Continued from Chapter 5 Rome’s Counter Reformation and the Jesuits.

Early Life

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It is utterly amazing the arrogant and obstinate confidence which is imbued in a person’s mind, when born of the noble and aristocratic class. Born in a castle to live in a king’s court; to see, feel, and fully understand everything that is royalty, is an experience that most of us will never have. Yet this was the heritage of Inigo Lopez de Loyola, destined to be founder of that Order of priests, who was to agitate the whole world. Inigo de Loyola was born in 1491, the youngest of five sisters and eight brothers. His mother died when he was a small infant. One year after his birth, Christopher Columbus, electrified his Spaniards and all Europeans alike, with his mindboggling news of the discovery of the New World. When Columbus sailed off on his second voyage to this marvelous New World in 1493, one of Inigo’s brothers equipped the vessel and joined the fleet, sailed off with him. At age 16, about the time his father Don Beltran died, he was made a page boy at the royal summer residence, spending the next 10 years of his life in the pomp and formalism of court life and aristocratic ways. Also about this time, Queen Isabella died. King Ferdinand of Spain, now 52, remarried Germaine De Foix, a 15-year-old French Princess; and Inigo the Page, was assigned to serve the new Spanish Queen. In Inigo’s mind, to serve was to love, to love was to serve. Indigo’s first love was Germaine De Foix.

Inigo never grew taller than 5’1 inches. Whether his small stature gave him a complex even to sometimes fantasizing, can never be known but descriptions given, seems he struggled to find his place in life. He was one who wanted to excel, never satisfied with second best. He was bold, defiant, cunning, violent, vindictive with an “unbendable iron will”. This report given from a police record after excesses, serious and grave misdemeanors, who long with his clergyman brother, was brought to justice. In 1517, at age 26, and desirous of finding glory, he entered the military service. Four years later, a cannon shot passed between his legs, shattering his right leg and damaged his other. Thus ended Inigo’s short military career. The mangled leg, being hurriedly and clumsily set, was also jolted in the grueling stretch journey over the hills to Inigo’s castle home. It had to be reset twice, in hopes of straightening it. With further added agony, of having a protruding lump of bone sawed off, a surgical rack where he had to lay motionless for weeks to stretch the leg to its normal length, (but without success), left him with a permanent limp. All this was done without anesthetic, with Inigo almost dying from the ordeal.

This experience became the pivotal point in Inigo’s life, as his thoughts turned to spiritual things. During Inigo’s long convalescence of agony, and many sleepless nights, he occupied much of his idle time by reading his sister-in-law’s books of devotion. A monkish “Life of Christ” and “The Golden Legend: Lives of the Saints”, writing so laden with myth and miracles, that the transition from reality to fantasy was an easy one. Buffeted by depression now, exalted by free-flowing happiness, then suddenly afflicted with growing doubts about God. His sanity, the need to be a success, about everything; this seesaw wavering state of mind made him receptive to his so called ‘Miraculous Vision of the Virgin and Child’.

It was during this period, that he claims to have made a vow of perpetual loyalty and chastity. Instead of a glorious military career, he will now be a warrior in a different sense; a soldier for Christ. As a young man driven with inner turmoils, he turned to the only place he knew for spiritual answers; his Roman Catholic church. Three more years were spent in this battle raging within himself. Spending enormous lengths confessing his sins, a vigil before the Shrine of our Lady, dressed in rough pilgrim’s garb, and dividing his time between a cave on a riverbank, and a cell and the Dominican religious house; these savage austerities permanently undermined his health. In his search, he talked with his confessor and visited the hermit monks who. lived in the caves about the monastery.

Gaunt, ragged, matted hair with wild eyes, and begging bowel, in the depths of self mortification, doubting his salvation never finding the peace of Christ; his wild asceticism took him to the brink of suicidal despair. It was here it is believed, that Inigo during this fragile state of mind, was introduced to the original “Benedictine Spiritual Exercises”. They became indelibly etched on his mind. It was out of this trial, self- examination, and anguish, yearning for peace and light, that emerged a new man; one who wanted to leave the old behind. Inigo was displaced by “Ignatius”, a name adopted in memory of an early Christian martyr. The process was agonizing, but with his mind in its fluctuating state, practicing, contemplation, and meditation, he achieved that marvelous experience of hallucinatory ecstasy; that overwhelming deception of Satan believing it was of God, Ignatius had discovered the secret of Roman Catholic mysticism.

