Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/209

 

The Revised Ratio of 1832 and Later Regulations.

The Society had been suppressed by Clement XIV. The historian Dr. Brück says: '"The Pope's conduct was harsh and unjust", as he had not a single crime to lay to their charge; and even Dr. Döllinger, however hostile to the Society, must have considered its suppression unjust; for he calls its restoration an act of justice. Documentary evidence proves that the Jesuits heroically submitted. Even in Silesia, where Frederick II. wanted to maintain them, "they were unwilling to hold out against the papal bull", and laying aside whatever was specifically characteristic of the Society, they directed the schools as secular priests. Catharine II. of Russia stubbornly refused to allow the Papal Brief of suppression to be published in her dominions. As the publication was required before the Brief could take effect, the Jesuits continued their work in the two colleges at Mohilev and Polotzk in White Russia. Five years after the suppression, in 1778, the new Pope Pius VI. granted them permission to establish a novitiate. Thus, as Frederick II.