay with regard to the question of boundary—which was entirely political—or submit to their rebellion against legitimate authority. Such a question did not admit of compromise or equivocation. It presented a vital issue they could neither avoid nor postpone, without endangering the Government and forfeiting their own self-respect. Consequently, they inaugurated prompt and energetic measures to suppress the threatened insurrection of the Jesuits before it should be permitted to ripen into open and armed resistance. From that time forward the controversy constantly increased in violence. The intense hatred of Pombal by the Jesuits has colored their opinions to such an extent that they deny to him either talents or merit, and, inasmuch as they charge all the ensuing results to him, he is pictured by them more as a monster of iniquity than as a statesman of acknowledged ability. All this, however, should count for nothing in deciding the real merits of the controversy. The whole matter is resolved into this simple proposition—that it was the duty of the Government to vindicate and maintain its own authority in the face of Jesuit opposition. It had nothing to do with the Church, nor the Church with it. It did not involve any question of faith, but was confined solely and entirely to secular and temporal affairs. And if, under these circumstances, Pombal had quietly permitted the Jesuits to defy the Government and consummate their object by successful rebellion against its authority, he would have won from Jesuit pens the brightest and most glowing praise, but his name would have gone into history as the betrayer of his country.

With the foregoing facts impressed upon his mind, the reader will be prepared to appreciate the subsequent events which led to the expulsion of the Jesuits from all the Roman Catholic nations of Europe, and finally to the suppression and abolition of the society, as the only means of defense against its exactions and enormities.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] The Suppression of the Society of Jesus in the Portuguese Dominions. By the Rev. Alfred Weld, "of the Society of Jesus." London, 1877. Page 24.

[94] Ibid., p. 30.

[95] Ibid., p. 33.

[96] Ibid., p. 42.

[97] The Suppression of the Society of Jesus in the Portuguese Dominions. By the Rev. Alfred Weld, "of the Society of Jesus." London, 1877. Page 42.

[98] History of the Jesuits. By Greisinger. Page 140.

[99] Nicolini, p. 302.

[100] Nicolini, pp. 303-304.

[101] History of Paraguay. By Washburn. Vol. I, p. 87.

At the period referred to in the last chapter the Jesuits were held in low esteem everywhere in Europe. They were severely censured, not alone by Government authorities, but by the great body of the Christian people, more especially those who desired to save the Roman Church from their dangerous and baneful influences. The leading Roman Catholic Governments were all incensed against them, and it only required some master spirit, some man of courage and ability, to excite universal indignation against them. Protestants had comparatively little to do with the matter—nothing, indeed, but to make public sentiment somewhat more distinct and emphatic.

Pombal understood thoroughly the character of the adversary he was about to encounter—the adroit artifices which the Jesuits, collectively and individually, were accustomed to practice, and by which they had often succeeded in obtaining assistance from unexpected quarters. Therefore he resolved at the outset not to temporize with them, but to put in operation immediately a series of measures of the most active and energetic character. He may not have known that the other Roman Catholic Governments would unite with that of Portugal, but he must have seen ground for believing that they would, in the general displeasure they exhibited at the conduct of the Jesuits throughout Europe. Howsoever this may have been, he saw plainly his own line of duty toward the Portuguese Government, and had not only the necessary courage, but the ability to pursue it. A royal council was held at the palace of the King of Portugal in 1757, at which he suggested "the imperative neces[Pg 184]sity of removing the Jesuits from their posts of confessors to the royal family," for the reason that the controversy in South America could not be satisfactorily settled, if at all, so long as they remained in a condition to influence the action and opinions of the king in any degree whatsoever.[102] He knew perfectly well how ingeniously they had wormed themselves into the confidence of kings, so that by becoming their confessors they should not only obtain a knowledge of the secrets of State, but so to influence the policy and action of Governments as to promote their own interests. And like a sagacious and skillful statesman, as he undoubtedly was, he saw at a glance how necessary it was that they should not be permitted to have further access to the king. The Jesuits represent the king as having been unwilling to assent to this proposition; but that is not of the least consequence, because, as they admit, he signed "the decree which excluded all Jesuits from their office of confessors of the court."[103] This was a terrible blow to them—perhaps the first of a serious character they had ever encountered. It was made the more serious by the fact that Portugal was recognized as a thoroughly religious country, and sincerely devoted to the Church of Rome. Whatsoever may have been its immediate effect upon the Jesuits, it left no ground for retreat or equivocation upon either side, but placed the contestants in direct and open hostility, each with drawn swords. From that time forward the conflict, on the part of the Jesuits, was one of life or death, and they fought it with a desperation born of that belief.

To justify itself, and to explain to the European nations the reasons which influenced it, the Portuguese Government caused to be prepared a statement of grievances, wherein the course of the Jesuits "in the Spanish and Portuguese dominions of the New World, and of the war which they had carried on against the armies of the two crowns," were set forth. It is insinuated that Pombal was the author of this[Pg 185] pamphlet, but no evidence of that has been produced. It does not matter whether he was or not, inasmuch as it amounted to such an arraignment of the Jesuits as gave tone to the public sentiment of Europe, and influenced the course of all the Governments toward the society. Viewed in this light, it becomes of the utmost importance, inasmuch as we may rightfully regard as true, even without special investigation, whatsoever influences the action of Governments and communities, and can not safely accept in opposition to it what interested parties—such as the Jesuits were—may assert to the contrary. The substance of this statement is contained in the work of Weld, one of the most earnest of the Jesuit defenders. It is in the nature of an indictment against the Jesuits, preferred by one of the leading Roman Catholic Governments of Europe, and on that account is both important and instructive. Abuse and vituperation—in the use of which the Jesuits are trained as experts—are no answer to it.

After alleging that the power of the Jesuits had so increased as to render it evident that there must be war between them and the Government in Paraguay, it proceeds to affirm "that they were laboring sedulously to undermine the good understanding existing between the Governments of Portugal and Spain," and that "their machinations were carried on from the Plata to the Rio Grande." It then embodies in a few expressive words, as given by the Jesuit Weld, these serious charges:

"That they had under them thirty-one great populations, producing immense riches to the society, while the people themselves were kept in the most miserable slavery; that no Spaniard or Portuguese, were he even governor or bishop, was ever admitted into the Reductions; that, 'with strange deceit,' the Spanish language was absolutely forbidden; that the Indians were trained to an unlimited, blind obedience, kept in the most 'extraordinary ignorance,' and the most unsufferable slavery ever known, and under a complete despotism as to body and soul; that they did not know[Pg 186] there was any other sovereign in the world than the fathers, and knew nothing of the king, or any other law than the will of the 'holy fathers;' that the Indians were taught that white laymen adored gold, had a devil in their bodies, were the enemies of the Indians, and of the images which they adored; that they would destroy their altars, and offer sacrifices of their women and infants; and they were consequently taught to kill white men wherever they could find them, and to be careful to cut off their heads, lest they should come to life again."[104]

One would scarcely suppose that, after this terrible arraignment of the Jesuits in Paraguay, there could be any other counts added to the indictment. But in order to aggravate these offenses and to explain their disloyalty to the Government—as we learn from the same Jesuit authority—they were also charged with opposing and resisting the treaty of boundary between Spain and Portugal; with carrying on a war against the two Governments; fortifying and defending the passes leading to the Reductions with artillery; inciting the Indians to revolt; and with exhibiting an obstinate resistance to royal authority.[105]

There has never been, in the civilized world, such an enumeration of serious offenses charged against any body of men by so high and responsible authority as that of one of the leading Governments, as Portugal was. The modern reader can not avoid the expression of surprise when he realizes that they were made by those who faithfully adhered to the Church of Rome, and against a society which professed to have been organized to promote "the greater glory of God," for the express reason that no existing order sufficiently did so.

It is scarcely possible that such accusations as these would have been made without some justifying cause. If they were even exaggerated, the Government of Portugal must have obtained information from responsible sources sufficiently reliable to authorize a searching investigation. That, undoubt[Pg 187]edly, was the object of Pombal and the king, not merely in explanation of their own official conduct, but to bring the conduct and attitude of the Jesuits to the notice of other Governments. Whatsoever the direct object they had in view, the charges thus formally made by them against the Jesuits led to a fierce and angry controversy. The Jesuits defended themselves with their accustomed violence, and it has required many pages to convey to the world the character of the maledictions visited by them upon the name and memory of Pombal. To us of the present time these amount to very little, inasmuch as they are almost entirely supported by ex parte statements of those implicated by the Government, and which are entitled to no weight whatsoever against the general verdict ultimately rendered by the European nations, in obedience to public opinion. We can not accept the Jesuit theory that these nations were all misled by false accusations, or that the subsequent suppression of the society was the consequence of undue popular prejudices. It is not difficult to deceive individuals, but Governments and communities are not apt to fall into serious errors. The collective judgments of whole populations are seldom wrong.

It was natural that the Christians of Europe should become, not only interested, but in some degree excited, when they came to know the character of the charges made against the Jesuits by the authority of the Portuguese Government. Many of them desired to look favorably upon the order on account of the relations they supposed it to bear to the Church. The Roman ecclesiastics were divided, some attacking and others defending it. It became necessary, therefore, that the matter should be brought to the attention of the pope, in order that the final judgment should be pronounced by him, inasmuch as they were considered a religious order, and, consequently, within the proper jurisdiction of the Church. With this view, Pombal, in behalf of the Government of Portugal, forwarded an official dispatch to Rome, whereby the pope was informed of the causes of complaint against them. The Jesuits say this dis[Pg 188]patch is filled with "libels;" but this is to be attributed chiefly to their hatred of Pombal, to whom they, of course, assign the authorship. Nevertheless, it emanated from so responsible a quarter that the pope felt himself obliged to give it due consideration. He owed it to Portugal, no less than to the Church, to cause a searching investigation to be made, so that it might be ascertained whether the charges against the Jesuits were true or false. This could not have been avoided, even if he had desired it, and there is no evidence that he did.

Benedict XIV was at that time pope, and his secretary of briefs was Cardinal Passionei, who had the reputation of being a man of integrity and ability. The initiatory steps had, consequently, to be taken by them. The pope, however, was in infirm health, and the Jesuits insist that his sympathies were with them. This may probably have been so; but if it were, it furnishes no argument in their favor, because there was yet no evidence before him upon which any decision could have been based. The question he had then to decide was not whether they were innocent or guilty, but whether his duty did not require of him to take the necessary steps to ascertain what the truth really was. The charges were too serious to be passed over without this, and whatsoever the fact may have been with regard to his sympathies, Benedict XIV felt himself constrained to order, and did order, an investigation to be made. His brief to that effect was dated April 1, 1758, and addressed to Cardinal Saldanha by Passionei, as the pope's secretary, and commanded that the charges made by the Portuguese Government should be thoroughly investigated, and the facts laid before him for his pontifical guidance. This was the inauguration of a regular trial before a tribunal of acknowledged jurisdiction, and probably had the effect of suspending, in some degree, the public judgment to await his final decision. The Jesuits could not rightfully have objected to this course; and if it be true, as they insist, that the pope sympathized with them, they doubtless congratulated themselves upon[Pg 189] his favorable inclination towards them. Whatsoever may have occurred afterwards, the investigation undoubtedly had an impartial beginning. On this account, the inquirer who desires to understand the history and character of the Jesuits, will be interested in its important details.

Cardinal Saldanha was appointed "visitor and reformer of the society," with full power to reform whatsoever abuses should be found to exist, and if, after investigation, "any grave matters" were discovered, he was required to report them to the pope, who would then decide what subsequent steps were to be taken.[106] The proceedings up to that point were therefore judiciously conducted. The death of Benedict XIV, however, within about a month after the date of this brief, passed it over to Clement XIII, his immediate successor. The Jesuits strive hard to show that although the pope referred in his brief to the reform of abuses, he did not intend thereby to signify that he had then decided that reforms were necessary. If they be allowed the benefit of this argument, it does not avail them against the fact that Cardinal Saldanha, after investigation, made a report in which "the fathers of the society in Portugal, and its dominions at the end of the earth, are declared, on the fullest information, guilty of every crime of worldly traffic that could disgrace the ecclesiastical state."[107] Whilst the special accusation here made had reference to the commercial traffic by which, in express violation of the rules of the society, the Jesuits had accumulated immense wealth in all parts of the world, and in direct violation of their vow of "extreme poverty," Pombal considered himself justified, with the assent of the king, in requiring of the cardinal patriarch of Lisbon the issuance of an official order "to suspend from the sacred ministry, or preaching and hearing confessions, all the religious of the Society of Jesus," in the Patriarchate of Lisbon. An order to that effect was accordingly issued by the patriarch, which made the issue more serious and complicated[Pg 190] than ever; for it was a direct and practical procedure which everybody could understand. In their own defense, the Jesuits urge that the patriarch was intimidated by Pombal, and that, in consequence, he died of remorse within a month, and confessed his error upon his death-bed. Such defenses as this are of no weight as arguments, in the face of actual and known occurrences, and especially when it is well known that the Jesuits are in the habit of resorting so frequently to death-bed repentances, obtained in private by themselves, as to excite general suspicion against them. Even, however, if their statement in this case is accepted as true, the order of the patriarch was carried into effect by the Government of Portugal, and proved, in the end, to be the most fatal blow ever aimed at the society before that time. The proceedings were not arrested by the death of the patriarch; for the vacancy made by it was immediately filled by the appointment of Cardinal Saldanha as his successor, which the Jesuits were compelled to construe as a censure of their society, inasmuch as he had already, in his report, charged them with crimes disgraceful to the "ecclesiastical state." As this appointment was made by the pope, it is at least to be inferred that he, up to this point, regarded the investigation as fairly and impartially made. After his appointment as patriarch, Cardinal Saldanha banished the father superior of the Jesuit "Professed House," and caused such measures to be taken as resulted in the arrest of two Jesuits in Brazil, who were sent to Portugal and imprisoned. He appointed the Bishop of Para, in Brazil, as his ecclesiastical delegate to act in his name in South America. It would be impracticable to trace here all the events which followed; nor is it necessary, inasmuch as it is of far more importance to know the results than the series of details that led to them. The first important result that occurred in South America, under the ecclesiastical administration of the Bishop of Para, was the issuance by him of a decree whereby "he suspended all Jesuits in his diocese from the functions of the confes[Pg 191]sional and the pulpit."[108] He then continued to investigate the conduct of the Jesuits, and found that the ecclesiastics were divided with reference to them—some accusing and others defending them. Among those who opposed them were the Bishop of Olinda and the Bishop of San Sebastian, and these two prelates of the Church have been violently denounced by the Jesuits on that account. This, however, is a fixed habit with them. They denounce all who oppose them, and bestow fulsome praises upon all their defenders. By this indiscriminate method they impair confidence in themselves, and make it difficult to decide how much of what they say shall be accepted and how much rejected. The safer plan is to follow the course of public events, giving but little heed to the vituperation with which Jesuit works abound.

There can be no doubt of the fact that Benedict XIV had authorized the cardinal visitor appointed by him to apply all the measures necessary to reform the Jesuits, if, after investigation, he found any to be required. Thus the visitor was empowered to act for the Church and the pope; and, hence, the Jesuit resistance to his decrees was disobedience and insubordination. When Clement XIII became pope, he found just this condition of things existing, which not only increased his responsibilities, but added greatly to his embarrassment. The Jesuits say that Cardinal Passionei unjustly impressed his mind with the idea that Benedict XIV had already decided that the reform of their society was necessary, and that whatsoever he did under the influence of this false impression should not be considered to their prejudice. This is barely possible; but whether he did or not is immaterial, since Clement XIII could not, under any circumstances, have found himself justified in either abandoning or suspending the investigation which Benedict XIV had ordered. Nor could he have changed its course at any[Pg 192] time after he reached the pontificate—the interests at stake were too important, and the welfare of the Church was too deeply involved. At all events, the investigation was continued under Clement XIII; and when the Jesuits realized that he could not be persuaded to abandon it, they endeavored to shift the issue by insisting that the hostility exhibited towards them had not arisen out of any of the things charged by the Government of Portugal, but had been created by the opposition of the "Jansenists and heretics" to them on account of their orthodox adherence to the Church of Rome. In this they exhibited their usual sagacity and cunning, evidently believing that it was the only means left them to bring over the body of the Roman Christians—the pope and all—to their side. It did, probably, tend somewhat to that, but fell far short of what they must have expected from it; for the further the investigation proceeded, the more unpopular their society became, not only on account of the proceedings in Paraguay, but because of their interference with all the Governments of Europe. We see this in the measures adopted in those Governments, and in the unanimity of the public sentiment which sustained them. The belief can not be indulged for a moment that these Governments and peoples—faithful and devoted as they always had been to the Church of Rome—were influenced by prejudices alone, and acted without some strong, controlling, and justifiable cause. It is worthy of repetition that Governments and communities do not thus act. And we shall soon see that there have been scarcely any other events in history so ratified by public approval as the expulsion of the Jesuits from the leading nations of Europe, and their final suppression and abolition by the pope. The evidence upon these subjects is so complete and overwhelming that it can not be set aside by volumes of eloquent denunciation, or weakened by Jesuitical sophistry.

Whilst it is not proper to exclude from our consideration all that the Jesuit writers have said with reference to the period and controversy here referred to, it should be accepted[Pg 193] with a great many grains of allowance. Their warmth and vehemence excite suspicion, indicating more of passion than comports with the quiet composure of innocence. They are not willing that the least credit shall be given to anything against them, and demand that whatsoever is said in their behalf shall be accepted as indisputably true. It is not difficult to see, however, that much of the matter offered by them as historic truth does not reach the dignity of impartial evidence, and ought not to be given any serious weight when in conflict with allegations proceeding from reputable and responsible sources. Within a recent period an elaborate defense of the society has been made by one of its leading and most learned members, and sent forth to the world as a conclusive and unanswerable vindication. It is contained in the volume so frequently referred to in this chapter, and alleged to be mainly founded upon what "writers of the society" have said. He supports his defense of this method of making history by introducing the statements of anonymous authors which bear upon their face presumptive evidence that they were manufactured for the purpose by interested parties. He does not, of course, rely exclusively upon them, but, with true Jesuit ingenuity, has so interwoven these irresponsible statements with less suspicious authorities as to give coloring and credibility to the whole. He says: "The details have been filled chiefly in from three well-known contemporary works, the names of the authors of which have not reached us."[109] Such a course indicates the partisan rather than the impartial chronicler of events, and an absence of the candor with which so important a discussion should be conducted. Anonymous statements should not be entirely discredited, because they may be true; but in searching after the "truth of history" they should avail nothing unless consistent with the general course of events, and then only because of that consistency. One illustration must serve. It is argued that Benedict XIV[Pg 194] sympathized with the Jesuits, and was favorable to them at the time he appointed Saldanha as visitor with authority to investigate and reform, and yet this same pope was constrained by their persistent disobedience to declare them "contumacious, crafty, and reprobate men."[110]

One reason why the papal authorities found so much difficulty in prosecuting the investigation of Jesuit affairs, was the impenetrable mystery which hung over the conduct of the society for more than two hundred years. By means of this secrecy and the concealment of the principles of their constitution, they were so enabled to compact their organization as to present a solid front to the world, with all its energies devoted alone to its own success. It was only when the constitution became known that Governments and society could defend against their machinations, which, as we have seen, were sufficiently well planned to defy even the pope and the Church functionaries appointed by him to inspect their conduct. Their persistency in refusing to expose to the public the principles of their constitution indicated, in the public judgment, that they feared a knowledge of them would add to the public indignation at their presumptuousness and vanity. And so decided was this refusal that it required the authority of the French Parliament—the highest judicial authority in that country—to drag the constitution from its hiding-place. One of their members had engaged in a mercantile adventure until he became bankrupt. Professing to have no property of his own out of which his debts could be collected, his creditors brought suit against the society, insisting that as the property it possessed was held in common for the benefit of all the members, it should be made liable for the debts of each. This having been resisted by the society, the Parliament, in order to reach a correct decision, compelled the surrender of the constitution. It was then decided that the defense set up could not be maintained, whereupon judgment was ren[Pg 195]dered against the society, and the debt was paid. After this time—when the principles of the constitution became known—the odium in which the Jesuits were held rapidly increased among both Roman Catholics and Protestants, but more particularly among the former, on account of their unremitting efforts to defeat and embarrass the investigation ordered by the pope. Unsophisticated minds, accustomed to respect the Church and obey its authority, could not understand why so many impediments should be thrown in the way of the pope in his efforts to discover the truth, if the society were, as it pretended to be, entirely faultless in its conduct. Even the authority of the Church was comparatively powerless to resist and overcome their obstinacy, as we shall have many occasions to observe in the course of our inquiries.

FOOTNOTES:

[102] Weld, p. 94.

[103] Ibid.

[104] Weld, pp. 96-97.

[105] Ibid.

[106] Weld, pp. 131-132.

[107] Ibid., p. 138.

[108] Weld, p. 148.

[109] Weld. Introduction, pp. xxxviii-xxxix.

[110] Nicolini, p. 128.

It must not be supposed that the only grounds of complaint against the Jesuits were those already enumerated. Wheresoever they were sent among heathen and unchristianized peoples, they gave trouble to the Church, and inflicted serious injury upon the cause of Christianity. When they found a missionary field occupied by any of the monastic orders, they endeavored either to remove them, or to destroy their influence by assailing their Christian integrity, so that they could have everything their own way. They accustomed themselves to obtain their ends by whatsoever means they found necessary, considering the latter as justified by the former. Not in Paraguay alone, but wheresoever else they obtained dominion over ignorant and credulous populations, it was mainly accomplished by persuading them to believe that conversion to Christianity consisted in the mere recital of formal words the professed converts did not understand, and in the ceremony of baptism without any intelligent conception of its character, or of the example and teachings of Christ. The seeds of error they thus succeeded in scattering broadcast among the natives of India, China, and elsewhere, have grown into such poisonous fruits that all the intervening years have failed to provide an antidote, and it remains a lamentable fact that the descendants of these same professing converts have relapsed into idolatry, and continued to shun Christianity as if all its influences were pestilential. They became Brahmins in India, and, by practicing the idolatrous rites and ceremonies of that country, brought the cause of Christianity into degradation. Continuing steadily to follow the advice of Loyola, they[Pg 197] everywhere became "all things to all men," by worshiping at the shrines of the lowest forms of heathen superstition as if they were the holy altars of the Church. And when rebuked for this by the highest authorities of the Church, they justified themselves upon the ground that any form of vice, deception, and immorality became legitimated by Christianity when practiced in its name. In China they engaged with the natives in worshiping Confucius instead of Christ, and made offerings upon his altar without the slightest twinge of conscience. They omitted nothing, howsoever degrading, which they found necessary to successfully planting the Jesuit scepter among the Oriental populations, until at last, after a long and hard struggle, they were brought into partial obedience by the Church, whose authority they had defied, and whose precepts they contemptuously violated.

Whatsoever may be said or thought of the various religions which have prevailed throughout the world, there is one thing about which there can be no misunderstanding; that is, that the Brahminism of India and the Christianity of Christ can not be united together harmoniously. There are many reasons for this, apparent to every intelligent mind, but a few only are sufficient for present purposes. It has always been the central idea of the former that Brahma should be worshiped through a multitude of divinities, representing each passion and emotion of the mind; and that his wrath shall be appeased by sacrificial offerings, even of human beings, in order to reach total annihilation as the highest and most perfect state of beatitude after death; whereas the central idea of Christianity is that worship is due only to one God, the Author of all being and the Sovereign of the universe, so that when man shall reach "the last of earth," his spirit shall enter upon immortality. Brahminism held India for centuries in degrading bondage, and Christianity was designed to lift mankind to a higher plane of being. This belief was universal among all Christians, howsoever they may have differed in forms of faith and modes of worship; and none were louder in its profession[Pg 198] than the Jesuits, who pretended that they alone were worthy to occupy the missionary field, and were specially and divinely set apart to spread the gospel among all heathen peoples. In carrying on their work, however, in India, they violated their solemn vow of fidelity to the Church by casting aside every pretense of Christianity, and openly, but with simulated professions of Christian zeal, adopting the idolatrous practices common to the natives. They shamelessly cast aside the profession of Christianity as if it were a thing of reproach, and performed with alacrity the most revolting Hindoo rites, seemingly as regardless of the obligation of obedience to the Church as of their own dignity and manliness of character. They substituted fraud, deceit, and hypocrisy for that open, frank, and courageous course of conduct which a sense of right never fails to suggest to ingenuous minds. They unchristianized themselves by becoming Brahmins and pariahs, crawling stealthily and insidiously into the highest places, and sinking with equal ease and skill into the lowest and most degrading. Even in this enlightened and investigating age, many intelligent people will wonder whether or no these things are possibly true, inasmuch as they shock so seriously every sense of personal honor and religious duty. But the verifications of them are sufficiently abundant to remove all possible doubt, furnished, as they are, not alone by the authors of general history, but by those friendly to the Jesuits, and usually prompt to apologize for them.

One of the most conspicuous of the Jesuit missionaries to India, after Xavier, was Nobili, who reached Madura about the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is pretended that his predecessors had been unable to convert any of the Brahmins, inasmuch as they had labored exclusively with the pariahs, who, besides being shunned and despised by the Brahmins, had paid no heed whatsoever to their Christian admonitions. Nobili, therefore, taxed his ingenuity to discover some practical method of removing this difficulty. He had before him numerous examples of those who had[Pg 199] spread the cause of Christianity by openly professing and courageously vindicating it. There was something inspiring in the thought that in its past successes Christianity had required no disguises, but had achieved its victories over paganism in the field of open and manly controversy. To a devout and Christian mind there was no ground of compromise between Brahminism and Christianity. One or the other had to yield—they could not unite. Nobili knew this, and but for his Jesuit training would scarcely have departed from the plain line of Christian duty. With his mind, however, disciplined by the belief that it was his duty to be "all things to all men," he imitated the example of Mahomet, who went to the mountain when it would not come to him, by casting aside his character of Christian and becoming a Brahmin himself. He assumed the character and position of a "Saniassi;" that is, the highest caste among the Hindoos. What that word means is not very plain, but the Jesuits insist that those Brahmins who bore it had given some indications of penitence, and that the object of Nobili was to insinuate himself into their favor, secretly and by false pretenses, and thus bring them over to Christianity. There is much reason for believing that this was an afterthought, set up as a defense when the flagrant and unchristian conduct of the Jesuits excited general distrust among the Christians of Europe. But if it expressed the real motive existing at the time, it was then, as always, wholly without justification or excuse—a plain and manifest breach of Christian obligation and duty. He could not become a Saniassi without denying that he either was or had ever been a Christian, and without solemnly affirming that he was a native Hindoo, and not a European—the latter, known by the hated name of Feringees, being held in special and universal contempt by all the natives, and especially by the Brahmins.

All these things, of course, involve false professions and oaths without number; and, more than that, such stifling of the conscience as to leave it incapable of distinguishing be[Pg 200]tween truth and falsehood, or between fair and false dealing. It was all done, says the Jesuit historian Daurignac, "with the approval of his superiors and of the Archbishop of Cranganore;" that is, it had full Jesuit indorsement. And as if it were possible to find merit in such profanation of what all Christians consider sacred, by departing from the rules of Christian life, this same authority informs his readers how Nobili appeared as a Jesuit-Brahmin, after he discarded all the distinguishing marks and characteristics of Christianity, and presented himself in the capacity of a full-fledged native Hindoo. "He assumed," says he, "the costume of the penitent Brahmins, adopted their exterior rule of life, and spoke their mysterious language." He shaved his head, wore the Brahmin dress, including ear-rings reaching down his neck. And "to complete the illusion"—that is, the deception and false pretense—he represents him as having "marked his forehead with a yellow paste, made from the wood of Sandanam"—a practice peculiar to the Hindoo Brahmins. Thus metamorphosed he "passed for a perfect Saniassi, and the Brahmins themselves, wondering at such a rival, sought his presence, and questioned him as to himself, his country, and his family." His disguise, however, perfect as it was, did not cause him to forget that he was still in fact a Jesuit, and he, obedient to his training, carried his impostures and falsehoods far enough to make his deception complete and effectual. Consequently, "his oath obtained for him admission among the most learned and holy Brahmins of the East. They named him Tatouva-Podagar-Sonami—a master in the ninety-six qualities of the truly wise." And thus, by means of the most unblushing hypocrisy and false oaths, Nobili denied his religion, his name, his country, and the God whom he had professed to worship, and became a Hindoo Saniassi, all for "the greater glory of God."[111]

Numerous other Jesuits imitated this example of Nobili,[Pg 201] and became both Brahmins and pariahs. Some of them were specially trained and tutored for the purpose, under the elastic system of Jesuit education, each one, of course, having been carefully instructed in the best and safest modes of practicing deception, of violating oaths, and of making the basest means contribute to the end designed to be accomplished. It is claimed for them, apologetically, that they thus became enabled to convert many hundred thousand Indians, both Brahmins and pariahs, to the cause of Christianity. No intelligent mind, however, can be misled by such a pretense as this, for if even that number of the natives were brought under their influence, they could not have risen higher than the low standard fixed by the lives of their Jesuit instructors. But this story can not be accepted as true, coming as it does only from the active agents in this vast system of fraud and falsehood. It is far more likely to have been only one more untruth added to the multitude which these Jesuit impostors were in the habit of repeating daily. Besides, if any such conversions to Christianity had occurred, the impostures of the Jesuits would have been discovered, and the whole of them driven from the country. The Jesuits then in India admit enough themselves to assure us of this. One of them said: "Our whole attention is given to concealing from the people that we are what they call Feringees. The slightest suspicion of this on their part would oppose an insurmountable obstacle to the propagation of the faith,"—the plain and obvious import of which is, that honesty and fair dealing would have weakened the cause of Christianity, whereas its strength was increased and maintained by false pretenses, false swearing, and the false profession of devotion to the Brahminical religion. Another one of them said: "The missionaries are not known to be Europeans. If they were believed to be so, they would be forced to abandon the country; for they could gain absolutely no fruit whatever. The conversion of the Hindoos is nearly impossible to evangelical laborers from Europe: I mean impossible to those who pass for Europeans, even though they wrought miracles."[Pg 202] At another place he represents that it "would have been the absolute ruin of Christianity" if the Jesuits had been known as Feringees or Europeans; that is, that in order to advance Christianity, it was necessary to deny it, even under oath, and to profess that the idolatry of the Hindoos was the true worship of God.[112]

The pretense of the Jesuits, therefore, that immense numbers of converts to Christianity were made by them, must have been entitled to no higher credit than their other professions; at all events, the acknowledged authors of a system of falsehoods and deceptions are not entitled to our confidence. It is possible, however, that they may have succeeded in baptizing in secret a few of the natives, and that some Brahmins were among them. But if they did, it is quite certain that the ceremony must have been administered by stealth, and generally so that those who were baptized had no distinct knowledge of what it meant, and may not even have known the time of its administration. At no point in the Jesuit missionary system has more harm been done to the cause of true Christianity than at this. Millions of ignorant and deluded people have been persuaded to believe that Christianity consisted in nothing else but the mere ceremony of baptism, without any intelligent conception of God. Xavier commenced this system in India, and these Jesuit-Brahmins, who followed Nobili, were his imitators. Taking all the accounts together, the number of converts in India was simply enormous, and yet in 1776, after the Jesuits had left there, a very small percentage of their estimated numbers were found.[113] But these exaggerations are more excusable than the methods adopted to impose baptism upon unsuspecting and simple-minded multitudes. The German Steinmetz, alluding to this, says: "They insinuate themselves as physicians into the houses of the Indians; draw a wet cloth over the head and forehead of the sick person,[Pg 203] even when at the point of death; mutter privately to themselves the baptism service; and think they have made one Christian more, who is immediately added to the list." The Jesuit De Bourges is represented by him as saying: "When the children are in danger of death, our practice is to baptize them without asking the permission of their parents, which would certainly be refused. The Catechists and the private Christians are well acquainted with the formula of baptism, and they confer it on these dying children, under the pretext of giving them medicine;" that is, by that kind of "pious fraud" which, according to the Jesuits, promotes "the greater glory of God." Another Jesuit father, whose experience in India enabled him to speak advisedly, mentions one woman "whose knowledge of the pulse and of the symptoms of approaching death was so unerring, that of more than ten thousand children whom she had herself baptized, not more than two escaped death." The number of such baptisms during a famine in 1737 are alleged by still another Jesuit to have been "upwards of 12,000." And he supplements this statement by saying that "it was rare, in any place where there were neophytes, for a single heathen child to die unbaptized."[114] Looking over this whole field of Jesuit operations, and contemplating the demoralizing influences of the Jesuits in India, this same German historian feels himself warranted in saying that "every Jesuit who entered within these unholy bounds, bid adieu to principle and truth—all became perjured impostors, and the lives of all ever afterwards were but one long, persevering, toilsome LIE."[115]

It would be a fruitless task to summarize the pretexts invented by the Jesuits to convince ignorant and superstitious people that God not only approved, but directly sanctioned, the frauds and perjuries they practiced in his name, and that he had specially and divinely set them apart—distinct from[Pg 204] any other body of people in the world—to demonstrate how "the greater glory of God" could be promoted by such iniquities. If the line could be accurately drawn between their good and evil deeds, it would be most instructive to observe how enormously the latter exceed the former. There was no trouble whatsoever for a Jesuit Saniassi to assume the character of a Christian and an idolatrous Hindoo almost at the same instant of time, in which dual capacity he could perform miracles, like those of Xavier, with the ease and skill of a modern prestidigitator. They even held the wildest animals at bay by the odor of sanctity which encircled them! One of them states that, when traveling at night with his companions, a large tiger was discovered approaching them, when, by simply crying out, "Sancta Maria!" the ferocious animal became terrified and moved away, showing, "by the grinding of his teeth, how sorry he was to let such a fine prey escape." Another, to show how Providence overshadowed and shielded the Jesuits, said "that when heathens and Christians happened to be together, the tigers devour the former without doing any harm to the faithful—these last finding armor of proof in the sign of the cross, and in the holy name of Jesus and Mary."[116] Such superstitious tales as these are told, and many pretended miracles added to them, with a seeming unconsciousness upon the part of those who relate them, that the world has reached a period when the truth can be discovered, even through all the disguises which falsehood and deception may throw around it.

To those who have not investigated the history of the Jesuits, as written by themselves, these accusations may seem harsh and unmerited; not so, however, to those who have. No matter where they went, the obligation of being "all things to all men" was held to be obligatory upon every member of the society. Obedience to the Superior was the highest virtue, notwithstanding it may have involved violations of the laws of God, of morality, and of society. How[Pg 205] else could professed Christians pretend to be engaged in the practice of virtue by denying Christ, disavowing his worship, and habitually practicing the debasing rites of the Hindoo religion, for more than a century, as Nobili and his Jesuit followers and imitators did? And what other possible pretext can be offered for the Jesuit worship of Confucius in China, in religious confraternity with the natives, who made their public ceremonies and festivities special testimonials of their adoration of him as the founder of their national religion and the chief among the gods of their idolatry? We shall see how these things were by the proceedings which led to their condemnation by the popes, although the Jesuit historians, who are forced to acknowledge them, try hard to show that the pontifical censure was not deserved.

Daurignac—the ablest of the Jesuit defenders—referring to the course of Nobili and others who practiced idolatrous rites, says: "Some Europeans had been scandalized by this method of appearing all things to all men, in order to win all to Christ." This sentence is misleading in this, that instead of there being merely "some" who felt scandalized, there were multitudes throughout Europe. The ecclesiastical authorities at Goa, in India, were also of this number; and when the complaint reached there that Nobili "had become a Brahmin, and given himself up to idolatry and superstition," he was summoned to Goa to explain his conduct. He could not disobey this summons, and when he reached there, "the sight of his singular costume elicited a general expression of indignation" among the Christians. When required to explain, by the Archbishop of Goa, as the official representative of the Church—appointed by the pope for that purpose—the only defense he could make was that his motives were good; that is, that the prostitution of himself and his sacred calling was well meant because his object was to promote "the greater glory of God!" The Jesuits at Goa accepted his reasons "as sufficient," says Daurignac. There are two methods of accounting for this: First, they were Jesuits; and second, because Nobili's method of falsehood and deception opened to[Pg 206] them new and extensive fields of operation, which, if recognized, they could occupy with great success in extending the power of their society. But the archbishop thought otherwise, and "absolutely refused" to accept Nobili's reasons as satisfactory. Accordingly—speaking for the Church and the pope, as he was authorized and empowered to do—he condemned the conduct of Nobili and the reasons he assigned. Nobili "asserted that the truths of the gospel could not have been introduced into Madura by any other means;" but the archbishop refused to accept this excuse, evidently regarding it as a debasing doctrine, aimed at the very foundation of Christianity. Neither would yield. Nobili, backed by the Jesuits, insisted that he was under no obligation to obey the archbishop, although he acted under the special authority of the Church and the pope; and the result was that the matter had to be sent to Rome and the decision of the pope awaited. In the meantime Nobili returned to Madura, where he continued his idolatrous practices, notwithstanding the censure of the Archbishop of Goa was resting upon him, and he was thereby placed in the attitude of disobedience to the legitimate authority of the Church.[117]

Jesuit ingenuity was not sufficient to limit the scope of the inquiry thus brought before the pope and the Papal Curia at Rome, because of the increasing indignation against the society. Added to the complaints of the Portuguese authorities regarding their conduct in Paraguay, and that of Nobili at Madura, their idolatrous worship of Confucius in China came generally to be known about this time. Consequently, the investigation which it became necessary for the pope to make, had not only increased in importance, but became broader almost every day. Not only were the matters involved important to the Church, but to the cause of Christianity throughout the world; for it was easy to foresee the injurious and demoralizing results if the Jesuits were permitted to mingle Christian and idolatrous worship together,[Pg 207] so as to make it appear to every heathen people within the limits of their missions that Christianity sanctions both forms of worship in the same degree. Consequently, it became necessary for the pope to examine and decide both questions at the same time; that is, whether the Church could rightfully tolerate either the adoption and practice of the Hindoo rites by the Jesuits in India, or their participation in the idolatrous worship of Confucius in China.

Among the notable events connected with the latter was the arrival in China of some Dominican and Franciscan missionaries, and their surprise at discovering the idolatrous practices of the Jesuits. Having never suspected even the possibility of the teachings of the Church being so tortured as to furnish apology for idolatry, they considered the conduct of the Jesuits "a real scandal," which deserved to be rebuked. What seemed to them as especially censurable was the fact that the Jesuits had taught their neophytes to use the Chinese term "King-Tien," to express the idea of God—not as the Creator of the universe, but as the presiding Deity over a multitude of other deities, each having a separate sphere of sovereignty. To them it was not easy to conceive of anything more likely to undermine Christianity, because by limiting or lessening in any way the sovereign attributes of God, the whole Christian system would topple and fall. They, accordingly, notified the apostolic vicar in China, as the immediate representative of the Church there, of this unscrupulous and unchristian conduct of the Jesuits, in order, if possible, to apply the proper corrective and remove the "scandal" from the Church. The vicar did not have much to do to discover that the accusations of the monks against the Jesuits were true; and when this became known to him, he not only condemned their idolatry, but "severely censured them" for practicing it. The Jesuits, by way of defense, attempted to explain why they had applied an idolatrous Chinese term to the God of the Christians, and in doing so exhibited their accustomed sophistry—in which they have always been adepts—in such[Pg 208] way as to convince the vicar, as well as the Dominican and Franciscan monks, of their entire want of sincerity and candor, to say nothing of their loss of Christian integrity. They pretended that "the honors paid to Confucius were merely civil ceremonies, with which the Christians did not associate any religious ideas whatever, and that the word King-Tien, in the Chinese language, simply conveyed the idea of God as understood by Christians." This, they said, they were informed by the Chinese mandarins and learned men. Hence, they argued that unless the idolatrous worship they had adopted were allowed to prevail, it would be impossible to obtain sufficient influence over the Chinese to draw them to Christianity—the precise meaning of which was, that unless they were permitted to practice the idolatrous rites of heathenism, the Chinese could never be induced to become Christians. This argument was thoroughly Jesuitical, and failed to mislead either the vicar apostolic or the Dominican and Franciscan monks, all of whom could see through the thin disguise with which the Jesuits attempted to conceal their ultimate purpose of bringing the Church authorities, with the pope at their head, in obedience to them. It did not require any Chinese learning for them to understand that it was impossible, in the nature of things, for the Chinese to have introduced into their language any word, or even any set of words, expressive of the idea of God as Christians understood it. They were familiar with the universal rule that the language of every people is constructed solely to express their own ideas, sentiments, and thoughts, and not such as prevail among those with whom they hold no intercourse. Candor and fair dealing with the Church and the cause of Christianity, therefore, required them to recognize the facts that the Chinese word King-Tien conveyed only the idolatrous idea of the superior godship of Confucius, and that it was so used in all the civic and other ceremonies of the Chinese. The result consequently was, that the vicar united with the monks in repudiating the position and doctrine of the Jesuits, and vigorously condemned and censured[Pg 209] them for bringing the established worship of the Church into disrepute. This decision alone—made by the regularly constituted authorities of the Church—constitutes a most important and pregnant fact, which should not be overlooked by those who desire to understand the history of the most wonderful society the world has ever known.

This decision undoubtedly conformed to the opinion of the pope and of all the Church authorities throughout Europe, outside the circle of Jesuits. When announced by the apostolic vicar, with the approval of the monks, it should have put a stop to all further idolatrous proceedings on the part of the Jesuits. Any other body of men, who acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Church, would either have obeyed it by entirely abandoning the condemned practices at once, or, at all events, would have ceased to follow them until the prohibition was removed by the pope, whose superior jurisdiction could not be denied without rebellion against the Church. But the Jesuits did not belong to an order accustomed to submission to any other authority than that of their superior, whom each of them had solemnly sworn to recognize as equal to God, and to obey accordingly. They acquiesced in the decisions of the popes when they conformed with their own opinions and purposes; when they did not, they employed all their combined ingenuity and cunning to evade them. Consequently, they disobeyed the vicar, spurned the counsel of the monks, and persisted in continuing their idolatrous practices, under the pretense that they were awaiting the decision of the pope.[118]

The popes were compelled to deal slowly and cautiously with such questions on account of the difficulty of access to such remote countries as India and China, and the unavoidable delays in transmitting intelligence between them and Rome. Precautionary measures were adopted by sending special prelates of the Church, chosen by the pope for that purpose, not only with directions to investigate and report[Pg 210] the facts, but with authority to establish temporary regulations which should become operative while waiting the pope's approval, and final when that was given. One of these prelates was a Spanish Dominican, named Morales, who was sent to China in 1633 by Pope Urban VIII. This was twelve years after the matter had been submitted to Paul V, and was rendered necessary by the fact that it had remained undecided during the pontificate of Gregory XV. When Morales reached China, he entered upon the necessary examination with sufficient care to become convinced of the unchristian conduct of the Jesuits, and, accordingly, condemned their ceremonies as idolatrous. This incensed the Chinese authorities—who are supposed to have been influenced to this by the Jesuits—and "the Dominicans and the Franciscans were driven from the country," leaving the Jesuits alone to follow their idolatrous practices without the interference of the monks or of Morales, who, being a Dominican, was included among those expelled. Morales had then spent twelve years in China, and all that time was laboring with the Jesuits to induce them to give up their participation in the worship of Confucius; but his efforts were wholly unavailing. They had brought themselves into favor at the court of the Chinese emperor, and were unwilling to surrender the advantages thus obtained, preferring them to the service of the Church. There was, therefore, no other course left to Morales, after his expulsion from China, but to proceed to Rome and report to the pope, who was then Innocent X. This he did in 1645, when he fully laid before the pope what he had observed in China, making known, of course, the fact that he had been banished on account of his fidelity to the trust assigned him. It was impossible for the pope to abandon the matter at this point, and he accordingly submitted to the Congregation of the Propaganda, to be decided for his information and guidance, these two questions: "Is it permissible to prostrate one's self before the idol Chachinchiam? Is it permissible to sacrifice to Keumfucum; that is, Confucius?" By these questions the Jesuit methods[Pg 211] of procedure in China were brought directly before this established tribunal of the Church at Rome, so that the decision of them by the pope was unavoidable. What that decision was, is shown by the following statement made under the immediate auspices of Archbishop Hughes, of New York, in the "Lives and Times of Roman Pontiffs," by De Montor: "On the reply of the Congregation, the pope issued a decree forbidding missionaries of any order or institute to do either of those things, until the Holy See gave a contrary order."[119] Thus, whatsoever other popes may have done or omitted to do, Innocent X solemnly decreed that the Jesuit practices were wrong and would be no longer tolerated by the Church. He had not then learned—what became perfectly apparent to many of his successors—that the Jesuits were as familiar with the various methods of brushing papal decrees out of their way as they were with the frauds and hypocrisies by which they duped and misled the heathen at the expense of the Christian cause.

There seems to have been some unnecessary delay, and possibly some undue prevarication, in the manner in which the popes disposed of these troublesome matters. De Montor represents that several of the popes who succeeded Innocent X permitted the Jesuits to continue their idolatrous ceremonies; to wit, Alexander VII, Clement IX, Clement X, Innocent XI, Alexander VIII, and Innocent XII. This general statement, however, is misleading, and calculated to do injustice to these popes, unless taken in connection with the fact that none of them went further than to say that the Jesuits might unite with the Chinese in their civil ceremonies, when they were, in no sense, religious. None of them undertook to decide whether the sacrifice to Confucius did or did not involve religious worship; for that was the question directly submitted to them, and with regard to which the utmost pains were taken to procure accurate and reliable[Pg 212] evidence. But it is undoubtedly true that the Jesuits misconstrued what had been done by these six popes, and perverted their meaning to suit themselves, by continuing their idolatrous practices with increased impunity. And they did this to such an extent, and so openly, that in 1693, Maigrot, Apostolic Vicar, Doctor of the Sorbonne, and Bishop of Conon, was constrained, as the representative of the Church, to forbid the idolatrous ceremonies of the Jesuits by a special prohibitory decree. The date of this decree is important, inasmuch as it shows how many years it took and how hard it was to bring the Jesuits into subordination to the Church; in other words, how little they cared for the Church, or the popes, or vicars apostolic, or the ancient monkish orders, when either of them alone, or all combined, ventured to place the least impediment in their path. The question with regard to the idolatrous practices of Nobili arose first in 1618, and was submitted to Paul V in 1621. Hence, up to the time of his official decree of condemnation by Maigrot, as vicar apostolic, seventy-two years—nearly three-quarters of a century—had elapsed, during all which time the Jesuits had enjoyed an uninterrupted triumph over the Church, the popes, and Christianity.

This condition of things made it absolutely necessary that the severe and protracted strain upon the authority of the Church should, in some way, be brought to an end, and that the stigma the Jesuits had inflicted upon Christianity should be removed. Consequently, Pope Clement XI—after eight more years of delay—appointed a new vicar apostolic and legate in the person of the distinguished Cardinal De Tournon, in order to insure a complete and thorough investigation of the conduct of the Jesuits in India and China. He was empowered to represent fully the authority of the Church and to act in the place of the pope. De Tournon entered upon his mission with zeal, and having, after investigation, found all the accusations against the Jesuits completely verified, issued a decree, in June, 1704, whereby he condemned in the strongest and most explicit terms the Chinese and[Pg 213] Malabar rites practiced by the Jesuits. This decree is given by Nicolini, and a perusal of it will show the degraded state into which the Jesuits had brought the professedly Christian worship—even to the adoption of the superstitious and immoral customs of the idolaters.[120] Up till this time the Jesuits had enjoyed nearly a hundred years of impunity, and as the Church had been unable, during this long period, to impose upon them any restraint they had not contrived the means to defy, their idolatrous worship and demoralizing doctrines could no longer be tolerated without incalculable harm. Therefore, the severe measures adopted by De Tournon, by the express authority of Clement XI, were fully justified.

The Jesuits again evidenced their perverse and stubborn nature by impudently appealing from the decree the pope had authorized De Tournon to make in his name, to the pope himself, manifestly hoping either to bring him over to their side, or to procrastinate his final decision indefinitely. They repeated their favorite argument, that Christianity could not be propagated in India and China without making the worship of idols part of its religious ceremonies. They also impeached the character of the evidence upon which De Tournon had relied, by insisting that it was obtained from those who did not understand the people of India or China, or their languages. In all this they persisted in assuming that, in order to convert a heathen people, Christianity must be first converted into heathenism, that it may furnish a starting-point for obtaining ultimate dominion over them. This meant that heathens must be converted to Christianity by the Jesuits alone, inasmuch as none others besides them had endeavored to engraft upon Christian faith and worship any idolatrous ceremonies, or the duty and necessity of falsehood and hypocrisy, as means to an end. But the pope was not misled by this demoralizing subterfuge, and, after hearing them fully and giving all proper consideration to what they said, he brushed it all aside by giving his express and unre[Pg 214]served approval to the decree published by De Tournon as his legate. De Montor admits this; but there is abundant evidence of it apart from this admission. In his life of Clement XI he says:

"But Clement, having examined the affair in 1710 and 1712, confirmed all the decrees that had been made against the ceremonies, as well as the edicts of Cardinal De Tournon; and on the 19th of March, 1715, by the constitution Ex illa die (found in Vol. X of the Bullarium Romanum), he more vigorously condemned those rites; and he established the form of the oath which thenceforth was to be taken by every missionary in the Indies, promising that observance in their own names, and in the names of their order."[121]

No language could be plainer or more emphatic than that here employed by the pope. It was not uttered in a mere brief, which the Jesuits insist may be changed to answer any subsequent emergency, but in a formal pontifical bull, issued ex cathedra, and which, if the popes were all infallible, must be accepted as of divine authority. But whether called by one or the other of these names, it was the solemn official act of a pope—the head of the Church—and as such, according to the teachings of the Church, was final and binding upon all who professed fidelity to it. And it would have been so regarded by any of the ancient monastic orders, and by all who had respect for the authority of the Church. But the Jesuits did not represent either of these classes; and as the power of the pope was not sufficient to change their course, or unsettle them in their purposes, they continued to persevere in their disobedience, with an utter disregard of consequences. They went to the extent of persuading the Emperor of China to order the arrest of De Tournon, which was done by the Bishop of Macao—who was one of their tools—who caused him to be loaded with chains, and thrown into prison, where, from "ill treatment," he died.[Pg 215][122]

These incidents, so unfavorable to the peace of the Church, threw the questions into abeyance again during the succeeding pontificate of Innocent XIII, after which it assumed such magnitude and importance that Benedict XIII was compelled to deal with it both energetically and sternly. This he did by further confirming the decree of Cardinal De Tournon, and the bull of Clement XI, reasserting the unchristian practices and conduct of the Jesuits. But even this did not overcome their obduracy; and the next pope, Clement XII, was compelled to issue still another bull, confirming those of Benedict XIII and Clement XI.[123] The world has never furnished another instance of such flagrant and persistent disobedience as this. Even another pope, Benedict XIV, found it absolutely necessary to issue two additional bulls of censure and condemnation against the Jesuits, in both of which the decree of De Tournon was approved by words of express reaffirmance. He intended and expected to settle the matter finally, and terminate the long-continued disregard of the Church authority by the Jesuits. Nevertheless, like his predecessors for many years, he was compelled to realize that he was dealing with an adversary whose ambition was insatiable, and whose capacity for intrigue was without limitation and as untiring as the wind. De Montor tells the result, but omits any comment upon the triumph of the Jesuits over all the popes who passed censure upon them and sought to impose restraints upon their conduct. He speaks of the "discord between the other missionaries and the Jesuits, the former reproaching the latter with not fully and frankly observing the bull," and makes the discomfiture of the popes palpable by adding, "These disputes lasted till the dissolution of the society."[124] This is equivalent to saying that the only way to bring them into obedience to the Church was to dissolve them. We shall hereafter see, however, that they did not even obey the act of dissolution.

As the society was originally established by Paul III in 1540, and was abolished by Clement XIV in 1773, it thus appears that considerably more than one-half the period of its existence had been spent in open and flagrant resistance to the authority of the popes and the Church—a pregnant fact, which no sophistry can palliate or explain. But as our inquiries proceed, there will be other years of resistance to add to these, along with such combinations of circumstances as show how the society became odious to the Christian world, and how rightfully it was dissolved.

FOOTNOTES:

[111] Daurignac, Vol. I, p. 303.

[112] Steinmetz, Vol. III, p. 474. Citing the Jesuit Fathers De Bourges and Martin.

[113] Ibid., p. 489.

[114] Steinmetz, Vol. III, p. 490, and note 1, where these authorities are cited.

[115] Ibid., p. 491.

[116] Steinmetz, Vol. III, p. 467.

[117] Daurignac, Vol. I, pp. 336-367.

[118] Daurignac, p. 53.

[119] Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs. By De Montor. American edition. Vol. II, p. 191.

[120] Nicolini, p. 114.

[121] De Montor, Vol. II, p. 192.

[122] Nicolini, pp. 126-127.

[123] De Montor, Vol. II, p. 192.

[124] Ibid., p. 278.

When Clement XIII became pope, in 1758, events which had grown out of the conduct of the Jesuits were hurrying forward so rapidly that even he, with all the existing pontifical power in his hands, was unable to arrest them, although, as the patron of the society, he endeavored to do so. There was no longer any ground for compromise. Their persistent disobedience of royal authority and interference with political affairs had made it necessary for the Governments to decide whether they should further submit to them or vindicate their own authority by whatsoever steps were required. In Portugal the culminating point was reached by an attempt to assassinate the king. The actual perpetrators were arrested, tried, and executed; but in the course of the investigation it was developed, to the satisfaction of the public authorities, that the deed had been incited by the Jesuits, who had impressed ignorant and fanatical minds with the idea that no wrong was committed by killing a heretical king; that is, one who did not submit to their dictation. An effort was made to place three Jesuit fathers upon trial, so that, if found guilty, they might also be properly punished. But these fathers were bold enough to defy the Government by insisting that, as priests, they were not amenable to the civil laws of the State, even for felonious acts, but could only be tried by an ecclesiastic tribunal under the jurisdiction of the pope. The king and Pombal could easily see that this defiance of Government authority over the temporal affairs of the kingdom could not be submitted to without bringing the State into disgrace and endangering its existence. Hence, as a measure absolutely essential to[Pg 218] the life of the nation, the king "issued a decree of banishment against the Jesuits as traitors, rebels, enemies to, and aggressors on, his person, his States, and the public peace and the general good of the people."[125] The Jesuits were then seized, transported to the States of the Church under the jurisdiction of Clement XIII, and the three accused fathers were placed in prison to await his action. The pope defended the Jesuits, and threatened the King of Portugal with his vengeance if he did not revoke his decree against them. But the king could not submit to interference with the temporal affairs of his kingdom even by the pope, who, by his approval of the Jesuits, had shown himself willing to see the Governments humiliated by them. He, accordingly, withdrew the Portuguese ambassador from the court of Rome, and proceeded against the three Jesuits, who had remained in prison under suspicion of having planned the attack upon his life. The chief one of these was turned over to the Dominicans—"the natural enemies of the Jesuits"—by whom he was burned alive, and the other two were condemned to imprisonment for life.[126]

The people of Europe became greatly agitated at finding in their midst so formidable an enemy to the public peace and quiet as the Jesuits. This agitation was increased by the trial of the society for the debt of Lavalette before the Parliament of Paris, which resulted, as already stated, in bringing to the light the odious principles of the Jesuit constitution, the exposure of which is represented as having produced "alarm and consternation among all classes of society." In France the Jesuits made an effort to arrest the public indignation by procuring a decree from "fifty bishops," who, under the auspices of the nuncio of Clement XIII, certified that the principles of the constitution were harmless. But this adroit movement failed to produce the desired effect. The Parliament, under the lead of Choiseul,[Pg 219] the prime minister of Louis XV, refused to permit an edict to that effect to be registered. Whereupon, the investigation into the constitution and statutes of the society was continued for some months, and resulted in the enactment of a Parliamentary decree which shows the odium then attached to the society in France. It denounced their doctrines and practices "as perverse, destructive of every principle of religion, and even of probity; as injurious to Christian morality, pernicious to civil society, seditious, dangerous to the rights of the nation, the nature of the royal power, and the safety of the persons of sovereigns; as fit to excite the greatest troubles in States, to form and maintain the most profound corruption in the hearts of men." It would be impossible to find language more expressive; and when it is considered that it was uttered by a Parliamentary body composed only of those who maintained the faith of the Church of Rome, it may readily be supposed that the most imminent necessity called it forth. And it will excite no surprise that the same decree proceeded to provide "that the institutions of the Jesuits should forever cease to exist throughout the whole extent of the kingdom," and that it also prohibited them from teaching in the schools, from longer recognizing the authority of their general, and from wearing a religious dress.[127]

Clement XIII, feeling himself powerful enough to resist this decree, endeavored, as the friend of the Jesuits, to break its force by issuing a counter decree of his own. At this point it is worthy of remark that the Parliamentary decree had reference to temporal affairs, and did not, in any way, interfere with the religious faith of the Church, which the French Christians continued to maintain according to their traditions and teachings. The decree of Clement XIII, therefore, was the assertion upon his part of the pontifical right to dictate the temporal policy of France. He explicitly asserted this by affixing his papal "curse" upon all who obeyed the decree of the Parliament, and by declaring it to[Pg 220] be "null, inefficacious, invalid, and entirely destitute of all lawful effect," and by releasing all who had sworn to observe it from the obligation of their oaths.[128] In the face of this pontifical mandate, however, the decree of Parliament was executed, and four thousand Jesuits were driven out of Paris. Clement XIII was incensed at this, and issued a formal bull in praise of the Jesuits and in denunciation of their opposers. The Parliament suppressed this bull, and refused to permit it to be printed in France. The Parliament of Aix went even further, by having it "torn up by the executioner and publicly burned," and by inviting Louis XV "to avenge himself on the court of Rome and the pope."[129] The King of France, however, was weak enough to suffer himself to be prevailed upon to allow a Synod of the clergy to be convened, under pretense of putting an end to "the disputes between the civil and religious powers," as if such a thing were then possible without submission to Jesuit dictation, backed as the society was by an irritable and impracticable pope, who had vainly supposed himself powerful enough to check the tide of indignation then beating upon the Jesuits. Impressed by the opinions and policy of Clement XIII, this Synod adopted a course favorable to the Jesuits by endeavoring to change the issue, so as to conceal the real question. With the view of making it appear that the Church itself, and even Christianity, was in danger, they fulminated anathemas against the works of the French philosophers—of Bayle, of Helvetius, of Rousseau, of Voltaire, and of the Encyclopædists—thereby furnishing arguments which have ever since done Jesuit service by misleading the unwary into the belief that Christianity and Jesuitism are of synonymous meaning, and that the destruction of the latter would be the death of the former. They, moreover, tried to favor the Jesuits by declaring "that the Church alone had the right to teach and instruct children; that it alone could[Pg 221] judge in matters of doctrine, and fix the degree of submission which was due to them," and that "the civil authority could in no way go against the Canon law."[130] This assumption of ecclesiastical authority was intended to strengthen the papacy, and was accepted by the Jesuits as favorable to them, because the pope at that time was their friend. But the Parliament of Paris could not fail to see that, if recognized, it would place the papacy above the State, and France at the mercy of the Jesuits, at least during the pontificate of Clement XIII. It therefore declared it to be "derogatory to the authority of the Government," and prohibited the people from obeying it. In consequence of this Parliamentary opposition, the prelates who had shaped the course of the Synod were driven to the necessity of seeking the aid of Louis XV, so as to avenge themselves upon the enemies of the Jesuits by means of royal power. The king, who was then "reeking from his debaucheries"—for which he found shelter in the acquiescence of the Jesuits—succeeded in obtaining an edict which annulled the decree of Parliament. Encouraged by this success, the Jesuits demanded their restoration to authority, supposing that, with the king and the pope both upon their side, they would then be able to triumph over all opposition. But their Parliamentary antagonists were not overcome so easily, and rallied sufficiently to obtain another decree against them, not less condemnatory than that which had been temporarily suspended. Meanwhile, hostility to the Jesuits was rapidly increasing throughout Europe, which incensed them the more, inasmuch as they would not abate their extreme demands, and could compromise nothing without an acknowledgment of their wrong—which they were never known to make. Spain then followed the example of Portugal, and the king, Charles III, expelled them from his dominions. Thus, at the time referred to, they were expelled from the territories of the three great Roman Catholic States—Portugal, Spain, and France.[Pg 222] The King of the Two Sicilies, and Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and Placencia, also expelled them from their dominions. By common consent among these powers, the Jesuits were sent to Italy, where the pope, in return for their devotion to him, was expected to provide for their wants and to see that proper protection was afforded them. Clement XIII had resisted all these strong powers in order to defend them, and this measure was adopted in preference to an open breach with the pope, so that he might be made to realize the extent of the indignation against them. In the strong language of Cormenin—a Roman Catholic, but intensely hostile to the Jesuits—"the soil of Italy was polluted by this unclean slime which the nations had rejected, and which they had sent back to Rome, the fountain of all corruption."[131]

Clement XIII became indignant when he found himself unable to counteract the general prejudice existing against the Jesuits, and, with strange infatuation, allowed his passions to obtain complete mastery over him. He fulminated anathemas against the Kings of Portugal, Spain, France, the Two Sicilies, and the Duke of Parma and Placencia, and threatened them with excommunication if they did not cease their opposition to the Jesuits. He even went so far as to send papal troops against the Duke of Parma to bring him to obedience by military coercion. But the other powers were not alarmed by the sound of the pontifical thunder, and the Kings of France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples promptly pronounced against the pope, and prepared to punish him for marching an army against the Duke of Parma, whose policy towards the Jesuits was the same as their own. Even Louis XV was induced by Choiseul, his minister, to unite upon this point with the other kings. Thereupon, the King of the Two Sicilies invaded the papal province of Beneventum with an army, intending thereby to teach the pope that he was transcending his legitimate powers as head of the Church.[Pg 223] The bull of the pope was torn up at the courts of Portugal, Spain, and Parma, and by the Parliament of Paris. The excitement became general, and Clement XIII was awakened from his apparent sense of security by the mutterings of the storm gathering upon all sides of him. He was brought to realize, possibly for the first time, that even he, with all the powers of the Church in his hands, was unable to drive back the waves then dashing against the papacy, and threatening to ingulf it. In this emergency he sought aid from Maria Theresa, the Empress of Austria, with the hope that, with the assistance of so strong a power, he could make successful resistance to those combined against the Jesuits. But the empress, having cause to complain of the treachery of the Jesuits to her, declined to comply with this request, and went a step farther by annulling one of the important papal bulls which had been published in her dominions. The clouds, already lowering over the head of Clement XIII, then thickened more rapidly than ever, and the struggling pope, finding himself everywhere deserted by the strong powers—all of which had hitherto been united in favor of the Church—became so humbled in his pride as to declare that "he was ready to make concessions;" that is, to do something—anything—to arrest the declining fortunes of the papacy. Thus humiliated, "he implored the clemency of the sovereigns," begging them, as we may suppose, to relax their grasp upon him on account of their veneration for the Church. But it was too late. The impracticable demands of the Jesuits had brought on such an issue between the spiritual and the temporal powers as to leave no ground for concessions on the part of the sovereigns, so long as they were persisted in. They were bound to maintain their own temporal powers within their dominions, or else allow the Jesuits to rule over them according to their pleasure. To this they could not submit without absolute degradation. Howsoever strange it may now appear that the pope did not see this sooner, it should be regarded as creditable to him that, when he did see it, he bowed his head humbly before the pelting[Pg 224] storm, and yielded to a necessity he could not avoid. Due credit should not be withheld from the man who does right, even at the last extremity, especially when, as in this case, after Clement XIII decided to change his course, he went to the extent of promising the sovereigns that "he would pronounce the abolition of the society in a public consistory," and leave the Jesuits to suffer the consequences of their own folly. Having made up his mind to this, a day was appointed for the performance of the solemn act of signing the death-warrant of the Jesuits. But this postponement led to a result which had not been dreamed of—one that furnished new evidence of the capacity of the Jesuits for intrigue. During the night preceding the day appointed for the public ceremony of announcing the abolition of the Jesuits, Clement XIII was suddenly seized with convulsions, and died, leaving the act unperformed, and the Jesuits victorious. Cormenin, writing in France, where the Jesuits are better known and understood than here, records this event in these terse and expressive words: "The Jesuits had poisoned him."[132]

The Jesuits do not, of course, agree to this account of the manner and circumstances of the pope's death. They admit that it was sudden, and that it occurred at the time named; but attribute it to the intense sufferings he endured in consequence of his sympathy for them on account of their persecution, and his inability to extend further assistance to them. De Montor says he died from a sudden fit of coughing, brought on by a pulmonary disease.[133] The Jesuits admit, however, that the Spanish and French ambassadors had presented to him memorials from their respective Governments asking for the abolition of the society, and insist that he shed tears in consequence, and expired a few days afterwards.[134] But the manner of his death is of no special consequence now, since it is more important for us to know that, at the time of it, he left undecided the matters[Pg 225] with reference to the general conduct of the Jesuits which his predecessor had directed to be investigated. His defense of the Jesuits had manifestly been the result of previous and general convictions, and not his deliberate judgment upon the actual condition of affairs with which they were connected either in India, China, Paraguay, or in European States beyond the limits of Italy. The facts had not been sufficiently developed for final pontifical action, and therefore he acted upon impressions rather than evidence. We shall soon see that when the evidence was afterwards fully obtained, the result reached by his successor was not only fully justified, but inevitable and unavoidable.

