CHAPTER XX
THE SEQUEL TO THE SUPPRESSION
Failure of the Papal Brief to give peace to the Church — Liguori and Tanucci — Joseph II destroying the Church in Austria — Voltaireanism in Portugal — Illness of Clement XIV — Death — Accusations of poisoning — Election of Pius VI — The Synod of Pistoia — Febronianism in Austria — Visit of Pius VI to Joseph II — The Punctation of Ems — Spain, Sardinia, Venice, Sicily in opposition to the Pope — Political collapse in Spain — Fall of Pombal — Liberation of his Victims — Protest of de Guzman — Death of Joseph II — Occupations of the dispersed Jesuits — The Theologia Wiceburgensis — Feller — Beauregard's Prophecy — Zaccaria — Tiraboschi — Boscovich — Missionaries — Denunciation of the Suppression in the French Assembly — Slain in the French Revolution — Destitute Jesuits in Poland — Shelter in Russia.Clement XIV did not give peace to the Church as he had hoped. On the contrary, distressing scandals were continually occurring in the Holy City itself under his very eyes. Infamous books and pamphlets directed against the Church were hawked about the streets, and actors and buffoons parodied the most sacred ceremonies in the public squares. Elsewhere the same conditions obtained. Tanucci who had governed Naples for over forty years was continuing his ruthless persecution of every thing holy, and enriching himself by the spoliation of ecclesiastical property. Even St. Alphonsus Liguori could not obtain from the Pope the recognition of the Redemptorists as a congregation because Tanucci opposed it. Doctrinal views leading to schism in the Church were openly advocated in the schools and universities of Austria, in spite of the entreaties and threats of the Sovereign Pontiff. Maria Theresa had proved feeble or false, and her son Joseph II was[605] in league with the Bourbon princes in their work of destruction. In Portugal, Pombal was still raging like a wild beast; filling the schools with the disciples of Voltaire, flouting the papal nuncio, and keeping in dark and filthy dungeons the members of the detested Order which he had exterminated. The Philosophers and Jansenists were rejoicing in their triumph, and were suppressing all religious communities and seizing their property; the morality and orthodoxy of Poland were being rapidly corrupted; Catherine of Russia was creating bishops and establishing sees as the fancy prompted her, and Freemason lodges were multiplying all over Europe. Worst of all, the Pope's own household with but few exceptions kept aloof from him and were silent about what he had done, while many bishops of various countries of Europe and the entire episcopacy of France endorsed the sentiments expressed in the terrible letter of the Archbishop of Paris, denouncing the Suppression.
Ineffably shocked by all this, the Pope began to show signs of depression, and everyone was in consternation. St. Alphonsus Liguori, especially, was anxious about him and kept continually repeating: "Pray for the Pope; he is distressed; for there is nowhere the slightest glimmer of peace for the Church. He is praying for death, so crushed is he by the sorrows that are overwhelming the Church; he remains continually in seclusion; gives audience to no one; and attends to no business. I have heard things about him from those who are at Rome that would bring tears to your eyes." His mind was unbalanced, and one of his successors, Pius VII, related later what he had been told by a prelate who was present at the signing of the fatal Brief: "As soon as he had affixed his signature to the paper he threw the pen to one side and the paper to the other. He had lost his mind."[606] Before that, Pius had said the same thing to Cardinal Pacca at Fontainebleau, when in an agony of remorse for having signed the Concordat with Napoleon: "I cannot get the cruel thought out of my mind. I cannot sleep at night and I am haunted by the fear of going mad and ending like Clement XIV." Another writer who received his information from Gregory XVI tells the same sad story (de Ravignan, Clément XIII et Clément XIV, I, 452). St. Alphonsus Liguori was with the Pope when he died, but according to a Redemptorist writer, it was "in spirit," and not by bodily bilocation. The end came in September 22, 1774, thirteen months after the unfortunate Brief was issued.
Of course, when he died, the report went abroad that the Jesuits had poisoned him, by administering a dose of aqua toffana, but although no one has ever found out what aqua toffana is or was, and as there were no Jesuits in Rome at the time, the story was nevertheless believed by many and was adduced as a proof of the wisdom of the Pope in suppressing the iniquitous organization. The Jansenists even made a saint of the dead Pontiff and circulated marvellous romances about the incorruption of his body and the miracles that were wrought at his tomb.
Cantù in his "Storia dei cent' anni" says that "the Pope whose health and mind were grievously affected, died in delirium, haunted by phantoms, and begging for pardon. It was claimed that he had been poisoned by the Jesuits, but the truth is that the physicians found no trace of poison in the body. Had the Jesuits possessed the power or the will to do so, one might ask why they did not do it before and not after Clement had struck them. But passion often makes light of common sense." The post-mortem which was made in the presence of a great many people showed that[607] the sickness to which he had succumbed arose from scorbutic and hemorrhoidal conditions from which he had been suffering for many years, and which were aggravated by excessive work and the system he had followed of producing artificial perspiration even in the heats of summer."
The poor Pope had exclaimed before he signed the Brief: "Questa soppressione mi darà la morte" (this suppression will kill me.) "After it," says Saint-Priest in his 'Chute des Jésuites,' "he would pace his apartments in agony, crying: 'Mercy! Mercy! They forced me to do it. Compulsus feci.' However, at the last moment his reason returned. He showed his indignation at a proposal made to him even then, to raise some of the enemies of the Society to the cardinalate and drove them from his bedside with loathing.
Bernis, the French ambassador at Rome, wrote to Louis XV that "the Vicar of Christ prayed like the Redeemer for his implacable enemies," and insinuated that he was poisoned. Knowing this d'Alembert warned Frederick II to be on his guard against a similar fate, but the king replied: "There is nothing more false than the story of the poisoning; the truth is that he was profoundly hurt by the coldness manifested by the cardinals and he often reproached himself, for having sacrificed an Order like that of the Jesuits, to satisfy the whim of his rebellious children." Becantini (Storia di Pio VI, i, 31) says: "Nowadays no one believes the story of the poisoning of Clement XIV. Even Bernis who first stood for it, afterwards disavowed it." Cancelleri one of the most distinguished savants of Italy denies the fact; so does Gavani, a bitter enemy of the Church and the Society. Finally, Salcetto the physician of the Apostolic palace, and Adinolfi the Pope's own doctor, in their official[608] report to the majordomo, Archinto, declare it to have been an absolutely natural death and they explain that the corruption which set in was due to the excessive heat that prevailed at the time.
It was even said that the Pope had expressed to the General of the Conventuals, Marzoni, a fear that he had been poisoned. Whereupon Marzoni caused the following statement to be published:
"I, the undersigned Minister General of the Order of the Conventuals of St. Francis, fully aware that by my oath I call the sovereign and true God to witness what I say; and being certain of what I say, I now without any constraint and in the presence of God who knows that I do not lie, do by these words, which are absolutely true, and which I write and trace with my own hand, swear and attest to the whole universe, that never in any circumstance whatever did Clement XIV ever say to me either that he had been poisoned or that he felt the slightest symptom of poison. I swear also that I never said to any one soever that the same Clement XIV assured me in confidence that he had been poisoned or had felt the effects of poison. So help me God.Thus Clement XIV, far from giving peace to the Church, left a heritage of woe to his successor, Angelo Braschi, who was elected Pope on February 15, 1775, and took the name of Pius VI. The new Pope was painfully conscious that an error had been committed by suppressing an Order without trial and without even condemnation, and that a reflection had been cast upon a great number of Pontiffs who had been[609] unstinted in their praise of it, no one more so than Clement's immediate predecessor. The act had also given to the Jansenists a terrific instrument in the implied approval of them by the Sovereign Pontiff. They became more aggressive than ever and organized their forces to introduce their doctrines into Italy itself.
"Given in the Convent of the Twelve Apostles at Rome July 27, 1775.
"I, Bro. Louis-Maria Marzoni
"Minister General of the Order."
By a curious coincidence the leader of the movement was of the same family as the General of the suppressed Jesuits: Scipio Ricci, the Bishop of Pistoia. Supporting him in the civic world was the Grand Duke of Tuscany who was the brother of Joseph II of Austria. Ricci convened the famous Synod of Pistoia, on July 31, 1786. No doubt July 31 was chosen purposely; it was the feast of St. Ignatius. There were 247 members in attendance, all exclusively Jansenists and regalists. The four Gallican Articles were endorsed and among the measures was that of conferring the right on the civil authority to create matrimonial impediments. It advocated the reduction of all religious orders to one; the abolition of perpetual vows; a vernacular liturgy; the removal of all altars but one from the church; etc. The Acts of the synod were promulgated with the royal imprimatur. Indeed Pius VI found himself compelled to condemn eighty-five of the synod's propositions.
Worse than this was the Febronianism of Austria, which went far beyond the Gallicanism of France or Italy in its rebellious aggressiveness. It maintained that the primacy of Rome had no basis in the authority of Christ; that the papacy was not restricted to Rome, but could be placed anywhere; that Rome was merely a centre with which the individual churches could be united; that the papal power was simply administrative and unifying and not jurisdictional; that the papal power of condemning heresies, confirming episcopal elections, naming coadjutors, transferring and[610] removing bishops, erecting primatial sees, etc., all rested on the False Decretals. It was maintained that the Pope could issue no decrees for the Universal Church, and that even the decrees of general councils were not binding until approved of by the individual churches.
In vain Clement XIV had begged Maria Theresa to check the movement. She was absolutely in the power of her son Joseph II, whose very first ordinances forbade the reception of papal decrees without the government's sanction. The bishops, he ruled, were not to apply to the Pope for faculties; they could not even issue instructions to their own flocks without permission of the civil authority. He established parishes, assigned fast days, determined the number of Masses to be said, and sermons to be preached. He even decided how many candles were to be lighted on the altar; he made marriage a civil contract and abolished ecclesiastical ceremonies.
In the hope that a personal appeal might avail, the Pope determined to make a journey to Vienna to entreat the emperor to desist. He arrived there on March 22, 1782, and was courteously received by Joseph himself, but brutally by his minister, Kaunitz, who forbade any ecclesiastic to present himself in the city while the Pope was there. Pius remained a month in the capital and succeeded only in extracting a promise that nothing would be done against the Faith or the respect due the Holy See. How far the royal word was kept may be inferred from the fact that after accompanying the Pope as far as the Monastery of Marianbrunn Joseph suppressed that establishment an hour after the Pope had resumed his journey to Rome.
In Germany the three ecclesiastical Electors of Mayence, Treves and Cologne with the Archbishop of[611] Salzburg met in a convention at Ems in 1786, and attempted to curtail the powers of the Pope in dealing with bishops. That assembly was also strongly Jansenistic. Thirty-one of its articles were directed against the Pope. Pacca, the papal nuncio, was not even received by the Archbishop of Cologne, and three of the Elector bishops refused to honor his credentials. The famous "Punctation of Ems," which consisted of twenty-three articles, declared that German archbishops were independent of Rome, because of the "False Decretals." They pronounced for an abolition of all direct communication with Rome; all monasteries were to be subject to the bishops; religious orders were to have no superior generals residing outside of Germany; Rome's exclusive power of granting faculties was denied; Papal Bulls were binding only after the bishop of the diocese had given his placet; all Apostolic nunciatures were to be abolished, etc. In brief, the synod, or "Congress" as it was called, aimed at establishing a schismatical church. But the Pope's remarkable letter to the dissidents and the progress of the French Revolution, which was then raging furiously, prevented the application anywhere of the doctrines put forth at the meeting.
Spain, Sardinia, Venice and Sicily were all in this movement against the Church, and Ferdinand IV of Sicily claimed the right of appointment to all ecclesiastical benefices, as well as the power to nullify all Papal Briefs which had not received his approval.
Nor did the Brief of Suppression contribute to the political stability of the nations. In Naples, for example, Tanucci was flung from power when the young king married an archduchess of Austria; so that he disappeared from the scene three years after the suppression of the Society. In 1798 the Bourbons fled from Naples; the city was given over to a mob[612] directed by an innkeeper called Michael the Madman; the Duke della Torre and his brother were burned alive in the public square; the Senate was dissolved; the palaces were pillaged; a republic was proclaimed and the whole Peninsula of Italy fell into the hands of the French.
Charles III of Spain died in 1788, and was succeeded by Charles IV, whom Arnado describes as more deficient in character and ability than his father. The rude Florida Blanca, who was so conspicuous for his brutality in terrorizing Clement XIV, was thrown out of office by the inept Godoy, who allied Spain with France against England, and brought on the disaster of Trafalgar. The king was driven from his throne and country by his rebellious son, Ferdinand, and then laid his royal crown at the feet of Napoleon Bonaparte. Since that time, the country has been in a ferment because its politics are filled with the ideas of the French Revolution and of English Liberalism.
In Portugal, retribution came at a rapid pace. Pombal fell from power in 1777 on the death of the king. He had been detected in a plot to have the young Prince of Beira succeed to the throne to the exclusion of Queen Maria. It was possibly with the same end in view that he had endeavored to start a war with Spain. He had seized Spanish posts in America, mobilized troops and fortified Lisbon, but hostilities were never declared. Queen Maria's first act at her accession was to open Pombal's dungeons. Eight hundred men of all classes issued from these sepulchres in which some of them had been for eighteen years without a trial. They were like ghosts; emaciated; hollow-eyed and ghastly; some were sightless, many were half-naked. Among them were sixty Jesuits. The populace were so infuriated at the horrible spectacle that Pombal feared to venture into[613] the street. He might have been torn to pieces, and he was conducted under guard to his country estates. Father Oliviera, the confessor of the queen, was installed in court, and the venerable Father de Guzman issued the following statement to the public:
"At the age of eighty-one and at the point of appearing before the tribunal of Divine Justice, John de Guzman, the last assistant of the Society of Jesus, for the provinces and dominions of Portugal, would believe himself guilty of an unpardonable sin of omission, if, in neglecting to have recourse to the throne of Your Majesty where clemency and justice reign, he did not place at your feet, this humble petition in the name of six hundred subjects of Your Majesty, the unfortunate remnants of a wrong inflicted on them.
"He entreats Your Majesty by the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, by that tender love which Your Majesty bears to the August Queen, His mother, and to the illustrious King Don Pedro, to the princes and princesses of the royal family, that you would deign and even command that the trial of so many of the faithful subjects of Your Majesty, who have been branded with infamy in the eyes of the world, be now reviewed. They are groaning under the accusation of having committed outrages and crimes which the very savages would shrink from even imagining, and which no human heart could ever conceive. They lament and moan that they were condemned without even having been brought to trial, without being heard and without being allowed to make any defense. Those who have now issued from prison are all in accord in this matter, and unanimously attest, that during all the time of their imprisonment, they have not even seen the face of any judge.
"On his part, your suppliant, who is now making this appeal, and who for many years occupied a position[614] where he could acquire an intimate knowledge of what was going on, is ready to swear in the most solemn manner, that the superiors and members of the Spanish assistancy of the Society of Jesus were without reproach. He and all the other exiles are ready to undergo sufferings more rigorous than any to which they have hitherto been subjected, if a single individual has ever been guilty of the least crime against the State.
"Moreover, your suppliant and his brethren, the chief superiors of the Society, have been examined in Rome, again and again, in the most searching manner, and have been declared innocent. Pope Pius VI, now gloriously reigning, has seen the minutes of those investigations, and Your Majesty will find in that great Pontiff an enlightened witness whose integrity nothing on earth can equal; and at the same time you will find a judge who could not commit a wrong without rendering himself guilty of an unparalleled iniquity.
"Deign, then, Your Majesty, to extend to us that clemency which belongs to you as does your throne; deign to hearken to the prayers of so many unfortunates, whose innocence has been proven, and who have never ceased in the midst of their sufferings to be the faithful subjects of Your Majesty; and who could never falter or fail an instant, in the love that they have from childhood entertained for the royal family."
This appeal had its effect. An enquiry was ordered, and in October 1780 a revision of the trial of the alleged conspirators of 1758 was begun. On April 3, 1781, the court announced that "all those, either living or dead, who had been imprisoned or executed in virtue of the sentence of January 12, 1759, were absolutely innocent." Pombal himself was put on trial, found guilty, and condemned to receive "an exemplary punishment." He escaped imprisonment on account of his age, but he[615] died of leprosy on May 8, 1782. His corpse lay unburied until the Society which he had crushed was restored thirty-one years later to its former place in Portugal. One of its first duties was to sing a Requiem Mass over his remains. The details of the trial were suppressed at the request of the Pope, for the reason that too many prominent personages in the Church were implicated. There was another reason. The spirit of Pombal had so thoroughly impregnated the ruling classes that the report was withheld out of fear of a revolution. Indeed, the queen was so terrified by the danger that she lost her mind. Finally, in 1807 a French army occupied Lisbon and the royal family fled to Brazil. Since then Portugal which was once so great counts for very little in the political world.
It is unnecessary to refer to France, except to note that it was Choiseul who purchased Corsica and thus gave his country which he had helped to ruin an alien ruler: Napoleon Bonaparte, who put an end to the orgies of the Revolution by deluging Europe with French blood; who imprisoned the Pope; demolished the Bourbon dynasties wherever he could find them, and bound France in fetters which, in spite of its multiplied changes of government, it has never shaken off.
When Joseph II of Austria ended his lonely and unhappy existence in 1790, he saw in France the beginning of the wreck which his friend Voltaire had helped to effect; he did not live to see the execution of his own sister, Marie Antoinette, but enough had occurred to fill him with terror especially as the existence of his own monarchy was threatened; Belgium was lost; Hungary was in wild disorder, and other parts of the empire were about to rebel. Before he died he wrote his own epitaph. It was: "Here lies[616] Joseph II, who never succeeded in any of his undertakings."
What became of the scattered Jesuits? The scholastics and lay-brothers, of course, went back to the world, but, in France, by a refinement of cruelty they were declared by the courts to be incapable of inheriting even from their own parents, because of the vows they had pronounced on entering the Society. That the vows no longer existed made no difference to the lawmakers. As for the priests they were secularized, and in many places were welcomed by the bishops as rectors or professors in colleges and seminaries. They were in demand, also, as directors of religious communities and not a few became bishops. Thus, in America, the first two members of the hierarchy, Carroll and Neale, were old Jesuits, as was Lawrence Graessel who had been named as Carroll's successor but who died before the Bulls arrived. Crétineau-Joly has a list of twenty-one bishops in Europe alone. Others were called to episcopal sees, but in hopes of the restoration of the Society they had declined the honor.
Father Walcher was appointed imperial director of navigation and mathematics by Maria Theresa; Cabral, Lecci, and Riccati, were engaged by various governments in engineering works; Zeplichal was employed by Frederick II in exploiting mines. The Theresian College of Vienna became one of the best schools in the world under their direction; and Breslau felt the effects of their assistance, as did other colleges such as the Oriental in Vienna, the University of Buda, and the schools of Mayence, and of various cities in Italy.
They must have been often amused at some of the situations in which they found themselves. Thus, for instance in 1784 the Parliament of Languedoc,[617] which had been one of the bitterest enemies of the Society, met to arrange for the solemn obsequies of the Jesuit Father Sesane "the friend of the poor," and the ecclesiastical authorities were busy taking juridical information for his canonization. Again, although not permitted to exist in Switzerland the Council of Soleuse erected a statue in honor of the Jesuit Father Crollanza, who all his life had shunned honor and was conspicuous for his humility. On the pedestal was the very delightful inscription: "Pauperum patrem, ægrorum matrem, omnium fratrem, virum doctum et humillimum, in vita, in morte, in feretro suavitate sibi similem amabat, admirabatur, lugebat Solodurum." In the same way, Maria Theresa in an official document dated 1776 declared that "moved by the consideration of the brilliant virtues, the science, the erudition and the regular and exemplary life of Jean-Theophile Delpini; and reflecting moreover on his apostolic labors in Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania where to our great consolation, he led a vast throng of Anabaptists back to the true Faith, we have chosen and we hereby appoint the said Theophile Delpini who has merited much from the Church and the State, and who is therefore very acceptable to us personally, to the post of Abbot of Our Lady of Kolos-Monostros."
Parhamer obtained a similar distinction in Austria and Carinthia. He was an advanced advocate of what is now called social service, and he made use of his position as confessor and friend of the Emperor Francis I to establish useful popular institutions; among which was an orphanage for the children of soldiers who had died for their country. It was a sort of child's Hôtel des Invalides. The discipline was exclusively military, with drills, camp life, etc. Joseph II wanted to make him a bishop but Parhamer asked[618] for two months to think it over and before the two months had expired he was dead. That was as late as 1786. Meantime, Marie Leczinska, the Queen of France, would only have these prescribed Jesuits hear her confession, and two Poles, Radomiviski and Buganski were chosen for that office. On account of their nationality they could not be exiled from France. In Austria, Father Walcher was kept busy building dykes to prevent inundations. Father Cabral, a Portuguese, had to harness the cataract of Velino, which had so long wrought havoc in the city of Terni, and then he did the same thing for his own country by confining the Tagus to its bed. In doing so he did not remember that his country had kept him in exile for eighteen years. Ximenes made roads and bridges in Tuscany and Rome. Riccati saved Venice from inundations by controlling the Po, the Adige and Brenta, and by order of Frederick II of Prussia Father Zeplichal had to locate the metal mines of Glatz, and so on. All this was over and above their ecclesiastical work for which they were called on by every one, even by the Pope who had suppressed them.
The famous astronomer, Maximilian Hell, was another of the homeless Jesuits of that period; and as it happened that from the beginning, astronomy had always been in honor in the Society, there was a great number of such men adrift in the world when their own observatories were taken away from them. The enthusiastic historian of the Society, Crétineau-Joly has an extended list of their names as well as those who were remarkable in other branches of science.
The "Theologia Wiceburgensis," which is so popular in the modern Society, was composed by dispersed Jesuits, and, according to Cardinal Pacca, "in the difficulties that arose between the Papal nuncios and the ecclesiastical Electors of Germany it was the[619] former Jesuits who appeared in the lists as the champions of the Holy See, to illumine and strengthen the minds of the faithful by their solid and victorious writings." François Xavier de Feller belonged to this period, and in the opinion of Gerlache, the historian of the Netherlands, "he exerted a great influence on the Belgian Congress of 1790." It was he who led the assault on Josephinism and Febronianism. With him in this fight was Francesco Antonio Zaccaria who compelled the author of the "Febronius" to acknowledge his errors. Guillaume Bertier revived the famous "Journal de Trévoux," and Fréron made a reputation for the "Journal des Débats." Girolamo Tiraboschi wrote his "History of Italian Literature," Juan Andrés, his "Origin of All Literature," Francisco Clavigero continued his "History of Mexico" and Antoine de Berault-Bercastel, François De Ligny, Jean Grou, Giulio Cordara, wrote their various well-known works. Besides writing his still popular "Bible History" Reeve translated into Latin verses much of the poetry of Pope, Dryden and Young. The list is endless. A French-Canadian, Xavier du Plessis, was famous in the pulpits of France in those days, as was Nicholas de Beauregard, who in 1775 startled all France by an utterance he made when preaching at Notre-Dame.
"These philosophers," he exclaimed, "are striking at the king and at religion. The axe and the hammer are in their hands. They are only waiting for the moment to overturn the altar and the throne. Yes Lord, Thy temples will be plundered and destroyed, Thy feasts abolished, Thy name proscribed. But what do I hear? Great God! what do I see. Instead of the holy canticles which resounded beneath these consecrated vaults till now, I hear lascivious and blasphemous songs. And thou, the infamous divinity[620] of paganism, lascivious Venus, thou darest to come to take the place of the living God, to sit upon the throne of the Holy of Holies and receive the guilty incense of thy worshippers." The vision was realized eighteen years later.
The sermon caused a tumult in the church. The preacher was denounced as seditious, and as a calumniator of light and reason. Even Condorcet wrote him down as a ligueur and a fanatic. He continued preaching, nevertheless, and his old associates followed his example. During one Lent, out of twenty of the great preachers, sixteen were Jesuits.
Three of these former Jesuits especially attracted attention at this time in the domain of letters and science: Zaccaria, Tiraboschi, and Boscovich.
Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, whose name is sometimes written Zaccheria, was a Venetian who had entered the Austrian novitiate in 1731, when he was a boy of seventeen. He taught literature at Goritz, but was subsequently sent to Rome where he became very distinguished both for his eloquence and his marvellous encyclopedic knowledge. In 1751 he was appointed to succeed Muratori as the ducal librarian at Modena, though Cardinal Quirini had asked for him and the celebrated Count Crustiani subsequently tried to bring him to Mantua. His fame was so great that the most illustrious academies of Italy claimed his name for their registers. In Rome he became the literary historiographer of the Society, and had been so excellent an aid for Clement XIII in the fight against Gallicanism that the Pope assigned him a pension. That was just before the Suppression of the Society; when that event occurred he was deprived of his pension, and after frequently running the risk of being imprisoned in the Castle Sant' Angelo, he was ordered not to attempt to leave Rome. When Pius VI[621] became Pope, Zaccaria's life became a little happier. His pension was restored and even increased; he was made Rector of the College of Clerical Nobles, and regained his old chair of ecclesiastical history in the Sapienza. He died in 1795 at the age of eighty-two. The "Biographie Universelle" says that, besides innumerable manuscripts, Zaccaria left one hundred and six printed books, the most important of which is the "Literary History of Italy" in 14 octavo volumes with supplements to volumes IV and V. His method of leading his readers through the literary labyrinth deserves no less praise than the penetration of his views, and the good taste of his criticism. Besides this literary work, he wrote on moral theology, scripture, canon law, history, numismatics, etc.
Girolamo Tiraboschi, who was born in Bergamo on December 28, 1731, went to the Jesuit school at Monza, and from there entered the Society. His first characteristic work, while teaching literature in Bergamo, was to re-edit the Latin-Italian dictionary of Mandosio. He made so many corrections that it was substantially a new work. When occupied as librarian in Milan, he discovered a set of valuable manuscripts about the suppressed Order of Humiliati. The publication of these MSS. filled up a gap in the annals of the Church, and made Tiraboschi's reputation in the world of letters. The Duke of Modena made him his librarian, the post formerly held by Zaccaria. Thanks to the munificence of the princes of Este, the library was a literary treasure house, and Tiraboschi conceived the idea of gathering up the riches around him and writing a good history of Italian literature; a task that seemed to be too much for one mind. The difficulty was increased by the jealousy of the various Italian states, so that an unbiased judgment about the merits of this army of writers called for a man with courage[622] enough to shut his ears to the clamors of local prejudice. It supposed also a profound knowledge of ancient and modern literature, a sufficient acquaintance with the arts and sciences, and skill enough not to be overwhelmed by the mass of material he had to handle. It took him eleven years to complete the work.
The Spaniards were irritated by the "History" for they were blamed for having corrupted the literary taste of Italy, and three Spanish Jesuits attacked him fiercely on that score. Nevertheless, the Academy accepted a copy of the work in the most flattering terms. The Italians regarded it as a most complete history of their literature and a monument erected to the glory of their country. He was made a knight by the Duke and appointed counsellor of the principality. While he was engaged in this work, the Society was suppressed, and like Boscovich and Zaccaria, he did not live to see its resurrection. He died in Modena on June 3, 1794.
Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich was a Dalmatian from Ragusa, where he was born on May 18, 1711. He was a boy at the Jesuit college of that town and entered the Society at the early age of fourteen. He was sent to the Roman College, where his unusual literary and philosophical as well as mathematical abilities immediately attracted attention. He was able to take the place of his professor in mathematics while he was yet in his theological studies, and subsequently occupied the chair of mathematics with great distinction for a generation. His bent, however, was chiefly for astronomy, and every year he issued a treatise on one or another subject of that science. Among them may be mentioned: the "Sun spots" (1736); "The Transit of Mercury" (1737); "The Aurora Borealis" (1738); "Application of the Telescope in Astronomical Studies" (1739); "The Figure[623] of the Earth" (1739); "The Motion of the Heavenly Bodies in an unresisting Medium" (1740); "Various effects of Gravity" (1741); "The Aberration of the Fixed Stars" (1742); and numberless others. Foreign and Italian academies, among them Bologna, Paris and London admitted him to membership. It was he who first suggested the massive pillars of the college church of St. Ignatius as the foundation of the Observatory in Rome; but the Suppression of the Society prevented him from carrying out the plan. When the great dome of St. Peter's began to crack, he allayed the general alarm by placing iron bands around it. His advice was sought for the draining of the Pontine Marshes; he surveyed the Papal States by order of Benedict XIV and induced the Pope to withdraw the obsolete decree in the Index against the Copernican system.
When King John V of Portugal asked for ten Jesuit Fathers to make an elaborate survey of Brazil, Boscovich offered himself for the arduous task, hoping thus to make a survey in Ecuador, so as to obtain data for the final solution of the problem of the figure of the earth which was then exciting much attention in England and France, but the Pope kept him for the survey of Italy, which Boscovich did, and in 1755 he published a large quarto volume describing the work. In 1748, he had already revived Leibnitz's system of dynamism in the composition of bodies, a view which his fellow-Jesuits generally rejected. When this volume was issued, the publisher added a list of Boscovich's previous works. They amounted to sixty-six and he soon added three more quartos on "The Elements of Mathematics." He even wrote Latin poetry, mostly eulogies of the Pope and distinguished men, and published five volumes of verse on "The Defects of the Sun and the Moon."
[624] Boscovich's advice was sought as an engineer for damming the Lakes which were threatening the city of Lucca; and he acquitted himself so well, that he was made an honorary citizen and his expenses were subsequently paid for his scientific exploration in Italy, France and England. He settled a dispute between his native town and the King of France. He journeyed with the Venetian ambassador to Constantinople to complete his archæological studies, but that journey seriously injured his health. He then accepted the appointment of professor of mathematics at the University of Pavia and helped to found the Observatory of Brera in Milan which with that of the Collegio Romano is among the most prominent in Italy. The London Academy wanted to send him to California in 1769 to observe the transit of Venus, but the opposition to the Jesuits, which was four years later to lead to their suppression, caused the invitation to be withdrawn. Louis XV then called him to France where he was made director of optics for the Navy with a salary of 8,000 francs. He retained this position until 1783, that is ten years after the Society of Jesus had gone out of existence. He then went to Italy to publish five more books, and at the age of eighty-six retired to the monastery of the monks of Vallombroso. On account of his great ability, or rather on account of his being a Jesuit, he was bitterly assailed by Condorcet and d'Alembert and other infidels of France.
Bolgeni, who died in 1811, was made penitentiary by Pius VI in recognition of his services against Jansenism and Josephinism. Unfortunately, however, he advocated the acceptance of some scheme of Napoleon, for which Pope Pius VII deposed him from his office and called Father Muzzarelli from Parma to take his place. In 1809 when Pius VII was exiled, Muzzarelli[625] went with him to Paris or at least followed soon after. His work on the "Right Use of Reason in Religion" ran up to eleven volumes, besides which he produced other books against Rousseau, and several pious treatises, like the "Month of May," which has been translated into many languages.
Possibly a certain number of missionaries remained with their neophytes because they were too remote to be reached. Others, who owed no allegiance to the king who ordered the expulsion, paid no attention to it, as the Englishman King, for instance, who was martyred in Siam after the Suppression; or the Irishman O'Reilly, who buried himself, in the forests of Guiana with his savages; Poirot was kept at the court of Pekin as the emperor's musician; and Benoit constructed fountains for the imperial gardens, invented a famous waterclock, which spouted water from the mouths of animals, two hours for each beast, thus running through the twenty-four hours of the day; he made astronomical observations, brought out copper-plate engravings of maps and so on, and finally died of apoplexy in 1774, one year after Clement XIV had suppressed the Society. Hallerstein, the imperial astronomer, was also there waiting for news of the coming disaster.
B. N. in "The Jesuits; their history and foundation" (II, 274) and Crétineau-Joly both declare that there were four of the proscribed Jesuits in the Etats généraux which was convened in Paris at the opening of the Revolution: Delfau, de Rozaven, San-Estavan and Allain. Of course, the Rozaven in this instance was not the John Rozaven so famous later on. In 1789 John was only eighteen years of age. In the session of February 19, 1790, the famous Abbé Grégoire, who afterwards became the Constitutional Bishop of Loir-et-Cher, startled the assembly by crying out,[626] "Among the hundred thousand vexations of the old government, whose hand was so heavy on France, we must place the suppression of the celebrated Order of the Jesuits." The Deputy Lavie had also asked for justice in their behalf. The Protestant Barnave declared that "the first act of our new liberty should be to repair the injustices of despotism; and I, therefore, propose an amendment in favor of the Jesuits." "They have," said the next speaker, the Abbé de Montesquiou, "a right to your generosity. You will not refuse justice to that celebrated Society in whose colleges some of you have studied; whose wrongs we cannot understand, but whose sufferings were to be expected."
The sentiments of the speakers were enthusiastically applauded, but it was all forgotten as the terrible Revolution proceeded on its course. Jesuits like other priests were carried to the guillotine; but, as no records could now be kept, it is impossible to find out how many were put to death. We find out, however, from "Les martyrs" of Leclercq that in Paris alone there were eleven: DuPerron, Benoit, Bonnand, Cayx, Friteyre, du Rocher, Lanfant, Villecrohain, Le Gue, Rousseau, and Seconds. Crétineau-Joly adds to this list the two Rochefoucaulds; Dulau, who was Archbishop of Aries; Delfaux; Millou; Gagnière; Le Livec; another Du Rocher; Vourlat; Du Roure; Rouchon; Thomas; Andrieux and Verron; making in all twenty-five. In "Les crimes de la Révolution" there are two volumes of the names of the condemned in all parts of France, but as the ecclesiastical victims are merely described as "priests" it is impossible to find out how many Jesuits there were among them. The twenty-five, however, make a good showing for a single city. Probably the proportion was the same elsewhere.
The old Jesuits appear again for a moment in Spain, when in 1800 Charles IV recalled them. A pestilence[627] was raging in Andalusia when they arrived, and they immediately plunged into the work of caring for the sick. Twenty-seven Jesuits died in the performance of this act of charity; but the government soon forgot it and again drove into exile the men whom they had appealed to for help. In Austria they remained in the colleges as secular priests. At Fribourg, Lucerne and Soleure, the people insisted on their retaining the colleges. In China, they clung to their missions until the arrival of the Lazarists in 1783. In Portuguese India, even before the Suppression, they had been forcibly expelled, and the same thing occurred in South America wherever Portugal ruled. The Spanish missions of both South and North America had likewise been wrested from them. In Turkey the French ambassador, Saint-Priest, insisted on their staying at their posts in Constantinople, because of their success in dealing with the Moslems and schismatics. As we have seen when missionaries were needed in the deadly forests of French Guiana, the government was shameless enough to ask the Portuguese Jesuits to devote themselves to the work; and the request was acceded to. They were also entreated to remain in French India.
Speaking of Brazil, Southey says (III): "Centuries will not repair the evil done by their sudden expulsion. They had been the protectors of a persecuted race; the advocates of mercy, the founders of civilization; and their patience under their unmerited sufferings forms not the least honorable part of their character." What Southey says of Brazil applies to Paraguay, Chile and other missions.
