Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/685

 JESUITS 655 alleging lack of authority on Lavalette s part to pledge the credit of the society, and was sued by the creditors. Losing his cause, he appealed to the parliament of Paris, and it, to decide the issue raised by llicci, required the constitutions of the Jesuits to be pro duced in evidence, and aflirmed the judgment of the courts below. But the publicity given to a document scarcely known till then (indeed the first authoritative edition of the Constitutions is that of Prague in 1757) raised the utmost indignation against the company. A royal commission, appointed by the duke of Choiseul to examine the constitutions, convoked a private assembly of fifty-one archbishops and bishops under the presidency of Cardinal do Luynes, all of whom except six voted that the unlimited authority of the general was incompatible with the laws of France, and that the appointment of a resident vicar, subject to those laws, was the only solution of the question fair 011 all sides. Ricci replied with the historical answer, &quot; Sint ut sunt, aut non sint &quot;; and after some further delay, during which much interest was exerted in their favour, the Jesuits were suppressed by an edict in November 1764, but suffered to remain on the footing of secular priests, a grace withdrawn in 1767, when they were expelled from the kingdom. In the very same year, Charles III. of Spain, a monarch known for personal devoutness, convinced, on evidence not now forthcoming, that the Jesuits were plotting against his authority, prepared, through his minister D Aranda, a decree suppressing the society in every part of his dominions. Sealed despatches were sent to every Spanish colony, to be opened on the same day, April 2, 1767, when the measure was* to take effect in Spain itself, and the expulsion was relentlessly carried out, nearly six thousand priests being deported from Spain alone, and sent to the Italian coast, whence, however, they were repelled by the orders of the pope and Ricci himself, finding a refuge at Corte in Corsica, after some months suffering in overcrowded vessels at sea. The general s object may probably have been to accentuate the harshness with which the fathers had been treated, and so to increase public sympathy, but the actual result of his policy was blame for the cruelty with which he enhanced their mis fortunes, for the poverty of Corsica made even a bare subsistence scarcely procurable for them there. The Bourbon courts of Naples and Parma followed the example of France and Spain, and Clement XIII. retorted with a bull launched at the weakest adversary, and declaring the rank and title of the duke of Parma forfeit. The Bourbon sovereigns threatened to make war on the pope in return (France, indeed, seizing on the county of Avignon), and a joint note demanding a retractation, and the abolition of the Jesuits, was pre sented by the French ambassador at Rome on December 10, 1768, in the name of France, Spain, and the Two Sicilies. The pope, a man of eighty-two, died of apoplexy, brought on by the shock, early in 1769. Cardinal Lorenzo Ganganelli, a Franciscan, was chosen to succeed him, and took the name of Clement XIV. He endeavoured to avert the decision forced upon him, but, as Portugal joined the Bourbon league, and Maria Theresa with her son the emperor Joseph II. ceased to protect the Jesuits, there remained only the petty kingdom of Sardinia in their favour, though the fall of Choiseul in France raised the hopes of the society for a time. The pope began with some preliminary measures, permitting first the renewal of lawsuits against the society, which had been suspended by papal authority, and which, indeed, had in no case been ever successful at Home. He then closed the Collegio Romano, on the plea of its insolvency, seized on the houses at Frascati and Tivoli, and broke up the establishments in Bologna and the Legations at large. Finally, on July 21, 1773, the famous brief Domin us etc Rcdcmptw appeared, suppressing the Society of Jesus. This remarkable docu ment opens by citing a long scries of precedents for the suppression of religious orders by the Holy See, amongst which occurs the ill- omened instance of the Templars. It then briefly sketches the objects and history of the Jesuits themselves. It speaks of their defiance of their own constitution, expressly revived by Paul V., for bidding them to meddle in politics ; of the great ruin to souls caused by their quarrels with local ordinaries and the other religious orders, their conformity to heathen usages in the East, and the disturbances, resulting in persecutions of the church, which they had stirred up even in Catholic countries, so that several popes had been obliged to punish them. Seeing then that the Catholic sovereigns had been forced to expel them, that many bishops and other eminent persons demanded their extinction, anil that the society had ceased to fulfil the intention of its institute, the pope declares it necessary for the peace of the church that it should be suppressed, extinguished, abolished, and abrogated for ever, with all its rites, houses, colleges, schools, and hospitals ; transfers all the authority of its general or officers to the local ordinaries ; forbids the reception of any more novices, directing that such as were actually in probation should be dismissed, &quot;and declaring that profession in the society should not serve as a title to holy orders. Priests of the society are given the option of either joining other orders or remaining as secular clergy, under obedience to the ordinaries, who are