It required three months to elect a successor to Clement XIII. The cardinals were divided into two parties—one supporting the Jesuits, and the other the Governments of France, Spain, and Portugal, united in opposition to them. The former desired to subject all civil Governments to Jesuit dominion; the latter insisted that the Church and the State should each remain free and independent of the other in its own domain. After innumerable intrigues—such as are familiar to those who manipulate party conventions—the latter party triumphed by the election of Ganganelli, a Franciscan, who took the name of Clement XIV, and entered upon the pontificate in 1769. He was greatly esteemed for his virtues, and possessed a conspicuously noble character and a mind well and thoroughly disciplined. That he was a man of profound ability is abundantly shown by his letters, which have been preserved and published, and which contain many passages of exceeding eloquence and beauty.[135] He was far better prepared, therefore, to form intelligent and impartial conclusions upon the evidence concerning the Jesuits than Clement XIII, because, apart from his qualifications, he was not under the dominion of undue prejudices.

The sovereigns demanded of Clement XIV that the ex[Pg 226]pulsion of the Jesuits from their territories should be approved, and the society entirely suppressed and abolished. Upon the other hand, the Jesuits insisted, with their accustomed superciliousness, that it was necessary to the Church and the cause of Christianity that they should be restored to public favor by his pontifical indorsement. This issue confronted him at the beginning. At first he somewhat excited the hopes of the Jesuits by the course he took against the French philosophers, and the bulls of excommunication he issued against Diderot, d'Alembert, Voltaire, Helvetius, Rousseau, Marmontel, and Holbach. This stimulated them afresh, and by their machinations created a party in France, headed by Louis XV, which demanded their return to that country. But the pope was not driven from the plain line of his duty, which required of him that the investigation already entered upon should be completed, and that the questions involved should be decided according to right and justice. This was due to the sovereigns, to the public, and especially to the Church. Cormenin says he was suspicious of being dealt with like his predecessor, and that he took the necessary precautions to guard against it, by substituting a faithful monk for the cook of the Quirinal, so as to guard against the possibility of poison. Howsoever this may have been, he persevered in his course with the courage of a man who fears no evil when in the faithful discharge of duty. Resolved, however, not to act with undue haste, but to have all the matters brought fully before him, together with the evidence bearing upon them, he continued the investigation for the period of four years, so that when his final decision was made the world should be convinced that it was the result of calm deliberation and honest conviction. He says of himself that he "omitted no care, no pains, in order to arrive at a thorough knowledge of the origin, the progress, and the actual state of that regular order commonly called the Company of Jesus;" and Ranke, the great historian, says he "applied himself with the utmost attention to the affairs of the Jesuits;" and adds that "a commission of car[Pg 227]dinals was formed, the arguments of both sides were deliberately considered," before his conclusion was announced.[136] No greater deliberation and no more serious reflection could have been bestowed upon any question. The evidence was carefully inspected and everything duly considered. The scales were held at equipoise until the preponderance of proof caused the beam to turn against the Jesuits, when he was constrained by a sense of duty to the Church, to Christianity, to the public, and to his own conscience, to announce the result which gave peace and quiet to the nations and joy to the great body of Christians throughout Europe. This he did July 21, 1773, by issuing his celebrated bull, "Dominus ac Redemptor"—called by the Jesuits a brief—whereby he decreed "that the name of the company shall be, and is, forever extinguished and suppressed;" that "no one of them do carry their audacity so far as to impugn, combat, or even write or speak about the said suppression, or the reasons and motives of it;" and that the said bull of suppression and abolition shall "forever and to all eternity be valid, permanent, and efficacious."[137]

It is well to observe, before further comment upon this important papal decree, that it had the effect to increase the apprehensions with regard to the personal safety of the pope. The manner in which Clement XIII had met his death on account of the mere promise to suppress the Jesuits, was well calculated to excite the fear that the same fate might befall Clement XIV, in revenge for their actual abolition. Hence, all the avenues of approach to the pope were carefully watched, and the utmost precautions employed to guard against the possibility of poison. These were successful for about eight months, when a peasant woman was persuaded, by means of a disguise, to procure entrance into the Vatican, and offer to the pope a fig in which poison was concealed. Clement XIV was exceedingly fond of this fruit, and ate it without hesitation. The same day the first symp[Pg 228]toms of severe illness were observed, and to these rapidly succeeded violent inflammation of the bowels. He soon became convinced that he was poisoned, and remarked: "Alas! I knew they would poison me; but I did not expect to die in so slow and cruel a manner." His terrible sufferings continued for several months, when he died, "the poor victim," says Cormenin, "of the execrable Jesuits."[138]

So much has been written about the manner of this pope's death, that if it all were repeated, some would still continue to doubt about it. The Jesuits treat the foregoing account as a malicious libel, denouncing it with their usual virulence. There is this, however, to say of it, that it has some strong affirmative proof in the fact that a post-mortem examination of his body revealed the presence of poison, as was reported to his Government by the Spanish ambassador then at Rome. There are probable grounds, certainly, for believing that he was poisoned by the Jesuits, and that it was the result of their doctrine that it was not criminal, but rather the proper service of God, to assassinate their enemies. At all events, that opinion generally prevailed, and had much to do in creating the sentiment of satisfaction at the abolition of the society. This satisfaction extended throughout all the Roman Catholic countries. There was no complaint against it except among the Jesuits themselves, because, as it was the solemn act of the pope, and consequently of the Church, even those who may not have desired it were disposed to acquiesce. It pacified the minds of the great body of Christians, because they could see that a serious and exciting cause of disturbance had been removed. And an examination of the reasons assigned by the pope will not only demonstrate this, but also that it could not have been avoided without imperiling the Church itself as well as the cause of Christianity.

We have seen how cautious Clement XIV was to examine the whole matter thoroughly, and that for this pur[Pg 229]pose he continued the investigation for four years, in addition to what had been previously done—hearing everything that could be said upon both sides, and carefully weighing all the evidence. He even went so far as to appoint a commission of five cardinals and several prelates and advocates to assist him in the examination,[139] all of which he would have omitted if he had been disposed to prejudice the cause of the Jesuits or to inflict unmerited injury upon them. In so far, therefore, as his desire and intention were involved, there is not the least ground for supposing that he omitted anything essential to the discovery of the truth, or that he did not honestly desire to discover it. The Jesuit attacks upon him exhibit bad temper, but furnish no arguments. They are too vindictive to be courteous, and exhibit too much anger to be truthful. It is, therefore, only left for us of the present day to understand the reasons assigned by Clement XIV to justify his action, in order to decide intelligently between him and the Jesuits. In his statement of facts he is entitled to be regarded as veracious, not only because of his pure Christian character, but because he is fully supported by the most reliable secular history. A brief review of them will enable the reader to place a proper estimate upon the character of the Jesuits, which, from the nature of their organization, is incapable of change.

After a preliminary statement of his powers and responsibilities, he declares the Jesuits to have been accused of things "very detrimental to the peace and tranquillity of the Christian Republic," and proceeds to enumerate the Christian sovereigns who have, from time to time, complained of them, and asserts that Pope Sixtus V had found charges against them "just and well founded." Referring to the favor shown them by Gregory XIV, he says that, notwithstanding this, "the accusations against the society were multiplied without number, and especially with their insatiable avidity of temporal possessions." He enumerates eleven popes, in[Pg 230]cluding Benedict XIV, who had "employed, without effect, all their efforts" to provide remedies against the evils they had engendered. He accuses them with opposition to "other religious orders;" with "the great loss of souls, and great scandal of the people;" with the practice of "certain idolatrous ceremonies;" with the use of maxims which the Church had "proscribed as scandalous and manifestly contrary to good morals;" with "revolts and intestine troubles in some of the Catholic States;" and with "persecutions against the Church" in both Europe and Asia. He refers to the fact that Innocent XI had been compelled to restrain the society by "forbidding the company to receive any more novices;" that Innocent XIII was obliged to threaten "the same punishment;" and that Benedict XIV had ordered a general visitation and investigation of all their houses in the Portuguese dominions. Alluding to the decree of Clement XIII in their favor, he says it "was rather extorted than granted"—that is, that it was obtained by undue means and influences—and that it "was far from bringing any comfort to the Holy See, or any advantage to the Christian Republic;" but had made the times "more difficult and tempestuous," so that "complaints and quarrels were multiplied on every side. In some places dangerous seditions arose—tumults, discords, dissensions, scandals, which, weakening or entirely breaking the bonds of Christian charity, excited the faithful to all the rage of party hatred and enmities." Then follows the assertion that the Kings of France, Spain, Portugal, and Sicily had "found themselves reduced to the necessity of expelling and driving from their States, kingdoms, and provinces, these very Companions of Jesus," because "there remained no other remedy to so great evils;" and that "this step was necessary in order to prevent the Christians from rising one against the other, and for massacring each other in the very bosom of our common mother, the holy Church." For these and many other reasons, and because the Christian world could not be otherwise reconciled, it was urged upon him, he[Pg 231] said, that the Jesuits should be "absolutely abolished and suppressed."

He then proceeded to declare that he had examined attentively and weighed carefully all the matters touching the conduct of the Jesuits; that he had invoked "the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit;" that, under the responsibilities of his high station, he had been compelled to reach the conclusion that they could "no longer produce those abundant fruits and those great advantages" which had been promised when the society was instituted; but that, "on the contrary, it was very difficult, not to say impossible, that the Church could recover a firm and durable peace so long as the said society subsisted." Wherefore, for these controlling reasons, he announced that "after a mature deliberation, we do, out of our certain knowledge and the fullness of our apostolic power, suppress and abolish the said company." And to make his decree final, complete, and absolute, so that thereafter it should not be misunderstood, he thus pronounced his pontifical judgment:

"We deprive it of all activity whatever, of its houses, schools, colleges, hospitals, lands, and, in short, every other place whatsoever, in whatever kingdom or province they may be situated. We abrogate and annul its statutes, rules, customs, decrees, and constitutions, even though confirmed by oath, and approved by the Holy See or otherwise. In like manner we annul all and every its privileges, indults, general or particular, the tenor whereof is, and is taken to be, as fully and as amply expressed in the present Brief as if the same were inserted word for word, in whatever clauses, form, or decree, or under whatever sanction their privileges may have been conceived. We declare all, and all kind of authority, the general, the provincials, the visitors, and other superiors of the said society, to be forever annulled and extinguished, of what nature soever the said society may be, as well in things spiritual as temporal." He denies them any right to teach in colleges or schools—prohibits them from[Pg 232] calling in question his act of suppression and abolition, and, after varying his language in every way necessary to show the inviolability of his decree, he makes this declaration: "Our will and pleasure is, that these our letters should forever and to all eternity be valid, permanent, and efficacious, have and obtain their full force and effect, and be inviolably observed by all and every whom they do or may concern, now or hereafter, in any manner whatsoever." This solemn decree was then executed by the pope "under the seal of the Fisherman"—the highest emblem of Church authority.[140]

These extracts from the celebrated decree are necessary to convey to the mind of the reader a correct idea of its character and scope. A mere statement of the fact of its issuance is insufficient for that purpose. That it was the solemn and deliberate act of Clement XIV is not denied by anybody. The Jesuits assail its author, and by that means seek to invalidate it. They boastingly assert that it was unduly obtained, contrary to the Christian sentiment of that period. Every view suggested by them is an impeachment of the integrity of the pope, upon whom they have bestowed innumerable severe and hostile censures. Those who now examine the document and the circumstances which led to it, together with the Jesuit comments upon it, and are influenced only by the desire to judge it accurately, can not withhold their surprise at the many false and mendacious representations made by them with regard to it. One of their most influential authors—seemingly insensible to the idea that even an adversary should be treated fairly—represents Clement XIV as "conscientiously opposed to the suppression of the Jesuits,"[141] in the very face of the fact, conceded by him, that he did issue this decree in his official capacity[Pg 233] as pope. This is an unequivocal charge that he violated his own conscience, and acted faithlessly to the Church and dishonorably as a man, by yielding to influences condemned by his judgment, and which he was too cowardly to resist. In ordinary intercourse such an accusation is highly offensive, and there is nothing to make it otherwise when made by a Jesuit against a pope—especially when he professes to believe that the latter was infallible. This same author does not scruple to charge that the Spanish ambassador "bribed the household of the sovereign pontiff, and undertook to overpower the pope by his indomitable persistence"[142]—as if the pope were surrounded by corrupt hirelings who were able to influence his decision, and could be overpowered upon so great and serious a question by the importunities and threats of others. And, continuing his comments in the same spirit, he asserts, upon the alleged authority of Cardinal Pacca, that after Clement XIV signed the Act of Suppression, "he dashed the document to one side, cast the pen to another, and from that moment was demented. This signature had cost the unhappy pontiff his reason! From that day he possessed it only at intervals, and then only to deplore his misfortunes."[143]

Statements of this character pertain to a low order of partisanship, and are discreditable to their authors. No facts whatsoever have ever been given, or can be, upon which to base them. Clement XIV lived until September 22, 1774, fourteen months after his decree abolishing the Jesuits. The French ambassador, Bernis, in a letter written at Rome, November 3, 1773, three months and twelve days after the decree, said: "His health is perfect, and his gayety more remarkable than usual."[144] Nicolini says "all the authors are unanimous upon this point," and quotes the historian Botta to the same effect. He retained this condition of health for[Pg 234] eight months, when his sudden sickness gave rise, as already stated, to the belief that he had been poisoned by the Jesuits. Certainly if he had experienced any such remorse as the Jesuits allege, it would have been exhibited before that time. After his illness his faculties may have become somewhat impaired, but this was the natural result of intense physical suffering. The Jesuits represent him, when in the agony of pain, as having exclaimed, "I have been compelled," which they interpret to mean that he was unduly influenced by the sovereigns. They fail in this to exhibit their usual shrewdness by deriving an argument from an expression used by him when in what they say was a demented condition. If he did speak the words alleged, it is far more probable, as Nicolini suggests, that he intended to express regret that the iniquities of the Jesuits had been so enormous and so clearly established that he was compelled to suppress and abolish their society, because of the injury they had already inflicted, and would be likely to inflict in the future, upon the Church and Christianity. It should also be remarked in this connection that neither Cormenin nor De Montor, in their separate histories of the pontificate of Clement XIV, says anything about his having been demented, or about his remorse. That accusation is the fruit of Jesuit revenge.

But we have now less to do with the motives of the pope in abolishing the society, and with the circumstances immediately attending the act, than with the act itself and its consequences. As pope, Clement XIV had the undoubted power to make and promulgate the decree. When this was done, it was accepted with satisfaction, not alone by the sovereigns who had made themselves accusers of the Jesuits, but by the great body of the European Christians. Among the latter the belief almost universally prevailed that he had thereby conferred a benefit upon the Church and the Christian world by removing a serious and disturbing evil. In the course of history no important public act has been more generally approved. This would have been the case[Pg 235] even if but part of what is alleged in their terrible arraignment by the pope had been true. But there is every reason for believing that all the charges were fully verified by proof, and that the Christian people accepted that fact as complete justification for the abolition and absolute suppression of the society.

FOOTNOTES:

[125] History of the Popes of Rome. By Cormenin. Vol. II, p. 392.

[126] Ibid.

[127] History of the Popes of Rome. By Cormenin. Vol. II, p. 393.

[128] History of the Popes of Rome. By Cormenin. Vol. II, p. 393.

[129] Ibid., p. 394.

[130] History of the Popes of Rome. By Cormenin. Vol. II, p. 394.

[131] History of the Popes of Rome. By Cormenin. Vol. II, p. 394.

[132] History of the Popes of Rome. By Cormenin. Vol. II, p. 395.

[133] De Montor, Vol. II, p. 329.

[134] Daurignac, Vol. II, p. 167.

[135] Letters of Pope Clement XIV: To which are Prefixed Anecdotes of His Life. By Lottin Le Jeune. London, 1781.

[136] Nicolini, p. 382.

[137] This bull is given by Nicolini, pp. 387-406.

[138] Cormenin, Vol. II, p. 398.

[139] Le Jeune, Vol. I, p. 43.

[140] Nicolini, pp. 387 to 406. This decree may also be found in De Montor, Vol. II, pp. 347 to 364. His translation differs somewhat from that of Nicolini, which is followed in the text, but the variance is not substantial in the condemnation of the society.

[141] Daurignac, Vol. II, p. 173.

[142] Daurignac, Vol. II, p. 175.

[143] Ibid., p. 177.

[144] Apud Nicolini, p. 412.

If it be conceded, as the Jesuits insist, that Clement XIV was prompted by unworthy and impure motives to abolish their society, and that, in consequence, he afterwards became demented from remorse, nevertheless the decree of abolition was an official act not subject to review or reversal by any authority known to the Church. No appeal from it was authorized by any existing law or Church regulation. He exercised a power which had been always understood to belong to the popes—of the same nature and import precisely as that exercised by Paul III when he established the society. No matter whether it be called a bull, a brief, or by some other name, it was undoubtedly an official decree, pronounced by the head of the Church, acting within his proper, well-established, and recognized pontifical jurisdiction. Consequently, its nature can not be changed, nor can its scope and effect be limited, by any view that can be taken of his motives, any more than can the decree of a competent judicial tribunal be impaired in its force and effect by the motives or inclinations of the judge who pronounces it. There can, therefore, be no escape from either of these propositions: First, that the decree, having been issued in conformity with the law and custom of the Church, was valid; and, second, that after its issuance, the Jesuit society could no longer exist as a religious order, under the Canon law of the Church.

It is not necessary to inquire whether or no this decree was binding upon subsequent popes; that has been of no practical importance since the new decree of Pius VII re-establishing the order, after it had been forty-one years[Pg 237] abolished. Until the time of that new decree, the Church and all its members were bound, under its existing laws and discipline, to recognize the abolition of the society as legitimate and proper. In point of fact this was the case, the only exceptions being the Jesuits themselves, and such as they could influence. Pius VI, the immediate successor of Clement XIV, although he discharged from prison some of the Jesuits who had been arrested and confined, suffered the decree of Clement XIV to have full effect during his pontificate, and held on to the confiscated property of the Jesuits for the benefit of the Church. The Christians of Europe were satisfied with this condition of things, and indicated this, not merely by their silent acquiescence, but by acts of positive approval. The Jesuits, however, refused to be reconciled, and exhibited their discontent by such measures of resistance as proved, beyond question, their malevolent hatred of Clement XIV and their contempt for the authority of the Church and the pope, when it was employed to curb their ambition or to impose upon them any form of restraint. Instances of their disobedience to popes have already been cited; but at this particular crisis in their history their desperation became such that they recognized nothing as meritorious, either in the Church or any of the popes, except what tended to restore to them the power they had forfeited by the criminality of their conduct. Their society was abolished pursuant to the law of the Church, and by its highest authority; but they had no respect for either—not a whit more than they had for the papal decrees by which their practice of the heathen rites in India and China was forbidden. They sought after no other end than their own triumph, and to achieve this they plotted with whomsoever would consent to aid them, and threw themselves into the arms and under the protection of the enemies of the Church, with the facility of such deserters as pass from camp to camp to find shelter for themselves. This part of their history presents their leading characteristics in a striking light, and is, perhaps, more instructive than any other, be[Pg 238]cause it shows with conspicuous prominence the little esteem in which they hold the Church and its legitimate authority when in conflict with their own purposes and designs, and how ready they are to curse the popes who oppose them, whatsoever their Christian virtues, and to praise all who favor them, whatsoever their vices.

To give effect to the decree of abolition, the general of the Jesuits was arrested and held in confinement; the members were dispersed among different ecclesiastical establishments in Rome; their buildings were taken possession of; seals were placed upon their papers; and their schools were turned over to the management of others. Proceedings were instituted against Ricci, the general, and other members of the society, and he and the secretary, together with several of the prominent fathers, were sent to the Castle of St. Angelo, and held as State prisoners. The crimes charged against them, and of which they were convicted, were "that they had attempted, both by insinuations and by more open efforts, to stir up a revolt in their own favor against the Apostolic See; that they had published and circulated through all Europe libels against the pope," in one of which Clement XIV was charged with having been elected by simony, and that three of the most prominent Jesuits, "Favre, Forrestier, and Gautier, were loudly repeating everywhere that the pope was the Antichrist."[145]

The society generally, but not unanimously, exhibited this same spirit of resistance to the pope and the authority of the Church. By the decree of abolition the members were allowed to act as secular priests, and exercised sacerdotal functions, subject to the authority of the Church. A few of them availed themselves of this provision, and "settled themselves quietly in different capacities." Others endeavored insidiously to preserve the principles of their constitution and organization, by abandoning the name of Jesuits, and adopting other titles. "But," says Nicolini, "the greater[Pg 239] part, the most daring and restless, would not submit to the Brief of Suppression; impugned its validity in a thousand writings; called in question the validity of Clement's election, whom they called Parricide, Sacrilegious, Simoniac, and considered themselves still forming part of the still existing company of Jesus."[146]

Catharine, Empress of Russia, had given some protection to the Jesuits before their suppression, and Ricci, the general, admitted in his examination that he had held correspondence with Frederick of Prussia after the decree. How is it to be accounted for, in any mode consistent with due respect for the Church, that the Jesuits in Russia did not withdraw themselves from the protection of the emperor, and that others sought shelter and protection in Prussia, after the decree of the pope had declared the order to be forever abolished throughout the world? Russia had long before rejected all the overtures of the Roman Church, and established the Greek faith as the religion of the State, with the reigning sovereign as the spiritual head of the national Church. The Church of Rome taught that the Russians were schismatics, and therefore heretics. The Prussians were Lutherans—that is, Protestants—and were, consequently, looked upon at Rome as the deadly enemies of the Church, and were, besides, under the ban of excommunication for heresy. Consequently, an alliance of the Jesuits with either Russia or Prussia, after their suppression, could be looked upon in no other light than as an act of rebellion against the authority of the Church and the pope—a desire to pass from the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome to that of alien authority arrayed against it. It amounted to a desire to exchange their allegiance from what they had considered legitimate authority to that of schismatics and heretics. It is impossible for the Jesuits to escape this view of the attitude they occupied after their abolition. They were simply rebels against the Church.

The Jesuits in Silesia, in Prussia, refused positively to[Pg 240] obey the decree of Clement XIV—paying no more regard to it than if it had been issued by the chief of an Arab tribe. They continued to hold on to their convents and houses in the same manner as before their suppression, in doing which they directly defied the pope. They relied upon the Lutheran Frederick for protection, preferring that to obedience to the pope. Frederick willingly gave them this protection, because he was induced to believe that he could employ them for the twofold purpose of strengthening monarchism, to which they were pledged by their constitution, and of supplanting the Roman by the Protestant form of Christianity. The Jesuits flocked, therefore, to Silesia from all quarters, seeking this Protestant protection, which caused Voltaire to remark, in his caustic style, that "it would divert him beyond measure to think of Frederick as the general of the Jesuits, and that he hoped this would inspire the pope with the idea of becoming mufti."[147]

The Kings of France and Spain called the attention of Pius VI—after the death of Clement XIV—to this disobedience of the Jesuits, and urged upon him the necessity of requiring that the decree of Clement XIV should be strictly enforced against them. But the attitude occupied by Pius VI required him to observe extreme caution in administering the affairs of the Church. As he had not been directly allied with either of the factions among the cardinals at the time of his election, he felt constrained to adopt a conservative and moderate course, whereby he might, if possible, restore harmony in the Church. He therefore refrained from identifying himself with the sovereigns who were hostile to the Jesuits, and yet did not openly espouse the Jesuit cause. Whatsoever his personal inclinations may have been, he could not, as pope, venture to impugn the motives of his predecessor, or assail the fairness and integrity of the decree abolishing the Jesuits. He could not fail to realize that Clement XIV—a canonically elected pope, with all the[Pg 241] powers of that office in his hands—had taken the precaution to declare that he intended the suppression to be absolute, final, and forever. He knew also that, as the Jesuits had derived the authority to exist as a religious order from the approval of one pope, it was clearly competent for another pope to withdraw that approbation and to dissolve the order, whensoever it became obvious to him that the good of the Church required it. Under these circumstances, even if he had desired to do so, he manifestly was not inclined to strike what might prove to be a fatal and deadly blow at the dignity of the papal office and the authority of the Church, which he undoubtedly desired to maintain in all its completeness. Consequently, he not only continued to preserve to the Church the confiscated property of the Jesuits, but left the decree suppressing the order in full force, in all its entirety, during his pontificate, which terminated during the last year of the eighteenth century.

The Jesuit writers have taxed their ingenuity to the utmost to explain the attitude of Pius VI towards their society. They have struggled hard to prove that, notwithstanding he caused the decree of Clement XIV to be executed, he was in fact opposed to it. One of them, heretofore cited—whose work abounds in a mixture of apologies for their conduct and vilification of their adversaries—says: "In the opinion of Pius VI the Society of Jesus was disbanded only for a time; it was not abolished."[148] To this it may be answered, in the first place, there is nothing to show that Pius VI ever so committed himself; in the second place, that Clement XIV decreed that it should be abolished forever; and in the third place that, if he had considered the society as suspended merely for a time, he would have revived it by his own decree, or fixed the tenure of suspension. But this method of treating the question is trifling with a serious matter which should be treated with fairness and candor. It is equivalent to saying that Pius VI executed[Pg 242] the decree of his predecessor, which absolutely abolished the society forever, when in his conscience he did not approve it. If he did entertain this opinion, it is not shown to have been authoritatively announced by him; and to allege that he did, in the absence of proof to that effect, has the appearance of attempting to substitute fiction for fact—to make history rather than to record it.

The Jesuits, however, draw inferences of the favorable estimate of their society by Pius VI from his kind treatment of Ricci, the general, while confined in the castle of St. Angelo, and his release from confinement of the other Jesuits who had been arrested. This is far-fetched, inasmuch as it may well be attributed alone to motives of benevolence. But in no event are these such acts as could limit, in the least degree, the effect of the decree of abolition so long as it continued in force, as it did during the pontificate of Pius VI. Besides, the propriety of punishing individuals must have depended upon their personal agency in the offenses charged against the society as an organized body. The Jesuits derive more support to their claim that Pius VI favored them by quoting language alleged to have been uttered by him, which, if actually spoken, would place him in the attitude of being upon their side and condemning the decree of his predecessor, but without the courage to relieve them from the condemnation of their conduct or from the Act of Suppression. This is not very complimentary to Pius VI, for it represents him as saying, "I approve of the Society of Jesus residing in White Russia,"[149] at the same time that he continued his assent to their abolition in all the Roman Catholic States. The question whether or no he made this remark is in too much doubt to give full credit to it. It is not pretended that the words were written, but only that they were spoken in the presence of a single witness, who is said to have attested their utterance. This[Pg 243] would place him in the attitude of performing a public act contrary to his private judgment, which might well enough be done where temporal matters only were involved, but not by a pope concerning spiritual matters. Hence, it is scarcely to be supposed that Pius VI ever uttered these words. But they amount to nothing which reaches the dignity of an official act if he did, for the plain reason that the decree of abolition having been a solemn official act, under "the seal of the Fisherman," if subject at all to revocation or modification by any of the successors of Clement XIV, could only have been so dealt with by an official act of corresponding solemnity. For some causes judicial decrees may be changed or annulled, but only by other judicial decrees, and it will not be pretended, even by Jesuits, that a decree pronounced by a pope under the authority of the Canon law and the unvarying custom of the Church, is of less dignity than the decrees of the civil courts. What is said by De Montor disproves the allegation of Daurignac. He tells us that when the Jesuit general in Russia took such steps as would have enlarged the society by the admission of neophytes, Pius VI commanded him to cease. Whilst in this he does not seem to have condemned the existence of the Jesuits in Russia, it emphatically approves the decree of abolition by executing it elsewhere.

Not to condemn their existence in Russia was a simple act of omission, differing essentially from a direct approval. But whether what he did was the one or the other, it undoubtedly had the effect of enabling the Jesuits in Russia to defy the decree of Clement XIV by keeping their organization alive there, so that at the death of Ricci they elected a successor of their own, who conducted himself and the society in open opposition to the Church, the pope, and the Canon law.[150] All, therefore, that can be justly said about Pius VI is, that he occupied an equivocal attitude—[Pg 244]not willing to approve directly by any official act the existence of the society in Russia, yet leaving the decree of suppression in full force.

But whatsoever Pius VI may have done or said, his immediate successor, Pius VII, did "authorize the society to establish itself in White Russia." This he did in 1801, twenty-eight years after the decree of Clement XIV. It was not done, however, by a mere verbal declaration to that effect, but by a formal bull, or brief, or decree—no matter by what name it may be called—in observance of the usual formality. From this it is to be implied that there had been no attempt to change or limit the decree of suppression by Pius VI; for if there had been, this repetition would have been unnecessary. Pius VII manifestly understood that without the official solemnity of a new bull, brief, or decree, no effect would have followed; that is, that his mere verbal assent, if he had given it, would have amounted to nothing. But what he did was equivocal, to say the least of it, by both affirming and disaffirming the decree of Clement XIV. It affirmed it in so far as the decree was left in force in the Roman Catholic States of Europe, where the jurisdiction of the pope as the head of the Church was recognized; and disaffirmed it in Russia, where the pope had no jurisdiction. It was as much as to say that the Jesuits should not exist as an organized society among Roman Catholics, but might do so among schismatics and heretics. No matter what idea he intended to convey with regard to their abolition among the former, he accepted it as an accomplished fact which he was officially bound to recognize. To have done otherwise would have been perilous to the Church by inciting the opposition of the Roman Catholic sovereigns, who could not be reconciled to the Jesuits, and would have offended the multitude of European Christians who had approved their abolition. Up to the first year of the present century, therefore, the decree of Clement XIV remained unreversed throughout Europe, and wheresoever the jurisdiction of the pope was recognized. Whatsoever the Jesuits did to resist, defeat,[Pg 245] or evade it, must, consequently, be considered willful disobedience to the recognized and legitimate authority of the Church; in other words, as rebellion.

This measure of leniency on the part of Pius VII had the effect upon the Jesuits of making them bolder in their general conduct and more vindictive in their denunciation of Clement XIV, whose name and memory they assailed with fierce and foul aspersions. They flocked to Russia in large numbers, as they had done to Silesia, from all the Roman Catholic States, and, under the guidance of their skillful general in that country, soon acquired the habit of acting as if they were sure of an ultimate revival of their organization. Thus sustained, it was not long before they re-entered Parma and Sicily, with the implied if not express approval of Pius VII, who seems to have been gradually preparing himself, by cautiously feeling his way, to espouse their cause and to acquiesce in their defamation of Clement XIV. As their hopes grew higher they began to repeat their old practices by venturing to interfere with the temporal affairs of Governments, as they had been accustomed to do before their suppression. They ventured the attempt to domineer in Russia as they had formerly done in Spain, France, Portugal, and elsewhere. Finding themselves, for a time, unrebuked by the Russian authorities, they carried this interference so far, and became so exacting in their demands, that the Russian Government was compelled, in self-defense, to impose restraints upon them. They had learned so well how to plot treason and rebellion in the Roman Catholic States as to make themselves familiar with all the artifices and instrumentalities most effective for those purposes, but their Russian field of operations presented difficulties they had not probably anticipated. The pope, whether for or against them, had no power there, and they were required to deal only with the authorities of that Government. Those authorities soon became convinced that they had warmed a viper into life, and that the Jesuits could not be trusted even in return for favors bestowed upon them. The Russian em[Pg 246]peror, Alexander, was consequently compelled to issue a royal ukase in 1816, by which he expelled them from St. Petersburg and Moscow. This proving ineffectual, he issued another in 1820, excluding them entirely from the Russian dominions. The emperor set forth in his decree that he had intrusted them with the education of youth, and had imposed no restrictions upon their right to profess and practice their own religion, but that they had "abused the confidence which was placed in them, and misled their inexperienced pupils;" that whilst they enjoyed toleration themselves, "they implanted a hard intolerance in the natures infatuated by them;" and that all their efforts "were directed merely to secure advantages for themselves, and the extension of their power, and their conscience found in every refractory action a convenient justification in their statutes." After showing how insensible they were to the duties imposed on them by gratitude for the protection Russia had extended to them after the abolition of the society by the pope, and charging them with the egregious crime of sowing tares and animosities among families, and tearing the son from the father, and the daughter from the mother, Alexander asks this emphatic and significant question: "Where, in fact, is the State that would tolerate in its bosom those who sow in it hatred and discord?"[151]

This was the first attempt made by any State not Roman Catholic to expel the Jesuits, and it is not pretended, even by the Jesuits themselves, that it was on account of their religion, which the Russian Government allowed them to exercise freely. It must have been, therefore, the consequence of their having convinced the Russian authorities that they employed their religion as a pretext for their interference with temporal and political affairs; and that they had thereby made themselves rightfully amenable to the charges alleged against them in the ukase of the emperor. It is no defense against these charges to say that the emperor may[Pg 247] have been mistaken. This is not probable; for the fact of their having plotted against the peace and interests of society in return for the favors he bestowed upon them, would have justified him in condemning them even more severely. There are very few offenses so base as ingratitude, which excludes the higher emotions from the mind. He gave them shelter and protection after the pope and the Roman Catholic powers had condemned and abolished them; and but for this they would have passed away forever, overwhelmed by the popular indignation. The very fact that he found himself constrained to arraign them as he did, with such crushing severity, is convincing proof of their ingratitude, as well as of their inability to exist anywhere, in fidelity to their constitution, without warring upon the peace of society and upon everything they are unable to subdue and control.

It is to be presumed that the Jesuits professed submission to Russian authority before the decree of Pius VII which allowed them to exist in that country. But after the same pope re-established the order, as he soon did, by another special decree, their schemes of ambition were more actively and openly plotted. This last act, which restored them to active life, was dated August 7, 1814, and inasmuch as it enabled them to reproduce all their old machinery of mischief, it deserves to be well considered, both as regards the character of the act itself, and the motives of its author. It constitutes one of the important events in modern history, the influences of which have not yet ceased, and are not likely to cease so long as the contest between monarchism and popular institutions shall continue. Pius VII was a monarchist in principle, besides being a temporal sovereign. Monarchism was seriously threatened, and was ready to accept whatsoever alliance its defenders deemed essential to its preservation. Popular government was the special dread of kings, and there were none of these who did not understand that nowhere else in the world was it more severely condemned than in the Jesuit constitution, and none who would rejoice more at its extermination than the members of[Pg 248] the Jesuit society. We should glance, therefore, at the condition of the European nations at the time of Pius VII, in order to penetrate his motives and comprehend what he must have regarded as the necessity which influenced him in aiding the Jesuits to cast reproach upon the memory of Clement XIV, one of the most meritorious of his predecessors.

The French Revolution had made the attempt, in imitation of the example of the United States, to scatter the germs of popular representative government throughout Europe. Whatsoever errors sprang out of that great movement are attributable more to the pre-existing influences and prejudices of false education, and to the aid which monarchism derived from the ill-fated union of Church and State, than to all other causes combined. When the European States became convulsed by this event, the Jesuits seized upon the opportunity to persuade the reigning sovereigns that the support of their society as organized by Loyola, was absolutely necessary to the preservation and continuance of the principle of monarchy; and that without their co-operation the people, who were incapable of conducting the affairs of government, would triumph over kings. They assailed liberalism in every form, from the French Encyclopædists to the humblest advocate of popular government, consigning all of them to eternal tortures for venturing to assert the natural right of mankind to civil and religious liberty. This was congenial work to them; for, although not yet re-established, they felt assured that if they could excite the fears of the sovereigns at the probable loss of their royal authority, they would thereby set in operation a current of influences which would soon reach Pius VII, and lead him to disregard the decree of their abolition, and to cast his lot along with the other kings, whatsoever effect might be produced upon the fortunes of the Church. Loyola had founded the order upon the plea of its necessity to counteract the influences of the Reformation in the sixteenth century; and now in the nineteenth, the same argument was[Pg 249] repeated, so varied only as to embrace all the existing fruits of the Reformation, including the right of the people to self-government. The Jesuits did not miscalculate. They knew how to excite both the fears and bigotry of the sovereigns. They understood Pius VII, and succeeded at last in obtaining from him the decree for their re-establishment, by virtue of which they have since existed, and are now scattered throughout all the nations, with neither their ambition nor thirst for power in the least degree slackened.

Everybody at all familiar with history understands how necessary it was considered by the "Allied Powers" to recast the history of Europe after the escape of Napoleon from the Island of Elba. For this purpose their representatives assembled at the Congress of Vienna, and took to themselves the name of the "Holy Alliance," which, according to Prince Metternich—who was its leading spirit—was induced by "the overflow of the pietistic feeling of the Emperor Alexander [of Russia], and the application of Christian principles to politics;" in other words, "a union of religious and political-liberal ideas."[152] This effort, on the part of the monarchists of Europe was designed to give renewed prominence to the idea that kings governed by divine right; in other words, to establish the union between Church and State so completely that it could never be again disturbed. It was intended to teach the people that all the liberties they were entitled to possess were such only as the governing monarchs deemed it expedient to grant them; that they were entitled to none whatsoever by virtue of the natural law; that the attempt to establish representative and liberal government, like that of the United States, was an unpardonable sin against God; and that the highest duty of citizenship was obedience to monarchical authority.

Not the least conspicuous among the maneuvering sovereigns and politicians of Europe at this time was Pius VII,[Pg 250] who felt himself to be the most illustrious and important representative of the divine right of kings. He hated Napoleon intensely, if for no other reason, because the "little Corsican" had arrested and held him in confinement. In casting about to discover by what means he, as pope, could render the most conspicuous aid to the cause of monarchism, and the suppression of liberal and popular government, he naturally turned in the direction of the Jesuits, whose fidelity to the principles of absolutism was vouched for by the constitution of their society and their intense devotion to the memory of Loyola. He, accordingly, whilst the monarchs were preparing for the Congress of Vienna, and only a few months before its assembling, anticipated their action by re-establishing the society of the Jesuits. His prompt action commended him to the allied sovereigns, who could not have failed to see in it sufficient to assure them of his hostility to popular government and his fidelity to the monarchical cause. His purposes may be inferred from the language of his decree. He declared that he should be derelict of duty, "if placed in the bark of Peter, tossed and assailed by continual storms, we [he] refused to employ the vigorous and experienced rowers [the Jesuits], who volunteered their services, in order to break the waves of a sea which threatened every moment shipwreck and death."[153] What did he mean by the storms that tossed and assailed the bark of Peter? The Governments were agitated by political and military turmoil, but these things were not within the rightful province of the Church or the pope. The Church was at peace, except in so far only as Pius VII had voluntarily chosen to mix himself up with the political struggles of kings, in order to preserve his own temporal crown. That he intended to become an active party to these struggles is proved by all that he said and did—even by the language of his decree. In explaining his action, he says that Ferdinand, King of Sicily, had requested the re-establishment of the Jesuits, because[Pg 251] it was necessary that they should be employed as instructors "in forming youth to Christian piety and fear of God." Ferdinand was one of the most bigoted kings and thorough monarchists in Europe, and his idea of "Christian piety and fear of God" was, that it centered in the divine right of kings and the union of Church and State. With him religion and monarchism were synonymous terms. If he sometimes made small concessions to his subjects from fear of the popular wrath, they were always withdrawn when his power became strong enough to enable him to renew his oppressions with impunity. He acted upon the Jesuit principle that a monarchical sovereign is not bound by any promise he makes to his subjects, for the reason that the latter have no rights which the former are bound to recognize, and if they had, that the pope could release him from the obligation to obey his promise—a doctrine then strictly adhered to so as to make popular institutions impossible. His main purpose was to perpetuate his own temporal and political authority, and he desired to employ the Jesuits for that purpose, well knowing that their doctrines were expressly designed to hold society in obedience to monarchism. Pius VII did not hesitate to avow his sympathy with Ferdinand, and in doing so proved that he was influenced by the same temporal and political motives. He considered it necessary that the crown of absolute sovereignty should be kept upon the head of Ferdinand, in order to assure himself that it should be kept also upon his own. The sovereigns of the "Holy Alliance" had massed large armies, and soon entered into a pledge to devote them to the suppression of all uprisings of the people in favor of free government; and he desired to devote the Jesuits, supported by his pontifical power, to the accomplishment of that end. He knew how faithfully they would apply themselves to that work, and hence he counseled them, in his decree of restoration, to strictly observe the "useful advices and salutary counsels" whereby Loyola had made absolutism the corner-stone of the society.

Thus the motives of Pius VII are clearly shown to have been temporal and political, and when he excused himself on account of the "deplorable times"—that is, the political disturbance among the nations—he manifestly had in view the advancement of those plottings against popular liberty which soon furnished the rallying point to the "Holy Alliance" at Vienna. He seems to have been so intent upon this subject as not to realize that he owed at least some show of respect to the memory of Clement XIV. As if unconscious that when the latter abolished the society, he also was the head of the Church, possessing all the powers and prerogatives of a lawfully-elected pope, he abrogated and annulled his decree as if it had possessed no higher dignity than a municipal ordinance, imitating in this the practice of those sovereigns who brush all impediments out of the paths of their ambition. He conferred upon the Jesuits the right to exist as an order throughout the world, and thereby approved and indorsed their vilification of Clement XIV. And to show his own estimate of the plenitude of his pontifical authority, he declared that his decree of restoration should be "inviolably observed," and that it should "never be submitted to the judgment or revision of any judge." And then, as if he stood in the place of God, whilst Clement XIV had rebelled against the Divine authority, he commanded that "no one be permitted to infringe, or by an audacious temerity to oppose any part" of his decree; and made disobedience to it an act of sin, by declaring that he who shall be guilty of it "will thereby incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul." He treated contemptuously the decree of Clement XIV, without the least pretense that the Jesuits had repented of the crimes for which he abolished their society after four years of careful investigation, and without any pledge upon their part not to repeat them—a serious and dangerous omission.[154]

One can not refrain from wondering why Pius VII did not pause long enough to inquire, "Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, that he is grown so great?" What source of pontifical authority existed in his behalf that did not also exist in behalf of Clement XIV? The one was no more pope than the other—no more infallible than the other—possessed no higher official prerogatives than the other. They were equals in power and official dignity. If Clement XIV had suspended the society, then it would have been within the power of Pius VII to set aside the suspension and revive the society. But he went further, and in the most emphatic and express terms, suppressed, abolished, annulled, and extinguished it forever. His official act was valid, complete, and final, in compliance with the Canon law and established custom. The society, therefore, had no legal existence according to the law of the Church, but was dead and extinct when Pius VII became pope. Its constitution was then a nullity. He had rightfully only the power possessed by Paul III when he first established the society; and by exercising this power could have organized a new society and granted it a new constitution. Instead of this he "re-established" the defunct society, at the request of King Ferdinand, thereby assuming the prerogative right to review and annul what Clement XIV had done within the scope of his legitimate authority. In order to do this, he had further to assume that Clement XIV had exceeded his authority, and had acted injuriously towards the Church, by depriving it of "the vigorous and experienced rowers" necessary to save it from "shipwreck and death." This was, in effect, to approve the Jesuit defamation of Clement XIV, and to deny his infallibility. It was, moreover, an implied approval of the rebellion of the Jesuits against the authority of the Church during the forty-one years that had elapsed after the abolition of their society. It was an attempt to cover up, sanction, and legitimate that rebellion, and to reward the society for its persistent defiance of the Church and the Canon law, by galvanizing its dead body into life.

The Jesuits themselves are sensible of this difficulty, and are perplexed by it. In dealing with it, Daurignac displays more ingenuity than candor. Referring to the existence of the Jesuits in White Russia, after the decree of abolition and in violation of it, he ventures to say: "The position of the Jesuits in White Russia was an anomaly. Clement XIV had authorized them to remain in statu quo."[155] He fails to give any authority for this, for the obvious reason that there is none. Nothing can be found to verify it. It is undoubtedly of Jesuit manufacture, being contradicted by everything done and said by Clement XIV. The language of his decree is conclusive upon the point that his object was to destroy the society and put an end to it forever—not allowing it to exist anywhere. He makes neither exception nor reservation. Any other pretense is a palpable perversion of his meaning. Daurignac manifestly realized this difficulty, and made an additional effort to escape it by attempting to impair the official force and effect of the decree of abolition. He says elsewhere: "In view of the future, he [Clement XIV] would not suppress the society by a bull, which would be binding upon his successors. He had suppressed it by a brief, which could be revoked without difficulty whenever public feeling might allow it."[156] The Jesuits have an "exchequer of words" from which they draw at pleasure, employing them to express or conceal the truth as shall be necessary to advance their interests or improve their fortunes. Here there is an attempt to interpret the meaning of the decree, not by the plain language it contains, but by the name given to the instrument itself. In what does the difference between a bull and a brief consist? If there is any, it must arise out of the subject-matter involved, and not otherwise. One can conceive that a pope may regulate some inferior affairs, touching matters not essential to the universal Church, by an order or decree called a brief, in which case he or his successors may revoke it. But where such an order or decree con[Pg 255]cerns the universal Church, it must be considered a bull, because in that case, according to the Jesuit theory, it partakes of infallibility, and can not be revoked—for the reason that whatsoever is infallible must stand for good or bad. The decree of Clement XIV is found in the "Roman Bullarium," preserved in the Vatican at Rome.[157] There could have been no other purpose in placing it there than to attach to it the same dignity and effect as the bulls of other popes among which it is recorded. When thus deposited it was undoubtedly considered irrevocable, because it related to a religious order which could exist only by authority of the pope representing the whole Church. When the pope acts with reference to a religious order, he decides whether or no it is capable of fulfilling its professions. He then acts with reference to faith, and his act is therefore ex cathedra. Upon this ground, according to Jesuit teaching, he is infallible in whatsoever opinion he expresses, because it is within the domain of both faith and morals. Hence, in the discussion of the question "When does the Church speak infallibly?" a recent Roman Catholic author of accepted authority says that, as the Church can never be "an unreliable guide, it follows that she can not err when she seals a religious order with her formal approbation."[158] Of course, no argument is necessary to prove that if the pope is infallible in establishing a religious order, he is equally so in abolishing and annulling an existing one, upon the ground expressed by Clement XIV, that the good of the universal Church and the cause of Christianity demanded it, and also upon the additional ground that the subject-matter is the same. This proposition can not be escaped by substituting assertion for argument.

This same Jesuit author, Daurignac, is inconsistent. Seeming to forget that he had called the decree of Clement XIV a mere brief, which any of his successors could annul,[Pg 256] when he comes afterwards to speak of that issued by Pius VII, he calls it a "bull," and frequently refers to it as such.[159] Having previously laid his foundation by insisting that Pius VII regarded the preservation of the Jesuits by the Emperor of Russia as "the interposition of Divine Providence in behalf of the society"[160]—that is, that Clement XIV had incurred the Divine displeasure when he abolished the society—he never loses sight of the idea that the decree of Pius VII bears the stamp of infallibility, and can neither be annulled nor modified. This is a subtle method of statement, but is without the force of argument. It is simply Jesuitical.

These matters derive their present importance from the fact that they show how the Jesuits have become familiar with crooked paths. They show also the wonderful adroitness with which they have pursued these paths for many years, and how they have surmounted difficulties which would have overwhelmed any other body of men. As they have never been known, at any period of their history, to abate any of their demands or pretensions, they are to-day, as they have always been, a standing menace against every form of popular self-government and whatsoever else is the fruit of the Reformation. Their rules of conduct are still derived from the teachings of Loyola, who, accepted by them as occupying the place of God, they regard as higher authority than any human law or any Government where the sovereign power is guaranteed to the people.

FOOTNOTES:

[145] Nicolini, p. 411.

[146] Nicolini, p. 422.

[147] Nicolini, pp. 424-425.

[148] Daurignac, Vol. II, p. 191.

[149] Nicolini, p. 432.

[150] De Montor, Vol. II, p. 406. Greisinger, p. 653.

[151] Nicolini, pp. 433-434. Greisinger, p. 665.

[152] Memoirs of Prince Metternich. By Prince Metternich. Vol. I, page 262.

[153] Nicolini, p. 445.

[154] Nicolini, p. 447.

[155] Daurignac, Vol. II, p. 195.

[156] Ibid., p. 177.

[157] De Montor, Vol. II, p. 347.

[158] When Does the Church Speak Infallibly? By Thomas Francis Knox, of the London Oratory. Page 67.

[159] Daurignac, p. 217.

[160] Ibid., p. 205.

The decree abolishing the Jesuits was accepted by all the Roman Catholic sovereigns and people of Europe as final. It was an exercise of the highest authority of the Church. But it was not accepted by the Jesuits, who, in contempt of this authority, brooded over the purpose to plot stealthily against it until they could obtain its revocation from some sympathizing and pliable pope. Their position was that of condemned criminals—compelled to recognize the authority and jurisdiction of their triers, while secretly endeavoring to find or to create some antagonistic authority from which they could obtain a grant of pardon, or a revival of their power to repeat their offenses without pardon. It counted nothing with them that Clement XIV was canonically pope—their own interest outweighed anything that concerned either pope or Church. They were willing to obey the Church provided the Church favored their society, but not otherwise. Consequently, it may be said of them then, as at all other times, that they recognized no other form of Christianity than that which centered in Jesuitism, and no other authority than that of their general at Rome.

When re-established, they came out from their hiding-places, and appeared again in all the centers of European influence. Their numbers were sufficient to show that, instead of having considered their society abolished—as they were commanded to do by the decree of Clement XIV—their organization had been secretly and defiantly preserved, without any departure from the principles of the constitution, any abatement of their pretensions, or any perceptible diminution in their numbers. Each one reappeared in the[Pg 258] old armor of the order—reburnished for use again. The weapons which Loyola had forged for deadly warfare against Protestantism were re-issued to the "sacred militia" of the order, and its drilled and submissive battalions renewed their old and familiar battle-cry, announcing their determination never to lay down their arms until all the fruits and consequences of the Reformation were exterminated. The possibility of achieving that result stimulated their ardor afresh; and they became more earnestly united than ever in the cause of the Bourbon monarchs, when they realized that Pius VII had assured the "Holy Alliance" that all the powers of the papacy should be employed to that end, and that they were to be placed, as the special champions of retrogression, in the forefront of the conflict. The times were such that they drew fresh inspiration from them. The jealousies and rivalries among the sovereigns had thrown all Europe into tumult. The French Revolution had been productive of consequences which created a flame of intense excitement, reaching the outer circumference of the Continent. Society was thrown into an agitated and perturbed condition, and the foundations of the strongest Governments were threatened.

The appearance of Napoleon had alarmed the hereditary sovereigns. He had succeeded in striking what they feared would be a fatal blow at the doctrine of the divine right and hereditary descent of royal powers. He had shattered Governments and destroyed dynasties with reckless audacity, in order to build up new Governments and dynasties obedient to himself. The reigning monarchs were dismayed at the rapidity and success of his movements—being unable to anticipate when or where his quick and decisive blows would strike. But when his star waned, they again applied their united energies to the revival of their claim of divine right and to a closer union of Church and State. They could not fail to see that monarchism was threatened with defeat unless some agencies could be discovered whereby the unwary populations who were striving after freedom could be brought back again into the net which the papacy and[Pg 259] secular monarchs had spent centuries in weaving. These terrified sovereigns were seemingly relieved from their embarrassing fears when Pius VII ventured to bring to their aid what he intended should be the whole power of the Church, by restoring life to the dissolved society of Jesuits. They must have rejoiced as drowning men do when seizing upon some object that saves them. The Jesuit spirit did not need to be revived, for it had never been suppressed; and therefore they reappeared fully panoplied for the renewal of the battle against civil and religious liberty, the popular right of self-government, and all the beneficent influences of the Reformation.

Sympathizing with Ferdinand IV of Naples—the most bigoted monarch in Europe, at whose instance they were restored—the Jesuits selected such points of operation as would enable them to strike their hardest blows at the freedom of speech, of the press, and of religious belief; well knowing that where these were allowed, they gave birth to the principle of popular self-government where it did not exist, and strengthened and maintained it where it did. They were encouraged by all who supported the alliance between the papacy and the allied sovereigns, upon the ground that the parties to that alliance were endeavoring to keep Church and State united, as the only certain guarantee for preserving monarchism. They were consequently accepted as co-workers in the cause of absolute imperialism and the enemies of every form of government where the people possess the right of sovereignty. The flag under which they marched had upon it all the symbols of despotism, and no room for a single star to indicate the light of modern progress and development. Having thus reached again a condition of apparent security, they were attracted to Rome by the patronage of the papacy, and the value of their alliance was recognized by the papal authorities, as may be seen in the fact that they had restored to them their property which Clement XIV had confiscated, together with the Roman and German colleges at Rome, and a num[Pg 260]ber of churches. They became more powerful than ever in the States of the Church, and succeeded in bringing all Italy under the dictatorship of their general, except Sardinia and Piedmont, where, in order to avoid a direct breach with the pope, they were tolerated, but not installed. They moved about through Europe, openly where they could do so safely, and secretly where they could not—rejoicing when they witnessed the triumph of monarchism over the rights of the people. Wheresoever a battle was to be fought against these rights, they always aided and encouraged the cause of political despotism. If, in the contests of that period, a single Jesuit could have been found in the ranks of the people, except to betray them, he would have been anathematized by his society.

The reintroduction of the Jesuits into Spain teaches a lesson which should not be forgotten. The king, Ferdinand VII, proved himself to be one of the most faithful of their royal pupils. After he had succeeded in becoming freed from the grasp of Napoleon, and returned to his kingdom, he found an existing constitution by which the Spanish people, in his absence, had placed wholesome limitations upon the royal power. With a view to regain possession of authority, he made a solemn pledge that he would obey this constitution and see that it was enforced. Having succeeded, he proved by his subsequent conduct that he was thoroughly conversant with, and wholly approved, the Jesuit doctrine that a monarch is not bound by any promise made to his subjects, or by any oath to obey it, because his authority is divine, and the people possess no rights which he does not of his own accord concede to them. Consequently, when safely in possession of the throne—with Jesuit emissaries crowding about his court to dictate his policy and pardon his perjury—he traitorously proceeded to abolish the Cortes, the legislative body of the nation, and grasp the scepter of absolute government in his own hands. He restored the infamous Inquisition, and the cruelty of his despotism was exhibited in the number of victims who suffered death during his reign of terror. How[Pg 261] such a monarch should have enjoyed the favor and protection of Pius VII—the head of the Church—almost passes intelligent comprehension; how he had the approval of the Jesuits is well understood. His enormities became so great, at last, that the Roman Catholic people of Spain, weary of his persecutions, and realizing that the nation could not live unless they were arrested, resorted to revolution to avenge wrongs they could endure no longer, and proclaimed a constitutional form of government, whereby they guaranteed such popular rights as they deemed essential to their own welfare. But the Jesuits were present to counsel the perjured king, and, accepting their casuistical teachings as his guide, he assented to this new constitution, and by the repetition of his solemn promise to observe it, turned away the popular vengeance. Thus he gained time to renew his royal strength, and when he subsequently found the nation seemingly slumbering in a sense of security, again stamped his feet upon the constitution, reassumed his arbitrary authority as king by divine right, independently of the people, forfeited his honor by repeating his perjury, and plunged Spain into the deepest misery. This perjured tyrant was cursed by the Roman Catholic people of Spain, and his enormities drove the Roman Catholic populations of Spanish America to assert their independence. When he had the royal power in his hands he brought the Inquisition and the Jesuits back to Spain; when the people were enabled to enforce the constitution, they drove the Jesuits out of the country. He knew his friends, and the people knew their enemies. But with all the infamies of his conduct resting upon him, he was favored and applauded by Pius VII and venerated by the Jesuits. The contemporaneous events are full of instruction.

To accomplish the objects announced at Vienna, the "Holy Alliance" met again in Congress at Verona, where the sovereigns pledged themselves, in the most solemn form, that they would continue to prevent the establishment of popular governments, and would unite all their energies in preserving monarchical institutions where they existed, and[Pg 262] in re-establishing them where they had been set aside by the people.[161] The adoption of a constitution by Spain was considered as in conflict with this decision at Verona, and preparations were at once made to defeat it. Louis XVIII, of France, as one of the allied sovereigns who had undertaken to preserve monarchism and defeat all popular Governments at every hazard, marched an army into Spain for the sole purpose of subduing the people and setting the constitution aside, so that the state of things that had so long existed under Ferdinand VII should continue. It was this unnatural and unjust war that carried back the Inquisition and the Jesuits to Spain. Nothing could have been more grateful to the Jesuits, because they thought they could see in it the triumph of monarchism over the people. They followed this army of invasion with as much delight as famishing people go to a feast. That they exulted when it succeeded in overthrowing the constitution, and when they saw the feet of the perfidious Ferdinand VII again upon the necks of the Spanish people, no reader of history will doubt. They "nestled themselves in the country," says Greisinger, "more firmly than ever," seemingly encouraged by the hope that the cause of popular rights was lost forever among the Roman Catholic population of Spain. But this unrighteous triumph was short-lived. Another crisis in the affairs of Spain occurred upon the death of Ferdinand VII, when, after a bloody civil war of six or seven years, the ill-fated Isabella was placed upon the throne, and another liberal constitution was proclaimed—not entirely republican, it is true, but sufficiently representative in form to arrest the usurpations of absolutism and assure the ultimate triumph of popular liberty. Once more the Roman Catholic people of Spain signalized their victory over absolutism by driving the Jesuits out of the country, and avowing their determination[Pg 263] that they would no longer be endangered by their presence or annoyed by their intrigues. And thus the Jesuits were compelled to find congenial fields of operations elsewhere in Europe, among those who regarded a constitutional and representative form of government as an offense against the divine law, the people as fit only for servitude, and absolute monarchs as "booted and spurred to ride them."

Those familiar with the hatred the Spanish people entertained for the Jesuits—not only on account of their bad influences over Ferdinand VII, but because of the tendency of their doctrines to convert men into machines and blunt their moral sensibilities—are not surprised at the detestation in which they were held in Germany. The Spanish people had long been known for obedience to the Roman Church, but had reached a point of intelligence which enabled them to understand the difference between the Church and the papacy, and, therefore, they would not permit even Pius VII to force the Jesuits upon them—a fact of great significance in forming a true estimate of their character. In Germany, however, where the Reformation began, the remembrance of their former vicious career had not died out, the opposition to them after their re-establishment was more intense than it had been before their suppression; for as the German people increased in enlightenment they were better able to see and understand the irreconcilable hostility of the Jesuits to intellectual development and constitutional government. Their own experience had taught them that reconciliation and concord between Protestants and Roman Catholics were not only possible, but desirable; and they had learned, from that same experience, that, as the Jesuits had participated in all the measures designed to strike down constitutional governments established by Roman Catholic populations, their delight would be increased if, with the same weapons, they could destroy similar governments established by Protestants. Therefore, the German people built around themselves a wall of defense in their own intellectual enlightenment, which Jesuit craft and ingenuity has in vain endeavored to undermine.

France, Austria, and Bavaria were all Roman Catholic countries. France had not forgotten the former fierce and protracted conflict which had given the Gallican Christians their cherished liberties, by assuring to the Government the control of its temporal affairs without papal interference. The recollection of this revived also the remembrance of the fact that the Jesuits had been expelled because of their efforts to destroy these liberties. And, hence, after their re-establishment, even Louis XVIII, with his evident partiality for them as the untiring defenders of absolute monarchism, was unable, although backed by Pius VII, to allow them again openly to re-enter France. Neither in Austria nor Bavaria had there ever been any such struggle as in France; but, nevertheless, the indignation felt towards the Jesuits by the people of both these countries was so undisguised that neither Francis I in the former, nor Maximilian Joseph in the latter, dared to brave public opinion by allowing them free access to either kingdom. These impediments, however, only offered to the Jesuits the opportunity to practice the arts of dissimulation and deception with which they are made familiar by their method of educational training. They surreptitiously entered France under the name of "Pères de la Foi," or "Fathers of the True Faith," and Austria and Bavaria under that of "Redemptionists."[162] They did not venture, in either of these countries, to avow themselves openly as Jesuits, because of the almost universal indignation felt towards them by these Roman Catholic populations. But gaining admission among them by these false pretenses, they understood well, by skillful training, how to proceed. Having penetrated the skirmish-line of the enemy, they could survey the whole field of battle, and plan accordingly. Every Jesuit who stealthily crept into France or Austria or Bavaria, under these masks of hypocrisy, stood towards the people of these countries as the Italian bandit does to his unsuspecting victim,—ready to strike home his[Pg 265] stiletto in the dark. It should excite no wonder, therefore, that, with Pius VII and the allied sovereigns upon their side—all maintaining the divine right to govern, and denying that of the people—these incendiary Jesuits were enabled, at last, to avow openly the name and existence of their order, and to become scattered in all directions, under the shelter of papal and imperial protection. Thus supported, they extended themselves over the adjacent States, even as far as Rhenish Prussia, opened their colleges and schools, and permitted but little time to elapse before they assumed their former dictatorship over Governments and peoples. Since then they have again revived their old imperial airs among all the nations, especially where they have found shelter under liberal institutions, and seem to be again inspired by the hope, if not the belief, that their ultimate triumph over Protestantism is assured, and that Roman Catholic populations will bow down before them as the only divinely appointed exponents of the true apostolic faith.

Pius VII was encouraged by the success of the Jesuits, and endeavored first to make them available in France to promote the interests of the papacy. Finding Louis XVIII submissive to his authority, he proposed to him a Concordat with provisions intended to destroy the Gallican liberties, and bring France into the condition struggled after so hard by Boniface VIII; that is, of absolute submission to the papacy in temporal as well as spiritual affairs. Louis XVIII was weak enough to agree to this Concordat, manifestly under Jesuit influence. But the Roman Catholic people of France were not so easily entrapped as the pope and the king had supposed; and the latter soon learned that even his royal authority was not sufficient to enforce this odious measure. He was compelled, therefore, by the force of public sentiment, to abandon it, although France still submitted to the presence of the Jesuits. The failure of the Condordat, however, was a sore defeat; but defeat only incensed the passions of Pius VII.

The hatred of the Jesuits in Germany was shared alike by[Pg 266] Protestants and Roman Catholics. These two bodies of Christians agreed that they would unite in maintaining freedom of worship; that is, they would return to the old order of things, which existed before peace and harmony had been disturbed by the Jesuits at their first appearing in Germany. They signed a Concordat to that effect, and sent it to Pius VII for his approval, intending that he should realize how easy it was for Christians to live together in harmony, notwithstanding differences of religious belief prevailed among them. The importance of this movement can not be overestimated. If the pope had thrown his great influence in its favor, its beneficial results would have been universally felt. But Pius VII, seeming not to know that such a union among Christians was possible, positively and peremptorily refused his assent to this just and liberal arrangement, declaring that it would "compromise his temporal and spiritual power." All classes of German Christians—howsoever they otherwise differed—rebuked his illiberality, and adhered to their conciliatory course towards each other. Pius VII, realizing the necessity of fulfilling his obligation to the allied sovereigns, and of keeping the Jesuits in the active service of the papal and imperial cause, became intensely excited at this German persistence, and expressed his indignation in strong language. His course is thus explained by Cormenin: "He rallied around him the kings of the Holy Alliance, declared a terrible war against liberal ideas, fulminated excommunications against the Democrats of France, the Illuminati of Germany, the Radicals of England, and the Carbonari of Italy,"[163] which includes everything that tended, at that period, towards liberalism and popular government. Manifestly, however, his anger was specially aroused at the thought of religious toleration, which, looked at from the papal standpoint, meant the loss of monarchical power and, consequently, heresy.

With this tremendous combination confronting them—composed, as it was, of the papacy, the allied sovereigns,[Pg 267] and the Jesuits—what other remedy but revolution was within reach of the people? How else could they prevent the continued union of Church and State, the complete triumph of monarchism, and the crushing defeat of constitutional and popular government? Nobody needs to be told to what extremities the allied sovereigns were ready and willing to go to accomplish these results; and when supported by a pope like Pius VII, and he by the Jesuits, whose society he had re-established for that express purpose, they possessed an organization of such a character, so formidable and vast in its proportions, that there was left to the multitude no other possibility of escape than by asserting, as the people of the United States had done, their natural right to civil and religious liberty. No question about the form of religious faith was involved, except in so far as the pope, the allied sovereigns, and the Jesuits were united in maintaining that the only true religion was that based upon the joint monarchism of Church and State—in other words, that the faculties of the human mind should remain undeveloped in order to fit the people for inferiority and passive obedience to authority.