Montucla in his "Histoire des mathématiques" tells us that Father Hallerstein, the president of the tribunal of astronomy in China hearing of the Suppression, died of the shock, as did his two dis[628]tinguished companions. The story related by the Protestant historian Christopher de Mürr in his "Journal" is also illustrative of the general attitude of mind in this trying conjuncture. Just before the Suppression, he informs us, a French Government ship left Marseilles for Pekin with four Jesuits on board. One was a painter, another a physician and the two others were mathematicians. All of them were to be in the personal entourage of the Emperor of China. They were Austrians from the Tyrol, but France, which had expelled the French Jesuits a few years before, was sending these foreign Jesuits to represent her, and to promote the interests of science in the Chinese court. They set sail in the month of July, 1773, and not a word was said to them about the general Suppression, which Choiseul knew perfectly well would soon take place. The Archbishop of Paris, de Beaumont, had warned them of what was in the air, but they could not believe it possible and so they departed for the Far East.
After a weary journey of four months, they arrived at Macao. Meantime the Brief had been published, and the Bishop of Macao, a creature of Pombal's made haste to inform them of the fact. Had he held his peace there would have been no difficulty about the continuance of the journey to Pekin, and their subsequent standing at the court, for the Brief was not effective until it was promulgated. But once they knew it, the poor men were in a dilemma. Not to heed the invitation of the Chinese emperor meant death, if he laid hold of them; but, on the other hand, to go to China without the power of saying Mass or preaching, or hearing confessions, namely as suspended priests, was unthinkable. For three days, the unfortunate wanderers studied the problem with aching hearts, and finally determined to run the risk of capture[629] by the Chinese with its subsequent punishment of death. They stowed themselves away on separate ships and thus got back to Europe. Incidentally, it serves as a proof that the Jesuits did not go out to China to be mandarins, as some of their enemies alleged. They accepted what honors came to them, but only to help them in their apostolic work.
It was found out subsequently that these poor men would have had better luck had they continued on their journey to China instead of returning to Europe. The promulgation of the Brief and the observance of all the legal technicalities connected with its enforcement was next to impossible in China, and hence we find a letter of Father Bourgeois from Pekin to his friend Duprez in France, which bears the date May 15, 1775, announcing that "the Brief is on its way." It had been issued two years previously. Of course, Bourgeois is in tears over the prospective calamity, and tells his friend: "I have nothing now but eternity and that is not far off. Happy are those of Ours who are with Ignatius and Xavier and Aloysius Gonzaga and the numberless throng of saints who follow the Lamb under the glorious banner of the Name of Jesus."
Crétineau-Joly discovered another letter from an Italian lay-brother named Panzi, who writes eighteen months later than Bourgeois. It is dated November 11, 1776. In it he says "the missionaries had been notified of the Bull of Suppression (he does not state how), nevertheless they live together in the same house, under the same roof and eat at the same table." Apparently there had been a flaw in the promulgation of the "Bull" or Brief. The brother goes on to say, that "the Fathers preach, confess, baptise, retain possession of their property just as before. No one has been interdicted or suspended for the reason that[630] in a country like this it would have been impossible to do otherwise. It is all done with the permission of the Bishop of Nankin, to whom we are subject. If the same course had been pursued here as in some parts of Europe, it would have put an end not only to the missions but to all religion, besides being a great scandal to the Chinese Christians who could not be provided for and who would have abandoned the Faith.
"Thanks be to God, our holy Mission is going on well and at present everything is very tranquil. The number of converts increases daily. Father Dollières brought over an entire tribe which lives on the mountains two days' journey from Pekin. The Emperor, so far, shows no signs of embracing the Catholic Faith, but he protects it everywhere throughout his vast dominions, and so do the other great men of the Empire. I am still at my work of painting. I am glad I am doing it for God; and I am determined to live in this holy mission until God wishes to take me to himself."
About this time, the Fathers addressed a joint letter to Cardinal de Bernis, the French ambassador at Rome, who had been so conspicuous in wresting the Brief of Suppression from Clement XIV and had originated the calumny about the poisoning of the Pope.
"Would your Eminence," says the document, "cast a glance at the inclosed report on the present condition of the French missions of China and the Indies which has been asked for by the Holy Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith. To these missions as you know, his majesty has sent great amounts of money and a large number of his subjects, knowing as he did that the interests of France are bound up with those of religion, and the advancement of the latter was[631] what he had chiefly in view. It will be gratifying to you to learn that the Chinese Emperor takes great pleasure in having these French missionaries employed in his palace; he frequently takes them with him on his journeys through the empire, and makes use of them to draw up maps of the country, which are of invaluable service to him. On the other hand, the missionaries, on account of the esteem in which they are held, use all their influence to prevent the persecution of Christians and have succeeded in obtaining favors for Europeans and especially for the Frenchmen who arrive at Canton, by protecting them from the annoyances to which they are exposed. Over and above this, several of the Fathers are in correspondence with the Paris Academy of Science, and also with the ministers of State, and are sending them the results of their astronomical observations, and of their discoveries in botany, natural history, in brief, whatever can contribute to the advancement of science and art.
"The king and his ministers, have in the past few years, accorded free transportation to the Fathers who are sent out here to the French missions of India, and deservedly so, for these missionaries have frequently rendered important service to France, and for that reason, the Supreme Council of Pondicherry has taken up their defense against the rulings of the Parliament of Paris, which sent officers out here to seize the little property we possess. The Pondicherry authorities would concede only that the Fathers might make a small change in their soutane and be called the "Messieurs les missionnaires de Malabar." It is in accordance with this arrangement that we continue to exercise our functions under the jurisdiction of the bishop. We are the only ones who understand the very difficult language of the country and there does not seem to be any reason why we should[632] not be left as we are. Besides these two missions, there are two others in the Levant, one in Greece, the other in Syria. They have always been and still are under the protection of France. M. le Chevalier de Saint-Priest, who is ambassador to Turkey, said, on his arrival at Constantinople, that the king had explicitly recommended to him the French missions and ordered him to assure the Fathers of the continuance of his protection."
Of the missions in Hindostan it may be of use to quote here the utterance of M. Perrin of the Missions Etrangères, who went out to India three years after the destruction of the Jesuit Missions in those parts. "I cannot be suspected when I speak in praise of those Fathers. I was never associated with them. Indeed, they were already extinct as a body when Providence placed me in the happy necessity of having had to do with some of the former members. I belonged to an association which had protracted and sometimes very lively debates with the Jesuit Fathers, who might have regarded us as their enemies, if Christians are capable of entertaining that feeling; but I feel bound to say that, notwithstanding these discussions, we always held each other in the highest esteem, and I hereby defy the most audacious calumniator to prove that the Society of Jesus had ever to blush for the conduct of any of its Malabar missionaries either at Pondicherry or in the interior. All were formed and fashioned by virtue's hand and they breathed virtue back in their conduct and their sermons." (Voyage dans l'Indostan, II, 261.)
Among the French Jesuits in China, Father Amiot was conspicuous. Langlès, the French Academian who was ambassador in China, dedicated to him a translation of Holme's "Travels in China," in which the Jesuit is described as "Apostolic Missionary at Pekin,[633] Correspondent of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres; an indefatigable savant, profoundly versed in the knowledge and the history of the sciences, the arts and the language of China and an ardent promoter of the Tatar-Manchou language and literature." With Amiot was Father Joseph d'Espinha, who was president of the imperial tribunal of astronomy, and simultaneously administrator of the Diocese of Pekin. Fathers de Rocha and Rodrigues presided over the tribunal of mathematics, and Father Schelbarth replaced Castiglione as the chief painter of the emperor; there were other Jesuits also who evangelised the various provinces of the country under the direction of the Ordinary.
This condition of things lasted for ten years and it was only then that the question arose of handing over the work to the Lazarists. Thus in a letter of Father Bourgeois, of whom we have already spoken, he says: "they have given our mission to the Lazarist Fathers." The letter is dated November 15, 1783, namely ten years after the suppression of the Society. "They were to have come last year," continues the writer; "Will they come this year? They are fine men and they can feel sure that I shall do all in my power to help them and put them in good shape." It was not until 1785 that a Lazarist, Father Raux, took over the Pekin Mission, and in 1788, three years afterwards, Bourgeois was able to say to Father Beauregard who had contrived to remain in Paris in spite of the Revolution: "Our missionary successors are men of merit, remarkable for virtue, talent and refinement. We live together like brothers, and thus the Lord consoles us for the loss of our good mother, the Society, whom we can never forget. Nothing can tear that love out of our hearts, and hence every moment we have to make acts of resignation in the[634] calamity that has fallen upon us. Meanwhile it is hard to say in our house whether the Lazarists live as Jesuits or the Jesuits like Lazarists."
The old and infirm Jesuits who were homeless and could find no ecclesiastical employment had much to suffer. They became pitiable objects of charity. Zalenski in "Les Jésuites da la Russie Blanche" (I, 77) gives an instance of it, in an appeal made to the King of Poland by one hundred and five of these outcasts, many of whom had been distinguished professors in the splendid colleges of the country. They had been granted a miserable pittance out of their own property in the way of a pension, but even that was often not forthcoming. After reminding His Majesty that this pension had been guaranteed them by the Church, by their country, and by the Sovereign Pontiff, and that the allowance was from their own property; and was due to them from the natural law; and also that the amount needed was every day decreasing, because of the great number among them who were dying, they asked him imploringly: "Will Poland, so long known for its humanity, be cruel only to us; will you permit us the Lord's anointed, the old teachers of the youth of Poland, to go begging our bread on the streets, with our garments in rags, and exposed to insults; will you permit that our tears and our cries which are forced from us by the grief and abandonment to which we are reduced should add to the affliction of our country; will you permit that our country should be accused of inhumanity and insulted because it withholds our pension? It is sad enough for us to have lost the Society, the dearest and nearest thing to our heart in this life, without adding this new suffering. Should you not have pity on our lot and grant us a pension? Do not bring us down to the grave with this new sorrow." Whether their prayers were answered or not[635] we do not know. However, as Cardinal Pallavicini denounces the king as "impious and inert," it is very likely that the poor old men were left to starve.
Quite unexpectedly the Protestant Frederick the Great of Prussia and the schismatical Catherine II of Russia insisted on having what Jesuits they could get for educational work in their respective domains. As neither sovereign would permit the Papal Brief to be read in the countries which they governed, a number of the exiles in various parts of Europe flocked thither. Efforts were made to have the Brief promulgated in both countries, but without success; for Catherine as well as Frederick denied any right of the Pope in their regard; nor would either of them listen to any request of the Jesuits to have it published. They were told to hold their peace. Of course, they were condemned by their enemies for accepting this heterodox protection; but it has been blamed for almost everything, so they went on with their work, thanking God for the unexpected shelter, and knowing perfectly well that Clement XIV was not averse to the preservation of some of the victims.
[636]
CHAPTER XXI
THE RUSSIAN CONTINGENT
Frederick the Great and the "Philosophers" — Protection of the Jesuits — Death of Voltaire — Catherine of Russia — The Four Colleges — The Empress at Polotsk — Joseph II at Mohilew — Archetti — Baron Grimm — Czerniewicz and the Novitiate — Assent of Pius VI — Potemkin — Siestrzencewicz — General Congregation — Benislawski — "Approbo; Approbo" — Accession of former Jesuits. Gruber and the Emperor Paul — Alexander I — Missions in Russia.Even before the general suppression of the Society, Frederick II of Prussia had given a shock to the politicians of Europe and to his friends the philosophes of France, by welcoming the exiled Jesuits into his dominions and employing them as teachers. Hence d'Alembert wrote to remonstrate; though at first glance he appears to approve of the king's action, his insulting tone when speaking of the Pope reveals the animus of this enemy of God. It ran as follows:
"They say that the Cordelier, Ganganelli, does not promise ripe pears to the Society of Jesus and that St. Francis will very likely kill St. Ignatius. It appears to me that the Holy Father, Cordelier though he be, would be very foolish to disband his regiment of guards to please the Catholic princes. Such a treaty would be very like that of the sheep and the wolves; the first article of which was that the sheep should deliver their dogs to the wolves. But in any case, Sire, it will be a curious condition of affairs, if while the Most Christian, the Most Catholic, the Most Apostolic, and the Most Faithful kings are destroying the grenadiers of the Holy See, your Most Heretical Majesty should be the only one to protect them." A little later he writes: "I am assured that[637] the Cordelier Pope needs a good deal of plucking at his sleeves to get him to abolish the Jesuits. I am not surprised. To propose to the Pope to destroy this brave troop is like asking Your Majesty to disband your body guards."
D'Alembert was playing double. He was as anxious as any one to bring about the Suppression, and on April 3, 1770, Frederick wrote him that, "The Philosophy which has had such vogue in this century is bragged about more brazenly than ever. But what progress has it made? 'It has expelled the Jesuits,' you tell me. Granted, but I will prove, if you want me to do so, that the whole business started in vanity, spite, underhand dealing and selfishness."
On July 7, 1770, Frederick wrote to Voltaire and said: "The good Cordelier of the Vatican lets me keep my dear Jesuits whom they persecute everywhere. I will guard the precious seed so that some day I may supply it to those who may want to cultivate this rare plant in their respective countries." Frederick had annexed Silesia which was entirely Catholic, while the part of Poland which was allotted to him at the time of the division had remained only half faithful. To gratify them and keep them at peace, he thought he could do no better than to ask the Jesuits to take care of the education of the youth of those countries, "let the philosophes cry out against it as they may." Hence, on December 4, 1772, he wrote to d'Alembert: "I received an ambassador from the General of the Ignatians, asking me to declare myself openly as the protector of the Order; but I answered that when Louis XV thought proper to suppress the regiment of Fitzjames (the Jansenists), I did not think I could intercede for that corps; and moreover, the Pope is well able to bring about such a reformation without having heretics take a hand in it."
[638] A Jesuit named Pinto had, indeed, presented himself to Frederick to ask for his protection, but he had no warrant to do so. Someone in Rome had suggested it, and he was encouraged in his enterprise by Maria Theresa. When apprised of it, the General sent a very severe reprimand to the volunteer ambassador, and that disposed of Father Pinto. No more was heard of him.
Frederick showed himself a very vigorous protector of the Society. When the Brief was published he issued the following decree: "We, Frederick by the Grace of God, King of Prussia, to all and every of our subjects, greeting:
"As you have already been advised that you are not permitted to circulate any Bulls or Briefs of the Pope, without our approbation of the same, we have no doubt that you will conform to this general order, in case the Brief of the Pope suppressing the Society of Jesus arrives at any department within your jurisdiction. Nevertheless, we have deemed it necessary to recall this to your memory, and as, under the date of Berlin, the sixth of this month, we have resolved, for reasons prompting us thereto, that this annihilation of the Society which has recently taken place shall not be published in our states, we graciously enjoin upon you to take all necessary measures in your district to suppress the aforesaid Bull of the Pope; for which end you will, in our name, as soon as you receive this communication, issue an explicit order, under penalty of rigorous chastisement, to all ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic religion domiciled in your territory not to publish the aforesaid Bull annulling the Society of Jesus. You are commanded to see carefully to the execution of this order, and to inform us immediately in case any high foreign ecclesiastics endeavor to introduce any Bulls of this kind into our kingdom surreptitiously."
[639] This mandate had the effect of protecting the Jesuits who were in his dominions; for as canon law made the promulgation of the Brief an indispensable condition of the suppression, it followed that the Jesuits in Prussia could conscientiously continue to live there as Jesuits. Indeed, the king had previously notified the Pope that such would be his course of action, and an autograph dispatch to the Prussian representative at Rome, dated Potsdam, September 13, 1773, reads as follows: "Abbé Columbini: You will say to whomsoever it may concern, but without any ostentation or affectation, and indeed you will endeavor to find an opportunity to say naturally, both to the Pope and his prime minister, that with regard to the affair of the Jesuits, my resolution is taken to keep them in my States as they hitherto have been. I guaranteed in the treaty of Breslau the statu quo of the Catholic religion, and I have found no better priests than they under every aspect. You will add that as I am a heretic, the Pope cannot dispense me from the obligation of keeping my word nor from nullifying my obligation as an honest man."
The last phrase, of course, is very insulting, but there was no help for it. It was the king's. When d'Alembert heard of the letter, he revealed his true colors, and warned Frederick that he would regret it, reminding him that in the Silesian War, the Jesuits had been opposed to him; that is to say, the Silesian Jesuits were faithful to Silesia. Frederick replied, on Jan. 7, 1774: "You need not be alarmed for my safety. I have nothing to fear from the Jesuits; they can teach the youth of the country, and they are better able to do that than any one else. It is true that they were on the other side, during the war, but, as a philosopher, you ought not to reproach me[640] for being kind and humane to every one of the human species, no matter what religion or society he belongs to. Try to be more of a philosopher and less of a metaphysician. Good acts are more profitable to the public than the most subtle systems and the most extravagant discoveries, in which, generally speaking, the mind wanders wildly without ever finding the truth. In any case, I am not the only one who has protected the Jesuits. The English and the Empress of Russia have done as much." This correspondence with d'Alembert continued for a year or so; and in 1777, when Voltaire was dying, the king wrote to advise him to think of his old school days at Louis-le-Grand. "Remember Father Tournemine, who was your nurse and made you suck the sweet milk of the Muses. Reconcile yourself with the Order which in the last century gave to France its greatest men." To all appearances Voltaire did not take the advice of his royal friend.
The politicians of Spain were particularly irritated at this action of Frederick, but he paid no attention to their anger. It is even said that the Pope ordered his nuncio at Warsaw to suspend all the Jesuits in Prussia from their ecclesiastical and pedagogical function and that a request was made to the King to have it done pro forma, with a promise to lift the ban immediately afterwards, a proposition which seems too silly to have ever been seriously made. But when Clement XIV died, Pius VI, after a few perfunctory protests, so as not to exasperate the other powers, let it be known that he was not dissatisfied with the status of the Jesuits in Prussia, and he not only wrote in that sense to Frederick, but encouraged him to continue his protection of the outcasts. Whereupon Frederick dispatched the following letter to the superior of Breslau. It is dated September 27, 1775:
[641] "Venerable, dear and faithful Father: The new Pontiff having declared that he left to me the choice of the most suitable means to be employed for the conservation of the Jesuits in my kingdom, and that he would put no obstacle in my way by any declaration of irregularity, I have in consequence enjoined on my bishops to leave your Institute in statu quo, and not to trouble any of your members or to refuse ordination to any of your candidates to the priesthood. You will therefore conform to this arrangement and advise your confrères to do likewise."
Until the death of Bishop Bayer of Culm, who was the staunch friend of the Fathers, there was no cloud on the horizon; but he was succeeded by Bishop Hohenzotten, who belonged to the House of Brandenburg. He had been extremely friendly before his installation as bishop, but immediately afterwards he advised the king to secularize the Jesuits and to forbid the establishment of a novitiate. The king, however, would not yield any further than to permit of their dressing as secular priests, and until his death in 1786 they continued to live in community under the name of the "Priests of the Royal Institute." His successor was not so benignant, for he seized all the revenues of the houses and thus put an end to their existence in Prussia, and they, like their brethren elsewhere, took the road of exile. Some joined the secular clergy and others made their way to Russia.
More surprising still was the protection accorded to them by the terrible Empress Catherine II of Russia. Indeed, it was she who made it possible to preserve unbroken the link between the old and the new Society. On the other hand, not a few Pharisees have reproached the Society for having accepted the protection of this imperial tigress. For the same reason, they might have found fault with Daniel in the lion's den. He[642] could not get out of it; and, the animals were kinder than the humans above ground.
Catherine of Russia was not a Russian but a Prussian. Her name was Sophia Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst. She and her unfortunate husband had been adopted by the czarina, Elizabeth, as her successors on the imperial throne of Russia, on condition that they would change their name and religion. There was no difficulty about either, especially the latter. According to Oliphant, Kohl, Döllinger and others who have described the state of the empire as it was about forty years later, sixteen millions or about one fourth of the entire population of Russia did not profess the Greek faith. The educated classes neither cared nor affected to care for the state religion. From the mercantile classes and most of their employees and the landed aristocracy all faith had departed. The peasants were divided into about fifty sects, and hatred and contempt for one another and the enmity of all of them for the Orthodox Church were extreme. No two Russian bishops had any spiritual dependence or connection with any other. They were simply paid officials of a common master who appointed, degraded or discarded them at pleasure. De Maistre who lived in Russia about that time says. "The words: "Oriental Church" or "Greek Church" have no meaning whatever." "I recognize," said Peter the Great, "no other legitimate Patriarch than the Pope of Rome. Since you will not obey him you shall obey me only. Behold your Pope." On that basis the Russian Church was built.
Strictly speaking the Jesuits were not entering Russia but merely staying in their old establishments which were still Polish, though geographically labelled Russia. Nevertheless, with Russia proper they had already a considerable acquaintance. Thus, as early[643] as 1612, Father Szgoda had allowed himself to be taken by the Tatars to the Crimea, so as to evangelize the Cossacks. Later, Father Schmidt had appeared at the court of Peter the Great as chaplain of the Austrian embassy. In 1685, Father Debois brought a letter to the czar from the Pope Innocent XI, and in 1687 Father Vota, encouraged by several Russian theologians of note, was bold enough to propose to Peter the Great a union with Rome. Peter's sister Sophia was favorable to the project and the moment seemed propitious, but a brace of fanatical monks backed by the patriarch, fiercely denounced the scheme and it was dropped. A school, however, was established at Moscow, but when Sophia died, Peter drove out the Fathers. In 1691, however, he returned to a better state of mind and permitted the Catholics of Moscow to build a church and to invite the Jesuits to take charge of it. But in 1719 he again expelled them, for he had conceived the idea of a Church of his own; not only independent of Rome but of Constantinople, and absolutely under his own control — a view it is said that was suggested to him by the French Jansenists whom he met in Paris on a visit there in 1717.
That ended all hopes of Catholicity in Russia, but in 1772 when Poland was dismembered, a large number of Catholics were added to the population of Russia and Catherine II, who had murdered her husband in order to be supreme in the State, addressed herself to the task of constituting these Russianized Poles into an independent Catholic Church. She found an ambitious Polish bishop, named Siestrzencewicz who entered into her views, and on May 23, 1774, by an imperial ukase she established the Diocese of White Russia. Zalenski, S. J., the author of "Les Jésuites et la Russie Blanche" is strong in his denunciation of Siestrzencewicz, as are Pierling and Markowitch,[644] but Godlewski is more benignant and tries to excuse the bishop as a man who did indeed resort to questionable methods, but was striving to stave off an open persecution of the Catholics. Zalenski has the more likely view.
This name of "White" Russia is a puzzle to most people, as are the opposite descriptions of "Black" and "Red" Russia. Indeed Okolski, who wrote in 1646, has a book entitled "Russia Florida," a name not in accordance with the popular notions about that country. There is also a "Greater" and a "Little" and a "West" Russia. The geographical limits of White Russia may be found in any encyclopedia. It is the region in which are Polotsk, Vitebsk, Orsha, Mohilew, Motislave and Gomel, and is bounded by the rivers Duna, Dnieper, Peripet and Bug. It was Russia's share in the first spoliation of Poland, and had a population of 1,600,000. Moscow is not far to the east but St. Petersburg (Petrograd) is at a great distance to the north.
In 1772 Catherine made known her intention regarding the Jesuits whom she found teaching in the section of Poland which had passed under her sceptre. They were even to retain their four colleges of Polotsk, Vitebsk, Orsha and Dunaberg besides their two residences and fourteen missions. She needed them as teachers and as they were the first to declare their acceptance of the new conditions, and had thus set an example to their countrymen, she revoked the ancient proscription of Peter the Great against the Society in Russia proper, and also apprised the other provinces of Europe that she would be their guardian in the future.
When the Brief of Suppression was announced, the Fathers felt perfectly sure that, like Frederick II, she would not permit it to be promulgated, both[645] because the Russian Church refused allegiance to Rome, and also because she had already bound herself by a promise to protect them. Nevertheless, through their superior, they addressed to her "Sacred Imperial Majesty" the following letter:
"It is to Your Majesty that we owe the privilege of professing publicly the Roman Catholic Religion in your glorious states, and of depending in spiritual matters on the Sovereign Pontiff who is the visible head of our Church. That is the reason why we Jesuits, all of whom belong to the Roman Rite, but who are most faithful subjects of Your Majesty, now prostrate before your august imperial throne, implore Your Majesty by all that is most sacred to permit us to render prompt and public obedience to the authority which resides in the person of the Sovereign Roman Pontiff and to execute the edict he has sent us abolishing our Society. By condescending to have a public proclamation made of this Brief of Suppression, Your Majesty will thus exercise your royal authority, and we by promptly obeying will show ourselves obedient both to Your Majesty and to the Sovereign Pontiff who has ordered this proclamation. Such are the sentiments and the prayers of all and each of the Jesuits, which are now expressed by me to Your Majesty, of whom I have the honor to be, with the most profound veneration and the most respectful submission, the most humble, the most devoted and the most faithful subject,"Her Sacred Majesty" absolutely refused to accede to the request. On the contrary she insisted that the Brief should not be proclaimed in her dominions. She showed them the greatest consideration and insisted that her nobles should imitate her example, so that it[646] became the fashion for the dignitaries of the empire to visit the various Jesuit establishments; on their part, the Jesuits never failed to show their appreciation of such an honor in as splendid a fashion as possible. The most memorable of all such visits was one in which the "Semiramis of the North" was the central figure. Catherine left St. Petersburg, on May 20, 1780, and reached Polotsk ten days later. In her suite were Potemkin, Tchernichef, de Cobentzel, the Prince Marshal Borjantynski, and Prince Dolkowiouki. On her arrival, while surrounded by all the notables who had hastened to meet her, the Jesuits were pointed out to her and she graciously saluted them. In the evening, the college was splendidly illuminated in her honor, and on the following morning she came to the church, for she was burning with a desire to witness a Catholic ceremonial. After Mass she went through the house, and both at her arrival and departure the rector celebrated her glory in an epic poem.
"Stanislas Czerniewicz."
From thence she set out for Mohilew where Joseph II of Austria awaited her. He had already visited the college at this place, and was received with proper honor by the rector and provincial. He made all sorts of inquiries about the reason why the suppressed Jesuits were permitted to exist in Russia, and the bishop told him laconically: "The people need them; the empress ordered it and Rome has said nothing." "You did well," replied the emperor, "you should not, and could not have done otherwise." With the emperor on this occasion appears the unexpected figure of one of the suppressed Jesuits: Father Francis Xavier Kalatai. He was his majesty's travelling companion, and has left a letter telling us what happened on this occasion.
"At Mohilew," he writes, "at the farthest extremity of the recently dismembered provinces of Poland, the[647] Jesuits still remain on their former footing. They are protected by the empress, because of their ability in training the youth of the country in science and piety. I asked to be presented to the superior when we visited the college and found him to be a very venerable old man. I questioned him and other members of the community on what they based their non-submission to the Brief of Suppression, and they replied in the same formula as the bishop: "Clementissima imperatrice nostra protegente, populo derelicto exigente, Roma sciente et non contradicente;" (i. e. on the protection of our most clement empress, the needs of the abandoned people, and the knowledge and tacit consent of Rome). They then showed me a letter from the Pope expressing his affection for them, and exhorting them to remain as they were until new arrangements could be made. He insisted upon their receiving novices and admitting Jesuits from other provinces, who desired to resume with them the sweet yoke of Christ from which they had been so violently torn. The provincial added that all the Jesuits of Russia were willing to relinquish everything they had, at the first authentic sign of the will of the Pope, and that they waited only a canonical announcement to that effect. Thus, I found that the true spirit of the Society had kept its first fervor among these scattered remnants of it in Russia."
The empress arrived, after making fifty leagues a day on the trip from Polotsk; killing ten horses on the journey. The meeting of the two sovereigns was unusually splendid; ten thousand soldiers stood on guard in the city, and besides state receptions, there were theatrical performances, public sports, banquets and the rest. The Jesuits of other establishments paid their respects, and were presented to the empress by the governor. On the 12th of June, "Semiramis"[648] left for St. Petersburg. Such a favor, of course, made the Jesuits still more popular and, at the same time, checked the papal nuncio, Archetti, who had not yet recovered from his failure to have the suppression made effective. Nevertheless, he still persisted in his efforts, in spite of the threats of the empress. But she never yielded.
Father Brucker writing in the "Etudes" (tom. 132, 1912, 558-59) gives a characteristic letter of the empress to Baron Grimm who was a friend and associate of Rousseau, Diderot, d'Alembert, Holbach and the rest. At that time, Grimm was the envoy of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, at the court of France, and later on, Catherine's own plenipotentiary to Lower Saxony.
The letter is dated May 7, 1779 and runs as follows: "Neither I nor my coquins en titre (my honorable rogues) les Jésuites de la R. Bl. (the Jesuits of White Russia) are going to cause the Pope any worry. They are very submissive to him and want to do only what he wishes. I suppose it is you who wrote the article in the 'Gazette de Cologne' about the hot house (the Jesuit novitiate). You say that I am amusing myself by being kind to them. Assuredly, you credit me with a pretty motive, whereas I have no other than that of keeping my word and seeking the public good. As for your grocers (the Bourbon kings) I make a present of them to you; but I know one thing, namely, they are not going to visit me and sing the song: 'Bonhomme! you are not master of your house while we are in it.'"
As early as 1776, that is only three years after the Suppression, the Jesuits of White Russia already numbered 145 members, and had twelve establishments: colleges, residences, missions, etc. In 1777 the question was discussed about opening a novitiate[649] and the Fathers had sufficient evidence that Pius VI would be glad of it and that even Clement XIV had not been averse. Moreover, the letter sent to Bishop Siestrzencewicz had been found on examination not to be the "formidable decree," as friends in Rome had described it, for it left to him the right of creating and renewing only "what he might find necessary." Finally, as it was not couched in the usual form of Apostolic documents, the superior, Father Czerniewicz, set aside his doubts and wrote both to the bishop and to the firm friend of the Society, Governor General Tchernichef, that he had determined to open that establishment.
Tchernichef's support must have been very strong, for when Father Czerniewicz arrived at Mohilew to arrange matters with the bishop, he received from the prelate a decree dated June 29, 1779, authorizing him to carry out his purpose. This decree began with the words: "Pope Clement XIV, of celebrated memory, condescending to the desire of the Most August Empress of the Russias, our Most Clement Sovereign, had permitted the non-promulgation in her dominions of the Bull 'Dominus ac Redemptor;' and Our Holy Father Pope Pius VI, now happily reigning, shows the same deference to the desires of Her Imperial Majesty, by refraining from all opposition to the retention of their habit, name and profession by the Regular Clerks of the Society of Jesus, in the estates of her Majesty, notwithstanding the Bull 'Dominus ac Redemptor.' Moreover as the Most August Empress to whom both we and the numerous Catholic churches in her vast domains are under such grave obligations has recommended to us both verbally and by writing to do all in our power to see that the aforesaid Regular Clerks of the Society of Jesus may provide for the conservation of their Institute, we hasten to fulfil[650] that duty which is so agreeable to us and for which we should reproach ourselves did we stint our efforts in carrying it out. Hitherto, they have not had any novitiate in this country, and, as their numbers are gradually diminishing, it is evident that they cannot exercise their useful ministry unless a novitiate is accorded them."
In virtue of this permission, a novitiate was established at Polotsk on February 2, 1780, and ten novices entered and began community life under the direction of Father Lubowicki. On that occasion, according to de Mürr, a formidable Latin poem of 169 hexameters was composed by Father Michael Korycki in honor of Bishop Siestrzencewicz. Thus was the house established; and in spite of the importunities of the Bourbon ambassadors at Rome, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius VI, never gave utterance, either personally or through his nuncio in Poland, to any public protest against it. All the denunciations of the alleged "refractory Jesuits" were either letters of private individuals or secret official correspondence, written doubtless in the name of the Pope, but indirectly, that is through the channel of the secretaryship of State and the nunciature; and never going outside the narrow diplomatic circle. Nor is there the slightest positive proof that the Pope regarded the Jesuits of White Russia except as religious.
"On the contrary," says Zalenski (I, 330), "Pius VI knew very well, as did everyone else in Rome, that Clement XIV had published the Brief of Suppression in spite of himself, and only after four years of hesitation and conflict with the diplomats. Moreover, Cardinals Antonelli and Calini, eye-witnesses of what had happened, represented to Pius VI in personal memorials that the suppression was invalid. Pius himself had belonged to that section of cardinals which disapproved[651] of the destruction, and, as has been already said, when he was Pope, he set free the prisoners of the Castle Sant' Angelo, rehabilitated their memory, and ordered Father Ricci to be buried with the honors due to the general of an Order. In brief, Pius VI, as both Frederick II and Tchernichef insisted, was really glad that the Society had been preserved, and his silence was an approbation of it. Indeed, he could not, as the Father of Christendom, exclude the Jesuits from the protection of the general law of the Church and regard them as suppressed and freed from their vows, before the Brief of Clement XIV had been properly made known to them by the ordinary of the diocese. Of course, their enemies systematically rejected this axiom although accepted both by common and canon law. They denounced it as "a vain subterfuge," and even the Apostolic nuncio, in one of his dispatches declared it to be such; but the Holy Father could not, in conscience, accept that view.
In February, 1782, Tchernichef, the great friend of the Society, fell from power, but his successor Potemkin showed himself even a more devoted defender. Fortunately, Father Benislawski, a former Jesuit, but now a canon, was very intimate with him and induced him to give his aid to the Society. As Bishop Siestrzencewicz had meantime become Archbishop of Mohilew, the fear was again revived that he would claim to be the religious superior of the Jesuits. Indeed, by sundry appointments to parishes, he began to reveal that such was his intention, and Archetti, the nuncio at Warsaw, urged him to persist in his attacks. To head off the danger, the Fathers had determined to proceed to the election of a Vicar General, and they obtained permission from the empress to that effect. She issued a ukase, on June 23, 1782, in which she said that the Jesuits were to be subject to the arch[652]bishop, in things that pertained to his rights and duties, but that he should be very careful not to interfere with any of the rules of the Order which were to remain intact "in as far as they agree with our civil constitutions." Siestrzencewicz was quite upset by this order, and not knowing that it had been obtained through the intervention of Potemkin, he asked the Prince Wiaziemski, who was then president of the Senate, to obtain a decree from that body subjecting the Jesuits to his jurisdiction. The Senate so ruled by a rescript dated September 12, 1781, but it was a very ill-advised proceeding on their part, for it set them in opposition both to the empress and the powerful Potemkin, besides making a rebel of the archbishop and a meddler of the nuncio.
While a spirited correspondence was going on between those two distinguished ecclesiastics about the matter, the Fathers met at Polotsk, on October 10, 1782, which happened to be the feast of St. Francis Borgia, to hold the twentieth congregation of the Society. Everything was done according to the rule which governs such assemblies, and Father Stanislaus Czerniewicz, the vice-provincial, was chosen Vicar General of the Society. In the following session, it was decreed that for those who re-entered the Society, the years spent involuntarily and by compulsion, in the world, would count as so many years in religion. With this the congregation ended, because orders had come to Polotsk, for the Vicar General to report immediately to the Empress at St. Petersburg. Accordingly, after naming Father Francis Kareu, vice-provincial, he set out for the capital and was welcomed by Catherine with the words: "I defended you thus far, and will do so till the end."
