Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/742

Rh 714 MONACHISM &quot;The Pontiff. . . began by saying that for some time past the Apostolic See, considering not the abundance only, but the super- iluity of religious institutes, had become convinced that some of them, degenerating from the first design of their founders, had lapsed into a total relaxation of discipline, and that it was just as advisable for the church as for the laity to adopt the expedients used by wise husbandmen when they see that the multitude of branches has impoverished their vines instead of making them more fruitful. That a beginning had been made in that matter by sup pressing some orders ; but this was not enough. ... A great number of very small convents had been suppressed,. . . and it was proposed to continue the work by proceeding to the final .abolition of certain others which, by their licentious mode of life, lilled the world with scandal and murmurs. . . . That he proceeded slowly, because he desired, in a matter of so much importance, to obtain the good- will of the secular princes. ...&quot; The remarks closed with a recommendation to the republic of Venice to suppress the canons of San Spirito and the Cruciferi in their city, and to apply their revenues towards defraying the cost of the war in Candia. (Ranke, Die Rom. Papstc, App. No. 129.) But the policy thus indicated was not carried out by Alexander VII. s successors, and there is evidence that things did not mend as time went on. The emperor Francis L, in his character of grand-duke of Tuscany, caused an edict to be published at Florence in 1751, forbidding the clergy to acquire property in mortmain, and issued together with it a paper of instructions pointing out the grave social disadvantages of enriching artificial families, such as convents, colleges, and the like, at the ex pense of natural families. And the menace implied in these documents was carried into operation by the suppression of several convents of nuns, for which the reluctant con sent of the pope (Benedict XIV.) was extorted. When Francis died in 1765, and was succeeded in Tuscany by his brother Peter Leopold, the latter began his reign with what may be styled a formal act of war against the Koman Curia, by declaring the bull In Ccena Domini null and void in Tuscany, and forbidding its recognition or publi cation there. At once he was beset with appeals from priests and nuns, calling his attention to several grave abuses in the church, and notably to moral scandals of the most serious kind in the convents of nuns, especially those under the direction of the Dominicans, accusations which were fortified with full details of time and place. The result was that Leopold caused a scheme of ecclesiastical reform to be drawn up in 1770, containing stringent enactments for the abatement of monachism, for the .suppression of all small convents of mendicants, and for the exclusion of monks and friars from the direction of nunneries, which were to be subject in all spiritual matters to the ordinaries only. And the Jansenist bishop of Pistoia and Prato, Scipio de Ricci, upon entering on his diocese in 1780, at once began to inquire into the scandals which raged in the Dominican nunneries of his jurisdiction, especially in Pistoia, 1 the result being that he excommunicated the Dominican friars, and prohibited them from officiating. The pope at that time was Pius VI., an ardent devotee, warmly in favour of mona chism generally, and of the lately suppressed Jesuits in particular, so that he took up the cause of the friars (though their evil repute had prevailed for 150 years), -and issued a brief of censure against Ricci. He laid it before the grand-duke, who wrote a strong remon strance, accompanied with proofs furnished by Ricci, and informed the pope that unless the brief were promptly withdrawn, and the convents obliged to submit to the ordinary s jurisdiction, he would himself reform at his own discretion every religious house in Tuscany. Accordingly, the brief was retracted, and Ricci was given full liberty to repress the disorders complained of. There is not any similar evidence forthcoming as to the condition 1 As to which documentary evidence will be found in the Appendix to De Potter s Life of Scipio de&quot; Ricci. of the monasteries in other parts of Italy ; but Tuscany is likely, from local causes, to have been above, rather than below, the average moral level. Against this general tendency to monastic decay may be set the foundation of the Passionists in 1725, and of the Redemptorists or Liguorians in 1732; but these two institutes, though pious and respectable, have never exerted much influence. There is little to chronicle in regard to the later annals of monachism in Spain and Portugal. Peter of Alcantara, as reformer of the Franciscans of the latter country in the middle of the 16th century, and his more famous contemporary, Teresa, as reformer of the Carmelites in Spain, are eminent figures in the annals of their time; but they cannot be said to have produced any permanent effect on the fortunes and tone of their several institutes, far less upon the common life in general. The stamping out of all varieties of opinion, at any rate in respect of outward expression, by the Inquisition in the Peninsula makes the evidence scanty and vague; but the fact that Portugal took the lead in 1759 in striking at the Jesuits, then the most eminent and powerful of the orders, though far surpassed in mere wealth and numbers throughout Western Europe by the Franciscans, and that its policy in this respect was quickly followed by Spain, attests the growth of a hostile feeling by no means likely to have been limited to the great company. In fact, if popular rhymes and proverbs may be trusted, the charges current against the religious orders in Spain do not seem to have differed from those alleged elsewhere, whatever may have been the amount of truth in them. And the testimony of Blanco White, always to be trusted on matters within his experience, is decidedly adverse. The terrible crash of the French Revolution, which affected, directly or indirectly, every country in Europe, was not least influential in its incidence on monachism. On the one hand, the actual destruction which it brought upon the religious houses of France was adopted as part of the revolutionary programme in all countries where such institutions were still intact ; and, on the other, there was a considerable measure of improvement brought about in not a few places by the fear of public opinion, while the new institutes which continued to spring up were all but invariably active, both founders and the sanctioning authorities recognizing that any society seeking to make its footing good must needs first prove its capacity for practical usefulness. In France itself the laws which abolished all religious communities were relaxed by con nivance in favour of the Sisters of Charity even under the Terror and the Directory; while in 1801 a decree of the Consular Government, issued by the Minister of the Interior, authorized Citizeness Duleau, former superior of that society, to revive it by taking young women to train for hospital work ; and various other active communities were restored by Napoleon in 1807. Further revivals took place at the Restoration, the most celebrated of which was the Dominican, owing to the talents and elo quence of Lacordaire and the group he gathered round him; but Benedictines, Carthusians, Trappists, and other societies of the older type were not slow to avail them selves of the opportunity to return and to found anew, amidst a poverty which recalls the original institution, their abbeys and priories. But they met with little favour under the Orleanist monarchy, and the Second Empire was their time of most security and progress. Since its fall, they have again been actively discouraged by a strong party in the Republic, and their position remains pre carious. France has been, further, the chief seat of the many new societies founded for some especial department of charitable work, the most characteristic example of which is perhaps that of the Little Sisters of the Poor,