Hence, when the Roman Catholic populations came to realize what Protestantism had done in a few centuries to enlighten and elevate multitudes of people, it required but little intelligent thought to see that the combination which threatened to deprive them of liberties essential to their welfare was violative of the true faith of the Church they revered, and from whose proper teachings they were unwilling to depart. They could readily understand that it was the papacy, and not the Church, that had led them to the very edge of a fearful precipice. They were animated by the inspiring influence of liberty—always broad, generous, conciliatory. Yielding, therefore, to the instinctive teachings of nature, they found themselves no less desirous than others to enjoy the protection of constitutional government, and no less willing than others to resort to the ultimate remedy of revolution when assured that their just rights could not[Pg 268] otherwise be obtained. Thus only are we enabled to account intelligently for the revolutions in the Roman Catholic States—organized, as they were, to resist the tremendous conspiracy of European monarchists, in both Church and State, to defeat the formation of popular constitutional governments, and to overthrow them where they had been formed.

These revolutions followed each other so rapidly as to prove the existence of a common purpose; and the nearer they were to Rome, the more violent were the passions which incited and followed them. The masses of the people were unwilling to submit longer to their own humiliation, even in face of the fact that Pius VII had, by assuming infallibility never authorized, placed the Church in the attitude of approving the doctrines and purposes of the "Holy Alliance." They accepted, with reverential fidelity, the faith proclaimed by "the fathers" of the Apostolic Age, the Conciliar Decrees and the true traditions of the Church, but were unwilling to have it perverted by either the papacy or the Jesuits, so that it should be made the pretext for holding them and their posterity in vassalage. They courageously determined, therefore, to free themselves from bondage—being no longer willing to be bound with fetters, whether drawn from the arsenals of the papacy or newly forged in the workshops of the Jesuits. These revolutions might have been avoided, and might have been arrested after they broke out, by the authority of the Church in the hands of a pope less intent upon the possession of temporal and monarchical powers than Pius VII, and less willing than he to patronize the Jesuits and participate in the purposes of the "Holy Alliance" for political and ambitious ends. But Pius VII was constrained by the circumstances surrounding him, as the representative of the papacy, to discard all other considerations except such as promised success to the allied powers, to whose triumph over the people he contributed, as far as he could, all the authority of the Church. To him the Jesuits appeared merely as "experienced rowers," who could "break[Pg 269] the waves" of the revolutionary sea; and having taken them on board the papal bark, freighted with the richest treasures, he defied alike the complaints of the oppressed peoples and the dangers of shipwreck.

That Pius VII was not disposed to abate in the least the claim to universal sovereignty which some of his predecessors had asserted for the papacy, and was therefore incompetent to deal compromisingly with any of the pending questions, is abundantly demonstrated by the history of his pontificate. His assumption that he occupied God's place upon earth, and was so clothed with divine authority that no human tribunal could rightly inquire into his conduct or motives, placed him in the attitude of bold defiance to the sentiment of liberalism then rapidly permeating the whole body of the people. He mistook the papal dogmas of Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, and a few other popes, for the Christian doctrines of the nineteenth century. After Napoleon had extended the empire of France over Italy, it became necessary to adjust the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers. He accordingly addressed a letter to Pius VII, wherein he said: "I will touch in nothing the independence of the Holy See;" that is, that in all spiritual matters he would leave the independence of the pope undisturbed. He made this clear by continuing: "Your holiness will have for me in temporals the same regard I bear for you in spirituals." The obvious meaning of Napoleon was that Church and State should be separated, and that each should be independent of the other in its own proper sphere. The pope was to be left "sovereign in Rome," with all the temporal powers necessary to local government, but Napoleon should remain the emperor with the general jurisdiction pertaining to that office. In effect it was, substantially, a restoration of the relations which existed between the Church and the Emperors Constantine and Charlemagne.

If Pius VII had accepted this proposition, it would have gone far towards allaying the revolutionary excitement in Europe, because the people would have seen in it a desire on[Pg 270] his part to become reconciled to the progressive spirit of the nineteenth century. It would have been accepted as a recognition of the fact—of which European society had then become conscious—that the wonderful advancement of the United States was attributable mainly to the separation of Church and State. But this was what Pius VII intended neither to concede nor recognize; for it was plain to him that if Church and State were separated in Italy, the papacy would come to an end. Therefore, after reminding Napoleon that he considered his proposition as offensive to "the dignity of the Holy See," and an invasion of his "rights of free sovereignty," although it left all his spiritual powers not only unimpaired but fully protected, he emphatically and indignantly rejected it. After declaring that "it is not our will, it is that of God, whose place we occupy on earth," he proceeds to define the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers in these unequivocal words:

"We can not admit the following proposition: That we should have for your majesty in temporals the same regard that you have for us in spirituals. This proposition has an extent that destroys and alters the notions of our two powers. A Catholic sovereign is such only because he professes to recognize the definitions of the visible head of the Church, and regards him as the master of truth and the sole vicar of God on earth. There is therefore no identity or equality between the spiritual relations of a Catholic sovereign and the temporal relations of one sovereign to another."[164]

The true meaning of this was well understood at the time, and can not now be disguised by any method of interpretation. According to Pius VII, therefore, a "Catholic sovereign" must accept whatsoever the pope shall define in the domain of faith and morals, whether spiritual or temporal, because he alone is "the master of truth," and stands in the place of God on earth, and is, consequently, without any[Pg 271] superior, or even equal; that in no other way can a pope be such a supreme sovereign as he ought to be; that it is his divine right to command, and the duty of temporal sovereigns to obey; and that, no matter what temporal relations shall exist among sovereigns, there can be no equality between them and the pope, who shall rule them all, in whatsoever concerns faith and morals, as "the sole vicar of God on earth." If in this Pius VII is to be taken to have defined the only form of government which the papacy can recognize as rightful, then it is clear that none such now exists in the world—not even in Italy since the abolition of the pope's temporal power. The European people at the time understood him sufficiently well to foresee that all their efforts to limit the monarchical power by constitutions would be unavailing if the papal policy announced by him should prevail. The Roman Catholic populations, already upon the verge of revolution, were specially indignant when they realized that the papacy was thus availing itself of the authority of the Church, not only to defeat the popular will, but to require them to accept these teachings as essential parts of the faith. Hence, the revolutionary spirit was increased, so that by the time of the death of Pius VII, in 1823, it had become evident that it could not be arrested unless the papacy abated its pretensions and became reconciled to the existing condition of affairs. Pius VII fretted out his life because of the tendency of the times to liberalism; and if it be said in his behalf that he lived at a stormy period, when the waves of the political sea ran high, it may well be replied that if he had possessed a conciliatory spirit he could have done more than any other living man to bring the discontented and jarring elements into harmony. But instead of this, he turned loose upon society the odious and condemned Jesuits, whose very presence increased the popular discontent, as the storm rages more violently when the imprisoned winds are unchained.

Under the pontificate of Leo XII, the immediate successor of Pius VII, the revolutionary fervor was increased. He[Pg 272] found the Jesuits actively engaged in disturbing the peace among all who were reached by their influence, and lost no time in assuring them of his benediction in their efforts to exterminate everything that tended to liberalism and free, popular institutions. With the view of bringing France completely under the papal scepter, he demanded that the clergy there should be made independent of the Government and irresponsible to its laws. But the public sentiment of France was so outraged by this demand that even Louis XVIII was constrained to condemn it by royal ordinance. Failing in this, he turned his attention elsewhere in Europe, adopting the Jesuit tactics of stirring up Protestant populations against their kings, and Protestant kings against their subjects. In this way he, manifestly, hoped to allay, if not suppress, the revolutionary spirit, which was threatening to destroy his temporal power and deprive him of his crown. For a time he seemed to feel assurance of success in Germany and elsewhere, and under the influence of this assurance visited his maledictions upon the modern philosophers, characterizing their opinions as "phalanxes of errors," and their toleration of different religious opinions as "indifference to all religion"—leading to infidelity. So as not to be misunderstood, he represented them as "teaching that God has given entirely freedom to every man, so that each one can, without endangering his safety, embrace and adopt the sect or opinion which suits his private judgment." He makes this statement thus clear so that there may be no misconception of his unqualified condemnation of the freedom of religious belief, not only as it is taught by these modern philosophers, but as it constitutes the foundation of Protestantism and the civil institutions it has built up, especially those of the United States. Centering his wrath in a single anathema, he said: "This doctrine"—that is, the freedom of conscience—"though seducing and sensible in appearance, is profoundly absurd; and I can not warn you too much against the impiety of these maniacs." Then, passing to "the deluge of pernicious books" which inundated Europe, he specially[Pg 273] selected the Holy Scriptures in the vernacular languages as prominent in this class. "A society," said he, "commonly called the Bible Society, spreads itself audaciously over the whole world, and in contempt of the traditions of the holy fathers, in opposition to the celebrated decree of the Council of Trent, which prohibits the Holy Scriptures from being made common, it publishes translations of them in all the languages of the world. Several of our predecessors have made laws to turn aside this scourge; and we also, in order to acquit ourselves of our pastoral duty, urge the shepherds to remove their flocks carefully from these mortal pasturages.... Let God arise! Let him repress, confound, annihilate this unbridled license of speaking, writing, and publishing."[165]

Charles X succeeded Louis XVIII as King of France, and the Jesuits, encouraged by the policy of Leo XII, renewed their efforts in that country. They desired to get control of the young, as they have always done, and therefore demanded that all public instruction in colleges and schools should be confided to them. If assent to this demand had depended upon the king alone, it would doubtless have been obtained, because it was an essential part of the policy which brought about the alliance of the Bourbon and other sovereigns with the papacy. But the people of France knew the Jesuits too well to intrust their children to their care, and were so united in resisting this demand, that Charles X was compelled to refuse their request. And in order to rebuke the Jesuits as signally as possible, the public authorities provided by law that no one should be employed in teaching who belonged to any religious congregation—a fact which shows how far they felt justified in going in order to escape what they deemed a serious evil. This provision, however, for an exclusively secular education was made in full accordance with the Gallican Catholic and Protestant sentiment of France, and was intended, not as tending in[Pg 274] the least degree to irreligion, but as a necessary step towards the complete separation of Church and State.[166]

Leo XII died pending these agitations. When his successor was elected—as near our own time as 1829—and took the name of Pius VIII, the revolutionary embers needed only a little more stirring to break out into a flame. The success of constitutional government was becoming more and more apparent, and it was evident to the allied sovereigns that unless the current beating against them could be set back, they were in danger of being overwhelmed. As the idea of Church and State united was involved in the entire papal and royal policy, those, therefore, who were struggling after constitutional guarantees of the freedom of the press, of speech, and of religious belief, had no difficulty in understanding that these great natural rights were specially anathematized by the late Pope Leo XII, for the reason that they constituted the fundamental principles upon which that form of government must rest. Consequently, the masses of the people—Roman Catholics and Protestants alike—became more and more united and clamorous for these rights; not only because they were in themselves of inestimable value, but because they had come to realize that the nations which maintained them were advancing in prosperity, happiness, and enlightenment, far more rapidly than those which suppressed and denied them. Pius VIII could not avoid realizing all this, as well as the obligation resting upon the papacy, as the spiritual patron and guardian of monarchism, to arrest the popular tendency towards constitutional government. Accordingly, he had scarcely entered upon his pontificate when, wedded to the policy of retrogression, like his immediate predecessors, Pius VII and Leo XII, he endeavored to ingraft the teachings of the Jesuits more firmly than ever upon the doctrines of the Church. He addressed a circular letter to "the bishops of Christendom"—which, being to the whole Church and concerning the faith, was,[Pg 275] necessarily, ex cathedra—wherein he pointed out some of the existing errors they were commanded to extirpate. This, according to the Jesuit teaching, was an act of infallibility, and required implicit obedience from all who were faithful to the papacy. It would have been well suited to the Middle Ages. After condemning "secret societies"—overlooking, of course, the Jesuits—and the "fierce republicans," or supporters of popular government, as the "enemies of God and kings," he arraigned them for "breaking the bridle of the true faith and passive obedience to princes," and thus opening "the way to all crimes." He insisted that they were endeavoring "to hurl religion and empires into an abyss." And when he reached the culminating point he expressed himself in these words: "We must, venerable brethren, pursue these dangerous sophists; we must denounce their works to the tribunals; we must hand over their persons to the Inquisitors, and recall them by tortures to the sentiments of the true faith of the spouse of Christ."[167]

These denunciations and threatenings were intended for those Roman Catholic populations who had always venerated the Church of Rome, in order to turn them away from their revolutionary course. But their increasing enlightenment enabled them to understand that they were papal interpolations upon the primitive faith. Not being disposed to make open war upon the pope, whose sacred office they revered, they attributed them to the undue influence of the Jesuits over him. This was especially the case in France, where, during the pontificate of Pius VIII, as we have seen, the efforts to bring the Government in subjection to the papacy were attributed to Jesuit intrigue. This gave the general sentiment throughout France a tendency towards liberalism, as was indicated, not only by frequent popular demonstrations during the reign of Charles X, but specially at the period here referred to by an election of the Chamber of Deputies. In July, 1830, an overwhelming majority of[Pg 276] liberal members were elected to the Chamber, which alarmed the monarchical and royal party, and increased the activity of the Jesuits. To counteract the influence of this election, an effort was made to turn the popular attention away from it by exciting the national pride in favor of royalty, in consequence of the successful termination of the war with Algiers. The royalists made this the cause of great rejoicing, and when they supposed that the people, impelled by their ideas of national glory, had become sufficiently enthusiastic, resolved upon a step designed to crush out the popular spirit of liberalism. The king's minister, Polignac, the Archbishop of Paris, and the Jesuits, succeeded in inducing the king to defy public opinion by issuing a royal edict to prevent the assembling of the liberal Chamber of Deputies. This edict was composed of three ordinances: 1. Suspension of the liberty of the press; 2. Dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies before it met; 3. Changing the plan of elections by placing the returns in the hands of prefects in the pay of the Government.[168] By this high-handed and arbitrary act all Paris was thrown into commotion. Within the course of three days the spirit of revolution, which had been slumbering, but was not suppressed, became thoroughly aroused. The public indignation was exhibited among all classes of the population, except those enlisted in the cause of retrogression. The people demanded the rights which had been secured to them by public charter. The deputies of the Chamber assembled. Barricades were thrown up in the streets. The popular revolt soon ripened into active revolution, which terrified the king, who, unable to pacify the people, attempted, as a last resort, to do so by offering to rescind the tyrannical and obnoxious ordinances. But he was too late. The offense against popular rights was too flagrant to be so easily forgiven. The result was that Charles X—the last of the Bourbons—was ignominiously driven from the throne and from the country, and Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans,[Pg 277] made King of France. And thus did a Roman Catholic population fix the stamp of their reprobation upon the policy which the king, the papacy, and the Jesuits had designed for their enslavement.

It was impossible any longer to disguise or to mistake the true character of the issue between progress and retrogression—between constitutionalism and monarchism. It did not, therefore, take long for these events in France to impart their influence to Roman Catholic populations elsewhere. Throughout the central parts of Europe the people were stirred up to inquiry, to protest, to revolution. Having by this time fully realized that the chief calamities which afflicted them proceeded from the union of Church and State, and that a constitutional guarantee of protection was impossible so long as that union continued, their first efforts were directed to a separation of these powers, and the assignment to each its proper and independent sphere of duties. Many centuries of struggles had demonstrated that in no other way could political equality be obtained, or provision be made for assuring to them their natural and inalienable rights. The task was most difficult, because the papacy had been permitted to enlarge its powers by means of false decretals and constitutions, which the ambitious popes had employed without scruple, after they sundered their allegiance to the Eastern Empire and divided the Church. Nevertheless, they resolved upon the effort, hazardous as it was, rather than remain longer in their humiliating condition of vassalage while the Protestant nations were moving forward in their careers of progress and improvement. A brief glance at the condition of Europe will show that they were favored by the times, as if Providence were then specially shaping the destiny of the world, so as to put a stop forever to the usurpations by which the union of Church and State had been so long maintained, to the prejudice of the Church and the cause of Christianity, no less than to the natural rights of mankind.

The Netherlands contained a population united only[Pg 278] under a Government maintained by the combinations which had arisen out of the "Holy Alliance." In the north, Protestantism had the ascendency; in the south, Roman Catholicism prevailed. This latter part of the population, imitating their Christian brethren in France, desired separate independence, so that their civil institutions should be placed under their own control. They desired a constitution by which proper restraints could be placed upon the royal power, while, at the same time, they did not desire to destroy entirely the principle of monarchism; but rather that it should continue to exist under proper limitations, so as to escape from the absolutism which had hitherto borne so heavily upon them. Being unable to accomplish their object in any other way, they inaugurated an insurrection in Brussels, which soon became a revolution, and resulted in a declaration of independence. The revolution soon acquired strength enough to establish the Government of Belgium, which then became separated from Holland. A king was chosen by an elected Congress, but the constitution tied his hands, and instead of being an absolute, he became a dependent monarch. In this there was no attempt to escape from the just and rightful influence of the Church, for which the population retained the attachment they had long felt. But it severed the bond of union between Church and State by placing in the hands of the people such portion of the powers of Government as they deemed it proper to assert, so that instead of submitting to the absolute domination of the papacy, they protected their own rights and interests by constitutional guarantees. It practically condemned the doctrines of the Jesuits, which denounce revolution against absolute monarchism as sin, and laws proceeding from a tribunal of the people as heresy, and rightfully subject to resistance.

France and Belgium having, therefore, both accepted revolution as a remedy for grievances which could no longer be endured, it excited no surprise when the same sentiment was imparted to other Roman Catholic populations of Europe. The masses were moved, almost everywhere, by the impulse[Pg 279] to escape the influences of the old régime, and place themselves under institutions of their own creation, responsible only to themselves. The people of the different nations were beginning to understand and to sympathize with each other more than ever before. They were coming nearer together by means of the facilities of intercommunication, for which they were indebted to the spirit of Protestant progress. They were learning, from the marvelous successes of the advancing nations, that the real sources of national greatness were in their own hands, and depended for proper development upon themselves alone. In whatsoever direction they looked, they found evidences to assure them that these same successes could not be obtained without the constitutional guarantee of the right of self-government. And having been brought to the conviction—no matter whether from choice or necessity—that they could more safely confide their temporal welfare to governments of their own construction than to either ecclesiastical or secular monarchs who traced the prerogatives of absolute imperialism to the divine law, they accepted revolution as a just and rightful remedy for their wrongs.

When France and Belgium had each broken the scepter of absolutism, their influence was soon imparted to the Roman Catholic populations in the south of Europe; and they, too, brooding also over their wrongs, began to gather up the weapons of revolution and prepare to use them. They moved slowly at first, because the chains which bound them were tightly riveted. But they kept their eyes steadily fixed upon the constitutional governments, and advanced cautiously towards a like fortune for themselves. They could not expect to go at once to the whole extent of establishing popular institutions, in the American sense. Their education and the forms of government to which they had been accustomed, had left them in a condition which made extreme caution indispensable, for fear that by rash and precipitate action the principles of the "Holy Alliance" might become so permanently established that Church and State could not[Pg 280] be separated, and they would be compelled to acquiesce in the doctrine of the divine right of kings as an essential part of Christian faith, or make war upon the Church, which they had been taught to revere, and did, in fact, revere. The pope was the recognized spiritual head of the Church, and with that they were content. But he was also a temporal king in the States of the Church, and claimed that the authority pertaining to that position was divinely conferred, and included such spiritual sovereignty over the world as God himself possesses; and that he was thereby made the infallible "master of truth," and was entitled to uninquiring and absolute obedience, not merely in spirituals, but in such temporal matters as he alone should declare to be essential to the preservation and exercise of his imperial prerogatives. They had endured the evils of that form of government long enough, and having contrasted their condition with that of peoples who had entered upon the experiment of governing themselves—such as those of the United States—they became convinced that they owed to themselves and their posterity the duty of undertaking the same experiment, even at the cost of revolution. All they could hope to do, under the conditions surrounding them, was to separate Church and State, disavow and discard the doctrine of the divine right of kings as temporal rulers, whether ecclesiastical or secular, and substitute constitutional governments for absolute monarchism; in other words, to try political institutions of their own creation in place of the "paternal government" by which the papacy had kept them from advancing along with the progressive peoples who had asserted and maintained the right of self-government.

Had not these populations the right to do this? The American Declaration of Independence asserts that this right is derived from the law of nature, and is inalienable. The "Holy Alliance" of European sovereigns was organized to suppress it. The papacy and the Jesuits combined their energies to resist it as heresy. There was, therefore, no middle ground between constitutional government and submission—[Pg 281]between the continuance of the old order of things and the infusion of new life into decrepit and decaying institutions. Consequently, the people of Southern Europe had to make choice between these alternatives, at the risk of being denounced and punished as unfaithful and heretical revolutionists. They patriotically chose the latter.

FOOTNOTES:

[161] This gave rise to what is known as the Monroe Doctrine, which declares that the United States will consider it threatening to their own independence if European Governments shall interfere with that of any of the American States.

[162] Greisinger, pp. 670 to 674.

[163] Cormenin, Vol. II, pp. 424-425.

[164] De Montor, Vol. II, pp. 614 to 620.

[165] Cormenin, Vol. II, pp. 426-427.

[166] Cormenin, Vol. II, p. 428.

[167] Cormenin, Vol. II, p. 429.

[168] History of France. By White. Page 540.

The successor of Pius VIII was Gregory XVI, who became pope in 1831. His election was not calculated to pacify the people or lessen the general excitement. On the contrary, he fully committed his pontificate to the policy of retrogression, and this was so well understood that he had to prepare at once to grapple with the revolution, so near the Vatican that he could witness the surgings of the enraged populations. The Italian people assumed the attitude of defiance; and if they had been hitherto disposed to submit passively to the oppressions of the papacy, it then became evident that they, too, after centuries of obedience to the pope as an absolute temporal monarch, were resolved to try the experiment of self-government under a written constitution. They had endured absolutism until they could do so no longer.

The revolution broke out almost simultaneously at Bologna, Parma, and Modena, and very soon after at Rome. The pope was able to hold the insurgents in check in the latter city only by military force; but in the provinces the popular tumult increased. It is said, in behalf of Gregory XVI, that the insurrection was occasioned without any personal enmity to him; that "it arose against the rule, not against the ruler; against the throne, not against its actual possessor.... It aimed at the final overthrow of the reigning power, ... the substitution of a republic for the existing and recognized rule."[169] Accepting this as true—and there is no reason for doubting it—it establishes the proposi[Pg 283]tion clearly that the Roman Catholic populations of the papal States entered upon the revolution for the purpose only of stripping the pope of his temporal power, leaving his spiritual power undisturbed. What followed is best interpreted in the light of this acknowledged fact.

A modern author thus depicts the condition of affairs from which the people of Italy revolted: "Absolutism, administered by priests, was the system which prevailed in the States of the Church during the pontificate of Gregory XVI, and in no part of the Peninsula, not even at Naples, were the people so oppressed or so ill governed."[170]

The same author further says: "In Sardinia, even more than in almost any other portion of the Peninsula, the Church enjoyed the exceptional privileges which she had acquired during the Middle Ages. The civil power had, in fact, no legal jurisdiction over the clergy. All offenses committed by ecclesiastics were tried by clerical tribunals, acting upon the Canon law, and irresponsible to the State. Moreover, these courts claimed, and to some extent exercised, jurisdiction over laymen accused of heresy, blasphemy, sacrilege, and other offenses against the Church."[171]

As soon as the revolution was fairly inaugurated in all the cities of the legation, an insurrectionary army was marched towards Rome, avowing the purpose not to concede anything to the papacy, but to have the Government reformed. The pope soon saw that he was powerless to resist so formidable a force, and that his crown would be lost to him unless he could obtain assistance from some of the allied sovereigns; that is, unless he could subdue his own Roman Catholic subjects by the help of a foreign army! Notwithstanding he boastingly considered himself as armed with divine authority, he did not feel it safe, in the face of the stubborn facts before him, to rely alone upon assistance from that source. He had more confidence in military than[Pg 284] in spiritual power, in dealing with a population he knew to be incensed with the outrages committed by the Government he was defending. He accordingly called upon Louis Philippe of France to send an army to Italy to punish his own Roman Catholic subjects, because they desired only to take the crown of temporal sovereignty from his head, leaving all his spiritual rights unassailed. He relied upon the pledge which the "Holy Alliance" had exacted from the sovereigns that they would intervene forcibly, when necessary, to protect monarchism wheresoever popular and constitutional government was set up against it, and, of course, in making this appeal to the King of France, must have supposed that he occupied firm ground. But France, by this time, had learned to look upon the doctrines of the "Holy Alliance" with disfavor, and when she expelled Charles X, the last of her Bourbon kings, established the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other Governments, and tied the hands of Louis Philippe so tightly that he was compelled to decline the request of the pope, and leave the revolution in Italy to take its course. De Montor says, what is true, that the revolution in France had "encouraged the rebellion" in Italy [172]—which only proves that the Roman Catholics of Italy were apt imitators of their French brethren, dreading revolution as little, and as resolutely determined to avenge their own wrongs. Manifestly, they saw nothing in the faith of the primitive Church in support of the temporal power.

Gregory XVI was undoubtedly discomfited by the refusal of Louis Philippe, which he had not probably anticipated; and it left him but a single method of escaping the wrath of his own people—but one way of dispelling the clouds thickening about him and threatening a tempest. That was to cling to the doctrines of the "Holy Alliance," and solicit the military intervention of some power so wedded to absolute monarchy as to be willing to march its armies against any people who were patriotic enough to assail the doctrine of the divine[Pg 285] right of kings in order to build up a government of their own.

There was then but one sovereign in Europe who held himself in readiness to respond willingly to such a call as this—who kept a large standing army in preparation to overrun and desolate any country whose people were trying to establish their own national freedom. This single sovereign was the Emperor of Austria, at whose imperial court the Jesuits were always welcome and favored guests, and every pulsation of whose heart beat in unison with their doctrines. He readily accepted the invitation of the pope, and sent a large army to protect him and to desolate all Italy if his crown could not be saved in any other way. What a spectacle! A great nation not assailed, not even offended, sending an immense army of conscripts—made mere machines by the relentless system of European military discipline—to hold in perpetual bondage populations whose only offense was the desire to establish their own constitutional government! The conflict was between the papacy and the Roman Catholic people of Italy—not between them and the Church. They had no fault to find with the Church, but desired only to separate the Church from the State by transferring the crown of temporal sovereignty to a king who would wear it under the restraints of a written constitution, and not leave it on the head of the pope, who claimed that it conferred absolute authority upon him by virtue of the divine law. They accepted in good faith all the teachings of the Church; but rejected the doctrine of the papacy and the Jesuits that it was a necessary part of the faith that the pope should be an absolute king over them and their children forever. And it was for this—nothing more—that Gregory XVI, near the middle of the nineteenth century, invoked the aid of a Roman Catholic army to make war upon Roman Catholic populations and punish them as heretics, by desolating their country, for desiring to be free!

Gregory XVI found none of that joy which a sense of security brings until the Austrians occupied Central Italy[Pg 286] with their formidable army. Then he realized that he could keep his feet planted firmly upon the necks of the Italian people without fear and trembling, because he was backed by a power they were unable to resist. It was the first ray of light and hope that had shone upon his pontificate; and as the revolutionary insurgents seemed to melt away before this vast military host, he was encouraged to believe they were entirely suppressed. Then he doubtless indulged in the exhilarating belief that his temporal crown would remain safe upon his head. It may well be imagined that the arches of the Vatican echoed and re-echoed with the strains of sacred music invoked to attest the pontifical rejoicing. But besides these scenes of joy, there were others existing in many of the provincial homes of Italy, where silence was broken by the sighs of multitudes of sincere Roman Catholic Christians, whose hearts were depressed with sadness at the thought that the pope, whose sacred office they venerated, had employed the spiritual power intrusted to him by the Church to perpetuate their civil bondage by means of an alien and merciless military force too powerful for successful resistance.

Under these flattering circumstances Gregory XVI felt himself justified in announcing the principles of his pontifical policy. This he did in an encyclical letter addressed to all the hierarchy throughout the world, who, when they read it, were required to believe that St. Peter was speaking through him. This celebrated document, issued at a date so recent that many now living may remember it, sets forth in plain and expressive terms the dogmas of faith upon which Gregory XVI rested his claim to temporal dominion. It was issued ex cathedra, and, being addressed to the whole Church, was intended as an infallible announcement of the true faith. It deserves, on that account, to be carefully scrutinized, whereby it may be plainly seen how far the papacy departs from the doctrines of the primitive Church in order to enable the pope to wear a temporal crown. It requires assent to a system of religious faith which no man,[Pg 287] living under the protection of free popular institutions, can entertain consistently with his obligation to maintain those institutions.

He erects his system of faith upon this premise: That neither the pope nor the Church can be made "subject to the civil authority" of any country; that is, that he may disobey all human laws which place any restraint upon his authority as he shall define it, at his own pleasure. Affirming that all who do not assent to the faith as announced by the pope "will perish eternally without any doubt," he condemned all other professions of religious faith as the "most fruitful cause" of evil. The diversity of religious professions he considered the "poisoned source" of "that false and absurd, or rather extravagant maxim, that liberty of conscience should be established and guaranteed to each man." He characterized this liberty of conscience as "a most contagious error, to which leads that absolute and unbridled liberty of opinion, which, for the ruin of Church and State, spreads over the world, and which some men, by unbridled impudence, fear not to represent as advantageous to the Church." Having thus denounced liberty of conscience as sinful, and its advocates as guilty of "unbridled impudence," he, as a necessary consequence, blended with it "the liberty of the press," which he called "the most fatal liberty, an execrable liberty, for which there never can be sufficient horror." These two great liberties, universally understood to constitute the basis of popular government, caused him, as he declared, "to shudder," because he considered them "monstrous doctrines, or rather prodigies of error." He charged the people of Italy, who were demanding a constitution, "with the blackest machinations of revolt and sedition" in their "endeavor to destroy the fidelity due to princes, and to hurl them from their thrones." In the further inculcation of the duty "of constant submission to princes," he declared that this submission has its "source in the holiest precepts of the Christian religion;" wherefore he insisted that "the Vaudois, Beguards, Wickliffites, and other like children of Belial, the shame and opprobrium[Pg 288] of the human race," were "justly anathematized by the Apostolic See." And he condemned the separation of Church and State by characterizing it as "the rupture of concord between the priesthood and the empire," which he desired to preserve, because, said he, "it is an established fact that all the votaries of the most unbridled liberty fear more than all else this concord, which has always been so salutary and so happy for Church and State."[173]

Gregory XVI claimed infallibility; that is, that he spoke by the inspiration and the authority of God, and therefore could not err, and, by virtue thereof, commanded absolute obedience to all these doctrines as necessary parts of the Christian faith, under the severest penalties for disobedience. Consequently, when the Roman Catholic populations of the Italian States, who had inaugurated the revolution, were informed of the doctrines thus announced by the pope, it was manifest to them that his purpose was to condemn as sinful and heretical everything they sought after. If they had doubted before, they were then forced to realize that if the revolution should be suppressed, and the absolute temporal authority of the pope be continued, the Church and the State would remain united; the liberty of conscience, of speech, and of the press would be perpetually denied to them; the laws would be made at the pope's dictation, and not by themselves; the sovereigns of the "Holy Alliance" and the Jesuits would win a complete and, probably, a final triumph over liberalism; and that the Italian people would be required, by compulsion if necessary, to assent to and maintain a form of religious faith which inculcated the doctrine that "constant submission to princes" was commanded by "the holiest precepts" of the Gospels. The pope had spoken plainly, and it was impossible not to understand how clearly and sharply he had made the issue between submission and revolution. What were they, under these circumstances, to do? They had already chosen revolution,—should they[Pg 289] abandon it from fear of Austrian bayonets? The import and seriousness of this question are easily comprehended. It involved, if they should bring the revolution to a successful end, a constitutional form of government, or, by its abandonment, their own consent to the perpetuity of their civil bondage. Independently of the fact that they considered a constitution worth struggling for, they had gone so far they could not retreat without abandoning a cause which might never be revived, if they should permit the pope, in return for Austria's help, to tighten the cords already binding them too tightly for longer endurance. Several provisional governments had been formed in the revolting States, and, although their functions were suspended, they were not abandoned. In view, therefore, of the importance of the issue, and of all the consequences involved, both present and future, they courageously and patriotically determined that the conflict should be continued to the end. The revolutionary spirit had been too thoroughly aroused to be suppressed by the pope, with the Austrian armies at his back. He held it in check—nothing more.

Events now moved slowly from necessity, requiring circumspect and cautious management. The Provisional Governments were kept in abeyance at Bologna, Parma, Modena, and elsewhere, to await developments. A period of difficulty and doubt ensued, during which new combinations were formed—all, however, pointing to a constitution as the grand object to be achieved. The circle of revolutionary influences gradually enlarged, almost reaching the muzzles of the Austrian guns. The pope was forced to realize, evidently to his surprise, that the populations would not accept the doctrines of his encyclical as part of their religious faith, and that, if maintained at all, it could be done only by military force. He, therefore, induced the Austrian army to invade the States where provisional Governments had been formed. This was an actual military invasion of Italy by an alien army, in obedience to the requirements of the pope—an offense for which no apology has been or can be discov[Pg 290]ered. It was successful, of course, and a military garrison was established in Ferrara, whereupon Gregory XVI re-established his own arbitrary pontifical authority under Austrian protection.

Papal edicts were accordingly issued, denouncing the revolution as irreligious and condemning the insurgents as heretics. The crisis grew more serious every day. Pacification seemed out of the question. Nothing but absolute and passive submission would satisfy the pope. The public mind was in a state of extreme agitation. Terror seized upon some, but the multitude remained courageously resolved not to stop short of a constitution. Old men found themselves infused with new life, and vigorous and enthusiastic young men were stimulated by the idea of a new Italy—free, independent, and united. Under the watchword of "Young Italy" the revolutionists soon obtained footing in Lombardy, Genoa, Tuscany, and even in the States of the Church. Resolute and immediate action was demanded by those who were burning with fervid patriotism, but prudential considerations dictated extreme caution. The questions when and where to strike involved too much to be decided hastily. The presence of the Austrians alone prevented a popular uprising. They stood guard over the dispersed bands of Italian patriots, whilst Gregory XVI was allowed to gather materials for their annihilation. Such a scene has not often been witnessed, and men of all nations turned their eyes toward it with anxiety. Thoughtful and intelligent people everywhere—especially in the United States, among Roman Catholics as well as Protestants—sent words of encouragement and cheer to these patriotic and struggling masses, congratulating them upon having manfully resolved not to receive either their form of government or their religion from the points of Austrian bayonets. They were inspirited, not alone by general sympathy, but by the examples of their religious brethren in other parts of Europe. Besides the revolution in France and Belgium, which they had imitated from the beginning, the events transpiring in Portugal and Spain[Pg 291] proved to them that their cause would become hopeless only by ignominious surrender.

In Portugal, revolution had ended in civil war and the complete subjugation of the retrogressive papal party, the suppression of the Jesuits, and the confiscation of their property. Gregory XVI, in the supposed plenitude of his spiritual power, had attempted to interfere, and threatened the authors of this revolution with excommunication and other forms of pontifical malediction. But his curses only intensified the determination to put an end to retrogression, so that Portugal could take her place among the progressive nations. In Spain events of the same character were also transpiring. The Jesuits were again suppressed, because they were the reputed authors of all public calamities, and even the nuncio of the pope was expelled from the country. Such examples as these, occurring among kindred populations of the same religion, could not fail to incite fresh hopes in the minds of those Italians who were not becoming timid and in renewing the courage of those who were. Nevertheless, the presence of the Austrians compelled them still longer to await the coming of future events, some of which were then beginning "to cast their shadows before."

We now reach a period when the scenes began to shift, and new actors appeared—of whom thousands yet living have formed favorable or unfavorable opinions, according to the standpoint from which they have considered them. Gregory XVI died in 1846, leaving the revolution unsuppressed—the storm still raging. He had been enabled, by the presence of the Austrian army, to prevent any formidable outbreak in the disaffected provinces, but could accomplish nothing more than to leave to his successor, Pius IX, the inheritance of temporal power, not merely threatened, but seriously imperiled. The condition of things existing at the time of the latter's election can not be more aptly described than in the language of a distinguished author who has written the life of Pius IX. He says:

"Gregory the Sixteenth was maintained on his throne,[Pg 292] during his reign of fifteen years and a quarter, solely by the force of Austrian bayonets. The reports sent by the cardinals and prelates intrusted with the government of the various provinces to headquarters at Rome abundantly prove the truth of this assertion. To cite these here would occupy more space than could be allowed to the subject, and would but be a manifold reiteration of the statement, that the entire population was irreconcilably hostile to the Apostolic Government. The revolt had indeed been crushed by the enormously superior force of the Austrian troops. But disaffection was in no degree extinguished. Conspiracy was chronic in all the cities of the pontifical dominions. Discovery, repression, and punishment were the principal occupations of the papal Government and its agents during the whole of Gregory's reign, which may be said to have been one long struggle with conspiracy and revolution. The number of condemnations ... are alone sufficient to show that the countries subjected to the government of the Apostolic Court were in a condition which could not have endured but for the overpowering pressure of an external force."[174]

Pius IX had a generous heart, was kindly disposed, and possessed many excellent personal qualities. After his election a general disposition was exhibited among all classes, except the extreme revolutionists, to await his course of action before pronouncing judgment upon his pontificate. It was understood that among the conclave of cardinals, assembled to elect a successor to Gregory XVI, he had united with several others in a petition which favored reforms and improvement in the papal Government. There were no strictly religious questions to settle, as all were agreed with reference to these; and hence, as all the matters involved concerned temporal affairs alone, growing out of the revolution, a strong desire existed to give him the fullest opportunity to decide upon the means and measures of redress demanded by existing grievances. Even the extreme revolutionists were[Pg 293] drawn to this policy by the general disposition to accept Pius IX as in some sense a reformer, and to give him full time to mature such measures of reform as he deemed expedient. Considering the condition of things then existing, he came into power under circumstances which might easily have led to pacification, but for the adverse influences which he found himself, in the end, without the power, if he had the desire, to counteract. He should not be judged too harshly; for there are very few who have not, some time or other, been confronted by conditions which, instead of their being able to control, controlled them. The questions pending were not such as the European sovereigns would allow to be considered Italian questions alone; if they had been, he might have found it in his power to gratify his natural desire for peace and quiet throughout all the Italian provinces. But from the date of the "Holy Alliance" the supporters of monarchism had assumed that all such questions possessed an international character, which entitled the sovereigns to interfere in the temporal and domestic affairs of any European State, so as to suppress by military force any popular effort to establish constitutional governments. Gregory XVI, besides his general acquiescence, had given his express pontifical sanction to this principle; first, by invoking the aid of the King of France, and then by inviting the Austrian army to Italy; and whatsoever may have been the inclination of Pius IX, he had to encounter, at the beginning of his pontificate, difficulties of no ordinary magnitude.

Even the Conclave of Cardinals which elected him contained two parties—the Absolutists and the Liberals. The lines separating them were distinctly marked, and each party had its candidate. The Absolutists, wedded to the retrogressive policy of Gregory XVI, favored Cardinal Lambruschini, because as Secretary of State under Gregory, he was strongly in favor of, and had given direction to, that policy. The diplomatic representatives of all the Governments, except France, took the same side, because it prom[Pg 294]ised pontifical aid to monarchism and opposition to liberalism and progress. Pius IX, as Cardinal Mastai, has never been charged with having endeavored to promote his own election, but having been supported by the Liberal cardinals and the French ambassador, he acquired the reputation of favoring reform in the existing order of affairs, and doubtless deserved it. His election, consequently, was considered a triumph of Liberalism over Absolutism.

By that time the policy of Gregory XVI had "studded the country with gibbets, crowded the galleys with prisoners, and filled Europe with exiles, and almost every other home in the papal States with mourning."[175] Among the "middle classes" there were few families not grieving at the absence of some of their members, either imprisoned or sent into exile, only for desiring reform in the civil government. It is fair to suppose that Pius IX, influenced by a kindly nature, sympathized with all these. Whether he did or not, however, he entered upon the second month of his pontificate by issuing a decree of amnesty which opened the prison doors, and brought back the exiles upon whom the heavy hand of his immediate predecessor had fallen. This was an amnesty for political offenses, and, viewed in that light, is entitled to be regarded as an act creditable to its author. In order to decide, however, what was its precise character and effect, and how subsequent events were molded by it, its terms and conditions must be observed. Its general purport was sufficiently comprehensive to embrace all classes of political prisoners and offenders, except ecclesiastics; but it required that, in consideration of the clemency granted them, they should "make in writing a solemn declaration, on their honor, that they will not in any manner or at any time abuse this grace, and will for the future fulfill the duties of good and faithful subjects." A written declaration was required, which was intended to be explanatory, but was somewhat broader in its terms. It required that[Pg 295] Pius IX should be recognized as the "lawful sovereign," and that the disturbances made by the revolution should be condemned for having "attacked the lawfully-constituted authority in his temporal dominions."[176]

This meant, of course, the recognition of the old order of things, except in so far as Pius IX, whose temporal authority as king was preserved, should think proper of his own accord to introduce reforms. It was not understood to mean a continuance of the entire retrogressive policy of Gregory XVI, because, underlying the fact of amnesty, the personality of Pius IX and his supposed tendency to liberalism had to be considered in interpreting it. That being the view taken of it, and this latter consideration having furnished the ground of hope in the future, the amnesty was generally accepted, and shoutings, rejoicings, and Te Deums were heard in all directions, in the provinces as well as at Rome. The only visible exception among the Italians were the extreme revolutionists, who would be reconciled to nothing but the absolute destruction of the temporal power of the pope, by the separation of Church and State and the formation of a constitutional government. They were not sufficiently numerous, however, to give direction to the general sentiment, and matters progressed with a seeming quietude which had not existed for a long time. They bore the appearance of there having been a reconciliation between the pope and the great body of the Italian people. This, however, soon proved to be merely in appearance. It only lulled the storm, and put the winds at rest for a time. The amnesty left the temporal power of the pope existing; and, although apparently acquiesced in by many who desired a constitution, it is manifest that they were persuaded to this by the belief, founded upon the liberal tendency of the pope's mind, that he would introduce such reforms as would remove the existing abuses in the civil Government. With these abuses[Pg 296] removed, they possibly hoped to become reconciled to the temporal power, at least during the life of Pius IX. The acceptance of the amnesty, therefore, should be considered as the result of personal trust in him—of the hope, if not the conviction, that he would introduce such reforms as were required by the public welfare. The popularity of Pius IX was somewhat phenomenal, owing probably to the fact that he had been elected and was accepted as a Liberal, and because, moreover, he contrasted most favorably with the harsh, cruel, and despotic Gregory XVI. The people evidently considered a good king—as they expected Pius IX to be—preferable to war, bloodshed, and desolation. It was a choice of evils.

Pius IX, although thus recognized as absolute sovereign in Italy, was not the arbiter of his own fortunes. It was an omen of evil for both Christianity and the Church when the ambition of the popes led them to unite with political sovereigns and make common cause with them in support of absolute monarchism. The combination necessary to their success became unavoidably such as to require of the pope, not merely the recognition of the avowed policy of the sovereigns—which was purely temporal—but that this policy should be ingrafted upon the faith of the Church, and obedience to it be exacted by compulsion when not yielded willingly. This was the avowed object of the "Holy Alliance," as understood and explained by Metternich, its great leader and dictator; and when Gregory XVI found it impossible to maintain his temporal power without the military aid of Austria, he committed his pontificate, and endeavored to commit the Church, by making the temporal policy of the sovereigns part of its faith. Pius IX was compelled to accept the pontificate in the face of these existing facts, and had consequently to contend with two opposing forces; that is, the revolutionary element at home, and the sovereigns throughout Europe who demanded that he should continue the retrogressive policy of Gregory XVI. It is, therefore, but simple justice to his memory to say that while his[Pg 297] liberalism made him popular with the masses, he was so hampered, restrained, and tied down by the relations between Gregory XVI and Austria—representing the "Holy Alliance"—that much of what he afterwards did might possibly have been avoided if he had been permitted to have his own way.

Those who see nothing to disapprove in all the conduct of Pius IX, speak of his course at the beginning of his pontificate as "noble." He was, in some sense, entitled to this praise in so far as he professed a desire for reform, although his reformatory measures were not such as reached the root of the existing evils. But the fact that he was accepted as a reformer in any sense by the people, was in itself the cause of serious embarrassment to him—proving how difficult it was to escape the scorching fires which surrounded him. His tendency to reform excited the "alarm" of Austria, whose emperor saw in it a possible departure from the retrogressive policy of Gregory XVI and the "Holy Alliance." Maguire—an earnest defender of the pope—says that this alarm of Austria was occasioned by the knowledge that "the spirit emanating from the Vatican was kindling a new and dangerous fire in the breast of a downtrodden people;"[177] that is, was kindling afresh the fires of revolution. The plain and obvious meaning of this friendly explanation is that the people of Italy had been, and still were, oppressed by the policy of the papacy, enforced, as it then was, by the arms of Austria, and that Austria considered that of Pius IX threatening to the cause of monarchism, because it tended to remove this oppression and excite in the minds of the people an increased desire for constitutional government. He gives as the reason for this the fact that Austria was "the most formidable enemy of reforms, which she had every reason to dread." Why? Manifestly because reform indicated the possible loss of the temporal power by the pope, which would inevitably prove a serious blow to monarchical power, and[Pg 298] the possible establishment of popular institutions in Italy. He also says that Naples "viewed with jealousy" the conduct of the pope; and that some smaller monarchical powers also regarded it "with dismay;" and, in addition, that "many of the cardinals" participated in this alarm of the sovereigns.[178] Lambruschini, whose election was defeated by the choice of Pius IX, was undoubtedly at the head of this faction of cardinals, all of whom, says Trollope, were the "bitter, rancorous, and irreconcilable enemies of everything that changed, or showed a tendency to change, anything that had existed under the late pope."[179]

Pius IX was severely tried, and it is not to his discredit that he was perplexed. He stood between two imminent and threatening dangers—with Austria supported by other sovereign powers, a faction of retrogressive cardinals, and the Jesuits, upon one side, and the revolutionists upon the other. The circumstances would have put to a severe test the courage and firmness of a more experienced statesman. In the face of these surroundings he entered upon a series of reforms, the necessity for which proves how extensive and oppressive had been the misgovernment of his predecessor, and how little liberty the people were permitted to enjoy under him. These had reference to measures of administration, and were designed to improve the public service in the hospitals, prisons, and religious institutions. Provision was made for the punishment of fraud and extortion. Useful works were encouraged and industry stimulated. Some oppressive taxes were remitted. Companies were authorized to build railroads and to introduce gas. Laymen were allowed to hold some inferior offices. Partial freedom of the press was provided for; but it was only partial, inasmuch as papal censorship was preserved. Infant, Sunday, and evening schools were established. And in a public circular he announced that he proposed to assemble a Board of Councilors to advise with in reference to the administration of public[Pg 299] affairs. The names of these were to be proposed by the governors of the provinces, and he was to select the Board from the number proposed.[180]

If all these reforms were necessary—and that they must have been is indicated by the fact that they were granted—public affairs were undoubtedly in a most deplorable condition during the pontificate of Gregory XVI. But whether they were or not, a glance at them will show that none of them reached the questions which brought on the revolution. They were, in an essential degree, necessary measures of domestic policy, and whatsoever valuable results may have been produced by them, they still left the entire temporal power in the hands of the pope, so that the people would in the future have nothing to do with making the laws, but would be bound to obey such as the pope alone should dictate. And in order to make any advance towards constitutional government impossible, the proposed Board of Councilors were to be practically selected by the pope. This Board was considered by the papal party as a great concession to the people, but it was only relatively so; that is, it was one step in advance of the old system previously existing. The public were disposed to accept it from the pope, if not the belief that it would produce beneficial results; and consequently its first meeting was hailed with anxiety. Its probable action was discussed with more freedom than Rome had been accustomed to, as even the limited freedom of the press had caused a considerable increase in the number of newspapers, and a corresponding desire to discuss public questions. The inevitable effect of such a discussion was to invite public attention to the fact, which soon became apparent, that, instead of the Board of Councilors being such a reform as the people had hoped for and expected, its actual meaning was to perpetuate the temporal power of the pope, and to prevent, so long as that existed, the possibility of constitutional government. Whilst matters were in this unsettled condition,[Pg 300] Pius IX—unfortunately for himself—was prompted, either at his own or the suggestion of others, to remove all doubt from the subject by informing the Board of Councilors, in a speech, that he had "not the slightest intention of lessening the power of the pontifical sovereignty," and that the Councilors had nothing to do "beyond giving an opinion when asked to do so." At a subsequent time, in a proclamation issued by his cardinal secretary of state, he announced that the only progress he proposed to authorize was "within those limits determined by the conditions essential to the sovereignty and the temporal government of the head of the Church."[181]

The old issue was thus revived by the pope himself, in such form and with so much directness that everybody understood it. Discussions of it immediately became common in the public assemblages of Rome. If the extreme revolutionists were able to excite the people by their eloquent and stirring appeals, it was unquestionably owing to the unwise and injudicious avowal of his purposes by the pope. If he had permitted his administrative reforms to work out their legitimate results, they might have strengthened his cause and that of the papacy. But he failed to do this, and thereby increased, rather than diminished, his own embarrassment. He soon realized the necessity of adopting precautionary measures to suppress a popular tumult in the event that the people could be held in check in no other way. For this purpose he created a "civic guard," which was understood to mean, and in fact was, a military force, to be moved against the people whensoever he deemed it expedient. It was in reality a papal army, "to consist of every male inhabitant throughout the States of the Church, between twenty-one and sixty, who possessed property, or kept a shop, or was at the head of an industrial establishment."[182] This measure could not be viewed in any other light than as immediate preparation for an aggressive military movement against all who did not submit to the papal policy—in other[Pg 301] words, as a contemplated act of war. Looking at it as such, the pope's cardinal secretary of state, who did not favor it, resigned his office, withdrew from the papal service, and left the pope to the counsel of others. This conspicuous secession from his cause necessarily produced the most serious results, and was mainly influential in exciting all the discontented. Those who had been induced to acquiesce in the measures of the pope, with the hope that they would lead to pacification, were then brought to realize that there was no longer any real ground for this hope. On the other hand, they could see nothing in them but what indicated the purpose of the pope to maintain his temporal power by means of civil war, if he should find that necessary. The issue, consequently, became too distinct and direct to be longer evaded or misunderstood; and from that time the unification of Italy and the abolition of the temporal power became the watchwords of all who desired a constitution, as they soon after became also their battle-cry. At a public assemblage to celebrate the birthday of Pius IX, processions of people, marching through the streets of Rome, prepared tablets with these mottoes, among others, upon them: "Liberty of the press!" "Banishment of the Jesuits!" "Abolition of arbitrary action on the part of the police!" "Codes of useful and impartial laws!" "Publication of the acts of the Consulta!" "Faith in the people!" As a shower of rain prevented the public exhibition of these tablets, they were sent to the cardinal secretary of state, so that the pope should be enabled to interpret the mottoes upon them and understand their meaning and significance. In every direction the signs of popular discontent increased.

It has been said of Pius IX that he was "vainglorious," which is unquestionably true. This quality is not inconsistent with integrity of purpose, but often unfits its possessor for efficacious action in a great crisis. It causes one to rely too much upon personal influence and popularity, as was the case with him. When he met assemblages of the people, he addressed and bestowed benedictions upon them[Pg 302] with apparent self-satisfaction, supposing that their shouts were intended to express unbounded veneration for him, whereas they were the result of respect for his sacred office, which restrained many who desired to see the temporal power abolished from openly and publicly avowing it. Those who appealed to and played upon his vanity misled him. Who these were it is not difficult to tell. They were the allied sovereigns, who, in obedience to the policy of the "Holy Alliance," had dictated the measures of Gregory XVI, and maintained them by the arms of Austria, the retrogressive cardinals, and the Jesuits—the latter, as always, thrusting themselves forward, ready to strike, whensoever a blow was needed, at the cause of constitutional government. This powerful combination was enabled to dictate to the kind-hearted pope, by appeals so artfully made that he became as pliable as wax in their hands. Under their controlling influence he composed his Council of Ministers to aid in administering public affairs, exclusively of ecclesiastics; thereby teaching the people that they could have no part whatsoever in those matters which immediately concerned their temporal welfare. To such an extent was this method of procedure carried that it soon became evident that Italy was, in fact, governed by foreign and alien influences, to which the pope had allowed himself to become entirely subjected. As Austria stood at the head of these influences, the Italian people regarded her with both suspicion and dread. And when the Austrian army was moved into Modena, thereby inducing the belief that the military occupation of the States of the Church was intended, the popular indignation became so great that the people demanded of Pius IX that he should declare war against Austria, notwithstanding her immense military strength. The circle of influences surrounding him was now growing more and more complicated, evidently adding to his embarrassment. He knew that he was under the suspicion of Austria because of his former tendency towards liberalism at the beginning of his pontificate, but could not venture to break his alliance with her, being assured, if he[Pg 303] did, that it would lead to movements elsewhere in the Italian States that would shake the papacy to its center, and inevitably cost him the loss of his temporal power, which he dreaded more than all else.

These complications created others, which added to the uncertainties of the future. Under the existing emergencies a skillful statesman would have found a broad field for the display of ability in escaping the pitfalls before him. But Pius IX was not a statesman in any sense, and knew but little of public affairs as they existed in the Italian provinces, except what centered in the papacy, and nothing of international relations, except that as pope he was tied to the car of the reigning sovereigns, and was compelled, nolens volens, to share their fortunes. If he had possessed broad and comprehensive views—sufficient to have enabled him to see beyond the narrow circle in which he was moving—he might have realized that, whilst the people of Italy were willing and anxious to award him full credit for such reforms as he had introduced, they fell far short of the popular desire, because they did not reach the evils complained of, which had existed so long as to have become festering sores. He might also have seen that it was not a mere fitful fever of excitement which led to the demand for the expulsion of the Austrians, but the fixed and resolute purpose of an incensed population that they would no longer submit to the degradation of being held in subjugation by foreign bayonets. A skillful pilot would have pointed out to him the method of avoiding shipwreck; but he could find no such pilot among the ecclesiastics who were trained in the same school as himself, and he would have no other. To them he submitted everything, as his only advisers; and yet, at the same time, he seemed to suppose that, in his own personality, he possessed the power to suppress the most violent popular tumult. He frequently addressed assembled multitudes in Rome, and never failed to elicit "evvivas" and other tokens of personal respect, but neglected to observe the significant fact that, underlying all these, the sentiment most[Pg 304] deeply imbedded in the popular mind was expressed by such cries as these: "Viva Pio Nono, solo!" "Hurrah for Pio Nono, without his advisers!" "Hurrah for Italian independence!" and others of like meaning. At one time he quieted the people by assuring them that he was on good terms with the King of Sardinia and the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and that he would soon replace his ecclesiastical advisers by laymen. At another time he endeavored to impress their minds with the idea that the security of the papacy was not seriously threatened, because there were "two hundred millions of brothers of all languages and all nations" upon whose assistance he could safely rely! What degree of sincerity accompanied this avowal, it is not necessary to inquire. It would seem, however, to have been suggested by a heated imagination as the best means of rounding off an eloquent period, for which Pius IX acquired deserved celebrity. One would scarcely think that a statesman with a practical mind could have expected to satisfy the supporters of his policy that all the Roman Catholics in the world would come to their defense against the patriotic Italians who were demanding to be relieved from foreign aggression, and the abolition of the temporal power, with a view to their own national independence. Nor is it probable that any other man but Pius IX would have risked such an avowal in the face of the facts that the Roman Catholic populations of the three great nations, France, Spain, and Portugal, and other smaller States, had secured their own independence by the very methods he was condemning. Preposterous as the suggestion was, it may have quieted the apprehensions of some whose unenlightened minds and passive indifference to results were the fruits of the retrogressive policy of the papacy. But there were numerous others whose intelligence enabled them to see through the thin disguise and gauzy eloquence of the pope, and to comprehend the leading thought which burdened his mind. And especially may it be supposed that this result was produced when Pius IX immediately followed his boastful promise of assistance from the whole "two hundred millions" of[Pg 305] Roman Catholics throughout the world, by saying that Rome was safe "as long as this Apostolic See shall remain in the midst of her!"[183] Thoughtful people, understanding when he spoke of the Apostolic See in this connection that he meant only the temporal power and kingship of the pope, rightfully interpreted this declaration as opposed to Italian independence and as a denial of their right to a constitutional form of government. And such, in fact, it was, as became more apparent every day. Even the most illiterate soon came to comprehend it, and to understand the actual condition of affairs. At an immense assemblage in the Quirinal a few days after, the people again shouted "evviva" for Pius IX, and immediately after cried out, "Italy, freed from the Austrians!" "A Constitution!" "Down with the priests!" Being stirred by these popular shouts, and being doubtless led to believe that his personal popularity was unbounded, he exclaimed, with the utmost energy and emphasis: "Be faithful to the pontiff. Do not ask what is contrary to the Church and to religion! Certain voices, and certain cries reach my ears, proceeding not from the many, but from the few, which I neither will nor can admit!"[184]

Events which might have moved somewhat tardily before, were, after this explicit declaration of the pope in favor of the Austrians and against a constitution, hastened into great activity. Everything demonstrated that the people were acting under the influence of a settled conviction that all their best and dearest interests required that they should establish an independent constitutional government at whatsoever cost. And the resoluteness with which the purpose to accomplish this end was formed and maintained by the Italian people will fully appear in the sequel of their history, which furnishes a conspicuous instance of the manner in which the example of the people of the United States reacted upon the modern populations of the European States.

FOOTNOTES:

[169] De Montor, Vol. II, p, 780.

[170] Life of Victor Emmanuel. By Edward Dicey. Putnam's Sons, New York. Page 65.

[171] Ibid., p. 132.

[172] De Montor, Vol. II, p. 781.

[173] De Montor, Vol. II, pp. 783 to 793.

[174] Life of Pius IX. By Trollope. Vol. I, p. 98.

[175] Life of Pius IX. By Trollope. Vol. I, p. 108.

[176] Life of Pius IX. By Maguire. Page 22, and note. Trollope, Vol. I, p. 135.

[177] Maguire, p. 28.

[178] Maguire, p. 29.

[179] Trollope, Vol. I, pp. 146-147.

[180] Maguire, pp. 28-29. Trollope, Vol. I, p. 167.

[181] Trollope, Vol. I, pp. 173 and 194.

[182] Ibid., p. 197.

[183] Trollope, Vol. I, pp. 216-218.

[184] Ibid., p. 220.

When Pius IX suffered himself to be betrayed into the emotional remark quoted in the last chapter—that he neither could nor would admit such modifications of the laws as the people desired—he made a fatal mistake. It placed him in direct opposition to the expulsion of the Austrians, the creation of a constitutional government, and an independent Italian nation. He must have been grossly deceived by his ecclesiastical advisers if he did not know that the popular mind had become intensely aroused by the desire to see all these things accomplished, that the revolution had no other meaning, and that everything transpiring indicated unmistakably that pacification was impossible without them. He would have known, upon a little reflection, that the true Christian faith of the Church, as taught by the apostles and "the fathers," was, in no proper sense, involved in any of these propositions; that they had the approval of millions of Roman Catholics throughout the world, and a vast majority of the Italians, and that by employing his pontifical authority to ingraft upon the faith the odious Jesuit doctrine that it was heresy to deny the temporal power and kingship of the pope, he was not only doing violence to the honest convictions of these multitudes of Christians, but was endeavoring to convert the Church, as the representative of the whole body of its members, into a machine for the perpetuation of monarchism, and the suppression of the right of popular self-government.

To say to the people of Italy, as he did, that a constitutional government established by them would violate the divine law, in the face of what such governments had done elsewhere[Pg 307] in the world—especially in the United States—was, besides being an act of weakness on his part, an arraignment of the popular intelligence of the world. Such a doctrine was only endured in the Middle Ages because the multitude were trained to servility and obedience, and held in that condition by the united authority of Church and State. But its avowal at the middle of the nineteenth century could be understood in no other sense, even at Rome, than the expression of a desire to see the period of human progress brought to an end by the permanent triumph of imperial power. It was the mapping out for the modern progressive nations such a policy as would, by destroying their constitutions, subject them to papal domination throughout the vast domain of faith and morals; for if, as he declared, the two hundred millions of Roman Catholics scattered through the world were to become subject to his summons to defend the temporal power of the pope, they would thereby become the creatures of his will and the passive instruments of his power. There were very few so ignorant as to be misled by his appeals for the continuance of his own monarchical and absolute power, and therefore his attempt, by the aid of the Austrians, to put stronger rivets in their chains, only made them the more resolute in the determination to break their fetters entirely.

As each day passed, the people became better acquainted with the opinions and purposes of Pius IX. Yet, with commendable patience, they submitted to his repeated censures, on account of their real love for him, no less than their veneration for his office. If he could have comprehended them fully, mingled emotions would have been excited in his mind—those which spring up when the cords that reach the sympathies of the heart are touched, and such as pride, vanity, and ambition invariably engender. But, apart from the emotions he may have personally experienced, he was controlled by circumstances against which he was powerless to contend, because the existing complications had been produced before his time, by combinations which recognized no sympathy for popular suffering, and had become strong[Pg 308] enough to master even the papacy itself. Possibly his natural tendencies may have inclined him to break the bonds which held him in the grasp of the monarchs and the Jesuits; but he was as unable to do this as a child is to tear away from the arms of a strong man. He was, in fact, scarcely himself, but the victim of others far less scrupulous, who lulled or aroused his passions and vanity at their pleasure, no matter what fate befell him, the Church, or the people of Italy. If he looked beyond Italy, he found the great military and monarchical power of Austria holding him by the throat, and tightening its grasp every day. If he looked at Rome, where he ought to have had wise counsels, he saw himself surrounded by a corps of ecclesiastics whose minds—howsoever otherwise enlightened—were dwarfed from the want of practical knowledge of the world and practical experience in the management of affairs, and who saw in human progress only that which placed a curb upon their own ambition and a limit to ecclesiastical authority. But in whatsoever direction he turned his eyes, he was haunted by the specter of Loyola, which flitted through the recesses of the Vatican at all times, ready "to whet his almost blunted purpose" whensoever he became wavering and irresolute. The popular cry of "constitution" sounded like a death-knell to all these advisers, with whom a war with Austria and an independent Italy were sacrilegious violations of the divine law. We should not, therefore, censure Pius IX too severely when we find him surrounded and hedged in by such influences as these, which few men would have strength enough to resist. No matter what glories clustered about his sacred office, he was human like other men.

War with Austria soon became the popular cry; and when the people of the provinces were apprised that the pope did not favor it, they began at once to look in another direction for assistance. The relations between Austria and Sardinia had long been hostile, and it was natural that they should look to an alliance with Piedmont, then armed, for the protection the pope refused. When Pius IX became[Pg 309] sufficiently composed to anticipate even the possibility of such a step as this, he, probably for the first time, was made to realize how rapidly dangers were gathering and thickening around the papacy, and how incompetent he would be to encounter them, if the popular vengeance, aroused by his indifference and neglect, should be turned against him. He was, accordingly, induced to yield again to the better impulses of his nature, and attempted to turn away the public wrath by additional measures of reform. There were some political prisoners who had not been included in his amnesty, and these were pardoned. He also had the walls pulled down which separated the Jews from the other parts of the population. But these measures, although important, were of slight consequence so long as the Jesuits were permitted to remain in Rome. Their society, was regarded as a cankerous sore eating at the heart of society, with an appetite too voracious to be appeased. They had been driven from every city in the provinces, and were followed by a degree of popular odium which would have dispirited any other body of men. But so far from that effect having been produced upon them, their knowledge of the disrepute in which they were held had the effect only to intensify their hatred of everything that tended to aid the cause of the people in their efforts to secure a constitution. Having found shelter in Rome, they crowded around the pope, practicing all their arts in playing upon his vanity, inciting his passions, and turning him against the people. At last the measure of popular odium which rested upon them became so great that Pius IX was awakened to a consciousness of their dangerous presence, and he drove them out of Italy. It required some courage to do this, but it would have required infinitely more not to do it, inasmuch as the detestation in which they were held was well-nigh universal among the people, large numbers of whom were disposed to attribute to their influence alone much of what was done by the pope. Their expulsion, under the circumstances, was, therefore, creditable to Pius IX, not alone because it was done in deference to public opinion, but[Pg 310] because it indicated that he had become apprised of their evil influences, and was desirous to avoid them.