With this delusion, he began to fashion his mysterious and most prize tool, his own little book of ‘Spiritual Exercises’. Like a compulsion in all good Catholics, Ignatius made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Holy Land. Upon returning to Europe, he had fully decided to become a priest. To make this decision a reality, he realized that he lacked a vital and necessary ingredient, which was a formal education. At 33, he plunged into 10 years of classrooms; the hardest and longest phase of his bizarre development. As for what specific purpose, it yet was not clear to him. Ever molding his Spiritual Exercises, he was anxious to experiment with them on willing fellow students. As a result, on several occasions, Ignatius came under the scrutiny of the Inquisition. It was reported that members of the group that had formed around him had been seen graveling and convulsions of repentance, fainting away in ecstasy, howling as evil spirits were exercised.

Rumors heightened the scandal when females were also said to have been involved. With some prison time closely question but cleared, he was ordered to stop teaching in public and in private on pain of excommunication. Instead by 1540, when Ignatius had put the spiritual exercises into its final shape, his zeal to excel in glorifying God and saving one’s soul, the Exercises became his supreme method for binding his disciples in obedience to his cause.

POPE’S MEN APPROVED

Through those years in school to acquire his education, Ignatius made believers who became his steadfast followers. Thoughts, ideas, and plans, were formulated into a firm and real goal. Ignatius became a priest in 1537. The rapid advancement of the Protestant movement was causing a great alarm, making it clear that the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church was in mortal trouble. What was needed was a different weapon to fight this totally new warfare. A new Order of priests to become a special group of “Pope’s men”, ‘the’ Pope’s men, ‘his’ soldiers; to take a special vow of absolute obedience directly to the pope, to go anywhere at any time, at any cost to life and comfort, in order to do anything the Pope deemed necessary for the defense and propagation of the faith. In other words, “for the ‘greater’ glory of God”, – the Church to rule the world; the Pope to rule the Church; the Jesuits rule the pope; such was and is the program of the Order of Jesus.

On September 27th 1540, in a private reception hall of the Palace of the Popes on Vatican Hill, Rome, eleven men of aristocratic birth, met with Pope Paul III who gave approval of their Order. That beginning was so become the most loyal and most efficient organization the Roman Catholic church has ever spawned in all its near-2,000-year history. In the agreement to rescue Rome from the predicament of losing its world control to Protestantism, and to preserve the spiritual and temporal supremacy which the Popes “usurped” during the Middle Ages, Rome now “sold” the Church to the Society of Jesus; in essence the Popes surrendered themselves into their hands.

So now the Church becomes immensely dependent on the Jesuit Order to defend the Pope’s position as the supreme spiritual and temporal leader of the world; a belief that is absolutely vital if Rome is ever to regain control of the world. And in turn, the Jesuit Order is dependent on the Pope’s for its exorbitant privileges and latitude, if it is to act actually convince the world of its need for the Pope as its leader. – It is similar to the Queen bee which lays and cultivates her eggs; eggs, some turned into worker bees and others drone bees; one bringing her food to sustain her life, the other impregnating her, that she may continue laying fertile eggs. – Bound in this way, as the interests of both parties become life and death issues; to separate them, would fatally bring each to their end.

Popes during the Middle Ages, were not in any sense men who had inclinations to set examples for morality. First and foremost, they all came from enormously wealthy backgrounds; aristocratic war-lords, determined through the most disgusting corruptions, bribery, and bloodshed, to have that ultra coveted position. To be pope, was to gain absolute power and wealth beyond the scope of any other means. Extravagant luxuries, pomp and excesses even surpassing that of the emperor’s table, excited the lust and passions of these aristocratic families to a fever pitch. Vast riches were paid to rivaling parties to buy them out or to cast a favorable vote. Unsuccessful attempts usually led to assassinations. Orgies, incest, homosexuals, mistresses, rape, murder, plunder, in some of the most shameful scandals known, to man, are all recorded as the every-day rottenest life style of these so- called “saintly” religious rulers. Rome was virtually a moral cesspool of corruption; proving graphically that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Regardless of the opinions of sanctimonious apologetics, this is the red raw meat of papal history; Conti, Savelli, Borgia, and Medici being names of some of these infamous aristocratic warring families.

When Ignatius Loyola and his ten aristocratic noblemen approached Pope Paul III, the petticoat Cardinal, they all well knew what was at stake in preserving their obnoxious system of authority. How could these despotic rulers even imagine submitting to a ‘reform movement’ that would bring an end to their sensual luxuries and cause a social change. False religion, superstition, and brute tyranny, since the dawn of man, has always been used to subject the masses of human beings. Once one ascends to that exotic and intoxicating realm to rule with authority over others, to relinquish that power would be considered plain folly and absurd. Ignatius and his followers certainly were not concerned about preserving Christ taught truths, or easing the lives of the poor, but instead to provide an effective means to halt encroachment on their treasured and haughty lifestyles; exacted by such terrible expense and misery of all those subjected under them.