The question now arose how would the archbishop receive the delegates of the congregation which had[653] ignored his claim to control the internal affairs of the Society. The all-powerful Potemkin had attended to that. He had called the prelate to task for daring to oppose the explicit command of the empress, and warned him of the danger of such a course of action. As Siestrzencewicz was primarily a politician, he had no difficulty in modifying his views. Moreover, Canon Benislawski, who had studied him at close range and knew his peculiarities, had taken care to prepare him for the visit of the delegates. When they arrived, he received them with the greatest courtesy and sent a letter of congratulation to the newly-elected vicar. The future of the Society was thus assured. A successor to Father Ricci had been elected; a general congregation had convened and its proceeding had been conducted in strict conformity with the Constitution. Besides, a novitiate had been established, members of the dispersed provinces had been officially recognized as belonging to the Society; and all this had been done with the tacit consent of the Sovereign Pontiff.
Father Czerniewicz remained in St. Petersburg more than three months, during which time he was frequently summoned to discuss with the empress and Potemkin matters pertaining to education, but chiefly to make arrangements for negotiations in Rome, in order to obtain the Pope's express approval of the election. The matter called for considerable diplomatic skill, for in the Acts of the congregation, some very bold expressions had been employed which might cause the failure of the whole venture. Thus, it had declared that "the Brief of Clement XIV destroyed the Society outside of Russia;" and again, that "the Vicar was elected by the authority of the Holy See." The second especially was a dangerous assertion, since the papal nuncio, Archetti, regarded the election as illegal, and even a few of the Jesuits[654] themselves were doubtful as to the correctness of the claim. There was fear, also, about the personal disposition of the Pope on that point.
To dispose of all these difficulties Catherine sent Benislawski as her ambassador to Rome, with very positive instructions not to modify them in any way whatever. He was not to stop at Warsaw, but might call on the nuncio, Garampi, at Vienna, and also on Gallitzin, the Russian ambassador. He was to go by the shortest route to Rome, to visit no cardinals there, but to present himself immediately to the Pope. In his audience, he was to make three requests. They were: first, the preconization of Siestrzencewicz as archbishop; second, the appointment of Benislawski himself as coadjutor; and third, the approbation of the Jesuits in White Russia, and especially the recognition of the Acts of the congregation. The refusal of anyone of them was to entail a rupture of negotiations with Russia.
On February 21, 1783, Benislawski arrived in Rome, and saw the Pope on the same day. He was received most graciously; his own nomination as bishop was confirmed; but, said the Pope: "Siestrzencewicz had no right to open the novitiate." "That was done," replied Benislawski, "by order of the empress." "Since that is the case," said the Pope, "I shall forget the injury done to me by the bishop." He then asked about the Jesuits and their General, and whether the election had been formally ordered by the empress. When assured upon the latter point, he answered, "I do not object." After an interview of two hours Benislawski withdrew.
At the second audience the attitude of the Pope was cold and indifferent, for the Bourbon ambassadors had influenced him meantime. Noticing the change, Benislawski fell upon his knees and asked the Pope's[655] benediction. "What does this mean?" he was asked. "My orders are to withdraw immediately, if my requests are not granted." That startled the Pope, and he immediately changed his tone; he spoke kindly to Benislawski and told him to put his requests in writing. All night long the faithful ambassador labored at his desk formulating each request and answering every argument that might be alleged against it. Zalenski gives the entire document (I, 386), which substantially amounted to this: "The failure of the bishop to abolish the Society in Russia; the establishment of the novitiate, and the election of the General were all due to the explicit and positive orders of Catherine. As she had threatened to persecute the Catholics of Russia and to compel the Poles to enter the Orthodox Church, it was clear that there was no choice but to submit to her demands.
"With regard to the objection that the Bourbon Princes would be angry at Catherine's support of the Jesuits, Benislawski made answer, that, 'as the empress had offered no objections to the suppression of the Order in the dominions of those rulers, she failed to see why they had any right to question her action in preserving it. She owed those kings no allegiance.' Secondly, the approval of the Society would not be a reflection on the present Pope, who had as much right to reverse the judgment of Clement XIV, as Clement XIV had to reverse the judgment of thirty of his predecessors. If none of the kings and diplomats had blamed Clement for acting as he did, why should they blame Pius VI for using his own right in the premises? Moreover, the Brief was never published in Russia, and there was not the slightest prospect that it ever would be. Finally, the empress had made a solemn promise not to harm her Catholic subjects; but she was convinced that she could not[656] inflict a greater injury on them than to deprive their churches of priests and their schools of teachers who in her opinion were invaluable." As to the charge that the whole course of the empress was due to the suggestion of the Jesuits, Benislawski replied that "everyone knew they had petitioned her to have the Brief promulgated, and that she had told them they were asking what was not agreeable to her."
The next day the Pope read the statement, smiled and said, "You want to arrange this matter by a debate with me. But there can be no answer to your contention. Your arguments are irrefutable." Very opportunely, a letter arrived from the empress who expressed her willingness to receive a papal legate to settle the case of the Uniate Archbishop of Polotsk, and asking to have Benislawski consecrated in St. Petersburg. The letter was read to the Pope, in the presence of a number of Cardinals, to whom Benislawski was presented. The Holy Father then gave his assent to the preconization of the archbishop, and the consecration of Benislawski. "As to the third," he said, raising his voice: "Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem; approbo, approbo" (that is I approve of the Society of Jesus, now in Russia; I approve, I approve). As the verbal utterances of Popes in public matters of the Church, have the same force as when they are in writing, and are designated by canonists and theologians as vivæ vocis oracula, Benislawski contented himself with this approval. Besides, fearing the machinations of the Bourbon politicians, he could not ask for more. He had won his case, and had received the Pope's assurance that the Society in Russia was not and never had been suppressed. No more was needed.
Against the immense majority of historians of every shade of opinion, Theiner in his "Pontificate of Clement[657] XIV" denounces this account of the embassy as "a fabrication of the Jesuit Benislawski," though Benislawski was not then a Jesuit, nor did he ever re-enter the Society. Besides, although Theiner characterizes the distinguished canonist whom the Pope had just made a bishop as "a liar" and "an intriguer," he admits at the same time that he was "a virtuous man" and "a pious priest." If the account of the audience had been untrue, the Pope would certainly have been compelled to denounce it; for it was published immediately in the Florence Gazette; and the falsifier would assuredly never have received his mitre. Nevertheless, to settle the matter definitely and to allay all doubts and suspicions, Benislawski, after he was installed as Bishop of Gadara, was invited to the second congregation of the Jesuits. It met at Polotsk, on July 25, 1785, and he there made the following declaration under oath:
"Having been sent to Rome by the Most Illustrious Empress of all the Russias to interview the Pope with a view of settling the difficulty about the Archbishopric of Mohilew and of the Co-adjutorship of that see, as well as to obtain from the Pope the approval of the Society of Jesus in White Russia, I represented to His Holiness the state of the Jesuits living there in conformity with the laws of their Institute, and I acquainted him with the fact that they had elected a General in obedience to the command of the Most Illustrious Empress. After having heard me, His Holiness kindly approved of the manner of life which the Jesuits were leading in White Russia, and ratified the election of the General, repeating three times, 'approbo, approbo, approbo.' I affirm under a most solemn oath, the truth of this verbal approbation; in confirmation of which I hereunto affix my seal and signature."
[658] Theiner adduces three Briefs of Pius VI to offset this affidavit of Benislawski, but two of them antedate the episode at Rome; the third was issued a month later, and has nothing in common with the question at issue. Besides this, a few years subsequent to this approval, when Father Joseph Pignatelli, who may one day be among the canonized saints of the Church, asked permission of the Pope to go to White Russia "if the Society existed there," His Holiness answered: "Yes, it exists there; and if it were possible I would have it extended everywhere throughout the world. Go to Russia. I authorize you to wear the habit of the Jesuits. I regard the Jesuits there, as true Jesuits and the Society existing in Russia as lawfully existing." (Bonfier, Vie de Pignatelli, 196.)
As their status was now settled, the Fathers addressed themselves to the educational reform which the empress wanted to introduce into the schools of Russia. It consisted mainly in giving prominence to the physical sciences. They had no difficulty in complying with her wishes, and Father Gruber, who was an eminent physicist, immediately established a training-school for the preparation of future professors, and in March 1785, a number of Jesuit scientists were summoned by Potemkin to St. Petersburg.
On June 20, of that year, the Vicar General Czerniewicz died. He was born in 1728, and had entered the Society at sixteen; after teaching at Warsaw, he was called to Rome as secretary to Father Ricci; later he was substitute assistant of Poland. He was then sent to be rector of Polotsk, and was at that post when Clement XIV issued the decree of Suppression. At the congregation which was called on October 1, Father Lenkiewicz was elected to succeed him.
By this time, many of the old Jesuits were sending in their requests for admission. Among them were[659] such distinguished personages as the astronomer Hell; two of Father Ricci's assistants, Romberg and Korycki and others. All could not be received in Russia itself, but wherever they were, in America, Europe, China, the East and West Indies, etc., they were all gladly welcomed back and their names were inscribed in the catalogue. It is of especial interest for Americans to find those of Adam Britt of Maryland and of several who were sent from White Russia to the United States when Carroll was empowered to re-establish the Society in 1805. They are Anthony Kohlmann, Malevy, Brown, Epinette and others. Those who, for one reason or another, were unable to go to Russia in person, were informed that they were duly recognized as Jesuits and were given permission to renew their vows. This arrangement was made especially for the ex-members who had been appointed to bishoprics, or were employed in some important function, such as royal confessors, court preachers, scientists, etc., or again, who were prevented by age and infirmity from making the long and difficult journey.
In the "Catalogus mortuorum," or list of deceased members, which covers the period between 1773 and 1814, Zalenski counts 268 who are extra provinciam; all nations under the sun are represented. From everywhere gifts were sent by former Jesuits. Thus, Father Raczynski who had become Primate of Poland gathered together at various auctions as many as 8000 Jesuit books and sent them to the College of Polotsk. Others followed his example, and in 1815 the college library had 35,000 volumes on its shelves. Other contributions came in the form of money. As early as 1787, Polotsk had a printing-press, and produced its own text-books, besides publishing a number of works which were out of print. Fr. Gruber kept at work forming a corps of able scientists, and[660] he even made many coadjutor brothers architects, painters and skilled artificers in various crafts. The institution soon became famous for its physical and chemical laboratories, its splendid theatre, its paintings, sculpture, etc. The minor colleges soon followed its example, and the Jesuit churches resumed their customary magnificence. Sodalities were established, distant missions were undertaken, and among the neighboring Letts, Jesuit missionaries created a veritable Paraguay.
Catherine reigned for thirty-five years, and until her death, as she had promised, she had never failed to protect the Society. Her word alone counted in Russia. She was alone on the throne for she had murdered the czar, her husband, because of his repudiation of her son Paul, and also because of her natural intolerance of an equal. It is true that Father Carroll, in far-away America, was lamenting that his brethren had such a protectress, but that was beyond their control. It can at least be claimed that they had never yielded an iota in their duties as Catholic priests. During the whole of her reign she kept her unfortunate heir almost in complete seclusion. He was confided to the care chiefly of Father Gruber, who besides being a saint was a man of wonderful ability. He was a musician, a painter, an architect, a physicist and a mathematician. One of his oil paintings adorns the refectory of Georgetown today; brought over, no doubt, by some of the Polish Fathers. It is very far from being the work of an amateur. Naturally, therefore, Paul took to him kindly, and the affection continued till the end. When on the throne, he multiplied the colleges of the Society, enlarged the novitiate, installed the Fathers in the University of Vilna, and even persuaded the Grand Turk to restore to the Jesuits their ancient missions on the Ægean Archipelago.
[661] The intimacy was so great that Gruber was supposed to be able to procure any favor from Paul and hence his life was made miserable by the swarm of suitors who beset him; but he was not foolish enough to forfeit the favor of the prince by being made a tool to further the selfish aims of the petitioners. He did, however, request the czar to ask the newly-elected Pope Pius VII for an official recognition of the Society in Russia. The Pope was only too willing to grant it, but the lingering hostility to the Jesuits, even in Rome itself, made it somewhat difficult. Indeed, a certain number of the cardinals pronounced very decidedly against it, and only yielded, when the Pope made them take all the responsibility of a refusal. He appointed a committee of the most hostile among them to report on the imperial request, thus bringing them face to face with the consequences of opposing the ruler of a great empire and converting him from a friend into a persecutor of the Church. Looking at it from that point of view, they quickly came to a favorable conclusion, and on March 7, 1801, the Bull "Catholicæ Fidei" was issued, explicitly re-establishing the Society of Jesus in Russia. It was the first great step to the general restoration throughout the world thirteen years later. The approbation arrived very opportunely, for sixteen days after its reception Paul I was assassinated.
At his accession, Alexander, though less demonstrative than Paul, showed his esteem for the Society to such an extent that when the General, Father Kareu, was at the point of death, the czar went in person to Polotsk to offer his condolence. This condescension was so marked that Father Gruber availed himself of the opportunity to solicit the publication of the Papal Bull which the turmoil consequent upon Paul's assassination had prevented from being officially proclaimed. The emperor made no difficulty about[662] it, and issued a ukase to that effect. He even went further in his approval, for when Gruber was elected General in place of Father Kareu, he was summoned to St. Petersburg to occupy a splendidly equipped College of Nobles which Paul had established in the city itself. It was there that Gruber met the famous Count Joseph de Maistre who was at that time Ambassador of Sardinia at the imperial court. A deep and sincere affection sprung up between the two great men, and in the storm that, later on, broke out against the Society, de Maistre showed himself its fearless and devoted defender.
Catherine II had, in her time, attempted the colonization of the vast steppes of her empire, and Paul I had been energetic in carrying out her plans. Alexander I, also, was anxious to further the project which called for not a little heroism on the part of those who undertook it. Incidentally, it would relieve the government of considerable anxiety and worry; for as the new settlers came from every part of Germany, and professed all kinds of religious beliefs, it was considered to be of primary importance politically, to establish some sort of unity among them and to accustom them to Russian legislation and ways of life. The Jesuits were selected for the task, and in spite of the hardships and the isolation to which they were subjected, and in face, also, of the hatred and opposition of their enemies as well as the usually surly mood of the brutalized immigrants who had been driven out of their own country by starvation and oppression, order was restored within a year, and the government reported that these few priests had achieved what a whole army of soldiers could never have accomplished. The missions of Astrakhan were said to be similarly successful. But it appears[663] in the light of subsequent events, that no solid or permanent results had been effected.
A glance at the map will show us that these two fields of endeavor were at the extreme eastern and western ends of Russia's vast empire. The Riga district is on the Baltic or, more properly, on the Gulf of Riga. Below it, are the now famous cities of Köningsberg and Dantzic. Astrakhan is on the Caspian Sea into which the great River Volga empties. On both sides of this river, as in the city itself, the Jesuits had established their mission posts. But from both the Baltic and the Caspian they had to withdraw, when driven out of Russia by Alexander in 1820.
The present condition of these two sections of the now dismembered empire is most deplorable. Indeed, as early as 1864 Marshall (Christian Missions, I, 74) says of them: "Let us begin with the Provinces of the Baltic. The Letts who inhabit Courland and the southern half of Livonia, though long normally Christians and surrounded by Lutherans and Russo-Greeks, sacrifice to household spirits by setting out food for them in their gardens or houses or under old oak trees. Of the Esthonians, Kohl says: 'The old practices of heathenism have been preserved among them more completely than among any other Lutheran people. There are many spots where the peasants yet offer up sacrifices.' Let us now accompany Mr. Laurence Oliphant down the Volga to the Caspian Sea. Everywhere his experience is uniform. The Kalmuks whom he discovered are still Buddhists. Near the mouth of the Volga he visits a large and populous village in a state of utter heathenism and apparently destined to remain so. At Sarepta near Astrakhan, the Moravians had attempted to convert the neighboring heathen but the Greek clergy prevented[664] them. One tribe is made up of followers of the Grand Lama; another of pagans; a third of Mahometans. In the city of Kazan, once the capital of a powerful nation, there are 20,000 Mahometans, and the immense Tatar population of the entire region reaching as far as Astrakhan has adopted a combination of Christianity, Islamism and Shamanism, or are as out and out pagans as they were before being annexed to the Russian Empire."
Among these degraded peoples the Jesuits were at work while they were directing their colleges at Polotsk, St. Petersburg and elsewhere until 1814.
[665]
CHAPTER XXII
THE RALLYING
Fathers of the Sacred Heart — Fathers of the Faith — Fusion — Paccanari — The Rupture — Exodus to Russia — Varin in Paris — Clorivière — Carroll's doubts — Pignatelli — Poirot in China — Grassi's Odyssey.While the Society was maintaining its corporate life in Russia several contributory sources began to flow towards it from various parts of Europe. The most notable was the association that was formed under the eyes and with the approval of the wise and virtuous Jacques-André Emery, the superior of the Seminary of Paris, who himself had been trained in the Jesuit college of Macon. Under his guidance and very much attached to him, was a little group of seminarians consisting of Charles and Maurice de Broglie, sons of the celebrated Marshal of that name, both of whom bore the title of Prince; François Eléonore de Tournély, who was the animating spirit of the little association, and, omitting others, Joseph Varin who succeeded de Tournély as the guide of the growing community.
When the Revolution broke out, Varin yielding to his martial instincts, left the seminary and became a soldier in the royalist army; but Charles de Broglie kept the group together and under the direction of Pey, a distinguished canon of Paris, they plunged into the study of the spiritual life and continued to dream of an association which might in one way or another take up the work of the suppressed Society of Jesus. In 1791 they were compelled to seek a refuge in Luxembourg. Two years later, they fled to Antwerp, and[666] finally found themselves in the old Jesuit villa of Louvain, which is still standing near the château of the Duc d'Arenberg. There they were joined by de Broglie's brother, Xavier, and by Pierre Leblanc, both of whom had served for two years in the army of the Prince de Condé. Varin joined them in that year. He had been a soldier ever since the seminary had closed, and had given up all idea of ever resuming the soutane. But it happened that he was absent from his regiment when a battle occurred, and in disgust he had gone to Belgium to ask to be transferred to another corps. While there, he fell into the hands of his old seminary friends; in a few days his former fervor returned and he was accepted as the sixth member of what de Tournély had determined to call "The Society of the Sacred Heart."
On the very day of Varin's entrance, he and five associates started off on foot, with their bags on their backs, to beg their way to Bavaria. It took them five days to get as far as Augsburg, and there they remained, though their intention was to establish themselves at Munich. But the Bishop of Augsburg told them that if they wanted to learn what the Society of Jesus was, no better place could be found than the city in which they then found themselves, for the memory of many illustrious Jesuits was still fresh in the hearts of the people. The bishop who gave them this welcome hospitality was Clemens Wenzeslaus, who besides being a prelate was a prince of Saxony and Poland. Yielding to his advice, they took up their abode in Augsburg where they were soon joined by two distinguished men who were afterwards to be conspicuous in the reconstructed Society, Grivel, who was to be sent to Georgetown in America as master of novices, and the famous Rozaven, who was to save the Society from wreck in the first general congregation held after[667] the Restoration, and who was subsequently to be the assistant General both of Fortis and Roothaan.
As they were all Frenchmen, they were necessarily debarred from apostolic work among the people whose language they could not speak. But that was providential, for they had thus a better opportunity to devote themselves to the study of the spiritual life. On March 12, 1796, Varin and some others were promoted to the priesthood, and about the middle of December, they were installed first at Neudorf and then at Hagenbrünn, near Vienna, as the invading armies of Moreau and Jourdan made Augsburg an unsafe place to live in. They were now sixteen in number and their close imitation of the Jesuit mode of life caused a sensation there, as Austria had only a short time before suppressed the Society.
De Tournély died on July 9, 1797, and Varin was elected in his place on the first ballot. The organization however, had not yet received the authorization of the Sovereign Pontiff, for as Napoleon held him a prisoner now in one place now in another, it was impossible to make any personal application for his approval of the new organization. Hence, a petition was drawn up, signed by twenty-five or thirty bishops asking the Holy Father's approbation. The answer came in the month of September 1798, assuring them that their project afforded him the greatest consolation, and with all his heart he gave them his blessing.
The establishment of this Society was not as has been said "the underhand work of the Jesuits," for Varin and his associates had as yet never met any member of the old Society, nor were they aware of the existence of any similar organization in Italy. Indeed, when a letter came from Rome, signed Nicolas Paccanari, announcing that he was their superior, and was such, "in virtue of an express wish of the Pope[668] to have the two communities united," the associates regarded it as the abolition of their Society of the "Fathers of the Sacred Heart," especially as this unknown individual announced that he was then on his way to Hagenbrünn to carry the plan into effect.
Nicolas Paccanari was a very curious personage. He had no education whatever, and in his early life had been engaged in various occupations which scarcely seemed to fit him to be the founder of a religious order. He was born near Trent, and had been for some time a soldier, then a merchant on a small scale, and when swindled by an associate, he took to tramping from town to town, vending, as Guidée says, "objects of curiosity," that is, he was an itinerant peddler. He was a pious man, and as he belonged to one of the guilds in the Caravita at Rome, he was prompted by the spirit that prevailed in that famous Oratory to do something more than usual for the glory of God. He first thought of being a Carmelite, and then the fancy seized him that he was destined to resuscitate the Society of Jesus. Strangely enough, although he was not even a priest, he was joined by a doctor of the Sapienza and two French ecclesiastics, Halnat and Epinette, the latter of whom entered the Society and later taught philosophy at Georgetown D. C. He was undoubtedly clever, and so plausible in his speech that he won the confidence of the most distinguished personages in Europe: cardinals and noblemen and heads of religious orders, with the result that he and his two friends made their vows on the eve of the Assumption 1797, in the chapel of the Caravita, and Paccanari was elected superior. He succeeded even in seeing the Pope, who was then a prisoner at Spoleto, and obtained his approval and blessing. He called his organization "The Society of the Fathers of the Faith of Jesus," which was shortened[669] later into "The Fathers of the Faith." In Böhmer-Monod we find them styled "The Brothers of the Faith."
Paccanari failed to arrive at Hagenbrünn for a considerable time, for he had fallen into the hands of the police and was kept a prisoner in Sant' Angelo. His restless activity and constant change of abode had attracted the notice of the authorities, and he was suspected of being concerned in some political plot against the Roman Republic, which the French had just then set up in the Papal dominions. His associates were arrested at the same time, and were not released for four months. It was during this time of incarceration that Paccanari sent a second letter to Varin more startling than the first. It announced that the Fathers of the Sacred Heart had been received into the Paccanari association, and that Father Varin was appointed superior of the society in Germany. Such a communication from a man whom they had not even seen, made them conclude that they had to do with a lunatic. Finally, in the month of February 1799, a third letter arrived, clearing up what had been said in the second. The explanation offered was that not knowing if he would ever be let out of jail, and not wishing that the privileges he had received from the Holy See should lapse, he had as a precaution admitted Varin and his associates into the Society of the Fathers of the Faith.
When at last he was released, he started for Vienna, and on his way, made it his business to see some of the dispersed Jesuits who were in Parma and Venice. They were very kind to him, procured him financial assistance, but did not welcome him with the enthusiasm he expected. They had remarked that he never spoke of uniting his associates with the Jesuits of Russia. Paccanari was keen enough to divine their[670] reason, and he was therefore only the more eager to affiliate with the people at Hagenbrünn, for he had only twenty members of his own, not more than three of whom were priests. He reached Vienna on April 3, and was naturally received with some reserve, but when Cardinal Migazzi and the nuncio made known the desire of the Pope, all opposition ceased and the discussion of the mode of union began. The sessions lasted ten days and ended by the election of Paccanari as general. The Society of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart thus passed out of existence on April 18, 1799.
The house at Hagenbrünn at once took on a different aspect. There was less study, fewer exercises of piety, the recreations were immoderately prolonged, and the Fathers were actually compelled to take up a series of athletic exercises that made them think they were back in their college days. Of course this soon became intolerable, but little else could have been expected from a man like Paccanari, who was absolutely ignorant of the first elements of community life. What is still more curious is that he was not even yet tonsured; but he was, nevertheless, so wonderfully insinuating in his manner that he succeeded in persuading everyone outside of his own household that he was the man of the hour. The public praised him, but his subjects were exasperated at his opinionativeness, his despotism, his repeated absences from home, and above all by his avoidance of all association with the dispersed Jesuits. All that quickly convinced the Fathers of the Sacred Heart that a serious mistake had been made. It is true that on August 11, 1799, Paccanari made a formal announcement that his sole purpose was to amalgamate with the Jesuits of Russia, but it was tolerably clear that if he ever had any such intention it was rapidly vanishing from his mind. He began by founding several establishments in various[671] parts of Europe, even Moravia being favored in this respect. In this distribution, de Broglie and Rozaven were dispatched to England, and Halnat, Roger and Varin to France.
After the example of the old Jesuits, the first work that Varin and his companions undertook when they arrived in Paris was the care of the hospitals of La Salpétrière and Bicêtre, the first of which had 6,000 patients and had not seen a priest in its wards for ten years. The government now admitted the folly of its previous methods of procedure, and sought the help of the ministers of religion. A tremendous transformation was immediately effected. Nor could it have been otherwise, for the zealous priests spent thirteen and fourteen hours a day there, going from bed to bed to comfort the patients.
It was Halnat who first discovered the existence of the venerable Father de Clorivière, a Jesuit of the old Society, who was to be the first provincial of France after the restoration. The pious Mlle. de Cicé, a niece of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, also comes into view at this period. She had been the directress of an association of ladies established by Father de Clorivière to supply as far as possible the place of the expelled nuns, in looking after the young girls of Paris. Varin became her spiritual guide and also directed Mlle. de Jugon, a remarkable woman, who subsequently married a wealthy nobleman; but at his death she resumed with great ardor the charitable works which had previously reflected such glory upon her piety and zeal.
Just at this time, an attempt was made to assassinate Napoleon. An "infernal machine," as it was called, was exploded under his carriage, and Mlle. de Cicé was suspected of knowing something about it, chiefly because of her association with the mysterious person[672]ages who had recently arrived in France — Varin and his companions. Indeed, although the good woman's holiness of life was vouched for by a great number of witnesses, chiefly the beneficiaries of her charity, she might have been condemned to death, had not Father Varin appeared in court, where he made a candid explanation of the character of his society, as having for its only purpose religion and charity, without any political affiliations whatever. His good temper at the trial was a happy offset to Father Halnat's outburst of anger which almost provoked an unfavorable verdict. Later Halnat applied for admission to the Society of Jesus, but it was thought unsafe to admit him.
At this juncture, there appears the figure of Madeleine-Sophie Barat, the foundress of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, a title chosen at that time not to indicate any social distinction; indeed Madame Barat was from people in very ordinary circumstances, but the name "religious" was in disfavor at that turbulent period, and it was thought advisable not to obtrude unnecessarily the fact that she and her associates formed a community of nuns. They were merely des dames pieuses, who lived together for charitable and educational work. The name "dames" is an old title for nuns in England.
She was the sister of Father Louis Barat, who was one of the Fathers of the Faith, and when Varin was looking around for some capable woman to give the girls of Paris and elsewhere a Christian education, Barat suggested her as a possibility. He had taught her Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian, and natural philosophy, besides subjecting her to a very rigid and somewhat harsh training in asceticism. She was then twenty years of age, and with her usual habit of submission, she and her three companions addressed[673] themselves to the task. This was in 1801. Before 1857, she had succeeded in establishing more than eighty foundations in various parts of the world and she is now ranked among the Beatified.
To Varin must also be accorded the credit of forming in the religious life another woman who is among the Blessed; the Foundress of the Sisters of Notre-Dame de Namur, Julie Billiart. Perhaps his prayers had something to do with the restoration to health of this remarkable woman, who had been a paralytic and almost speechless for thirty-one years. She recovered her youthful vigor in 1804, at the end of a novena to the Sacred Heart, which had been suggested by her confessor. She was then at Amiens, and Varin united her and her companions into a teaching community, and drew up the rules and constitutions which they have undeviatingly adhered to ever since. Indeed it was this very fidelity that gave them the name of Notre Dame de Namur. For in the absence of Varin a prominent ecclesiastic attempted to modify their rule, whereupon the indignant women left Amiens and emigrated in a body to Namur. That city has ever since been regarded as their spiritual birthplace. In the space of twelve years, namely between 1804 and 1812, this quondam paralytic founded fifteen convents, and made as many as one hundred and twenty journeys, some of them very long and toilsome, in the prosecution of her great work for the Church. Like the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur have establishments all over the world.
Meantime, a very marked difference had displayed itself in the tone of the various members of the Fathers of the Faith. Those who had been followers of Paccanari had no idea whatever of the real nature of religious life, whereas the disciples of Varin for the[674] most part were spiritual men and eager in the work of perfection. How noticeable this was, is revealed in a letter from Bishop Carroll in America. He had asked for help from the new organization, and four priests had been promised him, but only one arrived — an Italian named Zucchi. Whether he lost his way or not, or fancied he could follow his own guidance, he went first to Quebec, but was promptly informed by the government officials there that his presence was undesirable. He finally reached Maryland, and Carroll describes him in a letter to Father Plowden in England as follows: "There is a priest here named Zucchi, a Romano di nascità, a man of narrow understanding, who does nothing but pine for the arrival of his companions. Meantime he will undertake no work. From this sample of the new order, I am led to believe that they are very little instructed in the maxims of the Institute of our venerable mother, the Society. Though they profess to have no other rule than ours, Zucchi seems to know nothing of the structure of our Society, nor even to have read the Regulæ Communes which our very novices know almost by heart."
The bishop had also heard of the establishment of one of the communities of women by Father Varin, and that made him still more suspicious about the genuineness of the Fathers of the Faith. "In one point," he writes to Plowden, "they seem to have departed from St. Ignatius, by engrafting on their Institution a new order of nuns, which is to be under their government."
The rupture in the ranks of the Fathers of the Faith took place in 1803. In the preceding year, Rozaven and Varin had gone to Rome and were there confirmed in their suspicions that Paccanari was not sincere in his protestations about his desire to join the Jesuits in Russia. They were also shocked at the[675] lack of religious spirit in the Paccanarist house in Rome. In the following year, Rozaven again returned to Rome, and besides being confirmed in his conviction that Paccanari was working for the development of an independent society, he was informed of certain charges against the personal character of the man. Paccanari's explanation of the accusations, far from convincing Rozaven, only confirmed him in his opinion. The result was that he obtained a private audience with the Pope, and was authorized to sever his connection with the Fathers of the Faith.
To his amazement, he found on his return to London, that his associates had already taken the matter in hand for themselves and had applied to Father Gruber in Russia, for admission to the Society. The petition was granted, not, however to enter corporately but individually, namely after each one's vocation had been carefully examined. The application was to be made to Father Strickland in England, who had been a member of the old Society. With other candidates from Holland and Germany, twenty-five new members passed over to Russia.
It is very distressing to note that Father Charles de Broglie, who with de Tournély had initiated the whole movement, was not in this group. He and three others remained in London as secular priests, and unfortunately, his relations with a certain number of refractory Frenchmen led him into the schism known as La Petite Eglise. He persisted in his rebellion as late as 1842, when he at last made his submission to the Church.
Rozaven wrote from Polotsk to Varin, giving him an account of what had happened to him in Rome, insisting on the justifiableness of the act, and reminding him that they had joined the Fathers of the Sacred Heart, and subsequently the Fathers of the Faith, solely[676] for the sake of uniting with the Jesuits in Russia. As Paccanari had not only no intention of carrying out that purpose, but was doing everything in his power to prevent it, the duty of allegiance ceased, and so the Pope had decided. Forthwith, Varin, with the approval of all his subjects in France, notified Paccanari that they had severed all connection with his Society. Meantime however, they retained the name of Fathers of the Faith.
But this independence was not satisfactory to Varin. What was he to do? Should he disband his communities which were performing very effective work in France or wait for developments? The Apostolic nuncio at Paris, della Genga, decided that he should continue as he was till more favorable circumstances presented themselves. They had not long to wait. The emperor's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, had thus far protected them, but in 1807 Napoleon publicly and angrily reproached him for this patronage, and on November 1st ordered all the Fathers to report to their respective dioceses within fifteen days, under penalty of being sent to the deadly convict colony of Guiana. Fouché offered several positions of honor to Varin and on his refusal to accept them, drove him out of Paris. By this time, however, Varin was a Jesuit and was following the directions of the venerable Father Clorivière who had been empowered to receive him.
The secession of the Fathers of France and England was quickly imitated by the communities in other parts of Europe. Meanwhile Paccanari's conduct became a public scandal. A canonical process was instituted against him in 1808, and he was condemned to ten years' imprisonment. But when the French took possession of the city in 1809 and opened the prison doors, Paccanari disappeared from view, and no one ever knew what became of him.
[677] While the work of the Fathers of the Faith was progressing in France and elsewhere, the saintly Pignatelli, who had been Angel Guardian of the Spanish Jesuits when they were expelled from their native land, was accomplishing much for the general establishment of the Society. After landing in Italy where the Jesuits were as yet unmolested, he had betaken himself, with the advice of the provincial to Ferrara, and there housed the exiles as best he could. He also established a novitiate in connection with the college which had been handed over to him; but all this was swept away when the Brief of Clement XIV suppressed the entire Society in 1773. Of course, the first thought of Pignatelli after this disaster was to join his brethren in Russia, and with that in view he wrote to Pope Pius VI, who had succeeded Clement XIV, asking him if the Jesuits whom Catherine II had sheltered, really belonged to the Society. The reply delighted him beyond measure, for it told him that he might go to Russia with a safe conscience and put on the habit of the Society. The Jesuits there really belonged to the Society for the Brief of Suppression had never reached that country. The Pontiff also added that he would restore the Society as soon as possible; and if he were not able to do so he would recommend it to his successor.
Pignatelli's joy knew no bounds, and he immediately prepared for his journey to the North, but the Providence of God kept him in Italy, for the Duke of Parma, though a son of Charles III of Spain, had resolved to recall the Jesuits to his Duchy, and for that purpose had written to Catherine II of Russia to ask for three members of the Society to organize the houses. The empress was only too glad to accede to his wish; on February, 1794, three Jesuits arrived in Parma and began their work at Calorno, just when Pius VI[678] was passing through that city on his way to the prisons of France. The opportunity was taken advantage of to ask the august captive for authorization to open a novitiate and he most willingly granted the request. Panizzoni, who was then provincial of Italy, appointed Pignatelli as superior and master of novices. Unfortunately the Duke of Parma died, and the Duchy was taken over by France; however, the Jesuits were not molested for a year and a half, and during this time Pignatelli, who was exercising the office of provincial, succeeded in having the Society restored in Naples and Sicily. This was in 1804. But when Napoleon laid his hands on the whole of the peninsula an order was formulated for the expulsion of the Jesuits. Fortunately its execution was not rigorously enforced and colleges were established in Rome, Tivoli, Sardinia and Orvieto.
Meantime matters were progressing favorably in Russia, so much so that in 1803 Father Angiolini was sent as imperial ambassador to the Pope to solicit alms for the missions. When he appeared in Rome dressed as a Jesuit, he found himself the sensation of the hour. The Sovereign Pontiff received him with effusive affection and granted all that he asked. He remained there as procurator of the Society, and in the following year, was able to communicate to Father Gruber the pleasing news that, at the request of King Ferdinand, the Society had been re-established in the Two Sicilies. Father Pignatelli was made provincial, and as many as 170 of those who had survived after Tanucci had driven them out thirty-seven years previously came from the various places that had sheltered them during the Suppression to resume their former way of life. Several of them who had been made bishops asked the Pope for permission to return but all were refused except two, Avogado of Verona and Bencassa of Carpi.