It can never be known, of course, to what extent the Jesuits molded the opinions of Pius IX. But as they had employed the whole period after their re-establishment in endeavoring to dictate to all the popes, and were eminently successful with Gregory XVI, it may fairly be supposed that the unsuspecting and impressible mind of Pius IX was unable to detect their cunning, and consequently became influenced by them. Taking into consideration everything bearing upon their relations with him, in so far as they can be now known, the conclusion is inevitable that their expulsion from Italy by the pope was not only the result of imperative necessity, but the highest possible evidence of their unworthiness. This is the natural and unavoidable inference from the fact itself. Nevertheless, he had already gone so far in attempting to enforce doctrines which the people attributed to the Jesuits, that even their expulsion did not relieve him from the suspicion of having already yielded too much to them. On this account he may have derived more harm than benefit from it. Whilst they remained in Italy they served as a shield, protecting him, in a large degree, from public censure; for as the people loved him and hated them, they had to stand in the front and receive the full force of the indignation that fell upon him after their departure.

When the Jesuits were out of the way, and it came to be seen that Pius IX still adhered to their obnoxious doctrines with regard to an independent constitutional government and the religious obligation to maintain the temporal power of the pope as a tenet of faith, he found himself, far more than before, unable to escape the public criticism and reproof. If he had pursued his course up to this time without having given due consideration to possible results, and was then for the first time brought to reflect upon them, it is not easy to see how he failed to realize that he had gone too far, and had put it out of his power to arrest the current of events then rapidly hastening to the very results he[Pg 311] deplored the most. He had probably never suffered himself to regard the people as a power to be dreaded; for, besides knowing their inclination to be faithful to the Church and their personal esteem for him, he was manifestly influenced by the belief that the combinations between Church and State were sufficiently powerful to suppress any popular uprising in favor of constitutional government. If these ideas occupied his thoughts, he must have become satisfied, after he had expelled the Jesuits, that he had been deluded by them, and that they had been the real authors of his misfortunes. It is not probable, however, that his excitement subsided sufficiently for calm reflection. Nor is it likely that anything occurred to awaken him from his dream of security until he discovered that his renewed effort at reform had no other effect than to assure the Italian people that their independence could be achieved only by abolishing the temporal power of the pope by means of an alliance with Sardinia. He had unwisely made the issue with his own people, and was no longer able to control it.

The imminence of war led to sending Italian troops to the frontier to drive out the Austrians; and as Pius IX could not take part in such a war because he considered himself "the father of all the faithful"—the Austrians included—he begged the Emperor of Austria to withdraw his troops, and sent a nuncio to the King of Sardinia, inviting his co-operation in forming a confederacy of Italian republics, with the pope at its head! The emperor refused to comply with his request; and the king had no leisure to devote to impracticable and visionary schemes with such an enemy as Austria near at hand, ready to strip him of his territories and convert Sardinia into an Austrian dependency. The Austrians, becoming incensed at the movements of the Italian troops, announced that they would treat them as bandits and brigands, and threatened to invade and desolate the Italian provinces. The Italians, therefore, having failed to obtain any assistance or encouragement from the pope, although he insisted that he was their rightful king and they his subjects,[Pg 312] and being left to deal alone with Austria, had to make choice between war and degradation. Under these circumstances they could not fail to realize that everything pertaining to their future prosperity and interests commanded the former—their pride forbade the latter. Hence, the war from that time was, upon their part, in self-defense. And it was not difficult to see, from the beginning, that with such an adversary as Austria to contend against, and the pope resisting rather than aiding them, the Italians were compelled to rely upon their alliance with Sardinia, which by that time had become separated from the influences dictated by the "Holy Alliance," and was rapidly becoming an important and independent power.

At the battle of Novara, between Austria and Sardinia, Charles Albert, the Sardinian king, was defeated with terrible loss. He immediately abdicated his office and turned over the crown to Victor Emmanuel, his son, who so conducted affairs as to make himself influential in the great movements that led to the peace of Villafranca, and by skillful statesmanship to procure from the Austrians the recession of Lombardy to Sardinia. The military strength of Sardinia having been thus increased, greatly encouraged the Italians, and in order to counteract the influences which were tending to an alliance between them and Victor Emmanuel, the proposition to create an Italian confederacy, with the pope at its head, was revived. But the Italians, who had become unwilling to submit to the dominion of an absolute monarch any longer, resisted this scheme, from the conviction that it would still keep them at the feet of their old masters. And to make this resistance more effective, several of the Italian provinces transferred their allegiance to Sardinia, thus increasing her strength beyond what it had ever been, and adding to her importance as a military power.

The attitude occupied by Sardinia after these accessions, introduced into the politics of Europe a new and most important question—whether these revolted Italian provinces should be compelled to return under the temporal dominion[Pg 313] of the pope, or be allowed to settle their own position and destiny for themselves? Although this question involved the principle of self-government, it was considered as having somewhat an international aspect, and consequently attracted the notice of other powers beside those immediately interested. Louis Napoleon had, in the meantime, made himself Emperor of France, and being fully imbued with the "Napoleonic idea" of his own importance, ventured to suggest to Pius IX, by way of advice, that it would be well for him and the Church to let the revolted provinces "go in peace." The pope, however, scornfully rejected this advice, and declared that he preferred death to such degradation—in which it is fair to suppose he was sincere. But his refusal settled nothing, having only invited renewed resistance to his policy among the Italians. It led, however, to such results that the right of the Italian provinces to unite with Sardinia, if they deemed it expedient, was recognized. This was a practical question, as it involved the right of the people of each province to remain under the rule of the pope or not at their pleasure. As was to be expected, Pius IX considered this as a death-blow aimed at his temporal power, and, consequently, anathematized it severely. From the papal standpoint he could not have done otherwise. And yet, if he had rightfully interpreted the passing events, he could have seen that the temporal scepter was rapidly passing out of his hands, and that severe measures upon his part, instead of preventing, would only hasten that result. The violence of his resistance was responded to by Parma and Modena, both of which provinces were annexed to Sardinia. Tuscany and the Æmilian provinces followed by the votes of an immense majority of the people. Other provinces also followed their example. And thus, by means of these important accessions, Victor Emmanuel was enabled to signalize his reign by converting Sardinia into the Kingdom of Italy. This measure of attraction having been presented to the Italians, soon became an enthusiastic rallying-point, and the Two Sicilies, under the lead of Garibaldi, united with Sardinia by a pop[Pg 314]ular vote nearly unanimous. Umbria and Ancona did the same. One by one, therefore, these Italian provinces, filled with Roman Catholic populations, separated themselves by solemn votes from the temporal dominion of the pope, and left Pius IX to mourn over his rapidly-sinking fortunes, and to repent—if his excited passions allowed of repentance—over the folly which had produced that result.

The Government of Sardinia, without unnecessary delay, enacted such laws as were demanded by this new condition of affairs. Victor Emmanuel endeavored, consequently, to open negotiations with a view to bring about a reconciliation between the two powers, spiritual and temporal. This proposition involved, necessarily, the separation of Church and State, and was designed to define the respective spheres and functions of each, so that in the future there should be no conflict or rivalry between them. Victor Emmanuel was a Roman Catholic, and neither expressed nor entertained the desire to impair, in any degree whatsoever, the spiritual authority or independence of the pope. Nor did any such desire prevail among the great body of the people who had aided in bringing about the new order of things—they still remaining Roman Catholic, as they had always been. All that he and they desired was to make the State independent of the Church in the enactment and administration of temporal laws, and to leave the Church, with the pope remaining its head, independent of the State in spiritual affairs. If in this a model for imitation had been needed, it would have been found in the form of government constructed by the people of the United States, which must have influenced those conducting Sardinian affairs at all events to the extent of separating Church and State. But Pius IX could not consent to this without being unfaithful to the cause of the papacy, as distinct from the welfare and best interest of the Church, which manifestly required that he should conciliate, and not further antagonize, the Roman Catholic populations in whose behalf the proposition of the Sardinian Government was made. Instead of conciliation, however,[Pg 315] he—with a mind singularly constituted and curiously erratic—surrendered himself entirely to the dominion of his passions, and, in order to condemn that form of government and to rebuke the amicable spirit exhibited by Victor Emmanuel, issued a pontifical allocution, which may well be called "brutum fulmen," because it was made entirely harmless by the violence of its language, as well as by its inconsiderate and intemperate assault upon the leading principles which prevail among modern nations. Inasmuch as this allocution was intended to be an official announcement of the faith maintained by him upon the politico-religious questions involved, and was of so recent date, it deserves special consideration, because of its direct bearing upon the question of restoring the pope's temporal power. Where else shall we look for papal doctrines but to the infallible head of the papacy?

He accused the new Government of Italy with "attacking the Catholic Church, its wholesome laws, and all its sacred ministers"—an accusation which lost its force by the excess of its misrepresentation, as the facts just detailed abundantly show. The burden of this attack was the proposed separation of Church and State; but, besides other matters of which he complained, he specially designated civil marriages—such as are provided for by the laws of all the States of the United States—which he said "encouraged a concubinage that is perfectly scandalous." He meant by this that the issue of all marriages solemnized otherwise than by the Roman Catholic clergy are bastardized by the unchristian and illegitimate character of the ceremony. And with the express view, doubtless, of fully explaining himself upon the vital question then pending, he announced his claim to "civil authority"—that is, his right to wear the crown of a temporal king—by declaring that he and his successors never can be "subject to any lay power," but must "exercise, in entire liberty, supreme authority and jurisdiction over the Church" in all its entirety. His idea—more than once repeated by him, and affirmed by his successor—was this: that, in what[Pg 316]soever country the Church shall have a footing, it shall not be governed by the temporal laws of the State in conflict with its interests, but only by the Canon laws which it has itself provided, and which confer upon the popes plenary and sovereign power to define what they may do and require of others within the domain of faith and morals, along with the coercive power necessary to secure obedience. Seemingly unconscious that he was placing himself in the track of the popular storm then sweeping away the props upon which the papal throne had long rested, he fancied that his "apostolic authority" would yet enable him so to direct its course as would prevent the final wreck of the temporal power. Putting on, therefore, his full papal armor in imitation of some of his predecessors, he endeavored to upturn and destroy the new Government of Italy by the thunder of his anathemas. He, accordingly, abrogated and declared "null and void, and without force and effect," all its laws and decrees in conflict with his claim of supreme and absolute authority over both spiritual and temporal affairs throughout the whole of Italy, including the provinces annexed to Sardinia! It requires a very inventive imagination to conceive of an act of more supreme folly than this useless allocution.[185]

If Pius IX had been less perturbed, and calm enough to reason logically, he might have observed how fatal to his own conclusion was an important confession made by him in this official allocution. Without seeming to comprehend its full meaning and force, he declared it to be "a singular arrangement of Divine providence" that the pope "was invested with his civil authority" at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire; that is, during the latter half of the fifth century, and nearly five hundred years after the beginning of the Christian era. In this he admits—certainly by necessary[Pg 317] implication—that during all the long period preceding that event, the affairs of the Church had been conducted without the assistance of a temporal monarch at Rome or elsewhere, and by spiritual authority alone—by bishops who looked after religious and not political affairs.[186] He must have been guilty of a singular omission of duty if it did not occur to him to inquire why so great and radical a change in the management of Church affairs had not been made before the fall of the Roman Empire, but had been deferred until that particular period. It is easy enough to understand how the popes may have become kings in a purely temporal sense, after that event; but that was not the question he was considering. His object was to show that when the Roman Empire fell, the temporal power was divinely added to the spiritual power of the pope, and, therefore, that it would violate the divine law if he were deprived of the crown of temporal royalty, which the popes of the primitive times did not possess. A little calm reflection might have enabled him to see, in the light of his own statement, what fallacy there is in the pretense that belief in the Divine establishment of the temporal power is a necessary and essential part of true religious faith; for if it had been the Divine purpose that Christianity should not exist without it, that purpose would have been fulfilled long before the fall of the Roman Empire. The concession of Pius IX must consequently be taken as fatal to the claim of temporal power as necessarily pertaining to the cause of Christianity or to the Church as a religious body. The primitive Christians had no knowledge of it, and the fact that they had not—which he concedes—suggests such a contrast between what the early Church was imme[Pg 318]diately following the apostolic period, and what it became after the papacy was established by means alone of the temporal power, as to show conclusively that the papal pretense of sovereignty must have been the result of usurpation.

The condition of the European nations at the period here referred to—although certainly not designed for that purpose by the chief actors—was favorable to the cause of Italian independence. The jealousies and rivalries among the sovereigns had brought them into such relations as to require immense standing armies to keep watch over each other. Austria was not only one of the most restless, but the most arbitrary of the great powers, and soon found it necessary, of her own accord, to withdraw her armies from Italy, in order to protect herself against attack at exposed points within her own borders. The removal of this formidable adversary greatly encouraged the whole populations of the Italian peninsula, among whom the desire to become united with the kingdom of Italy became almost universal. After Venetia, by a vote practically unanimous, decided to do so, the revolutionary spirit was greatly aroused. There were, however, among the revolutionists, some who were so enthusiastic as to demand a republic, which, for a time, somewhat threatened the cause of independence. All of these favored the new Government under Victor Emmanuel to a longer continuance of papal rule, but desired to dispense with a king entirely, preferring that the entire political sovereignty should be vested in the people. These readily rallied at the call of Garibaldi, and made preparations for attacking Rome. In the meantime, after the withdrawal of the Austrians, Louis Napoleon—acting under a species of infatuation which he never could well explain, and nobody could fully understand—had sent a large body of French troops to Italy to protect the temporal power of Pius IX, and hold him upon the throne, it having been fully demonstrated by this time that nothing but foreign military force could do so. The Garibaldians were defeated by the French, which event, although it produced a temporary sadness among the patriotic[Pg 319] Italians, did not intimidate them. The course of events among the sovereigns favored their cause to such a degree that there are far better grounds for saying that they were providentially designed to abolish the temporal power than there are in support of the pretense that it was divinely established at the fall of the Roman Empire, or at any other time. Louis Napoleon had his own affairs to look after. His stealth of the imperial crown of France had given fresh spur to his ambition, but his perfidy was so flagrant that even among the stanchest monarchists he was held in contempt. His self-conceit made war between Prussia and France inevitable; and when that event was brought on, he realized, probably for the first time, that he had been engaged in the ignominious work of preventing the independence of Italy, and forcing the Italian people to accept a king they had almost unanimously decided to reject. Whether he fully realized this or not, his necessities compelled him to withdraw the French troops from Italy, and to leave Pius IX without the support of foreign troops, who had stood guard over his temporal crown during every hour of his pontificate. The war between Prussia and France was a terrible blow at Pius IX, but an event of incalculable value to the cause of Italian independence. And when it led to Sedan, the capture of Paris, and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine by France, Victor Emmanuel steadily kept his eyes upon the unification of Italy, which even Pius IX understood to mean the abolition of the temporal power.

Victor Emmanuel again had an opportunity of acting frankly towards the pope and fairly with the Church. He endeavored to explain himself in a letter to Pius IX, wherein, "with the faith of a Catholic" but "with the dignity of a king," he declared that it was not his purpose to impair or interfere with the spiritual authority or independence of the pope, and that he would maintain these with his troops; and, counseling him to recognize the stubborn facts which confronted him and which he was powerless to change, he urged him to accept this as the only practical and possible[Pg 320] solution of the difficulties surrounding him. He closed his appeal in these words: "Your holiness, in delivering Rome from the foreign troops, in freeing it from the continual peril of being the battle-field of subversive parties, will have accomplished a marvelous work, given peace to the Church, and shown to Europe, shocked by the horrors of war, how great battles can be won and immortal victories achieved by an act of justice, and by a single word of affection."[187] Here, in an eloquent and touching appeal, the king implored the pope to "give peace to the Church," well knowing, as he did, that the only purpose of the revolution was to get rid of the temporal power and establish a constitutional government, and that if this question were disposed of by the acquiescence of Pius IX the vast multitude of Roman Catholics then in arms would return to their homes and be content to live in peace and quiet under his spiritual dominion. The issue was a single and a simple one, which could not be misunderstood; and that it should be made so clear that even the commonest mind could comprehend it fully, Victor Emmanuel accompanied his letter with a statement of the terms which he proposed for adjusting the relations between the Church and the State. They were these: All nations should have free access to the pope; all Churches in Rome to be neutralized; ambassadors to the pope to enjoy full immunity; the cardinals to retain their revenues and immunity; the salaries of all military and civil functionaries to be paid as before; and the bishops and clergy throughout Italy[Pg 321] to have "the full and absolutely free exercise of their ecclesiastical functions."

It would be hard, if not impossible, for a liberal mind to find fault with these propositions. They were so generally accepted as fair that any comment upon them is unnecessary. They encountered no objection—except from those who preferred that the pope should remain an absolute temporal monarch, with full power to make and unmake all the laws—to a constitutional government representing the people. They were made by a Roman Catholic king, representing and speaking for several millions of Roman Catholic people, and, besides being in a conciliatory and kindly spirit, bore upon their face conclusive evidence of sincerity. If they had been accepted by the pope, the true faith of the Church would have been untouched, and the pope in the full possession of all his rightful and necessary spiritual powers. The Church, in fact, would have been brought back to its primitive condition before the fall of the Roman Empire. But Pius IX, instead of reciprocating the generosity of the king, mourned over the "deep sorrow," which filled his "life with bitterness," and, at the same time, treated the propositions of the king with intense scorn. He was then the first pope, in all the long history of the Church, who had been allowed authoritatively to avow his own personal infallibility. He had convened the celebrated Council of the Vatican, in which, but a few weeks before, the Jesuits had succeeded in having him declared infallible by the passage of a decree dictated by himself, and secured by the suppression of debate, against the protest of a number of bishops, including several from the United States.[188] Having obtained this victory over the liberalism of the Church, and thus thrown himself completely into the arms of the Jesuits, and preferring an alliance with them to union with millions of Roman Catholics who favored[Pg 322] a constitutional government, he made it impossible to take a single step towards conciliation, or to carry on even an amicable discussion with the king. He manifestly felt as if no human power had the right to demand or to expect conciliation or discussion from an infallible pope. The Council had affirmed his universal sovereignty, and had encouraged him in the belief that he possessed the power of omnipotence, so that those who refused obedience to him were under the curse of God. The time for debate, therefore, had passed with him, and no longer were thoughts of peace and conciliation to be entertained. Consequently, he is represented by a friendly pen as having, with an air of imperial majesty, broken off the official interview with the envoy of Victor Emmanuel, by expressing "the full measure of his scorn and indignation" in these expressive words: "In the name of Jesus Christ, I tell you that you are all whited sepulchers!"[189]

There was nothing then left for Victor Emmanuel but to advance his troops, and take possession of the city of Rome, in the name of the new kingdom of Italy. He delayed no longer. After crossing the frontier of the papal territory, his army engaged in several skirmishes with the Zouaves of the pope, but met with no serious resistance. On the 20th of September, 1870, orders were given to attack the city. Two breaches were soon opened in the walls, and as the victorious Italians entered, the papal troops retreated, and Pius IX took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo as a fugitive from the city where, but a short time before, a decree of his personal infallibility had been forced through a packed Council by such methods as no other body of men in the world would have submitted to, and to which it is not likely they would have submitted but for the influences of the Jesuits. The pope having fled and made himself a voluntary prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, the remaining duties pertaining to the papal Government devolved upon Cardinal Antonelli, who still called himself Secretary of State. This consisted of[Pg 323] a formal and puerile protest in the name of the fugitive pope, wherein he declared that nothing done by the kingdom of Italy had conveyed any rights whatsoever against the dominion and possession of the pope, and that the pope "both knows his rights, and intends to conserve them intact, and re-enter at the proper time into their actual possession." All that can be said of this is, that, whilst practically it was mere unmeaning bravado, it fully set forth the policy and purposes of Pius IX, by which he expected, with the aid of the two hundred millions of Roman Catholics in the world, to destroy the new Italian Government, and bring the people again under papal dominion. Strange fatuity, made the more strange by the fact that these announcements proceeded from the first pope whose personal infallibility had been approved by conciliar decree!

The possession of Rome and the flight of the pope made it necessary to put in operation the machinery of the new Government. Accordingly, a temporary Government was formed and provision made for taking the vote of the whole population to decide whether or no the people were for or against the "unification of Italy." At this vote an overwhelming majority decided in favor of the new Government—thus indicating that even if the people had hitherto been persuaded to believe that the kingship of the pope had been of Divine creation, they had become enlightened enough to understand that Providence had permitted it to continue long enough; and that as it had succeeded in separating the Western from the Eastern Christians, and splitting the whole into rival and warring factions, the time had been reached when, by a new dispensation, the spiritual department of the Church should be purified by stripping the pope of his imperial authority and enlarging the sphere of his spiritual functions and duties. Realizing that God governs the world in all things by his providences, and casting their eyes over the nations to see where the largest degree of prosperity and happiness prevailed, they were awakened to the conviction that, as these had been produced where Church and[Pg 324] State were separated, the Divine wisdom had been displayed by pointing out to them a like measure of relief from their existing grievances. Taught by their own instincts to believe that the shifting dispensations of God's providences were only so many methods of exhibiting his sovereign power, and that as he had permitted their forefathers and themselves to bear the burden of the papal temporal power for centuries, it was natural for them to conclude that he had at least indicated to them the duty of exchanging it for that liberty and intellectual development which free constitutional governments had assured to other peoples as the means of making them happier and more prosperous—better able to appreciate and discharge the duties which pertain to citizenship as well as to Christian life. God had tolerated their misfortunes only in the sense in which he has permitted slavery to exist; but they could not be persuaded to believe that he intended longer to perpetuate them by his providences, any more than can the people of this country consent that the former existence of slavery here overthrew the fundamental truth set forth in our Declaration of Independence, that the inalienable right to freedom and civil equality is derived from the natural law.

A very large majority of the aggregate vote cast in the provinces having been in favor of the new Government—the negative vote having been less than two thousand—it became necessary to adjust the future relations between the Church and the State so that they could exist harmoniously together, each in full possession of its proper functions. Accordingly, the pope and all the papal authorities were notified that the utmost liberality would be displayed toward the Church, and that there would be no interference with it whatsoever except the abolition of the pope's temporal power, and such provisions in regard to temporal affairs as that rendered necessary. It is only necessary to observe the leading provisions made by the new Government to show their liberality and to demonstrate the folly of their rejection; and to realize how much the Church has lost by the unwise[Pg 325] and infatuated policy of Pius IX, it is sufficient to observe that there is no Government existing in the world to-day from which the same conciliatory terms could be obtained. Not all of them could have been obtained, even then, from any other but a Roman Catholic population.

The policy of the new Government was set forth as follows: The pope was to be left entirely free to exercise all his spiritual rights as before; he was to continue to possess "the prerogatives of a sovereign prince," and his court was to be provided for with that view; he was to be secured "a territorial immunity," limited, of course, within bounds to be defined, wherein he should be free and independent of the State; all the prelates, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and those in ecclesiastical orders, who should be summoned to Rome by the pope, were to enjoy immunity from civil interference; the pope was to be permitted to communicate with foreign powers and the Church throughout the world, and to have special postal and telegraphic service at his command; all the representatives of foreign powers at the court of the pope were to enjoy perfect liberty; freedom of publication and communication were assured; the pope was guaranteed "full liberty to travel at all times, and at all seasons, in and out of the country," and was to be treated and honored as "a foreign lay sovereign" throughout Italy; his "royal appanage" and the members of his court were to be furnished by the new Government, which should also pay the debts of the pontifical States; and the liberties of the Church and the spiritual independence of the pope were to be fully and amply guaranteed.[190]

These fair and liberal provisions had reference only to the changed relations produced by the abolition of the temporal power. They involved a purely political question, except as it had been made politico-religious by the doctrine of the Jesuits, which Pius IX had adopted, to the effect that it was a necessary part of the faith of the Church[Pg 326] that the pope should be a temporal monarch. The Roman Catholic population of Italy having rejected this doctrine, and demanded the expulsion of the Jesuits because they taught it, these provisions were the result of their desire to leave Pius IX in the full possession and enjoyment of all his spiritual powers. It was intended by them to provide merely for the new condition of affairs, and to recognize the kingdom of Italy as an accomplished fact, neither to be controverted nor changed. Victor Emmanuel, as a firm and consistent Roman Catholic, was not disposed to do anything less, and his obligations to the Italian people would not allow him to do more. But Pius IX, still continuing to sorrow over the destruction of the "old régime," and clinging to the Jesuit idea that God was offended because he had lost his temporal crown, refused to be reconciled. Bemoaning the incompetency of the people to decide what was right and what was wrong in affairs of government, and the inevitable ruin which he imagined would follow their attempt to be governed without a pope-king, he again hurled his fiercest anathemas at the new Government, and at the heads of all who had aided in its creation. And having done this, the controversy was brought to an end, leaving it well understood that Church and State had been finally separated in Italy by a Roman Catholic population, and that Pius IX would not be reconciled to the loss of his temporal sovereignty which that separation occasioned, or to anything short of his restoration to absolute royal power. There were other acts necessary to complete the entire drama, but these would draw us off into fields crowded with a multitude of combatants. We are now concerned only with the conflict about the temporal power, and the bearing of that power upon the right of the Italian people to have a voice in the construction of the Government, and the passage of such laws as their own welfare required. That was the only issue between the Italians and the papacy—between Victor Emmanuel and Pius IX. If the latter had adhered to the convictions of his own mind when he first introduced measures of reform, and had[Pg 327] followed the kindly dictates of his own heart, many heartburnings and bickerings might have been avoided, and the Church might have escaped a serious and staggering blow. The contestants upon both sides were attached to the Church, its history, its traditions, and its faith. A calm discussion between them as to what it had or had not taught with regard to the temporal power, would have made it clear that it did not involve any essential article of the Christian creed, and they might thus have been led to see that, as this power did not exist in the apostolic and primitive times, there could not rightfully exist in the changed condition of the world anything to render it absolutely necessary to the existence and growth of Christianity in the present age. But when Pius IX suffered his mind to be impressed by the teachings and doctrines of the Jesuits, and allowed them to mold his pontifical policy, passionate declamation took the place of calm discussion, and made reconciliation impossible.

And now, when those most devoted to the Church look back upon this conflict, and realize upon what a multitude of their Christian brethren the papal anathemas are still resting, because of their refusal to assent to a dogma of faith which strikes at the foundation of free constitutional government, they can not fail to observe that, whilst the blow has fallen heavily upon the Church, the Jesuits alone have achieved a triumph. They laid the foundation of this triumph by extorting from Pius IX—at a time when his unsuspicious nature was easily imposed upon—his celebrated Encyclical and Syllabus, whereby he declared that freedom of speech, of conscience, and of the press were errors which the Church could not tolerate; that the Church must be the sole judge of its own jurisdiction, and possess the power of coercing obedience within the circle it shall assign to itself; and that it never can become reconciled to, or agree with, the "progress, liberalism, and civilization" of the present age. By this he placed a barrier between the papacy and all the leading modern nations, which the Jesuits are striving hard to overleap, but can not; but which can only[Pg 328] be broken down by that Christian charity which ennobles the nature of its possessor, and teaches that God has implanted in the hearts of mankind a spirit of brotherhood which no creeds or dogmas or ceremonies should be permitted to extinguish.

But Pius IX added to his sufferings by the pretense of hardships that were not real. He was allowed to return to Rome unmolested, and to take up his residence again in the Vatican. He called himself a prisoner, and induced others to do so, thereby setting an example his successor has imitated. But he was not a prisoner, except when he, of his own accord, shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. He was, up till the close of his life, free to go wheresoever and when he pleased. There was no restraint imposed upon his actions. No indignity to his spiritual office or to his person was allowed. He could open and close the doors of the Vatican at his own pleasure, and admit or exclude whomsoever he pleased. He enjoyed the utmost liberty of speech and of writing, and bestowed praise or censure at discretion. But instead of enjoying the real liberty guaranteed to him by the laws of the Government upon which his pontifical curse was resting, he wore his life away by useless complaining, and by sending forth additional anathemas, which indicated only that his vanity was ungratified and his ambition disappointed. He died at last, not broken-hearted—for he was always a spiritual sovereign—but with the melancholy consciousness that his pontifical arm had become too feeble to bear up the temporal scepter which many of his predecessors had grasped so tightly. It would be hard to write his life well and faithfully; it was so impulsive, varied, and feverish. His purposes were honest, his affections sincere, his generosity unbounded, his nature kindly and sympathetic; but he was as powerless to drive back the storm that beat upon the papacy, as a seaman is to check the speed of the winds when the storm is raging. And now that he has appeared before the final Judge, who is infallible, it might be appropriately engraved upon his tomb that he was a good priest but a poor and incompetent statesman.

FOOTNOTES:

[185] Appleton's Ann. Cyclo., 1866, p. 674. "The pope had lost all his bygone sympathy for the popular cause, and was only too willing to secure his restoration to the Vatican by the aid of an Austrian occupation of the Romagna, and of a French siege of Rome." (Life of Victor Emmanuel. By Dicey. Page 118.)

[186] During the progress of the Italian revolution, the present pope, Leo XIII, then Cardinal Pecci, wrote a pastoral letter "On the Temporal Dominion of the Popes," for the express purpose of maintaining that dominion. Referring to the period of its first introduction, he said it had been "consecrated by eleven centuries of time." Neither he nor Pius IX has been able to fix the time, except in general and indefinite terms, differing, as they do, several hundred years, yet both infallible! (Life of Leo XIII. By Bernard O'Reilly. Page 200.)

[187] Maguire, p. 470. Appleton's Ann. Cyc., 1870, p. 410.

After the occupation of Rome by the Italian army, the citizens were required to decide by the form of a plebiscite, whether or no they favored union with the kingdom of Italy, when the popular vote was 133,681 in favor of, and only 1,507 against it. Victor Emmanuel thereupon signified his loyalty to the Church in this strong and expressive language: "As a king and as a Catholic, while I hereby proclaim the unity of Italy, I remain constant to my resolve to guarantee the liberty of the Church and the independence of the supreme pontiff." (Life of Victor Emmanuel. By Dicey. Pages 317-318.)

[188] Eight Months at Rome. By Pomponio Leto (Francis Vitteleschi). London Edition. Page 212.

[189] Maguire, p. 473.

[190] Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia. 1870. Pages 414-415.

At the death of Pius IX he left to whosoever should succeed him, as an official inheritance, the decision of the question whether or no the Church should acquiesce in and become reconciled to the abolition of the temporal power of the pope, or be agitated and possibly further disrupted by the demand for its restoration. In the meantime Italy had become an organized nation, and was so recognized throughout the world. The capital, after several removals, had been established at Rome, and legislative chambers were assembled almost within the shadow of the old senate-house of the Cæsars, under the checks and guards of a written Constitution, to enact laws for and in the name of the Italian people. A king existed, but without absolute power, and had attained great popularity on account of his eminent fitness and recognized fidelity to the trusts committed to him. It, consequently, required but little practical knowledge of affairs to foresee that the future peace and welfare of the Church depended, in a large degree, upon the policy to be pursued with regard to the temporal power—which no longer existed, but had been abolished by Roman Catholic populations, who had, with great deliberation and extraordinary unanimity, taken the right to manage their own political affairs into their own hands, in imitation of the example set them by the people of the United States. Thoughtful minds were inspired by the hope that moderate, wise, and conciliatory counsels would prevail with the new pope, whosoever he might be.

The occasion rendered it necessary that the distinction between the Church as a Christian organization, and the[Pg 330] papacy as a magisterial power over temporals, should be observed; that is, that the ability of the former for Christian usefulness was left unimpaired, whilst the latter was only designed to make the pope an absolute monarch over the Italian people. Nobody understood this better than Pius IX, and, therefore, the year before his death he signalized the first important exhibition of his infallible authority by issuing a decree amending the Confession of Faith, which had been prescribed by Pius IV nearly three hundred years before, and an "allocution," or authoritative and ex-cathedra epistle to the clergy and the Church, with regard to the relations existing between the Church and the Government of Italy. The former concerns only those whose faith is influenced by it; the latter concerns all the progressive nations, and none more than the United States.

In this allocution he accused the invaders of his "civil principality"—that is, of his temporal power—with riding roughshod over every right, human and divine; with the attempt to undermine "all the institutions of the Church;" and characterized the act of establishing the Italian kingdom as one of "sovereign iniquity"—a "sacrilegious invasion." He complained that the ministers of religion "were deprived of the right of disapproving the laws of the State which they considered as violating those of the Church"—which was equivalent to asserting it to be a principle of faith that he and the clergy should be permitted to defy any law of a State which he and they considered violative of their prerogative rights. He pointed out "the shameful and obscene spectacle" to be seen in Rome, in "the temples erected in these latter days to dissenting worship;" in "schools of corruption scattered broadcast," and in "houses of perdition established everywhere"—thus intending, undoubtedly, to intimate what his meaning was when he said in his Syllabus, a few years before, that the Church could never be reconciled to the spirit of progress prevailing among the progressive nations. He insisted that the pope can not exist in[Pg 331] Rome except as "a sovereign or a prisoner"—which has been disproved by all the subsequent years of actual experience—and that there can be no "peace, security, or tranquillity for the entire Catholic Church so long as the exercise of the supreme ecclesiastical ministry is at the mercy of the passions of party, the caprice of Governments, the vicissitudes of political elections, and of the projects and actions of designing men"—meaning thereby, in plain words, that the pope must be so supreme wheresoever his clergy are as to require them to execute his decrees, notwithstanding the laws of Governments shall expressly provide otherwise. He expresses this idea with equal plainness by saying that the pope "can not exercise full freedom in the power of his ministry" scattered throughout the world, so long as he "continues subject to the will of another party;" in other words, that he must be free to require his clergy, wheresoever they may be, to obey him and not the laws of any Government in conflict with his will. He congratulates himself that the "whole Catholic people," everywhere, are united with him in supporting all these propositions, and makes it known that he expects them "to take in hand the cause and defense of the Roman pontificate;" that is, the restoration of the temporal power and kingship of the pope. He expresses the belief that the attachment shown to him by the multitudes of pilgrims who visit Rome "will go on increasing until the day when the pastor of the universal Church will be restored at last to the possession of his full and genuine freedom"—which he can not enjoy without the crown of absolute monarchy upon his head. And with a view to the accomplishment of this, he instructs all the ministers of the Church, everywhere, to "exhort the faithful confided to them to make use of all the means which the laws of their country place within their reach; to act with promptness with those who govern; to induce these latter to consider more attentively the painful situation forced upon the head of the Church, and take effective measures towards dissipating the[Pg 332] obstacles that stand in the way of his absolute independence."[191]

All this is plain and emphatic—not susceptible of misunderstanding. It makes the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, so as to make him king of Italy against the positive and expressed will of the people of that country, a politico-religious question, and commands the faithful in every part of the world to form themselves into a politico-religious party to influence the Governments of their respective countries to contribute to that result. This counsel is given in face of what the world knows to be the fact, that the temporal power can not be restored without war—without drenching the plains of Italy with blood, in order to force upon the people of Italy a king whom they have repudiated by their highest act of sovereignty.

This allocution was among the first fruits of the pope's infallibility, and makes known with distinctness the method dictated by Pius IX for reconstructing the papacy. At the time of its issuance he had encountered so many embarrassments without the ability to resist them successfully, he could scarcely have expected that his hopes would be realized during his pontificate. He was confronted by the existence of a kingdom, still Roman Catholic but not papal, within the limits of which Rome was included, and no man knew better than he that what he sought after would have to await the formation of a politico-religious party beyond the limits of Italy, and among the peoples of other nations, strong enough to coerce the Roman Catholic people of Italy, at the point of the bayonet, into obedience to the papacy they had repudiated. Therefore this infallible allocution may properly be considered his last pontifical will and testament, whereby he devised all his right and title to the temporal power to his successor; or perhaps it would be more apt to say, as the politicians do, that it was intended to be[Pg 333] the main plank in the papal platform. How far it became so we shall see.

When, after the death of Pius IX, the cardinals assembled in Conclave, February 17, 1878, their first official act was specially significant. It displayed a settled purpose to hold the wavering, if there were any, to the policy of Pius IX with reference to the restoration of the temporal power, and to make that the test of fidelity to the Church; in other words, that his successor should be pledged to carry out that policy, and elected with that express view. The cardinals, therefore, entered into an agreement among themselves to confirm and maintain all the protests made by Pius IX against the Italian Government. This agreement was to the effect that they "thereby renewed all the protests and reservations made by the deceased sovereign pontiff, whether against the occupation of the States of the Church, or against the laws and decrees enacted to the detriment of the same Church and the Apostolic See;" and that they were unanimously "determined to follow the course marked out by the deceased pontiff, whatsoever trials may happen to befall them through the force of events."[192]

It may fairly be supposed that Cardinal Pecci was the projector of this plan of procedure, as it is stated by his biographer that he "stood in the foremost place at the head of his brethren." At all events, he, together with the other cardinals, was pledged to it. When, therefore, he was elected pope—as he was soon after—and took the name of Leo XIII, he accepted the pontificate under the solemn obligation so to employ all his powers and prerogatives as to regain the temporal power his predecessor had lost, upon the distinct ground that fidelity to the doctrines and faith of the Church required it.

In view of the result to be thus attained, the election of Leo XIII was unquestionably wise. Besides possessing the[Pg 334] highest intellectual qualifications—being, in fact, one of the foremost men of the present time—his Christian character is pure and without a blemish. He is cool, calm, and deliberate in considering great questions, and not apt, as Pius IX was, to be misled by indiscreet advisers, or entrapped by enemies. His passions seemed well restrained, and he brought to the duties of his high office abilities far exceeding those of any of the eminent men who composed the College of Cardinals. There is not a sovereign in Europe of whom he is not the equal, if not the superior, in all such qualities as fit a man for rank, station, and authority. In the rightful and proper sphere of his spiritual duties he is "sans peur et sans reproche." But when he ventures to depart from that sphere, and employ the authority of his high office to reopen a political issue already closed, to deny to the people of Italy the right to regulate their own temporal affairs, as those of the United States have done, and prescribes or approves a plan of Church organization which shall measure the value of a professed Christian life by the depth to which its possessor shall sink in the mire of politico-religious controversy in those countries where Church and State have been separated, he presents himself to the world in another and different aspect. If, by imitating others who have grasped after kingly crowns, he sees proper to lay aside the rightful weapons of his spiritual ministry, and arm himself and his followers with such as pertain to the strife of politics, there can be no just ground of complaint against those whose policy of civil government he assails, if they shall arraign him and them at the bar of public opinion, and challenge his and their right to disturb the peace by scattering the seeds of discord among them.

The people of Italy achieved their independence by revolution, and decided to separate Church and State, and that they would not have the pope for their king; they put an end to the absolute monarchism of the papacy, and substituted a constitutional monarchy, with such checks and guards as they deemed necessary to their own protection. In doing this they[Pg 335] exercised the same power of popular sovereignty as the people of the United States, when they decided that no king should ever rule over them. In each case the act was intended to be final—not subject to reversal by any earthly power. Neither country, therefore, has the right to plot against the quiet and peace of the other; nor have the populations of either the right to do so. All this is forbidden by the law of nations, and if knowingly tolerated would be, by that law, just cause of war. If a politico-religious party should be formed in Italy to change our institutions by reuniting Church and State, and substitute a king in the place of the people in the management of public affairs, it would incite the spirit of resistance in every loyal American heart. And if a politico-religious party, formed under any plea whatsoever, shall be permitted to combine in this country for the avowed object of reuniting Church and State in Italy, and compelling the people of that country to accept the pope as an absolute sovereign, in the face of the result they have accomplished by their revolution, wherein do we escape condemnation by the law of nations? The question whether or no any people shall exercise the right of self-government is political, not religious. This has been decided by the people of the United States. Consequently, to demand of them that they shall reverse this decision, violates the spirit of their institutions, and mocks at their authority.

No liberal and fair-minded people questioned the right of Pius IX to declare himself infallible, or that of others to concede it to him, in matters purely spiritual. Nor is this same right denied to Leo XIII. But when he extends his infallibility so far as to include authority over the fundamental principles of civil government, and thus seeks to imperil the fortunes of the modern progressive nations where Church and State have been separated, it should not be expected that those who share those fortunes in common will sanction his imperial assumption by direct affirmance or by silent acquiescence. The age of "passive obedience" has passed, and is not likely to be revived so long as the Reformation[Pg 336] period shall continue to bear its rich and abundant fruits, like such as spring from the popular institutions of the United States. The fundamental principle upon which all such institutions rest is the separation of Church and State; for without that there can be no freedom of religious belief and no such development of the intellectual faculties as fits society for self-government. Every assault upon this great fundamental principle must be resisted, no matter under what pretense it may be made or from what quarter it shall come. When it was assaulted and condemned by the vacillating and irascible Pius IX, it was in far less peril than now, when the calm and sagacious Leo XIII has become the general-in-chief of the aggressive forces. The former was not even master of himself—the latter is master of vast multitudes of men.

The election of Leo XIII caused general satisfaction outside the circle of Church influence. He was regarded as a representative of the highest enlightenment, and this gave rise to the hope that he would become reconciled to the existing condition of affairs in Italy, in order to pacify those members of the Church who had wrenched from his immediate predecessor the scepter of temporal sovereignty. A more favorable opportunity for pacification could not have existed; and if it had been accepted in a conciliatory spirit, the rejoicing would not have been confined to the Italians alone, but would have been well-nigh universal. But little time elapsed, however, before there were signs indicating that, instead of throwing oil upon the troubled waters, he preferred that they should remain in agitation. Two facts now conspire to account for this: First, the agreement made by the College of Cardinals to adopt the principles and adhere to the policy of Pius IX; and, second, his Jesuit education and training. Both of these facts are stated by his biographer, and the last with such particularity as to show that when he was only eight years of age he was separated from his family and placed under Jesuit care, and that his education was obtained at the colleges of that society[Pg 337] at Viterbo and at Rome.[193] If the world had known, at the beginning of his pontificate, how solemnly he had pledged himself to his brother cardinals before his election, and how his youthful mind had been trained and fashioned by the Jesuits, it is not probable that anything would have been anticipated, or even hoped for, beyond what has transpired; for the skill of the Jesuits is displayed in nothing more effectually than in the indelible impressions they understand so well how to make upon young and undeveloped minds. Although the question to be decided seemed simple enough to the general public, both in the United States and in Europe, yet to the Jesuits it was of supreme importance; for with Church and State separated in Italy, and with Rome as the permanent capital of a kingdom independent of the pope and submissive to the popular will, their society would be crushed by the weight of public odium resting upon them. During the progress of the controversy and before the abolition of the temporal power, Pius IX had been compelled to expel them from the States of the Church on account of this odium existing in Italy; but they rallied again, with their unabated energy, after his successor had been chosen, doubtless realizing how readily a mind trained and disciplined under their system of education would yield to their demands. For a time Leo XIII seemed to be hesitating, as if in the issue between liberalism and retrogression there was some middle ground. But the Church and the world did not have long to wait before the issuance of his first official encyclical letter, which put an end to all hopes of reconciliation or compromise. In this celebrated document the war upon liberalism and progress, as recognized by the modern nations, was continued with increased and Jesuitical violence—"war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt." There was no longer any hesitation or faltering, but the distinct avowal of the purpose to revive the papacy, by the restoration of the temporal power, and to carry on the conflict until[Pg 338] the world shall be turned away from all modern civilization and back towards the Middle Ages. His biographer takes special pains to make this plain, so that the encyclical may be interpreted according to the pope's intention. After stating that there were those who expected Leo XIII "to devise a modus vivendi with the masters of Rome and Italy," and reconcile the Church and the papacy to "modern society and its exigencies," he boastingly proclaims that the encyclical "woefully disappointed all who fancied or hoped that a pope could reconcile the revealed truth of which he is the divinely-appointed guardian, the righteousness, justice, and divine morality which flow from the revealed law of life, with the awful errors, the unbridled licentiousness of thought and word and deed, the iniquity and the immorality which are cloaked over by their pretended civilization."[194]

This learned biographer does not intend that the pope's encyclical shall be misunderstood; and when he thus indicates the "awful errors," the "unbridled licentiousness," "the iniquity and the immorality," which have been scattered over the world by modern progress and civilization—which he characterizes as "pretended" and not real—he manifestly understood the mind and motives of the pope, as he also did the issue which the papacy has made with all the most enlightened peoples of the world, and, more especially, with the prevailing popular sentiment in the United States. We must consequently accept this arraignment of our form of civilization as intentionally and deliberately made. And that he understood this issue as not confined to Italy alone, but as universal in its character, he proceeds immediately to show that the pope "speaks with authority to all mankind, the light imparted by his teaching illuminates both hemispheres."

But this encyclical itself leaves no room to doubt with regard to the universality of jurisdiction and authority claimed by the pope. Almost at the beginning it announces[Pg 339] that he considers himself called upon, by virtue of his spiritual sovereignty, to decide matters of general import, and not merely such as are understood to pertain to the Church of Rome or to the people of Italy. Regarding himself as possessing this unlimited jurisdiction because he occupies "the place of the Prince of Pastors, Jesus Christ," he asserts pontifical authority over the whole world, in these words: "From the very beginning of our pontificate we have had before our eyes the sad spectacle of the evils which assail mankind from every side." And, accordingly, he makes his purposes known by drawing a sad picture of modern society, "impatient of all lawful power," and threatened, in consequence, with anarchy and dissolution, on account of its "contempt of the laws of morality and justice." All this, to his mind, has arisen out of the lawless spirit of revolution which modern peoples have invoked to free themselves from the crushing weight of imperial and absolute monarchism, which he proposes to revive in Italy by the re-establishment of the temporal power which the people of that country wrested from the hands of his immediate predecessor by revolution. What we, somewhat triumphantly, call patriotism, liberty, and natural right, he denounces as "a pestilential virus which creeps into the vital organs and members of human society, which allows them no rest, and which forebodes for the social order new revolutions ending in calamitous results."

Against these threatened calamities he felt himself constrained, by virtue of the universality of his spiritual dominion, to warn the world, especially that part of it which has voluntarily brought what he considers affliction upon itself, by separating Church and State and establishing freedom of religious belief, free speech, a free press, and free popular government. He seems to have allowed his mind to become disturbed and agitated by this gloomy condition of affairs, because it has been produced by the rejection of the pope's divine right to regulate whatsoever sentiments and opinions he may deem to be within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction. "The cause of all these evils," he says, "lies[Pg 340] principally in this: that men have despised and rejected the holy and august authority of the Church, which, in the name of God, is placed over the human race, and is the avenger and protector of all legitimate authority;" that is, that no authority whatsoever, whether of governments, peoples, or individuals, can be set up against it as rightful or legitimate. Then, looking down from this high pinnacle upon the disturbed and raging elements below, and sorrowing because his temporal dominion has been lost, he enumerates some of the principal causes which, in his opinion, threaten to wreck the happiness and welfare of society. Among these, he makes conspicuously prominent the following: Overturning the constitution of the Church by laws in force "in most countries;" obstacles to the "free exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry," which those laws have created; "the unbridled liberty of teaching and publishing all manner of evil;" depriving the Church of "the right," which he considers irrefragable, to "train and educate the young;" and, far from being least in magnitude or importance, the sacrilegious violation of the Divine law by the abolition of the pope's temporal power and imperial sovereignty over the Italian people. This enumeration was manifestly made, as may be implied from the language of his biographer, to enable him to point out more clearly to "the Catholic hierarchy" in all parts of the world, "toward what purpose their common zeal must be chiefly directed;" that is, what he expects them to contribute toward turning the world away from these modern innovations upon the papal policy, so that it may be carried back to its condition during the Middle Ages, when the papal supremacy was maintained by the terrible tribunal of the Inquisition. That he prefers that period, with its ignorance and superstition, to the present, with its advanced enlightenment and prosperity, is plainly and emphatically avowed in these words: "If any sensible man in our day will compare the age in which we live, so bitterly hostile to the religion and Church of Christ, to those blessed ages when the Church was honored as a mother of the nations, he will[Pg 341] surely find that the society of our day, so convulsed by revolutions and destructive upheavals, is moving straightway and rapidly toward its ruin; while the society of the former ages, when most docile to the rule of the Church and most obedient to her laws, was adorned with the noblest institutions, and enjoyed tranquillity, riches, and prosperity."[195]

This is strange infatuation to be indulged in during the nineteenth century, when human energy is taxed to the utmost to give increased velocity to the car of progress, and to outstrip all previous ages in placing checks and guards upon the ambition of temporal monarchs. It requires but little research to learn that the "blessed ages" to which Leo XIII refers, and gives such marked preference over the present period, were especially distinguished by the ignorance and superstition of the multitude. History is crowded with evidences of this. Maitland—who is highly appreciated and often quoted by papal writers on account of his criticisms of Robertson, the historian—says that "the ecclesiastics were the reading men and the writing men;"[196] but does not pretend that such was the case with the peasants or common people, as the bulk of the populations were called. There is nothing better established than that no facilities for learning were afforded them, and that they were kept down at a common level of ignorance, so as to reconcile them more easily to submission and obedience. This is shown by the picture of society drawn by all the early chroniclers, especially by Froissart and Monstrelet, as well as by the more modern historians, Hallam, Robertson, and Berington. The men of learning and letters belonged to the "upper classes," for whom alone colleges and schools were provided. The people, as such, were left uninstructed, in order to make them passively obedient to the authority of Church and State, which were united by ties they were powerless to break. They were forced—with but little less severity than was shown to the captives of the Pharaohs who built the pyra[Pg 342]mids, the temple of Karnak, and other Egyptian monuments—to serve taskmasters in erecting magnificent palaces, cathedrals, and churches, designed for display by those whose vanity and pride made them oblivious to the fact that they were the product of unrewarded labor, and did not contain a stone or marble block not stained by the tears and sweat and blood of numberless humiliated victims. But all these unrequited victims were ignorant, and therefore obedient—obedient, and therefore happy! But Leo XIII, exulting at this reflection, instructs the modern nations that the curse of God is resting upon their progressive advancement, and that he, in Christ's name and place, is divinely empowered to turn them back to those "blessed ages," because, if they do not, "they must, by corrupting both minds and hearts, drag down by their very weight, nations into every crime, ruin all order, and at length bring the condition and peace of a commonwealth to extreme and certain destruction."

To escape these dreadful consequences, and save modern society from keeping open the gaping wounds it has inflicted upon itself, he makes known his pontifical purpose in these words: "We declare that we shall never cease to contend for the full obedience to our authority, for the removal of all obstacles put in the way of our full and free exercise of our ministry and power, and for our restoration to that condition of things in which the provident design of the Divine Wisdom had formerly placed the Roman pontiff." Having thus instructed all the faithful that whatsoever prohibits him from acquiring all the power and authority "formerly" possessed by the popes, must be resisted and put out of the way, whether it be constitutions, laws, or customs, he declares to them, by way of encouragement, that the world shall have no rest until this is accomplished; "not only because the civil sovereignty is necessary for the protecting and preserving of the full liberty of the spiritual power, but because, moreover—a thing in itself evident—whenever there is a question of the temporal principality of the Holy See, then the interests of the public good and the salvation of the[Pg 343] whole of human society are involved." His enthusiasm is always heightened, and his eloquence of style becomes captivating, when his mind displays its power at the contemplation of that "temporal sovereignty" by which he hopes that he and his successors shall bring all mankind within the bounds of the pontifical jurisdiction, so that they shall have no care for this or a higher life but what is involved in the duty of passive and uninquiring obedience. It is when this enthusiasm fully possesses him that he seizes upon the occasion to give the word of command to his ecclesiastical army in all parts of the world; as when he tells them they must display their "priestly zeal and pastoral vigilance in kindling in the souls of your [their] people the love of our holy religion, in order that they may thereby become more closely and heartily attached to this chair of truth and justice, accept all its teachings with the deepest assent of mind and will, and unhesitatingly reject all opinions, even the most widespread, which they know to be in opposition to the doctrines of the Church."

This instruction is comprehensive enough to include all, both priests and laymen. It has the merit of simplicity, requiring only obedience to the pope, the full "assent of mind and will" to all the doctrines he shall announce, and the rejection of "all opinions" in opposition to them; no matter if their submission shall involve disobedience to the constitutions and laws under which they may live. He descends also to particulars, and prescribes a course of conduct for all his subordinates—like a commanding general laying down the plan of a military campaign. They must obtain the control of education, so as to "scatter the seeds of heavenly doctrines broadcast," in order to save "the young especially" from the deadly influences of State and public schools, where, according to his teaching, the method of education "clouds their intellect and corrupts their morals." They are required to instruct their pupils "in conformity with the Catholic faith, especially as regards mental philosophy," as taught by Thomas Aquinas and "the other teachers of Christian[Pg 344] wisdom." They are to make exterminating war upon the "impious laws" which allow civil marriages, because those thus united, "desecrating the holy dignity of marriage, have lived in legal concubinage instead of Christian matrimony." And lastly, and no less imperatively, all are to be instructed in the indispensable obligation "to obey their superiors."[197]

But Leo XIII has not been content with these distinct avowals of his pontifical opinions and purposes. He has chosen to give emphasis to them in other official methods. After the death of Cardinal Franchi, his secretary of state, he appointed Cardinal Nina to that place. Whether he considered the latter not sufficiently instructed with regard to his opinions, or availed himself of the occasion to express anew and more explicitly the principles of his pontifical policy, there is no means of deciding; but whether the one or the other, he addressed to him an official communication, wherein these principles were made known with perfect distinctness. Still contemplating "the very serious peril of society from the ever-increasing disorders which confront us on every side," and "the intellectual and moral decay which sickens society," in consequence of its having thrown off allegiance to the temporal power of the pope, he arraigns as prominent among the existing evils the separation of Church and State—precisely that condition of things which exists in the United States more distinctively than anywhere in the civilized world. Upon this subject—which involves so much that is absolutely fundamental in free popular government—he says: "The chief reason of this great moral ruin was the openly proclaimed separation and the attempted apostasy of the society of our day from Christ and his Church, which alone has all the power to repair all the evils of society." And referring to the manner in which the pope had been "despoiled" of his temporal power, he admonished him "to consider that the Catholics in the different States can never feel at rest till their supreme pontiff,[Pg 345] the superior teacher of their faith, the moderator of their consciences, is in the full enjoyment of a true liberty and a real independence;" that is, that Roman Catholics everywhere are expected to contribute immediate and active aid in bringing about the restoration of the temporal power, so that "the progress made by heresy" may be arrested, and "heterodox temples and schools" shall be destroyed.[198]

There is nothing in all this, or in anything officially done by Leo XIII—howsoever earnestly it may be rejected by liberal minds—that should detract in the least degree from the estimate in which he deserves to be held by all who appreciate upright conduct and the consistent observance of Christian virtue. For these his life has been eminently distinguished, and when its end shall have been reached—fears of which are expressed at the time these words are written—he will well deserve a lofty niche in the papal mausoleum among the greatest and best of the pontiffs. If his opinions and utterances were to be estimated alone by his personal integrity and private virtues, the force of any criticism of them would be materially lessened. But they belong to and are an essential part of the papal system which he represents and is bound by the necessities of his position to maintain against everything in conflict with it. What he has said, and so frequently repeated, is echoed back from the tombs of those of his predecessors who fought their battles with liberalism and progress when the forces which defended them were weak and the papacy was strong. He could not break a single thread in the net which encompasses him, howsoever anxiously he might desire it, and is consequently constrained to carry on the battle waged by his predecessors until final victory is won or the flag of the temporal power is sunk out of sight forever. His task grows harder and harder every day; for now the progressive forces are growing stronger while the powers of the papacy, lessened by the loss of temporal sovereignty, are steadily waning away.[Pg 346] He is struggling against the patriotic sentiments of mankind, like a strong man battling with the waves of a tempestuous sea. Although the light of modern progress is not permitted to penetrate the walls of the Vatican, and he is shut in behind impenetrable screens especially to keep it out, he ought, nevertheless, to know that those to whose prosperity and advancement it has contributed are unwilling to acquiesce in its extinction, or to sit silently by when it is attempted. Whilst his arraignment of civil institutions which have grown up within the circle of this light may be well attributed to the papal system he officially represents, he has expressed his desire for their overthrow in such terms of censure and rebuke as to excite the suspicion that he is moved by an uncompromising and unconciliatory spirit. Whatsoever he has shown of this may rightfully be assigned to his Jesuit training and education. Having been placed under the care of that scheming and insinuating society before his opinions were matured and whilst his youthful mind was unable to detect their sophistry or their cunning, they were enabled to mold him to their purposes, as the softened wax is impressed by any seal. Any intelligent investigation of his pontifical policy, in so far as it involves the relations of the papacy to existing civil governments, will demonstrate this to all whose faculties have not been dwarfed by the same system of education and guardianship. We see every day, in the natural world, conclusive proof that "as the twig is bent so the tree is inclined."

FOOTNOTES:

[191] Appleton's American Cyclopedia. 1877. Pages 677 to 681.

[192] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 299.

[193] O'Reilly, pp. 52-53.

[194] O'Reilly, p. 328.

[195] O'Reilly, p. 333.

[196] The Dark Ages. By Maitland. Page 461.

[197] O'Reilly, pp. 329 to 341.

[198] O'Reilly, pp. 344 to 350.

The opinions and utterances of the pope concerning religious duty are considered, at least by his army of ecclesiastics, as commands which are to be obeyed at the peril of pontifical censure. Among these the learned biographer of Leo XIII is a conspicuous example. He not only exhibits his own zeal in behalf of the restoration of the temporal power in defiance of the expressed will of the Italian people, but ventures to speak for the whole body of the Roman Catholic population of the United States. With unflagging eloquence he says: "For we Catholics from every land, thronging to the tomb of the holy apostles and to the home of our common father, bear back with us to our own land the memory of the humiliation he endures, of the restraints put upon his liberty, of the rudeness and insults offered to ourselves; and we resolve that the day shall come when the pope shall be again sovereign of Rome." And addressing his appeal to our Protestant people, he continues: "Even in our own great Republic will not the quick American sense, and the instinctive love of justice, and the passion for freedom of conscience, soon be made to perceive that the dearest religious rights of our millions of Catholics, the dearest interests of civilization among the heathen, demand that the pope, the great international peacemaking power of the world, should be sovereign in the city where he has reigned for eleven hundred years?"[199]

This appeal surpasses in extravagance and hyperbole anything we are accustomed to hear: it would constitute an admirable exhibition of word-painting if recited from the ros[Pg 348]trum. We, in the United States, have made the toleration of all forms of religious belief a fundamental principle of our civil institutions, and the present Constitutional Government of Italy, by the abolition of the temporal power of the pope, has, in imitation of our example, done the same thing. When, before that, did religious toleration exist in Rome? What pope ever gave it the sanction of a papal decree, or recognized Protestantism as worthy of anything higher than his fiercest anathemas? Let the millions of persecuted victims of pontifical and inquisitorial vengeance—Albigenses, Waldenses, Huguenots, and Netherlanders—answer from their graves. And yet the American people are appealed to, because they maintain "freedom of conscience" as inseparable from their national existence, to plot against the present Government of Italy—established by the Italian people for themselves—in order to restore the temporal power of the pope, so that he may again possess authority to condemn this same freedom of conscience as heresy, in order to bring about the unification of religious faith throughout the world! We attribute our marvelous advancement—which has no parallel among the nations—in an essential degree, to the separation of Church and State. But Leo XIII has told us that because of this we are in rapid decay; and that unless we reunite ourselves with the Holy See of Rome, and obey him and his successors—occupying the place of Christ on earth—our ultimate ruin is inevitable. What does this reverend biographer mean when he invokes the aid of our tolerant spirit to re-establish an authority which, for centuries, has been exercised in behalf of religious intolerance? Are the followers of the pope the only people in the world entitled to freedom of conscience? It is abundantly secured to them and all others in the United States and in Italy as well. Nevertheless, in the face of this, we are invited to aid in restoring the temporal power of the pope in Rome, so that he may be empowered to turn back the modern nations from their present progress toward the "blessed" Middle Ages, and thus secure ultimate triumph to the spirit of relig[Pg 349]ious intolerance! Can those guilty of such inconsistencies be serious? Or is their seriousness merely simulated, as means to an end?

What have we to do with the pope as an international peacemaker? Why does he become so merely by wearing the crown of a temporal king in Rome? There is but one answer, which was undoubtedly present in the mind of his reverend biographer; that is, because, by means of his imperial authority as the head of the Church, he may extend his spiritual jurisdiction and dominion over such temporal affairs in any part of the world as relate to spiritual matters, as he at his own will and discretion shall decide. In order to understand this we need go no further than to Leo XIII himself, whose Jesuit training is easily discernible in all his doctrinal teachings. His idea of the temporal power which shall give full liberty and independence to his spiritual power, is this: that wheresoever, among all the nations, he shall consider it necessary to interfere with and direct the course of temporal affairs in furtherance of his spiritual duties and obligations, he may do so at his own discretion; and where they impede the freedom of his pontifical policy, he shall have the divine right to resist or disregard any constitution, law, or custom which shall stand in his way. To a mind like his—with its faculties developed under Jesuit supervision, and filled with the metaphysical subtleties of the Aristotelian philosophy, the sophistries of Thomas Aquinas, and the scholasticism of the Middle Ages—this, doubtless, appears plain, simple, and conclusive, in so far as his spiritual relations to mankind are concerned. It may possibly be that he supposes himself not to have mistaken his relations to the United States and to the Roman Catholic part of our population. This may be, in view of the fact that he can have no other but an imperfect knowledge of our form of government, our laws, and civil institutions. His learned biographer, however, can not shield himself behind this same plea of ignorance. As a citizen of the United States he must know that any conspiracy formed in this country to pro[Pg 350]cure the restoration of the pope's temporal power in defiance of the Constitutional Government of Italy and against the expressed will of the Italian people, would violate our neutrality laws as well as the law of nations, be offensive and insulting to the kingdom of Italy, a disregard of our treaty of amity with that power, and a flagrant cause of war. He does not seem moved, or willing to have the papal car arrested in its course, by any of these considerations, manifestly considering them as mere trifles when weighed in the scale against the triumph of the papacy over popular government. Ignorance of our institutions may excuse Leo XIII; but a citizen of the United States, whether native or naturalized, should understand better the duties and obligations of citizenship.

When the "Holy Alliance"—as explained in a former chapter—conspired to prevent the establishment of popular government upon the American Continent and in Europe, and to secure the universal triumph of monarchism, the President of the United States announced that if these efforts were extended to the Spanish American States, they would be forcibly resisted by the military power of the nation. It has hitherto been supposed that this met the full approval of our people, and that this approval has neither been withdrawn nor modified. Yet, in the very face of this, we now find ourselves confronted by the proposition—boldly and authoritatively made—that a portion of our citizens shall organize themselves into a party, under religious sanction, for the sole purpose of forcing an absolute temporal monarch upon the Italian people against their consent, thereby upturning the Constitutional Government they have established, and placing the United States on the side of the "Holy Alliance," and in direct opposition to the popular right of self-government! To say the least, this proposition insults the national honor; and, accompanied as it is by the assertion that it involves religious duty, and that everything contrary to it is heresy, it involves, upon our part, the obligation to guard well all the approaches to our popular[Pg 351] liberty. It puts the spirit of toleration to a hard trial when our "freedom of conscience" is made the shelter for papal or other intrigues against itself; and when it is availed of as the means of entangling us in alliance with the papal temporal power, which, during the thousand years of its existence—with exceptions too few to change the general rule—has maintained the absolutism of monarchy as a religious necessity, and has never ceased its demand for universal spiritual sovereignty and dominion. Is it to be forgotten that we are living in the nineteenth century, in the foremost rank among the advancing nations, and that there are obligations imposed upon us by that fact we have no right to disregard or disobey?

An incident is related by his biographer wherein Leo XIII indicated the imperiousness of the papacy and his own ideas of individual freedom, as well as that of the press. It exhibits him in the attitude of denying the right of individuals either to entertain or express opinions of their own concerning the papacy, its rights, duties, or prerogatives. He alone, among all mankind, is divinely endowed with this authority; and when his opinions are made known, "every knee shall bow" in humble acquiescence and submission. This is the kind of faith which prevailed in the Middle Ages, and to which we are invited by Leo XIII to return, in order to be rescued from the yawning gulf into which the modern nations are hastening as punishment divinely inflicted upon them for having impiously dared to separate the State from the Church! At the height of papal imperialism it was expressed by the saying: "When Rome has spoken, let all the world be silent."