The pronouncement of Pope Paul III’s blessings upon Ignatius Loyola and his Society of Jesus Order, was as if a magic wand had been waved over them. Like the Knights Templar, Ignatius had asked for and received, that his Order not be responsible or need to report to anyone, with the exception of the pope himself. Complete autonomy was insisted upon as expedient for freedom of movement and actions. It can not be stressed enough, that Ignatius and his men were Aristocrats. This in itself wielded extraordinary power and influence, not just with the upper-class; but to move, work, to be recognized and feel comfortable, even in the presence of kings and queens, is a status that is known only to a privileged few. But add to this, the heady prestige of the pope’s blessing and law, and you have a potential of power and influence that exceeded the very kings themselves.

Bear in mind that histories which describe the Jesuits, make it vividly clear that the first point of business when they became an Order, was to go back into their circle of aristocrats and royalty, so as to gain their confidence and support. To give you an idea of the support they received, their membership went from the original eleven men in 1540, to 5,000 by 1581, and in another thirty-five years by 1615, it had jumped to more than 13,000. Jesuits worked all over Europe, in some African countries, and in the Middle East; they expanded to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Indochina. They had extensive missions in Canada, Paraguay, and Japan. Overall by 1581, they had 370 schools and colleges, 33 provinces, 120 Jesuit residences, and 550 communities.

FOR GREATER GLORY OF GOD

Ignatius coined the phrase, “for the ‘greater’ glory of God”. Hermann Burlam of Cologne, was the Jesuit that taught, “the end justifies the means”. When you analyze the subtlety of these two concepts; if a person believes utmost in his mind that what he is doing is for the greater glory of God, and when that work is placed above everything else on earth; then the next step becomes easy when rationalizing. Use whatever means necessary to accomplish that end. It is interesting that in many dictionaries for the word ‘Jesuit’, they give as a secondary definition; crafty person, intriguer, sophist, and the objective, ‘Jesuitical’, is synonymous with cunning, or deceitful.

Jesuits when appearing as members of their order, wear a garb of sanctity, visiting prisons and hospitals, ministering to the sick and poor, professing to have renounced the world, and bearing the sacred name of Jesus who went about doing good. But under this blameless exterior, the most criminal and deadly purpose were often concealed. Motivated by that fundamental principle of their Order, that ‘the end justifies the means’. By this code, lying, theft, perjury, assassinations, were not only pardonable but commendable; when they serve the interest of the church.

Cut off from earthly ties in human interests, dead to the claims of natural affection, reason and conscious, wholly silenced. Jesuits knew no rule, no tie but that of their Order, and no duty but to extend its power for the pope. There was no crime too great for them to commit, no deception too base for them to practice, no disguise too difficult for them to assume. Vowed to perpetual poverty and humility, it was their studied aim to secure wealth and power, to be used in the designed overthrow of Protestantism and the reestablishment of Roman Catholic supremacy.

CONFESSORS – STATE-OF-THE-ART

Picture this if you will; you have a group of aristocratic men of influence, who have been endowed with the highest religious authority on earth. Their purpose is to re-enter the royal circle and energize its members by teaching, education and persuasion. But by force if necessary, prodding them to the conformity of Rome. These men also perfect a requirement that literally becomes awesome in its effectiveness and scope to accomplish their goal.

Above all things, Jesuits are confessors. Their service unto the royalty was urged as a need. As they became assigned to hear the confessions of the aristocrats, emperors, kings, queens, princes, princesses, mistresses, those in every level of government, they all revealed their secret plans, their intimate sins, their innermost thoughts. As their lives became virtually an open book to the Jesuits as an intelligence gathering system of espionage, none greater has ever been devised and developed in the world, as compared to the auricular confessions employed by the Jesuits.

It was only after the 4th Lateran Council of 1215, that began the requirement for all Catholics to go to confession at least once a year. But it is to the Jesuits, who are credited with inventing the Box Confessional as a means of popularizing a duty, which until then had been for most Catholics a twice-yearly occurrence at most.

Now, thanks to the Society of Jesus, sins are atoned for more speedily. People having scarcely committed a sin before they confess it, some Catholics being shocked by this development as they are urged to go monthly or even weekly for confession. By the end of the 16th century, the Jesuit general congregation in Rome, with delegates coming from all the Jesuit provinces, had taken on the character of political intelligence meetings; so as to consider what was good and directing the conscience of rulers.

Through various means of diplomacy, Jesuits work their way into offices of state, climbing up to be the counselors of kings and shaping the policy of nations. But it was religion and its sacred duties, of hearing the confessions, of their penitence, and being their religious wise guides, that was the key to their success. Without the need of a religious confessor, the history of the Jesuits may have been quite different, and the Jesuits made very sure that it was they who filled that need as confessors, instead of the other order of priests by providing a most attractive policy of leniency, as an enticement for their penitence.

Continued in Chapter 7 English History American Heritage.

All chapters of The Grand Design Exposed

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