[679] The whole kingdom welcomed back the exiles with enthusiasm. The King came in person to open the Church which he had persistently refused to enter ever since the expulsion; at the first Mass he and the entire royal family received Holy Communion. He also gave the Fathers their former college, and endowed it with an annual income of forty thousand ducats. This example encouraged others; colleges were founded everywhere, and the number of applicants was so great that the conditions for admission to the Society had to be made as rigorous as possible. Unfortunately this happy condition of affairs did not last long, for in March 1806, Joseph Bonaparte replaced Ferdinand IV on the throne of Naples, and the Jesuits again took the road of exile. The Pope offered them a refuge in Rome, and when they protested that such a course would draw on him the wrath of Napoleon, he replied that they were suffering for the Church, and that he must receive them just as Clement XIII had done when they were exiled from Naples.
While these events were occurring in Italy and France, an opportunity was presented to the Jesuits of Russia to revive their old missions in China. Unfortunately it was frustrated. The story as told in the "Woodstock Letters" (IV, 113) is a veritable Odyssey, and is particularly interesting to Americans, for the reason that the principal personage concerned in what proved to be a very heroic enterprise became subsequently the President of Georgetown College: John Anthony Grassi.
Grassi was a native of Bergamo, and in 1799 entered the novitiate established by Father Pignatelli at Calorno. He thus received a genuine Jesuit training and escaped the influence of the establishments which Paccanari was inaugurating in Italy just at that time. From Calorno he was sent to Russia, and was made Rector of the College of Nobles which was dependent[680] upon the establishment at Polotsk. Meanwhile, he was preparing himself for the missions of Astrakhan, and was already deep in the study of Armenian when the Chinese matter was brought to the attention of Father Gruber by a letter from a member of the old Society, who had contrived to remain in China ever since the Suppression. He was Louis Poirot. It appears that his ability as a musician had charmed the emperor, and thus enabled him to continue his evangelical work in the Celestial Empire.
Hearing of the establishment in Russia, he bethought himself of having the Jesuits resume their old place in China, evidently unaware that the Brief of 1801 expressly declared that the Society had been established "only within the limits of the Russian Empire." But not knowing this he availed himself of the return of a Lazarist missionary and wrote two letters; one to the Pope and another to the Father General in which he said: "I am eighty years of age and there is only one thing I care to live for. It is to see the Jesuits return to China." His letter to the General ends with a request to be permitted to renew his vows, "so as to die a true son of the Society of Jesus." Between the time he wrote this letter and its arrival in Europe, the limitation of the approval of the Society to Russia had been withdrawn, and Father Gruber immediately set about granting the venerable and faithful old man's request. Happily a solemn legation was just then to leave St. Petersburg for China, and the ambassador, Golowkin, was urged to take some Jesuits in his suite. The offer was gladly accepted, but it was decided that it should be better for the priests to go by the usual sea route than to accompany the embassy overland.
Father Grassi was considered to be the most available man in the circumstances, and he was told merely[681] that he was to go to a distant post, and that his companions were to be Father Korsack, a native of Russia and a German lay-brother named Surmer, who happened to be a sculptor. On January 14, 1805, they left Polotsk, and travelling day and night, arrived at St. Petersburg on January 19. Only then were they informed that their destination was Pekin. On February 2 they started on sleds for Sweden. At the end of three days, they were all sick and exhausted, but kept bravely on till they reached the frontier where they found shelter in a little inn. Fortunately a physician happened to be there and he helped them over their ailments, so that in ten days they were able to resume their journey. They then started for Abo, the capital of Finland and from there crossed the frozen sea at top speed, till they reached the Island of Aland. On March 20 they traversed the Gulf of Bothnia in a mail packet, and landed safely on the shore of Sweden. On March 22 they were in Stockholm, but the Abbé Morrette, the superior of the Swedish mission to whom they were to present themselves was dead. An Italian gentleman, happily named Fortuna, who was Russian Consul at that place, took care of them and presented them to Alopeus, the Russian minister.
Alopeus dissuaded them from going to England as they had been directed, and suggested Copenhagen as the proper place to embark. Arrived there, they were informed that there was a ship out in the harbor, waiting to sail for Canton, but that the captain refused to take any passengers; whereupon they determined to follow their original instructions, and after a stormy voyage arrived at Gravesend on May 22. From there they went to London where they met Father Kohlmann.
The same misfortune attended them at London for although Lord Macartney, who had known the Jesuits[682] in Pekin, did everything to secure them a passage to China, he failed utterly. Then acting under new instructions they set sail for Lisbon on July 29, but were driven by contrary winds to Cork in Ireland, where of course they met with the heartiest welcome from everyone especially from the bishop. They finally landed at Lisbon on September 28; passing as they entered the harbor, the gloomy fortress of St. Julian where so many of their brethren had been imprisoned by Pombal. They were befriended there by an Irish merchant named Stack, and also by the rector of the Irish College; but were finally lodged in an old dismantled monastery where they slept on the floor. Then, in the dress of secular priests, they presented themselves to the Apostolic nuncio who was very friendly to the Society, and who would have been a Jesuit himself had it not been for the opposition of his family. He warned them to be very cautious in what they did and said, and informed them that there were very few ships clearing for Macao.
While at Lisbon, they devoted themselves to the study of mathematics and astronomy, and after two months their friend, the Irish merchant, came to tell them that there was a ship about to sail. They hastened to advise the nuncio of it, but were then told that they could not go to China, without the Pope's permission, for the reason that the Society had been suppressed in that country. They also learned from a missionary priest of the Propaganda, that Rome was very much excited about their proposed journey; Father Angiolini who was then in Rome, wrote to the same effect. It was then March 1806. Not knowing what to do, they began a course of astronomy at the observatory of Coimbra, but unfortunately, the founder of the observatory, an ex-Jesuit, José Monteiro da Rocha, was very hostile to the Society; and even[683] went so far in his opposition that in a public oration before the university he had praised Pombal extravagantly for having abolished the Order.
The wanderers remained at Coimbra for two months, and then returned to Lisbon. On their way to the capital they saw the unburied coffin of Pombal. On June 4 a letter came from England which revived their hopes, especially as it was followed by pecuniary help from the czar; but soon after that, they received news of the Russian embassy's failure to reach China, and they also heard that the country of their dreams was in the wildest excitement because a missionary there had sent a map of the empire to Europe. The imprudent cartographer was imprisoned and an imperial edict announced that vengeance was to be taken on all Christians in the empire. Who the poor man was we do not know. It could not have been old Father Poirot. He was merely a musician and not a maker of maps. On December 2, 1806, the nuncio at Lisbon was informed that the Pope quite approved of the project of the Fathers and had urged his officials to assist them to carry it out. The reason of this change of mind on the part of the Holy Father is explained by the fact that he was anxious to propitiate Russia. Nevertheless, the nuncio advised them to wait for further developments.
Another year went by, during which they continued their studies and made some conversions. They had also the gratification of being introduced to the Marchioness of Tavora, the sole survivor of the illustrious house which Pombal had so ruthlessly persecuted. Finally they were recalled to England, which they reached on November 16, 1807, after a month of great hardship at sea. They were welcomed at Liverpool by the American Jesuit, Father Sewall, who was at that time sheltering four other members of the[684] Society in his house. When the little community met at table, they represented seven different nationalities — American, English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Belgian. Father Grassi remained in England, chiefly at Stonyhurst until 1810, and on August 27 of that year set sail from Liverpool for Baltimore, where he arrived on October 20. He had thus passed three years in England where community life had been carried on almost without interruption from the time of the old Society. For although the Brief of Suppression had explicitly forbidden it, nevertheless Clement's successor had authorized it as early as 1778, and had permitted the pronouncement of the religious vows in 1803, — a privilege that was extended to the Kingdom of Naples in 1804. Arriving in the United States, Father Grassi found that there had been virtually no interruption of the Society's traditions in this part of the world. The Fathers had been in close communication with Russia as early as 1805 and were being continually reinforced by members of the Society in Europe. When the Bull of Re-establishment was issued there were nineteen Jesuits in the United States.
[685]
CHAPTER XXIII
THE RESTORATION
Tragic death of Father Gruber — Fall of Napoleon — Release of the Pope — The Society Re-established — Opening of Colleges — Clorivière — Welcome of the Society in Spain — Repulsed in Portugal — Opposed by Catholics in England — Announced in America — Carroll — Fenwick — Neale.In 1805 the Society met with a disaster which in the circumstances seemed almost irreparable. During the night of March 25-26 its distinguished General, Father Gruber, was burned to death in his residence at St. Petersburg. His friend, the Count de Maistre, who was still ambassador at the Russian Court, hurried to the scene in time to receive his dying blessing and farewell. Gruber's influence was so great in Russia that it was feared no one could replace him. His successor was Thaddeus Brzozowski, who was elected on the second of September. Splendid plans, especially in the field of education had been made by Gruber and had been warmly approved of by the emperor, but they had to be set aside for more pressing needs. Napoleon was just then devastating Europe, and the very existence of Russia as well as of other nations was at stake. It is true that the empire was at peace with France, but at the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, Napoleon complained of the political measures of the cabinet of St. Petersburg, and the ambassadors of both countries received their papers of dismissal. The result was that a coalition of Russia, England, Austria and Sweden was formed to thwart the ambitions of Napoleon who was at that time laying claim to the whole Italian Peninsula. War was declared in 1805.[686] Austerlitz compelled the empire to accept Napoleon's terms, but Prussia and Russia continued the fight until the disasters at Jena, Eylau and Friedland. Then the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia met Napoleon on a raft anchored out in the Niemen, where on the eighth and ninth of July peace was agreed to.
At Erfurt, in 1808 Napoleon and Alexander drew up what was known as the "Continental System," in accordance with which, all English merchandise was to be excluded from every continental nation. This was followed by a defensive alliance of Austria and England, and as Austria was Russia's ally, Alexander again entered the fight against Napoleon, but the victory of Wagram and the marriage of Napoleon with the Austrian archduchess, Maria Louisa, changed the aspect of affairs and the "Continental System" was restored, but in so modified a form that war broke out again, and in 1812 Napoleon began his Russian Campaign. The battle of Smolensk opened the way for him to Moscow, but when the conqueror arrived he found the city in flames. He mistook it for an act of surrender and Alexander purposely detained him, discussing the terms of peace until the winter set in. Then the conqueror decided to return, but it was too late. On February 22, 1813, Alexander sent out a call to all the kings of Europe to unite against Napoleon and they eagerly responded. He beat them at Lutzen and Bautzen, and in Silesia, but in spite of his success he had to continue his retreat. He won again at Dresden and Leipzig, but they pursued him relentlessly, until at last the Rhine was reached. Peace was offered in December 1813, but when its acceptance was delayed, the Allies entered France, and on March 3, 1814, laid siege to Paris. The city surrendered on the following day.
[687] Meantime Napoleon had released Pius VII from captivity, not voluntarily, but as a political measure, to propitiate the anger of the Catholics of the world, who were beginning to open their eyes to the extent of the outrage. Eighteen months previously he had dragged the venerable Pontiff from Rome and hurried him night and day over the Alps, absolutely heedless of the age and infirmity of his victim, until at last the Pope entered Fontainebleau a prisoner. According to Pacca, it was a jail more than a palace. There by dint of threats and brutal treatment Napoleon so wore out the strength of the aged man that a Concordat was signed which sacrificed some of the most sacred rights of the Holy See. It was cancelled, indeed, subsequently, but it almost drove the Pope insane when he realized the full import of what he had been driven to concede. "I shall die like Clement XIV," he exclaimed. But his jailer was heartless and it was only after a year and a half of imprisonment, and when the Allies were actually entering France as conquerors, that he made up his mind to send the Pontiff back to Rome. Had he done it with less brutality he might even then, have succeeded in his calculations, but only one attendant was sent to accompany the prisoner. The cardinals were purposely dismissed some days later in batches, and ordered to go by different routes so as to prevent any popular demonstration on the way.
Pacca overtook the Pope at Sinigaglia on May 12, and on May 24, after a brief stay at Ancona, Loreto, Macerata, Tolentino, Foligno, Spoleto, Terni and Nepi, entered Rome. What happened at these places deserves to be recorded, as it shows that the Faith was not only not dead but had grown more intense because of the outrages of which the Vicar of Christ had been the object. At Ancona, for instance, Artaud[688] tell us, "he was received with transports of delight. The sailors in the harbor flocked around his carriage, unhitched the horses and with silken ropes of yellow and red drew it triumphantly through the city, while the cannon thundered from the ramparts, and the bells of every tower proclaimed the joy of the people. From the top of a triumphal arch the Pope gave his benediction to the kneeling multitudes, and then blessed the wide Adriatic. From there he went to the palace of the Picis for a brief rest. The next day he crowned the statue of the Blessed Virgin, Queen of All Saints, and then set out for Osimo escorted as far as Loreto by a scarlet-robed guard of honor. Entering Rome by the Porto del Popolo, his carriage was drawn by young noblemen, and he was met by a procession of little orphan children chosen from the Protectory of Providence. They were all clothed in white robes and in their hands they held golden palm branches which they waved above their heads, while their young voices filled the air with jubilant songs. When the crowd became too dense, the little ones knelt before him to present their emblems of peace, which he affectionately received, while tears rolled down his cheeks. At last, the city gates were reached and he proceeded along the streets lined on either side by kneeling multitudes who were overcome with joy at his return."
Almost the first official act of the Pope was to re-establish the Society. How that came about may be best told in the words of his faithful servant, Cardinal Pacca.
"While we were in prison together," says the illustrious cardinal, "I had never tired of adroitly leading the conversation up to this important matter, so as to furnish His Holiness with useful information if ever it happened that he would again ascend the[689] Chair of St. Peter. In those interviews he never failed to manifest the greatest esteem and affection for the Society. The situation in which we found ourselves was remarkable, and it shows the admirable Providence of God with regard to this celebrated Society.
"When Barnabo Chiaramonte was a young Benedictine, he had teachers and professors in theology whose sentiments were anti-Jesuit, and they filled his mind with theological views that were most opposed to those maintained by the Society. Everyone knows what profound impressions early teaching leaves in the mind; and, as for myself, I also had been inspired from my youth with sentiments of aversion, hatred and, I might say, a sort of fanaticism against the illustrious Society. It will suffice to add that my teachers put in my hands and ordered me to make extracts from the famous 'Lettres Provinciales,' first in French and then in Latin, with the notes of Wendrok (Nicole) which were still more abominable than the text. I read also in perfect good faith, 'La morale pratique des Jésuites,' and other works of that kind and accepted them as true.
"Who then would have believed that the first act of the Benedictine Chiaramonte who had become Pope, immediately after emerging from the frightful tempest of the Revolution, and in the face of so many sects, then raging against the Jesuits, should be the re-establishment of the Society throughout the Catholic world; or that I should have prepared the way for this new triumph; or, finally, that I should have been appointed by the Pope to carry out those orders which were so acceptable to me and conferred on me so much honor? For both the Pope and myself, this act was a source of supreme satisfaction. I was present in Rome on the two memorable occasions of[690] the Suppression and the Re-establishment of the Society, and I can testify to the different impressions they produced. Thus, on August 17, 1773, the day of the publication of the Brief 'Dominus ac Redemptor,' one saw surprise and sorrow painted on every face; whereas on August 7, 1814, the day of the resurrection of the Society, Rome rang with acclamations of satisfaction and approval. The people followed the Pope from the Quirinal to the Gesù, where the Bull was to be read, and made the return of the Pope to his palace a triumphal procession.
"I have deemed it proper to enter into these details, in order to profit by the occasion of these 'Memoirs' to make a solemn retraction of the imprudent utterances that I may have made in my youth against a Society which has merited so well from the Church of Jesus Christ."
Some of the cardinals were opposed to the Restoration, out of fear of the commotion it was sure to excite. Even Consalvi would have preferred to see it deferred for a few months, but it is a calumny to say that he was antagonistic to the Society. As early as February 13, 1799, he wrote as follows to Albani, the legate at Vienna: "You do me a great, a very great wrong, if you ever doubted that I was not convinced that the Jesuits should be brought back again. I call God to witness that I always thought so, although I was educated in colleges which were not favorable to them, but I did not on that account think ill of them. In those days, however, I did say one thing of them, viz., that although I was fully persuaded of their importance, I declared it to be fanatical to pretend that the Church could not stand without them, since it had existed for centuries before they existed, but when I saw the French Revolution and when I got to really understand Jansenism, I then thought and think now[691] that without the Jesuits the Church is in very bad straits. If it depended on me, I would restore the Society to-morrow. I have frequently told that to the Pope, who has always desired their restoration, but fear of the governments that were opposed to it made him put it off, though he always cherished the hope that he could bring it about. He would do it if he lived; and if he were unable he would advise his successor to do it as quickly as possible. The rulers of the nations will find out that the Jesuits will make their thrones secure by bringing back religion."
Of course, the thought of restoring the Society did not originate with Pius VII and Pacca. Pius VI had repeatedly declared that he would have brought it about had it been at all feasible. Even after the return of Pius VII to Rome, some of the most devoted friends of the Jesuits, as we have seen, thought that the difficulties were insuperable; but the Pope judged otherwise, and hence the affection with which the Society will ever regard him. Indeed, he had already gone far in preparing the way for it. He had approved of the Society in Russia, England, America and Italy. He had permitted Father Fonteyne to establish communities in the Netherlands; Father Clorivière was doing the same thing in France with his approval so that everyone was expecting the complete restoration to take place at any moment. The Father provincial of Italy had announced that the Bull would be issued before Easter Sunday 1814, although some of his brethren laughed at him and thought he was losing his mind. This did not disturb him, however, and in June, 1814 he knelt before the Sovereign Pontiff and in the name of Father General Brzozowski presented the following petition:
"We, the Father General and the Fathers who, by the benignity of the Holy See, reside in Russia and[692] in Sicily, desiring to meet the wishes of certain princes who ask our assistance in the education of the youth of their realms, humbly implore Your Highness to remove the difficulty created by the Brief of Clement XIV and to restore the Society to its former state in accordance with the last confirmation of it by Clement XIII, so that in whatever country we may be asked for we may give to the princes above referred to whatever help the needs of their several countries may demand."
On June 17, Pius VII let it be known that he was more than eager to satisfy the wish of the petitioners; and a few days afterwards, when Cardinal Pacca said to him, "Holy Father, do you not think we ought to do what we so often spoke of?" he replied, "Yes; we can re-establish the Society of Jesus on the next feast of Saint Ignatius." Even Pacca was taken aback by the early date that was fixed upon, for there was not a month and a half to prepare for it. The outside world was even still more surprised, and the enemies of the Society strove to belittle the Pontifical act by starting the report that it was not the old Society that was going to be brought back to life; only a new congregation was to be approved. That idea took possession of the public mind to such an extent that Father de Zúñiga, the provincial of Sicily, brought it to the attention of the Sovereign Pontiff. "On the contrary," said Pius, "it is the same Society which existed for two hundred years, although now circumscribed by some restrictions, because there will be no mention of privileges in the Bull, and there are other things which will have to be inserted, on account of circumstances in France and Spain and the needs of certain bishops."
The chief difficulty was in draughting the document. The time was very short and some of the cardinals were of opinion that the courts of Europe should be[693] consulted about it. But Pacca and the Pope both swept aside that suggestion. They had had a sad experience with the courts of Europe. Hence Cardinal Litta, who when ablegate at St. Petersburg had asked for the confirmation of the Society in Russia, was chosen to draw up the Bull. He addressed himself to the task with delight and presented to the Pope a splendid defense of the Society which he declared "had been guilty of no fault;" but when he added that "the suppression had been granted by Clement XIV unwillingly," and that "it was to be ascribed to the wicked devices, the atrocious calumnies, and the impious principles of false political science and philosophy which, by the destruction of the Order, foolishly imagined that the Church could be destroyed," the language was found to be too strong and even Cardinal di Pietro, who was a staunch friend of the Society, protested vehemently against it. Indeed, di Pietro went so far as to say that certain changes should be made in the Institute before the Bull was issued. Other members of the Sacred College were of the same opinion, but did not express themselves so openly. They were afraid to do so, because the popular joy was so pronounced at the news of the proposed restoration that anyone opposing it would run the risk of being classed as an enemy.
As a compromise, the Pope set aside the Bull drawn up by Litta and also the corrections by di Pietro, and entrusted the work to Pacca. It was his draught that was finally published. It makes no mention of any change or mutilation of the Institute; neither does it name nor abrogate any privilege; it is not addressed to any particular State, as some wished, but to the whole world; it does not reprehend anyone, nor does it subject to the Propaganda the foreign missions which the Society might undertake. Some of the "black[694] cardinals" such as Brancadoro, Gabrielli, Litta, Mattei and even di Pietro, asked for greater praise in it for the Society, while others wanted it just as Pacca had written it; Mattei objected to the expression "primitive rule of St. Ignatius," because the words would seem to imply that the Society had adopted another at some time in its history and he also wanted the reason of the restoration to be explicitly stated, namely: "the Pope's deep conviction of the Society's usefulness to the Church." His reason was that many had asked for it; but only some of his suggestions were accepted.
These details prevented the publication of the Bull on July 31, hence August 7, the octave of the feast was chosen.
A few extracts from it will suffice. Its title is "The Constitution by which the Society of Jesus is restored in its pristine state throughout the Catholic World." The preamble first refers to the Brief "Catholicæ Fidei" which confirmed the Society in Russia and also to the "Per alias" which restored it in the Two Sicilies. It then says: "The Catholic world unanimously demands the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus. Every day we are receiving most urgent petitions from our venerable brothers, the archbishops and bishops of the Church, and from other most distinguished personages to that effect. The dispersion of the very stones of the sanctuary in the calamitous days which we shudder even to recall, namely the destruction of a religious order which was the glory and the support of the Catholic Church, now makes it imperative that we should respond to the general and just desire for its restoration. In truth, we should consider ourselves culpable of a grievous sin in the sight of God, if, in the great dangers to which the Christian commonwealth is exposed, we should fail to[695] avail ourselves of the help which the special Providence of God now puts at our disposal; if, seated as we are in the Barque of Peter, we should refuse the aid of the tried and vigorous mariners who offer themselves to face the surges of the sea which threaten us with shipwreck and death. Therefore, we have resolved to do to-day what we have longed from the first days of our Pontificate to be able to accomplish, and, hence, after having in fervent prayer implored the Divine assistance, and having sought the advice and counsel of a great number of our venerable brothers, the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, we have decreed, with certain knowledge, and in virtue of the plenitude of our Apostolic power, that all the concessions and faculties accorded by us to the Russian empire and the Two Sicilies, in particular, shall henceforward be extended in perpetuity to all other countries of the world.
"Wherefore, we concede and accord to our well-beloved son Thaddeus Brzozowski, at present the General of the Society of Jesus, and to the other members of the Society delegated by him, all proper and necessary powers to receive and welcome freely and lawfully all those who desire to be admitted into the Regular Order of the Society of Jesus, and that, under the authority of the General at the time such persons may be received into and assigned to one or many houses, or colleges or provinces, as needs be, wherein they shall follow the rule prescribed by St. Ignatius Loyola, which was confirmed by the Constitutions of Paul III. Over and above this, we declare them to possess and we hereby concede to them the power of devoting themselves freely and lawfully to educate youth in the principles of the Catholic religion; to train them in morality; to direct colleges and seminaries; to preach and to administer the sacra[696]ments in their place of residence, with the consent and approbation of the ordinary. We take under our protection and under our immediate obedience as well as that of the Apostolic See, all the colleges, all the houses, all the provinces, all the members of the Order, and all those who are gathered in their establishments, reserving nevertheless to Ourself, and to the Roman Pontiffs, our successors, to decree and prescribe whatever we consider it our duty to decree and prescribe as necessary to consolidate more and more the same Society, in order to render it stronger and to purge it from abuse, if ever (which may God avert) any may be found therein. And we exhort with our whole heart, in the name of the Lord, all superiors, rectors and provincials, as well as all the members and pupils of this re-established Order to show themselves in all places, faithful imitators of their Father. Let them observe with exactness the rule prescribed for them by their great founder, and let them follow with ever increasing zeal the useful admonitions and counsels which he has left for the guidance of his sons.
"Finally we earnestly recommend in the Lord this Society and its members to the illustrious kings and princes and temporal lords of the various nations, as well as to our venerable brothers, the archbishops and bishops and whosoever may occupy positions of honor and authority. We exhort them, nay we conjure them, not only not to suffer that these religious should be molested, in any manner, but to see that they should be treated with the benevolence and the charity which they deserve."
A difficulty now arose as to the person into whose hands the Bull was to be delivered. It was impossible for the General to be present, for he was unable to obtain permission of the emperor to take part in what concerned him more than any other member of[697] the Society — a condition of things which made it evident that the residence of the next General had to be in some other place than Russia. That, of course, the czar would never permit and the expulsion of the Society from Russia was from that moment a foregone conclusion. Angiolini, who was rather conspicuous in Rome at that time, possibly because he had some years before arrived in the city as an envoy from the Russian court, was first thought of. In fact the Pope had already named him, but Albers in his "Liber sæcularis" does not hesitate to say that Angiolini sought the honor, and had succeeded in enlisting the interest of Cardinal Litta in his behalf. But he was known to be a man of impetuous character, eager to be concerned in every matter of importance and decidedly headstrong. The provincial was chosen, therefore, to represent the General, and Angiolini was consoled by being made consultor of the Congregation of Rites. The difficulty seems almost childish, for whatever prominence Angiolini possessed, it was purely personal whereas that of Father Panizzoni was official. It may be, however, that Angiolini's friendship for Rezzi, who attempted to wreck the Society at the first congregation, had laid him open to suspicion.
At last the great day arrived. It was Sunday; and all Rome was seen flocking to the Gesù. As early as eight o'clock in the morning, as many as one hundred Jesuits along with the College of Cardinals were waiting to receive the Pope. He arrived at last and said Mass at the high altar. He then proceeded to the chapel of the Sodality which was crowded with bishops and most of the notables then in the city. Among them were Queen Marie Louise of Bourbon, the wife of Charles IV of Spain, with her niece and three sons. It was Spain's reparation for the wrong it had done the Society. Behind the cardinals, in a double[698] row were the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Jesuits; the youngest of whom was sixty years of age, while there were others still who had reached eighty-six. It is even asserted that there was present one old Jesuit who was one hundred and twenty-six years old. His name was Albert Montalto and he had been in the Society for one hundred and eight years. He was born in 1689, was admitted to the novitiate in 1706 and hence was sixty-four years old at the time of the Suppression.
This beautiful fairy story is vouched for by Crétineau-Joly (V, 436), but Albers, in his "Liber sæcularis," tells us that there is no such name as Montalto or Montaud in the Catalogue of 1773 or in Vivier's "Catalogus Mortuorum Societatis Jesu."
When the Pope had taken his seat upon the throne, he handed the Bull to Belisario Cristaldi, who in a clear voice, amid the applause of all in the chapel, read the consoling words which the Jesuits listened to with tears and sobs. Then one by one some hobbling up with the help of their canes, others leaning on the arms of the distinguished men present, knelt at the feet of the Pontiff, who spoke to them all with the deepest and tenderest affection. For them it was the happiest day of their lives and the old men among them could now sing their "Nunc dimittis."
Pacca then handed to Panizzoni a paper appointing him superior of the Roman house, until the nomination arrived from Father General. The professed house, the novitiate of Sant' Andrea and other properties were also made over to the Society with a monthly payment of five hundred scudi.
On entering the Gesù, the Fathers found the house almost in the same condition as when Father Ricci and his assistants left it in 1773, to go to the dungeons of Sant' Angelo. It was occupied by a community[699] of priests, most of them former Jesuits, who had continued to serve the adjoining church, which, though despoiled of most of its treasures, still possessed the remains of St. Ignatius. Two years later, the novitiate of Sant' Andrea was so crowded that a second one had to be opened at Reggio. Among the novices at that place was Charles Emanuel, King of Sardinia, who had resigned his crown to enter the Society. He died there in 1819. In 1815 the Jesuits had colleges in Orvieto, Viterbo, Tivoli, Urbino, Ferentino, and Galloro, Modena, Forlì, Genoa, Turin, Novarra, and a little later, Nice. In Parma and Naples, they had been at work prior to 1814.
Just eight days before these happenings in Rome, an aged Jesuit in Paris saw assembled around him ten distinguished men whom he had admitted to the Society. It was July 31, the feast of St. Ignatius, and the place of the meeting was full of tragic memories. It was the chapel of the Abbaye des Carmes, where, in the general massacre of priests which took place there in 1792, twelve Jesuits had been murdered. In the old man's mind there were still other memories. Fifty-two years before, he and his religious brethren had been driven like criminals from their native land. Forty years had passed since the whole Society had been suppressed. He had witnessed all the horrors of the French Revolution, and now as he was nearing eternity — he was then eighty-five — he saw at his feet a group of men some of whom had already gained distinction in the world, but who at that moment, had only one ambition, that of being admitted into the Society of Jesus, which they hoped would be one day re-established. They never dreamed that seven days after they had thus met at the Abbaye to celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius, Pius VII who had returned from his captivity in France would, by the[700] Bull "Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum," solemnly re-establish the Society throughout the world.
The old priest was Pierre-Joseph Picot de Clorivière. He was born at St. Malo, June 29, 1735 and had entered the Society on August 14, 1756. He was teaching a class at Compiègne when Choiseul drove the Society out of the country, but though he was only a scholastic, it had no effect on his vocation. He attached himself to the English province, and after finishing his course of theology at Liège in Belgium, was professed of the four vows about a month after Clement XIV had issued his Brief of Suppression. The decree had not yet been promulgated in the Netherlands. Instead of going to England as one would expect, he returned to his native country as a secular priest, and we find him in charge of a parish at Paramé from 1775 to 1779. He was also the director of the diocesan College of Dinan, where he remained up to the time of the Revolution. Meantime, he was writing pious books and founding two religious congregations, one for priests, the other for pious women in the world. The former went out of existence in 1825. The latter still flourishes.
Having refused to take the constitutional oath, he was debarred from all ecclesiastical functions, and began to think of offering himself to his old friend and classmate at Liège, Bishop Carroll, to work on the Maryland missions; but one thing or another prevented him from carrying out his purpose, though on the other hand it is surprising that he could make up his mind to remain in France. His brother had been guillotined in 1793; his niece met the same fate later; his sister, a Visitation nun, was put in prison and escaped death only by Robespierre's fall from power; several of his spiritual followers had perished in the storm, but he contrived to escape until 1801,[701] when, owing to his relationship with Limoellan, who was implicated in the conspiracy to kill the First Consul, he was lodged in jail. He was then sixty-nine years old.
During his seven years of imprisonment, he wrote voluminous commentaries on the Bible, chiefly the Apocalypse. He also devoted himself to the spiritual improvement of his fellow-prisoners, one of whom, a Swiss Calvinist named Christin, became a Catholic. As Christin had been an attaché of the Russian embassy he posted off to Russia when he was liberated in 1805, taking with him a letter from Clorivière to the General of the Society, asking permission for the writer to renew his profession and to enter the Russian province. Of course, both requests were granted. When he was finally discharged from custody in 1809, Clorivière wrote again to Russia to inform the General that Bishop Carroll wanted to have him go out to Maryland as master of novices. As for himself though he was seventy-five years of age, he was quite ready to accede to the bishop's request. The General's decision, however, was that it would be better to remain in France.
Meantime, Father Varin, the superior of the Fathers of the Faith, had convoked the members of his community to consider how they could carry out the original purpose of their organization, namely: to unite with the Jesuits of Russia, but no progress had been made up to 1814. In his perplexity, he consulted Mgr. della Genga who was afterwards Leo XII, and also Father Clorivière. But to his dismay, both of them told him to leave the matter in statu quo. This was all the more disconcerting, because he had just heard that Father Fonteyne, who was at Amsterdam, had already received several Fathers of the Faith. Whereupon he posted off to Holland, and was told that both della[702] Genga and Clorivière were wrong in their decision. To remove every doubt he was advised to write immediately to Russia, or better yet to go there in person. He determined to do both. At the beginning of June 1814, he returned to France to tell his friends the result of his conference with Father Fonteyne, but during his absence Clorivière had been commissioned by Father Brzozowski to do in France what Fonteyne had been doing in Holland. That settled everything, and on July 19, 1814, Fathers Varin, Boissard, Roger and Jennesseaux were admitted to the novitiate; and a few days later, Dumouchel, Bequet, Ronsin, Coulon, Loriquet, with a lay brother followed their example. On the 31st, St. Ignatius' Day, they all met at the Abbaye to entreat the Founder of the Society to bless this inauguration of the province of France.
In virtue of his appointment Father Clorivière found that he had now to take care of seventy novices, most of whom were former Fathers of the Faith; in this rapidly assembled throng it was impossible to carry out the whole scheme of a novitiate training in all its details. Indeed, the only "experiment" given to the newcomers was the thirty-days retreat, and that, the venerable old superior undertook himself. Perhaps it was age that made him talkative, perhaps it was over-flowing joy, for he not only carried out the whole programme but overdid it, and far from explaining the points, he talked at each meditation during what the French call "five quarters of an hour." But grace supplied what was lost by this prolixity, and the community was on fire with zeal when the Exercises were ended. How soon they received the news of what happened on August 7, in Rome, we do not know. But there were no happier men in the world than they when the glad tidings came;[703] and they continued to be so even if Louis XVIII did not deign or was afraid to pay any attention to the Bull, and warned the Jesuits and their friends to make no demonstration. The Society was restored and that made them indifferent to anything else.
In Spain, a formal decree dated May 25, 1825, proclaimed the re-establishment of the Society, and when Father de Zúñiga arrived at Madrid to re-organize the Spanish province, he was met at the gate of the city by a long procession of Dominicans, Franciscans, and the members of other religious orders to welcome him. Subsequently, as many as one hundred and fifteen former Jesuits returned to their native land from the various countries of Europe where they had been laboring, and began to reconstruct their old establishments. Many of these old heroes were over eighty years of age. Loyola, Oñate and Manresa greeted them with delight, and forty-six cities sent petitions for colleges. Meanwhile, novitiates were established at Loyola, Manresa and Seville.
Portugal not only did not admit them, but issued a furious decree against the Bull. Not till fifteen years later did the Jesuits enter that country, and then their first work was to inter the yet unburied remains of their arch-enemy Pombal and to admit four of his great-grandsons into one of their colleges. Brazil, Portugal's dependency, imitated the bitterness of the mother country. The Emperor of Austria was favorable, but the spirit fostered among the people by his predecessor, Joseph, was still rampant and prevented the introduction of the Society into his domains. But, on the whole, the act of the Pope was acclaimed everywhere throughout the world. So Pacca wrote to Consalvi.