When a little more than a year of the pontificate of Leo XIII had passed, "a Congress of Catholic writers and journalists" assembled in Rome. They are represented to have come "from all countries," with the desire "to take advice from the Holy Father on the line of conduct to be followed by the Catholic press in treating of politico-religious questions," including, of course, the restoration of the pope's[Pg 352] temporal power. Whilst, of course, other matters might have been included in the conference, that to which it had most direct reference was the course which the public press should pursue with regard to this great question, which absorbed all others; that is, whether the kingdom of Italy should be accepted as an accomplished fact, and the loss of the temporal power acquiesced in, or the power of the press should be employed to agitate the question of restoration, and to demand it as a right divinely established. Those present were not all united in opinion. Some "insisted on coming to terms with the revolution;" that is, upon not involving themselves in traitorous plottings against the Government of Italy. What was said by these we are not informed, but whatsoever it was, the pope must have been highly incensed, for it is related that he gave them "a severe rebuke;" in other words, that he indignantly disapproved of their suggestion. This was done by telling them they had no right to entertain individual opinions at all upon such a subject, but were bound to obey and execute his commands, without the least inquiry whether they approved or disapproved them in their own consciences; that is, that they were not allowed to think for themselves, but were bound to implicit and submissive obedience to him. He expressly told them they "must not presume to decide in their own name and by their own light public controversies of the highest importance bearing on the circumstances of the Apostolic See, nor seem to have opinions in opposition to what is required by the dignity and liberty of the Roman pontiff." The reason he assigned was the entire and absolute sovereignty which the temporal power, added to the spiritual, gives the pope over all Governments, peoples, and opinions, because "there is no power on earth which can pretend to be superior or equal to it in the legitimacy of the right and title from which it sprang."[200]

This was a "rebuke" indeed! These writers for the[Pg 353] press must have been seized with consternation at finding themselves in the presence of such a sovereign—so august and irresponsible. They, doubtless, supposed that duty to their own consciences and to the public enjoined upon them the obligation to deal fairly and frankly with their patrons, by laying before them such opinions as they honestly entertained, and such reasons in support of them as really existed in their own minds. These are the legitimate fruits of the liberty of the press, as is shown by the fact that in countries where this liberty is maintained, there is no class of people more independent than public journalists, or whose views, on that account, are more appreciated and influential. It is not stated that those who assembled in Rome, "from all countries," to seek advice from Leo XIII were of a different class. We are told only that to their inquiries he returned "a severe rebuke," and commanded them not to "presume to decide in their own right and by their own light" anything concerning the papacy, but to employ their journals in communicating to their readers the opinions expressed by himself in such manner as not "to seem to have opinions" of their own!

Here we are furnished by the present pope himself a practical example of what papal sovereignty and dominion mean; that is, the preservation to himself of the right of doing and saying whatsoever seems proper in his own eyes, and the denial of it to all others. Does anybody need to be told whether this is tolerance or intolerance; whether it means intellectual liberty or bondage, a free or a muzzled press? This absolute censorship over the press was intended to be universal; not only because, in his opinion, what he does and says must be so by virtue of the universality of his spiritual power, but because he was addressing public journalists "from all countries," who were expected to take home with them, and obey, his pontifical commands. Unquestionably he intended to avow a general principle, alike applicable everywhere and to all—whether in Europe or America—so that wheresoever a pen of the faithful shall be employed in conveying intelligence to the public, "bearing[Pg 354] on the circumstances" and condition of the papacy, there is but one possible legitimate use to which it can be applied; that is, to announce what the pope does as infallibly right, and what he says as infallibly true—censuring and condemning all else. He who uses it must not "presume to decide" anything or any question for himself, or appeal to his own conscience to ascertain its convictions, or "seem to have opinions" of his own; but must consider himself as surrounded by Egyptian darkness, until a ray of light shall break upon him from Rome. Until then he must remain deaf to any appeal for information, and "like a lamb, dumb before his shearer." This would undoubtedly give to the pope the liberty for which he is striving, but it would enslave all others brought within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction.

That which can not escape observation in these opinions of the pope, is the extent to which he carries the doctrine of papal infallibility. In common acceptation among the bulk of Christians who accept the teachings of the Church at Rome, that doctrine is regarded as applying only to matters concerning religious faith, and not to matters of fact. These differ from the Jesuits, who insist that it includes both faith and fact; that is, everything spiritual in its nature, and such temporals also as pertain to the spiritual. Leo XIII takes the Jesuit ground, for facts would be necessarily mingled with faith in the politico-religious matters submitted to him by the Congress of editors and writers. When, therefore, he commands that all he shall do and say concerning the restoration of the temporal power and the interests of the papacy, shall be accepted as infallibly right and true, not to be called in question by any, he conclusively shows the effect of his early Jesuit education and training. And since he expects all Roman Catholics to accept this doctrine as a necessary part of their faith, it is specially important for the people of the United States to understand the extent to which he expects it to be carried wheresoever his spiritual authority shall reach. We are plainly and expressly told that it in[Pg 355]cludes "politico-religious questions," and this is affirmed by him in the incident related by his biographer. The Jesuits themselves could say no more, and are careful not to say less in their definition of papal infallibility, for fear that some inquisitive minds might discover loopholes in the doctrine through which individual opinions might escape, and thus give approval to liberty of thought, of speech, and of the press, and to the forms of popular government which they underlie.

The pope does not intend to be misunderstood, and therefore takes pains not to leave the least doubt with regard to his opinions upon the great question of the right of a people to establish and maintain a government separated from and independent of the Church—as was done by the people of the United States when they formed their Government, founded upon their own will. He well knows that all governments of this character have been the result and are the fruits of the Reformation, and therefore, when he found it necessary for him to address a letter to the Archbishop of Cologne, touching affairs in Germany, he denounced them as "socialistic," or, in other words, as threatening to the peace and happiness of society. That he might not be misapprehended with regard to the character and forms of government he intended to condemn as of this character, he assigned "the sixteenth century" as the period when the seeds out of which they grew were sown, well knowing, as all intelligent people do, that the right of the people to govern themselves by laws reflective of their will then began to take root. That period is specially odious to him on account of the results foreshadowed by it, and because he sees in it the germs of those measures of public policy which have acquired such growth and strength as to undermine the pope's temporal power—without which the world seems to him to be given over to the dominion of evil. Intending therefore to show—what is manifestly a fixed purpose in his mind—what he regards as the source of the ills which threaten to overwhelm modern society with ruin, he availed himself[Pg 356] of the occasion of his episcopal letter to the Archbishop of Cologne to say: "Hence, an impious thing never dreamed of even by the old pagans, States were formed without any regard to God or to the order by him established. It was given as a dictate of truth that public authority derives from God neither its origin, nor its majesty, nor its power to command—all that coming, on the contrary, from the multitude; and that the people, deeming themselves free from all divine sanctions, consented only to be ruled by such laws as they chose to enact." And following these opinions to their logical consequences, he pictures the condition into which society has been thrown by such institutions as the people have created for themselves by separating Church and State—as in the United States. He thus draws the sad and deplorable picture: "By spreading such doctrines far and wide, such an unbridled licentiousness of thought and action was begotten everywhere, that it is no wonder if men of the lower classes, disgusted with their poverty-stricken homes and their dismal workshops, are filled with an inordinate desire to rush upon the homes and the fortunes of the wealthy; no wonder is it that tranquillity is banished from all public and private life, and that the human race seems hurried onward to ruin."[201]

In contemplating the picture of modern prosperity and progress—that which is to be found mainly, if not only, where monarchs have been dispensed with or their hands tied by constitutional checks and guards—he imagines nothing discernible but "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action"—nothing but desolation, decay, ruin, death! In this way he accounts for his anxiety to regain the temporal power which the Italian people took away from Pius IX, so that by obtaining perfect liberty for himself as both a spiritual and a temporal monarch, he may disperse his ecclesiastical forces throughout the world, and so reform it as to get rid entirely of that "impious thing" called popular government, and teach the people that by assuming to make their[Pg 357] own laws they have reached the borders of a gulf from which the papal arm alone can rescue them. Are these utterances of Leo XIII to be accepted as infallibly true, as he required those to be which he made to the public journalists who went all the way to Rome to ask his advice? In both cases the questions involved are politico-religious, and as he commanded the latter to have no opinions of their own—nor seem to have any—even Jesuit ingenuity and sophistry can discover no distinction between them. In the one case as in the other his meaning is clear and unmistakable—that these matters are all within his spiritual jurisdiction, and that whatsoever he has said or may hereafter say concerning them must be accepted as expressing the will of God. This conclusion can not be escaped, nor does he intend that it shall be; for instead of leaving his meaning to be discovered by reading between the lines, it is plain, palpable, and distinct. His eloquent biographer does not mistake him. When the same questions were discussed by him in an encyclical, and the same arguments substantially repeated, this eminent divine rapturously affirms that his utterances "were like the second promulgation of the law on which rest the foundations of the moral world."[202]

It thus appears, plainly and palpably, that the modern nations are confronted by the fact that the pope has denounced the making of laws by the people—that is, self-government—as an "impious thing," which inevitably leads to "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action," and is hurrying the human race "onward to its ruin,"[203] and that, with his own sanction and pontifical approval, the faithful[Pg 358] are instructed to liken his commands upon this and other kindred subjects to the promulgation of the law to Moses in the mount! What more important and interesting question could be submitted to the modern progressive nations, and especially to the United States, than this? It is an arraignment of the chief fundamental principle of our civil institutions—a proposition to remove the corner-stone upon which our national edifice is resting. Our fathers separated Church and State deliberately and wisely, and more than a century of experience has assured to us a degree of prosperity unsurpassed anywhere in the world. Yet the pope—considering this the triumph of evil, of the State over the Church, and of Belial over Christ—invites us to come within the circle of his spiritual jurisdiction, so that every law of the people conflicting with the Canon law of the Roman Church shall be blotted from our statute-books, and our limbs bound with chains forged in papal workshops. If he could achieve this result, he would still admit our right to manage such of our affairs as did not conflict with the interests and policy of the Church over which he presides; but such as did, he would assert the spiritual and divine power to regulate himself. He would be content that we should carry on our industrial pursuits, sow and harvest our grain, build our houses and barns, construct our roads, and pursue our ordinary occupations in peace. But he would add tithes to our taxes, deny the right of civil marriage, put a stop to the erection of Protestant churches, plant his pontifical foot upon every form of dissenting worship, and demand in the name of religion that he should be recognized as both a spiritual and temporal monarch over every foot of soil set apart for the uses of the Roman Church, and over every devotee of that Church, in so far as its interests and necessities should require. And to make it sure that all these things should become lasting and perpetual, he would close all our school-houses, and turn all our teachers adrift, so that the minds of the pupils should be molded by Jesuit influence—as his own was—in order that the blessed period of the Middle Ages should be[Pg 359] revived, and all memory of the Reformation be blotted out forever.

The pope's biographer, in order to show his readiness for the part he has to play in this revolution in our affairs, takes occasion to disavow and repudiate, in explicit terms, the doctrine of the natural equality of mankind as set forth in our Declaration of Independence—seeming to suppose that when the proper time shall arrive some modern pope may be found who will declare that immortal instrument null and void, as Innocent III did the Magna Charta of England. He makes his disavowal in these words: "The inequality which exists among men living in society arises from nature and its Author, just as from Him comes in the magistrate the right to rule, and in the subject the duty to obey."[204]

It is not to be supposed that this sounds well in any American ears. The author takes advantage of the general sentiment that all things have their source in God as their author, and assumes from this that because men are differently endowed by nature, intellectually and physically, they are therefore, by the laws of nature, politically divided into a superior and inferior class—the former to rule, and the latter to obey. This is the papal theory of society and government; but, from the standpoint of modern advancement, it will readily be seen that it contains two capital errors: it mistakes social for political inequality, and perpetuates the power to rule in one class, and the obligation to obey in the other, leaving the latter no chance of changing its condition of inferiority and submissiveness. It fails to observe that what men do in social intercourse is one thing, and concerns themselves and immediate associates only; whereas, what they shall do in civil and political intercourse is another thing, and concerns the community of which they are members. It does not follow, because they do not in their intercourse with each other enjoy social equality, that they should not share alike in political equality, in order thereby to pro[Pg 360]mote the welfare of all. The contrary is far more reasonable and just—that civil and political equality shall prevail, in order that the whole of society may be brought, as nearly as possible, to the common ground of social equality; that is, that the opportunities for equality should be open to all. This is the progressive theory of government. But the papal and retrogressive theory, as set forth by Leo XIII and his biographer, is opposed to this, for the reason alleged by the latter that God and nature established "inequality," in order that the right of the superior class to govern, and the obligation of the inferior class to obey, shall remain perpetual. This fallacy was successfully maintained during the Middle Ages, and so long as Church and State remained united, because monarchism possessed sufficient power to enable the ruling class to hold the multitude in inferiority. But as the example of Christ, during his humanity, demonstrated that men could lead pious and Christian lives without regard to the character of the governments which ruled over them; that, in fact, civil governments can have no rightful authority over internal religious convictions—the influence of that example opened, through the Reformation, the way to such enlightenment as pointed out the necessity for return to primitive Christianity, in order to fit communities, organized as States, for equality of rights under governments of their own in so far as all things pertaining to their general welfare were concerned. This equality is not confined to aggregated communities alone, but extends to the individuals composing them in all matters not relating to the good of the whole. Among these, made prominently conspicuous under the civil institutions of the United States, is the natural right of each individual to worship God as his own conscience shall dictate, without interference from any quarter, so that by enlightenment he may realize the full sense of his own personality, and thereby increase his ability to add to the common stock of prosperity. Experience has shown that this could be accomplished in no other way than by disuniting Church and State; and there[Pg 361]fore we, in this country, are well assured that the framers of our Government acted wisely in doing this, by assigning to the former the spiritual, and to the latter the temporal sphere, as was the case during the lives of Christ and the apostles. In furtherance of this end it became necessary that our Declaration of Independence should establish the proposition, as a fundamental principle, that all men are entitled, by the law of nature, to perfect equality of rights, and while our sense of security may lead us to bear with some degree of patience the papal censure of this principle, they are mistaken who argue therefrom that we can be persuaded, upon any conditions, to exchange that principle for one involving civil and political inequality, which the papacy recommends to us as alone in conformity to the divine law as the pope interprets it.

When the pope tells us that "unbridled licentiousness of thought and action" results from governments by the people, and that thereby "tranquillity is banished from all public and private life," and "the human race seems hurried on to ruin," he manifestly allows his zeal to outstrip his discretion. This arises out of his position, as well as the desire to regain the temporal power lost by his predecessor. He overlooks the fact that the most prosperous among existing nations are those where Church and State have been separated, and clings to the idea that he can not be reconciled to this prosperity without violating the divine command. One reason he assigns for this belief is that the "licentiousness of thought and action" which he considers the outgrowth of civil institutions responsive to the will of the people—where Church and State are separated—has excited the "lower classes" by the "inordinate desire to rush upon the homes and the fortunes of the wealthy." He certainly did not desire to be understood as intending to incite these "lower classes" into anarchy; but careful reflection would have enabled him to see that by announcing to them that those who have separated Church and State, and constructed popular governments, have sinned by breaking the divine law, he furnished to these[Pg 362] "lower classes" who are obedient to his teaching, an argument by which many of them would readily justify themselves for rushing "upon the homes and fortunes of the wealthy." If disobedience to the papal decrees is heresy, as multitudes of popes and ecclesiastics have declared; if heresy may be lawfully suppressed by the extermination of heretics, as Innocent III instructed the faithful, and the Council of Constance decreed; if dissension from the faith of the Roman Church has the curse of God resting upon it, as Leo XIII has himself affirmed, there are those of these "lower classes" ready to become the avengers of the divine wrath by rushing "upon the homes and fortunes of the wealthy," under the pretext that they are wrongfully deprived of their rightful share of property, which God designed for the common uses of mankind. It is said that there are bandits not far from Rome who follow the capture of their victims by crossing themselves before the image of Mary; and while Leo XIII has no sympathy with these, and would readily aid in punishing them as outlaws, yet he can not fail to realize, in his calmer moments, that when he expresses "no wonder" at their acts of outlawry, because they are perpetrated upon those who are guilty of "unbridled licentiousness" and the sin of heresy, he suggests to them a pretext of which they are not slow to avail themselves. Manifestly he has suffered himself—like many other good and Christian men—to go too far.

The danger lies in the excess into which the pope and others who are intent upon the restoration of his temporal power, are betrayed by the peculiar conditions surrounding them. There can be no denial of the fact that this is a politico-religious question, and there is no attempt to deny it. Politically it involves the conversion of the pope into a king over the Italian people, not only without their consent, but against their protest. There can be no question more important to any people than this; for it directly involves their right to be free, independent, and self-governing. But it is made to assume a religious aspect by reason of the fact that[Pg 363] the pope and his followers assume it to be a necessary part of the divine plan that the head of the Church shall be—whether the people of Italy consent or not—an absolute temporal monarch in Rome. This they make an essential part of religious belief, and everything contrary to it heretical. Consequently, whatsoever institutions recognize the right of the people to make their own laws and select their own agents to administer them, are placed under the ban of the papacy. This brings the papacy in conflict with all the modern nations which have separated the State from the Church; and as the pope can not maintain the papal theory without arraigning them as violators of the divine law, he can not avoid excesses without seeming to abandon, in some degree, his claim to temporal power. This politico-religion directly assails one of the fundamental principles of our Government, and the effort to induce any part of our population to accept it as religious faith, necessarily antagonizes the Government itself; for, although the question primarily and practically concerns the Italian people alone, the growth of this sentiment in this country could have no other tendency than to threaten our popular institutions and the right of self-government with ultimate overthrow. In the very face of this, the biographer of Leo XIII, and undoubtedly reflecting his sentiments, ventures to refer to the present Constitutional Government of Italy, in these words: "The occupation of Rome is an international wrong, which all Catholics are bound to denounce and oppose until it is done away with."[205]

This language is express, direct, emphatic. There is not the least obscurity about its meaning; and having the approval of the pope and of his American cardinal, together with his official blessing, it is undoubtedly intended to instruct every Roman Catholic in the United States that he shall treat the loss of the temporal power as an international question; and that the whole body of the faithful shall organ[Pg 364]ize themselves into a politico-religious party, to bring the Government to interfere for its restoration; and not to cease the agitation, no matter what consequences shall follow, until this shall be accomplished. This is a serious matter—too serious to be passed by idly or inconsiderately. The restoration of the pope's temporal power is exclusively a foreign question, because it involves alone the question how a foreign people shall govern their own domestic affairs; whether, in other words, they shall govern themselves or have a king forced upon them, with absolute imperial power in his hands, to govern them at his own will and without their consent, as their ancestors were governed during the Middle Ages, and themselves also, until, imitating the example set them by the people of the United States, they grasped the scepter of government in their own hands by a patriotic and successful revolution. The Government of the United States has neither the right nor the power to interfere, any more than it has the right and power to dictate the successor to the throne of England upon the death of Queen Victoria, or who shall be the pope of Rome when Leo XIII shall die. Besides, by the separation of Church and State, this country can not have, by legal sanction, any politico-religious questions to agitate and disturb the nation, and put its peace in peril. This had been sufficiently done throughout the world before our institutions were formed, and to guard against its repetition here, our fathers properly and wisely excluded all such matters from the domain of American politics. The attempt to introduce them now can have but one meaning—the desire to unsettle the work so wisely done and thus far so patriotically maintained.

We must not permit the pope or his apologists to mislead us by the pretense that they do not propose to interfere with purely political questions, as they understand them. If deceived themselves upon this point, we should be careful not to be deceived by them; for it requires but little intelligence to foresee the evil consequences that would inevitably follow the introduction of politico-religious questions among us, espe[Pg 365]cially such as tend to involve us in dangerous controversy with a foreign and friendly power. It would, beyond any reasonable doubt, lead to the formation of a politico-religious party, and incite tremendous and threatening commotion. The people would then be required to re-decide questions long since settled, as they supposed, finally. Such a controversy could have but one end, which might, however, have to be reached through turmoil and strife, if not tribulation; for the people would not be likely to decide themselves incompetent for self-government, or to acquiesce in the pope's jurisdiction over the fundamental principles of their Government, or to see their own authority so narrowed as to embrace only the administration of local and inferior affairs. If this battle is to be now fought, it has not been invited by the people of the United States. They are satisfied with the fundamental principles of their institutions as they are, and those will find themselves mistaken who shall endeavor to make their tolerance the fulcrum upon which the papal lever may rest, in order that they may be carried back to those "blessed ages" when unquestioning obedience to the pope, upon whatsoever subject he chose to embrace within his spiritual jurisdiction, was considered the highest duty of citizenship and the only road to heaven.

FOOTNOTES:

[199] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 365-366.

[200] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 368.

[201] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 371 to 374.

[202] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 377.

[203] The preface to the Life of Leo XIII is dated at Rome, where the work was submitted to him. His cardinal vicar, in a letter to the publishers, says it had "the encouragement, the approbation, and the blessing of his holiness," and was prepared "from authentic and authorized documents, with the concurrence and the direction of persons high-placed near the sovereign pontiff." It has also the special approval of Cardinal Gibbons. See introductory letters.

[204] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 378.

[205] O'Reilly, p. 471.

No injustice should be done to Leo XIII. If his position as the official head of a great Church were not sufficient to shield him against unfairness, his eminent Christian virtues should do so. Before his election to the pontificate he had acquired the reputation of being conspicuously great. He was, undoubtedly, the ablest defender of the prerogative rights of the papacy among the entire body of cardinals; and this distinction was well deserved. His arguments were then addressed mainly to ecclesiastics, and were designed to encourage them in their efforts to extinguish the revolutionary spirit which pervaded the Roman Catholic populations of Europe.

Now that he has become pope, the circle of his influence is enlarged so that it reaches the whole body of the Church of Rome through the medium of his hierarchy and priesthood; of whom it may rightfully be said, without intending offense, that they have no other spiritual work to do but what he assigns to them. That they may be fitted for this they have been deprived of all share in the responsibilities which pertain to the conduct of human affairs—all participation in the active operations of society and all those domestic associations which excite generous and kindly emotions and give to life its greatest charm. They are, consequently, molded by him into a compact organization, held in cohesion by the power of a common purpose, with the special design of assailing, in every part of the world, whatsoever he shall decide to be under the ban of his pontifical displeasure. With such a force at his command—unitedly resisting what he shall direct them to resist, and defending[Pg 367] what he shall direct them to defend—he constitutes such a power in the presence of the nations as exists nowhere else. Reaching, therefore, vaster multitudes of people, and possessing more potential influence than any other man in the world, nothing should be permitted to impair our obligation to become acquainted with his present pontifical opinions and purposes, as well as with the habits of thought which prepared him for his present eminent position. It can not be rightfully complained that his pontifical opinions are interpreted in the light of those previously entertained and expressed by him—more especially since his biographer has made such liberal use of them to prove his fitness to become the potential head of the Christian world.

While cardinal, he availed himself of frequent opportunities to denounce the Italian Revolution as sinful, and supported all the measures designed to suppress it. He aided Pius IX by his advice and counsel, and defended the entire series of his pontifical measures—condemning as heresy every professed form of Christianity that did not recognize the obligation of obedience to the pope as a divinely-appointed temporal sovereign. He regarded all other Churches besides the Roman as impiously pretentious—having no legitimate right to exist—and consequently as under the Divine displeasure. As he considered unity of Christian faith essential to the unity of the Church, and the temporal dominion of the pope as absolutely necessary to both, he employed much of his time as cardinal in supplying the clergy of Perugia with arguments against the revolution, and in pointing out both its spiritual and temporal consequences. As part of his pastoral work he insisted that the destruction of the temporal power of the pope would necessarily and inevitably lead to infidelity and atheism, because it would open the door to the toleration of other religions besides the Roman. This, in his opinion, would inaugurate the reign of "irreligion and libertinism," for the reason that there was no middle state between obedience to the pope as an absolute temporal monarch, with complete authority over the faith and consciences[Pg 368] of his subjects, and the ruin of society. He divided society into two classes: one faithful to Christ, and therefore obedient to the pope; and the other representing Belial—that is, Satan—because of the refusal of that obedience. Upon all these points his meaning was plainly expressed in eloquent and faultless style.

Although differing from Pius IX with regard to the duration of the temporal power—fixing it at "eleven centuries," and not as obtained at the fall of the Roman Empire, several hundred years previously—he, nevertheless, considers it a "divine institution," conferring upon the pope the "supreme and governing power in spirituals." Before explaining, however, what he intends by "spirituals," he insists that whatsoever they are, they can not become subject to any human interference or limitation in any part of the world, but must be everywhere complete and plenary. Upon this point his biographer assumes to assist him, by interjecting between his sentences, as a key to his meaning, the idea that the temporal power is "incarnate in a manner in the Roman pontiff;" that is, that in some strangely mysterious way, it so permeates the pope as to be made providentially inseparable from his personal as well as official existence! But, seeming not to realize the ridiculousness of his bold hyperbole, he omits to explain why this same power was not incarnate in the popes before they placed crowns upon their own heads at the fall of the Roman Empire. Perhaps he imagined that the incarnate principle was in its germ during the first ages of the Church, and that the process of its development into absolute imperialism was not complete until the peaceful alliance between the Eastern and the Western Christians was sundered by the invading armies of Pepin and Charlemagne, when these sovereigns imparted a portion of their royal prerogatives to the popes and protected them by military force. Whatsoever meaning may have been intended, it is manifestly designed to convey and enforce the sentiment as part of the doctrinal faith of the Church, that because the temporal power "maintains in their unity and[Pg 369] integrity the Church and religion," therefore it is divine, and confers superhuman authority upon the pope over the sentiments, opinions, and conduct of mankind. "Besides," said Leo XIII, while yet Cardinal Pecci, "can it be intelligible that the living interpreter of the divine law and will should be placed under the jurisdiction of the civil authority, which itself derives its own strength and authority from the same will and law?" To this question he attempts no specific answer, but his meaning was well understood by those to whom it was addressed; that is, by the ecclesiastics whose minds had been molded by the same training as his own. It is this: That as the authority of the pope and that of the State are both derived from the same divine law, and as the pope alone is the "living interpreter" of that law, therefore the State must accept and obey what he shall declare as "the voice of God." Continuing, however, he embraces this same meaning in equally expressive terms. Happiness in this life he considers the only means of procuring higher happiness hereafter, and therefore the pope as "high priest" has "received from Christ the mission of guiding humanity toward the everlasting felicity;" that is, there is no other true religion than that announced and maintained by the pope; that all other forms are false and heretical; and that those who do not profess it will, in the great and unknown future, be cast into utter darkness, to weep and wail and gnash their teeth forever. And then, basing his conclusion upon this hypothesis, he breaks out in this ejaculation: "See, then, what upsetting of ideas it would be to make the high priest of the Catholic Church, the Roman pontiff, the subject of any earthly power;" as if God had so endowed all the popes—even Alexander VI (!)—with the faculty of inerrancy, that they alone, of all the ages, have had the mysteries of nature and revelation revealed to them! He never permits this idea of universal papal sovereignty to escape him without so expressing its meaning as to show that wheresoever or into whatsoever country he shall assert it, it can not become subject to any other law than that which the pope himself[Pg 370] shall prescribe. It requires but little scrutiny to see that what he intends is, that when the pope sends his ecclesiastical representatives into any part of the world, his instructions must be to them a code of laws which they must obey at every hazard, although it may become necessary to violate whatsoever conflicting laws the civil authorities may enact. If the people of the United States were to submit to this, from the moment they should do so they would cease to exist as an independent nation, and their progressive prosperity would wither and die under the spiritual tyranny of papal Rome, as other republics have hitherto withered and died under the temporal tyranny of imperial Rome. And thus that ancient city which, by its iniquities, became the Babylon of the apostolic times, would again acquire the power to rebuild by unrewarded labor the monuments upon her seven hills, and to exult at the decay of the present progressive nations, as her great prototype did when she looked out upon the miserable but obedient populations who swarmed throughout the valleys of the Tiber.

Leo XIII lays down his premise with such assumed authority as not to admit of challenge, and logically argues from it certain satisfactory conclusions, without pausing to inquire whether the premise itself is true or false. In this respect he imitates some logicians who seem not to realize the difference between assumption and proof. For example, he insists that Christ established an independent Church and a dependent State, so that the former does not exist in the latter, but the latter must exist in the former, in its condition of dependence. He overlooks the fact that States existed before the Church, and that instead of interfering with their temporal affairs Christ paid tribute to them, and recognized the independence of each in its own proper sphere—the one spiritual and the other temporal. The spiritual obedience he exacted was to the divine law, in order to promote the spiritual welfare of individuals and consequently of society; the temporal obedience was to make secure the political rights of citizenship, including those of person and[Pg 371] property. He did not consider States as capable of rewards and punishment in another life, but as mere aggregated communities who could bring them to an end by abandoning their territories. Therefore, he left the State to its own temporal government, independently of the Church, and not only obeyed its laws himself, but enjoined the obligation of the same obedience upon his disciples and followers; that is, of rendering "unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." He gave equal independence to the Church, so that by administering to the spiritual welfare of individuals the temporal welfare of the State would be advanced and the common prosperity the better secured. And thus, by also rendering "unto God the things that are God's," the general welfare of the State would rest upon firmer foundations.

History, during all the ages since Christ, well attests the character of his plan. For more than five hundred years the Church and the State acted independently of each other, neither encroaching upon the sphere of the other, and Christianity progressed until paganism disappeared before it. When the ambitious popes brought on a conflict that separated the Western from the Eastern Christians, and accepted the crown of temporal dominion from Pepin and Charlemagne in consideration of the pontifical ratification of the former's treason to France, the world was plunged into the darkness and stupor of the Middle Ages, and they became enabled to employ their power of absolute monarchism to compel obedience from the State to the Church and the Inquisition, to produce unity of religious faith. When the cloud of popular ignorance became so dense as to be scarcely penetrable, and such popes as Alexander VI could assert their own infallibility with impudent impunity, and burn at the stake those who denied it, the necessity for reform became so urgent that the period of the Reformation was ushered in with such violence that the papacy, aided by the Jesuits, was powerless to arrest it. And when the Reformation gave birth to Protestantism, and enabled it to culminate, through the influence of free religious thought, in the civil institu[Pg 372]tions of the United States, such impetus was given to the liberalizing spirit of progress that monarchism in both Church and State would be hastened to its final decay, were it not that Leo XIII has thrown the great weight of his Christian character into the scale in favor of it and against the progressive spirit which has advanced the world to its present condition of prosperity and happiness. Those who advise us to turn back from this prosperity and happiness toward the Middle Ages, under the pretense that they are produced by the triumph of irreligion and licentiousness over Christianity, are, to say the least, counselors of evil.

Leo XIII reasons within a narrow circle; or, rather, within a number of circles, reaching always the same conclusion, that whatsoever is adverse to the papacy must be opposed until it is put out of the way. His spiritual power must be as comprehensive as he desires to make it—including whatsoever of temporals he shall decide necessary to its free exercise, or to the interests of the Church; and within this circle his jurisdiction must be so full, complete, and independent, that neither Governments nor communities nor individuals can place any limitation upon it, or violate the rules and principles he shall prescribe, without heresy. He is always explicit upon questions concerning the relations between the pope and Governments—never losing sight of the idea that he must be absolutely independent of them; so much so that while they must obey him when he shall think proper, in behalf of the Church and religion, to command their obedience, he shall be under no obligation to obey any of their laws which he shall consider in conflict with his pontifical plans or the interests of the Church. "He must be free," he says, "to communicate without impediment with bishops, sovereigns, subjects, in order that his word, the organ and expression of the divine will, may have a free course all over the earth, and be there canonically announced." Here, again, he gives prominence to the idea that he is the only interpreter of the divine will, coupling with it the additional one, that not only bishops, but sovereigns and peoples every[Pg 373]where, must recognize and obey it; for obedience is necessarily implied, inasmuch as his commands would not have "free course" without it. No Government must possess the power to prohibit this, because he acts canonically; that is, his decrees, being an embodiment of the divine will, become part of the Canon law, which, having thus the stamp of divinity upon it, must be universally recognized and obeyed, no matter what Governments may do or say to the contrary. Practically it is the same as if he had said that the laws of all the Governments, touching matters embraced within his pontifical jurisdiction, must give way to the Canon law, because they are human and it is divine.

There are many methods of illustrating the effect of this papal doctrine which will occur to intelligent minds; but at this point one is sufficient. In the United States we have separated Church and State, and based our civil government upon the principle of toleration for differences of religious faith. But by papal decrees and the Canon law all this is declared to be heresy, and placed under the pontifical ban. Hence, the sovereign spiritual power claimed by Leo XIII, as pope, gives him the divine right, in the face of all our Constitutions, National and State, to anathematize the heretical form of our institutions, and to impose upon all who recognize obedience to him the obligation to oppose this heresy, and to eradicate it whensoever it is expedient to undertake it. Involved in this there is, also, the claim of additional power to reconstruct our Government so as to unite Church and State, and subordinate the latter to the former, by putting an end to all religious differences, and establishing the religion of the pope—whatever that is or may be—as the national religion.

But Cardinal Pecci—now Leo XIII—expressed himself more plainly and emphatically upon these points, in assigning the reasons why the pope should possess, and exercise throughout the world, this extraordinary spiritual sovereignty. It is necessary, he said, in order that the pope may be empowered "to keep off schism; to prevent the spread of pub[Pg 374]lic heresies; to decide religious disputes; to speak freely to rulers and peoples; to send nuncios and ambassadors; to conclude concordats; to employ censures; to regulate, in fact, the consciences of two hundred millions of Catholics scattered all over the earth; to preserve inviolate dogmas and morals; to receive appeals from all parts of the Christian world; to judge the causes thus submitted; to enforce the execution of the sentences pronounced; to fulfill, in one word, all his duties, and to maintain all the sacred rights of his primacy."

Having thus enumerated these extraordinary powers of the pope—such as exist nowhere else in the world—he goes a step further by defining the relations between the papacy and those Governments and peoples that have taken away, or refused to recognize, the existence of these powers. In this he refers, primarily, to the kingdom of Italy, which had committed the offense of abolishing the temporal power of the pope and separated Church and State; and, secondarily, to all other Governments throughout the world where the union between Church and State is forbidden; that is, where Governments of, and for, and by the people have been established. "Here, then," says he, "is what they are aiming at by taking from the pope his temporal power: they mean to render it impossible for him to exercise his spiritual power." This goes to the bottom of the question, and states plainly the idea present in his mind; that is, that the spiritual power, being superior to the temporal, necessarily includes it to the extent he shall think proper to assert—limited only by his pontifical discretion—so that the latter must to that extent be kept in subordination to the former, and obey its commands. For example, the pope considers it his duty to send an army of ecclesiastics to all parts of the world, and to exact from them implicit obedience to himself, so that wheresoever they shall find temporal laws forbidding them to perform their spiritual functions as he shall define them, he and they must be endowed with sufficient spiritual power to enable them to disobey those laws and set them aside when it[Pg 375] becomes expedient to do so. He assumes that "every Catholic"—no matter where he is—accepts this as part of his religious faith, being instructed that the pope must possess such power over both spirituals and temporals as shall make him independent of every Government upon earth in all such matters as he shall declare to be within his spiritual jurisdiction. Quoting some obscure "lodge of Carbonarism in Italy," in order to show that where the pope does not possess the power he claims for him, irreligion, infidelity, and immorality must, of necessity, prevail, he declares that "it is no longer matter of policy; it is matter of conscience" to remove out of the way all impediments to papal supremacy, and that every Christian must stand by the pope in order to put down the enemies of religion, who are designated by him to be those who have taken away from the pope or deny to him any or all of the above enumerated powers.

He does not fail to make his denunciation as comprehensive and sweeping as possible, by characterizing as "irreligion and libertinism" the progressive advancement of modern nations, which prevails where Church and State have been separated. He attaches this character to all these, because, according to him, they are not faithful to Christ, or the Church, or the pope. He denounces the revolution in Italy as "the result of conspiracy, deception, injustice, and sacrilege," merely because it abolished the temporal power of the pope, without the least impairment of any single principle of religious faith that can be traced back to Christ, to the apostles, or to the primitive Christians. What seemed to him to be one of its deplorable and most odious consequences was the loss of power by the pope in consequence of the provision which placed the clergy upon equality with other citizens in regard to civil duties and rights, and made them responsible to the laws of the State, precisely as they are in the United States. This is a point upon which neither the pope nor the clergy will compromise, otherwise than upon compulsion. With them there is no heresy more flagrant than compelling the clergy to comply with any law[Pg 376] requiring them to do what the pope forbids as prejudicial to the Church. The right of the pope to require of them disobedience to any such law, and their right to disobey it, is what they call independence, which, according to them, can not be impaired without violating the divine law. They submit to this in the United States, and wheresoever Church and State are separated, but always with the unchangeable purpose of securing, in the end, complete triumph for the law of the Church over that of the State. Hence, when, as the result of the revolution, the law of Umbria placed the clergy upon an equality with other citizens, and made them responsible to the laws of the State, as they now are in the United States, it was denounced by the present occupant of the papal chair as a sacrilegious violation of the divine law. Is this requirement any less "sacrilege" in the United States than in Umbria? The degrees of latitude and longitude do not vary the meaning of the divine law; but the difference in conditions may account for simulated acquiescence in the one case and open protest in the other.

He saw also, in the "diffusion of pestilential books, of erroneous doctrines, and heterodox teachings" another cause for the pontifical curse, inasmuch as it impaired the power of the pope to place restrictions upon the freedom of the press, which has opened the way to liberalism and made the crowns of kings insecure. But that which he condemned more than all, and considered the source of innumerable ills, was the fact that Church and State were separated, and each confined to its own distinct and independent sphere. Referring to the law of Umbria which required the clergy to accept this—as the clergy in the United States are required to accept it—he said: "They are offered, as the basis of reconciliation, to accept the condemned and false system of the separation of Church and State, which, being equivalent to divorcing the State from the Church, would force Catholic society to free itself from all religious influence." He manifestly intended to impress the minds of all who acknowledged obedience to the pope, whether in Europe, the United States,[Pg 377] or elsewhere, with the sentiment that the only true religion in the world required, as a matter of faith, that Church and State should be united, with the latter subordinate to the former in whatsoever concerns faith and morals, and that where they have been separated their union should be restored. Having thus made this the solemn religious duty of "every Catholic" throughout the world, he has thereby placed himself, and is preparing them to be placed when the proper time shall arrive, in direct hostility to the principles which prevail in all modern liberal Governments, including that of the United States.[206]

In all this there is no disguise—nothing equivocal. Nor is there any reason why there should have been, inasmuch as these admonitions were addressed to a population reared and educated in the faith of the Church at Rome, for centuries obedient to the commands of the pope and his clergy, and in whose minds there was supposed to linger such sentiments of reverence for the papacy as would, if vigorously appealed to, stimulate them to demand the restoration of the temporal power. Therefore, the foremost man among the clergy—he whose eloquence stirred the heart and whose virtues were universally acknowledged—was chosen as the champion of the papal cause. But for events which have subsequently occurred—more especially his election to the pontificate—and the tolerant spirit which pervades our institutions, it is not probable they would ever have reached the people of the United States. And even now, since they have done so in the pope's biography, there are scarcely five out of every hundred thousand of our population who will ever read them, or, if they do, will turn aside from the multitude of their pursuits to investigate and scan them closely enough to discover their true meaning, plainly and fairly as it is expressed. By such investigation and discovery they would see that Leo XIII considers the following propositions irrevocably settled as religious dogmas: That God provided for the[Pg 378] Italian people a form of civil government subject to the absolute dominion of the pope, as the only one that can be religiously tolerated; that revolution to set it aside and establish a popular and constitutional form of government in its place, violates the law of God, and is heresy; that self-government by the people is an abomination which can never obtain the sanction and approbation of the papacy; and that the people of Italy, in order to remain faithful to the Church, should continue forever obedient subjects of this imperial absolutism, no matter how severe its oppressions may become, or how much they may desire to rid themselves and their children of it. And it will be observed that the condition of Italy, in rebellion against the temporal absolutism of the pope, serves him to illustrate the principle which lies at the bottom of all his reasoning; that as God governs the world in equity, and has provided this imperial absolutism for that purpose, with the pope to preside over all that is spiritual and whatsoever temporals shall involve spirituals, therefore all other forms of government are founded upon "irreligion and libertinism," especially such as make the whole body of the people the source of civil power.

The integrity of Leo XIII is not questioned by any one. But he might be liable to the suspicion of insincerity if he had been personally enabled to contrast the present improved condition of the people of the United States, which has been reached within little more than a century of time, with that of the peoples who have for more than twelve hundred years been compelled to submit to the authority and spiritual dominion of the papacy. At all events, it is difficult, for minds impressed by the influences of free popular government, to appreciate either the force or merits of his arguments, when he attempts to make the temporal indispensable to the spiritual power, and asserts the divine right to maintain it when possessed, and the duty of acquiring it when not possessed, as equally indispensable parts of religious faith. The fact that the Italian people—otherwise devoted to the Church of Rome—repudiated this doctrine both po[Pg 379]litically and religiously, should have impressed his mind with its want of adaptability to the present condition of the world, distinguished as it is either by some form of progress or the popular desire for it among all the nations. Yet, instead of coming to some terms with this progressive spirit among the Italians—which needed only acquiescence in the loss of the temporal power—he was constrained by the united pledge of the College of Cardinals, at the time of his election, to persist in the protesting and aggressive policy of his immediate predecessor. And as he could not turn back without an entire abandonment of the temporal power, he has been likewise constrained to define the extent to which this power, if restored, must be recognized, as a matter of religious faith, beyond Rome and the States of the Church. Without this, the faithful would have been left to suppose that the restoration was designed only to force an absolute temporal monarch upon the people of Italy without their consent, and, therefore, that no religious motive for it existed. Consequently he defined the universal faith to be that, by the restoration of the temporal power, the pope would become again so absolutely sovereign and independent of all Governments that he could not "be placed under the jurisdiction of the civil authority" anywhere in the world, so that whatsoever he shall command in his "mission of guiding humanity," he must be obeyed, no matter what any civil authority may provide to the contrary; that is, that the laws of every State, in conflict with such religious dogmas as he shall announce, must become void and inoperative in so far as they may impede the measures directed by him. Entering upon particulars, he does not shrink from the responsibility of declaring, as we have seen, that the pope must have power to prevent schism and heresy, which includes the means necessary to suppress them; that is, to put an end to Protestantism and all that it has produced. He alone must decide "religious disputes," and every question involving dogmas and morality, and what he shall determine concerning all these must direct and guide the consciences of[Pg 380] all "the faithful" throughout the world. And he shall have the right "to enforce the execution" of whatsoever judgment he shall pronounce, no matter whether against Governments, communities, or individuals. The word "enforce" is his own, evidently employed with a full understanding of its import; for the completeness of his style shows that it is not his habit to waste words, or to use them without deliberation. He could not have intended a resort to force as a primary remedy against heresy, but probably considers it justifiable when circumstances render it necessary, as in the cases of rebellious and obdurate heretics whose defiance of papal authority becomes flagrant. It is desirable, however, to follow him further, in order to become entirely familiar with the practical working of his doctrines, as he himself applied them to the state of affairs with which he was directly concerned, in carrying on the battle with "irreligion" and the revolution.

When the Archbishops and Bishops of Umbria deemed it proper to protest to the Piedmontese Government against its infringement of papal rights, Cardinal Pecci was chosen by them as specially fitted for that delicate and important work. As the population of Piedmont were Roman Catholic, and there had been no attempt on the part of the Government to interfere with what they considered the established faith of the Church upon strictly religious points, this protest was mainly intended to express opposition to the laws which regulated the relations of the clergy to the State, by requiring them to obey the public statutes, as they are required to do in the United States, and in such countries as have disunited Church and State. Up till that time they had been an exclusive and independent class, with privileges and prerogatives not enjoyed by the mass of citizens—such as exemption from taxes and from the support of the Government—and to the change in these relations this protest was intended to apply. The laws then existing were considered an irreligious invasion of the liberty of the clergy; that is,[Pg 381] of their right of exemption from all governmental obligations. Consequently the feeling upon the subject became very intense among the clergy, as was to be expected after so many years of license and indulgence; and it furnished Cardinal Pecci with the opportunity of making an admirable display of his intellectual powers and eloquence. Without preface, he came to the question directly in these words: "It is a grievous error against Catholic doctrine to pretend that the Church is the subject of any earthly power, and bound by the same economy and relations which regulate civil society. The Church is not a human institution, nor is it a portion of the political edifice, although it is destined to promote the welfare of the men among whom it lives. It affirms that from God came directly its own being, its constitution, and the necessary faculties for attaining its own sublime destiny, which is one different (from that of the State), and altogether of a supernatural order. Divinely ordered, with a hierarchy of its own, it is by its nature independent of the State."

He makes the whole superstructure of his argument rest upon the foundation that as the constitution and all the faculties of the Church came from God, therefore it must of necessity have a "hierarchy of its own," and entirely "independent of the State;" that is, the clergy must be bound to obey the pope, and released from all obligation to obey the laws of the State, unless they also shall be approved by the pope. To require from them this obedience to State laws, "invades," according to this protest, "the sacred province of the priesthood," as well, also, as "the rights and liberties of the Church," because it tempts them "away from the due subjection to their superiors," who are governed only by the pope and the Canon law. And, in order to show that the Church can not tolerate liberalism in the form of the freedom of religious belief or of the press, this protest deplores the "licentiousness of the theater and the press, and the continual snares laid to surprise pious souls, to undermine[Pg 382] faith by circulating infamous pamphlets and heterodox writings, and by the declamations of fanatical preachers of impiety;"[207] in other words, by Protestantism and Protestants.

Cardinal Pecci dealt more directly with the "irreligion and libertinism" of the present age in a Lenten pastoral "on the current errors against religion and Christian life." He here expressed himself with severe intolerance against those who proclaim that "man is free in his own conscience; he can embrace any religion he likes;" that is, he condemned the freedom of religious belief. He could not have done otherwise without causing his fidelity to the papacy to be suspected. Consequently, he made his meaning perfectly clear, so that none of the faithful could mistake it, and doubtless because the freedom of conscience is necessary to popular government, which, in serving the pope, he was obliged to condemn. Nevertheless, he was driven to the necessity of admitting that man is created "free and gifted with reason," but sought to break the force of the admission by insisting that this natural freedom must be subject to restraint, because God has imposed obligations upon him and dictated laws for him which he is bound to obey. He, however, gives no latitude to the individual and makes no allowance for his private conscience, but considers him incompetent to decide for himself within the scope of religious laws, and as fit only for obedience to authority; that is, the Church at Rome, and the pope who may, for the time being, preside over it. In setting forth the manner in which God has made known his laws for the direction and government of individual consciences, and how he requires them to be obeyed, he insists that they are only such as the Roman Church has announced, and that the natural right of the human reason to its freedom must be restrained into obedience to them, so that the only liberty of thought or conscience to be allowed must be that which centers in this obedience. To him any other freedom than this violates the divine law, and is heresy.[Pg 383] But he plainly involves himself in the absurdity of supposing that to be freedom which is the very reverse of it; for there can be no proposition more palpably true than that a man has no freedom of thought or conscience when constrained, by a force he is powerless to resist, to exchange his own opinions for those of others. It may well be doubted whether opinions formed under the dictation of authority are in fact such. Fear of consequences may induce acquiescence in them, or even their avowal; but as the laws which govern the mind and conscience have no agency in their production, they are simple utterances of the lips which are not responded to by the heart. This must be the case with enlightened minds, except where pre-existing opinions are changed by the force of argument and new enlightenment. The papacy understood this, and therefore kept in ignorance the populations within the circle of its influence and jurisdiction; and Cardinal Pecci, instructed as his mind was upon general topics, was unable to conceive any other methods of human thought than those instilled into his mind by his Jesuit education, and which his official position made it necessary for him to maintain.

Controlled entirely by the idea of unresisting and uninquiring obedience to authority, without any regard for the dictates of individual conscience or the suggestions of reason, he announced the logical result of his own and the papal teachings in these words: "Nor is it left to the free will of man to refuse it, or to fashion for himself a form of worship and service such as he pleases to render." It does not require a man of learning to understand this; it is plain and palpable to any ordinary mind. He could have chosen no words more expressly condemnatory of the freedom of conscience; nor could he have more formally arraigned the people of the United States for having asserted the right of every man to worship God as his own conscience dictates, and having made that fundamental in their institutions and necessary to their existence. According to him this is heresy, because it draws the people away from obedience to the pope;[Pg 384] and no man has the right to refuse this obedience, or "to fashion for himself a form of worship or service" which the pope shall condemn! He is immeasurably shocked at the idea that men should be permitted to entertain and express different religious opinions, and to reject the teachings of the pope, to whom alone implicit obedience is due! He had too much character at stake to disguise anything upon this point—leaving that to others in free countries, where the pretense of toleration may be maintained with the hope that it may ultimately pave the way to papal intolerance. Continuing, therefore, the same undisguised denunciation of the freedom of conscience, he says: "It would be not only impious, but monstrous, to maintain every form of worship is acceptable and indifferent, that the human conscience is free to adopt whichever form it pleases, and to fashion out a religion to suit itself." It is not necessary to comment here upon this bold and defiant assault upon our civil institutions. But it is well to remark that it ought to tinge the cheeks of those in this country who, in one breath, profess obedience to the pope who uttered the language here quoted, and in the next talk glibly about their advocacy of the freedom of conscience, which he has condemned as "impious" and "monstrous"—as an unpardonable offense against God!

He then proceeds to speak of the relation of the State to the education of the young, by saying that it is "not called upon to discharge this great parental duty, but to keep the natural educators in their work," by permitting it to "be carried on under the direction of the Church, the depository and teacher of religious doctrines." This is as if he had said that the State shall be forbidden to participate in the work of education even to the extent of teaching patriotism to its youth, for the reason that such State education has the tendency to substitute love of country for fidelity to the pope; and for the further reason that all education that can be tolerated should "be carried on under the direction of the Church" and confined exclusively to "religious doctrines." He expresses the same idea more fully by insisting that all[Pg 385] other kinds of education are "devoid of all the external practices and duties of the Christian faith, and calculated to familiarize young people with 'freedom of conscience' and indifferentism;" that is, to encourage them in the belief that popular freedom is worth striving after, and that people are more prosperous and happy when governed by laws of their own making than by those dictated by the ambition of those who claim that they alone are divinely chosen to govern mankind. He sees nothing in such religious liberty as our institutions establish but "irreligion and libertinism," to which it has given rise, and against which he strives hard to enlist all the supporters of the papacy.[208]

From the papal standpoint his arguments are sound and logical, because the general enlightenment of the mind, which enables it to investigate and understand the causes of things, and makes it competent to form conclusions of its own, tends to create self-reliance and opposition to oppressive laws; and has, on these accounts, been odious to the popes ever since they acquired temporal power and made the Church, by means of it, the most potent instrument in maintaining monarchism. Therefore the student of history finds that the papacy has grown weaker as the world has increased in enlightenment. But from the standpoint of our free institutions, both his positions and reasoning are radically wrong and indefensible, because they assail the freedom of conscience which our institutions guarantee to every individual, and our common-school system, which is more responsive to the public sentiment and will than any other measure of our public policy. The plain and manifest import of what he has said is this: That if he were allowed full liberty in this country to dictate what shall and what shall not be regarded as true religion, we would have neither freedom of conscience nor public schools. And this, by his subsequent elevation to the pontificate, constitutes to-day, the greatest if not the only danger which threatens our free, popular form of government.

By his election as pope, Leo XIII occupies a different position from that filled by him as Cardinal Pecci. In the latter he defended the papal doctrines and recommended them for strict observance by the faithful; in the former he dictates and commands, allowing no discretion and submitting to no disobedience. Therefore it is manifestly proper, as well as necessary, that we in this country shall know to what extent the religious doctrines of the cardinal are embodied in the authoritative teachings of the pope. In this latter capacity he has undoubtedly flattered himself, as Pius IX did, that he has at his back and subject to his command, two hundred millions of obedient subjects throughout the world, and has, consequently, availed himself of his first consistorial allocution to prepare them for submission, by announcing that he has been chosen "to fill on earth the place of the Prince of pastors, Christ Jesus!" He must have known, when these words were traced by his pontifical pen, that Christ was never the pastor of an organized Church with a constitution of either spiritual or temporal government; that when the primitive Churches were established by the apostles, they were independent of each other; that none of these ever had a bishop or a presbyter with temporal power in his hands; that this power was not acquired until after the fall of the Roman Empire, according to Pius IX, and not until several hundred years later, according to himself; and that even then it was wrenched from the people by the aid of ambitious monarchs and their armies, and maintained by the false and forged "donation of Constantine," the pseudo-decretals of Isidore, and other means long since repudiated in all parts of the world, and not now defended except by the most mendacious. Yet, with this knowledge in his possession, he strangely complains that the "Apostolic See" has been "violently stripped of its temporal sovereignty" in disobedience of the divine law—pretending thereby that Christ exercised and possessed such sovereignty when upon earth, and that he, as his only representative, is his legitimate successor!

His mind must have been overflowing with exhilaration,[Pg 387] when, giving full play to his imagination, he fancied himself thus elevated above and superior to all other human beings. But, like many others who indulge in similar flights and "build castles in the air," the excesses of his fancy were checked by the conviction that the world was, at last, a practical reality in what concerns its welfare, and that the Italian people, who had for many centuries submitted to papal dominion, would not permit him to place the crown of temporal royalty upon his head. Seemingly saddened by this melancholy conviction, he found himself constrained to announce to his "venerable brothers" of the episcopacy that the papacy had been "reduced to a condition in which it can in no wise enjoy the full, free, and unimpeded use of its powers," well knowing that it had not been deprived of any of its spiritual authority except that involved in his right to wear a temporal crown and govern the people arbitrarily as a temporal monarch. And then, under the stimulant of hope, he imposed upon them the religious obligation to labor for the restoration of this lost temporal power, by reminding them how gloriously Pius IX had served the papacy by his efforts "to re-establish the episcopal hierarchy" in Scotland, in the face of the Government of England and the religious sentiment of the Scotch people. Under the influence of these mingled emotions of despondency and hope, his pontificate commenced. What fruits it is destined to bear are hidden in the womb of time. What he intends to accomplish, so far as he can, it is the duty of the civilized world to understand, not by what any cardinal, archbishop, bishop, or priest shall say, but as he himself has chosen officially to announce it. No other man upon earth besides him has the right, according to the papal theory, to prescribe a single tenet of religious faith, because he alone occupies the place of Christ upon earth!

FOOTNOTES:

[206] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 200-214.

[207] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 219 to 222.

[208] Life of Leo XIII, pp. 230 to 239.

In all the encyclical letters issued by Leo XIII, he has exhibited the restlessness which may fairly be presumed to have been produced by discomfiture at finding the difficulties in the way of restoring the temporal power increasing rather than diminishing. This is in no way surprising, inasmuch as all the faculties of his mind are absorbed by contemplation of the means of producing that result, his pontifical influence not being necessary to enforce the recognition of any other principle of faith. He is too intelligent not to realize that there is a strong tendency among the laity of the Church toward "liberal Catholicism"—especially among those who are sharing the advantages of free and popular government, like those in the United States—and that if this tendency is not checked by official rebuke in some way, the present age may destroy all hope of re-converting the pope into a crowned king and leave him forever hereafter in possession of spiritual power alone. Being unable to persuade himself that this ought to be acquiesced in, he steadily persists in trying to bring all peoples and nations within the circle of his pontifical jurisdiction, in so far as matters involving faith, morals, and discipline—as he shall define them—are concerned. Hence we find him often announcing the principles by which all the Roman Catholics throughout the world are to be governed in their relations with civil institutions. And, in order to show that he is unwilling to abate any of his own claims to official royalty, he invariably assumes the attitude of a universal guardian, and, consequently, employs the language of authority. He, manifestly, continues now to speak in the same spirit which heretofore[Pg 389] prompted him to affirm "that the false wisdom or philosophy which the last three centuries have followed must be set aside, and Christian wisdom and philosophy made the light of education.... Religion, Christianity, Catholicism, must now come with the steady, unfailing lamp of her divine philosophy, extricate social order from its mortal peril, and lead it back to the old paths."[209] The remedy is evidently plain and simple to his mind—merely this, and nothing more—that the modern world shall return "to obedience to the Church," by the "docile acceptance of the teachings of the one divinely-appointed authority on earth"—who is now himself, and after him to be his successors. What strange infatuation it must be for one so enlightened as Leo XIII undoubtedly is, to suppose that he can so wield the scepter of his spiritual authority over the nations as to cause them to "set aside" their present progress and prosperity, and be led "back to the old paths!"

He omits no opportunity to renew his claim of spiritual authority over "the life, the morals, and the institutions of nations"—that is, over their constitutions and laws—to the extent of requiring them to conform to "the precepts of Christian wisdom" as promulgated from the papal throne. Such nations as shall do this he recognizes as having claim to permanent existence; such as do not, possess only illegitimate power obtained by usurpation. To "set aside" the latter—especially when they have so disregarded "Christian wisdom and philosophy" as to separate Church and State—he evidently regards as a duty, not only incumbent upon himself, but upon all who accept his teachings as infallibly true. To enforce this obligation, therefore, to make the pope, and not the people, the sovereign source of civil power in all that pertains to faith—as the restoration of the temporal power does—he maintains the proposition that Roman Catholics everywhere owe their first duty to the Church, and, after that, allegiance to the State; that is, they are not[Pg 390] bound to obey any law of a State which requires them to do anything prejudicial to the Church. Consequently, his pontifical teachings concentrate in this: that when he shall officially declare that any law of a State conflicts with the divine law, their primary duty is to obey him, although, by so doing, they shall violate the law of the State. And, in order to assure this, he requires them to obey their bishops, and the bishops to obey him. While he recognizes the right of States to regulate such merely secular affairs as concern the common and ordinary interests of society, the spiritual authority he claims over them is sufficient to enable him to interfere with and regulate at his own discretion such matters as are within his spiritual jurisdiction, as he shall define it, because "the Church is the mistress of all nations." From this sovereignty—which breaks over the geographical boundaries of nations, as if none existed—he derives the right of the Church to "concern herself about the laws formulated in the State;" that is, to interfere with political questions which involve the interests of the Church. And this interference is justified upon the ground, not only that it is promotive of the welfare of the State, but because, in the absence of it, the States sometimes transcend their just powers by encroaching upon the rights of the Church—as they do by separating Church and State, and prescribing an independent sphere for each. This last offense is, with him, unpardonable, because they who commit it—as the people of the United States have done—"tear asunder civil and sacred polity, bound together as they are in their very essence."

These religious doctrines are not alone the official utterances of Leo XIII. They are inherent in both the papal and Jesuit systems, neither of which can exist without them. The Jesuit theory is that no legitimate rights can be acquired under any constitution or law which violates the divine law as the pope shall interpret it; and that the violation of such constitution or law is neither treason nor rebellion, because, being null and void, they can impose no just obligation of obedience. The authoritative utterance of these doctrines[Pg 391] now, and the requirement of obedience to them, constitute a grave and serious fact, which should arrest universal attention. For obvious reasons they demand this attention from the people of the United States more than from any other peoples, because the freedom and tolerance of our Government allow their promulgation, notwithstanding their manifest and direct tendency to encourage traitorous plottings against our popular institutions. Looking only to our own time—the pontificates of Pius IX and Leo XIII, to say nothing of such popes as Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII—we find the well-defined papal policy to condemn as violative of the divine law these fundamental principles of our institutions: The separation of Church and State; the freedom of conscience and religious belief; the liberty of speech and press; the subjection of ecclesiastics to obedience to the laws like other citizens; the people as the exclusive depositories of political power; the refusal to concede to the pope the potential power of conferring upon bishops and clergy the prerogative right to manage church property in contravention of the laws; and last, but far from being least, our common-school system as it prevails in every part of the country. A man, therefore, must be stupid if he can not, and willful if he will not, see that, according to the religious doctrines announced by Pius IX and Leo XIII—omitting other popes—all these great, fundamental principles of our Government, and all the laws enacted to preserve them, are held to be impious, and so in violation of the divine law that they may be rightfully resisted whensoever the pope shall find it expedient so to command. What question of greater magnitude and importance could command the attention of both Protestant and Roman Catholic citizens of the United States? It is a direct blow aimed by a foreign and alien power at the very foundation of our civil institutions. If it has been incited by the indifference of Protestants, they, being apprised of this, are bound by the obligation of patriotism to rebuke it. If the pope has acted only upon the Jesuit theory that the laity of the Church[Pg 392] are only animals, and fit only for passive obedience to their superiors, who assume to be their masters, they will prove themselves unworthy of American citizenship if they do not assert their manhood sufficiently to teach the pope that it would be a higher offense against divine justice to plot treason against a Government they have sworn to support and defend, than to disobey one from whose head their own religious brethren plucked a temporal crown, and who is now endeavoring to stir them up to a war against those same brethren in order that his lost crown may be restored. They who ask this, and all their aiders and abettors, have doubtless been encouraged by a knowledge of American and Protestant tolerance, as well as by the desire to reduce our Roman Catholic population to the humiliating condition of professing allegiance to the Government, while, at the same time, they cherish the hope of its ultimate overthrow by some mysterious providences not yet revealed. To indicate the ground upon which this hope may rest, the country is every now and then reminded of the estimated number of Roman Catholics it contains—varying from 8,000,000 to 12,000,000—as if all these could be rightfully counted upon the papal side in a war upon the most cherished principles of the Government, just as plantation-slaves were formerly counted before being put to work in the fields. How far they are destined to disappointment in this remains to be seen. But it is confidently believed—with assurance, indeed, somewhat exceeding belief—that they have been misled by the false and delusive hope of converting the multitude of Roman Catholics in this country into mere unthinking machines, subject, as if they were all Jesuits, to passive and uninquiring obedience to an alien authority which assumes the spiritual and prerogative right to turn "back to the old paths" all the modern progressive nations, as if God had deputed to him alone this extraordinary and plenary power over the interests and happiness of the whole human family. While we are waiting patiently to see what the future shall reveal with reference to these matters, the Protestants of the United States can[Pg 393] not be released from the obligation of preparing for whatsoever exigency the future shall present. Every avenue of approach to the citadel which has thus far guarded their constitutional and popular rights, must be carefully guarded. They should not be indifferent to the slow and insidious methods of approaching that citadel which Jesuit ingenuity has contrived and is still contriving. Nor should the popular eye be turned too far away from Leo XIII; for if he, too, has no sinister object in view with regard to our cherished national principles, why, "in the name of all the gods at once," does he not leave the United States and the other modern nations to conduct their own affairs without his perpetual interference? Why do he and his ecclesiastical representatives so unceasingly thunder in our ears the awful penalties that await us for the infidelity of Protestantism, for the separation of Church and State, for the toleration of diversities of religious belief, and for our "godless" common schools?

It requires but limited intelligence to see that the Jesuits alone—and not the Church—would gain if the principles and policy of Leo XIII should become established. They would see in such a result cause for rejoicing that the work of their society had been so well done when the youthful and plastic mind of Joachim Pecci had their doctrines so indelibly stamped upon it that now, when he has become pope in his old age, he seems to keep himself alive by the stimulating hope of successfully employing them to arrest modern progress and civilization, and turn the nations back "to the old paths." The Jesuits already exhibit signs of exultation, arising, manifestly, out of the belief that the pontifical favor and patronage bestowed upon them has caused the world to forget their history; how they endeavored to fix disrepute upon the Church by their conduct in India, China, Paraguay, and elsewhere; how they disobeyed the peremptory commands of some popes, and endeavored to degrade and humiliate others; how they were compelled to obedience only by the severest methods of reproof; how they were expelled from every Roman Catholic country in Europe, and from Rome by Pius[Pg 394] IX, during the last years of his pontificate; how they were suppressed and abolished by one of the best of the popes for crimes that could not be condoned; how they abused and vilified his name and memory in order to justify their refusal to obey the authoritative commands of the Church; and how their revival was excused alone upon the ground that they were better fitted than any other body of men in the world, by habit, education, and training, to become warriors in the cause of political absolutism.

But a still more flattering cause of Jesuit satisfaction is doubtless found in the fact that Leo XIII—faithful to his early impressions—has assigned to the members of that society the special duty of becoming the educators of the young, and is sending them into all the countries of the world, and especially those where Protestantism prevails, for that particular purpose, well instructed, beforehand, in the obligation to maintain such a system of education as he established in Perugia, so that every mind seduced by its influence may be brought to the religious belief that Church and State must be so united that the State shall be subordinate to the Church; that there is but one form of true religion in the world, and all else is heresy; and that no Government can have the divine approval which does not recognize the pope as possessing the sovereign power to dictate its policy in so far as all matters touching faith, morals, and discipline are involved. Evidences of this settled purpose are constantly crowding upon us. Scarcely a day passes without some fresh attack upon our system of common schools—a method of education which has the popular approval in a far greater degree than any other part of our public polity. These are called "godless" schools because they are not permitted by law to teach that the Roman Catholic religion is absolutely true, and all other forms of religious belief false and heretical. It is alleged that they are the nurseries of vice and immorality, and that they send out young men and women into the world to propagate error and libertinism, and sow the seed of moral and social de[Pg 395]cay. Every now and then some fanatical priest—unable to keep his passions within reasonable bounds—threatens the members of his congregation with excommunication for sending their children to the public schools, and allowing them to become contaminated by false teaching and association with Protestant children. The American people, consequently, are required to decide whether their system of common schools shall live or die, whether the competent and distinguished corps of American teachers shall be expelled, and the doors of our school-houses be thrown wide open to the Jesuits. Why should the Protestant part of our population remain indifferent when these insults are so impudently flung in their faces? They have deemed it wise and better for themselves, and out of kindly deference to their assailants, to prohibit the teaching of any system of religious belief in their public schools, or the levy of any tax for that object; and, in order that Church and State shall remain perpetually separated, they have provided for this inhibition by constitutional provisions—both National and State. To the Jesuit, therefore, all this is "godless," and the Government is "godless" for separating Church and State, and the Protestant people are "godless," rapidly hastening to inevitable ruin in this life and to fearful punishment hereafter!