empowered to grant or withhold from them licences to hear confessions. Such of the fathers as are engaged in the work of education are permitted to continue, on condition of abstaining from lax and question able doctrines, apt to .cause strife and trouble. The question of missions is reserved, and the relaxations granted to the society in such matters as fasting, reciting the hours, and reading heretical books, are withdrawn ; while the brief ends with clauses carefully drawn to bar any legal exceptions that might be taken against its full validity and obligation. It has been necessary to cite these heads of the brief, because the apologists of the society allege that no motive influenced the pope save the desire of peace at any price, and that he did not believe in the culpability of the fathers. The categorical charges made in the document, and that in the most solemn fashion, rebut this plea. The pope followed up this brief by appointing a congregation of cardinals to take possession of the temporalities of the society, and armed it with summary powers against all who should attempt to retain or con ceal any of the property. He also threw Lorenzo Kicci, the general, into prison in the castle of St Angelo, where he died in 1775, under the pontificate of Pius VI., who, though not unfavourable to the company, and owing his own advancement to it, dared not release him, probably because his continued imprisonment was made a condition by the powers who enjoyed a right of veto in papal elec tions. In September 1774 Clement XIV. died after much suffering, and the question has been hotly debated ever since whether poison administered by the Jesuits was the cause of his death. It is im possible to decide the doubt, as the opinions and evidence on each side are nearly balanced. On the one hand, Salicetti, the pope s physician, denied that the body showed signs of poisoning, and Tanucci, Neapolitan ambassador at Rome, who had a large share in procuring the brief of suppression, entirely acquits the Jesuits, while F. Theiner, no friend to the company, does the like. On the other hand, Scipio de Ricci, bishop of Pistoia, nephew and heir of the unfortunate general, distinctly charges the Jesuits with the crime, as also does Cardinal de Bernis ; and the report by the Spanish minister to the court of Madrid, printed by De Potter in his Vie ct Memoircs do Scipion de Ricci, vol. iii. pp. 151-74, con tains the noteworthy fact that the date of the pope s death was predicted beforehand, notably in a statement made by the vicar- general of Padua to the secretary of the congregation for Jesuit affairs, that several members of the company, believing him to be one of their friends, told him that the pope would die before the end of September. At the date of this suppression, the company had 41 provinces and 22,589 members, of whom 11,295 were priests. Far from sub mitting to the papal brief, the Jesuits, after some ineffectual attempts at direct resistance, withdrew into the territories of the non-Roman-Catholic sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, Frederick II. and Catherine II., both of them freethinkers, who became their active friends and protectors ; and the fathers alleged as a principle, in so far as their theology is concerned, that no papal bull is bind ing in a state whose sovereign has not approved and authorized its publication and execution. Russia formed the headquarters of the company ; and two forged briefs were speedily circulated, being dated June 9 and June 29, 1774, approving their establishment in Russia, and implying the repeal of the brief of suppression. But these are contradicted by the tenor of five genuine briefs, all issued in September of that year to the archbishop of Gnesen, and making certain assurances to the Jesuits, on condition of their complete obedience to the injunctions already laid on them. They also pleaded a verbal approbation by Pius VI., technically known as an Oraculum vivce vocis, but no proof of either its existence or its validity is forthcoming. They elected three Poles successively as generals, taking, how ever, only the title of vicars, till onMarch 7, 1801, Pius VII. granted them liberty to reconstitute themselves in North Russia, and per mitted Karen, then vicar, to exercise full authority as general. On July 30, 1804, a similar &quot;brief restored the Jesuits in the Two Sicilies, at the express desire of Ferdinand IV., the pope thus anticipating the further action of 1814, when, by the brief Sollici- tudo omnium Ecclesiarum, he revoked the action of Clement XIV., and formally restored the society to corporate legal existence, yet not only omitted any censure of his predecessor s conduct, but all vindication of the Jesuits from the heavy charges in the brief Dominus ac R,cdemptor. In France, even after their expulsion in 1765, they had maintained a precarious footing in the country under the partial. disguise and names of &quot; Fathers of the Faith,&quot; or &quot; Clerks of the Sacred Heart,&quot; but were obliged by Napoleon I. to retire in 1804. They reappeared under their true name in 1814, and obtained formal licence in 1822, but became the objects of so much hostility that Charles X. deprived them by ordinance of the right of instruction, and obliged all applicants for licences as teachers to make oath that they did not belong to any^com- reign, notably in 1845, maintained their footing, recovered the right to teach freely after the revolution of 1848, and gradually became the leading educational and ecclesiastical power in France, notably under the second empire, till they were once more expelled