Of course there was an uproar in non-Catholic countries. In England, even some Catholics were in[704] arms against the Bull. One individual, writing in the "Catholic Directory" of 1815, considered it to be "the downfall of the Catholic religion." A congress in which a number of Englishmen participated was held a few years later at Aix-la-Chapelle to protest against the re-establishment of the Order. Fortunately it evoked a letter from the old Admiral Earl St. Vincent which runs as follows: "I have heard with indignation that Sir J. C. Hippisley, a member of Parliament, is gone to the Congress. I therefore beseech you to cause this letter to be laid before his Holiness the Pope as a record of my opinion that we are not only obliged to that Order for the most useful discoveries of every description, but that they are now necessary for the education of Catholic youth throughout the civilized world." With the exception of John Milner, all the vicars Apostolic of England were strongly opposed to the restitution of the Society in that country.
The United States was at war with England just then, and it happened that seventeen days before the Bull was issued Father Grassi and his fellow-Jesuits were witnessing from the windows of Georgetown College the bombardment of Washington by the British fleet. They saw the city in flames, and fully expected that the college would be taken by the enemy, but to their great delight they saw the forty ships on the following morning hoist their anchors and, one by one, drop down the Potomac. They did not, of course, know what was going on in Rome, but as soon as the news of the re-establishment arrived in America, Father Fenwick, the future Bishop of Boston, who was then working in St. Peter's Church, New York, wrote about it to Father Grassi, who was President of Georgetown. The letter is dated December 21, 1814 and runs as follows:
[705]
"Rev. and Dear Father,A word about this distinguished American Jesuit may not be out of place here. He was born in the[706] ancestral manor of the Fenwicks, in old St. Mary's County, Maryland, and was a lineal descendant of Cuthbert Fenwick who was distinguished among the first Catholic colonists by his opposition to Lewger, Calvert's secretary, then assailing the rights of the Church in Maryland. When Georgetown College opened its doors, Benedict Fenwick and his brother Enoch were among its first students. After finishing the course, he took upon himself what his old admirer, the famous Father Stonestreet, calls "the painful but self-improving duties of the class room," and was professor of Humanities for three years. Later he began a course of theology at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, but he left in order to become a Jesuit. The Fenwicks, both in England and America had been always closely identified with the Society, and when the news came that it was about to be resuscitated, Benedict and Enoch were chosen with four other applicants to be the corner stones of the first novitiate in the United States of North America. He was ordained on June 11, 1808, in Trinity Church, Georgetown, D. C., by the Jesuit Bishop Neale, coadjutor of Archbishop Carroll, and was immediately sent to New York with Father Kohlmann to prepare that diocese for the coming of its first bishop Dr. Concanen. Kohlmann himself had been named for the see, but the Pontiff had yielded to the entreaties of Father General not to deprive the still helpless Society of such a valuable workman; hence, Father Richard Luke Concanen, a Dominican, was appointed in his stead.
Te Deum Laudamus, Te Dominum confitemur!
The Society of Jesus is then re-established! That long-insulted Society! The Society which has been denounced as the corrupter of youth, the inculcator of unsound, unchristian and lax morality! That Society which has been degraded by the Church itself, rejected by her ministers, outlawed by her kings and insulted by her laity! Restored throughout the world and restored by a public Bull of the Sovereign Pontiff! Hitherto cooped up in a small corner of the world, and not allowed to extend herself, lest the nations of the earth, the favorites of heaven, should inhale the poison of her pestiferous breath, she is now called forth, as the only plank left for the salvation of a shipwrecked philosophered world; the only restorer of ecclesiastical discipline and sound morality; the only dependence of Christianity for the renewal of correct principles and the diffusion of piety! It is then so. What a triumph! How glorious to the Society! How confounding to the enemies! Gaudeamus in Domino, diem festum celebrantes! If any man will say after that, that God is not a friend of the Society, I shall pronounce him without hesitation a liar.
"I embrace, dear Sir, the first leisure moments after the receipt of your letter, to forward you my congratulations on the great and glorious tidings you have recently received from Europe — tidings which should exhilarate the heart of every true friend of Christianity and of the propagation of the Gospel; tidings particularly grateful to this country, and especially to the College of which you are rector, which will hereafter be able to proceed secundum regulam et Institutum."
Kohlmann and Fenwick were welcomed with great enthusiasm in New York which had suffered much from the various transients who had from time to time officiated there. Several distinguished converts were won over to the faith, and an attempt was made to influence the famous free-thinker, Tom Paine, but[707] the unfortunate wretch died blaspheming. It was Kohlmann and Fenwick who established the New York Literary Institute on the site of the present St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was successful enough to attract the sons of the most distinguished families of the city and merited the commendation of such men as the famous governor of New York, De Witt Clinton, and of Governor Thompkins who was subsequently Vice-President of the United States. At the same time, they were building old St. Patrick's, which was to become the cathedral of the new bishop. Bishop Concanen never reached New York, and when his successor Bishop Connolly arrived in 1814, Father Fenwick was his consolation and support in the many bitter trials that had to be undergone in those turbulent days. He was made vicar general and when he was sent to Georgetown to be president of the college in 1817, it was against the strong protest and earnest entreaties of the bishop, who, it may be said in passing, regretted exceedingly the closing of the Literary Institute, — a feeling shared by every American Jesuit. The reason for so doing is given by Hughes (History of the Soc. of Jesus in North America, I, ii, 945).
While Fenwick was in Georgetown, Charleston, South Carolina, was in an uproar ecclesiastically. The people were in open schism, and Archbishop Maréchal of Baltimore, in spite of his antagonism to the Society appealed to the superior of the Jesuits for some one to bring order out of the chaos. Fenwick was sent, and such was his tact, good judgment and kindness, that he soon mastered the situation and the diocese was at peace when the new bishop, the distinguished John England, arrived. Strange to say, Bishop England had the same prejudice as Bishop Concanen, against the Society; a condition of mind that may be explained by the fact that it had been[708] suppressed by the highest authority in the Church, and that even educated men were ignorant of the causes that had brought about the disaster. But Fenwick soon disabused the bishop. Indeed, he remained as Vicar General of Charleston until 1822, and when he was recalled to Georgetown, Bishop England, at first, absolutely refused to let him go.
In a funeral oration pronounced over Fenwick, later by Father Stonestreet he said in referring to the Charleston troubles; "Difficulties had arisen between the French and Anglo-Irish portions of the congregation, each insisting it should be preached to in its own tongue; each restive at remaining in the sacred temple while the word of God was announced in the language of the other. The good Father, nothing daunted by the scene of contrariety before him, ascends the pulpit, opens his discourse in both languages, rapidly alternates the tongues of La Belle France and of the Anglo-Saxon, and by his ardent desire to unite the whole community in the bonds of charity, astonishes, softens, wins and harmonizes the hearts of all. A lasting peace was restored which still continues."
Bishop Cheverus, who was then at Boston, was subsequently called to France to be Archbishop of Bordeaux and cardinal. Father Fenwick, without being consulted, was appointed to the vacant see. In fact, the first news he had of the promotion was when the Bulls were in his hands, so that no means of protesting was possible. He was consecrated on November 1, 1825, and his friend Bishop England travelled all the way from Charleston to assist as one of the Consecrators. At that time the diocese of Boston was synonymous with New England, but it had only ten churches, two of which were for Indians. Fenwick, however, set to work in his usual heroic fashion. He was particularly fond of the Indians, and bravely[709] fought their battle against the dishonest whites. As the red men were the descendants of the Abenakis to whom the old Jesuits had brought the Faith, there was a family feeling in his defense of them. The same sentiment of kinship prompted him to establish a newspaper which he called "The Jesuit." It was a defiance of the bigotry of New England, of which there were to be many serious manifestations. "The Jesuit" was the pioneer of Catholic journalism in the United States.
Bishop Fenwick was averse to the crowding of Catholics in the large cities, and to segregate them he established the exclusively Catholic colony of Benedicta, but this scheme of a Paraguay in the woods of Maine had only a limited success. Prompted by the same motive of love of the Society he visited the place which Father Rasle had sanctified with his blood when the fanatical Puritans of Massachusetts put him to death in 1724. Father Rasle was the apostle of the Abenakis and had established himself at what is now Norridgewock on the Kennebec. Fenwick went there to pray. Although it was in the wilderness, he determined to make it a notable place for the future Catholics of America; and over the mouldering remains of Rasle and his brave Indian defenders, he erected a monument, a shaft of granite, on which an inscription was cut to record the tragedy. It was too much for the bigotry that then reigned in those parts, and the monument was thrown down; but Fenwick put it in its place again; at a later date when, in the course of time, it had fallen out of perpendicular, Bishop Walsh of Portland corrected the defect and amid a great throng of people solemnly reconsecrated it.
While he was Bishop of Boston, Fenwick made a pious pilgrimage to Quebec; the city from which[710] the Jesuits of the old Society had started on their perilous journeys to evangelize the Indians of the continent. He saw there an immense building on whose façade were cut the letters I. H. S. "What is that?" he asked. "It is the old Jesuit College, now a soldiers' barracks," was the reply. His soul was filled with indignation and he exclaimed in anger, "The outrage that these men of blood should occupy the house sanctified by the martyrs Jogues, Brébeuf, Lalemant and the others." The good bishop was unaware that the martyrs had never seen the building. It was built after they had gone to claim their crowns in heaven.
During his episcopacy Knownothingism reigned, and in one of the outbreaks the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown was attacked at midnight. The sisters were shot at, the house was pillaged, the chapel desecrated and the whole edifice given over to the flames. The blackened ruins remained for fifty years to remind the Commonwealth of its disgrace, until finally the remnants of the building, which it had cost so much to erect, had to be removed to escape taxation. It was Fenwick who founded Holy Cross College, in Worcester, Massachusetts, an establishment which is the Alma Mater of most of the subsequent bishops of New England. It has also the singular distinction of being the only Catholic College exempted by law from receiving any but Catholic students. Fenwick is buried there. He died on August 11, 1846, after an episcopacy of twenty-one years.
Strange to say the Bull resurrecting the Society was not sent to America until October 8, 1814, and on January 5, 1815, Bishop Carroll wrote to Father Marmaduke Stone, in England, as follows: "Your precious and grateful favor accompanied by the Bull of Restoration was received early in December and[711] diffused the greatest sensation of joy and thanksgiving, not only among the surviving and new members of the Society, but also all good Christians who have any remembrances of their services or heard of their unjust and cruel treatment, and have witnessed the consequences of their suppression. You may conceive my sensations when I read the account of the celebration of Mass by His Holiness himself at the superb altar of St. Ignatius at the Gesù; the assemblage of the surviving Jesuits in the chapel to hear the proclamation of their resurrection, etc."
On returning to America after the suppression of the Society in Belgium, Father Carroll had gone to live at his mother's house in Rock Creek, Maryland, for he no longer considered himself entitled to support from the funds of the Jesuits who still maintained their existence in the colonies. They had never been suppressed, whereas he had belonged to a community in the Netherlands which had been canonically put out of existence by the Brief. He spent two years in the rough country missions of Maryland and then went with Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and his cousin Charles Carroll to Canada to induce the Frenchmen there to make common cause with the Americans against Great Britain. The Continental Congress had especially requested him to form a part of the embassy. The mission was a failure and the Colonies had themselves to blame for it; because two years previously they had issued an "Address to the English People" denouncing the government for not only attempting to establish an Anglican episcopacy in the English possessions, but for maintaining a papistical one on the banks of the St. Lawrence. Clearly it would have been impossible for the French Catholics who had been guaranteed the free exercise of their religion to transfer their allegiance to a country which[712] considered that concession to be one of the reasons justifying a revolution.
When the war was over, Carroll and five other Jesuits met at Whitemarsh to devise means to keep their property intact in order to carry on their missionary work. They had no other resources than the produce of their farms, for their personal support. The faithful gave them nothing. At this conference they decided to ask Rome to empower some one of their number to confirm, grant faculties and dispensations, bless oils, etc. They added that, for the moment, a bishop was unnecessary. The petition was sent on November 6, 1783, and on June 7, 1784, Carroll was appointed superior of the missions in the thirteen states, and was given power to confirm. There were at that time about nineteen priests in the country and fifteen thousand Catholics, of whom three thousand were negro slaves. In 1786 Carroll took up his residence in Baltimore and was conspicuously active in municipal affairs, establishing schools, libraries and charities. Possibly it was due to him that Article 6 was inserted in the Constitution of the United States which declares that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States;" and probably also the amendment that "this Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Its actual sponsor in the Convention was C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina.
Carroll was made Bishop of Baltimore by Pius VI on November 6, 1789, twenty-four out of the twenty-five priests in the country voting for him. He was consecrated on August 15, 1790, at Lulworth Castle, England by the senior vicar Apostolic of England, Bishop Walmesly. On the election of Washington to the presidency, he represented the clergy in a con[713]gratulatory address to which Washington answered; "I hope your fellow-countrymen will not forget the patriotic part in the accomplishment of the Revolution and the establishment of the government or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic Faith is professed."
He convoked the first Synod of Baltimore in 1791. There were twenty-two priests of five nationalities in attendance. He called the Sulpicians to Baltimore in 1791; the first priest he ordained was Stephen Badin, the beloved pioneer of Kentucky, and four years later the famous Russian prince, Demetrius Gallitzin. He also succeeded in having a missionary for the Indians appointed by the government. He had intended to have as his coadjutor and successor in the see, Father Lawrence Grässel, who had been a novice in the old Society and who at Carroll's urgent request, had come out to America as a missionary. Grässel, however, died before the arrival of the Bulls. Father Leonard Neale, a Maryland Jesuit, was then chosen and was consecrated in 1800. A year and two months after the re-establishment of the Society, namely on December 3, 1815, Carroll died. It was fitting that this son of Saint Ignatius should be called to heaven on the feast of the great friend and companion of Saint Ignatius, Saint Francis Xavier.
Apropos of this, a note has been quoted by Father Hughes (op. cit., Doc., I, 424) which is often cited as revealing a change in Carroll's attitude toward the Society after he became archbishop. Fr. Charles Neale had written to him as follows, "It is equally certain that I have no authority to give up any right that would put the subject out of the power of his superior, who must and ought to be the best judge of what is most beneficial to the universal or individual good of the members, of the Congregation." On[714] the back of the letter appear the words "Inadmissible Pretensions," said by Bishop Maréchal to have been written by Carroll.
Archbishop Carroll's attitude to the Society is clearly manifested in his letter of December 10, 1814, addressed to Father Grassi, which says: "Having contributed to your greatest happiness on earth by sending the miraculous bull of general restoration, even before I could nearly finish the reading of it, I fully expect it back this evening with Mr. Plowden's letter." It should not be forgotten that Carroll was heartbroken when the Society was suppressed and that he longed for death because of the grief it caused him. The words "Inadmissible Pretensions" noted on Neale's letter referred to a formal protest made by Father Charles Neale against a synodial statute of the bishops convened at Baltimore. Neale, indeed, desired to exercise the special privileges of the Society and to govern as was done in the old Society or as in Russia, a procedure which incurred the disapproval of the General. Grassi writing to Plowden, in England, says: "He (Archbishop Carroll) considers Mr. Chas. Neale as a wrongheaded man, and persons who knew him at Liège and Antwerp are nearly of the same opinion." In brief, Neale's administration both as president of Georgetown and as superior of the mission was most disastrous (cf. Hughes, I, ii, passim).
Leonard Neale, like Carroll, was an American. He was born near Port Tobacco in Maryland in 1746, and with many other young Marylanders, was sent to the Jesuit College of St. Omers in France. After the Suppression he went to England, where he was engaged in parochial work for four years. From there he was sent to Demerara in British Guiana and continued at work in that trying country from 1779 to 1783. His health finally gave way, and[715] he returned to Maryland and joined his Jesuit brethren. He distinguished himself in the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, and remained in that city, for six years as the vicar of Bishop Carroll. In 1797 another epidemic of fever occurred and he was stricken but recovered. In 1798 he was sent to Georgetown College as president, and in 1800 while still president he was consecrated coadjutor of Archbishop Carroll. He continued his scholastic work until 1806, succeeding to the See of Baltimore in 1815. He was then seventy years old and in feeble health. He died at Georgetown on June 18, 1817. Bishop Maréchal who had been suggested to the Pope by Bishop Cheverus of Boston, had already been named for the See.
Bishop Maréchal was a Sulpician. He had left France at the outbreak of the French Revolution and after spending some years in America as a professor both at Georgetown and Baltimore, returned to his native country, but was back again in Maryland after a few years. Neale wanted him to be Bishop of Philadelphia, but the offer was declined, and he was made coadjutor of Baltimore with the right of succession. He was consecrated on December 14, 1817, and occupied the see until 1826. Unfortunately, the whole period from 1820 was marked by misunderstandings with the Society. In spite of this controversy, which was unnecessarily acrimonious at times, Archbishop Maréchal was anxious to have the Jesuit visitor Father Peter Kenny appointed Bishop of Philadelphia. (cf. Hughes, op. cit., Documents, for details of the controversies.)
[716]
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FIRST CONGREGATION
Expulsion from Russia — Petrucci, Vicar — Attempt to wreck the Society — Saved by Consalvi and Rozaven.The superiors-general who presided over the Society in Russia were Stanislaus Czerniewicz (1782-85), Gabriel Lenkiewicz (1785-98), Francis Kareu, (1799-1802), Gabriel Gruber, (1802-05), and Thaddeus Brzozowski, (1805-20). The first two were only vicars, as was Father Kareu when first elected, but by the Brief "Catholicæ Fidei" he was raised to the rank of General on March 7, 1801. His two successors bore the same title. Father Brzozowski lived six years after the Restoration. But those years must have been a time of great suffering for him. Over the rapidly expanding Society, whose activities were already extending to the ends of the earth, he had been chosen to preside but he was virtually a prisoner in Russia. It soon became evident that such an arrangement was intolerable and not only was there an exasperating surveillance of every member of the Order by the government, but even when Brzozowski himself asked permission to go to Rome to thank the Holy Father in person for the favor he had conferred on the Society by the Bull of Re-establishment, he was flatly refused. Hence it was resolved that when he died, a General had to be elected who would reside in Rome, no matter what might be the consequences in Russia.
The difficulty, however, solved itself. Though officially the head of the Orthodox Church, Alexander cared little for its doctrines, its practises or its tradi[717]tions, and he set about establishing a union of all the sects on the basis of what he considered to be the fundamental truths of religion. He is even credited with the ambition of aiming at a universal spiritual dominion which would eclipse Napoleon's dream of world-wide empire built upon material power. Whether this was the outcome of his meditations, — for after his fashion, he was a religious man, — or was suggested to him by the Baroness Julia de Krudner, who was creating a sensation at that time, as a revivalist, cannot be ascertained. There is no doubt, however, that he fell under her sway.
Mme. de Krudner had given up pleasures and wealth to bring back the world to what she called the principles of the primitive Church. She travelled through Germany and Switzerland with about forty of her admirers, who kept incessantly crying out: "We call only the elect to follow us." She established soup-kitchens wherever she went, and her converts knelt before her, as this slim diet which they regarded as a gift from heaven was doled out to them. Naturally this attraction worked first on the poor, but the baroness soon reached the upper grades of society. Her opportunity presented itself at Vienna, where the allied sovereigns were in session to determine the political complexion of the world, after they had disposed of Napoleon. They did her the honor of attending some of her meetings, and Alexander who showed himself greatly interested, became the special object of her attention. She styled him: "The White Angel of God," while Napoleon was set down as "The Dark Angel of Hell."
Such a serious writer as Cantù is of the opinion that it was the baroness who drew up the scheme of the Holy Alliance, in which the four monarchs agreed to love one another as brothers; to govern their[718] respective states as different branches of the great family of nations, and to have Jesus Christ, the Omnipotent Word, as their Sovereign Lord. But immediately after making this pious pact they began to distribute among themselves the spoils of war. Prussia took Saxony; Russia, Poland; Austria, Northern Italy; and England, Malta, Heligoland and the Cape. Thus was virtue rewarded.
At the suggestion of Galitzin, his minister of worship, Alexander had begun a devout course of Bible reading as a means of lifting himself out of the gloom into which he seemed to be plunged after the war. It had apparently some beneficial effect on him, and he became an enthusiastic advocate of the practise for all classes of people. The English Bible Society was to help the propaganda and the Catholic Archbishop of Mohilew and his clergy strongly supported the imperial project. Necessarily the Jesuits had to antagonize this wholesale diffusion of corrupt versions of the sacred text, and they endeavored to point out the folly of leaving its interpretation to ignorant people. The consequence was that they provoked the anger not only of the Bible Society and of the emperor, but also both of the Russian and partly of the Catholic clergy. The troublesome Siestrzencewicz, Archbishop of Mohilew, not only strongly favored the project but suggested to Galitzin that the attitude of the Jesuits furnished an excellent opportunity to get rid of them. There was another reason also why the blow was sure to fall. A Catholic Polish woman named Narychkine it is said had been dissociated from the czar by a refusal of absolution at Easter time. The confessor was the Jesuit, Father Perkowski, and, of course, as all his associates would have acted in the same way, the whole Society came under the ban.
[719] Zalenski, in his "Russie Blanche," finds another reason for this loss of Alexander's favor. He was not only not a Romanoff but had not a drop of Russian blood in his veins, except through his father Paul, the alleged bastard son of Catherine before she became empress. He was aware that the Jesuits knew of this family stain, though not a word was ever uttered about it. It made him uncomfortable, nevertheless, and he was quite willing to rid himself of their presence.
As he had officially proclaimed that all religions were alike, many who had professed allegiance to the Greek Church under political pressure became materialists or atheists, and some distinguished women became Catholics. No attention was paid to the atheists, but these conversions to the Faith were blamed on the Jesuits, particularly on three French fathers, among whom was Rozaven. Count de Maistre, who was in St. Petersburg at the time, declares emphatically that they had nothing to do with it. The feeling against them, however, was very intense and only lacked an occasion to show itself. It came when a nephew of Galitzin, announced that he was going to become a Catholic. This was too much for the minister of worship to put up with and although the lad, who was a pupil of one of the Jesuit colleges, had let it be known that the Fathers had absolutely nothing to do with his project and that his resolution was only the result of his own investigations, he was not believed, and a ukase, dated December 25, 1815, was issued, proclaiming their expulsion from the country. This was seventeen months after the Re-establishment.
The decree called attention to the fact that "when the Jesuits were expelled from all the other nations of Europe, Russia had charitably admitted them and confided to their care the instruction of youth. In[720] return, they had destroyed the peace of the Orthodox Church and had turned from it some of the pupils of their colleges. Such an act, said the document, explains why they were held in such abhorrence elsewhere. The ukase bubbles over with piety, deploring the "apostacies" that had taken place, and then goes on to state that: first, the Catholic Church in Russia is hereby re-established on the plan which had been adopted since the time of Catherine II until the year 1800; secondly, the Jesuits are to withdraw immediately from St. Petersburg; thirdly, they are forbidden to enter either of the capitals.
It is noteworthy that the decree of banishment is not stocked with calumnies like those issued by the Catholic courts of Europe. It was based purely on religious ground. Nor was the expulsion characterized by any exhibition of brutality as in Spain, Portugal and France; for although the police descended on the houses, in the dead of night, and drove out the occupants, an almost maternal care was taken against their suffering in the slightest degree on their way to the places of their exile. Of course, all their papers and books were seized but perhaps the Fathers were glad of it; for although, since Catherine's time, they had been brought into closest contact with the hideous skeletons of her court and those of her successors, no mention was made of any family scandal in the voluminous correspondence that had been so suddenly seized by the government. As regards the charge of proselytism, there is a letter from Father Brzozowski to Father de Clorivière, dated February 20, 1816, which stated that not only did none of the Fathers ever attempt to influence their pupils, but that during the thirteen years of the existence of the College of St. Petersburg, no Russian Orthodox student had been admitted to the Church. It goes on to say that for[721] a long time the storm had been foreseen and that everyone was prepared for it.
Before the final blow came, Father Brzozowski petitioned the emperor at least to permit the Fathers to continue their labors in the dangerous mission of the Riga district, in the Caucasus, and on the banks of the Volga, in all of which places, their success in civilizing and christianizing the population had been officially recognized by the emperor. But the request was not granted, and in 1820, just as Father Brzozowski was dying, the Jesuits were ordered out of the empire, and all their possessions were confiscated. The loss was a grievous one in many respects, but it had its compensations. For, in the first place, it effectually settled the question of the General's residence. Secondly, as the Jesuits living in Russia were almost of every nationality in Europe and as many of them were conspicuous for their great ability in many branches of learning, a valuable re-inforcement was thus available for the hastily formed colleges in various parts of the world. Thirdly, the traditions of the Society had remained unbroken in Russia, and the example and guidance of the venerable men who were there to the number of 358 would transmit to the various provinces the true spirit of the Society. In any case Alexander's successor would have expelled them, for he was a violent persecutor of the Church, and, moreover, Freemasonry and infidelity had been making sad havoc with what was left of the religion of the nation.
Brzozowski when dying, had named as Vicar, Father Petrucci, the master of novices at Genoa, a most unfortunate choice; for Petrucci was not only old and ill, but was woefully lacking in worldly wisdom, and proved to be a pliant tool in the hands of designing men. His appointment went to show the impossibility[722] of directing the Society in pent-up Russia, where the General could not be sufficiently informed of the character of the various members of the Order. The congregation was summoned for September 14, 1820, but although there were already in Rome on August 2 seventeen out of the twenty-one delegates, Cardinal della Genga wrote to Petrucci to say that the Pope wanted the congregation to be delayed, because he desired time for the arrival of the Polish Fathers who represented a notable part of the Society.
As no one ever questioned the fact that the Polish province, which alone had remained intact in the general wreck, was a notable part of the Congregation and of the Society, and as, moreover, the Polish delegates would have no difficulty in reaching Rome before September 14, everyone suspected that something sinister was being attempted. That Petrucci and Cardinal della Genga were in league with each other in this matter was clear from the fact that Petrucci, without consulting any one of his colleagues, immediately dispatched letters to all the provinces announcing the prorogation of the congregation, protesting meantime that the office of vicar was too great for one of his age and infirmities. It was also remarked that with the cardinal was a small group of malcontents composed of Rizzi, Pancaldi, who was only in deacon's orders, Pietroboni and a certain number of Roman ecclesiastics, some of them prelates who, like della Genga, did not of course belong to the Society.
These conspirators kept the minds of the waiting delegates in a feverish state of excitement by giving out that there was a great fear, not only in the public at large, but even in the papal court, that a Paccanarist might be elected. Indeed there were already three of them among the electors: Sineo, Rozaven and[723] Grivel, and hence it was desirable to delay the congregation until it would be sure that no others would arrive. Over and above this, some of those recently admitted to the Society maintained that only those who belonged to the old Society or had been a long time in Russia should be accepted as delegates. Doubts were raised also as to whether those who had taken their vows before the formal recognition of the Society in Russia in 1801, or the recognition in Sicily in 1804, were to be considered as Jesuits or as secular priests.
In brief, Rizzi and his associates had so filled the minds of outsiders with doubts, that some prelates and even a cardinal advised that the questions should be submitted to the Pope for settlement. Finally, on the day originally fixed for the congregation, namely, September 14, Cardinal della Genga sent three letters to the Fathers at Rome. In the first he said that the Pope was convinced that the meeting of the delegates should be postponed, and that he had given to the Vicar, Petrucci, all the faculties of a regularly elected General. The second letter was directed to the assistants, who were informed that it was the wish of His Holiness that all the irregularities which della Genga declared existed in the congregation should be remedied, and to that end, he had appointed a committee composed of himself, Cardinal Galiffi and the Archbishop of Nanzianzum, together with Petrucci and Rizzi to consider them. This committee, moreover, was to preside at the election. The third letter ordered that new assistants should be added to those already in office, making seven in all, a thing absolutely unheard of in the Society until then.
Rizzi and Petrucci were in high spirits when this became known, but not so the other delegates, and they determined to appeal directly to the Pope. Then a doubt arose as to which cardinal was to present the[724] appeal. Mattei and Litta, the staunch friends of the Society were dead and Pacca leaned slightly to Rizzi's views. There remained Consalvi. To him Father Rozaven wrote the appeal, but, two of the assistants and Petrucci refused to sign it. Consalvi received the petitioners with the greatest benignity, promised to present the document to the Pope, and bade the Fathers not to be discouraged. He explained the situation to the Holy Father, who immediately approved of the request, and issued the following order: "Having heard the plea, We command that the general congregation be convened immediately, and that, as soon as possible, the General be elected, all things to the contrary notwithstanding." "Everyone," wrote Rozaven, "was delighted, except of course, Petrucci, the provincial of the Italian Province, Pietroboni, and those who had been misled by Rizzi."
The congregation met on October 9. Twenty-four professed Fathers were present and they elected Father Aloysius Fortis as General. Petrucci protested the legality of the election, but when the usual delegation presented itself to the Pope, they were received most cordially and he referred them to Consalvi for the decree of "sanation," if any were needed. "He is altogether devoted to you," said the Pope, "and watches with the greatest concern over your interests." Now that the congregation was regularly constituted, the Fathers proceeded as quickly as possible to the punishment of the conspirators. Both Petrucci and Pietroboni were deposed from their respective offices as Vicar and provincial, and other disturbers were expelled from the Society; — the Pope highly approving of the action. It was Cardinal Consalvi who had averted the wreck.
In view of the great cardinal's attitude in this matter, it is distressing to find Crétineau-Joly declaring that Consalvi acted as he did because he was a diplomat,[725] a man of the world rather than an ecclesiastic. He cared little for the Jesuits (il aimait peu les Jésuites) whom he regarded as adding a new political embarrassment to the actual complications in Europe, but he knew how to be just, and refused to be an accomplice in the plot (VI, 1). This is a calumny. We have the Pope's own words about Consalvi's concern for the Society, and in the "Memoirs" edited by Crétineau-Joly himself the exact opposite is asserted. Thus on page 56, we read: "he made the greatest number of people happy and in doing so was happier than they, because he was thus making them venerate the Church, his Mother." On page 11, he says that whenever Consalvi wrote about Napoleon "he placed himself in the presence of God in order to be impartial in judging his persecutor." On page 180: "He lived without any concern for wealth; he never asked or received any gifts. He realized what St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius III said of a Cardinal Cibo in their day: 'In passing through this world of money, he never knew what money was. He was prodigal in his benevolence and died virtually a poor man." These are not the traits of a "man of the world and a politician."
As for "his not liking the Jesuits," we find in those "Memoirs," which were finished in 1812, and consequently eight years before the meeting of the congregation, the following words (II, 305): "When Pope Pius VII returned to Rome in 1801, he received a letter from Paul I, the Emperor of Russia, asking for the re-establishment of the Jesuits in his dominions. The Pope was delighted to have the chance to gratify the Czar and also to perform a praiseworthy (louable) action; — for it was restoring to life an Institute which had deserved well of Christendom and whose fall had hastened the ruin of the Church, of thrones, of public[726] order, of morality, of society. One can assert this without fear of being taxed with exaggeration or falsehood by honest and reasonable men and by those who are not imbued with a false philosophy or party spirit."
He then narrates how cautious the Pope had to be before granting Paul's request, "so as not," Consalvi says, "to arouse the antagonism of the enemies of the Society: the philosophers and haters of religion and of public order, who, as they had forced its condemnation from Clement XIV, would now employ all the machinery of the courts which had asked for the suppression to prevent its rehabilitation. The Pope succeeded, but a few years afterwards, when the Emperor of Austria asked for the Jesuits, his ministers brought about the failure of the project. They consented to accept the Jesuits, but in such a fashion and under such a form that they could no longer be Jesuits. The Pope would not consent to such conditions, and as the imperial court would not accept them as they were, the matter was dropped." In other words, Pope Pius VII and his great cardinal believed with Clement XIII that no changes should be made in their Institute. Sint ut sunt aut non sint. Let them be themselves or not at all. To assert that in the heart of the great champion of the Faith, Consalvi, there was little love for the Jesuits is to say what is contrary to facts.
The new General, Father Aloysius Fortis, was born in 1748 and was consequently seventy-two years of age when he was elected. In spite of his age, however, he was in vigorous health and governed the Society for nine years. He had been in the old Society for eleven years before the Suppression. In 1794 he was associated in Parma with the saintly Pignatelli, who twice foretold his election. He had been prefect of[727] studies in the scholasticate at Naples, and when the Society was re-established he was named as Father Brzozowski's vicar in Rome. In 1819 Pius VII appointed him Examinator Episcoporum. Hence his election was naturally gratifying to the Pope, and he gave evidence of it by the joy that suffused his countenance when the formal announcement of the result was made to him. The eagerness with which he affixed his signature to the official document also testified to his satisfaction. In the Professed House, the Fathers acclaimed the choice with enthusiasm, as did the throngs of people who had immediately flocked to the Gesù to hear the announcement. They have chosen a saint was the universal cry. The Emperor of Austria, Francis I, Frederick, the Prince of Hesse, and Duke Antony, who was soon to be King of Saxony, all expressed their pleasure at the promotion of Father Fortis.
The letter written by Antony is worth quoting. "I have read with the greatest joy, in the public press," he said, "of the election of a man of whom it may well be said he is Fortis by name and fortis by nature. I am aware that his humility would prompt him to differ with me, but I hoped that such would be the choice, and now my desire has been fulfilled. God who directed this election will give you that strength which you think you lack to fulfill the duties of your office. Now more than ever I commend myself to the fervent prayers of yourself and your associates. I have a claim on them, for ever since my earliest youth, I have been most devoted to the Society, to which I owe my religious training."
In the congregation, Father Fortis proposed a resolution or a decree, as it is called, which is of supreme importance, and which was, it is needless to say, unanimously adopted. It runs as follows:[728] "Although there is no doubt that both the Constitutions given by Our Holy Founder and whatever in the course of time the Fathers have judged to add to them have recovered their force at the very outset of the restored Society, as it was the manifest wish of our Holy Father, Pius VII, that the Society re-established by him should be governed by the same laws as before the Suppression, nevertheless, to remove all anxiety on that score, and to put an end to the obstinacy of certain disturbers of the peace, this congregation not only confirms, but as far as necessary decrees anew, in conformity with the power vested in the General and the congregations by Paul III, and reaffirms that not only the Constitutions with the declarations and the decrees of the general congregations, but the Common Rules and those of the several offices, the Ratio Studiorum, the ordinations, the formulas and whatsoever belongs to the legislation of Our Society are intact, and it wishes all and each of the aforesaid to have the same binding force on those who live in the Society that they had before Clement XIV's Bull of Suppression."
Although Fortis was gentle and humble he admitted no relaxation, especially in the matter of poverty, and those who were unwilling to put up with the requirements, he allowed to leave the Order. "We want fruits," he used to say, "not roots." Again, in spite of his new dignity and of his great natural gifts he was always the same simple Father Fortis. He was such an ardent lover of poverty that he kept his clothes till they were threadbare and torn, and had to be stolen out of his room to be replaced by others more befitting his station. In 1821 he united into a vice-province the various members of the Society scattered through Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Germany and gave it a name descrip[729]tive of its composition: "The Vice-Province of Switzerland and the German Missions." In 1823 the Province of Galicia was established. In it were many of the old Fathers of Russia, but the number was so great that many had to be sent to Italy, France and elsewhere. Sicily, especially, was benefited in this way. From the province thus established three others sprung in a short time: Germany, Belgium and Holland.