There ought to come a time when this controversy, forced upon the people against their will, shall cease. Our public schools are designed for training and educating American citizens—those who are to perpetuate our institutions when existing generations have passed away—and it is no special wonder that those who do not come up to the full measure of American citizenship themselves, and desire that others shall not do so, are seeking to destroy them. Notwithstanding they are fully protected in the right of maintaining and conducting their own private schools in their own way, without the least interference from any quarter, they have presumptuously, if not insolently, inaugurated a relentless warfare upon our whole system of public education, because our common schools are nurseries of patriotism, and keep alive[Pg 396] in the minds of our children the obligation of obedience to the Constitution and Government as they are. If the system we have so long cherished were weakened materially by this malignant warfare, it would be the just cause of serious alarm. But everything occurring creates a contrary belief, by giving assurance that it continues to disseminate influences fast reaching the most remote and obscure places in the country, causing the popular heart to rejoice at the victories it has already won over ignorance and vice, and manifesting that it possesses established power sufficient to assure continued growth and complete triumph. Nevertheless, it is well and important for us all to know what attitude Leo XIII occupies toward our common schools, and what kind of education he proposes to establish here in preference to that we have cherished so highly. In this way it will be plainly seen that his first and highest object is the extermination of Protestantism, by putting out of the power of those who obey him implicitly to become American citizens in the sense and meaning of the Constitution of the United States. He knows nothing of the nature of this citizenship or of the obligations it imposes. As a foreigner and alien, ignorant of our language, Constitution, and wants, his chief object is to create here a politico-religious party, held in unity by the desire to restore to him his lost crown as a religious duty, so that when he shall have succeeded in that he may bring us all within his spiritual jurisdiction, and deal with us accordingly. This accomplished, the history of the papacy for more than a thousand years proves that the next step would be to treat our nationality as a fiction and our boundary-lines as merely imaginary, so that instead of our present independence we should be reduced to an inferior and submissive department in a vast and universal "Holy Empire," with its crown resting upon his own head, and, after him, upon the heads of his successors.

Not very long ago Leo XIII sent to the United States an official representative in the person of Mgr. Satolli, nominally Archbishop of Lepanto, in Greece. He is called[Pg 397] a "delegate," but in view of the fact that he fully represents the pope, as his other self, and that his powers are so complete and plenary that no appeal can be taken from his decisions, it is more appropriate to call him a vice-pope. He is said to be a learned and discreet man, and it is doubtless true that he deserves all the compliments otherwise bestowed upon him. He had not, however, been long in this country before he found that there were divisions of sentiment among the Roman Catholics with reference to our common schools, some sending their children to them, notwithstanding the instructions of their priests not to do so, and others refusing because they considered them "godless;" that is, infidel. This devolved upon him the duty and necessity of deciding a question which had hitherto baffled the most ingenious minds—a question made more difficult by the fact that it involved either the approval or disapproval of well-established and popular measures of public polity. His decision is entitled to consideration, and should be closely scrutinized, inasmuch as it is claimed for it that it is the final solution of a great and puzzling problem. The statement of it which follows, is taken substantially from that made by himself to the archbishops at a meeting held by them in New York.

He claims for "the Catholic Church" both "the duty and divine right" of teaching religion to "all nations," and of "instructing the young;" that is, "she holds for herself the right of teaching the truths of faith and law of morals in order to bring up youth in the habits of Christian life." Nevertheless, "there is no repugnance in their learning the first elements and the higher branches of the arts and natural sciences in public schools controlled by the State," which protects them in their persons and property. "But," he continues, "the Catholic Church shrinks from those features of public schools which are opposed to the truth of Christianity and to morality;" wherefore he insists that every effort shall be made, both by the bishops and others, to remove these "objectionable features." And he recommends that the[Pg 398] bishops and the civil authorities shall agree "to conduct the schools with mutual attention and due consideration for their respective rights;" that is, that the schools shall be under their joint control, so that teachers "for the secular branches" shall be "inhibited from offending Catholic religion and morality," and the Church be permitted to shed her "light" by "teaching the children catechism, in order to remove danger to their faith and morals from any quarter whatsoever."

This was adroit, but not satisfactory. Although it was understood that Mgr. Satolli's decisions were to be final, this created such disaffection that it was found necessary to submit the matter to the pope, against whose opinion, when officially promulgated, there could be no protest. Leo XIII deliberated upon the matter for some time, and received from the American prelates arguments upon both sides. He, however, reached a conclusion which he communicated to Cardinal Gibbons in an encyclical dated May 31, 1893, which constitutes one of the latest papal utterances. Besides its numerous recitals, some of which do not bear directly upon the subject, he distinctly approves the decision of Mgr. Satolli, because it had been approved and recommended to him by the archbishops at their meeting in New York. He expresses great admiration for the people of the United States—especially the Roman Catholic portion of them—and says that he had sent Mgr. Satolli here in order that his "presence might be made, as it were, perpetual among the faithful by the permanent establishment of an apostolic delegation at Washington." This he probably considers a precautionary step; for, as Mgr. Satolli can not have any official relations with our Government—Italy being represented by a minister appointed by the king—he can remain as a "permanent establishment" at the Capital of the nation, so that he may not only watch the course of events, but be in readiness to become an apostolic minister plenipotentiary whensoever, by the aid of the faithful outside of Italy, he shall be able to snatch the crown from the head upon which the Italian people have placed it, and put it upon his own!

The approval of Mgr. Satolli's decision, however, has this important condition attached to it by Leo XIII: "That Catholic schools are to be most sedulously promoted, and that it is to be left to the judgment and conscience of the ordinary to decide, according to the circumstances, when it is lawful and when unlawful to attend public schools." This is a most significant condition. In the first place, it takes away from the parents the right to direct the education of their children, and places it in the hands of the ordinary, who officially represents the papal power. In the second place, it leaves the papal condemnation and censure still resting upon our system of common schools, and only removes it, here and there, from such local and particular schools as the ordinaries of the Church may find acceptable to them. And in the third place, it is a positive and unqualified affirmance of what multitudes of priests have said, that our schools are "godless," and that, in order to counteract their irreligious influences, "Catholic schools are to be most sedulously promoted."

But there is another condition attached by Leo XIII which is equally significant as that just named. It is due to him that this should be stated in his own words. He says: "As we have already declared in our letter of the 23d of May of last year, to our venerable brethren, the archbishop and bishop of the province of New York, so we again, as far as need be, declare that the decrees which the Baltimore Councils, agreeably to the directions of the Holy See, have enacted concerning parochial schools, and whatsoever else has been prescribed by the Roman pontiffs, whether directly or through the sacred congregations, concerning the same matter, are to be steadfastly observed."

Whatsoever powers the pope may have intended to confer upon Mgr. Satolli—whether those of a vice-pope or of a mere legate—it is certain that he did not intend to lessen his own. These are plenary, and therefore his pontifical decisions are absolutely binding, because he is infallible! In order, therefore, to ascertain the relation to be hereafter borne to our[Pg 400] common-school system by the Roman Catholics of the United States, we are required to look to the decision of Mgr. Satolli as qualified by the conditions attached to it by Leo XIII. Taking the whole together, it amounts to this: That God has specially appointed the Roman Catholic Church the educator of the young; that where another system of education is set up against that prescribed by the Church, it is necessarily sinful and heretical, and may be rightfully overthrown and destroyed; that the Church system of education requires that the pupils shall be taught religion, and, first and always, that there is no other true religion besides that which the Roman Catholic Church teaches; that notwithstanding this, a Roman Catholic child may, as a matter of either necessity or expediency, be sent to the public schools of the States, merely to learn "the first elements," reading, writing, and ciphering, and "the higher branches of the arts and natural sciences," mathematics, chemistry, engineering, etc.; that the Roman Catholic Church shrinks from the idea that the intermediate branches should be taught the children, for fear they should discover that the Protestant nations are more prosperous and happy than the Roman Catholic; that when Roman Catholic children are sent to the public schools, efforts shall be made to procure the appointment of Roman Catholic teachers to instruct them in their religious obligations and duties, and specially to the effect that Protestantism is heresy and diversities of religious belief offensive to God, and consequently has his curse resting upon it; that the "objectionable features" of our school system must be removed by plottings within the schools necessary to that end, so that instead of being free they shall be made Church schools; that so long as the children are not taught the "catechism" they will remain "godless" and heretical; and that if in any of the schools the children shall be taught that the State ought to continue separated from the Church, or that differences of religious belief should be tolerated, or that our Protestant institutions must be preserved as they are—all or either of these things must be considered as "offending Catholic re[Pg 401]ligion and morality." Thus far Mgr. Satolli; but the pope adds the peremptory injunction that Roman Catholic schools must be "most sedulously promoted;" that is, they must be set up in rivalry to our common-school system, so that the antidote may root out the bane; that the ordinary, and not the parents, shall decide what children shall be permitted to enter the schools; and that, in interpreting the decision of Mgr. Satolli, it must be done in accordance with the decrees of the Baltimore Councils and the rules "prescribed by the Roman pontiffs."

This settles nothing, and leaves the whole question ambiguous. It is Jesuitical, because it "palters with us in a double sense," by keeping "the word of promise to our ear," while breaking "it to our hope." In referring to the Baltimore Councils as their guide, the faithful find themselves instructed to omit nothing within their power to pull down the common schools, and build up Church schools in their places, for the reason that the former are irreligious, and the latter alone have the divine approval. And they find also that they are instructed by the second Council of Baltimore that their children are to be taught, as an essential part of their religion, that the State is not independent of the Church, and that "all power is of God," so that whatsoever the State prescribes not obedient to the law of God is not binding upon the citizen, and that the Roman Catholic has such "a guide in the Church;" that if the State shall require of him anything inhibited by the Church, he must obey the latter, and not the former.[210] But independently of this, the pope commands that these same faithful shall interpret the decision of Mgr. Satolli in the light of "whatsoever else has been prescribed by the Roman pontiffs."

This is indefinite. There have been over two hundred and fifty popes. Many of these have been good, some bad,[Pg 402] but these latter forfeit none of their infallible ecclesiastical authority by being bad. To whom, among all these, shall the inquirer defer, when he investigates what they have commanded with reference to education? Many of them have asserted, ex cathedra, that the exclusive right to educate the young has been divinely conferred upon the Roman Catholic Church, and Leo XIII, in his recent letter to the American Cardinal, makes that assertion unequivocally. It is not believed that any pope ever asserted the contrary. Therefore, this general and sweeping qualification of Mgr. Satolli's decision either destroys its effect absolutely, or leaves it to uncertain rules of interpretation. Thus viewed it leaves the school question just as it stood before Mgr. Satolli came to this country.

But Mgr. Satolli himself provides for two school systems, which, as he regards them, are the rivals of each other, because he, like Leo XIII, considers the Roman Catholic Church as having had divinely conferred upon it the right of educating and training the young. But Leo XIII makes this idea of more prominence when he commands "that Catholic schools are to be most sedulously promoted." It all, therefore, amounts to this: that wheresoever there is a Roman Catholic who can not avoid it, he may send his children to the common schools for the sole purpose of having them taught "the first elements, and the higher branches of the arts and natural sciences;" but in all the intermediate departments of education, they must be under the exclusive charge of those appointed by the Church to be their instructors in religion. Hence, not only is there to be a continued rivalry between the schools, but between the systems as well. In the common schools the pupils are taught that our popular form of government is calculated to promote and preserve the general welfare; that our fathers acted wisely and well when they separated the State from the Church; that laws which require universal conformity to any particular form of religious faith, are not only unwise but violative of natural right; that those people who govern themselves[Pg 403] by laws of their own making are happier and more prosperous than those who suffer themselves to be governed by monarchs and princes; and that the regulation of public affairs by constitutional governments is better for society than where they are regulated at the will of any one man. In the papal schools—perhaps within a stone's-throw of the common schools—the pupils are taught that each one of these propositions is heresy, and that both those who teach and those who accept them as true are under Divine condemnation. In the common schools the teacher enforces what he says by the example of the United States, gives instruction in our Revolutionary history, explains the provisions of our National and State constitutions which make the people the only source of public law, and stimulates the patriotism of his pupils by urging upon them the necessity of perpetuating our institutions in their present form for the benefit of their posterity. In the papal schools the teacher is required, when he denounces all these provisions of our institutions as heresy, to enforce what he says by instructing his pupils that innumerable infallible popes have so declared, and that they will offend God if they do not accept what they have announced as absolutely true, and in order that they may not be suspected of error by their youthful pupils, they need go no further back among the popes than to Pius IX and his "Syllabus" of 1864, wherein, after pointing out seventy-nine modern errors which he condemned—including "public schools" where teaching is "freed from all ecclesiastical authority"—he adds still another by declaring that it is impossible that "the Roman pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with progress, liberalism, and civilization as lately introduced." Or, if it shall be found necessary to go further back than Pius IX, he need but refer to the celebrated encyclical of his immediate predecessor, Gregory XVI, issued July 15, 1832, wherein he declared that those who maintained that God could be rightly served by men of different religious faiths, "will perish eternally without any doubt," if they do not repent and "hold to the Catholic faith;" that[Pg 404] it is "false and absurd" to pretend "that liberty of conscience should be established and guaranteed to each man;" that "the liberty of the press" is "the most fatal liberty, an execrable liberty, for which there never can be sufficient horror;" that writings which are "destructive of the fidelity and submission due to princes" are to be condemned, because they enkindle "the firebrands of sedition;" that "divine and human rights then rise in condemnation against those who, by the blackest machinations of revolt and sedition, endeavor to destroy the fidelity due to princes, and to hurl them from their thrones;" that "constant submission to princes" necessarily has its source "in the holiest principles of the Christian religion;" that they are criminal in the sight of God who "demand the separation of Church and State and the rupture of concord between the priesthood and the empire," that is, the State; and that the union of Church and State is feared and opposed by the advocates of liberty, because it "has always been so salutary and so happy for Church and State."[211]

If, however, the pupils in these papal schools should indicate the suspicion that these official proclamations of doctrine by Pius IX and Leo XIII had not the sanction of earlier popes, their teachers, especially if Jesuits, will take delight in instructing them that these two last popes, at the foot of the list, are following strictly in the footsteps of some of the most conspicuous of their predecessors. And then they will dwell eloquently upon the magnificent pontificates of Gregory VII, Alexander III, Innocent III, Boniface VIII, and others equally ambitious, but of less strength of will. The task will be an easy one to explain the history of these great popes and the politico-religious principles they succeeded in grafting upon the dogmas of the Church. They will instruct them how Gregory VII plucked crowns from the heads of disobedient kings, released their subjects from[Pg 405] their allegiance, and placed other and obedient kings in their places; how he claimed the right as pope to dispose of kingdoms, because "the spiritual is above the temporal power" to so great an extent that all people "should murder their princes, fathers, and children if he commands it;" and how he made monarchs, princes, and peoples tremble before him, as if he, by virtue alone of his pontifical power, were master of the world. And they will show them how Alexander III released the German people from their allegiance to Frederick Barbarossa, and compelled that proud emperor to kiss his foot, lead his horse by the bridle, and submit to having the papal heel planted upon his neck; and how Innocent III declared, by solemn pontifical decree, that the English Magna Charta was null and void, because it laid the foundation of popular liberty, and excommunicated all who were concerned in the patriotic work of obtaining it; and how Boniface VIII decreed, in his bull "Clericis laicos," that lay governments "have no power over the persons or the property of ecclesiastics," and that those who shall impose tithes, taxes, and burdens upon them, without the authority of the pope, "shall incur excommunication;" and how he also decreed, by his bull "Unam Sanctam," that the Church—that is, the pope—holds in her hands both the spiritual and the temporal swords, with the power to compel the latter to be used for and in the interest of the former; that the temporal sword is, therefore, "subject to the spiritual power," and that it is "an article of necessary faith" that "every human being should be subject to the Roman pontiff."

It requires but little intelligence to see wherein the difference consists between these two systems of education—the one expanding, the other dwarfing the intellect. If, however, each improved the intellect alike, the public schools are entitled to the preference for the reason that they instill into the minds of the pupils the great fundamental principles upon which our Government is founded; whereas those who attend the papal schools are instructed that the most essential of these principles are the fruitful source of heresies,[Pg 406] and, consequently, of ills to the human family. The two systems, therefore, remain in conflict—just as they have hitherto been—and the greatest question the present generation is called upon to decide is, Which shall triumph? With those of us who desire to maintain our popular form of government, this question does not involve religious faith. But with the defenders of the papacy and followers of the pope it does. And, consequently, those who are willing to form a politico-religious party, pledged to restore temporal power to the pope, even at the possible hazard of a war with Italy, and entangling alliances with other European powers, are promised a crown of eternal glory; while those who are seeking to maintain our institutions as our fathers framed them are anathematized for the sin of rebellion against papal authority.

FOOTNOTES:

[209] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 482-483.

[210] The pastoral letter of this Council can be found in Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia for 1866, p. 677. Its meaning is plain—that the Church is superior to the State, and must be obeyed by the State, in all such matters as the Church considers within its jurisdiction.

[211] The Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs. By De Montor. Vol. II, pp. 783-793, where this encyclical is given at length. This work has the special approval of the Archbishop of New York.

Inasmuch as Leo XIII has considered himself entitled, by virtue of his spiritual power, to prescribe authoritatively the relations which his followers in this country are hereafter to sustain to our system of public-school education, it is proper for us to inquire wherein the system he proposes to have introduced differs from our own. In this way we shall not only be able to understand the contrast between them, but discover why he gives the preference to the papal or Jesuit system. At the beginning of this inquiry, we are relieved from any trouble by his biographer, who tells us that while Cardinal Pecci, "he drew up, in 1858, a constitution and rules for an academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, which was to extend its benefits to the whole of Umbria," and that since he became pope he has "made the philosophical method of St. Thomas the guide of all Catholic teachers."[212]

Thomas Aquinas lived in the thirteenth century, long before the Reformation, when the world was shrouded in the almost total darkness of the Middle Ages, and when obedience to despotic rulers, both spiritual and temporal, was considered the highest duty of life. Church and State were united, and the former governed the latter with "a rod of iron." Liberty of thought was suppressed by the fagot and the flame. He was a voluminous writer, mostly on theological subjects, and as he treated these in accordance with the system maintained by the popes—from whom all authority emanated—he was called the "Angel of the Schools," "Angelic Doctor," "Eagle of the Theologians," and "Holy Doc[Pg 408]tor." He was canonized in 1323, about fifty years after his death, by John XXII, the second of the popes who reigned at Avignon in France, at a time when, according to De Montor, "the Church languished in fearful anarchy."[213] These circumstances do not conspire to show his fitness as a guide for any system of modern education, especially that existing in the United States. The theology of the Middle Ages, which he vindicated, filled the world with superstition; and now, after the ignorance of that period has been dispelled by the light of the Reformation, there are none who desire to see this superstition and ignorance revived, except those who, like Leo XIII, consider the times before this light began to shine as the "blessed ages."

This reverend biographer of Leo XIII says that the "false education" and "antichristian training" of the young, which prevails in the United States and among the liberal and progressive peoples of the world, must be done away with, abandoned, and "Thomas Aquinas must once more be enthroned as 'the Angel of the Schools;' his method and doctrine must be the light of all higher teaching, for his works are only revealed truth set before the human mind in its most scientific form."[214] This prominence was not given to the doctrines of Aquinas as "revealed truth" without due consideration of their importance to the papacy. They were specially taught in the schools of Umbria, under the auspices of Leo XIII. When he was archbishop, and since he became pope, he has made them the universal guide of "Catholic teachers" throughout the world. In obedience to the command of Loyola himself, in his lifetime, they were also made "the basis of the entire curriculum of philosophy and divinity" in all Jesuit colleges and schools, and have thereby become an absolutely necessary and indispensable part of Jesuit education. It is thus made entirely clear that, whatsoever else Leo XIII may or may not have accomplished during his pontificate, he has authoritatively commanded that[Pg 409] the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas shall be instilled into the minds of all, both young and old, who may be brought under the influence of the papal system of education, in the United States as well as elsewhere. It is by this system, therefore, that he proposes to supplant our common schools, so that the end sought after by Loyola may be accomplished; that is, the destruction of all popular governments. It will require only a brief examination of these doctrines to explain fully the purpose of Leo XIII in making them an indispensable part of Roman Catholic education in the United States, as well as to show that the papal theory of civil government is founded upon them as "revealed truth."

In the first chapter of this volume reference was made to Balmes, a Spanish priest, who achieved the reputation of being "the boast of the Spanish clergy" and the ablest defender of the Jesuit doctrines. His mind was well stored with the philosophical teachings of Thomas Aquinas, to the study of which he devoted a number of years, adopting the interpretation put upon them in the commentaries of Bellarmine and Saurez, both of whom were Jesuits. He died in 1848, about the breaking out of the great revolutions among the Roman Catholic populations of Europe; but before that time had occupied himself in earnest efforts to turn back the tide which then threatened to overwhelm the papacy. His principal work designed for this purpose was intended, as stated in the first chapter, to counteract the influence of Guizot's treatise on civilization, which had produced very perceptible impressions upon the most enlightened minds of Europe in favor of Protestantism over Roman Catholicism. His special object, therefore, was to demonstrate that the reverse of what Guizot insisted upon was true, and that Roman Catholicism was the real source of all existing enlightenment and civilization. Having written entirely from the Jesuit standpoint, his arguments with regard to the obligation of obedience to the laws of civil governments were based entirely upon the doctrines of the "Holy Doctor," as he called Thomas Aquinas. This may be justifiably inferred[Pg 410] from what he says in highly eulogistic praise of him near the close of his work.[215] The doctrines he sets forth are commended to the people of the United States in the preface to the American edition of his work, where it is said that he has exposed "the shortcomings, or rather evils, of Protestantism, in a social and political point of view," and that "the Protestant, if sincere, will open his eyes to the incompatibility of his principles with the happiness of mankind."[216] As this learned work has been extensively circulated in this country for the purpose here expressed, we are justified in accepting its doctrines and teachings, in both "a social and political point of view," as accurately expressing the opinions of Aquinas with regard to the right of civil governments to require obedience to their laws from all who live under them. And it is necessary for us to know and fully understand what these doctrines of Thomas Aquinas are, in order to become familiar with the "curriculum of philosophy and divinity" in Jesuit colleges and schools, and with the principles authoritatively prescribed by Leo XIII as "the guide of all Catholic teachers." When we shall have accomplished this, we shall be better able to decide whether or no it would be prudent and wise to exchange the course of studies now prosecuted in our public schools for this papal and Jesuit curriculum; whether our American schools shall be presided over by the spirit of the sainted and "Holy Doctor" or remain as they are, under the care, protection, and patronage of the American people.

Balmes quotes Thomas Aquinas to prove that "human laws, if they are just, are binding in conscience, and derive their power from the eternal law, from which they are formed."[217] But he makes their justice to depend entirely upon their conformity to the divine law; in other words, applying his doctrine practically, as the pope possesses the only legitimate power upon earth to decide what the divine law allows and what it condemns, therefore to him alone must the justice[Pg 411] or injustice of all human laws be submitted; and his decision, when made, is final and must be universally obeyed. Hence the obligation of obedience relates only to those laws which the pope shall decide to be just, while those he shall decide to be unjust shall be disregarded or resisted, or where open resistance is impracticable, may be plotted against and overthrown in whatsoever mode is most expedient. In order to illustrate and give emphasis to his meaning he asks: "Are we to obey the civil power when it commands something that is evil in itself?" Answering he says: "No, we are not, for the simple reason that what is evil is forbidden by God; now, we must obey God rather than man." He then supplements this with another question: "Are we to obey the civil power when it interferes with matters not included in the circle of its faculties?" He answers again: "No, for with regard to these matters it is not a power." And this limitation upon the civil power he explains further by affirming that the spiritual power of the Church—which is lodged exclusively in the hands of the pope, who stands in the place of God—has always served to "remind men that the rights of the civil power are limited; that there are things beyond its province, cases in which a man may say, and ought to say, I will not obey."[218]

The application of this doctrine, as thus laid down by the "Holy Doctor," affirmed by Balmes, and stamped with pontifical sanction by Leo XIII, to the condition of affairs under our civil institutions, is plain and simple and easily understood. It is unnecessary to repeat at this point the fundamental principles of our Government which Leo XIII, Pius IX, Gregory XVI, and numerous other popes have condemned and anathematized as heretical and violative of the divine law. According to their pontifical teachings—announced ex cathedra from the "chair of St. Peter"—the American constitutions and laws which require obedience to any of these or to all of them, not only require "something that is evil," but transcend the faculties of the Gov[Pg 412]ernment by encroaching upon those which God has made to pertain exclusively to the Church, or to the pope as its divinely constituted head! Therefore, according to Thomas Aquinas, to Balmes, to Leo XIII, and to the Jesuits, they are not to be obeyed, because "God, rather than man," must be obeyed. Leo XIII is not, of course, bound, as an alien and spiritual ruler of the Church, to obey them; but by requiring that these doctrines shall be taught in all Roman Catholic schools in the United States, he assumes the spiritual and prerogative right to require of all in this country who obey his teachings, to violate their allegiance to the Government because it maintains these sinful and unjust constitutions and laws. This is perfectly logical—as palpable as that two and two make four. But Balmes—still following Thomas Aquinas—does not stop here.

He repeats, that unjust laws are "not binding on conscience, unless for fear of creating scandal or causing greater evil; that is to say, that, in certain cases, an unjust law may become obligatory, not by virtue of any duty which it imposes, but from motives of prudence."[219] This reduces the obligation of obedience to the low standard of policy and expediency, and recognizes nothing whatsoever as due to the dignity or authority of the Government which exacts it. This doctrine is purely Jesuitical, and the method of stating it could scarcely have been improved upon by Loyola himself. No equivocal words are employed to disguise the actual meaning; it is distinct and palpable. It is this, nothing more nor less: that if a human law, whether a constitution or a statute, is unjust because it violates the divine law, then they who so regard it may, by simulated obedience to it, compromise with injustice and wrong, and even sin, for the sake of some future advantage! It is exactly as if it should be said to a nation or a State that its constitution and laws are heretical and atheistical because they violate the law of God, but that they will be submitted to only until the means[Pg 413] of setting them aside can be obtained. This doctrine, as applied to such ordinary domestic laws of a State as relate to property and the general management of public affairs, is counteracted by the enforcement of such laws by the proper tribunals. But it is otherwise when the obnoxious provisions are embodied in fundamental principles, such as the separation of Church and State, the freedom of religious belief, the popular source of all political power, and other principles upon which Government structures are based. In cases of this character—that is, where the principles are embodied in constitutions, and are thereby made fundamental—obedience becomes a mere cover to conceal the secret purpose of ultimate rebellion against them; or, rather, of ultimate treason against the Government itself. It is a practical exemplification of the demoralizing doctrine that "the means are justified by the end." This is the doctrine which the Jesuits openly and boldly inculcated in India and in China, when they became Brahmins and worshiped idols, and persisted in these unchristian practices in contemptuous defiance of the repeated mandates of the popes, until their absolute suppression and abolition became a necessity to the Church. But in these times and in this country, somewhat more of caution and circumspection is required, because, even where there is perfect freedom of religious belief, "motives of prudence" forbid that this un-American doctrine shall be openly proclaimed. The motive, however, that existed then is the same that exists now; that is, to accomplish by indirection and stealth an ulterior end which "prudence" requires to be hypocritically concealed. It is these same prudential motives which dictate that Protestantism shall be, for the time being, recognized as an existing and influential power, but with the secretly cherished purpose to deal with it as an unjust and illegitimate power, subject to entire overthrow whensoever these "motives of prudence" shall exist no longer!

Thomas Aquinas announced his theological doctrines with perfect freedom, because in his time—the Middle Ages—[Pg 414]the sovereignty of the popes was undisputed; and Balmes was but little less restrained in repeating them in Spain when his great work was written. With neither of them were "motives of prudence" so controlling as they now are among those who accept their teachings in the United States. Therefore, Balmes was careful to point out the method of determining when laws and constitutions are so unjust that they may be covertly disobeyed, by evasion or otherwise, while ostensively acquiesced in. He says: "Laws may also be unjust in another point of view, when they are contrary to the will of God;" and "with respect to such laws it is not allowable, under any circumstances, to obey them." All Governments guilty of the offense of enacting such laws are to be considered as having usurped faculties which do not belong to them, and are to be told flatly and unequivocally, when "prudence" will permit it: "Thy laws are not laws, but outrages; they are not binding in conscience; and if, in some instances, thou art obeyed, it is not owing to any obligation, but to prudence."[220]

Applied practically, this papal and Jesuit doctrine amounts to this, under our civil institutions: that one who has taken the oath of allegiance to our Government is justified in not feeling under any obligation to obey the Constitution and laws, in their American sense and spirit, but only in so far as may comport with the ulterior purpose to violate both, to whatsoever extent their principles shall conflict with the divine law as defined by the pope. The proposition is easily illustrated. The Constitution confides to the Supreme Court of the United States the duty and authority to decide upon the validity of all our laws when they are alleged to be invalid. That tribunal has, ever since the beginning of the Government, recognized Church and State as separated, the absolute freedom of religious belief, and the people as the sovereign source of political power, all of which is obedient to the Constitution. Anything to the contrary would undoubt[Pg 415]edly be a step in the direction of upturning the Government and putting an end to the Republic. Yet this Jesuit doctrine, derived from the theological principles of Thomas Aquinas—which we are told are "revealed truth"—not only authorizes, but encourages as Christian duty, an appeal from the Supreme Court to the pope, and obedience to the latter instead of the former. Leo XIII, Pius IX, and Gregory XVI, in our own time, and many other popes before them, have decided—and the former holds himself in readiness to repeat the decision when necessary—that the Government has no rightful jurisdiction over matters which concern the Church or the papacy—whether that jurisdiction is conferred by the Constitution or by fundamental laws—but that they are exclusively within the circle of the pope's spiritual jurisdiction. Upon the authority of this doctrine, therefore, Leo XIII, with the Jesuits to back him, proposes to obtain the mastery over the people by reversing the decisions of the Supreme Court; and interferes with the working of our Government to the extent of instructing citizens of the United States that disobedience to certain of our fundamental laws, as the Supreme Court has interpreted and the people understand them, is an absolute religious obligation, and that obedience to him is the service of God! With entire unanimity the framers of the Government separated Church and State, and made that central and controlling among the principles which underlie it; but Leo XIII solemnly avers, from his pontifical throne in Rome, that this violates the divine law, and is such "libertinism" as is leading society to ruin. Thus he brings himself in direct conflict with our institutions, which would inevitably topple and fall if he were obeyed and his principles were substituted for ours. And, in order to secure the object he seeks after, he has commanded that the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas shall be taught as "revealed truths" in all Roman Catholic colleges and schools, so that the children of all the Roman Catholic citizens of this country shall be so educated as to be prepared for the union of Church and State, and the subordination of[Pg 416] the latter to the former, whensoever "prudence" shall warrant him or his successors in commanding it. If this does not propose to erect an alien and antagonistic Government within ours, upon the principle that "the Church is not in the State, but the State in the Church," it would require the introduction into our language of a new set of words to tell its meaning. That it makes religion the pretext for gradually undermining our civil institutions, any man can see who has intelligence enough to travel away from home without an attendant. Those engaged in this work—no matter who they are or where—are the sappers and miners of an aggressive army. At the command of the pope and Jesuit general—both in Rome—they are striving, day and night, to reduce the whole body of our Roman Catholic population—from the bulk of whom they conceal their actual purpose—to the low and humiliating attitude of Jesuit emissaries, with no sentiments, opinions, or thoughts of their own, but the mere silent, passive, and uninquiring slaves of papal and imperial authority.

After laying down the foregoing general propositions, based upon the teachings of the "Holy Doctor" and "Angel of the Schools," Balmes—guided by the same authority—proceeds to explain the circumstances which justify resistance to the civil authority of Governments. In order to make himself explicit upon this important subject, he designates a class of Governments which he calls de facto; that is, such as are formed by revolution against legitimate authority, and are able to maintain their existence against all opposition, like that of the United States. These, according to him, have no right to exact obedience to their civil authority or laws, merely because of the fact of their existence. Not having been founded upon the principles of the divine law, as defined by the infallible popes, and, consequently, not being de jure, they are to be regarded as illegitimate; and, on that account, no obligation of obedience to them, in so far as they violate the divine law, can be created even by an oath of allegiance. They are only to be obeyed[Pg 417] "from motives of prudence," until de jure or legitimate Governments can be substituted for them. In his view, a Government which possesses the right to require and enforce obedience to its laws, must have the legitimate authority to command; and this it can not acquire unless it conforms to the divine law as the pope shall define it. "Consummated facts"—that is, the actual existence of an independent de facto Government—can not confer this right, no matter how well and permanently established it may be. The period of its duration, whether long or short, is of no consequence; for, by the Canon law doctrine of prescription, no length of time can be set up against the Church or the pope. Nevertheless, as those who pay obedience to the pope are sometimes compelled to live under the protection of what he calls de facto and not under de jure Governments, he recommends Jesuitical obedience to them although illegitimate, because "resistance would be useless," and "would only lead to new disorders." It must be observed, however, that this obedience involves policy and expediency merely, and not the obligation of duty. It is only to be yielded when unavoidable, in consequence of the fact that the illegitimate authority is too strong and well-established to be overcome. It would be otherwise if it were too feeble to defend itself against aggression. And to enforce these doctrines and principles more thoroughly as religious dogmas, he states the fact that when the Archbishop of Palmyra wrote a book to prove "that the mere fact of a Government's existence is sufficient for enforcing the obedience of subjects," the "work was forbidden at Rome," and placed, of course, upon the Prohibitory Index.[221]

He refers very sparingly to the methods of resisting illegitimate or de facto Governments. As the exponent of doctrines approved by the Jesuits, the infallibility of the pope was accepted by him as the doctrine of the Church, although it had never been so decreed or accepted by the whole[Pg 418] Church. This was necessary to his main premise, which was that as the pope represented God on earth, all the power of the Church must, from necessity, be centered in him, so that whatsoever he declared the divine law to be must be assented to as such by all the faithful. If the pope possessed that power then, he possesses it more emphatically now, since his infallibility has been made a part of the faith, and, therefore, all who accept that doctrine are bound to do whatsoever he shall command with reference to submitting to or resisting the constitutions and laws of civil governments whensoever his jurisdiction, as he defines it, shall be invaded by them. Consequently, the true Church teaching is, that the pope alone is permitted, as the sole earthly interpreter of the divine law, to decide whether Governments are de jure or de facto, and what constitutions and laws are to be obeyed or disobeyed; and no appeal is allowed from his decision. With this final arbiter of the fate and destiny of nations constantly present to guide the faithful, through the agency of a vigilant and watchful hierarchy, the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, the Jesuits, and divers popes, they are required to cultivate, with the utmost diligence, the habit of obedience to papal authority, so as to keep themselves in constant preparation for future emergencies. What those emergencies shall be will depend upon the progressive Governments themselves, and, in this country, upon the people; who should not, even seemingly, acquiesce in any measures of either Church or State, priests or laymen, which shall unsettle or endanger any of the fundamental principles upon which their civil institutions are planted. There is no room in this country which can be appropriated as a burial-place for popular government; but there is room for the still further outspreading of the influences of the form of government which is now sending its light over the world, advancing civilization where it exists, and creating it where it does not.

Gathering the papal doctrines from these sources, authoritatively commanded by Leo XIII to be considered as the foundation of all Roman Catholic education, a man must[Pg 419] stultify himself not to see that the fundamental principles of our Government can not enter into and become a part of that education. The Roman Catholic youth are forbidden by the papal system from accepting as true the principles of the Declaration of Independence, or of the Constitution of the United States. Both of these instruments would have to be excluded from Roman Catholic schools, or the pope be disobeyed. Or if introduced there, the pupils would have to be taught that they contain irreligious principles, which the Church had always condemned, and still condemns. The Jesuit preceptor would tell them that the American Revolution was a sin in itself, because it was rebellion against the existing principles of monarchical government, which alone have the divine approval; that all men are not created free and equal, because some are born to command, and others to obey; that governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, but the multitude of the governed are bound to obey their superiors, and they the pope; and that when our fathers appealed to "Divine Providence" for the support of our national independence, their appeal was blasphemous, because the pope, who represents God on earth, has anathematized the principles they have announced. And with the Declaration of Independence thus disposed of, they would be further instructed that the first article of the amendments to the Constitution is null and void, because it is the duty of the Government to establish the Roman Catholic religion by law, inasmuch as it is the only true religion ever revealed, and the Protestant religions are false and heretical; that these false religions ought to be prohibited by law, and that the freedom of speech and of the press should be so far restrained as not to allow the Roman Catholic religion to be assailed, the authority which the pope claims for himself to be questioned, or the Roman Catholic priesthood to be subjected, like other people, to obedience to the public laws.

Upon the great work of building for themselves and us a Government based upon the Declaration of Independ[Pg 420]ence and the Constitution of the United States, our fathers entered, as we verily believe, under the protection of Divine Providence. Are we prepared to have the youth of this country taught that this is such delusion as can only exist in the minds of "the dreamers of unprofitable dreams?" Unless we are, we must discard the advice of any alien power, either spiritual or temporal, hostile to the progressive spirit which has thus far assured our growth and greatness, and promises still greater progress and development in the future. A century of experience has taught us that the founders of our Government were not only skillful builders, but wise and prudent counselors. When they shunned the pathways along which other nations had wrecked their fortunes, they, as we believe, displayed a degree of wisdom never excelled in the previous history of the world, by building up a system of secular government which centers in the hands of the people—a free, intelligent, and patriotic people—entire sovereignty over the laws. There can be no attack upon any material part of that system, without assailing this popular sovereignty, and denying to the people the right of self-government.

When, therefore, we are told—as the Jesuits now tell us—that these secular institutions created by our fathers are sinful and heretical, because they violate the divine law as Leo XIII, Pius IX, and Gregory XVI, in our own time, and numerous other popes before them, have defined that law, we are confronted by the alternative of either resisting this assault in some effective method becoming to ourselves, or of consenting to the papal policy of retrogression, which proposes to lead us back into a condition of humiliating dependence upon an alien power which teaches that popular governments contravene the divine law, and have the curse of God resting upon them. We are no longer left to surmise this, or to draw inferences with regard to it, which may be ingeniously and Jesuitically met by the pretense that they proceed from Protestant prejudices. The doors have been thrown open so wide by our liberalism and tolera[Pg 421]tion that the ultimate end which the papacy seeks after is not brooded over in silence as it formerly was, but is plainly and distinctly avowed, so that it will be our own fault if we fail to discover the points at which our civil institutions are assailed.

Our Government has been so well and wisely constructed that it does not interfere, in any respect whatsoever, with the freedom of conscience. On the contrary, it is protected by constitutional guarantees, which we preserve with the most assiduous care. But the papal assailants of some of its most cherished principles avail themselves of this freedom to justify their united exertions to restore the temporal power of the pope, well knowing that if that can be accomplished so that his authority could be established here, as they desire it to be, he would exercise his prerogative right to deny this same freedom of conscience to all except those obedient to himself, and would arraign us at the bar of the Roman Curia, because under our constitutional guarantees we tolerate all the varieties of religious belief.

Without the least disguise, these same assailants openly declare their purpose not to slacken their efforts until our system of popular education is entirely uprooted from the foundation, and our public schools are converted into papal conventicles, where the disciples of Loyola shall have supreme rule and be permitted to plant the principles and theological doctrines of Thomas Aquinas in every youthful mind. This accomplished, they would expect that the coming generations, instead of deriving patriotic instruction from the example of those who founded the Republic, would bow their heads in absolute and uninquiring obedience to all the doctrines and dogmas of the pope—substitute the decrees and encyclicals of the popes and the Canon law of Rome for the Constitution and laws of the United States—and, discarding entirely the admonitions of our Revolutionary fathers, would accept as infallibly true whatsoever the pope should declare concerning the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers; that is, between the Church and the State.

In this work of plucking out every germ of patriotism which instinctively grows and bears fruit in youthful minds, the Jesuits have been experts, ever since Julius III and Loyola established a college at Rome to teach treason to the German youth. Time and practice have increased their skill, and their disappointment at being compelled to witness the triumph of Protestantism, while they have become fugitives among the nations, has intensified their hatred of all free and independent Governments. Leo XIII—not forgetful of his own early training—has signified his purpose to select them as the educators of American youth, so that they may be trained in the religious belief that our national independence is leading us to "libertinism" and ruin; and that they can only serve God rightly by forgetting home and country, and by plucking out from their minds all sense of personal manhood and every ennobling quality; so that, instead of becoming influential citizens of a free and progressive country, they may fit themselves for "uninquiring obedience" to a foreign and alien power, as the Jesuits themselves have done. This country, so blessed by the abundant fruits of the Reformation and of popular government, must not be permitted to turn back to the old paths, which papal and imperial despotism has filled with pitfalls. The principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States must not be supplanted by papal and Jesuit dogmas—such as have been set forth by the ambitious popes and by Loyola, in order to secure the complete triumph of monarchism over popular liberty.

The sentiment of patriotism is well-nigh universal among the people of the United States—Roman Catholics as well as Protestants. The former have the same desire as the latter to participate in making the laws that govern them. Their Italian brethren had this desire so intensely that they resorted to revolution, and thus secured it in the only possible way by abolishing the pope's temporal power. Why, then, should they be urged, with such untiring tenacity, to restore again this temporal power and revive its evils? Why should[Pg 423] it be demanded of them that they organize into a politico-religious party, obedient to a papal envoy from Rome, and pledged under the solemn obligations of religious duty to reverse the judgment of their Italian brethren, and fasten upon them a burden they have thrown off? Why should they be required to accept a religion which teaches that mankind are by nature unequal, with some born for dominion and the multitude for obedience only? Why should they be commanded to treat as sinful and heretical civil institutions which now protect them and increase their temporal happiness? Why should it be continually sounded in their ears that the divorce of the State from the Church, religious liberty, the freedom of speech and of the press, are such offenses against the divine law as must not be condoned in this life, and will not be forgiven in the next?

These questions are not idle, but are full of meaning to those to whom they are addressed, and could be multiplied almost indefinitely. They are sufficiently suggestive to show—what there are few so blind as not to see—that the existing agitation about the rights of the Church, and the passionate declamation employed by the Jesuits to maintain it, have but a single object—the re-conversion of the pope into a temporal and imperial ruler of the Italian people, against their consent. This—with these agitators—must be accomplished at every hazard, no matter what other consequences may follow. It is inculcated as religious duty, which can not be neglected without disobeying God! All the obedient, therefore, are commanded to take part in it, in disregard of all human laws forbidding the people of one nation from interfering with the domestic affairs of another. The reverend author of the pope's biography—speaking for and by the express authority of Leo XIII himself—says that the abolition of the temporal power "is an international wrong which all Catholics are bound to denounce and oppose until it is done away with."[222] This is the command of the pope,[Pg 424] authoritatively uttered in imperial tones. It is sent out to all the Roman Catholics throughout the world, who are required by it to defy the laws of the countries which protect them, because they are mere human laws, and to restore absolute monarchism to the pope, because the divine law provides that mankind shall be ruled by kings and not by themselves.

The Roman Catholic part of our population are seemingly content as they are, in their peaceful and quiet homes, where, with their wives and children around them, they are secured by Protestant laws in the right to worship God unmolested and according to their own consciences, as well as in their pursuit after happiness and prosperity. Are they prepared to place all this in jeopardy, to minister to the pride and vanity of those who assume to be their rulers, who know nothing of domestic joys, or peaceful homes, or such sympathetic affections as grow out of the tenderest relations of life, or of the laughter and chattering of innocent children, which make the heart glad? All the means that learning and eloquence and authority can employ will be invoked to make them so; and it is considered one of the most effectual of these to instruct them—as the pope's biographer does with singular complacency—that the Church at Rome has been always found upon the side of free thought in religion and popular self-government in civil affairs! And to maintain this marvelous assertion, he boastingly claims that the great English Magna Charta—the foundation of our civil and religious liberty—was written "with a Catholic pen;"[223] when he must have known, and undoubtedly did know, that Innocent III—who claimed, as Leo XIII does, to be "God's vicegerent," with the apostolic power to build and destroy nations, to plant and overthrow kingdoms—cursed and anathematized that charter because, as he said, it violated the divine law; declared it to be null and void for that reason; excommunicated its authors and defenders as heretics; and[Pg 425] said that if that charter had been carried to Rome it would have been consumed in flames kindled by a common hangman, as would also have been the bodies of the earls and barons who extorted it from a craven-hearted king. The decree abolishing the temporal power of the pope was also written by a Catholic pen.

Nevertheless, it is true—and no fair-minded man will deny it—that there have been multitudes of Roman Catholics in all parts of the world who have been intense lovers of civil and religious liberty, and who have defended their cause with courage and fidelity. There are many of these in the United States—men who every day feel the warm and friendly grasp of Protestant hands. With all patriotic Americans the welfare of these is close akin to their own. But how many of these have been found upon the papal throne, or among those who claim the divine right to dictate the religion of the world, and exact implicit obedience from its professors? The echo which comes back from the pages of history is—How many? If Leo XIII is one of them, the announcement of a fact so important to the world should come from himself, not from others who exhibit no letter of authority which commissions them to retract, in his name, his well-matured and frequently-expressed official opinions. If he has—now that his mind has become matured by the reflections of a long and well-spent life—found that the separation of Church and State and the freedom of religious belief are not violative of the divine law; if he has become convinced that a government "for the people, of the people, and by the people," like that of the United States, is not heretical,—then let the announcement of these facts come directly and authoritatively from the Vatican. There are multitudes of Roman Catholics in this country whose hearts would leap with intense joy at such an announcement, and Protestants would hail it as a sure harbinger of future concord, peace, and quiet among all classes of professing Christians, such as existed among the Protestants and Roman Catholics of Germany before the social atmosphere was contaminated[Pg 426] by the poison of Jesuitism. Thousands who are inclined to acknowledge the pope's authority over their consciences, within the proper circle of his spiritual domain, would prize an encyclical to that effect, as if each letter were of gold or precious stones, because it would prove to the world that Pius IX was moved only by his own impulsive nature and excited imagination when he declared that the papacy could not become reconciled to, "and agree with, progress, liberalism, and civilization" as they prevail among the modern nations. But until this has been done—regularly and authoritatively—he must be judged alone by the record he has made, and of which his enthusiastic admirers boast as if every word uttered by him was written with the pen of an angel. If the Protestants of the United States still find in these either an open or concealed attack upon the most cherished principles of their Government—the separation of the State from the Church, the freedom of religious belief, of speech, and of the press, the popular right of self-government—they can not be rightfully accused of intolerance when they announce their determination to stand by and maintain these principles to the last. This they must and will do, as their fathers did before, against all the combined powers of the world, no matter from what arsenals their adversaries shall draw their weapons. Nor should they forget that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

FOOTNOTES:

[212] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 151.

[213] De Montor, Vol. I, p. 495.

[214] O'Reilly, pp. 482-483.

[215] Balmes, pp. 411-412.

[216] Ibid., p.v.

[217] Ibid., p. 320.

[218] Balmes, p. 326.

[219] Balmes, p. 328.

[220] Balmes, pp. 329-330.

[221] Balmes, p. 333.

[222] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 471.

[223] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Page 409.

There are few things so important to the people of the United States as that they shall intelligently understand what consequences will inevitably follow the successful termination of Mgr. Satolli's mission to this country in his capacity of deputy-pope. If he shall succeed in breaking down our system of common schools, or in drawing away from them all the children of our Roman Catholic citizens, and in the general or partial substitution of the papal for the American system of education, what will follow? There is but one answer to this question, which is, that religion will be taught in the schools; not the religion of Christ, or the apostles, or the martyrs, or that which prevailed throughout the Christian world for the first five hundred years of our era—up till the fall of the Roman Empire—but that which originated in the ambition of emperors and popes, and culminated in such a union, of Church and State as required that the popes should be temporal monarchs, with plenary power to rule over the consciences of mankind. That is what Leo XIII is striving after, and what he has sent Mgr. Satolli to the United States to accomplish. And it was to achieve this that Pius VII united with the arbitrary monarchs of the "Holy Alliance," and re-established the Jesuits; and Pius IX forced through the Vatican Council of 1870 the decree which declares that all the popes who have ever lived and all who shall hereafter live, are, and must be, absolutely infallible. This doctrine of papal infallibility, therefore, is hereafter to constitute the great fundamental feature in every system of Roman Catholic education, the central fact from which all intellectual culture shall radiate, as the[Pg 428] rays of light do from the sun. What it is requires no learning to explain, and what effect it would have upon our institutions, if taught in all our schools, it does not require the spirit of prophecy to foretell. That it would undermine and destroy them is as palpable as that poison diffused throughout the body will, if not removed, produce death.

The struggle between the popes—that is, the papacy—and the Church as an organized body of Christian people, for a conciliar decree of the pope's infallibility, was continued through a period of more than a thousand years, during which some popes exercised it without authority as a cover for persecution, and to justify their unlimited ambition; others to assure themselves of impunity in the commission of enormous crimes; while others, influenced by honest Christian instinct and sentiment, repudiated and condemned it as demoralizing and antichristian. The Church suffered most when this struggle was at its highest, as is evidenced by the seventy years' residence of the popes at Avignon; the forty years' schism; the claim of the pontifical seat by John XXII, Gregory XII, and Benedict XIII, at the same time; the imprisonment of John XXII by the Council of Constance; the burning of Huss and Jerome at the stake; and the general demoralization of the clergy, to say nothing of other things with which all intelligent readers of ecclesiastical history are familiar. When the Church recovered from these and other afflictions, it would be tedious to enumerate; it was done by the influence of the good and unambitious popes, together with that of the great body of its membership, who combined to rebuke the claim of infallibility, because it was founded upon the vain assumption that a mere man, with the passions and impulses of other men, was the equal of God in wisdom and authority.

When this decree was obtained by Pius IX from the Vatican Council, twenty-three years ago, the Jesuits won their proudest triumph since their restoration. It made no difference with them, or with Pius IX, or with their obedient followers, that Clement XIV was decreed to have been also[Pg 429] infallible when he suppressed them by a solemn pontifical decree, reciting how they had disturbed the peace of the Church and of the nations by their multitude of iniquities, nor how one act of infallibility could be set aside and abrogated by another. Not even a single thought was incited by so inconsequential a matter as this, because everything was centered in the great object of achieving a triumph over liberalism and modern progress, upon the Jesuit theory that "the end justifies the means." Pius IX was present in the Council, and one of the enthusiastic defenders of the decree afterwards gave full vent to his extraordinary imaginings by declaring that the souls of all present were "overwhelmed by the brilliant effulgence of the sun of righteousness and eternal truth, reflected to-day from one greater than Moses, the very vicar of Christ Jesus himself."[224] It is not surprising that an author like this should have become the historian of such a Council, but it is a little so that his book should have been published in this country about two years after, in a form so cheap as to assure it a large circulation among our Roman Catholic population. The motive of this, however, manifestly was that the volume should become educational in the papal schools, to take the place of the histories which point out the advantages we have derived from Protestantism, and at the same time stamp the impression upon the minds of old and young, that the pope, as the only guardian and dictator of true Christian faith is and must continue to be—no matter whether as a man he possesses good qualities or bad—a "greater man than Moses," because he is infallible and Moses was not. This character of the work is well established by the fact that, among the deplorable evils of the times, it specifies the usurpation of the education of youth "by unbelieving seculars;" that is, by those who, notwithstanding their professions, know nothing of true religion because they are Protestants; and by the further fact that the chief remedy for these evils pointed out[Pg 430] by him is the establishment of the "pope's sovereign power over the world;" and by the still additional fact that, when referring to those Roman Catholics who live under the protection of Protestant institutions, he adds: "The Church has ever regarded it as a matter of importance that the laws of those civil powers, to which her spiritual children are subjected, should be formed in perfect accordance with her own laws;"[225] that is, that as the pope has at last, after more than a thousand years of hard struggle, been decreed to be infallible, they shall not be considered by "the faithful" as binding upon their consciences unless approved by him. And then, establishing it as the foundation-stone upon which the superstructure of the papal system rests, that the Church "has ever proved herself the most powerful bulwark of the temporal power of temporal princes," he proceeds to instruct those who had not then learned what was meant by the pope's infallibility, in what sense the Church expected them to accept it. His words should sink deeply into the mind of every citizen of this country who desires to know what principles of government would be instilled into the minds of American youth if Mgr. Satolli and his Jesuit allies should succeed in destroying our common schools, and substituting for them parochial or religious schools. Here is what he says:

"The Church may not wish to interfere in the purely secular concerns of other States, or in the enactment of purely secular laws, for the government of foreign subjects, but she claims a right, and a right divine, to prevent any secular law, or power, being exercised for the injury of religion, the destruction of morals, and the spiritual ruin of her children. She claims a right to supervise such laws, to support, their use, if salutary, to control their abuse. In the domain of morals, it is the province of the Church to reign. Wherever there is moral responsibility, it is her prerogative, by divine commission, to[Pg 431] guide and to govern, to sanction, to command, or to condemn, to reward merit, and to punish moral delinquency."[226]

"The Council will vindicate its authority over the world, and prove its right, founded on a divine commission, to enter most intimately into all the spiritual concerns of the world; to supervise the acts of the king, the diplomatist, the philosopher, and the general; to circumscribe the limits of their speculative inquiries; to hold up the lamp which is to light their only path to knowledge and education; to subjugate human reason to the yoke of faith; to extinguish liberals, rationalists, and deists by one stroke of her infallibility. Infallible dogma is a brilliant light, which every intellect must recognize, whether willingly or reluctantly.... The Church claims its right to enter the world's domain, and recognizes no limits but the circumference of Christendom; to enforce her laws over her subjects; to control their reason and judgment; to guide their morals, their thoughts, words, and actions, and to regard temporal sovereigns, though entitled to exercise power in secular affairs, as auxiliaries and subordinates to the attainment of the end of her institution, the glory of God and the salvation of the immortal souls of men, and to secure for them their everlasting happiness. And this order of things she regards as true liberty—Ubi Spiritus Domini ibi libertas."

He insists that the Church has the right to intrude "into the social relations of the general community of worldings;" and has also the "right to supervise the lectures of the professor, the diplomacy of the statesman, the government of kings, and to scrutinize their morality and punish their faults."

Referring to the union of Church and State, and the manner in which politico-religious opinions are brought within the papal jurisdiction, he says:

"Political theorists nowadays presume so far as to proclaim the right of secular States to be what they call free[Pg 432] and independent of the Church's laws; that is, they profess to take their temporal governments out of the Church in which God intended to place and to bless them, and to consecrate them in and through the Church. There are even those who have the temerity to advocate the deordination of a Church dependent on the legislative enactments of a secular State! Statesmen know the objects of your transitory existence: it is to enact secular laws, for secular jurisprudence, and for the secular commonweal, and then to live in the Church; to co-operate with the Church; to be sanctified through the Church; and by this happy union to enjoy the reciprocity of the Church's influence over the consciences of your subjects, which is the solid foundation of their loyalty and your stability; and to assist the Church in promoting what is useful for saving their souls, which should be to you also an object of paramount solicitude. Is the world, then, come to this!—that social diplomatists should sever the State from the Church, or domineer over Christian society? Is nature to separate from grace, and set up a dynasty for itself? No, no; Quis separabit? The holy alliance of Church and State constitutes the union of the soul and body—the life and vigor of Christian society! It is time that a General Council shall teach statesmen this salutary lesson, and that they may not put their foot on the steps of Peter's throne; that it is their duty to co-operate with the Church; and that in all matters appertaining to the order of grace, their position is, to sit down and listen respectfully before the Church's teaching chair."[227]

Nothing short of the importance of the matters involved in the doctrine of the pope's infallibility, and the consequences which are expected to follow it, can justify such lengthy extracts from a single book. But these considerations do, for the reason that as books like this are seen by few, and read by still fewer, a better opportunity for understanding the objects to be accomplished by them is furnished[Pg 433] by this method to both Protestants and Roman Catholics. Multitudes of the latter are deceived and misled into the belief that the doctrine of the pope's infallibility is necessary to the Church, whose Christian teachings they revere; whereas, if they, by intelligent instruction and thoughtful reflection, were assured, as the fact really is, that it pertains alone to the power and authority of the popes—that is, to the papacy, and not the Church—it is believed they would neither assent to it themselves, nor allow it to be taught, as a necessary dogma of faith, to their children, either in schools under the auspices of the Church or elsewhere. It would be unfair to them to doubt that they would reject it, if assured, as these extracts would assure them, that infallibility requires the destruction of every form of popular government in order that a grand papal confederation may be constructed for the government of the world, under the sole dominion of the pope. They would, upon proper investigation, see and know that the Council which passed the decree was not a representative body with authority to bind their consciences, but that it was, on the other hand, composed of those who were indebted alone to the pope for all the authority they possessed, and that he could strip them of their robes at his own pleasure in case of disobedience to his commands. And they would learn also that instead of the decree having been passed unanimously by the whole Council—as they have been instructed—there were 157 absentees, who withdrew because of it, leaving those only to vote who were in its favor; that, in point of fact, it was a conflict between the Church, as it had existed under more than 250 popes before Pius IX, and the papacy, and that the victory was won by the latter, to the discomfiture and regret of vast multitudes of their devout Christian brethren in all parts of the world. The Council consisted of 692 members. There were but 535 present when the decree was passed, showing, as stated, 157 absent. Of these, 63 of the diocesan bishops and representatives of what are called "the most illustrious sees in Christendom," signed a written protest against papal infal[Pg 434]libility. Of those present, 533 voted for the decree, and 2 against it—one of whom was from the United States—but these were so carried away by the excitement that they gave in their adhesion. Many of the absentees had left Rome in disgust, having signified their opposition before leaving. On the day of the vote, there were 66 in Rome who refused to attend the session. Among these were 4 cardinals, 2 patriarchs, 2 primates, 18 archbishops, and the remainder were bishops. The result, consequently, was a mere triumph of the majority over the minority, as occurs in legislative bodies. The pretense of unanimity is without foundation, except as regards the votes actually cast. To compare a result thus obtained to the direct intervention of Providence, in imitation of the delivery of the law to Moses, indicates the possession of an exceedingly high faculty of invention; it borders closely upon delusion. Therefore, it may well and appropriately be said that the description of the scene by the author, from whose book the foregoing quotations are extracted, has, in calling Pius IX "greater than Moses, the very vicar of Christ Jesus himself," so far transcended the bounds of reason as to make their author appear like one who lives only in an ethereal atmosphere. There is no authority for saying that he is a Jesuit; but if he were found in companionship with one known to be so, it would be puzzling to tell which was "the twin Dromio," because, beyond all doubt, they would be "two Dromios, one in semblance."

What was expected to be accomplished by the decree of the pope's infallibility, by solemnly declaring that God had but one representative upon earth, and that he was so endowed with divine wisdom that he alone could prescribe the universal rule of faith, and was endowed with sufficient authority to enable him to exact and enforce obedience to his commands? Let the thoughtful mind, desirous to obtain a satisfactory answer to this question, ponder well upon the teachings of universal history—the birth, growth, and decay of former nations. Upon innumerable pages he will find it[Pg 435] written, more indelibly than if it had been carved upon metal by the engraver's tool, that, from the very beginning of the Christian Church at Rome—whensoever that was—papal infallibility had never been recognized or established as a dogma of religious faith. If the Apostle Peter was the first of the popes—as alleged—then, up till the pontificate of Pius IX, there were two hundred and fifty-eight popes, to say nothing of the numerous anti-popes. There were, besides, numerous General and Provincial Councils, beginning with that at Nice, under Constantine, in 325, and ending with that of the Vatican, in 1870—the period between the two being one thousand five hundred and forty-five years. And yet, during all this long, protracted period, there is not to be found, among the articles of religious faith announced from time to time by the Church, one single sentence or word or syllable which requires it to be believed that the pope is infallible! Is all this history mythical? Has it led "the faithful" into error and sin? Were only those popes obedient to the divine law who believed themselves infallible, and acted accordingly, while those who did not were heretics? Why were General Councils necessary to obtain the universal consent of the Church, if the popes were infallible and could decree the faith of their own accord? When popes disagreed—as did John XXII and Nicholas III and Innocent III and Celestine and Pelagius and Gregory the Great—upon important questions, how were they to be decided?[228] Were the popes who denied their own infallibility destined to be cut off in eternity from the presence of God for their heresy? Edgar enumerates eight of these who directly disaffirmed their belief in it,[229] and there were many others who did not affirm it. Were all these heretics? And were also the great Church historians, such as Launoy, Almain, Marca, Du Pin, Bossuet, and others—and the whole body of French or Cisalpine Christians—all heretics? And what is to be said of[Pg 436] the General Councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel, all three of which denied the pope's infallibility in terms of strong condemnation? It would be easy to multiply these questions; but it is sufficient to say that if the popes who denied infallibility were heretics, then the line of apostolic succession is broken by the removal of several important links in the chain, and the attempt to trace back the present Roman Church to the apostolic times, and to the Apostle Peter, is an entire and humiliating failure. And it is an unavoidable inference from a long line of facts, well proved in history, that but for the unfortunate alliance between the ambitious popes and the Jesuits to build up and strengthen their power at the expense of the Church, the Christian world of the present day would have taken no interest in the prosecution of that inquiry. The Church is of less consequence to the Jesuits than their own society, and as they have invariably condemned it when not upon their side, so there has been no time since the death of Loyola when they did not consider its humiliation by them as promotive of "the greater glory of God," when thereby their own power and authority could be enlarged.

When Pius IX, in 1854, signalized the close of the eighth year of his pontificate by issuing his decree to the effect that thenceforward the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary should be accepted as a dogma of faith, he acted of his own accord and without convening a General Council. It is fair to say, therefore, that he considered this an act of infallibility, then, for the first time, put in practical execution. It was, doubtless, an experiment, practiced with the view to ascertain whether or no it would obtain the approbation of those whose consciences were to be influenced by it. The experiment was successful, and inasmuch as it involved only a question purely of a religious character, no special or injurious consequences followed. Protestants did not regard themselves warranted to complain of it, for the plain reason that the religious faith of Roman Catholics concerned themselves alone. Pius IX, however, intended by this decree something more than merely to add a new dogma to the faith.[Pg 437] Undoubtedly, his object was to employ this exercise of infallible power, so that, if accepted with unanimity by the membership of the Church, that might be considered such an indorsement of the doctrine as would justify him in convening a General Council, and having it decree that, not himself alone, but all other popes, both good and bad, were infallible.

This is not said reproachfully, but rather to indicate the shrewdness and sagacity practiced by him to influence the large body of believers in the Church. The whole history of the papacy at that time proved that it was essential to its future success that the doctrine of infallibility should be extended beyond mere questions of religious belief, so as to embrace other matters connected with the revolutionary movements then in progress in Europe, which were threatening to undermine, if not destroy, the papal power; that is, the temporal power of the pope. Revolutionary disturbances are always threatening to those against whom they are directed, and Pius IX, believing, as he undoubtedly did, that such as then existed in Europe were directed, or would be if not checked, against his temporal power, deemed it necessary to obtain, if possible, the sanction of a conciliar decree to the exercise by him of new powers in addition to those then universally conceded to him over religious questions and affairs. Thus he designed to obtain the express or implied assent of the Church to his exercise of jurisdiction over politico-religious matters, in order that he might be enabled to promulgate such decrees as would, through the agency and influence of "the faithful" among the different European nations, arrest the progress of the revolutionary movements, and save his temporal power. Hence, when the decree of infallibility was interpreted by him in the light of these events and his own purposes, he had no difficulty in concluding that it had given him jurisdiction over all such politico-religious questions as bore, either directly or indirectly, upon the spiritual or temporal interests of the Church in all parts of the world. That his successor, Leo XIII, agrees with him in this interpretation no intelligent man can deny.[Pg 438] If he were not influenced to do this by his desire to regain the temporal power which was taken away from his predecessor, his education and training by the Jesuits would impress his mind with the conviction that a temporal crown upon his head is a positive necessity, in order that he may promote "the greater glory of God." Consequently, when it is thus made too plain and palpable to admit of fair denial, that the infallibility of the pope is the chiefest and most fundamental dogma of faith—the foundation of the whole system of papal belief—it is positively obligatory upon us, in this country, to understand its full import and meaning. If anything were required to make this obligation more binding than it is, it is found in the facts now confronting us, that our public schools are pronounced "godless" because this religious dogma is not taught to our children, and that it is taught to Roman Catholic children in parochial schools, mainly under Jesuit control.

