Section II The Jesuits in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries
1. Italy, Portugal, Spain

“France”, wrote Mr. Boehmer, “is the cradle of the Society of Jesus, but in Italy it received its programme and constitution. Therefore in Italy it first took root and from there it spread abroad”.(l)

The author notes the increasing number of colleges and Jesuit academies (128 and 1680); “but”, says he, “the history of Italian civilisation during the 16h and 17th centuries shows the results of it most strikingly. If a well- learned Italy thus embraced again the faith and ordinances of the Church, received a new zeal for asceticism and missions, composed again pious poems and hymns for the Church, dedicated conscientiously the painters’ brushes and sculptors’ chisels to exalt the religious ideal, is it not because the cultivated classes were instructed in Jesuits’ colleges and confessionals?”(2)

Gone were “childish simplicity, joy, vivacity and the simple love of nature…”

The Jesuits’ pupils are far too clerical, devout, absorbed to preserve these qualities. They are taken up with ecstatic visions and illuminations; they literally get drunk with the paintings of frightful mortifications and the martyrs’ atrocious torments; they need the pomp, glittering and theatrical. From the end of the 16th century on, Italian art and literature reproduce faithfully this moral transformation… The restlessness, the ostentation, the shocking claim which characterise the creations of that period promote a feeling of repulsion instead of sympathy for the beliefs they are supposed to interpret and glorify”.(3)

( 1 ) H. Boehmer, op.cit., p.82. (2) and (3) Boehmer, op.cit., p.82-83.

It is the mark sui generis of the Company. This love for the distorted, finicky, glittering, theatrical could seem strange amongst mystics formed by the “Spiritual Exercises” if we did not detect in it this essentially Jesuitical aim to impress the mind. It is an application of the maxim: “The end justifies the means” applied with perseverance by the Jesuits in the arts, literature as well as politics and morals.

Italy had been hardly touched by the Reformation. Nevertheless, the Waldenses, who had survived since the middle ages in spite of persecutions and established themselves in the north and south of the peninsula, joined the Calvinist Church in 1532. On a report from the Jesuit Possevino, Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy launched another bloody persecution against his “heretic” subjects in 1561. The same thing happened in Calabria, at Casal di San Sisto and Guardia Fiscale. “The Jesuits were implicated in these massacres; they were busy converting the victims…”(4)

As for Father Possevino: “… he followed the Catholic army as their chaplain, and recommended the extermination by fire of the heretic pastors as a necessary and holy act”.(5)

The Jesuits were all powerful in Parma, at the court of the Farnese, as well as in Naples during the 16th and 17th centuries. But in Venice, where they had been loaded with favours, they were banished on the 14th of May 1606, “as the most faithful servants and spokesmen of the pope…” They were nevertheless allowed to return in 1656, but their influence in the Republic was to be from now on but a shadow of the one they had in the past.

Portugal was a choice country for the Order. “Already under John III (1521-1559), it was the most powerful religious community in the kingdom”.(6) Its influence grew even more after the revolution of 1640 which put the Braganza on the throne. “Under the first king of the house of Braganza, Father Fernandez was a member of the government and, under the minority of Alphonse VI, the counsellor most heeded by the regent Queen Louise. Father de Ville was successful in overthrowing Alphonse VI in 1667, and Father Emmanuel Fernandez was made a deputy to the “Cortes” in 1667 by the new King Peter II… In spite of the fact that the Fathers were not fulfilling any public duty in the kingdom, they were more powerful in Portugal than in any other country. Not only were they spiritual advisers to all the royal family, but the king and his minister consulted them in all important circumstances. From one of their own testimonies, we know that not one place in the administration of the State and Church could be obtained without their consent; so much so that the clergy, the high classes and the people contended with each other to win their favours and approval. Foreign politics were also under their influence. Any sensible man would see that such a state of affairs was unprofitable to the good of the kingdom”.(7)

(4) J. Huber, op.cit., p. 165.
(5) H. Boehmer, op.cit., p.89.
(6) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.85, 86, 87, 88.
(7) and (8) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.85, 86, 87, 88.

In fact, we can see the results by the decadent state into which this unfortunate land fell. All the energy and perspicacity of the marquess of Pombal, in the middle of the 18th century, were needed to tear Portugal out of the Order’s deadly grip.

In Spain, the Order’s penetration was slower. The higher clergy and the Dominicans opposed it for a long time. The sovereigns themselves, Charles V and Philip II, while accepting their services, distrusted these soldiers of the pope and feared encroachments on their authority. But, with much craftiness, the Order eventually defeated this resistance. “During the 17th century, they are all-powerful in Spain, among the high classes and at Court. Even Father Neidhart, former German cavalry officer, fully governed the kingdom as Counsellor of State, prime minister and Grand Inquisitor… In Spain as in Portugal, the kingdom’s ruin coincided with the rise of the Order…”(8)

This is what Edgar Quinet had to say about it:

“Wherever a dynasty dies, I can see, rising up and standing behind her, a kind of bad genie, one of those dark figures that are the confessors, gently and paternally luring her towards death…”(9)

Indeed, one cannot impute Spain’s decadence to this Order only. “Nevertheless, it is true that the Company of Jesus, together with the Church and other religious orders, hastened her fall; the richer the Order became, the poorer Spain was, so much so that when Charles II died, the State’s coffers did not even contain the necessary amount to pay for 10,000 masses usually said for the salvation of a deceased monarch’s soul.”(10)

(9) Michelet et Quinet, op.cit., p.259.
(10) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.85, 86, 87, 88.

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