Father Fortis died on January 27, 1829. The grief for his loss was general and none felt it more keenly than the King of Saxony, who wrote another affectionate letter to express his sorrow. It is worthy of note that, although the royal family of Saxony is still Catholic, no one who has been trained in a Jesuit School is eligible there to any ecclesiastical office. It is a curious condition in a kingdom which in 1821 was ruled by a sovereign who exulted in the fact that he was a Jesuit alumnus.
Chief among the distinguished Jesuits in the congregation of 1820 was, without doubt, the Frenchman, John Rozaven. He was born at Quimper in Brittany, March 9, 1772. His uncle had belonged to the Society when it was suppressed in France in 1760, and had then become a parish priest at Plogonnec. While there, he was elected, in 1789, at the outbreak of the Revolution to be a representative at the Etats Généraux. He accepted the constitutional oath, but soon retracted. He had to atone for his treason to the Church, however, by being made the victim of his bishop, who, like him, had joined the schism but had not recanted. On account of this ill-feeling, Rozaven left the country, taking with him the future Jesuit, his nephew, who was living with him at that time. They both disappeared on the night of June 20, 1792, and on the 24th arrived at the Island of Jersey. From there they[730] went to London and after a few months made their way to the Duchy of Cleves.
Hearing that there was a French ecclesiastical seminary at Brussels, young Rozaven entered it, was ordained sub-deacon, but was obliged to leave after six months, because of the arrival of the French troops. He and his uncle then took up their abode in Paderborn and lodged in an old Jesuit establishment where they lived for four years, at which time the young man was ordained priest and then left his uncle in order to join the Fathers of the Sacred Heart under Father Varin. When informed of the existence of the Jesuits in Russia, John applied for admission and was received on March 28, 1804. He was subsequently made prefect of studies and professor of philosophy in the College of Nobles at St. Petersburg. In the course of his ministerial work, he brought to the Faith the Princess Elizabeth Galitzin, well-known as one of the first of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. The famous Madame Swetchine was another of his converts. He was the professor of the young Galitzin who had created such an uproar in St. Petersburg by his supposed part in the conversion.
At the death of Father General Brzozowski, Rozaven was sent as a delegate to the congregation and, as we have seen, it was his wisdom and courage that saved the Society from shipwreck on that occasion. He was elected assistant to the General, and, with the exception of one short visit to France, remained for the rest of his life in Rome. He was too valuable an aid for the General to be allowed even to be the official visitor to France although everyone there was clamoring for him. It was he who demolished the philosophical system of de Lamennais, and at the same time restrained the hotheads of the French provinces from accepting and teaching the new doctrine. His[731] "Examen of Certain Philosophical Doctrines" came out in 1831, and although his office of assistant gave him plenty of occupation, he taught theology, was a member of several pontifical congregations, and heard as many as 20,000 confessions a year. This immense labor was made possible by his rising at half past three in the morning, and by the clock-like punctuality and system with which he addressed himself to the various tasks of the day. In the cholera epidemic of 1837, despite his sixty-five years of age, he plunged into the work like the rest of his brethren and heard 23,000 confessions during the continuance of the plague.
When the Revolution of '48 broke out, Rozaven remained at Rome more or less secluded, but at last, when there was danger of his being taken to prison, a friend of his, the Count Rampon, said: "You will come to my château and I shall see that you are not molested." The protection was accepted, and a few nights after, a banquet was given at the château, to which the French ambassador and several conspicuous anti-Jesuit personages had been invited. When the guests were seated it was remarked that there was an empty place near the Count. "Are you waiting for someone else?" they asked. "Yes," he said, "I have here a very remarkable old gentleman whom I want to present to you. He is my friend and more worthy of respect than anyone in the whole world." Then leaving the room, he led Father Rozaven in by the hand and said to his guests in a loud voice: "Gentlemen, I have to present my friend, Father Rozaven, who has deigned to accept my hospitality. He is here under my protection and I place him under yours. If, contrary to my expectation, hatred pursues him into my house, the Count Rampon will defend his guest to the last drop of his blood." Then making a step backward, he swung open a door which revealed[732] a formidable array of muskets, pistols and swords which would be available if the contingency he referred to arose. It is needless to say that Father Rozaven was treated with the most distinguished consideration, not only at the banquet but subsequently.
From there he went to Naples but, later, joined Father Roothaan in France. When Pius IX returned to Rome, the Father General and his faithful assistant returned also. But Rozaven had reached the end of his pilgrimage. In 1851 he fell seriously ill and breathed his last on April 2, at the age of seventy-nine. He had put in thirty years of incessant work since the time he had fought so valiantly in the twentieth congregation.
Besides Rozaven, there was present at the twentieth congregation the distinguished English Jesuit, Charles Plowden. He was born at Plowden Hall, Shropshire, in 1743, of a family which had not only steadfastly adhered to the Faith in all the persecutions that had desolated England, but had given several of its sons to the Society of Jesus and some of its daughters as nuns in religious orders. He entered the Society in 1759, and was ordained in Rome three years before the Suppression. He was in Belgium when the Brief was read and was kept in prison for several months. After teaching at Liège, he returned to England where he was appointed chaplain at Lulworth Castle, and as such preached there at Bishop Carroll's consecration. He had much to do with the establishment of Stonyhurst and was the first master of novices in England after the re-establishment, subsequently he was rector of Stonyhurst and provincial. It was he who, with Fathers Mattingly and Sewall, called upon Benjamin Franklin in Paris to persuade him to crush the scheme of making the Church of the United States dependent upon the ecclesi[733]astical authorities of France. He died at Jougne, in France, on his way home from the congregation and was buried with military honors, because his attendant had informed the authorities of the little town that the dead man had been called to Rome for the election of a General. They mistook the meaning of the word "General", and so buried the humble Jesuit with all the pomp and ceremony that usually accompany the obsequies of a distinguished soldier.
On August 20, 1823, Pius VII, the great friend of the Society, died and it was with no little consternation that the Jesuits heard of the election of Leo XII. He was the same Cardinal della Genga who had endeavored to control the twentieth congregation and was supposed to have revealed his attitude towards the Society years before, when he advised Father Varin not to attempt to form a union between the Fathers of the Faith and the Jesuits in White Russia. Father Rozaven, especially, had reason for apprehension, for it was he who had thwarted della Genga's plans at the election of Fortis; but the fear proved to be groundless, and Rozaven hastened to assure his friends in France that in the three years that had intervened since that eventful struggle, God had operated a change in the mind of della Genga. As Sovereign Pontiff he became one of the most ardent friends of the Society.
[734]
CHAPTER XXV
A CENTURY OF DISASTER
Expulsion from Holland — Trouble at Freiburg — Expulsion and recall in Spain — Petits Séminaires — Berryer — Montlosier — The Men's Sodalities — St. Acheul mobbed — Fourteen Jesuits murdered in Madrid — Interment of Pombal — de Ravignan's pamphlet — Veuillot — Montalembert — de Bonald — Archbishop Affre — Michelet, Quinet and Cousin — Gioberti — Expulsion from Austria — Kulturkampf — Slaughter of the Hostages in the Commune — South America and Mexico — Flourishing Condition before Outbreak of the World War.When Pius VII restored the Society in 1814, he said it was because "he needed experienced mariners in the Barque of Peter which was tossed about on the stormy sea of the world." The storm had not abated. On the contrary its violence had increased, and the mariners who were honored by the call have never had a moment's rest since that eventful day when they were bidden to resume their work.
As early as 1816 the King of the Netherlands, William I, sent a band of soldiers to drive the Jesuits out of his dominions. He began with the novitiate of Destelbergen. Some of the exiles went to Hanover and others to Switzerland. The dispersion, however, did not check vocations. In 1819, for instance, Peter Beckx, who was then a secular priest in the parish of Uccle, never imagining, of course, that he was afterwards to be the General of the Society, entered the novitiate at Hildesheim. Before 1830 more than fifty applicants had been received. The figure is amazing, because it meant expatriation, paternal opposition, and a decree of perpetual exclusion from any public office in Holland. In spite of[735] the law of banishment, however, a few priests succeeded in remaining in the country, exercising the functions of their ministry secretly.
In Russia, the Society, as mentioned above, had been cooped up in a restricted part of White Russia from 1815; on March 13, 1820, Alexander II extended the application of the decree of banishment to the entire country.
Then the storm broke on the Society in Freiburg, the occasion being a pedagogical quarrel with which the Jesuits had absolutely nothing to do. The people of the city were discussing the relative merits of the Pestalozzi and Lancaster systems for primary teaching; and to restore peace, the town council, at the bishop's request, closed all the schools. This drew down the public wrath on the head of the bishop, but as reverence for his official position protected him from open attack, someone suggested that the Jesuits were at the back of the measure. The result was that, at midnight on March 9, 1823, a mob attacked the Jesuit college, and clamored for its destruction. The bishop, however, wrote a letter assuming complete responsibility for the measure and the trouble then ceased.
After the fall of Napoleon, Talleyrand suggested to Louis XVIII to recall the Jesuits for collegiate work. But before his majesty had succeeded in making up his mind, the proposition became known and Talleyrand was driven from power in spite of a proclamation which he issued, assuring the public that he was always a foe of the Society. In the lull that followed, the Fathers were able to remain at their work, but four years afterwards, namely in 1819, they were expelled from Brest but continued to labor as missionaries in the remote country districts.
On May 15, 1815, they had been recalled to Spain by Ferdinand as a reparation for the sins of his ancestors[736] and their reception was an occasion of public rejoicing — the Imperial College itself being entrusted to them. They then numbered about one hundred, and in the space of five years there were one hundred and ninety-seven on the catalogue. They were left at peace for a time, but in 1820 throngs gathered in the streets around their houses, clamoring for their blood, and a bill was drawn up for their expulsion. By a notable — or was it an intentional? — coincidence the document bore the date of July 31, the feast of the Spanish saint, Ignatius Loyola. The feeling against them was so intense that three Fathers, who had been acclaimed all over Spain for their devotion to the plague-stricken, were taken out of their beds, thrown into prison and then sent into exile. Meantime, Father Urigoitia was murdered by a mob, near the famous cave of St. Ignatius at Manresa. The Pope and king protested in vain. Indeed the king was besieged in his palace and kept there until everything the rioters demanded was granted; he remained virtually a prisoner until the French troops entered Spain. In 1824 the Jesuits were recalled again, in 1825 the preparatory military school was entrusted to their care, as was the College of Nobles at Madrid in 1827.
In 1828 new troubles began for the French Jesuits. As they had been unable to have colleges of their own, they had accepted eight petits séminaires which were offered them by the bishops. This was before they had become known as Jesuits, for to all outward appearances they were secular priests. But, little by little, their establishments took on a compound character. Boys who had no clerical aspirations whatever asked for admittance, so that the management of the schools became extremely difficult and, of course, their real character soon began to be suspected by the authorities. Investigations were therefore ordered of[737] all the petits séminaires of the country, though the measure was aimed only at the eight controlled by the Jesuits. As the interrogatory was very minute, it caused great annoyance to the bishops, who saw in it an attempt of the government to control elementary sacerdotal education throughout the country, and hence there was an angry protest from the whole hierarchy, with the exception of one prelate who had been a Constitutional bishop.
It was on this occasion that the younger Berryer pronounced his masterly discourse before the "General Council for the Defense of the Catholic Religion." He established irrefragably the point of law that "a congregation which is not authorized is not therefore prohibited" — a principle accepted by all the French courts until recently. Apart from the ability and eloquence of the plea, it was the more remarkable because his father had been one of the most noted assailants of the Society in 1826. The plea ended with this remarkable utterance: "Behold the result of all these intrigues, of all this fury, of all these outrages, of all this hate! Two ministers of State compel a legitimate monarchy to do what even the Revolution never dreamed of wresting from the throne. One of these ministers is the chief of the French magistracy, and the guardian of the laws; the other is a Catholic bishop, an official trustee of the rights of his brethren in the episcopate. Both of them are rivals in their zeal to exterminate the priesthood and to complete the bloody work of the Revolution. Applaud it, sacrilegious and atheistic race! Behold a priest who betrays the sanctuary! Behold a magistrate who betrays the courts of law and justice!"
Berryer's chief opponent was the famous Count de Montlosier whose "Memoire" was the sensation of the hour. It consisted of four chapters: 1. The[738] Sodalities. 2. The Jesuits. 3. The Ultramontanes. 4. The Clerical Encroachments. These were described as "The Four Calamities which were going to subvert the throne." The Sodalities especially worried him, for they were, according to his conception of them, "apparently a pious assembly of angels, a senate of sages, but in reality a circle of intriguing devils." These sodalities or congregations, as they are called in France, had assumed an importance and effectiveness for good which is perhaps unequalled in the history of similar organizations elsewhere. Their founder was Father Delpuits, "whom it is a pleasure to name," said the eloquent Lacordaire, "for though others may have won more applause for their influence over young men, no one deserved it more."
When the Society was expelled from France in 1762, Delpuits became a secular priest and was offered a canonry by de Beaumont, the Archbishop of Paris. He gave retreats to the clergy and laity and especially to young collegians. During the Revolution, he was put in prison and then exiled, but he returned to France after the storm. There he met young Father Barat, who had just been released from prison and was anxious to join the Jesuits in Russia. Delpuits advised him to remain in France where men of his stamp were sorely needed and hence Barat did not enter the Society until 1814.
In 1801, following out the old Jesuit traditions, Delpuits organized a sodality, beginning with four young students of law and medicine. Others soon joined them, among them Laennec who subsequently became one of the glories of the medical profession as the inventor of auscultation. Then came two abbés and two brothers of the house of Montmorency. The future mathematician, Augustin Cauchy, and also Simon Bruté de Rémur who, at a later date, was to be[739] one of the first bishops of the United States; Forbin-Janson, so eminent in the Church of France, was a sodalist, as were the three McCarthys, one of whom, Nicholas, became a Jesuit, and was regarded as the Chrysostom of France. The list is a long one. When Delpuits died in 1812, his sodalists erected a modest memorial above him, and inserted the S. J. after his name. That was two years prior to the re-establishment. A Sulpician then took up the work, but in 1814, he turned it over to Father de Clorivière who, in turn, entrusted it to Father Ronsin. Its good works multiplied in all directions, and branches were established throughout France. By the time Montlosier began his attacks, the register showed 1,373 names, though Montlosier assured the public that they were no less than 48,000. Among them were a great number of priests and even bishops, notably, Cheverus, the first Bishop of Boston and subsequently, Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux. The last meeting of the sodality was held on July 18, 1830. Paris was then in the Revolution and the sodality was suppressed, but rose again to life later on.
While this attack on the sodalists was going on, the Jesuits of course were assailed on all sides. The fight grew fiercer every day until the "Journal des Débats" was able to say: "The name Jesuit is on every tongue, but it is there to be cursed; it is repeated in every newspaper of the land with fear and alarm; it is carried throughout the whole of France on the wings of the terror that it inspires." As many as one hundred books, big and little, were counted in the Bibliothèque Nationale, all of which had been published in the year 1826 alone. They were the works not only of anonymous and money-making scribes, but of men like Thiers and the poet Béranger who did not think such literature beneath them. Casimir Périer[740] appeared in the tribune against the Society, and the ominous name of Pasquier, whose bearer was possibly a descendant of the famous anti-Jesuit of the time of Henry IV, is found on the list of the orators. Lamennais got into the fray, not precisely in defense of the Jesuits, but to proclaim his ultra anti-Gallicanism; thus bringing that element into the war. Added to this was the old Jansenist spirit, which had not yet been purged out of France; indeed, Bournichon discovers traces of it in some of the Fathers of the Faith who had joined the Society.
Finally came the Revolution of 1830, during which the novitiate of Montrouge was sacked and pillaged. Other houses of France shared the same fate. On July 29 a mob of four or five hundred men attacked St. Acheul, some of the assailants shouting for the king, others for the emperor, others again for the Republic, but all uniting in: "Down with the priests! Death to the Jesuits!" Father de Ravignan attempted to talk to the mob, but his voice was drowned in the crashing of falling timbers. The bell was rung to call for help, but that only maddened the assailants the more. De Ravignan persisted in appealing to them, but was struck in the face by a stone and badly wounded. Then some one in the crowd shouted for drink, and wine was brought out. It calmed the rioters for a while, but while they were busy emptying bottles and breaking barrels, a troop of cavalry from Amiens swept down on them and they fled. The troopers however, came too late to save the house. It was a wreck and some of the Fathers were sent to different parts of the world — Italy, Switzerland, America or the foreign missions. But when there were no more popular outbreaks, many returned from abroad and gave their services to the French bishops, with the result that there never had been a period[741] for a long time which had so many pulpit orators and missionaries as the reign of Louis-Philippe.
Pius VIII died on November 30, 1830, and it was a signal for an uprising in Italy. Thanks to Cardinal Bernetti, the Vicar of Rome, peace was maintained in the City itself, but elsewhere in the Papal States, the anti-Jesuit cry was raised. The colleges were closed and all the houses were searched, on the pretext of looking for concealed weapons. Meantime calumnious reports were industriously circulated against the reputations of the Fathers.
In the Spanish Revolution of 1820, twenty-five Jesuits were murdered. In 1833 civil war broke out between the partisans and opponents of Isabella and, for no reason whatever, two Jesuits were arrested and thrown into prison. One of them died after three months' incarceration. Meanwhile threats were made in Madrid to murder all the religious in the city. The Jesuits were to be the special victims for they were accused of having started the cholera, poisoned the wells, etc. July 17, 1834, was the day fixed for the deed, and crowds gathered around the Imperial College to see what might happen.
The pupils were at dinner. A police officer entered and dismissed them and then the mob invaded the house. Inside the building, three Jesuits were killed; a priest, a scholastic and a lay-brother. The priest had his skull crushed in, his teeth knocked out and his body horribly mangled. The scholastic was beaten with clubs; pierced through the body with swords, and when he fell in his blood, his head was cloven with an axe. Four of the community disguised themselves and attempted to escape but were caught and murdered in the street. Three more were killed on the roof; and two lay-brothers who were captured somewhere else were likewise butchered. The rest[742] of the community had succeeded in reaching the chapel, and were on their knees before the altar, when an officer forced his way through the crowd and called for his brother who was one of the scholastics, to go with him to a place of safety. The young Jesuit refused the offer, whereupon the soldier replied: "Very well I shall take care of all of you." He kept his word and fifty-four Jesuits followed him out of the chapel and were conducted to a place of safety. The house, however, was gutted; unspeakable horrors were committed in the chapel; everything that could not be carried off was broken, and in the meantime a line of soldiers stood outside, not only looking on, but even taking sides with the rioters.
Evidently the times had passed when it was necessary to go out among the savages to die for the Faith. The savages had come to Madrid. Nor was this a conventional anti-Jesuit uprising; for on that hideous 17th of July, 1834, seventy-three members of other religious communities were murdered in the dead of night in the capital of Catholic Spain. Nevertheless Father General Roothaan wrote to his Jesuit sons: "I am not worried about our fourteen who have so gloriously died, for 'blessed are those who die in the Lord.' What causes me most anguish is the danger of those who remain; most of them still young, who are scattered abroad, in surroundings where their vocation and virtue will be exposed to many dangers." Nothing was done to the murderers, and before another year had elapsed, a decree was issued expelling the Jesuits from the whole of Spain; but as Don Carlos was just then in the field asserting his claim to the throne, a large number of the exiles from other parts of Spain, were able to remain at Loyola in the Pyrenees until 1840.
The Portuguese had waited for fifteen years after Pius VII had re-established the Society before consent[743]ing to re-admit the Jesuits. Don Miguel issued a decree to that effect on July 10, 1829, and the Countess Oliviera, a niece of Pombal, was the first to welcome them back and to place her boys in their college. The Fathers were given their former residence in Lisbon and, shortly afterwards, the Bishop of Evora established them in their old college in that city. In 1832 they were presented with their own college at Coimbra, and on their way thither they laid in the tomb the still unburied remains of their arch-enemy, Pombal, which had remained in the morgue ever since March 5, 1782, — a space of half a century. It seemed almost like a dream. Indeed it was little else, for Dom Miguel, who was then on the throne, was deposed by his rival, Dom Pedro, soon after, and on July 20, 1833 the Jesuits of Lisbon were again expelled. The decree was superfluous, for in the early Spring, their house had been sacked, and on that occasion the inmates would have been killed had not a young Englishman, a former student of Stonyhurst, appeared on the scene. The four that were there he took on his yacht to England, the others had already departed for Genoa.
Hatred for the Society, however, had nothing to do with it. The whole affair was purely political. Had the Fathers accepted Dom Pedro's invitation to go out among the people and persuade them to abandon the cause of the deposed king, they would have been allowed to remain. They were expelled for not being traitors to their lawful sovereign. The Fathers of Coimbra contrived to remain another year, but on May 26, 1834, they were seized by a squad of soldiers and marched off to Lisbon. Fortunately the French ambassador, Baron de Mortier, interceded for them, otherwise they would have ended their days in the dungeons of San Sebastian, to which they had already[744] been sentenced. They were released on June 28, 1834, and sent by ship to Italy and from there, along with the dispersed Spaniards were sent by Father Roothaan to France and South America.
Switzerland, which is the land of liberty to such an extent that it will harbor the worst kind of anarchists, refused to admit the Jesuits, at least in some parts of it. There were seven Catholic Cantons, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Lucerne, Zug, Fribourg and Valais. These sections formed a coalition known as the Sunderbund. A war broke out between them and the other cantons, but the Sunderbund was defeated. The Jesuits were then expelled from the little town of Sion where they had an important school. In 1845 the people of Lucerne asked for a college, and though Father Roothaan refused, Pope Gregory XVI insisted on it. The expected happened. The Radicals arose in a rage and with 10,000 men laid siege to Lucerne. They were beaten, it is true, but that did not insure the permanency of the college. In 1847 the Sunderbund was again defeated, and in 1848 when the general European revolution broke out, the College of Fribourg was looted, and its collection of Natural History which was regarded as among the best on the Continent was thrown out in the street.
The rumblings of the storm began to be heard in France on May 1, the Feast of the Apostles Philip and James, Louis-Philippe's name-day. Someone in the Tuilleries said that the Jesuits were starting a conspiracy against the throne. Happily a distinguished woman heard the remark, and admitted that she was concerned in it, along with 300 other conspicuous representatives of the best families of France. It was a charity lottery and most of the conspirators had received a pot or basket of flowers for their participation in the plot.
[745] When that myth was exploded, the "Journal des Débats" attacked de Ravignan for his wide influence over many important people in Paris, and though admitting his unquestioned probity, added "What matters his virtue, if he brings us the pest?" The word caught the popular fancy, but it brought out de Ravignan's famous reply: "De l'éxistence et de l'institut des Jésuites." It was received with immense favor, applauded by such men as Vatemesnil, Dupanloup, Montalembert, Barthélemy, Beugnot, Berryer and others. In this year 1844 alone, 25,000 copies were sold.
The root of the trouble was the university's monopoly of education; which was obnoxious even to many who cared little for religion. Catholics objected to it chiefly because Cousin, the Positivist, controlled its philosophy. Many of the bishops failed to see the danger until Father Delvaux published a digest of the utterances of many of the university professors on religious subjects. Then the battle began. On the Catholic side were such fighters as Veuillot, Montalembert, Cardinal de Bonald, Mgr. Parisis. Ranged against them were Michelet, Quinet, Sainte-Beuve and their followers. The battle waxed hotter as time went on; and the Jesuits soon became the general target. Cousin introduced the "Lettres Provinciales" in the course. Villemain in his Reports denounced "the turbulent and imperious Society which the spirit of liberty and the spirit of our government repudiate." Dupin glorified Etienne Pasquier, the old anti-Jesuit of the time of Henry IV; similar eulogies of the old enemy were pronounced in various parts of France; Quinet and Michelet did nothing else in their historical lectures than attack the Society, while Eugene Sue received 100,000 francs from the editor of the "Constitutionel" for his "Juif errant," which presented to[746] the public the most grotesque picture of the Jesuits that was ever conceived. It was however, accepted as a genuine portrait.
The anti-Jesuit cry was of course the usual campaign device to alarm the populace. It was successful, chiefly because of the persistency with which it was kept up by the press, and, from 1842 till 1845, the book-market was glutted with every imaginable species of anti-Jesuit literature. Conspicuous among the pro-Jesuits were Louis Veuillot and the Comte de Montalembert. The royalist papers spoke in the Society's defense but feebly or not at all. Finally, a certain Marshall Marcet de la Roche Arnauld, who as a scholastic had been driven from the Society in 1824, and who had been paid to write against it, suddenly disavowed all that he had ever said. Crétineau-Joly also leaped into the fray with his rapidly written six volumes of the "History of the Society."
It would have been comparatively easy to continue the struggle with outside enemies, but in the very midst of the battle, the Archbishop of Paris, Affre, ranged himself on the side of the foe. He denied that the Jesuits were a religious order, for the extraordinary reason that they were not recognized by the State; their vows, consequently, were not solemn; and the members of the Society were in all things subject to the curé of the parish in which their establishment happened to be. He even exacted that he should be informed of everything that took place in the community, and if an individual was to be changed, His Grace was to be notified of it a month in advance. The archbishop, however, was not peculiar in these views. They were deduced from Bouvier's theology which was then taught in all the seminaries of France.
Of course, this affected other religious as well as the Jesuits, and, hence, when Dom Guéranger wanted[747] to establish the Benedictines in Paris, the archbishop had no objection, except that "they had no legal existence in France." To this Guéranger immediately replied: "Monseigneur! the episcopacy has no legal existence in England, Ireland and Belgium, and perhaps the day will come when it will not have any in France, but the episcopacy will be no less sacred for all that." The great Benedictine then appealed to the Pope, and when the reply was handed to him, the Apostolic nuncio said: "It is not an ordinary Brief I give you, but an Apostolic Constitution." In it the archbishop was told by His Holiness that the French religious had not been destroyed because of the refusal of the government to give them a legal existence. His Grace had also received a communication from Father Roothaan, the General, who, after reminding him of the provision of canon law on the point at issue, warned him that if he persisted in his view the Jesuits would simply withdraw from his diocese.
Meantime the Pope had suspended the execution of the orders of the archbishop and shortly after, sent him the following severe admonition: "We admit, Venerable Brother, our inability to comprehend your very inconsiderate ruling with regard to the faculties for hearing confessions which you have withdrawn from the Jesuit Fathers, or by what authority or for what reason you forbid them either to leave the city or to enter it, without notifying you a month in advance; especially as this Society, on account of the immense services it has rendered to the Church, is held in great esteem by far-seeing and fervent Catholics and by the Holy See itself. We know also that it is calumniated by people who have abandoned the Faith and by those who have no respect for the authority of the Holy See and we regret that they will now use the authority of your name in support of their calumnies."
[748] Of course the archbishop could do nothing else than obey. But he did not change his mind with regard to the objects of his hostility. Possibly he was constitutionally incapable of doing so. For he treated his cathedral chapter in the same fashion and we read in a communication from the French ambassador at Rome to Guizot who was then head of the Government that the canons of Paris had complained of being absolutely excluded from all influence or authority in the administration of the diocese. This note gives an insight into the methods of Gallicanism, which conceded that the disputes or differences of the clergy with the archbishop were to be passed upon by a minister of state even if he were a Protestant.
The trouble did not end there and the Parliamentary session of 1844 marked a very notable epoch in the history of the French province of the Society and of the Church of France. M. Villemain presented a bill which proposed to reaffirm and reassure the university's monopoly of the education of the country. It explicitly excluded all members of religious congregations from the function of teaching. It is true that there was not a single word in it about the Jesuits, nevertheless in the stormy debates that it evoked, and in which the most prominent men of the nation participated, there was mention of not one other teaching body. Almost the very first speaker, Dupin, pompously proclaimed that "France did not want that famous Society which owes allegiance to a foreign superior and whose instruction is diametrically opposed to what all lovers of the country desire" nor was it desirable that "these religious speculators should slip in through the meshes of the law." His last word was: "Let us be implacable." In the official Report, however, "implacable" became "inflexible." The ministerial and university organ, the "Journal des[749] Débats," admitted that such was the purpose of the bill.
Villemain fancied that he had silenced the bishops by leaving them full authority over the little seminaries. He was quickly disillusioned. From the entire hierarchy individually and collectively came indignant repudiations of the measure and none was fiercer than the protest of Mgr. Affre, Archbishop of Paris. He denounced the university as "a centre of irreligion" and as perverting in the most flagrant manner the youth of France. "You reproach us," he said, "with disturbing the country by our protests. Yes, we have raised our voices, but the university has committed the crime. We may embarrass the throne for the present, but in the university are to be found all the perils of the future." The excitement was so intense that the government actually put the Abbé Combalot in jail for an article he wrote against the bill, and the whole hierarchy was threatened with being summoned before the council of state if they persisted in their opposition.
Montalembert was more than usually eloquent in the course of the parliamentary war. To Dupin who exhorted the peers to be "implacable" he replied: "In the midst of a free people, we, Catholics, refuse to be slaves; we are the successors of the martyrs and we shall not quail before the successors of Julian the Apostate; we are the sons of the Crusaders and we shall not recoil before the sons of Voltaire."
There were thirty-five or forty discourses and twelve or fifteen of the speakers described the Society as "the detested congregation," while the members who admitted the injustice and the odious tyranny of the proposed legislation made haste to assure their constituents that they had no use for the Jesuits. Cousin consumed three hours in assailing them;[750] another member of the Dupin family saw "an appalling danger to the State in the fact that Montalembert could speak of them without cursing them, and that the peers could listen to him in silence, while he extolled the poisoners of the pious Ganganelli." Others insisted that the Jesuits had dragged the episcopate into the fight; even Guizot declared that "public sentiment inexorably repudiated the Jesuits and the other congregations, who are the champions of authority and the enemies of private judgment." The great man was not aware that the same reproach might be and is addressed to the Church.
The measure was finally carried by 85 against 51, but the heavy minority disconcerted the government and better hopes were entertained in the lower house to which Villemain presented his bill on June 10th. There it was left in the hands of Thiers, and it did not reach the Assembly, as a body, for an entire month. As the summer vacations were at hand, the projet de loi was dropped. Guizot then conceived the plan of appealing directly to the Pope to suppress the French Jesuits. He chose as his envoy an Italian named Rossi, who had been banished from Bologna, Naples and Florence as a revolutionist. After a short stay at Geneva, he made his way to France where, by Protestant influence, chiefly that of Guizot, he advanced rapidly to very distinguished and lucrative positions. The country was shocked to hear that an Italian and a Protestant should represent the nation at the court of the Pope from whose dominions he had been expelled, but Guizot intended by so doing, to express the sentiments of his government. It was an open threat. Rossi arrived in Rome and presented his credentials on April 11.
The French Jesuits who had been expelled from Portugal did not return to their native country; for[751] Charles X, discovering at last that the Liberals, as they called themselves, had played him false, resolved to have a thoroughgoing monarchical government; and, to carry out his purpose, made the inept Polignac prime minister. On July 25 he signed four ordinances, the first of which restricted the liberty of the press; the second dissolved parliament; the third diminished the electorate to 25,000. The next day, the press was in rebellion; Charles abdicated and sailed for England. Of course the Revolution was anti-religious and the Jesuits were the first sufferers. House after house was wrecked and the scholastics were gathered together and hurried off to different countries in Europe. Thus ended the first sixteen years of the Society's existence in France, after the promulgation of the Bull of Pius VII "Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum."
The first successor of Father de Clorivière as vice-provincial was Father Simpson. France was made a province in 1820, and on the death of Father Simpson, the new General, Father Fortis, appointed Father Richardot, who at the end of his three years' term asked to be relieved. In 1814 Godinot was appointed, because none of those who had been proposed for the office had been more than ten years in the Society. Godinot himself had been admitted only in 1810. He had been vice-provincial of the Fathers of the Faith, and eleven years after his admission, was directing the scattered Jesuit establishments in Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Germany. In Switzerland, he had given the impulse to the college of Fribourg, which afterwards became so famous. It is worth noting that when he was a Father of the Faith he was a member of the community of Sion in Valais which enjoyed the exceptional privilege of being united as a body to the Society. Everywhere else each individual had to be admitted separately.
[752] On April 14, the peers met to discuss a very exciting subject. A protest had come from Marseilles signed by 89 electors, against the books of Michelet and Quinet. Immediately Cousin was on his feet and ascribed it to the Jesuits. A few days later, another topic engrossed their attention. Dupin's "Manual of Ecclesiastical Law" had been condemned by Cardinal de Bonald, and more than sixty bishops concurred with him in prohibiting the book. At Rome, it was put on the Index, along with Cousin's "History of Philosophy." The anti-Catholics were in a fury, and on April 24, Cousin addressed the House. At the end of a three hour discourse which he began, unbeliever though he was, by protesting his respect for "the august religion of his country," he concluded by saying that "probably the action of the bishops was due to the Jesuits" and therefore he called for the enforcement of the law for their suppression. The question now arose, whether they could proceed to the suppression by force of law while the government actually had an envoy at Rome to dispose of the affair in a different fashion. It was decided that the non-authorized congregations would be suppressed, no matter what might be the outcome of Rossi's mission. Such a resolution was a gross diplomatic insult, but they cared little for that.
Meanwhile no news had come from Rossi. He had been left in the ante-chamber of the Pope until the Abbé de Bonnechose had succeeded in getting him an audience, a service which de Bonnechose had some difficulty in explaining when he was subsequently made a cardinal. A congregation of cardinals was named to discuss Guizot's proposition, and it was unanimously decided to reject it; and when Rossi asked what he had to do, he was told he might address himself to the General of the Society. To make it[753] easy for him, Lambruschini, the papal secretary of state, proposed to Father Roothaan to diminish the personnel of some of the houses which were too much in evidence or remove them elsewhere. As for dissolution of the communities or banishment from France, not a word was said.
Immediately Rossi despatched a messenger to Paris with the account of what had been done, and twelve days afterwards the "Moniteur" stated: "The Government has received news from Rome that the negotiations with which M. Rossi was entrusted have attained their object. The congregation of the Jesuits will cease to exist in France and will, of its own accord, disperse. Its houses will be closed and its novitiates dissolved." On July 15, Guizot was asked by the peers to show the alleged documents. He answered that "they were too precious to give to the public." They have been unearthed since, and it turns out that Guizot's notice in the "Moniteur" does not correspond with the despatch of Rossi who merely said, "the Congregation is going to disperse;" and instead of saying "the houses will be closed," he wrote: "only a small number of people will remain in each house." In brief, the famous Guizot, so renowned for his integrity, prevaricated in this instance, and one of the worst enemies of everything Jesuitical, Dibidous, who wrote a "History of the Church and State in France from 1789 to 1870" declares bluntly that Guizot's note in the "Moniteur" was not only a lie but "an impudent lie."
A great many militant Catholics in France were indignant that Father Roothaan had not defied the government on this occasion. Yet probably those same perfervid souls would have denounced him, had he acted as they wished. He knew perfectly well that the government was only too anxious to get out[754] of the mess in which it found itself, and the little by-play which was resorted to harmed nobody and secured at least a temporary respite.
"To gain the support of the Catholics against the anarchical elements which were everywhere revealing themselves," says the Cambridge History (XI, 34) "Guizot had tolerated the unauthorized Congregations. This had the immediate consequence of concentrating popular attention upon those religious passions whose existence the populace, if left to itself, might have forgotten. Even the colleagues of Guizot, such as Villemain and the editors of the "Journal des Débats," the leading ministerial organ, began by declaring that they saw everywhere the finger of the Jesuits. In each party, men's minds were so divided on the subject of the Jesuits or rather that of educational liberty which was so closely linked with it, that nothing of immediate gravity to the Government would for the moment arise." Liberals, or rather Republicans, such as Quinet and Michelet, in their lectures at the Collège de France took up the alarm and spread it broadcast.