Tedious as the evidence already adduced may seem to be to those who look at such matters as these only by casual glances, it is indispensable to a thorough knowledge of the truth that the politico-religious matters which this decree has brought within the jurisdiction of the pope should be plainly and distinctly made known. Without this knowledge, our tolerance may seem to invite dangerous encroachments, by the Jesuits and those obedient to them, upon some of the most highly cherished principles of our Government. We have seen, from one papal author, what is meant at Rome by a religious education, and shall, in the next chapter, see cumulative proof from another, probably more influential.

From this latter author, even more distinctly than from the former, we shall see how absolutely we should be subject to the commands of the pope; how we should be domineered over by his ecclesiastical hierarchy and their Jesuit allies; how all our actions, thoughts, and impulses, would be held in obedience to ecclesiastical and monarchical dictation; and how we should have, instead of a Government of the people, one under the arbitrary dictatorship of a foreign sovereign, who can neither speak our language nor understand our Con[Pg 439]stitution and laws. We might be permitted to manage our secular affairs—such as relate to the transaction of our ordinary business—but in everything we should consider as pertaining to the Church or himself, he would become our absolute and irresponsible ruler. Church and State would be united, and all the measures provided by the framers of our Government for the protection of our natural rights—such as the freedom of religious belief, of the press, and of speech—would be destroyed. Free government would be at an end, and a threatening cloud would hover over us like the pall of death. We should be turned back to the Middle Ages, and all the fruits of the Reformation would be lost, without the probability of ever being afterwards regained by our posterity. A careful scanning of what follows will show that this picture is not overdrawn. And if it is not, the obligation to see that these calamities shall not befall us, rests as heavily upon the Roman Catholic as it does upon the Protestant part of our population. A common spirit should animate the hearts of all, no matter what their religious belief, and stimulate them to joint protest and mutual defense. Those who brave the dangers of navigation upon the same vessel at sea, must, when the storm rages, unite together in heart and hand, or run the risk of sinking in a watery grave. So it is with those whose lives and fortunes and earthly interests are under the protection of the same civil institutions; if they become divided into angry and adverse factions, under the dominion of unrestrained passions, they invite the spoiler to undermine the foundations of the fortress which shelters and protects them.

That the Jesuits, in the war they are now making, and have always made, against civil and religious liberty, constitute such a spoiler, history attests in numerous volumes. Wheresoever civil government has been made obedient to the popular will, they have labored indefatigably for its overthrow. To that end monarchism has been made the central and controlling principle of their organization—so completely so that their society never has existed, and could not exist,[Pg 440] without it. They warred malevolently upon the best of the popes, and defied the authority of the Church for more than a hundred years—never abating their vengeance, except when the pontifical chair was occupied by a pope who submitted to their dictation. They are, to-day—as at every hour since the time of Loyola—compactly united to destroy, as sinful and heretical, all civil institutions constructed by the people for their own protection, and substitute for them such as are obedient to monarchs and their own interpretation of the divine law. And now, when the pontifical authority is vested in a pope whose youthful mind was impressed and disciplined by their teachings, and they stand ready to subvert every Government which has separated the State from the Church, and secured the freedom of conscience, of speech, and of the press, and are straining every nerve to obtain the control of our system of common-school education, so as to instill their doctrines into the minds of the American youth—the times have become such that all the citizens of the United States, irrespective of their forms of religious belief, should form a solid and united body in resistance to their un-American plottings.

Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, who signed our Declaration of Independence, was a Roman Catholic, but not a Jesuit. He loved his Church, and adhered to its faith, which did not then require him to believe that its pope was infallible; and with his mind filled with patriotic emotions, he stood by the side of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and fifty-four other patriots, and united with them in separating Church and State, in establishing a Government of the people, in guaranteeing the absolute freedom of religious belief; and when he and they looked upon the great work they had accomplished, they solemnly declared that it was in obedience to "the laws of nature and of nature's God." He who now insists, as the Jesuits do, that in all this he violated his Christian conscience by offending God in the perpetration of an act of heresy, not only asperses unjustly the memory of this[Pg 441] unselfish patriot, but wounds the sensibilities of every true American heart. At the time our independence was established Pius VI was pope. He had not been declared to be infallible, and the Jesuits did not exist as a society under the protection of the Church; for they had been suppressed for their innumerable offenses against the Church and the nations, by his immediate predecessor Clement XIV, and were wanderers over the earth, seeking shelter under heretical princes and States, where they were allowed to plot against the Church. The pope, therefore, possessing only spiritual jurisdiction, did not pronounce a pontifical curse upon our infant institutions, not only because they were not within that jurisdiction, but because they secured, by proper guarantees, the freedom of religious belief to Roman Catholics. He had his hands full in attempting to deal with the French Revolution, over which he supposed his jurisdiction to extend, because France had, for several centuries, recognized the spiritual dominion of his predecessors and their right to regulate its faith. Consequently, he took the side of Louis XVI against the people of France, and denounced the Legislative Assembly, and avowed his purpose to maintain all the prerogative rights of the "Holy See." He, accordingly, issued an encyclical proclamation, in which he condemned the efforts of the French people to establish a Republic, and the Legislative Assembly, in these words: "That Assembly, after abolishing monarchy, which is the most natural form of government, had attributed almost all power to the populace, who follow no wisdom and no counsel, and have no understanding of things." He further instructed the bishops that all "poisoned books" should be removed "from the hands of the faithful by force and by stratagem." He declared that "the priesthood and tyranny support each other; and the one overthrown, the other can not long subsist." He denounced the liberty after which France was striving, in imitation of our Revolutionary example, as tending "to corrupt minds, pervert morals, and overthrow all order in affairs and laws,"[Pg 442] and the equality of man as leading to "anarchy" and the "speedy dissolution" of society.[230]

And inasmuch as this same pope, Pius VI and the present pope, Leo XIII, have been solemnly decreed to be infallible, incapable of error in matters of faith, and standing in the place of God upon earth—and Leo XIII has never repudiated these teachings of Pius VI or many others of like import by other popes—and the decree of infallibility has so enlarged his spiritual jurisdiction as to bring all politico-religious matters throughout the world within its circle, and the Jesuits have been re-established under their original constitution as it came from the hands of Loyola, and are still full of life and vigor, which they constantly display in their tireless efforts to control the education of American youth, the obligation imposed upon all our people, of every religious creed, to discover in what direction we are drifting, is positive, absolute, and indispensable.

FOOTNOTES:

[224] The Council of the Vatican. By Thomas Canon Pope. Page 272.

[225] The Council of the Vatican. By Thomas Canon Pope. Page 10.

[226] The Council of the Vatican. By Thomas Canon Pope. Page 11.

[227] The Council of the Vatican. By Thomas Canon Pope. Pages 12 to 15.

[228] Ecclesiastical History. By Du Pin. Vol. XV-XVI, p. 260.

[229] Variations of Popery. By Edgar. Page 188.

[230] Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs. By De Montor. Vol. II, pp. 461 to 470.

It is of the highest importance that the papal interpretation of the decree of infallibility should be understood. This can be ascertained only by obtaining information from authoritative sources, from those who bear such relations to the pope as entitle what they say of the intentions and purposes of those charged with the administration of Church affairs, not merely at Rome but elsewhere throughout the world, to the highest consideration. In the absence of any direct avowal sent forth from the Vatican, the next best evidence is embodied in the papal literature, manifestly provided to explain the character of such teachings as it is designed to introduce into Roman Catholic religious schools in the United States, and into our common schools, provided Mgr. Satolli should make his mission here a success. The conscientious "searcher after truth"—whether Protestant or Roman Catholic—will find himself well rewarded for whatsoever labor he may expend in this method of investigation. If he be a Protestant, he will see that all the principles of Protestantism, religious and civil, are threatened; and if he be a Roman Catholic, not belonging to the ecclesiastic body, he will be likely to discover that his silence is construed by his Church authorities into acquiescence in politico-religious opinions which his conscience repudiates and condemns.

During the progress of the Italian revolution in 1868, a work appeared in Italy from the pen of P. Franco, wherein the relations between the Church and secular Governments, as well as individuals and communities, were elaborately discussed. This work was evidently authoritative, and if it did not have the special approval of Pius IX, it undoubtedly had[Pg 444] that of those high in position at the Vatican. It had two controlling objects: First, to check the revolution, and to bring the Italian people into a proper state of obedience to the pope, as a temporal monarch with absolute authority; second, to prepare the way for the acknowledgment of the infallibility of the pope, which was then in contemplation. It failed in the first, because that involved the civil and political rights of the Italian people, which they had determined not to leave longer under the dominion of irresponsible monarchical power; and aided, it is supposed, in accomplishing the second, because it was asserted and believed that it had reference only to matters of religious faith. At all events, the passage of the decree encountered no direct resistance from the Italian people, as it would undoubtedly have done if they had supposed it intended to counteract and destroy the influences of the revolution, in so far as they affected their political rights.

After the decree was passed, it was considered important that this work of Franco should be translated into the English language, so as to bring all English-speaking Roman Catholics to the point of accepting papal infallibility, both as an accomplished fact and the only true religious faith; and to convince them of the enormous sin they would commit by refusing to do so. Lord Robert Montagu, a Roman Catholic member of the British Parliament, became the translator, following the original, as far as he considered it expedient, upon points of religious doctrine, and adding some reflections of his own. It was published in London in 1874—four years after the passage of the decree—in order to create English opinion in favor of the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, and the recognition of his infallibility. This work has 428 pages, almost every one of which contains assertions designed to prove that the spirit of the present progressive age is offensive to God, and that mankind can be saved from eternal perdition in no other way than by conceding to the pope the universality of dominion which it claims for him, and which, if granted, would over[Pg 445]turn every Government existing in the world, and, first of all, the present Government of Italy. It is almost impossible, within a reasonable compass, to explain anything more than his general ideas, and such of these only as are intended to show how the powers and authority of the Church and the pope—made equivalent terms by the decree—are viewed by those whose position and character entitle them to speak knowingly and authoritatively. For the want of such information as this volume, and others of the same kind, contain, multitudes of good-intentioned people, both Protestants and Roman Catholics, are misled.

He attributes the present "spread of false principles," now prevailing in the progressive nations, to two causes: First, "modern civilization;" and second, "freedom of conscience," or "the right of private judgment." He considers all who "respect every religion" as guilty of "formal apostasy;" and says that "Catholics certainly are intolerant, and so they ought to be," because "if a Catholic is not intolerant, he is either a hypocrite, or else does not really believe what he professes."[231] He insists that when a contest shall arise "between an ecclesiastical and a lay authority, the Church knows infallibly that it belongs to her to determine the question," not only over "spiritual matters," but "whether the point in dispute be a spiritual matter, or necessarily connected with a spiritual matter." Hence he argues, in explanation, that "therefore the temporal authority must be subordinate to the spiritual; the civil authority, and its rights and powers, must be placed at the absolute disposal of the Church;" that is, the State must obey the pope in whatsoever he shall command or exact. Consequently, says he, "the Church, whose end is the highest end of man, must be preferred before the State; for all States regard only a temporary or earthly end. If, then, we have to avoid an imperium in imperio, it is necessary that the temporal State should give way to the eternal[Pg 446] Church;" that is, the laws of the Church must be obeyed before those of the State. He is careful to designate the duties of a secular Government like ours as follows: "Let it look to the civil and criminal laws, its army, its trade, its finance, its railways, its screw-frigates, and its telegraphs; but let it not step out of its province, and, like Oza, put forth its hand to hold up the ark of God." To make the Church free, the pope must be absolutely independent, and not "in the power of any Government—with the control of education, and the right to 'administer and dispose of her own property.'" Referring to a free Government, such as that of the United States, he says: "A State which is free from the Church is an atheistical State; it denotes a godless Government and godless laws, ... which knows nothing of any kind of religion, and which, therefore, determines to do without God." In order to avoid confusion, the State must be subordinate to and dependent upon the Church, because, "by separating Church and State, you cut man in two, and make inextricable confusion," and because also "a separation of Church and State is the destruction both of the State and the religion of the people." And so he argues that "the State can not be separated from the Church without commencing its decadence and ruin;" wherefore "the State must obey the legitimate authority of the Church, and be in subordination to the Church, so that there may be no clashing of authorities, or conflict of jurisdictions."[232]

He fiercely denounces secret societies, such as the Freemasons, but strangely omits the Jesuits, whose proceedings have always been sheltered behind an impenetrable veil. All such as are not favorable to the papal demands he calls the "slaves of the devil," and represents them as belonging to "the synagogue of Satan," only for the reason that they do not bow their necks to the pontifical yoke—a method of denunciation as persistently indulged in by such writers, as if Christ had[Pg 447] commanded the passions of hatred and revenge to be cultivated, and not suppressed. Referring to the bulls of Clement IX, Benedict XIV, Pius VII, and Leo XII, excommunicating all who show favor to or harbor them, he declares that any oaths they may take are not binding. He does not base this upon the conclusion that they are not authorized by law, and are merely voluntary, but upon the third canon of the Third Council of Lateran, which applies to all oaths of whatsoever character, and provides that "it is not an oath, but an act of perjury, when a man swears to do anything against the Church;" as, for example, our oath of naturalization and allegiance, which requires fidelity to heretical institutions, and the maintenance of the atheistical principle, which requires the State to be separated from the Church.[233]

The "liberty and independence of the pope in his spiritual government," he makes to mean "not only the liberty and independence of his own person, but also that of the numerous great dignitaries of the Church who assist him, and of the officials and ministers and employees of every order whom he requires, and who are required by the numerous ecclesiastical institutions which surround him, and which extend their operations over the whole world." In this extraordinary and pretentious claim there is no disguise—not even equivocation. All appointed by the pope, including a whole army of employees, of every grade, are to be exempt from the operations of the public laws of all Protestant Governments and answerable alone to the pope! Let the friends of popular government mark well the reason for this universality of the pope's absolute jurisdiction over the world. It is this, that "if any Government were to have jurisdiction over them, except that of the pope alone, or if any Government were able to impede their action, then the pope would have less immunity and freedom of action than an ambassador of the meanest power in the world," because he could[Pg 448] not compel them to obey his laws and commands—that is, the Canon law—instead of those of the State. And he carries this idea of antagonism between the laws of a State and the Canon laws, to the extent of the excommunication of the former for "sanctioning some antichristian principle;" such, for example, as the separation of Church and State, secular education, or civil marriages. In any of these cases, "that luckless State may find itself confronted by the two hundred million Catholics in the world, and the God of armies, who protect the Church!"[234] And because these "two hundred million Catholics"—which exceeds the actual number by twenty-five million—do not protest against such vain threats as this, the Church authorities interpret their silence to mean approval, and thus they convert their follies of one day into the infatuation of the next, and finally into positive hallucination. This distinguished author furnishes many additional evidences of this—evidences sufficient to convince any unbiased mind, beyond any ground for reasonable doubt, that the Jesuits obtained complete triumph over the pope, and he over the Church.

All independent Governments claim and exercise the right to regulate and manage their own affairs, and when this right is lost, from whatsoever cause, their independence is brought to an end. Yet this author lays it down as a settled principle of ecclesiastical law that the Church—that is, the pope—possesses the exclusive authority to decide its own jurisdiction over spirituals and temporals. After averring that "the Church alone is competent to declare what she is and what belongs to her," he affirms the doctrines announced by the celebrated Syllabus of Pius IX, and charges those who do not accept these teachings with renouncing the only true faith. "The pope," says he, "can not sanction indifferentism or liberty of worship, nor civil marriages, nor secular education; he can not concede liberty, or rather license, of the press;[Pg 449] nor recognize sovereignty of the people; nor admit the necessity of the 'social evil;' nor legalize robbery and murder"—thus placing some of the essential principles of our Government upon a level with the most flagrant crimes. He characterizes "the daily paper" as the "common sewer of human iniquities," and considers popular government such an abomination that the Church must not be silent wheresoever "a false principle—the sovereignty of the people"—shall prevail. Hence, in order to correct these evils and extirpate these heresies, the "priests must enter into politics," because the Church "has a right and duty to meddle in every question, in so far as it is in the moral order"—giving, by way of illustration, "trade, commerce, finance, and military and naval matters." If a State shall do anything to hinder the accomplishment of any of the supernatural ends sought after by the Church, it must be reduced to subordination, as "it is the duty of the superior society to correct it." Hence "religion must of necessity enter into politics, if government is not to become an impossibility." And, surveying the whole field occupied by the modern nations, he admonishes society to avoid a republic, and adds: "Let the form of government be a republic, and you will then endure the horrors of the democracy of '89, or of the Commune of '71; for a nation will assuredly plunge itself into misery as soon as it attempts to govern itself."[235]

He devotes a chapter to liberty, in which he says "liberty of thought is, in fact, the principle of disorder and uncertainty, and a license to commit every crime." He condemns "liberty of speech," "liberty of the press," "freedom of worship, religious liberty, or equality of Churches," and declares that "freedom of worship, or religious liberty, is a false and pernicious liberty."[236] But being compelled to realize that Roman Catholics are allowed freedom of religious belief and worship in Protestant countries, he finds himself con[Pg 450]strained to make an explanation. In doing so, however, he makes a startling exhibition of Romish and Jesuit intolerance, wheresoever the power to enforce it is possessed. What is to follow from his pen should command the most serious attention from all American readers, whatsoever their religion. His book was not written and published under influences favorable to the liberty of the press, but under papal auspices exclusively. It is fairly to be presumed that he was chosen by the proper papal authority for the purpose, and that so far from its having been placed upon the "Prohibitory Index" it has the highest papal sanction. He says:

"Thus it is that Catholics, in some countries, ask for liberty of education, liberty of worship, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and so forth; not because these are good things, but because, in those countries, the compulsory education, the law for conformity of worship, the press law, etc., enforce that which is far worse. In the Egyptian darkness of error, it is good to obtain a little struggling ray of light. It is better to be on a Cunard steamer than on a raft, but if the steamer was going down the raft would be preferable. So it is relatively good, in a pagan or heretic country, to obtain liberty of worship, or religious liberty; but that choice no more proves that it is absolutely good, and should be granted in Catholic countries also, than your getting on a raft in mid-ocean proves that every one, in all cases, should do so. Still less does it follow that, because liberty of worship is demanded in Protestant countries, therefore it should be granted in Catholic countries. To deny religious liberty would be contradictory of the principle of Protestantism, which is the right of private judgment. But the principle of Catholicism is repugnant to a liberty of worship; for the principle of Catholicism is that God has appointed an infallible Teacher of faith and morals."[237]

He proceeds, with marvelous complacency, to argue that Protestants have no right to be intolerant toward Roman[Pg 451] Catholics, because "they have no business to imagine that truth is on their side," and "lies and errors have no rights;"[238] but Roman Catholics have a right to be intolerant towards Protestants because truth abides only with them.

The liberty of the press is especially denounced. It is called "the most hurtful of liberties," and restraints and "checks should be imposed upon the press." It is condemned as "a crime," and, it is said, "there is no right to a freedom of the press." In order to prove how hard the popes and Councils have struggled to put a stop to "telling lies in public" by "newspaper editors," he cites the "strict orders" issued by the Lateran Council, under Leo X, that nothing should be published which the bishops did not approve; and the renewal of these orders by the Council of Trent. He then enumerates the following popes, who prescribed rules and injunctions to prevent these commands from being evaded: Alexander VII, Clement VIII, Benedict XIV, Pius VI, Pius VII, Leo XII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, the last of whom is represented as saying that "the freedom of the press is 'detestable' and 'execrable;'" and lastly, Pius IX, in the seventy-ninth proposition of his Syllabus.[239]

He expresses the most sovereign contempt for the people and to the principle of fraternity which unites them in a mutual bond for the establishment and maintenance of their own civil and religious liberty. "As dogs have their bark," says he, "and 'brindle cats' their mews, as horses have their neighs and donkeys their brays, so have the populace their cries." He continues: "Dirty democrats overthrow those who are above them, in order to leap into their seats and oppose all other dirty democrats."[240] He condemns the idea of the sovereignty of the people, as it is established in the United States, in the severest terms. Where this maxim prevails, according to him, "no government would be possible," because everything would be in "fearful disorder,"[Pg 452] for the reason that "men have always lived in submission," and every society should continue to have "a permanent authority over" it. And as this authority must have its derivation from God, the pope must be this permanent ruler, because he alone represents God. He draws a picture of the people performing the "juggling trick and acrobat feat of functioning the office of sovereign." He mocks at the "supreme wisdom in the legislation of tinkers;" the "far-sighted prudence in the commands of clodpoles, hucksters, and scavengers;" and the "docility and readiness to obey in their beer-wrought, undisciplined minds." Classing all peoples who have established Governments subject to their own will, as included in the false picture he has drawn, he avers "that the people possess no authority, and as they have it not, they can not delegate it." "The sovereignty of the people, on the contrary, is the origin of every sort of evil, and the destruction of the public good or 'commonweal.'" "The people can not ever understand the principles of justice; they have lost, behind their counters, the little sense of right they had."[241]

In the chapter from which these extracts are taken, there are a couple of sentences intentionally passed by as worthy of special notice and comment. They are pregnant with meaning, and especially interesting to us in this country, in view of the fact that Protestants are regarded as rebels against the Church, and are, as a class, still held to be within its jurisdiction, and subject, like sheep that have strayed away, to be brought back into the fold again. These questions are asked:

"If you refuse to recognize the authority of Christ in the Church, how can you expect your subjects to recognize your authority in the State? If it is lawful for you to revolt from the Church, it must be lawful for others to rebel against the State?"[Pg 453][242]

Whilst this does not openly assert the right of Roman Catholics to revolt against Protestantism and Protestant institutions, it not only suggests, but leaves it to be inferred. Everybody knows that Protestantism was the fruit of a revolt against the authority of the Church at Rome. According to this author, and the teachings of that Church, no just rights were thereby acquired, because none can grow out of resistance to its authority. Consequently, Protestantism has no right to exist, and it is the duty of the Church to reduce it to obedience—that is, to destroy it—whensoever it can be accomplished. Hence the suggestions of the author include two propositions: First, that as Protestantism is rebellion against the Church, it has set an example which may be rightfully followed in rebellion against itself; and, second, that if Protestantism has, by its rebellion against the Church, established civil institutions which the Church considers inimical to itself, "it must be lawful" to rebel against such institutions until they shall be made to conform to the interests and welfare of the Church. Hence, as his theories advance, he denies that any such thing as nationality, as understood by all modern peoples, can have any rightful existence, because "it is opposed to the Church's precept of submission to lawful authority;"[243] in other words, it is opposed to the right of the infallible pope to ignore all the boundary-lines of States, and make himself the sovereign and universal dispenser of the governing authority of the world within whatsoever jurisdiction he himself shall define. In the same connection he condemns the doctrine of non-intervention among nations, and insists that it is their duty to interfere with the affairs of each other, for the reason that "Christian charity commands men and nations to come to the rescue of each other."[244] "Mutual help," says he, "is a fundamental duty of Christianity; and therefore non-intervention must be a principle belonging to paganism."[245] This doctrine is[Pg 454] manifestly employed to convince all Roman Catholics throughout the world that it is their duty to bring, not only themselves, but the Governments under which they live, to the point of interfering with the affairs of Italy, by force, if necessary, in order to secure the restoration of the pope's temporal power. In so far as it applies to the United States it advises that our non-intervention laws shall be disregarded, because, in enacting them, the Government usurped a power which did not belong to it, inasmuch as it tends to results prejudicial to the sovereign rights of the pope. In furtherance of the same idea, he strenuously resists the doctrine of what is known as accomplished facts—what the French call fait accompli; that is, the recognition of the independence and nationality of a Government which has been successful in maintaining itself, as the kingdom of Italy has done, by revolutionary resistance to the arbitrary temporal power of the pope. Therefore, as the present Government of Italy is an "oppressive tyranny," has acquired no rights, but has shown "only crime upon crime in a never-ending chain of iniquities," the "old order of things," with the pope as a temporal monarch, possessed of absolute power to dictate all the laws, should be returned to.[246]

We must follow this author somewhat farther, because, before closing, he reaches a point absolutely vital under civil institutions like those of this country. He devotes over a dozen pages to "liberal Catholics," in order to prove that, as the Church must necessarily be intolerant, liberalism is one of the forms of heresy. "To be Catholic with the pope, and to be liberal with the Government, are contradictory characters; they can not exist in the same subject;"[247] because the former involves that which is true, and the latter that which is false, where the civil constitution does not conform to the papal ideas. Such "liberal Catholics" as "put their faith in liberty of the press, representative government, min[Pg 455]isterial responsibility, or the like"—as all foreign-born Roman Catholics who have taken the oath of allegiance to the United States have sworn to do—"betray not only an ignorance or oblivion of what is vital to religion, and of the principles which Christianity requires in Governments and constitutions; but also a most false and pernicious opinion." And in expressing his amazement that there are any in the Church so liberal towards a Government that is entirely secular and not subject to the dictation of the pope, he asks this question: "Is it not a matter of marvel that any one should imagine himself to be a Catholic, while he is liberal with the Government?" He recognizes no authority for the government of society but that of the Church, because conformity to the law of God can be obtained in no other way; and therefore he says: "If this idea of authority is contradicted, counterbalanced, or checked in the constitution of a country, then the Government is founded on a basis which is opposed to reason, to nature, and to the Christian faith." And for this reason, "modern constitutions have therefore put themselves into direct antagonism to the Catholic religion."[248] Consequently, he continues, "every honest man, in every country, now sighs out a new prayer to his litany: From a Legislative Chamber, 'good Lord, deliver us!'"[249] He insists that fidelity to the Church consists in the observance of all the dogmas set forth in the Syllabus of Pius IX, and thus enumerates these important propositions contained in it: The 55th condemning the separation of Church and State; the limitation of the rights of Governments declared by the 67th; the liberty of worship condemned by the 77th; the freedom of the press censured by the 79th; civil marriage reprobated by the 65th to the 74th; secular education, which is called usurpation, proscribed by the 45th to the 48th; oppression of the clergy denounced in the 49th; and "all the principles of liberalism, of progress, and of modern civilization," declared in the[Pg 456] 80th, "to be irreconcilable with the Catholicism of the pope."[250]

With a few more brief comments upon "civil marriage," the "secularization of education," and the Jesuits, this extraordinary book is brought to a close by admonishing the faithful not to permit their children to receive "a godless education" in such public schools as are authorized by the laws of all our States—because all education should be under the supervision of the Church—and by announcing in serious and solemn phrase, that "Protestantism has filled the world with ruins!"[251]

What an extent of infatuation must have incited this last remark! There need be said of it only that, in former times, there were powerful Governments subject to the dominion of the popes, but all these have passed away—not a single one is left. Protestant Governments have risen out of the ruins of some, and are now rising out of those of others of them, and all these are happy, prosperous, and progressive; whilst the pope himself, with the vast multitude of his allies assisting him, is devoting all the power given him by the Church to persuade them to retrace their steps and return to the retrogressive period of the Middle Ages. The author of the work to which so much space has been appropriated, is one of his conspicuous allies, far from being the least distinguished among them; and for that reason the doctrines he has announced in behalf of the papacy have been set forth at unusual length. This having been done, in order that what he has said may be thoroughly comprehended, it needs only to be further remarked here, that, according to what he has laid down as the established religious teachings of the Roman Church, with an infallible pope at its head, it is impossible for any man to maintain those teachings and at the same time be loyal to the Government of the United States. There is no escape from this; but before further comments upon[Pg 457] this point, there are other evidences to show how, since the pope's infallibility was decreed, the lines of distinction between the popular and papal forms of government have been so distinctly announced that it requires very little sagacity to distinguish them, and even less to realize that they can not co-exist in the same country.

A reverend educator attached to St. Joseph's Seminary, Leeds, in England, has, since the Vatican Council, also entered upon the task of instructing the English-speaking world what are the only relations between civil Governments and the Church which an infallible pope can approve. His views were first communicated through the columns of the Catholic Progress, a periodical of extensive circulation; but they were deemed to be of so much importance and such an essential part of the permanent literature of the Church, that in 1883 they were published in book form so as to assure more general reading. This book, entitled "The Catholic Church and Civil Governments," contains but little over one hundred pages, and, being in cheap form, has found its way to the United States, where it is expected, of course, that its teachings will inoculate the minds of all the faithful, and furnish instructors to conduct education in religious schools. What it is expected to accomplish will be seen from the following references to its contents.

At the opening of the volume the reader is apprised beforehand of what he shall expect in the way of doctrinal teaching. It is dedicated to the present pope, Leo XIII, who, besides being designated as the vicar of Christ, is addressed as "The Christ on earth!"—not as man, with the faculties and frailties of human nature, but as God himself! Although the author is not represented as a Jesuit, it may well be inferred that he is one, from these blasphemous words, which shock the sense of Christian propriety, and ought to excite indignation in every intelligent Christian mind.

He starts out by assuming that the present pope "is still a king," and that "he exercises a real authority over his subjects, irrespective of the country to which by birth they[Pg 458] belong."[252] In this he agrees with the Italian P. Franco, and the English statesman Lord Montagu, that the principle of nationality can not be permitted to prevail against the pope in his march to universal dominion—that State lines and even ocean boundaries amount to nothing. Upon this hypothesis he bases the assumption that the Church "is a public society, a kingdom, a divine State," and possesses "the power of public jurisprudence."[253] Elsewhere he calls this "external power to legislate;" that is, to pass laws binding the consciences of her subjects, to take means to insure those laws being put in exercise, to be herself the judge of the sense of her laws, to punish them that trespass against the laws, and to bring them into the right path by coercion.[254] He endeavors, by various modes of statement, to establish the proposition that the Church is "independent" of all civil Governments, until he reaches the point of positively asserting it;[255] assigning as the reason that the "Church is the continuation of the authoritative presence of Jesus Christ in the world."[256] Turning away, only for a moment, from the idea of a "universal Christendom"—unlimited by the separate nationality of States—he draws a melancholy picture of the condition of the world, unless this independence of the Church shall be fully recognized. "Once grant," says he, "that the Church is subordinate to the civil State, and there will ensue a complete upsetting of the scheme of salvation, an entire submersion of divine truth, a total overthrow—nay, an utter destruction—of the kingdom of Christ."[257] "She knows that no earthly power can bind her," nor can she "swear fealty, or own allegiance to any other sovereign," which propositions he proves by the Syllabus of Pius IX.[258] Hence, he repeats, "The Church is a perfect society, and independent of the State;"[259] and emphasizes it by declaring "that the State is in the Church, as a college is in the State."[260] She has[Pg 459] "the right of way. She has the right to enter every kingdom in the world, to set up her tents, to propagate her doctrine, to make subjects, ... to reign in every corner of the earth,"[261] and "to use the weapons most suited to accomplish her object."[262] She "is bound to use the means most conducive to her spiritual end," and "the illuminating spirit" that guides her "shows her the advantage of sometimes making use of temporal means." Besides fasting, abstinence, excommunication, and interdicts, "even more severe measures have occasionally been found to be very salutary." She "is justified in using extrinsic coercion whenever it promises to be a help," according to "the principle of the coercive power," asserted by Pius IX in the twenty-fourth proposition of the Syllabus. Primarily these coercive measures are to be employed against "only the members of the Church;" but are subject to be employed at the discretion of the pope against all baptized persons. "Once baptized," says he, "then the Church has over them all the rights of a parent."[263] This includes baptized Protestants, who, by the decree of the Council of Trent, are considered as sheep gone astray, but still within the jurisdiction of the Church.

The Church, he insists, is subordinate to the State in nothing, but the State is "subordinate to and under the guidance of the Church in all matters which touch, even incidentally, upon the moral life of the State."[264] The State "is bound not to institute any law or sanction any custom which can in any way hinder the Church in gaining her supernatural end," and "is bound to aid the Church by a material assistance whenever she deems such assistance necessary."[265] "At the present day there does not remain one truly Catholic State."[266] But this does not release them from the obligation of obedience to the Church, because the "greater portion of their subjects are baptized," and "baptism enrolls a man among the children of the Church; and hence, in[Pg 460] spite of their denying the claims of their true spiritual Master, they are, as Christian States, still bound by one obligation; namely, to refrain from establishing any law which is against the conscience of their Catholic subjects."[267] Therefore the Church must "be obeyed by her subjects, with or without the good-will of the civil power."[268] "The Church has a right to carry out her divine mission in every land, and to do so, if need be, in spite of the civil power."[269] "The Church sends her ministers throughout the world," "independently of the favor or permission of the temporal powers," and invests them with "absolute power."[270] When the pope assigns them a duty, "he gives them a right to carry out that duty in the teeth of every earthly power."[271] "For the civil power to endeavor to hinder the Church in the exercise of this right is a crime. It is to resist God."[272] He claims for the Church the right to go into all the countries in the world, with or without their consent, and "there to establish and unfold herself, to set up her machinery" in whatsoever way she may deem expedient.[273] "Hence," says he, "the Church has a right to erect her hierarchy, to set up her tribunals, to hold her synods, to open schools, to found colleges and convents, and especially to be free and unfettered in her communications with the pope. She has a right to spread the faith, and needs not to sue for leave from any earthly power."[274] "And this right the Church can never lose. It can never become obsolete. No length of time can prescribe against it;"[275] that is, no Government can exist long enough to acquire the right to mature a system of laws which the pope may not rightfully command to be resisted and set aside, when he shall decide that the interests of the Church require it to be done.

Before closing, he treats of the separation of Church and State, and justifies the condemnation of it by Pius IX in the[Pg 461] Syllabus, and says that "after such a declaration of the supreme pastor, no true Catholic can hold that politics and religion ought to be utterly separate." But not content with the authority of Pius IX upon this point, he adds that of the present pope, Leo XIII, whom he represents as having lifted up his voice "to teach the world that, while the Church and the civil Governments are orders distinct in their origin and in their nature, it is the will of heaven that religion lend its aid to the State, and that the State should support religion;"[276] that is, the Church and the State should be united together, and each aid the other in maintaining its authority, so that, by their joint alliance, they should be able to render a Government of and by the people impossible. In order to accomplish this and the other objects pointed out by him, he represents that the Church "brooks many affronts, and suffers many wrongs, and makes herself all things to all men"—as the Jesuits did when they worshiped idols in China, and became Brahmins in India—so that she may bring all nations and peoples under her dominion, and the pope become the ruling power of the world, "independent of all civil Governments," and "subject to no earthly ruler."

Thus we have, in plain and authoritative language, a complete portrayal of the only form of government which the pope can approve. If he seems to be reconciled for the time being to any other form, it is merely because it is expedient to do so, so that by being "all things to all men," in obedience to Jesuit teaching, he may thereby make himself surer of ultimate triumph. Every man who shall take the pains to scan the foregoing evidence will find in it ample proof of the fact—to say nothing about other independent Governments—that the papal system is more antagonistical to the civil institutions of the United States than to any other in the world. Whatsoever professions to the contrary may be put forth, it is a palpable truth, absolutely[Pg 462] incontestable, that the fundamental principles of our Government are the subjects of constant and vindictive assault by the papal party—the followers of the pope—in and out of the United States. The framers of our Government secularized it by measures which resulted in separating Church and State, but the pope and his hierarchy, aided by the Jesuits, fling in our faces the accusation that, in doing so, they violated the divine law which it is their religious duty to restore. We have established a nationality of our own, recognized by all the nations of the earth, but they tell us that it possesses no authority to impose the least restriction, by any laws it can enact, upon the power of the pope or his army of ministers and employees within the borders of our own territory. We have guaranteed freedom of conscience, or diversity of religious belief, but they confront us with the charge of heresy on account of it, and openly avow their purpose to destroy this guarantee by employing the combined powers of Church and State to unify their own religion, to the exclusion of all others, by laws above and superior to our Constitution. We have secured freedom of speech and of the press, and have provided for civil marriages, and for the secular education of our children at the public expense; and they tell us that, on account of these and other equally important measures of public policy, we have become a "godless" nation, living under "godless" laws enacted for "godless" purposes, and that they have been divinely appointed to perform the holy duty of exterminating all these evils, in order to save us from the destruction inevitably awaiting us on account of them. One is required to give but a single moment to reflection to be assured that if the pope, by the aid of his hierarchy and the Jesuits, shall be permitted to achieve the results for which they are now so anxiously seeking, and acquire such dominion as they desire in the United States, our free institutions must come to an end. They can win success only by our defeat. Papal government can only prevail here when our present civil institutions shall be destroyed.

FOOTNOTES:

[231] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Introduction, pp. 1 to 5; text, pp. 42 to 47.

[232] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Pages 122 to 136.

[233] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Pages 139-140.

[234] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Pages 193 to 196.

[235] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Pages 201 to 238.

[236] Ibid., pp. 311 to 316.

[237] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Page 318.

[238] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Page 319.

[239] Ibid., pp. 328-333.

[240] Ibid., pp. 338-339.

[241] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Pages 361-365.

[242] Ibid., pp. 356-357.

[243] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Page 375.

[244] Ibid., p. 381.

[245] Ibid., p. 382.

[246] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Page 387.

[247] Ibid., p. 395.

[248] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Pages 396 to 398.

[249] Ibid., pp. 400-401.

[250] Popular Errors Concerning Politics and Religion. By Lord Robert Montagu, M.P. Page 406.

[251] Ibid., p. 427.

[252] The Catholic Church and Civil Governments. By Rev. John Earnshaw. Preface, p. vi.

[253] Ibid., pp. 18-19.

[254] Ibid., p. 26.

[255] Ibid., p. 31.

[256] Ibid., p. 33.

[257] Ibid., p. 34.

[258] Ibid., p. 44.

[259] Ibid., p 45.

[260] Ibid., p. 46.

[261] The Catholic Church and Civil Governments. By Rev. John Earnshaw. Pages 48, 49.

[262] Ibid., p. 51.

[263] Ibid., pp. 52-53.

[264] Ibid., p. 64.

[265] Ibid., p. 67.

[266] Ibid., p. 68.

[267] The Catholic Church and Civil Governments. By Rev. John Earnshaw. Pages 69-70.

[268] Ibid., p. 71.

[269] Ibid., p. 76.

[270] Ibid., p. 77.

[271] Ibid., p. 78.

[272] Ibid., p. 79.

[273] Ibid., p. 82.

[274] Ibid., p. 83.

[275] Ibid., p. 84.

[276] The Catholic Church and Civil Governments. By Rev. John Earnshaw. Page 99.

One of the most conspicuous manifestations of the spirit now prevailing among the leading nations, is that all of them are struggling to go forward and not backward. Italy, in this respect, does not constitute an exception to this general rule, as her present prominent position in Europe abundantly testifies. Hence, every sensible man well knows that the Government now existing there can not be overthrown, so that the temporal power of the pope can be restored, except by another revolution or by the military invasion of a foreign power. Which of these remedies it is the purpose of the papacy to invoke can only be conjectured. But since one or the other of them must, from necessity, be in contemplation, it is essentially important that the true relation which the dogma of papal infallibility bears to the temporal power should be well understood, in order to see—what will be apparent to any careful investigator—the impress of the Jesuits upon the papal policy, and that, but for them, the Church would be left to the enjoyment of its religious faith, without disturbance by any of the nations.

The temporal power was always an enemy to the peace of the Church—rending it into hostile factions—separating the Eastern from the Western Christians, and introducing feuds and strifes and schisms between popes and anti-popes, cardinals and clergy, and those who followed them in their long and angry conflicts. Before this tremendous power was usurped, and papal ambition was incited by the desire to possess it, the Church of Rome embraced within its fold almost the entire Christian world. Now, however, it finds itself representing only a minority of those who profess Chris[Pg 464]tianity.[277] All this, and more than this, has been accomplished by restless and ambitious popes, who, defying the example and all the admonitions, not only of Christ himself, but of all the primitive Christians, entangled the Church in vicious alliances with potentates and kings, in order that they might wear crowns of temporal royalty themselves, and give increased strength and vigor to the principles of monarchical government by keeping the multitude in superstition, ignorance, and inferiority. And when, in the present enlightened age, there is no excuse for not knowing the wars, the bloodshed, the persecutions, and the misery, which followed this unholy alliance between Church and State, in order to create and preserve the temporal power of these usurping popes, he must have but little regard for the welfare of the human race who would again afflict any part of the civilized world with these or kindred calamities. The Roman Catholic people of Italy have, of their own accord, removed them, and those who are now seeking to reafflict them by alliances with foreign and alien powers, make themselves disturbers of the world's peace, by seeking to embroil other peoples and nations in dangerous combinations for such a purpose.

It is not easy to overestimate the importance and seriousness of the issue involved in the proposition' to restore the temporal power of the pope—whether in its relations to Roman Catholic or Protestant populations. In so far as the former are concerned, it involves the conversion of their religious faith into the illiberality and selfishness of Jesuitism; the sacrifice of the ancient faith of the Church to the principles of a society which boasts that it has plucked out of[Pg 465] the hearts of its members every vestige of human sympathy and affection, and has spent the whole period of its existence in sowing seeds of strife and contention, and in so opposing the acknowledged authority of the Church when employed to curb their worldly ambition, that one of the best and most enlightened of the popes was constrained, by a sense of duty to the Church and to the Christian world, not merely to suppress them, but to declare, infallibly and ex cathedra, that the suppression was forever. To Protestants it presents but two alternatives, either to cast away all the rich fruits of the Reformation, or to rebuke the attempt to encroach upon the rights the people have acquired after centuries of conflict with monarchical and arbitrary power. Both these propositions command the most serious and thoughtful consideration, especially by citizens of the United States, where the form of government is designed to conserve all religions, and enable those who profess them—no matter how variant and conflicting they may be—to live in amicable and peaceful relations with each other. No intelligent mind can reflect upon the indisputable proofs of history and the philosophy they teach, without realizing that, with regard to this issue our own course is plain, clear, and unmistakable.

The ambitious popes—such as Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, as well as others before and after them—acquired and maintained their temporal power by a long series of coercive and oppressive measures. In order to give these measures a religious sanction, they usurped the functions which pertained to the claim of infallibility, not only without the consent of the Church, but in face of the positive rejection of that dogma by several Councils, and against the almost unanimous sentiment of the multitude of Christians. The general polity of the European nations, under the dominion of monarchical power as it was united in Church and State, was favorable to them, as it kept the people in ignorance of their natural rights, and too feeble to assert them by revolution, if they had resorted to that remedy. Thus held in subjection, their non-resistance was held[Pg 466] to be acquiescence in their own humility. Taking advantage of this, popes and other kings, as the allies of each other, asserted their divine right to govern according only to their own united will, and endeavored to establish the infallibility of the pope as a dogma of religious faith, in order to retain and increase their monarchical power. Thoughtful and intelligent Roman Catholics denied and repudiated this doctrine, but were powerless to relieve the multitude from the severity of this joint rule, because the entire coercive power was in the hands of those whose ambition was promoted by it, and who kept themselves in constant readiness to employ it whensoever their interests, both spiritual and temporal, were placed in jeopardy. If history does not prove all this, it proves nothing.

When the Reformation period began, and the popes and the clergy refused the necessary reforms in the Church, those who supported that great movement detached themselves, in large numbers, from the papal party, but continued to assert their unfaltering fidelity to the primitive Christian faith. The reigning authorities were thus confronted with a disintegrating Church, occasioned by their own refusal to reform acknowledged abuses—some of which were so flagrant as to furnish a reason to the Jesuits for the recognition of their society. It was not an easy matter to arrest this disintegration after the treatment of Luther by Leo X, and the difficulties were increased by the circumstances connected with the Council of Trent, as well as by the proceedings of that body. There are many evidences of this. Prominent among these is the fact that the popes were opposed to a General Council, mainly because of the fear that it would refuse to affirm their assumption of infallibility, which would necessarily tend to weaken their hold upon temporal power. But for the Emperor Charles V, it is not probable that a Council would have been then held. He repeatedly urged upon the pope the necessity of convening one, but without success. He was coquetting with the Lutheran Protestants in Germany by means of his celebrated "interim" and other[Pg 467]wise, in order to strengthen his armies by accessions from them. But, at the same time, he cherished the hope that a Council would contrive some method of inducing his Lutheran subjects to reunite with the Church, from which they had been driven by the usurpations of the papacy and the acknowledged vices of the clergy. His main purpose, however, was to make the union between the Church and the State so indissoluble as to maintain and perpetuate the monarchical principle as protection to both. Finding the popes unyielding in their opposition to a General Council, he ordered a national one to be held at Augsburg, in his own dominions, to consider and decide upon such matters concerning the Church as he deemed expedient. Clement VII was then pope, and it required but little reflection to assure him that if the emperor succeeded in holding a National Council in Germany, it would, with almost positive certainty, reaffirm the decisions of the Councils of Constance and Basel, rejecting the dogma of infallibility, and thus inflict a dangerous and probably fatal wound upon the papacy. He was completely checkmated by the emperor, and nothing was left him but to call a General Council to supersede the National Council at Augsburg. It was a game of statecraft between rival contestants for the supremacy—neither having been restrained by any higher motives than those which have their birth in personal ambition. As for the pope, he preferred that the disintegration of the Church should continue rather than run the risk of having his infallibility denied by a General Council, and the possible loss of his temporal power which that denial would have threatened. All this is sufficiently indicated by the impediments thrown in the way of the meeting of the Council by the popes. Clement VII died four years after making the call, but without fixing the time for its assembling. His successor, Paul III, was constrained to fix it for 1537, and to designate Mantua as the place. But this did not exhaust all the expedients for delay. Mantua was objected to for reasons not fully explained, and Vincenza was substituted. The time was accordingly[Pg 468] postponed one year, until 1538. No meeting having then occurred, it was again fixed for 1542. Still, however, in order to gain more time, it was transferred to Trent, where it did not assemble until December 13, 1545—thirteen years after it was first called by Clement VII. Its last session was held December 4, 1563—eighteen years after it first assembled, and thirty-one years after it was first called—more than a generation of time!

During all these years the popes were striving after the surest method of perpetuating their claim of infallibility as the means of preserving their temporal power. While it is to be supposed that they, at the same time, desired to save the Church from overthrow, they so blended its cause with their own ambitious ends, that the Council, instead of being reformatory, was unable to accomplish anything more than the inauguration of a counter revolution to suppress the Reformation, which, by that time, was becoming more formidable everyday. The pope, Julius III, and Charles V had a common interest in keeping Church and State united, in order to ward off successfully any blows that might be aimed at the principle of absolute monarchism. But, apart from this, the pope had a separate and distinct interest of his own, in trying to secure, beyond the possibility of loss, the imperial rights and prerogatives of the papacy. Embarrassed as he was, with the eyes of all Europe centered upon him, he was compelled to look for support in every direction, and found no contribution to the papal pretensions likely to become more valuable than that offered by the Jesuits, who were then in readiness, under the lead of Laynez, their general, to devote themselves to whatsoever work should be necessary to extinguish the spirit of revolt against the monarchism of Church and State.

Remembering the services rendered by Loyola to the cause of absolute monarchy, and knowing that the central feature of the Jesuit constitution was specially designed for the advancement of that cause, the pope resolved to bring the united and compact body of Jesuits to his aid, by enlist[Pg 469]ing them as an army to defend the tottering cause of the papacy. The main object of Loyola during his life had been to drive back the tide of the Reformation; and, although he had signally failed in this, he exhibited such superior qualities as a general and commander of men, and had so succeeded in imparting these same qualities to Laynez, his successor, that the pope determined to send the latter as one of his legates to the Council, clearly indicating that he was both unwilling and afraid to trust the interests of the papacy in the hands of those who, by the existing organization of the Church, were intrusted with its administrative authority. He undoubtedly considered that the most certain, if not the only method of preserving the papacy, as distinct from the primitive Church, would be the infusion of Jesuit spirit and courage into the ranks of its defenders. We have heretofore seen how Laynez had succeeded at the French Council of Poissy in restricting the right of discussion to ecclesiastics alone, and it is fair to presume that the knowledge of this dictatorial spirit commended him to the pope. At all events, he was specially favored and distinguished as the representative of the pope and the Jesuits at the same time—a union that had but a single signification; that is, that the pope had accepted the Jesuits as his allies in preference to any of the existing monastic orders, because, as can not be doubted, the latter occupied the field of religious labor, while the former considered religious professions and practices as the stepping-stone to the acquisition of riches and temporal power. Thus favored above any other member of the Council, Laynez courageously entered into the contest between those who defended and those who denied the doctrine of the pope's infallibility, and exhibited his great ability in supporting to the utmost the extreme claim to spiritual and temporal sovereignty which such popes as Gregory VII, Innocent III, Boniface VIII, and others, now declared to have been infallible, had for centuries maintained in defiance of the enlightened sentiment of the whole Christian world. During the long and tedious sessions of the Council, it had been getting[Pg 470] farther and farther away from such conclusions as would satisfy those who desired to see the integrity of the Church maintained; and it was not until the time for its closing sessions was approaching that Laynez announced the Jesuit doctrine with regard to the infallibility of the pope, and the authority and power it would confer upon the papacy. Although, contrary to the expectations of the pope, he did not succeed in procuring the affirmance of his doctrines by the Council—for if an effort had been made to embody the pope's infallibility in the articles of faith, the negative decisions of the Councils of Constance and Basel would have been repeated—yet he did succeed in assuring the papacy that its most formidable allies were the Jesuits, upon whom it could then and always thereafter rely to fight its battles in behalf of that dogma, as well as the temporal power, and whatsoever should become necessary to give strength and permanency to the principle of monarchism in the government of both Church and State. This having been accomplished, together with as much infusion of Jesuitism into the Creed as could then be safely ventured, the pope considered the papacy saved, at least for the time being, and dissolved the Council.

If this Council had been promptly called and convened when demanded by Charles V and the numerous body of Christians, much that has since transpired to the injury of the Church might have been avoided. One result would almost certainly have followed—the reaffirmance of the doctrine of the Councils of Constance and Basel by a denial of the pope's infallibility. What a multitude of evils would then have been avoided by the Church! With the question of infallibility disposed of by adhering to the ancient faith, which assigned it to popes and Councils combined as the representatives of the universal Church, composed of the whole body of Christians, the events then transpiring in Europe indicate that the prevailing sentiment in favor of reform would have been strong enough to check, if not to arrest, the progress of Church disintegration. That accomplished, the question of temporal power would have been left as a[Pg 471] mere domestic one to be settled alone by the Italian people; the ambition of the popes would have been no longer tempted by the desire to acquire universal sovereignty over the world; their meddling with the temporal affairs of the nations would have been rebuked; harmony and concord might have prevailed among all Christians, no matter what their differences of religious faith; all controversy about freedom of conscience would, in all probability, have ceased; the people of every nation would have been left to manage their own affairs in their own way, and there would, doubtless, have been ushered in such a period of general prosperity and contentment as it has required Protestantism to introduce, in despite the resistance and anathemas of the papacy, reigned over by disappointed popes.

But the doctrine of the pope's infallibility, as announced by Laynez in the Council of Trent, deserves to be well scrutinized, in order that its true and actual meaning may be comprehended. He who shall prosecute the laborious research necessary for this, will not be surprised to find that it required over three hundred years of controversy within the Church before the papacy was enabled to create a sufficient number of obedient and submissive prelates to approve the Jesuit teachings of Laynez, as the Vatican Council of 1870 did by decreeing, not only that the pope then reigning, Pius IX, was infallible, but that all the other popes from the beginning—good, bad, and indifferent—were also infallible! It will, however, excite no little astonishment when he reflects that this was done in the nineteenth century, in the face of the popular enlightenment now prevailing, and that such a period was selected for this Jesuit and papal triumph over the Church—which is neither more nor less than placing the future destiny of the Church under Jesuit control, with the helm of the ship which bears its most precious treasures guided by the followers of Loyola and Laynez and the Jesuit generals who have succeeded them.

The language employed by Laynez in this celebrated Council—speaking for the pope as his specially empowered[Pg 472] legate—is not only expressive, but will be startling to some who may now learn it for the first time. It should be well scanned and considered by citizens of the United States, especially by those Roman Catholics whose silent acquiescence in what the papacy has been and is now doing, causes them to be regarded as approving what, in their honest consciences, vast numbers of them do not approve. On October 20, 1562—after the Council had been in existence seventeen years without settling the question whether bishops acted under Divine appointment or were the mere passive creatures and instruments of the popes—Laynez addressed the assemblage in a carefully-prepared and elaborate speech, which the historian says occupied "more than two hours." The occasion was a great one for him and the Jesuits—in the nature of a turning-point in his and their history. It was the first time during the existence of the Church when the voice of a Jesuit was heard in a General Council, and the first time when the general of that society had been made the special legate of the pope. It was also the first time when the Church had openly turned its back upon the ancient monastic orders by giving preference to a society expressly organized in antagonism to them, for the avowed reason that they were unfitted by corruption for rendering efficient service to the Church. Laynez was equal to the occasion—his speech having been, as all agree, a grand display of eminent ability. He pointed out the difference between the Church and human Governments—the former having been built by Christ, and the latter by human societies. Upon this premise he then developed the papal and Jesuit theory by saying: "That while Christ lived in the mortal flesh, he governed the Church with an absolute monarchical government, and being about to depart out of this world, he left the same form, appointing for his vicar St. Peter and his successors, to administer it as he had done, giving him full and total power and jurisdiction, and subjecting the Church to him, as it was to himself." This was a bold announcement of the infallibility of the popes—of the religious dogma that each one of them, in himself alone, possessed the[Pg 473] "full power and jurisdiction" of an absolute and irresponsible monarch. This declaration extorted both praise and censure—the latter especially from the Bishop of Paris, who denounced it as having been invented, within fifty years before, in order that its author might gain from the pope a cardinal's cap; thus showing how well and distinctly it was understood that Laynez was the mouthpiece of the pope, and was merely echoing his opinions. Notwithstanding this rebuke, Laynez was not discomfited—for he well knew the potency of the power behind him—but proceeded to establish the proposition that Peter, like Christ, was an absolute monarch, by an argument which has ever since answered the same end; that is, because Christ said to him: "Feed [that is, govern] my sheep [animals, which have no part or judgment in governing themselves.]" Then, insisting that Christ intended this relation to subsist between the Church and "the Bishop of Rome, from St. Peter to the end of the world," he also declared that Christ, in addition, "gave him a privilege of infallibility in judgment of faith, manners, and religion, binding all the Church to hear him, and to stand firmly in that which should be determined by him." With the view of expressing more distinctly this pre-eminence of the pope over the universal Church he continued: "The Church can not err, because he can not, and so he that is separated from him who is the head of the Church, is separated also from the Church;" that is, none can remain within its pale who do not accept as infallibly true what the pope shall command with reference to faith, manners, and religion. And in order to give completeness to the papal and Jesuit system he was explaining, he humiliated the bishops by placing them, along with the other "animals," at the feet of the pope. He insisted that as "the apostles ordained bishops, not by Christ, but by St. Peter, receiving jurisdiction from him alone," therefore their powers and functions were conferred upon them, not by the divine law or will, but by the pope at his own will and pleasure—thus making them his creatures, mere agents to do his will, ready at all times to yield implicit and[Pg 474] uninquiring obedience to his commands, and bound to accept the will and law of God as he shall instruct them.[278]

This palpable perversion of the words of Christ, which are of plain and simple meaning, has been since so persisted in, that multitudes who do not obey his command to "search the Scriptures" for themselves have accepted the papal and Jesuit interpretation as infallibly true. What he said—"Feed my sheep"—can not be tortured into the meaning which that interpretation gives to the words. The English word "feed" signifies only to supply or furnish with food for nourishment. In the Latin Vulgate edition of the New Testament the words of Christ are thus expressed: "Pasce oves meas." The word "pasce" signifies exactly what the English word feed does; so that the translation now accepted by the most enlightened portion of the world is precisely accurate. But Laynez, it will be seen, so perverted the word pasce, or feed, as to make it mean "govern;" whereas, if the authors of the Vulgate edition of the New Testament had intended to convey any such idea as that, they would have employed either the word guberno, or impero, or dominor, or rego, either of which means govern.[279] But he was, manifestly, looking more anxiously after the interest of the papacy and the welfare of his society than a correct interpretation of Scripture. The principles of the Jesuit constitution were deeply imbedded in his mind; and inasmuch as he was taught by these that the multitude of[Pg 475] mankind should be reduced to the degrading standard of absolute obedience to superiors, his assumption that all the members of the Church were "animals," without either the right or capacity to govern themselves, and therefore completely subject to the mastery of the pope, was a legitimate conclusion from his premise. What he evidently designed to accomplish was to infuse into the doctrines of the Church the fundamental and most distinguishing principle of the Jesuit constitution—that which makes monarchism the chief corner-stone in all spiritual and temporal government. He was the companion and confidant of Loyola, and undoubtedly considered himself as executing the purpose for which the society was established by him; that is, to bring the Church, through and by means of the papacy, to the point of casting off all the influences of the ancient monastic orders, and relying alone upon the Jesuits for its main defense in its conflict with Protestantism. In this he was serving the society as its general, while as the legate of the pope he was serving the papacy—manifestly, however, the first being his chief object. Considering only these ends, he omitted to notice the important fact that Christ, when addressing "a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered," had instructed them to "search the Scriptures" for themselves, because therein they would find those things which testify of him.[280]

The Council of Trent did not decree the infallibility of[Pg 476] the pope, and would have failed in the attempt to do so if it had been persisted in, on account of the popular odium in which that doctrine was held after the schisms brought on by the papacy had rendered it absolutely necessary to the life of the Church that the Councils of Constance and Basel should expressly deny and condemn it, by declaring that a General Council, as the representative of the Church, was superior to a pope. This was especially necessary with regard to the former of these Councils, for the reason that the pontifical throne was then claimed by Gregory XII, Benedict XIII, and John XXIII, so that no one knew who the true pope was. But as John XXIII had possession of the office, he was tried by the Council upon "fifty-five heads of accusation," and, having been solemnly deposed, Martin V was elected in his stead, and constitutes one in the line of papal succession.[281] In the face of these well-known facts, however, the Council of Trent, under the artful manipulations of Laynez, with the pope to back him, went as far as it could[Pg 477] in that direction, without arousing the popular indignation. The legates of the pope—headed by Laynez—would willingly have passed a decree of the pope's infallibility, yet there were a number of bishops who were not prepared to accept the Jesuit theory, that instead of deriving their jurisdiction and authority from the divine law, it was derived solely from the pope. Besides, the representatives of the monarchs and princes were unwilling to concede to the pope the temporal authority which the doctrine of his individual infallibility was intended to embody in his spiritual sovereignty; for it was easy to see that, if admitted as part of the faith, they would hold their kingdoms and authority at his pleasure.

Although no direct vote was taken in the Council of Trent by which the advocates and opponents of infallibility could be numerically determined, the whole proceedings prove that the foundation was there laid, by its final action, for the ultimate triumph of the Jesuit doctrine. Laynez did not win the complete victory he hoped for, but obtained advantages of which his society continued to avail itself for three hundred years, when their triumph became complete under the pontificate of Pius IX. During that protracted period the fortunes of the Jesuits were shifting—favored by some popes and opposed by others—but during all these years the society clung, with the most stubborn tenacity of purpose, to the teachings of Laynez, as announced in the Council of Trent. Notwithstanding the members were held in almost universal odium in all the enlightened nations, and the society was tried, convicted of numerous public crimes, and suppressed by one of the most distinguished of the popes, and found shelter from the popular indignation under protection afforded them by the enemies of the Roman Church, they at last succeeded in being re-established to serve the "Allied Powers" in the defense and preservation of absolute monarchism. Thus regaining a share of their lost influence under the fostering care and patronage of the papacy, they ultimately became enabled, only about two decades ago, to hold the pen and steady the nerves of Pius IX when preparing[Pg 478] the decree of his own infallibility and that of all the popes "from St. Peter to the end of the world." Nor were the popes themselves idle during these three centuries of conflict between progress and retrogression, enlightenment and ignorant superstition. Like skillful politicians, as many of them were, they employed the appointing power confided to them by the Church to create a large body of cardinals and bishops, who were held together, like an army-corps, by solemn oaths of fidelity to the papacy. The march of this ecclesiastical army was slow from necessity, because those who had been supposed to be mere "animals," were gradually brought within the light of the Reformation. But it was steady, nevertheless, for the reason that the stake played for was great, and the courage imparted by the Jesuits was stimulating. At last the forces were sufficiently consolidated, and the cardinals and bishops sufficiently submissive, to hazard the fortunes of the papacy upon a single cast of the die. Accordingly, the Vatican Council of 1870 was brought to the point of decreeing the infallibility of all the popes as the last resort, in order, if possible, to drive back the waves of the Italian Revolution, and rescue the temporal power of the papacy from impending destruction, and make its future secure by engrafting a repudiated Jesuit dogma upon the settled and recognized faith of the Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[277] In Bartholomew's late "Atlas of the World," the professing Christians are thus given:

Roman Catholics	175,000,000
Protestants	110,000,000
Greek Church	90,000,000
Other Christian sects	20,000,000
	—————
Total Christians	395,000,000

[278] History of the Council of Trent. By Sarpi. London edition. 1676. Pages 571-573.

[279] Laynez so far succeeded in influencing the papacy by his method of interpreting Scripture, that both the Douay or Roman Catholic Bible and the Rheims Version of the New Testament contain an explanatory note whereby the papal meaning of the words "Feed my sheep" is given as infallibly true. It is there said that by these words Christ conferred upon Peter "the superintendency of all his sheep, and consequently of his whole flock; that is, of his whole Church." This does not go quite to the extent that Laynez did, by converting the word feed into govern, but so nearly so as to make a distinction almost without a difference. The Latin word "pasce" does not mean either to govern or to superintend—nor does the Greek word bὁσκε, but simply to feed. If Christ had intended to say to govern or superintend, he would have employed a word having that signification, which in the Vulgate would be either curatio or procuratio. He meant, therefore, spiritual food only—advice, counsel, instruction—excluding entirely the idea of either governing or superintending the opinions or consciences of any of the flock.

[280] John v, 39: "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me." The words of the Latin Vulgate are, "Scrutamini Scripturas," and of the Greek, "Ερευυἁτε τἁϛ γραφἁϛ." Each means something more than "search the Scriptures"—that is, examine diligently, scrutinize—and the language is that of command. In order to change it into the mere statement of a fact, the Douay or Roman Catholic Version, and the Rhemish Version—which latter has the "imprimatur" or special preference of Archbishop Hughes, of New York, in 1869, and was printed under his direct auspices by the "Catholic Publication Society" of that city—each contains an explanatory note as follows: "Or, you search the Scriptures;" that is, that Christ merely announced to those present that they did so. This was manifestly done in order to base upon it the admonition which immediately follows: "'T is not a command for all to search the Scriptures, but a reproach to the Pharisees" for not receiving him of whom the Scriptures testified. This perverts the plain meaning; for at that time Christ did not mention the Pharisees, nor did he afterwards do so until he was teaching in the temple. And it was accomplished by adding the word "or" to make the note of equivalent meaning with the text, and the word "you," so as to make it appear that what Christ said was intended for only those he then addressed, and not for all mankind; whereas he undoubtedly intended the latter, so that each individual shall understand what they testify of him. The command is general, because the object is to edify and purify the conscience, and if he meant that others should search them for us and we accept as infallibly true their interpretation of the testimony, the effect would be to weaken, if not destroy, our own sense of personal responsibility. Christ could not have meant this, with reference to matters which concern the eternal welfare of the soul.

[281] De Montor, Vol. I, pp. 566-573.

