Chapter XIV. Re-establishment.

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 reestablishing the order, after it had been forty-one years 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 has 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, because 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.”

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 endeayored 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 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.”

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 toa 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 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.”

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 bim 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 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 o. ‘y for a time; it was not abolished.” 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 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,” 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 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.° All, therefore, that can be justly said about Pius VI is, that he occupied an equivocal attitude—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 av 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, 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 reentered 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 emperor, 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 entrusted 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 ?”

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 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 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 Encyclopedists 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 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 polities;’ in other words, “a union of religious and political-liberal ideas.” 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, 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 reestablishing the society of the Jesuits. His prompé 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.” 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 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 endorsed 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 he 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.”

One can not refrain from wondering why Pius VII did not pause long enough to inquire, “Upon what meat doth this our Cesar 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.””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.” 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 concerns 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. 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.” 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, when he comes afterwards to speak of that issued by Pius VII, he calls it a “ bull,” and frequently refers to it as such. 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” “—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 isa 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.

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