Bournichon in his "Histoire d'un Siècle," (II, 492) calls attention to the fact that this attack was apparently against the Jesuits, but in reality against the Church. The "Revue Indépendante" did not hesitate to make the avowal that "Jesuitism is only a formula which has the merit of uniting all the popular hatred for what is odious and retrograde in a degenerate religion." Cousin started the hue and cry, in this instance, and Thureau-Dangin in his "Histoire de la monarchie de Juillet" (p. 503-10) says that "Quinet and Michelet transformed their courses into bitter and spiteful diatribes against the Jesuits. Both were hired for the work, and did not speak from conviction." "Quinet," says Bournichon (II, 494) "was quite[755] indifferent to religious matters and had passed for a harmless thinker and dreamer up to that moment. As for Michelet, he had obtained his position in the Ecole Normale from Mgr. Frayssinous, yet he forgot his benefactor, and maintained that not only the Jesuits but Christianity was an obstacle to human progress; paganism or even fetichism was preferable, and Christ had to be dethroned."
Guizot removed Villemain from the office of Minister of public instruction and reprimanded Michelet and Quinet. Then Thiers seized the occasion to denounce Guizot for favoring the religious congregations and succeeded in defeating the minister's measure for educational freedom. It was at this stage that Guizot sent his envoy Rossi to Rome to induce Pope Gregory XVI to recall the Jesuits so as to extricate the French government from its difficulty. The Pope refused, as we have seen, and Father Roothaan merely gave orders to the members of the Society in France to make themselves less conspicuous.
In 1847 Gioberti published his "Gesuita Moderno" which unfortunately had the effect of creating in the minds of the Italian clergy a deep prejudice against the Society. Gioberti was a priest and a professor of theology. He first taught Rosminianism, and then opposed it. Under the pen-name of "Demofilo" or the "People's Friend" he wrote articles for Mazzini in the "Giovane Italia," and was the author of "Del Buono" and "Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani." His first attack on the Society appeared in 1845 in the "Prolegomeni al Primato;" "Il Gesuita Moderno," a large sized pamphlet full of vulgar invective, appeared in 1847. It was followed in 1848 by the "Apologia del Gesuita Moderno." He was answered by Father Curci. Deserting Mazzini, Gioberti espoused the cause of King Charles Albert, and[756] founded a society to propagate the idea of a federated Italy with the King of Piedmont at its head. His last book, "Rinnovamento civile d'Italia" showed him to be the enemy of the temporal power of the papacy. His philosophy is a mixture of pantheistic ontology, rationalism, platonism and traditionalism. Though a revolutionist, he denied the sovereignty of the people. His complete works fill thirty-five volumes.
Of course the Society felt the shock of the Italian Revolution of 1848. Gioberti's writing had excited all Italy and as a consequence the Jesuit houses were abandoned. At Naples, the exiles were hooted as they took ship for Malta; they were mobbed in Venice and Piedmont. The General Father Roothaan left Rome on April 28 in company with a priest and a lay-brother, and as he stood on the deck at Genoa, he heard the cry from the shore, "You have Jesuits aboard; throw them overboard." There was nothing surprising in all this, however, for Rossi, the Pope's prime minister, was stabbed to death while mounting the steps of the Cancelleria. On the following day, the Pope himself was besieged in the Quirinal; Palma, a Papal prelate, was shot while standing at a window; and finally on November 24, Pope Pius fled in disguise to Gaeta.
In Austria, the Jesuits were expelled in the month of April. The community of Innsbruck, which is in the Tyrol, held together for some time, but finally drifted off to France or America or Australia or elsewhere. The emperor signed the decree on May 7, 1848. It applied also to Galicia, Switzerland, and Silesia, and the Jesuit houses all disappeared in those parts.
What happened to the Jesuits in France in the meantime? Nothing whatever. They had obeyed the[757] General in 1845, and had simply kept their activities out of sight. They did not wait for the Revolution, and hence although the "Journal des Débats," announced officially, on October 18, 1845, that "at the present moment there are no more Jesuits in France," there were a great many. Indeed, the catalogues of 1846 and 1847 were issued as usual, not in print, however, but in lithograph, and as if they felt perfectly free in 1848, the catalogue of that year appeared in printed form. Meantime de Ravignan was giving conferences in Notre-Dame, and preaching all over the country. The only change the Fathers made was to transport two of their establishments beyond the frontiers. Thus a college was organized at Brugelette in Belgium and a novitiate at Issenheim. The scholasticate of Laval continued as usual. What was done in the province of Paris was identical with that of Lyons. For a year or so the catalogues were lithographed but after that they appeared in the usual form.
For two years Father Roothaan journeyed from place to place through France, Belgium, Holland, England, and Ireland, and in 1850 returned to Rome. The storm had spent itself, and the ruins it had caused were rapidly repaired, at least in France, where the Falloux Law, which was passed in 1850, permitted freedom of education, and the Fathers hastened to avail themselves of the opportunity to establish colleges throughout the country.
Elsewhere, however, other conditions prevailed. In 1851 there was a dispersion in Spain; in 1859 the provinces of Venice and Turin were disrupted and the members were distributed through the fifteen other provinces of the Society. In 1860 the arrival of Garibaldi had already made an end of the Jesuits in Naples and Sicily. The wreckage was considerable,[758] and from a complaint presented to King Victor Emmanuel by Father Beckx, it appears that the Society had lost three establishments in Lombardy; in Modena, six; in Sardinia, eleven; in Naples, nineteen, and in Sicily, fifteen. Fifteen hundred Jesuits had been expelled from their houses, as if they had been criminals, and were thrown into public jails, abused and ill-treated. They were forbidden to accept shelter even from their most devoted friends, and the old and the infirm had to suffer like the rest. Nor were these outrages perpetrated by excited mobs, but by the authorities then established in Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Modena and elsewhere. "This appeal for justice and reparation for at least some of the harm done," said Father Beckx, "is placed, as it were, on the tomb of your ancestor Charles Emmanuel, who laid aside his royal dignity and entered the Society of Jesus as a lay-brother. He surely would not have embraced that manner of life if it were iniquitous." But it is not on record that Victor Emmanuel showed his appreciation of his predecessor's virtue by healing any of the wounds of the Society, whose garb Charles Emmanuel had worn.
The Jesuits of Venice had resumed work in their province, when in 1866 war was declared between Prussia and Austria. Sadowa shattered the Austrian forces, and though the Italians had been badly beaten at Custozzio, Venice was handed over to them by the treaty that ended the war. That meant of course another expulsion. Most of the exiles went to the Tyrol and Dalmatia. Then followed the dispersion of all the provinces of Italy except that of Rome.
The Spanish Jesuits had recovered somewhat from the dispersions of 1854, but, in 1868 just as the provincial congregations had concluded their sessions, a revolution broke out all over Spain. Many of the houses were attacked, but no personal injuries were[759] inflicted. After a while, a provisional government was established at Madrid which held the mob in check but made no pretence to restrain the attacks on priests and nuns. Indeed, it inaugurated a bitter persecution on its own account. The minister of justice issued a decree which not only ordered the Jesuits out of all Spain and the adjacent islands within three days, but forbade any Spaniard to join the Society, even in foreign parts. Of course all the property was confiscated. That was probably the chief motive of the whole procedure. The outcasts for the most part went to France, and a temporary novitiate was established in the territory known as Les Landes. They returned home after some time, but were expecting another expulsion in 1912 when the great war was threatening. Possibly the hideous scenes enacted in Portugal in 1912 were deemed sufficient by the revolutionists for the time being.
The expatriation of the Jesuits and other religious from Portugal which was decreed by the Republican government, on October 10, 1910, six days after the bombardment of the royal palace and the flight of King Manuel, is typical of the manner in which such demonstrations are made in Europe. We have an account of it from the Father provincial Cabral which we quote in part.
"After the press had been working up the populace for three years to the proper state of mind by stories of subterranean arsenals in the Jesuit colleges; the boundless wealth of the Fathers; their affiliated secret organizations; their political plots, etc., the colleges of Campolide and San Fiel were invaded. The occupants were driven out and led between lines of soldiers through a howling mob to the common jail. Those who had fled before the arrival of the soldiers were pursued across the fields with rifles, and when caught[760] were insulted, beaten and spat upon, and led like the others to prison. They had to eat out of the dishes with their hands, and at night sentinels stood over them with loaded rifles and warned the victims that if they got up they would be shot. Abandoned women were sent in among them, but those poor creatures soon withdrew. The prisoners were then transferred to Caixas where they slept on the floor. Twenty-three were confined in a space that could scarcely accommodate three. They were kept there for four days, and were not allowed to leave the room for any reason whatever, and were told that they would be kept in that condition until they began to rot, and that then some of their rich friends would buy them off. They were photographed, subjected to anthropometric examinations, and their finger prints taken, etc. They were then expelled from the country and forbidden ever to return. They had only the clothes on their backs, and had no money except what was given them by some friends; their colleges with their splendid museums and libraries were confiscated, and in this condition they set out, old and young, the sick and the strong, to ask shelter from their brethren in other lands. It was almost a return to the days of Pombal."
In Germany the Kulturkampf began in 1870, and in 1872 a decree was signed by the Kaiser, on June 14, 1872, expelling all members of the Society, and with them the Redemptorists, Lazarists, Fathers of the Holy Ghost, and the Society of the Sacred Heart. Some of the Jesuits went to Holland; others to England and America. Contrary to expectations, this act of tyranny did not harm the German province, for, whereas it then numbered only 775, it now (1920) has 1210 on its roll, of whom 664 are priests.
France had its horror in 1871, when on May 24 and 26, Fathers Olivaint, Ducoudray, Caubert, Clerc[761] and de Bengy were shot to death by the Communists, who were then in possession of Paris. It was not, however, a rising against the Jesuits. There were fifty-seven victims in all: priests, religious and seculars, were immolated. At their head, was the venerable Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Darboy. Again, on March 29, 1880, a decree issued by Jules Ferry brought about a new dispersion and the substitution of staffs of non-religious teachers in the Jesuit colleges. The law was not enforced, however, and little by little the Fathers returned to their posts. Then followed the law of Waldeck-Rousseau in 1901 against unauthorized congregations, which closed all their houses, for these religious declined to apply for authorization which they knew would be refused, or if not, would be used to oppress them. The communities were, therefore, scattered in various houses of Europe. The last blow was the summons sent to all parts of the world for every Frenchman not exempt from military service to take part in the great World War, as chaplains, hospital aids or common soldiers.
The simultaneity as well as the similarity in the methods of executing these multiplied expulsions show clearly enough that they were not accidental but part of a universal war against the Church. Thus, at the other ends of the earth, similar outrages were being committed. When, for instance, the Conservatives fell from power in Colombia, South America, in 1850, the Jesuits were expelled. They went from there to Ecuador and Guayaquil, but were left unmolested only for a year. In 1861 they were re-admitted, and soon had fifty mission stations and had succeeded in converting 10,000 natives to the faith. But Garcia Moreno who had invited them was assassinated, and forthwith they were expelled. A second time they were recalled, but remained only from 1883 to 1894, and from there they[762] returned to Colombia where they are at present. In Argentina, whither they were summoned in 1836, their houses were closed in 1841. They entered Paraguay in 1848, where the old Society had achieved such triumphs, but were allowed to remain there only three years. They asked the Chilian government to let them evangelize the fierce Araucanian savages, but this was refused. At the death of the dictator Rosas in 1873, they again went to Argentina and have not since been disturbed. They have had the same good fortune in Chile.
A different condition of things, however, obtained in Brazil. In the very year that Rosas died in Argentina, 1873, the Jesuit College of Olinda in Brazil was looted and the Fathers expelled. The reason was not that the Jesuits were objectionable but that the bishop had suspended a young ecclesiastic who was a Freemason. The College of Pernambuco was wrecked by a mob, and one of the priests was dangerously wounded. Worse treatment was meted out to them when the Emperor, Don Pedro, was deposed in 1889. Since then, however, there has been comparatively no trouble.
Of course, when the Piedmontese broke down the Porta Pia the Jesuits had to leave Rome, where until then they had been undisturbed. The novitiate of S. Andrea was the first to be seized; then St. Eusebio, the house of the third probation, and after that, St. Vitalis, the Gesù, and finally the Roman College. The occupants had three months to vacate the premises. The other religious orders whose general or procurator resided at Rome could retain one house for the transaction of business but that indulgence was not granted to the Jesuits. Their General was not to remain, and hence Father Peter Beckx, though then seventy-eight years old, had to depart with his brethren for Fiesole, where he was received in the family of the Counts of Ricasole[763] on November 9, 1873. From that place he governed the Society until the year 1884, when he was succeeded by Father Anthony Anderledy, who remained in the same city until he died. Father Luis Martín, the next General, returned to Rome in 1893, so that Fiesole was the centre of the Society for twenty years.
As the chief representative of Christ on Earth is the most prominent victim of these spoliations, and as he has been frequently driven into exile and is at present only tolerated in his own territory, the Society of Jesus with the other religious orders cannot consider it a reproach but rather a glory to be treated like him. How does the Society survive all these disasters? It continues as if nothing had happened, and one reads with amazement the statement of Father General Wernz at the meeting of the procurators held in September and October 1910, when in a tone that is almost jubilant he congratulates the Society on its "flourishing condition." He said in brief:
"There are five new provinces; a revival of the professed houses; new novitiates, scholasticates, tertianships and courses in the best colleges for students of special subjects; and a superior course for Jesuit students of canon law in the Gregorian University. Next year there are to be accommodations for 300 theologians (boarders) at Innsbruck, which institution will be a Collegium Maximum for philosophy, theology and special studies. The novitiate is to be moved to the suburbs of Vienna. In the province of Galicia sufficient ground has been bought to make the College of Cracow similar to Innsbruck, and a beautiful church is being built there. The province of Germany though dispersed has built in Holland an immense novitiate and house of retreats and the Luxemburg house of writers is to be united to the Collegium Maximum of Valkenburg. The Holland province[764] has more diplomated professors than any other in the Society, and is about to build a new scholasticate. Louvain is becoming more and more a house of special studies. In England, the Campion house at Oxford is continuing its success and there is question of moving St. Beuno's. The Irish province is looking for another site for the novitiate and juniorate, and is using the University to form better teachers. Canada is looking for another place for its novitiate and so are Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, while Maryland is trying to put its scholasticate near New York.
"Not much remains to be done in Spain. However, Toledo has established a scholasticate in Murcia, and Aragon is planning one for Tarragona. France is dispersed, but it has furnished excellent professors for the Biblical Institute and the Gregorian University. In the mission of Calcutta, 130,000 pagans have been brought to the Faith and in one Chinese mission, 12,000. The numbers could be doubled if there were more workers." This was in 1910, and within a week of this pronouncement, the expulsion in Portugal took place; in 1914 the war broke out which shattered Belgium and made France more wretched than ever. What the future will be no one knows.
[765]
CHAPTER XXVI
MODERN MISSIONS
During the Suppression — Roothaan's appeal — South America — The Philippines — United States Indians — De Smet — Canadian Reservations — Alaska — British Honduras — China — India — Syria — Algeria — Guinea — Egypt — Madagascar — Mashonaland — Congo — Missions depleted by World War — Actual number of missionaries.Besides its educational work, the Society of Jesus has always been eager for desperate and daring work among savages. At the time of the Suppression, namely in 1773 three thousand of its members were so employed; and the ruthless and cruel separation from those abandoned human beings was one of the darkest and gloomiest features of the tragedy. To all human appearances millions of heathens were thus hopelessly lost. Happily the disaster was not as great as was anticipated. In his "Christian Missions" Marshall says: — It would almost seem as if God had resolved to justify his servants by a special and marvellous Providence before the face of the whole world, and had left their work to what seemed inevitable ruin and decay only to show that neither the world nor the devil, neither persecution, nor fraud nor neglect could extinguish the life that was in it. And so when they came to look upon it, after sixty years of silence and desolation they found a living multitude where they expected to count only the corpses of the dead. Some indeed had failed, and paganism or heresy had sung its song of triumph over the victims; others had retained only the great truths of the Trinity and the Incarnation while ignorance and its twin sister, superstition, had spread a veil over their eyes, but still[766] the prodigious fact was revealed that in India alone that there were more than one million natives who, after half a century of abandonment, still clung with constancy to the faith which had been preached to their fathers, and still bowed the head with loving awe when the names of their departed apostles were uttered amongst them. Such is the astonishing conclusion of a trial without parallel in the history of Christianity, and which if it had befallen the Christians of other lands, boasting their science and civilization, might perhaps have produced other results than among the despised Asiatics. The natural inference would be that besides this special Providence in their regard these neophytes had been well trained by their old masters (I, 246).
For a time, of course, there were some Jesuits who lingered on the missions in spite of the government's orders to the contrary. Thus we find a very distinguished man, a Tyrolese from Bolzano, who died at Lucknow on July 5, 1785. His name was Joseph Tiffenthaller and he had lived forty years in Hindostan. His tombstone, we are told, may be still seen in the cemetery of Agra where they laid his precious remains. He was a man of unusual ability and besides speaking his native tongue was familiar with Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hindustanee, Arabic, Persian and Sanscrit. He was the first European who wrote a description of Hindostan. It is a detailed account of the twenty-two Provinces of India, with their cities, towns, fortresses, whose geographical situations were all calculated by means of a simple quadrant. The work contains a large number of maps, plans and sketches drawn by himself and the list of places fills twenty-one quarto pages. He also made a large atlas of the basin of the Ganges, and is the author of a treatise on the regions in which the rivers of India[767] rise; a map of the Gagra which Bernoulli calls "a work of enormous labor" is another part of Tiffenthaller's relics.
In the field of religion he wrote books on "Brahmanism," "Indian Idolatry," "Indian Asceticism," "The religion of the Parsees and Mohammedanism with their relations to each other." He also published his astronomical observations on the sun-spots, on the zodiacal light, besides discussions on the astrology and cosmology of the Hindus, with descriptions of the flora and the fauna of the country. He was besides all that an historian, and has left us an account in Latin of the origin and religion of the Hindus, another in German of the expedition of Nadir Shah to India; a third in Persian about the deeds of the Great Mogul, Alam, and a fourth in French which tells of the incursions of the Afghans and the capture of Delhi, together with a contemporary history of India for the years 1757-64. In linguistics, he wrote a Parsee-Sanscrit lexicon and treatises in Latin on the Parsee language, the pronunciation of Latin, etc., He was held in the highest esteem by the scientific societies of Europe with which he was in communication. During the greater part of his life in India, the struggle was going on between the French and English for the possession of the Peninsula.
Of course he was not alone in India, at that time, for Bertrand tells us in his "Notions sur l' Inde et les missions" (p. 30) that "the Jesuits had a residence at Delhi as late as 1790", but, unfortunately, he could say nothing more about them. It is very likely, however, that when Pombal's agents attempted to crowd the 127 Jesuits who were at work in the various districts of Hindostan into a ship which had accommodations — and such accommodations — for only forty or fifty, many of them had perforce to be left behind,[768] or perhaps failed to report at the place of embarcation. By keeping out of Goa, they could easily elude the pursuivants. The jungle, for instance, was a convenient hiding place. However, as they received no recruits the work went to pieces when the old heroes died, so that there were, most likely, no Jesuits there at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was just at this time, that England took possession of the greater part of Hindostan and, as a consequence, the country was soon swarming with Protestant parsons of every sect, eager to fill their depleted ranks with new converts from the East.
Marshall had been employed to report on their success, but as every one knows, the investigation brought him to the Church. His researches furnish very reliable and interesting information about the conditions prevailing in those parts among the old proselytes of the Jesuits. Quoting from the "Madras Directory" of 1857, he shows that in the Missions of Madura, founded by de Nobili, there were still 150,000 Catholics, and in Verapoli as many as 300,000, with an accession of 1000 converts from Mohammedanism every year. Nor were these Hindus merely nominal Christians. Bertrand who knew India thoroughly, writing in 1838, says of the Sanars: "One might almost say that they have not eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil with Adam, and that they were created in the days of original innocence. Among these Hindus there are numbers who when asked whether they commit this or that sin, answer: 'Formerly I did, but that is many years ago. I told it to the Father, and he forbade me to do it. Since then I have not committed it.' We reckon more than 7000 Christians of this caste." Father Garnier, S. J. wrote in the same year as follows: "The Christians of this country are, in general, well disposed and strongly[769] attached to the Faith. The usages introduced among them by the Jesuits still subsist; morning prayer in common, an hour before sunrise; evening prayer with spiritual reading; catechism for the children every day given by a catechist; Mass on Sunday in the chapel. But in spite of these excellent practices there still remains much ignorance and superstition, and we shall have a good deal to do to form them into a people of true Christians before we turn our attention to the pagans. We shall do that when we are more numerous."
Of course these testimonies of Jesuits may be rejected by some people, but the Protestant missionaries in Hindostan, at that time, leave no room for doubt about the actual conditions. Buchanan, for instance, who was particularly conspicuous among his fellows and was greatly extolled in England says: "There are in India members of the Church of Rome who deserve the affection and respect of all good men. From Cape Commorin to Cochin, there are about one hundred churches on the seashore alone. Before each is a lofty cross which like the church itself is seen from a great distance. At Jaffna, on Sundays, about a thousand or twelve hundred people attend church and on feast days three thousand and upward. At Manaar they are all Romish Christians. At Tutycorin, the whole of the tribe, without exception, are Christians in the Romish Communion. Before they hoist sail to go out to sea, a number of boatmen all join in prayer to God for protection. Every man at his post, with the rope in his hands, pronounces the prayer."
One of these parsons who bore the very inappropriate name of Joseph Mullens and whose writing is usually a shriek against the Church says that "in 1854, the Jesuit and Roman Catholic missions are spread very widely through the Madras Presidency. At Pubna there is a population of 13,000 souls. It is all due to[770] the Catholic missionaries. I allow that they dress simply, eat plainly and have no luxuries at home; they travel much; are greatly exposed; live poorly, and toil hard, and I have heard of a bishop living in a cave on fifty rupees a month, and devoutly attending the sick when friends and relatives had fled from fear. But all that is much easier on the principles of a Jesuit who is supported by motives of self-righteousness than it is to be a faithful minister on the principles of the New Testament."
The bloody persecution of 1805 in China showed how fervent and strong those Christians were in their faith. Very few apostatized, though new and terrible punishments were inflicted on them. Dr. Wells Williams, a Protestant agent in China, says that "many of them exhibited the greatest constancy in their profession, suffering persecution, torture, banishment and death, rather than deny their faith, though every inducement of prevarication and mental reservation was held out to them by the magistrates, in order to avoid the necessity of proceeding to extreme measures." It came to an end only when it was discovered that Christianity had even entered the royal family, and that the judges were sometimes trying their own immediate relatives. In 1815, however, the very year that the Protestant missionaries arrived in China the persecution broke out again. Bishop Dufresse was one of the victims, and when the day of execution arrived he with thirty-two other martyrs ascended the scaffold. In 1818 many were sent to the wastes of Tatary, and 1823 when pardon was offered to all who would renounce their faith, after suffering in the desert for five years only five proved recreant. In the midst of all this storm one of the missionaries reported that he had baptized one hundred and six adults.
[771] That a great many Chinese had remained faithful Catholics during the long period which had elapsed after the Suppression was manifested by a notable event recorded by Brou in "Les Jésuites Missionaires."
"On November 1, 1903," he writes, "a funeral ceremony took place in Zikawei, a town situated about six miles from Shanghai. It was more like the triumph of a great hero than an occasion of mourning. The people were in a state of great enthusiasm about it, and assembled in immense throngs around the tomb of the illustrious personage whose glories were being celebrated. The object of these honors was Paul Zi or Sin, a literary celebrity in his day, the prime minister of an emperor in the long past, and one of the first converts of the famous Father Ricci, whom he had aided with lavish generosity in building churches and in establishing the Faith in the neighborhood of Shanghai.
"The celebration of 1903 was the third centenary of his baptism, and all his relations or descendants who were very numerous, had gathered at Zikawei for the occasion. Among them, the Fathers discovered a great number of Christians who had remained true to the teachings of the Church during those 300 years; and there were many others throughout the country who resembled the Zi family in this particular. In Paul's district, that is in the neighborhood of Shanghai, there were, 60 years after the baptism of the great man, as many as 40,000 Christians, and in 1683 the number had risen to 800,000, but a century later the persecutions had cut them down to 30,000 though doubtless there were many who had succeeded in concealing themselves."
With Cochin the Jesuits never had anything to do, except that their great hero, de Rhodes, was its first[772] successful missionary in former days. It was at his suggestion that the Society of the Missions Etrangères was founded and took up the work which the Jesuits were unable to carry on alone.
About Corea, Marshall furnishes us with two very interesting facts. The first is that England had the honor of giving a martyr to Corea, the English Jesuit, Thomas King, who died there in 1788, that is fifteen years after the Suppression. Unfortunately the name "King" does not appear in Foley's "Records."
The second is vouched for by the "Annales" (p. 190) which relate that a French priest, known as M. de Maistre, had for ten years vainly endeavored to enter the forbidden kingdom and had spent 60,000 francs in roaming around its impenetrable frontier. He assumed all sorts of disguises, faced every kind of danger in his journeys from the ports of China to the deserts of Leao-tong, asking alternately the Chinese junks and the French ships to put him ashore somewhere on the coast. Death was so evidently to be the result of his enterprise that the most courageous seaman refused to help him. It required the zeal of an apostle to comprehend this heroism and to second its endeavors. Father Hélot, being a priest, understood what the Cross required of him, and as a member of a society whose tradition is that they have never been baffled by any difficulties or perils, felt himself at the post where his Company desired him to be. The Jesuit becomes the pilot of a battered ship, safely conducts his intrepid passenger to an unknown land, and having deposited him on the shore, looked after him for a while and returned to his neophytes with the consoling satisfaction of having exposed his life for a mission that was not his own.
From the Catalogues of the Society, we find that Louis Hélot was born on January 29, 1816. He was[773] a novice at St. Acheul, in 1835, and in the same house there happened to be a certain Isidore Daubresse, not a novice, however, but a theologian who was well-known later on in New York. The master of novices was Ambrose Rubillon who was subsequently assistant of the General for France. By 1850 Hélot was in China and spent the rest of his life hunting after souls in the region of Nankin. He died sometime after 1864. De Maistre succeeded in entering the country and we find him waiting one Good Friday night to welcome the first bishop who had three priests with him, one of whom was a Jesuit.
Before the re-establishment the few Jesuits in White Russia had kept up the missionary traditions of the Society. Their missions extended all along the Volga and they were at Odessa in 1800. In 1801, thanks to the Emperor Paul's intercession, they had returned to their ancient posts on the Ægean Islands, which were in the dominions of the Grand Turk; by 1806 they had reached Astrakhan; and in 1810 were in the Caucasus. Before Father Grassi came to America, he was studying in St. Petersburg to prepare himself for the missions of Astrakhan.
In America, in spite of the Suppression, the work of the old Jesuits did not fail to leave its traces. Thus in Brazil where Nobrega and Anchieta once labored, over 800,000 domesticated Indians now represent the fruit of their toil. Deprived during sixty years of their fathers and guides and too often scandalized by men who are Christians only in name, the native races have not only preserved the Faith through all their sorrows and trials, but every where rejected the bribes and promises of heresy. In that vast region, which stretches from the mouth of the San Francisco to the Isthmus of Panama, watered by the mightiest rivers of our globe, and including the district of the Amazon[774] with its 45,000 miles of navigable water communication, "the natives who still find shelter in its forests or guide their barks over its myriad streams," says a Protestant writer, "push their profession of the Catholic religion even to the point of fanaticism."
The Paraguayans of course could be counted upon not to forget their fathers in Christ. Both Sir Woodbine Parish and d'Orbigny testify that the effects of the preponderating influence of the monastic establishments are still visible in the habits of the generality of the people. One thing is certain, they say, and ought to be declared to the praise of the Fathers, that since their expulsion the material prosperity of Paraguay has diminished; many lands formerly cultivated have ceased to be so; many localities formerly inhabited present at this day only ruins. What ought to be confessed is this — that they knew how to engrave with such power, on their hearts, reverence for authority that even to this very hour the tribes of Paraguay beyond all those who inhabit this portion of America are the most gentle and the most submissive to the dictates of duty.
In "La Compañía de Jesús en las Republicas del Sur de America," Father Hernández tells us that there were three former Jesuits in Chile at the beginning of the nineteenth century: Father Caldera, Vildaurre and Carvajal. The first two died respectively in 1818 and 1822, the date of Carvajal's demise is not known, nor is there any information available as to whether or not they ever re-entered the Society. In the old Province of Paraguay, there was a Father Villafañe who was seventy-four years old in 1814. Hearing of the re-establishment, he wrote to the Pope asking to renew his vows when "in danger of death." The request, of course, was granted but he continued to live till the year 1830. Whether he waited till then[775] to renew his vows has not been found out. In that same year there died in Buenos Aires an Irish Jesuit named Patrick Moran. His name is inscribed not only on the headstone over his remains, in the Recolta graveyard, but on a slab inserted in the wall of the church. He was probably a chaplain in some distinguished family or what was more likely exercising his ministry in the Irish colony of that place.
Coming to the northern part of the hemisphere we are told by Mr. Russell Bartlett that the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, the fishermen and pearl divers of California are invariably honest, faithful and industrious. They were among the first to be converted by the Jesuits. Originally extremely warlike, their savage nature was completely subdued on being converted to Christianity, and they became the most docile and tractable of people. They are now very populous in the southern part of Sonora.
Anyone who has visited the Abenakis at Old Town in Maine, or La Jeune Lorette in Quebec, or Caughnawaga on the St. Lawrence, or the Indian settlements at Wekwemikong and Killarney on Lake Huron will testify to the excellent results of the teachings implanted in their hearts by the old Jesuit missionaries who reclaimed them from savagery.
A most remarkable example of this fidelity to their former teachers was afforded by the Indians of Caughnawaga. They were mostly Iroquois from New York who after their conversion to the Faith were sent or went, of their own accord, to the Christian village that was assigned to them above Montreal. Long after the Suppression of the Society, namely in the first third of the nineteenth century, a party of these Indians headed by two chiefs with the significant names of Ignace and François Régis tramped almost completely across the continent, and without the aid[776] of a priest, for none could be got, converted an entire tribe to Christianity and did it in such wonderful fashion that the first white men who visited these converts were amazed at the purity, honesty, self-restraint and piety that reigned in the tribe. Over and over again, Ignace travelled down to St. Louis, thus making a journey of two thousand miles each time to beg for a Black Robe from the poor missionary bishop who had none to give him. The devoted Ignace, at last, lost his life in pursuance of his apostolic purpose. He fell among hostile Indians, and though he might have escaped, for he was dressed as a white man, he confessed himself an Iroquois and died with his people.
Father Fortis, the first General after the re-establishment of the Society, was rather averse to any missionary enterprise for the time being, because he judged that he had not as yet any available men for such perilous work. Father Roothaan, his immediate successor, was of a different opinion, and when in 1833, he appealed for missionaries the response was immediate. Hence Bengal was begun in 1834; Madura, Argentina and Paraguay in 1836, and the Rocky Mountains and China in 1840. In 1852 at the request of Napoleon III the penal colony of French Guinea was accepted as were the offers of Fernando Po in Africa and the Philippines from Queen Isabella of Spain.
The Spanish missions in Latin America were the least successful of any in the Society. The Fathers were debarred from any communication with the native tribes, even those formerly Christianized and civilized by them, or if permission were granted it was soon under some frivolous pretext or other rescinded, as we have mentioned above.
The Belgian Jesuits went to Guatemala in 1843, but only after considerable trouble was their existence assured by a government Act, in 1851. In 1871,[777] however, they were expelled and withdrew to Nicaragua, from which they were driven in 1884. The Brazilian Mission was inaugurated by the Jesuits whom Rosas had exiled from Argentina. They were acceptable because priests were needed in the devastated Province of Rio Grande do Sul, which had been the theatre of an unsuccessful war of independence. Of course, the usual government methods in vogue in that part of the world were resorted to.
The suppression of the Society wrought havoc in the Philippines, and we are told that in 1836 as many as 6000 people were carried off into slavery by Mohammedan pirates, a disaster that would have probably been prevented had the missionaries been left there. They would have made soldiers out of the natives as they did in Paraguay. It was only in 1859 that they returned to that field of work. They resumed their educational labors in Manila and at the same time evangelized Mindanao with wonderful success. In 1881 there were on that island 194,134 Christians and in 1893, 302,107. Inside of thirty-six years, the Fathers had brought 57,000 Filipinos to the Faith and established them in Reductions as in Paraguay. Great success was also had with the Moros, who were grouped together in three distinct villages. The Spanish War brought its disturbances, but little by little the Jesuits recovered what they had lost and there are at present 162 members of the province of Aragon at work in the Islands.
In the United States, the native races have largely disappeared except in the very far West. With the remnants, the Jesuits are, of course, concerned, and perhaps the most reliable official estimate of the success they have achieved was expressed by Senator Vest during the discussion of the Indian Appropriation Bill before the United States Senate in 1900:
[778] "I was raised a Protestant," he said; "I expect to die one. I was never in a Catholic church in my life, and I have not the slightest sympathy with many of its dogmas; but above all I have no respect for the insane fear that the Catholic Church is about to overturn this Government. I should be ashamed to call myself an American if I indulged in any such ignorant belief. I said that I was a Protestant. I was reared in the Scotch Presbyterian Church; my father was an elder in it and my earliest impressions were that the Jesuits had horns and hoofs and tails, and that there was a faint tinge of sulphur in the circumambient air whenever one of them crossed your path. Some years ago I was assigned by the Senate to examine the Indian schools in Wyoming and Montana. I visited every one of them. I wish to say now what I have said before in the Senate and it is not the popular side of the question by any means, that I did not see in all my journey a single school that was doing any educational work worthy of the name educational work, unless it was under the control of the Jesuits. I did not see a single Government school, especially day schools where there was any work done at all. The Jesuits have elevated the Indian wherever they have been allowed to do so without the interference of bigotry and fanaticism and the cowardice of politicians. They have made him a Christian, have made him a workman able to support himself and those dependent on him. Go to the Flathead Reservation in Montana, and look at the work of the Jesuits and what do you find? Comfortable dwellings, herds of cattle and horses, self-respecting Indians. I am not afraid to say this, because I speak from personal observation, and no man ever went among these Indians with more intense prejudice than I had when I left the city of Washington to perform that duty.[779] Every dollar you give to the Government day schools might as well be thrown into the Potomac under a ton of lead." (Congressional Records, Apl. 7, 1900, p. 7. 4120.)
The most conspicuous of the missionaries among the North American Indians is Father Peter de Smet. He was born in Dendermonde on the Scheldt, and was twelve years old when the booming of the cannons of Waterloo startled the little town. He came out to Maryland in 1821 and after remaining for a short time at Whitemarsh in the log cabin which then sheltered the novices of the Province of Maryland, set out on foot with a party of young Jesuits for the then Wild West. They walked from Whitemarsh to Wheeling, a distance of 400 miles, and then went in flat boats down the Ohio to Shawneetown and from there proceeded again on foot to St. Louis. It was a journey of a month and a half.