The triumph achieved by the Jesuits in the Vatican Council of 1870, by the passage of the decree of papal infallibility, inspired the most excessive enthusiasm among the ecclesiastical defenders of the temporal power. They vainly supposed that it was a special intervention of Providence to drive back the revolutionary tide and overwhelm the Italian insurgents who were seeking merely to establish their right to enact such laws as bear upon their temporal interests, leaving the ancient faith of the Church, as their fathers had maintained it for centuries, entirely undisturbed. Pius IX was present in the Council, and when the event was announced, excitedly exclaimed, "Consummatus est," considering, says the impulsive narrator, that Peter had spoken! The same author, as the historian of the Council, continues: "At that instant a terrific thunderstorm burst over the Basilica. It was occasionally enveloped in profound gloom, and the forked lightning darted through and made darkness visible, and peal after peal of thunder rumbled over the Council-hall and towering dome. All were awestruck at the convulsion of the elements, and at the mysterious breathings of the Holy Ghost, whispering, The pope is infallible!"[282]

If, at the seemingly inauspicious moment here described, when nature exhibited herself in frowns rather than smiles, the excitement had subsided sufficiently for calm deliberation, some fear of the Divine displeasure might have been kindled in view of the blasphemous pretense that a mere man,[Pg 480] with all the impulses, passions, and ambitious vanities of other men, was the equal of God in all spiritual and temporal matters which concern the moral conduct of society and Governments, and the eternal welfare of the human soul. No body of men ever assembled before, in the course of all the ages, had ventured to announce so palpable a perversion of the teachings of Christ, whose whole intercourse with mankind was designed to teach meekness and humility as the distinguishing characteristics of a Christian life. Nearly nineteen centuries of the Christian era had passed without the consummation of such an infringement upon the primitive faith; and minds not filled with strange infatuation would have been likely to see in the thunder, the lightning, and the clouds, the manifestation of Divine displeasure rather than to have compared the scene—as this writer does—to that in the mount when the tables of the law were delivered to Moses. But no such deliberation then existed, nor did it attend the proceedings of the Vatican Council. The decrees were prepared beforehand under the dictation of Pius IX—like those made ready by Innocent III for the Lateran Council in 1215, assembled to condemn the pretended heresies of the Albigenses, to give renewed strength to his temporal power, to gloss over his usurpations, and give papal sanction to the horrible persecutions of the Inquisition. No amendments were allowed. An attempt was made to strike out the anathema, but as that would have been a surrender of the coercive power, it failed. The Council—as heretofore stated—was far from being full when the final vote was taken, many members having voluntarily withdrawn to signify their opposition to the decree, after having failed in every expedient to defeat it. Apart, however, from this want of unanimity, it is pretended that this doctrine of infallibility has been concealed, in some mysterious way, in the deposit of faith for all the years since the time of Christ, and not revealed, notwithstanding the untiring exertions of the ambitious popes to obtain its recognition! And all this, without seeming to realize that to say of this doctrine, as[Pg 481] well as that of the Immaculate Conception, that belief in both is absolutely necessary to salvation in the next life, is equivalent to alleging that the millions who have died without the belief of either, and the other millions who have expressly denied and denounced both, have been, and will be forever, excluded from the presence of God!

This is a practical age, and the people of the United States, considered collectively, are conspicuously a practical people. They have become so by virtue of the fact that their political institutions have been so constructed as to require the personal participation of each citizen in the management of public affairs. But if the pope is, in fact, infallible, and possessed rightfully of the jurisdiction over faith, morals, and conduct, which that doctrine assigns to him, then the popular supervision over their affairs ends at the point where the papal and Jesuit supervision over them begins. Then, instead of continuing in the forefront of the progressive and advancing nations, we shall occupy an inconspicuous place among those by which progress is condemned as infidelity. The pope himself, who has sent Mgr. Satolli here to instruct us, seems to have forgotten—and there are multitudes of his obedient followers who care not to know—that the most that his ambitious predecessors, Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, could accomplish by virtue of their assumption of infallibility, was to divide the membership of the Church into rival and infuriated factions—the Cisalpines and the Ultramontanes. The former adhered to the religion of the Gallican Christians by limiting the pope's supremacy to spirituals alone; while the latter, as he now does, extended it to absolute spiritual sovereignty to such a degree over the world, as includes all temporal matters concerning the interests of the Church and the papacy. The Ultramontanes traced this absolute sovereignty back to the lines of policy pursued by several of the most distinguished of the popes, but particularly to the bull "Unam Sanctam" of Boniface VIII, while the Cisalpines repudiated the authority of that bull. This issue gave rise to a protracted and[Pg 482] angry controversy, which continued up till the Vatican Council of 1870, when Pius IX, more successful than any of his predecessors, was enabled to profit by his alliance with the Jesuits, and secure the triumph of the Ultramontanes. This he accomplished by causing the Council to revive the dogmas of all the popes who had gone before him, including, of course, Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, in so far as they concerned faith, morals, and all religious duties and obligations. In the "Dogmatic Constitution," which authoritatively announces the infallibility of the pope, and was issued under the immediate personal auspices of Pius IX, special pains are taken to declare that this doctrine rests not only on the "testimonies of the sacred writings," but on "the plain and express decrees" of "the Roman pontiffs, and of the General Councils,"[283] notwithstanding no previous Council ever passed such a decree, and those of Constance and Basel expressly decided the exact reverse. Here, it will be observed, the popes are grouped together by the use of the word pontiffs in the plural, leaving the present to be compared with the former faith, by searching among the numerous constitutions, decrees, encyclicals, allocutions, and bulls of all the popes enumerated in the calendar of the Church. Thus the Ultramontanes and the Jesuits find their faith in the bulls and policy of Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, but especially in the bull "Unam Sanctam" of the latter; and as they, with Leo XIII at their head, represent the victorious party in the Church, there can be no excuse for not knowing the religious doctrines of that party as they are embodied in the infallible utterances of that celebrated bull, and are now employed to justify the restoration of the pope's temporal power, and the enlargement of his spiritual jurisdiction in the event of their success.

There has been an evident disinclination among the papal writers to publish this bull entire, so that its precise purport may be understood by the average reader. As an excuse[Pg 483] for not doing so, De Montor, the authorized historian of the popes, says, in his biography of Boniface VIII, that "neither at Rome or elsewhere" is it "any longer officially mentioned."[284] Although this was said before the Vatican Council decreed the infallibility of all the popes, of course including Boniface VIII, yet the concealment of the plain and obvious meaning of this bull was not excused even then; for the reason that its whole object was to define the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers; and, consequently, furnishes the highest official and ex cathedra evidence of the faith of the Church as then maintained by its chief functionary, whether he was or was not infallible. If, however, he was infallible, as the Vatican Council of 1870 has decreed, then it is conclusively proved that the bull "Unam Sanctam" sets forth the true faith as recognized by the Ultramontanes, the Jesuits, and all those who accept the popes as infallible teachers and guides. The suppression of the most material parts of this bull by De Montor and other papal defenders, is but a feeble attempt to disguise the censure commonly visited upon its author; although what he did was openly and boldly to avow what Gregory VII, Innocent III, and other popes had substantially proclaimed before, in the regular execution of their pontifical functions. De Montor follows De Maistre, and is content, like the latter, to state some of its conclusions, omitting the most prominent and important. Among the concessions he has made is an enumeration of those who are subject to excommunication, as follows: "All heretics;" "All who appeal to future Councils"—that is, who deny the pope's infallibility; "Those who cite ecclesiastics before lay tribunals;" "Those who usurp the territory of the pope's sovereignty;" and, although he ventures to say, "The rest of the bull is unimportant,"[285] the plain fact is, that both he and De Maistre have omitted any reference to its most prominent parts, made now more prominent by the solemn decree of the Vati[Pg 484]can Council that he was infallible. Whatsoever may have been the object of this suppression previous to the action of the Vatican Council—and that there was some special object there can be no reasonable doubt—the conditions have since changed, so that Boniface VIII, when announcing the faith to the whole Church, was as much infallible as Pius IX, or Leo XIII, or any of their predecessors. We have seen that the decree of infallibility, by its express terms, embraces all the "pontiffs," among whom Boniface VIII played a most important and conspicuous part. Therefore, what he said concerning the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers, which necessarily involves the faith, all who assent to the doctrines of the Vatican Council are obliged to recognize as infallibly true. Consequently, all modern peoples—especially those of the United States—are interested in understanding what have been the doctrinal teachings of those popes whose potential influence, like that of Boniface VIII, has shaped the course of the papacy. If it could once have been said, with seeming propriety, that each one of the popes spoke and acted for himself, and with reference to the period of his pontificate, that time no longer exists; for, since the decree of infallibility, the faithful are obliged to recognize each one as having defined the faith by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, no matter whether it concerns the conduct of nations, peoples, or individuals.

The bull "Unam Sanctam" was specially intended to define the faith, and, therefore, what it contains concerning the relations between the spiritual and the temporal powers should be scrutinized with the utmost care by those who think that the popular form of government is conducive to human prosperity and happiness. Especially should this be done by the people of the United States, who attribute their wonderful growth and development to the separation of Church and State, and the subsequent escape from the multitude of ills inflicted upon the European nations by papal and ecclesiastical dominion, not the least of which were justified by this celebrated bull of Boniface VIII, to say noth[Pg 485]ing now of like assumptions of power by other equally ambitious popes. The learned and impartial Gosselin has given this bull in these words:

"The gospel teaches us that there are in the Church, and that the Church has in her power, two swords—the spiritual and the temporal—both in the powers of the Church; but the first must be drawn by the Church, and by the arm of the sovereign pontiff; the second, for the Church, by the arms of kings and soldiers, at the pontiff's request. The temporal sword ought to be subject to the spiritual; that is, the temporal power to the spiritual, according to these words of the apostle, 'There is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God.' Now the two powers would not be well ordained if the temporal sword were not subject to the spiritual, as the inferior to the superior. It can not be denied that the spiritual power as much surpasses the temporal in dignity, as spiritual things in general surpass the temporal. The very origin itself of the temporal power demonstrates this; for, according to the testimony of truth, the spiritual has the right of appointing the temporal power, and of judging it when it errs; thus also is verified in the Church, and the ecclesiastical power, the oracle of Jeremias: 'Lo, I have set thee this day over nations and over kingdoms.' If, therefore, the temporal power errs, it must be judged by the spiritual; if the spiritual power of inferior rank commits faults, it must be judged by a spiritual power of a superior order; but if the superior spiritual power commits faults, it can be judged by God alone, and not by any man, according to the words of the apostle: 'The spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man.' This sovereign spiritual power has been given to Peter by these words: 'Whomsoever thou shalt bind,' etc. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth this power so ordained by God, resisteth the order of God."[286]

It is not necessary to a correct understanding of this ex[Pg 486]traordinary official proclamation that its language should be closely scanned. It is an emphatic and obvious assertion of complete pontifical jurisdiction over nations, and everything connected with their measures of internal policy which pertains to the interests and faith of the Church, or places the least limitation upon the powers and prerogatives of the popes. It reduces all peoples into a condition of absolute inferiority, and recognizes the pope as the common arbiter of all human affairs, and not responsible to any human tribunal. Its main purpose was to weld Church and State so closely together that they could never be separated, so as to render any form of popular government, like that of the United States, impossible. It has been locked up among the secret archives of the Vatican for six hundred years, along with other pontifical bulls of like import, where it might have remained in oblivion had not the Vatican Council of 1870 decreed its author to have been infallible, and thus dragged it into the full light of day, to guide and direct the footsteps of other infallible popes. It does not require a vigorous imagination to conceive of the joy experienced by the Jesuits when they witnessed the efficient support thus given to the cause of monarchism, and with what bright hopes they looked forward to the time when the papal dominion shall become universal, and no other form of religion be tolerated, except that proclaimed by Boniface VIII, when "he declared it to be heretical to say that any Christian is not subject to the pope."[287]

All the Jesuits accept as absolutely true the doctrines announced by the bull "Unam Sanctam;" otherwise they would not be true disciples of Loyola. But whether or no others of the faithful consider it binding upon them as an act of infallibility, depends, of course, upon the teachings of the Church, or of the pope, who, in his single person, represents the Church. About three years before the decree of infallibility was passed, and in order to mold opinions in its[Pg 487] favor, a work, emanating from the oratory in London under papal auspices, was published, wherein the subject was discussed with thoroughness. Its title was, "When does the Church Speak Infallibly?" and the answer was given with satisfactory clearness. In 1870—the year the decree was passed—a second edition of this work was published for general instruction. The author is very explicit, and has undoubtedly expressed the belief maintained by the papacy with entire correctness; for if he had not done so, his work would not have been printed and circulated under Church approval. He does not hesitate to maintain his propositions by pontifical proofs as far back as Leo I—more than eight hundred years before Boniface VIII—from which, of course, it may fairly be inferred that no matter when a pope may have lived, his ex cathedra definitions of faith are to be considered infallibly true, independent entirely of the late decree of the Vatican Council. He lays down the general proposition that infallibility "extends over all truths which have a bearing upon the faith, and upon the eternal welfare of mankind," and enforces it by showing that Pius IX declared that infallible teaching was not confined merely to "points of doctrine," but embraced also whatsoever "concerns the Church's general good and her rights and discipline."[288] Besides these, he enumerates as within the papal jurisdiction, the "general principles of morality;" "dogmatic and moral facts;" "the precise sense of a book, or passage of a book," and its conformity to truth; "discipline and worship;" "the condemnation of secret and other societies;" "education;" "particular moral facts;" "political truths and principles;" "theological conclusions;" and "philosophy and natural sciences."

Within this broad and almost unlimited range of subjects pretty much everything is included which concerns either individuals or society—even matters which pertain to nations[Pg 488] and States as such. As regards the special subject of education, every system is embraced, because that involves dogmatic and moral facts, which gives to the Church the "right to judge them;" and "the faithful are bound to submit without appeal to her judgment upon these systems." As to political truths and principles the doctrine is equally plain, that so long as the nation or State is in harmony with the Church, acting in obedience to its commands, the latter will not interfere with it; but when it is not, and contravenes the divine law as the Church interprets it, "that moment it is the Church's right and duty, as guardian of revealed truth, to interfere, and to proclaim to the State the truths which it has ignored, and to condemn the erroneous maxims which it has adopted;" that is, to condemn it as heretical and illegitimate. And in order to make it clear that this power over the State is unlimited, he refers to the Syllabus of 1864, of Pius IX, to prove that the Church has "the right to distinguish error from truth in the domain of political science."[289] And before concluding he deems it necessary to caution the faithful against any appeal to their own intelligence upon "so abstruse" a subject as infallibility, by admonishing them "that none but a professed theologian has a right to an opinion upon it;" that is, that absolute and uninquiring obedience to authority—even if it reduces mankind to the condition of stocks and stones—is the highest Christian duty.[290]

Unquestionably the decree of infallibility runs back to the earliest ages of the Church, going behind and including the whole period of the Middle Ages, which Leo XIII calls the "blessed ages" of faith and obedience. Therefore, the bull "Unam Sanctam" was within the infallible jurisdiction of Boniface VIII, and must be recognized as expressing the true papal faith; that is, what the Vatican Council intended should be so considered. If papal infallibility means anything, it means that he was as incapable of sin or error in[Pg 489] the administration of his office as Pius IX or Leo XIII, and, consequently, that his doctrines were absolutely true when announced, and remain so to-day. "Semper eadem"—always the same—is the papal motto. It must mean also that his doctrines are as much a part of the faith, as maintained by the papacy, as was the decree of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX, or any other act or decree concerning the faith, of any of the popes. It can make no difference that the decree of the Immaculate Conception was approved by the Vatican Council, because it took effect before that Council met, by virtue of the recognized power and authority of the pope. And, besides, its approval was not necessary to its validity if Pius IX was infallible, because any ex cathedra act of a pope is considered so binding that even the dissent of a Council will avail nothing against it. Hence, the faithful everywhere are held obliged to accept as part of the faith whatsoever any pope has declared, or shall hereafter declare, within his infallible jurisdiction, relating to the Church, the papacy, States, or Governments, and especially to the important subject of education. Without this, the doctrine of the pope's infallibility would have no practical meaning.

It remains, consequently, for those whose minds shall be impressed by the foregoing well-attested facts to consider, with all possible seriousness, the relations which the infallible pope must, from necessity, sustain toward our civil institutions, so long as he shall insist upon the extent of jurisdiction over them which is now claimed to be conferred by that papal pretension. If this consideration shall be given by a Roman Catholic citizen of the United States, sheltered and protected by our laws, he will surely discover that he is now required to abandon the ancient faith of the Church he has venerated through life, and substitute for it a new faith which hitherto his conscience has rejected, and which required more than a thousand years of controversy within the Church and close alliance with the revived Jesuits to accomplish. If it be given by one "native and to the manner born," whose instinct and[Pg 490] education attach him to the form of government which separates the State from the Church, and makes the people the primary source of political authority, he will find himself confronted by the proposition of a foreign power to change the character of our institutions, so that Church and State may be united, and the latter made subordinate to the former. And this will devolve upon all such as duly appreciate the benefits of civil and religious liberty, the obligation—not to practice intolerance or to deprive any of the just rights of citizenship—but to defend, with the necessary firmness and courage, all the fundamental principles which were consecrated by the lives and labors of those who laid the foundations of our Government. We can not afford to have this country ruled over either by Leo XIII, who was the pupil of the Jesuits in early life, or by the Jesuits themselves, who worship Loyola as a saint. We have multitudes of Roman Catholics among us, both native and foreign born, whose Christian integrity and conduct commend them to our confidence and fellowship, and many of these are intelligent and instructed enough to see that if Jesuitism were eliminated from the faith they are required to accept, there would be no cause of disturbing strife left between them and their Protestant fellow-citizens, but each individual would be left to worship God according to his own conscience, and no human authority would "dare molest or make him afraid."

We can not and must not permit the followers of Loyola to enforce here the principles of Gregory VII, Innocent III, Boniface VIII, and other popes, who dethroned kings and released their subjects from the obligation of obedience to the Governments under which they lived, upon the pretentious claim that, by virtue of their infallibility, they were the sole representatives of God upon earth, and had the divine authority "of appointing the temporal power." We can not and must not consent to be included within the circle of any foreign temporal jurisdiction, or within such spiritual jurisdiction as the papal doctrine of infallibility stretches out over the temporal affairs of all the nations. We can not and must not allow[Pg 491] the Stars and Stripes to be removed from the dome of our national Capitol, and the papal flag, with its cross and miter and without a single star, to be floated in its place. We can not and must not mix ourselves up with the affairs of the European nations, either to restore the temporal power of the pope, or change the relations which the Italian people bear to their Government. For we can not do any of these things, or suffer them to be done by others, without breaking down the barriers and removing the landmarks left by the fathers of the Republic, and thereby changing our own bright national inheritance into an inglorious bequest to our children.

We must not forget the claim of jurisdiction over the people of the United States which the pope now makes by virtue of his assumed infallibility, and which has caused him to send Mgr. Satolli to this country—without diplomatic recognition and without our knowledge and consent—to instruct us that our form of government is heretical, and may for that reason be removed out of the papal pathway, like other heresies; and that our common schools are nurseries of vice because they do not teach that Protestantism is also heresy, with the curse of God resting upon it. To comprehend the nature and character of this jurisdiction and the claim of pontifical supremacy out of which it grows, it is only necessary to remember that the Council of Trent assumed authority over Protestants as well as Roman Catholics, and thereby established a precedent which Leo XIII has not been slow to follow. That assemblage held all baptized persons, no matter by whom the ceremony was solemnized, to be within its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and although Protestants are considered as rebels and apostates against the authority of the Church, they are regarded as amenable to her laws, and may rightfully be required to obey them—peaceably if possible; but if not, then by coercion when it shall become expedient to attempt it. They are likened to sheep who have strayed from the fold, and as belonging to the Master they have left; and to soldiers who desert their flag, and are subject to arrest and punishment by their superiors.[Pg 492] The Protestant people of the United States are, therefore, in the papal sense, excommunicated heretics, and their Government is heretical because it has separated the State from the Church. Consequently, the Jesuits maintain, by their peculiarly subtle method of reasoning, that both the Government and the Protestant people of the United States are within the circle of pontifical jurisdiction, and, therefore, that the pope has the divine right, as the only infallible representative of God, to deal with this country according to his own discretion.

Both they who teach this and they who accept it as an essential part of religious faith, lack the true American spirit, whether native or foreign born—that spirit which presided over the councils of "the fathers" when they framed our Government, and which has given it strength and vigor, as well as beauty, for more than a century of time. They are manifestly prepared to see the world turned back toward the Middle Ages, when the destinies of all the civilized nations were subject to the arbitrament and will of the popes; when the State was held in subjugation by the Church; when kings were dethroned and their subjects released from the obligation of allegiance to them, in order to bring all the nations into conformity with the principles and policy of the papacy; and when the masses of mankind were regarded as mere "animals," possessing neither the capacity nor the right to govern themselves by laws of their own making. To accomplish these results they insist that there shall be absolute "unity of faith," and that everything which stands in the way of this is heresy and must be destroyed. In order to this they claim, as a dogma of faith, that the popes shall have free and uninterrupted access, through their hierarchy, to every nation and people in the world, so that heretical Governments may be destroyed and heretical people brought under papal dominion. Herein they indicate a desire to see revived in the United States the discord, strifes, and wars which scattered ruin and desolation over the fairest portions of Europe, which constrained France not to permit[Pg 493] the bull "Unam Sanctam" to be published within her borders; Spain to modify it, and the leading nations—especially those acknowledged to be Roman Catholic—to eliminate from all papal bulls such features as threatened encroachments upon their rights and independence.

The Protestant people of the United States can not imitate these latter examples by resorting to harsh and severe measures of defense and protection. The civil and religious freedom they have established, as the foundation of their institutions, must remain universal. No man's conscience must be restrained, and no man's just rights invaded or diminished. Freedom of thought, of speech, and of the press, must remain the chief corner-stone upon which the national edifice shall rest. But in order to perpetuate these great rights, so essential to each and every citizen of the Republic, our common-school system, as now prevailing, must be sheltered and protected from Jesuit assault. We should even go further, and heed the counsel of Madison—one of our wisest and best Presidents—when, in one of his messages to Congress, he invited attention "to the advantages of superadding to the means of education provided by the several States a seminary of learning, instituted by the National Legislature," whereby the feelings, opinions, and sentiments of youth may be assimilated, and thus constitute a wall of security against foreign influences which can never be removed. And whether this shall be accomplished or not, duty to both the present and the future requires us to remember what the great Pope Clement XIV said in his bull suppressing the Jesuits by absolute extinction "forever," that "care be taken that they have no part in the government or direction of the same"—that is, the schools—because "the faculty of teaching youth shall neither be granted nor preserved but to those who seem inclined to maintain peace in the schools and tranquillity in the world." He knew the Jesuits far better than it is possible for us in this country ever to know them; and whether his act suppressing them was or was not one of infallibility, it constitutes a lesson of history which ought not[Pg 494] to be forgotten. And while, in our treatment of them, we can do nothing at war with the liberal and tolerant spirit of our institutions, or unbecoming to ourselves, we should remember that

"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."

FOOTNOTES:

[282] The Council of the Vatican. By Thomas Canon Pope. Boston Ed., pp. 270-271.

[283] Vatican Decrees. By Gladstone. Page 159.

[284] De Montor, Vol. I, p. 476.

[285] Ibid., pp. 477-478.

[286] The Power of the Pope During the Middle Ages. By M. Gosselin. Vol. II, pp. 233-34.

[287] De Montor, Vol. I, p. 476.

[288] When does the Church Speak Infallibly? By Thomas Francis Knox, of the London Oratory. Pages 53-54.

[289] When does the Church Speak Infallibly? By Thomas Francis Knox, of the London Oratory. Page 55, etc.

[290] Ibid. p. 118.

A.

Alexander, Emperor, expelled Jesuits from St. Petersburg and Moscow, 246.

Alexander VI, Pope, grant of, in Brazil, 168.

Antonelli, Cardinal, assumed control of papal Government, 322.

Andelot, Francis d', a leader of the Huguenots, 92.

Augsburg, National Council ordered at, by Charles V, 467.

Austria, invaded Italy, 285;
established a garrison at Ferrara, 290;
declaration of war against, demanded by Italians, 302, 308;
relations of with Sardinia, hostile, 308;
requested by Pius IX to withdraw troops from Italy, 311;
refused to withdraw troops, 311;
withdrew troops of her own accord, 318.

Aquinas, Thomas, teachings of, recommended by Leo XIII, 343, 407, 408, 410, 412, 415, 418;
a theological writer in the Middle Ages, 407, 413;
canonized by Pope John XXII, 408;
doctrines of, taught in Umbria, 408;
doctrines of, as cited by Balmes, 409-418;
justified disobedience to civil power, 411, 414;
defines de facto Governments as not being founded on divine law as interpreted by popes, 416-418.

Auvergne, nobility of, interposed in behalf of the Jesuits, 106.

B.

Balmes, Jesuit writer, condemned Protestantism in answer to Guizot, 16, 409;
died in 1848, 409;
his arguments based on doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, 409-418.

Baltimore Councils, decrees of, approved by Leo XIII, 399, 401, and note.

Basel, Council of, denied the infallibility of the popes, 436, 467, 470, 482.

Bavaria, Duke of, persecuted Protestants, 123;
Jesuits refused free access to, 264;
Jesuits enter surreptitiously, 264.

Benedict XIII, Pope, confirmed decree of Cardinal de Tournon and bull of Clement XI against Jesuits, 215.

Benedict XIV, Pope, ordered investigation of charges of Portuguese Government against Jesuits, 188;
issued two bulls condemning Jesuits for idolatrous worship, 215.

Boniface VIII, Pope, maintained temporal power by oppressive measures, 465, 469.
Bourbon, Anthony de, a Huguenot leader, 92.

Brazil, Portuguese possession of, 168.

Brussels, revolution in, 278.

C.

Campion and Parson, Jesuit leaders, visit England and pretend to be Protestants, 141.

Carroll, Charles, signer of Declaration of Independence, a Catholic, 440.

Cano, Melchior, his opinion of Loyola, 75;
his warning, 76.

Catherine de Medicis, commanded Parliament to ratify letters-patent to Jesuits, 102;
her treachery to French Huguenots, 105;
withdrew from Council at Poissy, 107;
refused to sanction Protestant places of worship. 111;
conspired with Jesuits to suppress religious worship, 112.

"Catholic Church and Civil Government, The," by Earnshaw, extracts from, 457-461;
speaks of Leo XIII as "The Christ on Earth," 457.

"Catholic Emancipation," contest in England about, 69.

Cavalho, Sebastian (See Pombal).

Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, defeated at battle of Novara, 312;
abdicated crown in behalf of Victor Emmanuel, 312.

Charles III, of Spain, expelled Jesuits from his dominions, 221.

Charles V, progress of Jesuits during reign of, 81, 84;
his colonization in South America, 168;
compelled the assembling of Council of Trent, 466;
ordered National Council at Augsburg, 467;
had a common interest with Julius III in union of Church and State, 468.

Charles IX, of France, controlled by Catherine de Medicis, 5.

Charles X, of France, 273;
refused Jesuits control of colleges and schools, 273;
issued edict to prevent the assembling of Chamber of Deputies, 276;
driven from the throne, 276.

China, the failure of Xavier to enter, 165;
Jesuits worshiped Confucius in, 197, 206-209;
Church investigated conduct of Jesuits in, 210-215.

Christians, number of, in the world, note, page 464.

Church and State, united under monarchism, 18;
separate in United States, 18, 344, 356, 358, 373, 414;
separated in Italy, 19, 334, 337;
separation of, considered heresy by Jesuits, 21;
separation of, embodies the American idea, 26;
union of, insisted upon by Jesuits, 29, 37;
union of, maintained by ignorance of the people, 341;
separation of, opposed by popes, 391;
views of Catholic writers upon, 431;
Charles V and Julius III had common interest in maintaining them united, 468.

Cisalpines, opposed temporal power and repudiated the Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII, 481.

Clement VII, Pope, opposed to National Council at Augsburg and calls Council of Trent, 467.

[Pg 497]Clement XI, Pope, appointed Cardinal De Tournon to investigate Jesuits in China and India, 212;
confirmed the decrees against Jesuit ceremonies, 214.

Clement XII, Pope, confirmed bulls of previous popes against Jesuits, 215.

Clement XIII, Pope, successor to Benedict XIV, 189;
continued the investigation of Jesuits ordered by Benedict XIV, 192;
resisted the Parliamentary decree against Jesuits, 219;
issued anathemas against countries opposed to Jesuits, 222;
sought the aid of Maria Theresa, 223;
implored clemency of the sovereigns, 223;
promised to abolish the Society of Jesuits, 224;
his death, 224.

Clement XIV, Pope, 225;
continued investigation of the Jesuits, 226, 228-230;
suppressed the order of Jesuits, 216, 227, 231, 238, 241, 253, 254, 394, 429, 441, 465, 493;
his death by poison, 227, 233.

College of Cardinals, February 17, 1878, agreed to maintain protests of Pius IX against Government of Italy, 333, 336.

Cologne, Archbishop of, letter of Leo XIII to, concerning affairs in Germany, 355.

Coligny, Admiral de, a leader of the Huguenots, 92.

Condé, Prince of, leader of the Huguenots, 92, 100, 106.

Constance, Council of, decreed the extermination of heretics, 362;
denied the pope's infallibility, 436, 467, 470, 482;
deposed John XXIII, and elected Martin V pope, 476.

D.

Daurignac, defense of Loyola by, 35, 37.

Declaration of Independence repudiated by biographer of Leo XIII, 359;
establishes the principle of perfect equality of rights, 361;
truth of principles of, denied by papal system, 419;
signed by Charles Carroll, a Catholic, 440.

"Dogmatic Constitution." See Infallibility.

E.

Elizabeth, Queen of England, efforts to stop Protestantism renewed during reign of, 133;
preferred the reformed religion, 135;
accused of being illegitimate, 136, 146, 149;
declined to send ambassadors to Council of Trent, 136;
imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, 136;
papal indictment against, 136;
pronounced guilty of heresy by the pope, 137;
the pretended authority of Pius V over, 137;
charged with leading a licentious life, 140;
declined to marry Philip II, 144;
was disposed to prefer Roman Catholicism, 144;
retained thirteen of Mary's counselors, 145;
first attack upon her crown made by Henry II, of France, 145;
issued a conciliatory proclamation, 146;
her proposition rejected by Catholic bishops, 149.

England, contest in, about "Catholic Emancipation," 69;
quarrel between Henry VIII, King of, and pope, 130;
Henry VIII excommunicated, 131;
[Pg 498]Jesuit spies sent to, by Loyola, 131;
Magna Charta of, declared null and void by Innocent III, 359;
Roman Catholic bishops of, decline to attend coronation of Elizabeth, 147;
Parliament of, repealed statutes of Mary, 148;
Catholic bishops of, reject proposition of Elizabeth, 149;
Radicals of, excommunicated by Pius VII, 266.

English College, established at Rome, by Jesuits, 134.

F.

Ferdinand IV, of Naples, Jesuit sympathy for, 259.

Ferdinand VII, of Spain, abolished the Cortes, 260;
restored the Inquisition, 260;
death of, 262.

Ferrara, garrison established at, by Austrians, 290.

France, Parliament of, compels Jesuits to surrender their constitution, 49-50, 194, 218;
universities of, condemn infallibility, 70;
opposition to Jesuits in, 89;
Parliament and universities of, oppose Jesuits, 96, 102, 104;
Gallican Christians of, oppose Jesuits, 90;
influences of the Reformation in, 92;
persecution of Protestants in, 92-93;
Inquisition in, established by Cardinal Lorraine, 94;
letters-patent admitting Jesuits to, granted by King of, 95;
letters-patent admitting Jesuits to, rejected by Parliament, 95, 102, 103, 105;
Council at Poissy, 101, 106;
Jesuits admitted to Paris conditionally, 110;
Parliament of, denounced Jesuits, 219;
Jesuit demand to control education in, refused by Charles X, 273;
conspiracy of Catherine de Medici and Jesuits to suppress freedom of religious worship in, 112;
Jesuits refused free access to and surreptitiously enter, 264;
concordat of Pius VII defeated by Catholics of, 265;
Democrats of, excommunicated by Pius VII, 266;
election of Chamber of Deputies of, in 1830, 275;
the war between Prussia and, a blow at Pius IX, 319;
Legislative Assembly of, denounced by Pius VI, 441.

Franchi, Cardinal, death of, 344.

Francis I, executions for heresy during the reign of, 92;
refused Jesuits free access to France, 264.

Francis II, persecution of Protestants by, 93;
induced by Catherine de Medicis to issue new letters-patent admitting Jesuits to France, 103.

Franco, P., Catholic writer, on relations of Church to Secular Government, 443-456;
designates free governments godless, 446;
denounces Freemasonry, 446;
declares oaths against the Church not binding, 447;
asserts supreme authority of the pope, 447;
says priests must enter politics, 449;
denies right of religious liberty, 449;
denounces liberty of the press, 451;
condemns sovereignty of the people, 451;
considers liberalism a form of heresy, 454;
enumerates important propositions of Syllabus of Pius IX, 455;
[Pg 499]opposes education in public schools, 456.

G.

Gallican Christians in France opposed Jesuits, 90.

Garibaldi united the Two Sicilies with Sardinia, 313;
defeated by the French, 318.

Gladstone, his list of heretical popes, 68-69.

Germany, the Church in, attacked by Loyola, 36, 114;
influences of Reformation in, 73, 115, 117, 128;
Roman Catholics and Protestants in harmony in, before entry of the Jesuits, 115, 127;
Jesuits establish colleges in, 122;
opposition to Jesuits in, 263;
hatred of Jesuits shared alike by Catholics and Protestants in, 265;
concordat of Christians of, refused by Pius VII, 266;
persecution of Protestants in, 124;
the Illuminati of, excommunicated by Pius VII, 266;
letter from Leo XIII to Archbishop of Cologne concerning affairs in, 355.

Gibbons, Cardinal, encyclical of pope to, approving decision of Satolli upon school question, 398.

Guizot, French historian, replied to by Jesuit writer, Balmes, 16, 409.

Greek Church, number of members of in the world, note, page 464.

Gregory VII, Pope, maintained temporal power by oppressive measures, 465, 469.

Gregory XVI, Pope, elected 1831, 282;
no personal enmity to, 282;
requested Louis Philippe, of France, to send army to Italy to punish Catholics, 284;
relied upon pledges of the Holy Alliance, 284;
request of, to Louis Philippe, declined, 284;
invited the Emperor of Austria to invade Italy, 285, 289;
his encyclical letter announcing his pontifical policy, 286, 403;
claimed infallibility, 288;
re-established pontifical authority under Austrian protection, 290;
died 1846, 291.

H.

Henry, King of Navarre (Henry IV), a leader of the Huguenots, 92;
represented Huguenots and Protestant sentiment at Council of Poissy, 106.

Henry II, of France, opposed the Reformation, 92;
executions for heresy during reign of, 92;
granted letters-patent to Jesuits to enter Paris, 95;
attacked the right of Elizabeth to the crown, 145.

Henry VIII, of England, his quarrel with the pope, 130;
visited his vengeance upon both Protestants and Catholics, 143.

"Holy Alliance," the, and Pius VII, 249-271;
met at Verona, 261;
combinations arising from, maintained the Netherland's Government, 278;
organized to suppress the right of self-government, 280, 350;
relied upon by Gregory XVI, 284;
relations of to Pius IX, 296;
looked upon with disfavor in France, 284.

Huss, John, burned, 428.
[Pg 500]

I.

India, idolatrous worship of Jesuits in, 196-206;
Jesuit converts in, 202;
Jesuit baptisms in, in 1737, 203.

Infallibility, doctrine of, declared by Conciliar Decree, called "Dogmatic Constitution," in 1870, 19, 321, 427, 428, 471, 478;
dictated by Pius IX, 68, 321, 427, 480;
the consummation of the Jesuit plan, 19;
rejected by Italian people, 20;
Jesuit arguments on, 21-23;
condemned by universities in France and Spain, 70;
opposed by Gallican Church, 89;
claimed by Gregory XVI, 288;
Jesuit interpretation of, 354;
interpretation of Leo XIII of, 354;
struggle between Church and papacy about, 428;
decree of, the proudest Jesuit triumph since their restoration, 428;
defined by Catholic writer, 430;
decree of, not passed unanimously, 433, 480;
never recognized as a dogma of religious faith, 435;
denied by Councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel, 436, 467, 470, 482;
results to be expected from, 438-439;
incompatible with American citizenship, 456;
divided the Church into rival factions of Cisalpines and
Ultramontanes, 481.

Innocent III, Pope, declared Magna Charta of England null and void, 359;
instructed the faithful to exterminate heretics, 362;
maintained temporal power by oppressive measures, 465, 469;
dictated decrees of Lateran Council, 480.

Innocent X, Pope, his questions to Congregation of the Propaganda concerning Jesuit idolatrous worship, 210;
his decree against Jesuits, 211.

Isabella, of Spain, proclaimed a liberal constitution, 262.

Italy, revolution in, 1870,19;
abolished temporal power, 19, 22, 24, 464;
separated Church from State, 19, 334, 337;
established constitutional form of government, 19;
Jesuits driven from, 19, 309, 337, 393;
Carbonari of, excommunicated by Pius VII, 266;
revolutions in, 282-294;
invaded by Austrians, 285;
Austrian garrison established at Ferrara, 290;
people of, demand Pius IX to declare war against Austria, 302;
kingdom of, formed by Victor Emmanuel, 313;
Austrian armies withdrawn from, 318;
unification of, established, 323, 329;
capital of, established at Rome, 329;
freedom of belief fundamental principle of government of, 348;
aid of Americans sought by papacy to secure restoration of temporal power in, 348;
form of government of, condemned by Leo XIII, 378;
law of Umbria condemned by Cardinal Pecci (Leo XIII), 376.

J.

Jane, Princess, espouses Jesuit cause at Saragossa, 81.

Japan, visited by Francis Xavier, 162-165.

[Pg 501]Jerome, burned, 428.

Jesuits, the, founded by Loyola, 32, 49;
the enemies of civil and religious liberty, 28, 439;
consider the separation of Church and State heresy, 21;
insist that Church and State shall be united, 29, 37;
opposed to intellectual progress, 49;
monarchists, 66;
general of, has absolute authority, 38, 40, 45, 47, 48, 51-62;
general of, equal to God, 32, 40, 51, 55, 57, 58, 59, 70, 71, 72;
authority of general superior to pope, 72;
efforts of, to restore temporal power, 24, 27, 28;
expelled from Rome by Pius IX, 19, 309, 337, 393;
in the United States, 25, 29;
intrigues of, at Saragossa, Spain, 76-83;
opposed at Toledo, Spain, 84;
entered Portugal, 86;
established college at Coimbra, 86;
acquired immense wealth, 86;
opposed in France, 89;
resisted by Gallican Christians, 90;
letters-patent granted to, by Henry II, 95;
opposed by University of Paris, 96;
driven out of Paris, 96, 220;
established colleges at Clermont and Pamiers, 99-100;
at Council of Trent, 108, 469;
admitted to Paris conditionally, 110;
conspired to suppress freedom of religious worship in France, 112;
exerted their influence in Germany through the schools, 120;
established colleges in Germany, 122;
persecuted Protestants in Germany, 123-124;
sent as spies against Henry VIII, 131;
visited Scotland and Ireland, 132;
established English college at Rome, 134;
their education of English youths, 134, 139;
Semper eadem the motto of, 138;
sent to England from French seminaries, 140;
Campion and Parson sent to England from Rome, 140;
first important mission of, was to East Indies, 153;
King of Portugal sent the first of, to South America, 170;
established monarchical government in Paraguay, 171, 173;
the Reductions, or Jesuit State, established in Paraguay by, 174;
their conflict with Portuguese Government in Paraguay, 178;
suppressed in Paraguay by Pombal, 181-194;
became Brahmins in India, 196;
worshiped Confucius in China, 197, 206-209;
converts of, in India, 202;
baptisms of, in India, 203;
society of, suppressed by Clement XIV, 216, 227, 231, 238, 241, 253, 254, 394, 429, 441, 465, 493;
banished from Portugal, 218, 291;
denounced by French Parliament, 219;
expelled from European countries, 221-222, 393;
resist the brief of suppression, 239, 257;
in Russia, 239, 242-247, 254;
re-enter Parma and Sicily, 245;
[Pg 502]expelled from St. Petersburg and Moscow, 246;
re-established by Pius VII, 236, 247, 249, 250, 252, 253, 259, 427;
property of, in Rome restored to them, 259;
reintroduction of, into Spain, 260;
again driven out of Spain, 262;
opposed in Germany, 263;
surreptitiously enter France, 264;
demanded control of educational institutions in France, 273;
welcomed at Austrian court, 285;
influence of, over Pius IX, 310, 327;
instrumental in procuring decree of infallibility, 321;
interpretation of infallibility by, 354;
condemned United States institutions as heretical, 420;
threaten their public-school system, 421;
order of, and not the Church, benefited by pope's policy, 393;
duty of educators assigned to, by Leo XIII, 394, 422;
theory of, maintained by Leo XIII, 390;
decree of infallibility, greatest triumph of, since their restoration, 428;
the Church of less consequence to, than the society, 436;
seeking to control common schools, 440;
find their faith in bulls of Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII, 482;
the constitution of, exposed by French Government, 49-50, 194, 218.

Julius III, Pope, authorized Loyola to establish German college in Rome, 121, 422;
had common interest with Charles V in union of Church and State, 468;
formed alliance with Jesuits, 468.

John III, of Portugal, his colonizations in South America, 168;
sent the first Jesuits to South America, 170.

John XXII, Pope, canonized Thomas Aquinas in 1323, 408.

John XXIII, Pope, deposed by Council of Constance, 476.

L.

Lateran Council, decrees of, dictated by Innocent III, 480.

Laynez, accompanied Loyola to Rome, 44;
successor to Loyola, 102, 107-108;
at the Council of Poissy, 102;
went to Council of Trent as legate of the pope, 108, 469-478;
remonstrated against erection of Protestant places of worship in France, 111;
announced the doctrine of infallibility in Council of Trent, 470, 471, 472-475;
perverted the Scriptures, 473, and notes, pages 474, 475.

Lefevre, accompanied Loyola to Rome, 44.

Leo, XII, Pope, 271;
demanded clergy of France be made independent of government, 272;
his demand condemned by Louis XVIII, 272;
anathematized Protestantism, 272;
death of, 274.

Leo XIII, Pope, election of, 333, 336;
possesses high intellectual qualities and Christian character, 334, 345, 366;
his education and training Jesuitical, 336, 346, 349, 354, 383;
his first encyclical reasserts temporal power, 337-345;
instructions of, to priests and laymen, 343;
recommends teachings of Thomas Aquinas, 343, 407, 408, 410, 412, 415, 418;
hostile to public schools, 343, 358, 391;
condemns civil marriage, 344, 358;
commands obedience to superiors, 344;
appointed Cardinal Nina his Secretary of State, 344;
condemns separation of Church and State, 344;
theories of, expounded by his biographer, 347-365;
rebuked the Catholic press, 352;
censorship of the press by, intended to be universal, 353;
letter of, to Archbishop of Cologne, concerning German affairs, 355;
[Pg 503]his views when Cardinal (see Pecci); arguments of, upon temporal power, 370, 372;
condemns form of government in Italy, 378;
defined universal faith to be absolute sovereignty of pope, 379;
alarmed by liberal Catholicism, 388;
assigns to Jesuits the duty of educators, 394, 422;
seeking to create a politico-religious party in United States, 396;
sent Mgr. Satolli to United States, 396;
approves decision of Satolli upon school question, in encyclical to Cardinal Gibbons, 398;
conditions of, attached to approval of Satolli's decision, 399;
approves decrees of Baltimore Councils, 399, 401;
demands that Catholic schools must be promoted, 401, 402;
doctrines of, in sympathy with Jesuit theory, 390;
maintains the government has no rightful jurisdiction over Church, 415;
striving for temporal power, 427;
addressed as "Christ on earth" by Catholic writer, 457.

Lorraine, Cardinal of, established the Inquisition in France, 94;
established Jesuit seminary at Rheims, 140.

Louis Philippe, 276;
requested by Gregory XVI to send army to Italy, 284;
declined request of Gregory XVI, 284.

Louis XV, convened Synod of the clergy, 220;
annulled decree of Parliament against Jesuits, 221.

Louis XVI, aided by Pius VI, 441.

Louis XVIII, invaded Spain, 262;
refused to allow Jesuits to openly enter France, 264;
agreed to concordat of Pius VII, 265.

Loyola, Ignatius, founder of the society of Jesuits, 32, 49;
claimed equality with God, 32, 40, 51, 55, 57, 58, 59, 70, 71, 72, 97;
represented as possessing miraculous powers, 32, 155, 164;
his life written by Rabadenira, 32;
the suppression of the Reformation and extirpation of Protestantism his avowed purpose, 33, 93, 469;
his shrewdness, 34, 50, 71, 72;
defended by Daurignac, 35, 37;
his argument to Paul III, 36;
attacked the Church in Germany, 36;
the ambition of, 37-38, 67;
his society not necessary to Christian faith, 39;
started as missionary to Holy Land, 41, 43;
duplicity of, 42;
his expedition to Palestine a failure, 43;
asked the pope to approve his society, 43;
named his order "The Society of Jesus," 44;
his society approved by Paul III, 48;
neither a theologian nor learned, 50;
worshiped as a saint, 63, 490;
Melchior Cano's opinion of, 75;
triumph of, at Toledo, Spain, 85;
opposition to in France, 89;
established German college in Rome, 121, 422.

M.

Madison, President, advised education of youth in science of government, 15, 493.

Magna Charta, of England, declared null and void by Innocent III, 359.

[Pg 504]Maigrot, Bishop of Conon, forbade idolatrous ceremonies of Jesuits, 212.

Martin V, Pope, elected in place of John XXIII, 476.

Mary, Queen of England, marriage of to Philip II brought calamities to England, 142;
statutes of, repealed by English Parliament, 148.

Mary Queen of Scots, imprisoned by Elizabeth, 136.

Maximilian Joseph, of Bavaria, denied access to Jesuits, 264.

Monroe Doctrine, 350, note, page 262.

Montagu, English statesman maintained temporal power, 458.

Morales, sent to China to investigate Jesuits, 210;
banished from China, 210.

N.

Napoleon I, 258;
letter of, to Pius VII, concerning temporal power, 269.

Napoleon III, advised Pius IX to let the revolted provinces go, 313;
sent troops to Italy to protect temporal power, 318;
withdrew troops from Italy, 319.

Netherlands, the, Government of, maintained by the Holy Alliance, 278.

Nina, Cardinal, Secretary of State to Leo XIII, 344.

Nobili, Jesuit missionary to India, 198;
assumed the character of a Brahmin, 199;
summoned to Goa to explain his conduct, 205.

O.

O'Reilly, biographer of Leo XIII, expounds the theories of the popes, 347-365;
repudiates the Declaration of Independence, 359;
maintains Thomas Aquinas must be taught in schools in United States, 408.

P.

Palmyra, Archbishop of, book of, forbidden at Rome, and placed on the Prohibitory Index, 417.

Paul III, Pope, issued bull approving the Jesuits, 48, 216;
assembled the Council of Trent, 67, 467;
excommunicated Henry VIII, 131;
endeavored to induce Charles V and Francis I to invade England, 131;
solicited aid of Loyola against Henry VIII, 131.

Para, Bishop of, appointed delegate to Cardinal Saldanha, 190;
suspended Jesuits from functions of confessors and pulpit, 190.

Paraguay, Jesuit government in, monarchical, 171, 173;
Europeans prohibited entering, 173;
reductions established by Jesuits in, 174;
character of government in reductions, 174-177;
conflict between Jesuits and Portuguese Government in, 178;
Jesuits suppressed by Pombal in, 181-194.

Paris, Bishop of, denounced infallibility, 473;
university of, opposed Jesuits, 96;
Jesuits driven out of, 96, 220;
Jesuits admitted to, conditionally, 110.

Parson, Jesuit leader, visited England with Campion, and pretended to be a Protestant, 141.

Passionei, Cardinal, Secretary to Benedict XIV, 188.

Pecci, Cardinal (Leo XIII) elected pope, 333, 336;
denounced Italian revolution, 367, 375;
considered temporal power a divine institution, 368;
upon spiritual sovereignty of the pope, 373;
condemned the law of Umbria, 376;
chosen to protest to Piedmont against infringement of papal rights, 380;
condemned freedom of conscience, 383;
claimed education should be under the direction of the Church, 384;
drew up constitution for Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 407.

Peter, Apostle, alleged to have been the first pope, 435, 436, 472, 473, 478.

Philip II, his marriage to Mary, Queen of England, brought calamities to England, 142;
hatred of, for Protestants, 143;
his proposal of marriage to Elizabeth refused, 144.

Philip III, approved the Jesuit State in Paraguay, 174.

Philip IV, favored Jesuits in Paraguay, 174.

Piedmont, formed an alliance with Sardinia, 308.

Pisa, Council of, denied the pope's infallibility, 436.

Pius V, pope, pretended authority of, over Elizabeth, 137.

Pius VI, pope, sustained the decree of Clement XIV, 237, 240;
condemned the efforts of the French to establish a Republic, and the Legislative Assembly, 441.

Pius VII, pope, re-established the Jesuits, 236, 247, 249, 250, 252, 253, 259, 427;
authorized the order of Jesuits in White Russia, 244, 254;
relations of to Holy Alliance, 249-271;
his concordat to Louis XVIII concerning temporal power, 265;
his concordat defeated by Catholics of France, 265;
refuses assent to concordat of German Christians, 266;
excommunicate liberal Christians in France, Germany, England, and Italy, 266;
rejected proposition of Napoleon concerning temporal power, 270;
death of in 1823, 271.

Pius VIII, pope, elected 1829, 274;
circular letter of, to "the bishops of Christendom," 274.

Pius IX, pope, 291;
possessed excellent personal qualities, 292;
accepted as a reformer, 293, 297;
his election by Conclave of Cardinals, 293;
his decree of amnesty, 294;
his popularity, 296;
relations of, to the Holy Alliance, 296;
compelled to expel Jesuits from Rome, 19, 309, 337, 393;
rejects overture of pacification from Victor Emmanuel, 23, 321;
declared infallible, 321, 427, 428, 471, 478;
dictated the doctrine of infallibility, 68, 321, 427, 480;
his decree establishing the Immaculate Conception as a dogma of faith, 436;
important propositions of his Syllabus enumerated, 455;
his reforms aimed to perpetuate temporal power, 299;
his declaration of temporal power, 300;
created a "Civic Guard," 300;
his vanity, 301;
demanded by Italians to declare war against Austria, 302;
not a statesman, 303;
[Pg 506]his declaration in favor of the Austrians, 305;
influences of the Jesuits over, 310, 327;
adhered to doctrine of temporal power, 310, 315;
requested Austria to withdraw troops from Italy, 311;
requested co-operation of Sardinia in forming a confederacy with pope as ruler, 311;
rejected advice of Louis Napoleon, 313;
condemned new Government of Italy, 315, 326;
took refuge in Castle of St. Angelo, 322;
returned to Rome, 328;
his death, 328;
his allocution amending the Confession of Faith, 330-332;
condemned public schools in Syllabus, 1864, 403.

Poissy, Council of, 101, 106;
Laynez at, 102.

Pole, Cardinal, opposed introduction of Jesuits into England, 132.

Polignac, Prime Minister of Charles X, 276.

Pombal (Sebastian Cavalho), suppressed the Jesuits in Paraguay, 181-194.

Popes, opposed to separation of Church and State, 391;
number of, 435;
opposed to a General Council, 466, 467;
maintained temporal power by oppressive measures, 465, 469;
strove to perpetuate infallibility, 468;
condemn principles of United States Government, 391, 411, 419, 420, 461.

Portugal, Jesuits enter and acquire immense wealth, 86;
establish college at Coimbra, 86;
possessions of, in India, 153, 154;
king of, sends Xavier to India, 154;
possession of Brazil, 168;
Royal Council, 1757, 183;
government of, prepared statement of grievances against Jesuits, 184;
Jesuits suppressed in, 218, 291.

Protestants, number of, in the world, note page 464;
of the United States excommunicated in the papal sense, 492.

Protestantism, condemned by Balmes, 16, 17, 409;
its extirpation the purpose of Loyola, 33;
the controlling power in human affairs, 33;
anathematized by Leo XII, 272.

Prussia, war between France and, a blow at Pius IX, 319.

Public-school system assailed, 16, 394, 421;
pope hostile to, 343, 358, 391;
division of sentiment among Roman Catholics in United States
concerning, 397;
decision of Satolli on, 397;
Satolli's views of, approved by pope, 398;
condemned by Pius IX, 403;
Jesuits striving to control, 440.

R.

Rabadenira, biographer of Loyola, 32.

Reformation, the, its suppression of Loyola's purpose, 33, 93, 469;
its influences in Germany, 73, 115, 117, 128;
influences of, in France, 92;
events transpiring in Europe during, 124-127.

Roman Catholics, appealed to by Jesuits to restore temporal power, 24;
revolutions in States of, 267, 268;
revolutionary fervor increased under Leo XII, 271;
conflict in Italy was between papacy and, 285;
[Pg 507]in United States instructed that loss of temporal power is an international question, 363;
estimated number of, in United States, 392;
number of, in the world, note, page 464;
sentiment concerning common schools divided among, 397;
schools of, must be sedulously promoted, 401, 402;
required to teach doctrines of Thomas Aquinas in schools, 412, 415, 418;
patriotism of, in the United States, 422, 490;
multitudes of, lovers of civil and religious liberty, 425.

Roman Catholic writers, Congress of, at Rome, 351;
rebuked by Leo XIII, 352;
disinclined to publish the bull "Unam Sanctam" of Boniface VIII
in full, 482.

Rome, Bishop of, acquired title of pope in the sixth century, 22;
Jesuits expelled from, by Pius IX, 19, 309, 337, 393;
property of Jesuits in, restored to them, 259;
Victor Emmanuel enters, 23, 322;
Pius IX fugitive from, 322;
Pius IX returned to, 328;
capital of Italy established at, 329, 337;
English college established in, by Jesuits, 134;
German college established in, by Loyola, 121, 422.

Russia, Jesuits in, 239, 242-247;
Jesuit order authorized in White Russia by Pius VII, 244, 254;
Jesuits expelled from St. Petersburg and Moscow, 246.

S.

Saldanha, Cardinal, appointed visitor and reformer of the Jesuits, 189;
banished the Father Superior of the Jesuit "Professed House," and caused arrest of two Jesuits in Brazil, 190;
appointed the Bishop of Para his delegate in South America, 190.

Saragossa, Jesuit intrigues at, 76-83.

Sardinia, hostility of, to Austria, 308;
formed alliance with Piedmont for protection, 308;
invited by Pius IX to co-operate in forming confederacy of Italian republics with pope as ruler, 311;
declined to co-operate with Pius IX, 311;
became separated from influences of Holy Alliance, 312;
crown of, abdicated by Charles Albert, 312;
Victor Emmanuel became king of, 312.

Satolli, Mgr., deputy pope, sent to United States by Leo XIII, 396;
decision of, upon school question, 397;
results to be expected from success of his mission, 427.

Semper eadem, the Jesuit motto, 138;
the motto of the papacy, 489.

Spain, universities of, condemned infallibility, 70;
Jesuits in, 75-85;
Jesuit intrigues at Saragossa, 76-83;
opposition to Jesuits at Toledo, 84;
acquired possessions in South America, 168;
king of, prohibits Europeans entering Paraguay, 173;
invaded by Louis XVIII, of France, 262;
Jesuits driven out of, 221, 262, 291.

Syllabus of Pius IX, important propositions of, enumerated by Franco, 455.
[Pg 508]

T.

Temporal power, abolished in Italy, 19, 22, 24, 464;
Jesuit efforts to restore, 24, 27, 28;
Napoleon's letter to Pius VII, concerning, 269, 270;
doctrine of, maintained by Pius IX, 299-301, 310, 315;
Union of Sardinia and Italy, death-blow to, 313, 319;
Louis Napoleon sent troops to Italy to protect, 318;
abolished, 324, 329;
its restoration sought through aid of American people, 348;
restoration of, would convert pope into a king, 362;
not acquired until after fall of Roman Empire, 386;
its abolition asserted to be an international wrong by Leo XIII, 423;
an enemy to peace of the Church, 463;
importance of issue involved in restoration of, 464.

Trent, Council of, assembled by Paul III, 67, 467;
Jesuits at, 108, 469;
Elizabeth declined to send ambassadors to, 136;
forced to assemble by Charles V, 466;
called by Clement VII, 467;
Laynez announced doctrine of infallibility in, 470, 471, 472-475;
did not decree infallibility, 475;
assumed authority over both Protestants and Catholics, 491.

Tournon, De, Cardinal, condemns Jesuits in China and India, 212;
his arrest and death, 214.

U.

Ultramontanes, advocated temporal power and policy of bull "Unam Sanctam" of Boniface VIII, 481, 482, 483.

Umbria, law of, condemned by Cardinal Pecci (Leo XIII), 376;
archbishop and bishops of, select Pecci to protest against the infringement of papal rights by Piedmont, 380;
doctrines of Thomas Aquinas taught in schools of, 408.

Unam Sanctam, bull of Boniface VIII, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 488, 493;
disinclination of papal writers to publish in full, 482.

United States, policy of, to separate Church from State, 18, 344, 356, 358, 373, 414;
Jesuits in, 25, 29;
maintains the right of self-government, 335;
freedom of conscience a fundamental principle of, 348, 360;
people of, appealed to by papacy to restore temporal power in Italy, 348;
estimated number of Roman Catholics in, 392;
principles of, condemned by popes, 391, 411, 419, 420, 461;
institutions of, considered godless by Jesuits, 395, 462;
patriotism of Roman Catholics in, 422, 490;
infallibility inconsistent with loyalty to, 456.

V.

Vatican, Council of the, declared Pius IX infallible, 321, 427, 428, 471, 478;
decree of infallibility by, not unanimous, 433, 480.

Verona, Congress of "Holy Alliance" met at, 261.

Victor Emmanuel, conciliatory letter of, to Pius IX, 23, 319, and note, page 320;
entered Rome, 23, 322;
his overture of pacification rejected by Pius IX, 23, 321;
[Pg 509]becomes king of Sardinia, 312;
formed Kingdom of Italy, 313.

W.

Washington, President, advised education of youth in science of government, 15;
his warning against foreign influence, 31.

X.

Xavier, Francis, his mission to the East Indies, 153;
sent to India by King of Portugal, 154;
character assigned to him, 154;
visited Goa, 155;
represented as performing miracles, 155, 156, 159-160, 161, 164;
claimed for him that God gave him the "gift of tongues," 156, 165;
established Jesuit college at Goa, 157, 158;
went to Malabar, 159;
his claim as the "Apostle of the Indies" unsubstantiated, 162;
visited Japan, 162-165;
his gift of tongues a "transient favor," 163, 164;
failed to enter China, 165;
his death, 166;
miraculous account of his remains, 166.

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CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Abolition of the Pope's Temporal Power—The Pope commands its Restoration—Organization for that Purpose—Duties of American Citizens,	15
CHAPTER II.
IGNATIUS LOYOLA, FOUNDER OF THE ORDER.
Ignatius Loyola, the Founder of the Jesuit Society—His Original Purpose to reform the Church, and to establish his Society in Palestine—Having failed, he was compelled to have it approved by the Pope—This was done by Paul III, after the Constitution was amended,	32
CHAPTER III.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SOCIETY.
(The Constitution of the Jesuits) Entirely Monarchical—Substitutes the General for God upon Earth—Sin committed with out Offense when the General commands it—The General Independent of the Pope—The Society obey him alone,	49
CHAPTER IV.
GOVERNMENT OF THE SOCIETY.
Loyola, a "Soldier of Fortune"—His Monarchical Government—His Unpopularity among the Dominican Monks—His Plottings against the Franciscans at Saragossa and Condemnation by the Church Authorities—His Success Accomplished only by aid of Monarchical Power,	66
CHAPTER V.
STRUGGLES AND OPPOSITION.
Conduct of the Jesuits at Toledo in Spain—Opposition of the Church Authorities to them—They again get Protection from Royal Power—The Effort to get into France—Opposition of the French People to them—Long Continued Struggle,	84
CHAPTER VI.
THE STRUGGLE FOR FRANCE.
Continued Struggle of the Jesuits to get into France—Resisted by the Parliament—Their Intrigues and Reliance upon Royal Power—Council at Poissy—Attended by the Jesuit General, who suppressed Discussion with Protestants—Their Reliance upon Catharine de Medicis—Her Aid in the St. Bartholomew Massacre,	99
CHAPTER VII.
THE SOCIETY ENTERS GERMANY.
Jesuit Efforts to get into Germany—Less Difficulty than in France—When they reached there, Protestants and Roman Catholics living in Peace—Jesuit German College at Rome—Teaching Treason to German Youth as a Religious Duty,	114
CHAPTER VIII.
THE JESUITS IN ENGLAND.
Plottings of the Jesuits in England—Their Opposition to Religious Toleration—Opposition to Elizabeth by the Pope, and her Trial at Rome—Papal Decree dethroning her, and releasing the English People from their Allegiance to her,	130
CHAPTER IX.
JESUIT INFLUENCE IN INDIA.
Jesuit Mission to India—Imposition of Xavier upon the Monks at Goa—His Pretended Miracles,	152
CHAPTER X.
IN PARAGUAY.
The Jesuits in Paraguay—Their Government of the Indians—Their Resistance to the Authority of the Spanish and the Portuguese Governments,	168
CHAPTER XI.
THE PORTUGUESE AND THE JESUITS.
Conflict between the Portuguese and the Jesuits—Charges against them laid before the Pope, Benedict XIV—Investigation ordered by him,	183
CHAPTER XII.
IDOLATROUS USAGES INTRODUCED.
Jesuits become Idolaters by the Worship of Brahma in India, and of Confucius in China,	196
CHAPTER XIII.
PAPAL SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIETY.
Clement XIII was compelled by Public Opinion to Promise the Suppression of the Jesuits, but was murdered—They were suppressed by Clement XIV, who was poisoned—His Decree of Suppression,	217
CHAPTER XIV.
RE-ESTABLISHMENT.
The Jesuits evade the Decree of the Pope suppressing them, and seek Shelter in Russia and Prussia—They were re-established by Pius VII, to aid the "Allied Powers" to perpetuate Monarchism,	236
CHAPTER XV.
RE-ENTERING SPAIN.
The Jesuits re-enter Spain—They support Ferdinand VII in trampling upon the Constitution—They arouse a Revolutionary Spirit among the People,	257
CHAPTER XVI.
REVOLUTIONS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.
Retrogressive Policy of Gregory XVI—He holds the Italians in Subjection by the Austrian Army—Is succeeded by Pius IX during the Revolution,	282
CHAPTER XVII.
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE OVERTHROWN.
Pius IX unable to quiet the Revolution—He drives the Jesuits out of Italy—Italy unites with Sardinia—Italian Independence established, and the Temporal Power of the Pope abolished—Terms of Conciliation proposed by Victor Emmanuel, and rejected by the Pope—The New Government anathematized,	306
CHAPTER XVIII.
PAPAL DEMANDS.
Distinction between the Church and the Papacy—Allocution of Pius IX—Demand for the Restoration of the Temporal Power—An Act of Infallibility—Leo XIII elected—Educated by the Jesuits—Refused to be reconciled to Modern Progress—His Encyclical—Demands Temporal Power—Prefers the Middle Ages—His Jesuit Training,	329
CHAPTER XIX.
PRESENT ATTITUDE OF THE PAPACY.
The Faithful in the United States required to organize to restore the Temporal Power—That Question an International One—Its Opposition to the Policy of this Country—Opinion of Leo XIII upon Freedom of the Press—He condemns Separation of Church and State—Politico-Religious Questions,	347
CHAPTER XX.
THE CHURCH AND THE STATE.
Doctrines maintained by Leo XIII before he became Pope—The Union of Church and State—Absolute Obedience to the Church,	366
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CHURCH SUPREME.
The Church the Mistress of all Nations—Its Right to command Universal Obedience—The School Question—Mgr. Satolli, the Vice-Pope—His Theory as dictated by the Pope—Our Common Schools Heretical—Must be superseded by Parochial Schools, where Religion is taught,	388
CHAPTER XXII.
JESUITICAL TEACHINGS.
Doctrines of Thomas Aquinas—Also those of the Jesuits—De jure and de facto Governments—The United States the Latter, and may be resisted—Persistence in these Teachings,	407
CHAPTER XXIII. PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.
The Decree of Infallibility—Its Passage by the Vatican Council—Its Definition and Meaning—Extends the Jurisdiction of the Pope—Gives him Authority over Politico-Religious Questions throughout the World,	427
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CHURCH AND LITERATURE.
Papal Teachings by Means of Literature—Arraignment of American Institutions—Attack upon the Liberties of the People—Free Institutions are Heretical—Religion requires their Overthrow,	443
CHAPTER XXV.
INTRIGUES AND INTERPRETATIONS.
The Temporal Power Hurtful to the Church—Has led to its Disintegration—Maintained by Oppressions—Designed to check the Reformation—Infallibility Essential to it—Jesuit Influence in the Council of Trent—Perversions of Scripture—Infallibility not decreed by the Council of Trent,	463
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONCLUSION.
The Vatican Council—Effect of the Decree of Infallibility—The Bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII—Absolute Dominion over Peoples and Nations—Necessity of Guarding against it in the United States—Importance of Common Schools—The Duty of keeping them free from Jesuit Control,	479

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