His first work was among the Pottawotamis, and then he was sent to the wonderful Flatheads, whom the Iroquois from Caughnawaga had converted. From that time forward his life was like a changing panorama. In the story, there are Indians of every kind who come before us. Gros Ventres and Flatheads and Pottawotamis, and Pend d'Oreilles and Sioux; their incantations and cannibalism and dances and massacres and disgusting feasts are described; there are scenes in the Bad Lands and mountains and forests; there are tempests in the mid-Pacific and more alarming calms; there are councils with Indian chiefs, and interviews with Popes and presidents and kings and ambassadors and archbishops and great statesmen and Mormon leaders, always and exclusively in the interests of the Church. The great man's life has been written in four volumes by two admiring Protestants, and another biography has lately come from the pen of a[780] Belgian Jesuit. In them appears an utterance from Archbishop Purcell about the hero, which deserves to be quoted. "Never," he says, "since the days of Xavier, Brébeuf, Marquette and Lalemant has there been a missionary more clearly pointed out and called than Father de Smet." Thurlow Weed, one of the most conspicuous American statesmen of the day, said of him: "No white man knows the Indians as Father de Smet nor has any man their confidence to the same degree." Thomas H. Benton wrote to him in 1852: "You can do more for the welfare of the Indians in keeping them at peace and friendship with the United States than an army with banners."
Again and again he was sent by the government to pacify the Indians. His mission in 1868 was particularly notable. Sitting Bull was on the warpath and was devastating the whole regions of the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone. They were called for a parley, and de Smet went out alone among the painted warriors. He held a banner of the Blessed Virgin in his hand and pleaded so earnestly with them to forget the past, that they went down into the very midst of the United States troops and signed the treaty of peace that brought 50,000 Indians to continue their allegiance to the government. De Smet in his journeys had crossed the ocean nineteen times and had travelled 180,000 miles by sailing vessels, river barges, canoes, dogsleds, snow shoes, wagons, or on horseback or on foot. "We shall never forget," said General Stanley of the United States Army — and this eulogy of the great man will suffice — "nor shall we ever cease to admire the disinterested devotion of Reverend Father de Smet who at the age of sixty-eight years did not hesitate, in the midst of the summer heat, to undertake a long and perilous journey across the burning plains, destitute of trees and even of grass, having none but[781] corrupted and unwholesome water, constantly exposed to scalping by Indians, and this without seeking honor or remuneration of any sort but solely to arrest the shedding of blood, and save, if it might be, some lives and preserve some habitations."
In Canada, the Indian reservation of La Jeune Lorette, which was established in the early days by Father Chaumonot, is now directed by the secular clergy of Quebec. The Caughnawaga settlement near Montreal was, of course, lost to the Society at the time of the Suppression, but of late years has been restored to its founders. The Canadian Jesuits also look after the Indians of Lakes Huron and Superior. Their latest undertaking is in Alaska which began by a tragedy.
The saintly Bishop Charles John Seghers, who was coadjutor to the Bishop of Oregon, had himself transferred to the See of Vancouver in order to devote his life to the savages of Alaska. In 1886 when he asked the Jesuits to come to his assistance, Fathers Tosi and Robaut were assigned to the work. In July, the bishop, the two Jesuits and a hired man started over the Chilcoot Pass for the headwaters of the Yukon. It was decided that the two Jesuits should spend the winter at the mouth of the Stewart River, while the Bishop with his man hastened to a distant post to forestall the members of a sect, who contemplated establishing a post at the same place. During the terrible 1,100 mile journey the servant became insane and in the dead of night killed the bishop. The result was that new arrangements had to be made and Father Tosi was made prefect Apostolic in 1894. His health soon gave way under the terrible privations of the mission and he died in 1898, although only fifty-one years of age. He was succeeded by Father René of the Society who resigned in 1904, and the present incumbent Father Crimont, S. J., took his place.
[782] The condition of Alaska has greatly changed since the advent of the missionaries. The discovery of placer gold deposits with the influx of miners robbed a portion of Alaska of its primitive isolation. The invading whites had to be looked after, and hence there are resident Jesuit priests at Juneau, Douglas, Fairbanks, Nome, Skagway, St. Michael and Seward. A great number of posts are attended to from these centres. The Ten'a Indians and Esquimaux are the only natives whom the missionaries have been able to evangelize thus far. There is a training-school for them at Koserefsky, where the boys are taught gardening, carpentry and smithing of various kinds, and the girls are instructed in cooking, sewing and other household arts. This work is particularly trying not only because of the bodily suffering it entails, but because of the awful monotony and isolation of those desolate arctic regions. Some idea of it may be gathered from a few extracts taken from a letter of one of the missionaries. It is dated May 29, 1916.
"The Skúlarak district of 15,000 square miles, depending on St. Mary's Mission," says the writer, "is as large as a diocese. It has seventy or eighty villages. The whole country along the coast is a vast swamp covered with a net work of rivers, sloughs, lakes and ponds. There is only one inhabitant to every ten or twelve square miles. There is no question of roads except in winter and then as everything is deep in snow, it is impossible to tell whether one is going over land or lake or river. When we started the thermometer registered 28° below zero, Fahrenheit. We had nine dogs; but two were knocked out shortly after starting. Eleven hours travelling brought us to our first cabins. We rose next morning at five, said Mass on an improvised altar and set out southward. At noon we stopped for lunch, which consisted of frozen[783] bread and some tea from our thermo bottle. It was only at seven o'clock that we reached a little 'village' of three houses at the foot of the Kusilwak Mountains, which are two or three thousand feet high. They served as a guide to direct our course." At another stage of the journey he writes: "At sundown as we lost all hope of reaching any village we made for a faraway clump of brushwood intending to pass the night there. It is full moon and its rays light up an immaculate white landscape, there is a bright cloudless sky, and everything is so still that you cannot even breathe without a plainly audible sound."
What kind of people was he pursuing? Not very interesting in any way. "I came upon a new style of native dwelling, a low-roofed miserable hovel about twelve feet square; in the centre, a pit, about two and a half feet deep, was the sink and dumping ground for the refuse of the house. There we had to descend if we wanted the privilege of standing erect. That is where I placed myself to perform a baptism of the latest arrival of the family whom the mother held on her lap squatted on the higher ground which served as a bed. The habits of the natives cannot be described." "Our dogs were so exhausted," he says in the course of his narrative, "that they lay down at once without waiting to have their harness taken off. We fed them their ration of dry fish, they curled up in the snow and went to sleep. As for ourselves we tried to build a fire but could not succeed in boiling enough of melted snow for even a cup of tea; a box of sardines, the contents of which were so frozen that I had to chop them up with the prong of a fork constituted my royal supper. A hole was soon dug in the snow, by using the snow shoes for a shovel and a few sticks thrown in to prevent direct contact with the snow. I opened my bag of blankets, put on my fur parkey and tried[784] to keep the blankets around me to keep from freezing. After a couple of hours I felt my limbs getting numb, and I was compelled to crawl out and look around for a hard mound of snow where I began to execute a dance that would baffle the best orchestra. I jigged and clogged around for fifteen or twenty minutes, and feeling I was alive again sought my blankets once more, but the cold was too intense and I could only say a few prayers and make a peaceful application of the meditation 'de propriis peccatis.'
"Another time, after fruitlessly scanning the horizon for a sign of a village, we found ourselves compelled to pass the night in the open air. This time I constructed a scientific Pullman berth for myself. Selecting the leeward side of an ice block, I dug a trench in the snow, using the fire-pan as a shovel. I hewed out the pillow at the head and made the grave (indeed it looked like one) about two feet wide and two deep and my exact length. Stretching my cassock over it, with the snow shoes as a supporting rack, I crawled into it and passed a tolerably comfortable night, though I awoke dozens of times from the violent coughing that had stuck to me since my stay in Tumna. So it went on till April 8. We had been three weeks on the road. Never had the trip to Tumna lasted so long. This was due to the fact that the dogs were exhausted and we had to walk back for about 250 miles in the snow."
The missionaries of the old Society would recognize this light hearted modern American apostle as their brother.
Another example in a region which is the very opposite of Alaska will convince the skeptic that the modern Jesuit retains the old heroic spirit of the missions. This time we are in the deadly swamps and forests of British Honduras and the apostle there[785] is Father William Stanton of the Missouri province. As a scholastic he was teaching the dark skinned boys of Belize and incidentally gathering numberless specimens of tropical flora and fauna for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. From there he went to the other end of the earth and was put at scientific work in the Observatory at Manila. He was the first American priest ordained in the Philippines, and his initial ministerial work was to attend to the American soldiers, who were dying by scores of cholera. After that we find him again in Honduras, no longer in college but in the bush with about 800 Maya Indians, whose language he did not know but soon learned. He was still a naturalist but first of all he was absorbed in the care of the lazy and degraded Indians. His hut was made of sticks plastered with mud and thatched with palm leaves and he was all alone.
"Roads! Roads!" he writes, "they are simply unspeakable. It's only a little over nine miles from Benque Viejo to Cayo but it took me five hours to do it on horseback. Rain and the darkness caught me. It was so dark I could not see my horse's head but my Angel Guardian brought me through all right.... The only beasts that bother me are the garrapatas (ticks). I have to spend from an hour and a half to two hours picking them out of my flesh and my whole body is thickly peppered with blotchy sores where they have left their mark. But one can't expect to have everything his own way in this life even in the paradise of Benque. By the way, before I forget, would you try to send me a wash basin or bowl of glazed metal. I have nothing but the huge tin dishpan of the kitchen to wash my face in. It's a little inconvenient to scour the grease out every time I want to wash and I don't want to fall into real Spanish costumbres." His table was a packing case, his chair a box of[786] tinned goods, his bed four ropes and a mat woven of palm leaves. He had one cup, plate and saucer.
"I have forty stations to get around to, and I haven't a decent crucifix, or ciborium, and only one chalice. I am not squealing for my house but for the Lord's. My good little mud house is a palace, even if the pigs and goats of the village do break in now and then to make a meal off one's old boots or the scabbard of one's machete. My bush church is fine; same architecture as my house, only larger. In church, the men stand around the walls, while the women and children squat on the clay floor and the babies roll all over, garbed only in angelic innocence."
Of one of his journeys he writes: "I have just returned from a river trip, after being away from home thirty-one days moving about from place to place among my scattered people on the river banks and in the bush. My health was good until last week when I got a little stroke from the heat, followed by several days' fever which put me on my back for four days, but I am now myself again. Fortunately I had only three more days' journey, and with the help of my two faithful Indians I arrived safely at Benque." These "three days," though he does not say so, were days of torture, and his Indians wondered if they could get him back alive. "I am now back as far as Cayo, arriving at 1.30 this morning. Everything is flooded with mud and water. I must get a horse and get out to Benque today, as I hear Father Henneman is down with fever. I have ten miles more to make, and over a terrible road through the bush, with the horse up to his belly in mud and water most of the time; but with the Lord's help I hope to be safe at home before night. I have been away only a week, having made some hundred and sixty miles on horseback, the whole of it through a dense jungle. I had to cut[787] my way through with my machete, for the rank vegetation and hanging lianas completely closed the narrow trail."
He had gone out to visit a village and crossed a ford on the way. The river was high and the current strong. His horse was swept off his feet and Father Stanton slipped out of his saddle and swam beside the animal. Some quarter of a mile below there was a dangerous fall in the river, but they managed to reach the bank a hundred feet above the fall. He caught hold of a branch, but it broke and he was swept down the stream. With a prayer to his Guardian Angel he struck out for the deepest water and went over the fall. Some Indians near the bank saw the bearded white man go over the roaring cataract and they thought he was a wizard, but he went safely through, and then with long powerful strokes (he was a marvellous swimmer) he made for the bank. Then waving his hand to the startled Indians, he cut his way with his machete through the bush to look for his horse. Another time we find him returning after what he calls a "stiff trip," soaking wet all the time, for he had to swim across a swift river with boots and clothes on, he was all day in the saddle, was caught one night in the jungle in a swamp, pitch dark, knee deep in the mud — "Clouds of mosquitos and swarms of fiery ants had taken their fill of me," he writes, "while the blood sucking vampire bats lapped my poor horse. We got out all right and I had the consolation of being told by an Indian that three big tigers (jaguars) had been killed near the place last month."
On April 13, 1909, he says: "Just at present I am flat on my back with an attack of something, apparently acute articular rheumatism." He felt it, the first time while he was working in the garden. "I simply squirmed on the ground and screeched like a wild[788] Indian." And yet he starts off to Belize on horseback to see the doctor, which meant a distant journey of four days, and he had to sleep in the bush one night. From Belize he returned by water in a "pitpan," a freight boat for shallow rivers that can easily upset in the slightest current. That meant eight weary days without room even to stretch himself out at night; with no awning in the day to shield him from the sun and frequently drenched by torrential rains. In September he is following his horse through the mud of the jungle. In October he was sent for again by the doctor at Belize, and returns a second time to his mission which meant eight days in the forest alone.
Finally, Father Stanton was ordered home to St. Louis, and it was found that his whole body was ringed around with a monstrous growth of cancer. He died in intense agony, but never spoke of his sufferings. In his delirium he was talking about Honduras. Only once he said "I am so long a-dying." He finally expired on March 10, 1910. He had just completed his fortieth year, but his missionary work was equal to anything in the old Society.
When the Jesuits resumed work in China in 1841 they found that all over the country there were great numbers of natives who had kept the Faith in spite of the bitter persecutions to which they had been subjected during the absence of the missionaries. The Province of Kiang-nan, the capital of which is Nankin, and the city where Ricci began his apostolic labors, welcomed back the great man's brethren.
Kiang-nan is a territory half the size of France. In the west and south-west it is hilly, but the rest of it is an immense plain watered by the Yang-tse-Kiang and by countless lakes, streams and canals. It is marvellously fertile and furnishes a double crop every year. The rivers swarm with fish, and the[789] land with human beings. In it are many large cities such as Shanghai with its 650,000 inhabitants; Tchen-Kiang with 170,000, Odi-si with 200,000 and so on. Nankin is the residence of the viceroy, and was formerly the "Capital of the south," and the rival of Pekin, but later it had only 130,000 people within its walls. At present, however, it is reviving and is credited with three or four hundred thousand inhabitants. Before the Jesuits arrived, the country had been cared for by other religious orders, chiefly the Lazarists and the Fathers of the Missions Etrangères.
In the neighborhood of Shanghai, there were 48,000 Catholic Chinese who dated back through their ancestors to the time of the Jesuit missionaries of the seventeenth century. Perhaps four thousand more might have been found in the rest of the province, but they were submerged in the mass of 45,000,000 idolaters. The outlook on the whole was consoling, for the vicar Apostolic, Mgr. de Besi, had founded a seminary, which before 1907 furnished more than one hundred native priests. The work of the Holy Childhood was enthusiastically carried on, with the result that in the years 1847-48, 60,963 names appear on the baptismal registers. In 1849 the Jesuits had establishments at Nankin, Ousi and along the Grand Canal. That year, however, was made gloomy by floods, famine and sickness. Nevertheless the trials had the good result of compelling the erection of orphanages where the Faith could be taught without difficulty. In 1852 the revolt against the Manchu dynasty broke out, and in 1853 Nankin and Shanghai were sacked. Everything Christian disappeared in the general carnage; but in 1855 the imperial troops with the aid of the French Admiral Laguerre entered Shanghai, but Nankin and the provinces remained in the hands of the rebels.
[790] Certain ecclesiastical changes also occurred at that time. Pekin and Nankin disappeared as dioceses, and the province of Kiang-nan became a vicariate Apostolic, whose administration was entrusted to the Jesuits of Paris under Mgr. Borgniet. He was appointed in 1856. The vicariate of South-Eastern Tche-ly was given to the province of Champagne and Mgr. Languillat began his work there with three Fathers and 9,475 old Christians, the descendants of the neophytes of Pekin.
In 1860 the Chinese war broke out and the Taipings availed themselves of it for another rising. The English and French, who were fighting the emperor, held different opinions about what to do with the rebels, and finally contented themselves with defending Shanghai; leaving the rest of the country to be ravaged at will. Father Massa was thrown into prison and was about to be executed, but contrived to make his escape. His brother Louis, however, was put to death at Tsai-kia-ouan, along with a crowd of orphans whom he was trying to protect. In 1861 Father Vuillaume was killed at Pou-tong and others were robbed, taken prisoners and ill-treated. In 1862 an epidemic of cholera broke out in the province and lasted two years; the vicar Apostolic, Mgr. Borgniet, sixteen religious and four hundred of the faithful succumbed to the pestilence. In the following year six more Jesuits died. At this time General Gordon was beginning his great career. He was then only a major but he reorganized the imperial army, crushed the rebels and took Nankin. This gave a breathing spell to the missionaries; but in 1868, the Taipings were out again, under another name, and anarchy reigned for an entire year.
In the mean time the cities of Shanghai and Zikawei had relatively little to suffer, and the end of the war[791] gave the missionaries the right to build churches, to exercise the ministry everywhere, and even to be compensated for the destruction of their property. But the rights were merely on paper, and fourteen or fifteen years of quarrels with every little mandarin in the country followed. Nevertheless the work went on. At Zikawei, for instance, schools were established, a printing-establishment inaugurated, and in 1872 the observatory which was soon to be famous in all the Orient was begun. Progress was also made at Shanghai. Of course the usual burnings and plunderings, with occasional massacre of groups of Christians continued, but not much attention was paid to these disturbances until 1878, when the Church at Nankin was set on fire, and Sisters of Charity, priests, and Christians in general, among whom was the French consul, were all ruthlessly murdered. The imperial government then took cognizance of the outbreak, and eleven alleged culprits were put to death. That helped to calm the mob, and evangelical work was resumed, so that Kiang-nan, which had 70,685 Christians in 1866 counted over 100,000 in 1882. In the year 1900 there were 124,000 of whom 55,171 were adults. There were also 50,000 catechumens preparing for baptism. The number of priests had grown to 159, of whom 42 were Chinese. The 940 schools had an attendance of 18,563 children.
The Boxer uprising was the most formidable trial to which the mission has so far been subjected. It was organized in the court itself by Toan, the emperor's uncle, General Tong-Fou-Siang and the secretary of state, Kangi-i, and its rumblings were heard for years before the actual outbreak. In Se-tchouan, a third of the churches were destroyed, villages set on fire, missionaries thrown into prison and many Christians massacred. A priest and his people were burned in[792] the church at Kouang-toung; and at Hou-pe, another was put to death. These outrages were as yet local, but there was every evidence that a general conspiracy was at work for the expulsion of all foreigners from the empire. Finally the Boxers, or Grand Sabres, declared themselves, and by order of the viceroy, Yu-heen, 360 Christian villages were destroyed. That was only a beginning. Tche-ly suffered most. It was the stronghold of the rebels. In the autumn of 1899 there were conflagrations and riots everywhere. In 1900 the northern part of the mission was in flames, and forty-five Christian centres were reduced to ashes, but there were few, if any, apostacies, although thousands were put to death in the most horrible fashion. On June 20 Fathers Isore and Andlauer were murdered at the altar. On July 20 Fathers Mangin and Denn were killed, and on April 26, 1902, after peace had been concluded, Father Lomüller with his catechist and servant suffered death.
In this storm, five missionaries had been killed; Mgr. Henry Bulté died of exhaustion; 5,000 Christians had disappeared from the country; 616 churches had been destroyed along with 381 schools and three colleges. But that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church was shown by the fact that there are now more Christians in the district than there were before the persecution. The churches have been rebuilt; priests and catechists are more numerous; the seminary is crowded, and schools and pupils and teachers are at work, as if nothing had happened. The exact figures may be found in Brou's "Jésuites missionaires au xix siécle." Shanghai and Zikawei form the center of the Vicariate of Kiang-nan. In Shanghai are a cathedral and three parish churches which provide for a Catholic population of 9,724. There are three hospitals; an orphanage with trade[793] schools; six schools; a home for the aged; conferences of St. Vincent de Paul. At Zikawei there is a scholasticate of the Society; a grand and little seminary; a meteorological and magnetic observatory; a museum of natural history; a college with 266 students, of whom 105 are pagans; a printing-house; a bi-weekly publication, and the beginnings of a university which it is hoped will head off the tendency of the natives to go for an education to Japan or to the Japanese schools founded in China itself.
When Gregory XVI sent the Jesuits to China, it was thought that from there it would be easy for them to go to Japan to resume the work in which they had so distinguished themselves in former times. Eighty years have passed since then, and only lately, a few Jesuits have shown themselves in that country. The Fathers of the Missions Etrangères have occupied the ground and have succeeded in establishing a complete hierarchy of five bishops and have won praise for themselves by their work in missions and parishes, in polemics and conferences. A school has been attempted and an American Jesuit has lately been placed on the staff of the University of Tokio. Only that and nothing more. What the future has in store, who can tell?
It was a happy day for the new Society when in 1841 it was ordered by Gregory XVI to undertake the missions of Hindostan; the country sanctified by the labors of Francis Xavier, de Nobili, de Britto, Criminali and a host of other saintly missionaries. No work could be more acceptable. The chief obstacle in the way of success was the protectorate which Portugal exercised over the churches of the Orient. In Catholic times its kings had the right not only to nominate all the bishops of the East, but to legislate on almost the entire ecclesiastical procedure within its[794] dominions. Not even a sacristan could be sent to the Indies without the official approval of the Portuguese government. Such a state of things was bad enough in Catholic times, but when the politics of Portugal were in the hands of infidels and enemies of the Church, it could not possibly be tolerated, no matter how persistent was the claim that the right still adhered to the crown. Another abnormality in the pretence was that the country no longer belonged to Portugal but was to a very great extent English and hence if there were to be any dictation it should come from the government of that country.
The first act of the Pope was to create a number of vicars Apostolic who were to be independent of the Archbishop of Goa. This started a war which lasted sixty years. It was called the Goanese schism, or the fight of the double jurisdiction. The vicar Apostolic of the Calcutta district was Robert St. Leger, an Irish Jesuit, who came to India with five members of the Society after his appointment on 15 April, 1834. St. Leger's jurisdiction was disputed by a number of the adherents of Goa and he retired in December, 1838. The Jesuits with him had begun a college, which was enthusiastically supported by his successor, Bishop Jean-Louis Taberd. Unfortunately he died suddenly in 1840, and the same encouragement was not given by Dr. Patrick Carew, the third vicar, with the result that the college which had begun to prosper was closed. In 1846 the Jesuits left Calcutta, but in 1860 they were recalled by Mgr. Oliffe, the successor of Dr. Carew.
The missionaries came under the leadership of Father Depelchin, who when he had finished his work in Calcutta was later to add to his glory by founding the mission of the Zambesi in Africa. They found everything in ruins. Out of a population of 2,300,000 in[795] the city and suburbs, there were no more than seven or eight thousand Catholics, many of whom were Tamouls from Madras. Only a few of the faithful were in easy circumstances and their influence in the city amounted to nothing. There was no help for it, therefore, but to resuscitate the College of St. Francis Xavier, which had been suppressed fourteen years before. It had no furniture and its library consisted of a few books with the covers off. The college was opened nevertheless and had, on the first day, eighty students on the benches. When Bishop Oliffe died there was a dreadful possibility of the appointment of a Goanese bishop, which, for the Jesuits, meant packing up a second time and leaving Calcutta. An appeal was therefore made to Rome and Father Auguste Van Heule was named, but he died in 1865 shortly after his arrival, and in 1867, Bishop Walter Steins was called over from Bombay to take his place. By this time the college had 350 students; a new building and another situation were imperative, but Depelchin was equal to the task, and before he left Calcutta for Africa he had 500 students on the roster.
The initial work of the missionaries was the development of the colleges but they subsequently addressed themselves to the evangelization of the whole population of the city and suburbs, and to-day they have six parishes with a population of 13,000 souls, who are provided with schools, hospitals, asylums and the like. The native population, the Bengalis as they are called, were found to be hopeless. Contact with the whites has made them skeptical in religion, and morally worse than they had been originally. The only Christian Hindoos in Calcutta are Tamouls from the South.
Not finding the Bengalis apt for evangelization, they sought out their countrymen, the Ourias in the[796] Delta of the Ganges. Their home had the unhappy distinction of being called "the famine district," the dreadful calamity being caused either by too much water or by none. In 1866 there was a drought that withered all the crops, and then came inundations that covered 68,000 acres of land, swept away hundreds of villages, and diminished the population by half a million. Orphans, of course, abounded, and in 1868 an asylum was built for them in Balasore, which served also as an evangelical centre for missionary expeditions into the interior. But this venture was not very successful, for only about 1,600 conversions resulted after years of hard labor. The Ourias, it was found, had all the bad qualities of their friends the Bengalis. Perhaps also the movement was halted because their territory was a sort of Holy Land for Hindooism. Every year 500,000 pilgrims arrived there to pray at the shrine of Vishnu, and idolatry of all kinds, from the bloody ancestral fetichism to the refined cult of the Vedas and undiluted Brahmanism, took root and flourished there. Hence a mission was begun among the Orissas still further south.
Better than anywhere else one can see at close range among the Ourias how formidable are the moral, intellectual, social and historical obstacles that oppose the progress of Christianity in Hindostan. To add to the difficulty, Protestantism with its jumble of sects had established itself there and claimed at this time 15,000 adherents. But when cholera swept over the land in 1868, the Protestant missionaries fled and many of the native converts came over to the priests who, of course, did not imitate their non-Catholic rivals in deserting their charges. Father Goffinet especially distinguished himself in this instance, going everywhere in his narrow canoe and lavishing spiritual and corporal aid on the victims. In 1873 he was joined by Father[797] Delplace, who went still nearer the sea. Others followed, lived in the huts of the natives, satisfied their hunger with a few handfuls of rice varied by a fish on Sundays to break the monotony of the diet, with the result that, in three years, there were thirty Catholic missions between the Hoogly and the Mutlah with 3,000 converts in what had been previously a stronghold of Hindoo Protestantism.
In the same year, Father Schoff went north of Calcutta to Bardwan — "The Garden of Western Bengal." He kept away from the rich, and devoted himself to the dregs of the populace. Over and over again the superiors doubted if it were worth while, but to-day the Haris, who were previously so degraded, live in pretty villages, and the order, piety and honesty for which they are noted make one forget the ignorance, debauchery and dishonesty of the past. A group of over 5,000 Catholics may be found there at the present time.
In these parts, the caste system prevails in all its vigors but if you go still further west into the heart of the Province of Chota-Nagpur you come upon a half-savage people, the offscouring of humanity who have been driven into the hills and forests by the conquering Aryans of the plains. They are the Ouraons of Dravidian origin; small, black as negroes, filthy, often wrapped in cow-dung and tattooed all over the body, but nevertheless light-hearted, robust and proud of their ability to perform hard work. With them also lives a more ancient race known as the Koles: men of broad flat faces which recall the Mongolian type. They are probably the aborigines. Their religion is grossly elementary — a vague adoration of the Supreme Being, superstition and ancestor worship; but with a shade of the pride that characterizes the horrible caste system of the Hindoos. The German Lutherans had[798] essayed to convert them. Fifty rupees were paid for each adhesion, and fifty ministers devoted themselves to this apostolate. They are credited with having disbursed 3,700,000 francs by the year 1876. Then came the Anglicans who claimed 40,000 of them. In 1869 Father Stockman arrived and opened a mission at Chaibassa. In 1873 he had only a group of thirty converts. Nine years later, he had succeeded in baptising only 273, but by 1885 there were four residences in Chota-Nagpur with one out-mission. Five priests were engaged in the task.
The progress of the work, however, was comparatively slow until the young Father Constant Lievens made himself the champion of the natives in the courts. This gave it a phenomenal impulse. For years, these poor mountaineers had been cruelly exploited by Hindoo traders from Calcutta. As soon as the natives had contrived to cultivate a bit of land they were loaded down with taxes and enforced contributions, haled before the magistrates and flung into jail to rot. Unfortunately the police regulations were all in favor of the aggressors. Hence there were incessant riots and massacres, and when the English authorities tried in good faith to remedy matters, they could find no one among these poor outcasts fit to hold any position of responsibility. The Lutherans presented themselves and promised protection for those who would join the sect, and many went over to them, but the government disapproved of these unworthy tactics, as calculated only to make things worse in the end. It was like the temptation on the mountain.
At this point Father Lievens stepped into the breach. He could speak all the languages: Bengali, Hindoo, Mundari and Ouraon; and he then plunged into a study of the laws and customs of the land; an apparently inextricable maze, but in less than a year he was[799] master of the whole legal procedure then in force. Thus armed, he appeared in court whenever a victim was arraigned, and almost invariably won a verdict in his favor. His reputation spread, and the victims of the sharks flocked to him from all sides. He argued for all of them, without however, omitting his ministerial occupation of preaching, teaching, composing canticles, helping the needy, and seeking out souls everywhere. He cut out so much work for his associates that his superiors were in a panic. But he succeeded. The native Protestants came over in crowds, and there was a flood tide of conversions to the Faith. It cost him his life, indeed, for he died in 1892, overcome by his labors and privations, but he had started a great movement and two years after his death, the flock had grown from 16,000 to 61,312, with more than 2,566 catechumens preparing for baptism. To-day the district is absolutely unlike its former self. Sacred canticles have taken the place of the old pagan chants and immoral dances are unknown. Even the pagans who are in the majority do not dare to perform certain rites of theirs in public.
In a district of Chota-Nagpur other than that in which Lievens labored, the conversions are still more pronounced. Six missionaries are at work, and their catechumens number more than 25,000. They offered themselves in spite of the fact that the Rajah was in a rage with his subjects about it; beat many of them unmercifully, and flung them into jail. Indeed the English government had to intervene to stop him. If there were a sufficiency of priests, there would be no difficulty in converting the whole countryside. The last accounts available tell us that the inhabitants of fifteen villages have declared themselves Christians, and cut off their hair to let the world know that they have renounced idolatry. Fifty years ago there were[800] in all Western Bengal only a few thousand Catholics. In 1904 there were 106,000; in the following year, 119,705; in 1906, 126,529. Chota-Nagpur alone has another 102,000 and the number could be doubled if twenty new missionaries were on the spot. Western Bengal has now 27 churches, 346 chapels, 124 schools and two great colleges. Working there, are 101 priests, 55 scholastics and 27 coadjutor brothers of the Society, along with 34 Christian Brothers and 158 Sisters.
When Bishop Steins left Bombay, his successor Mgr. Jean-Gabriel Meurin built the college already planned, and called it St. Francis Xavier's. The undertaking was a difficult one, for the schismatical Goanese numbered 40,000 out of the 60,000 Catholics in the city, and their ecclesiastical leaders were not only indifferent to the project but refused to contribute anything to carry it out, just as if it had been a Moslem or a heretical establishment. The people, however, were better minded. Every one, Catholic, heathen and heretic, was eager to build the college, for Bombay was proud of being a great intellectual centre; and hence when the government promised to double what could be collected, the enthusiasm was general and money poured in. The Observatory still bears the name of the rich Parsee who built it.
The Bombay mission included Beluchistan up to the frontiers of Afghanistan; its southern limit was the Diocese of Poona. In this vast territory were native villages, military posts, Anglo-Indian settlements, Indo-Portuguese, and pure Hindoos. There were only about 33,000 Christians to be found in this amalgam, excluding the 70,000 people of the Goanese allegiance. Four colleges were erected in the various districts of this territory, but, unlike the great establishments of Bombay and Calcutta, they were exclusively Catholic. They gave instructions[801] respectively to 500, 690, 298, and 306 pupils. The girls of the two dioceses were also provided for and the high school population exceeded 10,000. The great advantage of this scheme was that it ate very rapidly into the schism through the children of the insurgents.
The Carmelites had been in Mangalore; but found it too hard to hold out against the Calvinists from Bâle who, in 1880 had twenty stations, sixty-five schools and an annual budget of half a million; consequently they begged the Holy See to call in the Jesuits. When the new missionaries arrived in December, 1879, the Carmelites went out to meet them in a ship hung with flags and bunting and, on landing, presented them to the enthusiastic multitude waiting on the shore. The college of St. Aloysius was immediately begun and opened its classes with 150 students. Thus it happened that the greatest part of St. Francis Xavier's territory had come back to the Society; German Jesuits being in Bombay, Belgians in Calcutta, French in Madura and Italians in Mangalore. In the latter mission out of a population of 3,685,000 there are to-day only 93,000 Catholics, but there were 1,500 Christian students in St. Aloysius' college in 1920. It might be noted that Mangalore has acquired a world wide reputation for its leper hospital which was founded by Father Müller, formerly of the New York province. In that district also there are more native priests than in any other part of India. They number 60 all told and take care of about 32 parishes. They are not pure-blood, however, for they bear distinctively Portuguese names, such as Coelho, Fernandes, Saldanha and Pinto. This growth of the native clergy is encouraging, but it would be a mistake to regard them as useful for spreading the Faith. They make relatively very few conversions. They leave that to outsiders.[802] They merely hold on to what has been won for them by others.
In 1884, the college of Negapatam was transferred to Trichinopoly, the reason being that in the latter there was a Catholic population of 20,000. Of course, the Anglican educators of the city tried to prevent the move but failed. The college at one time had 1,800 pupils, and although there was a drop to 1,550 in 1905, because of new rivals in the field, the latest accounts place the attendance at 2,562. St. Xavier's high school in Tuticorin, in the Madura mission had 563 pupils in 1920, and St. Mary's erected in 1910 in the very heart of Brahmanism has 441. In Trichinopoly, the discipline and work of the students have attracted much attention, but especially the enterprise of the sodalists, who have formed twenty groups of catechists and are engaged in giving religious instruction to 700 children. Most notable, however, is the success of the college in overthrowing the caste barriers. Indeed the missionaries of the old days would look with amazement at the grouping in the class rooms of Brahmins, Vellalans, Odeayans, Kallans, Paravers and twenty other social divisions down to the very Pariahs, all studying in the same house and eating at the same table. There were walled divisions, at first; then screens; then benches, and now there is only an imaginary line between the grades which formerly could not come near each other without contamination.
Among these castes, the Brahmins display the greatest curiosity about things Christian, but like the rich young man in the Gospel when they hear the truth they turn sadly away. "Why did God permit me to meet you," said one of them, "if I am going to suffer both here and hereafter?" One of them at last yielded and took flight to the ecclesiastical seminary at Ceylon. When the news spread abroad, priests[803] from the pagodas and professors from the national schools came to the college and stormed against the other catechumens but without avail. Another Brahmin declared himself a Christian the next year; three in 1896, three in 1897, four in 1898, six in 1899 and two in 1900. They all have a hard fight before them; for they are thrown out of their caste and are disinherited by their families. Two of these converts died, and there is a suspicion that at least one was poisoned. Already 60 Brahmins have been baptized and India is in an uproar about it. To those who know the country, these conversions are of more importance than that of a thousand ordinary people and it is almost amusing to learn that the well-known theosophist leader, Annie Besant, hastened back to India to denounce the Catholic Church for its effrontery. The incident, it is true, gave a new life to idol-worship but possibly it was the last gasp before death.
The Madura district had been taken over by the Fathers of the Foreign Missions, after the Jesuits had been suppressed in 1773. When the Pope, Pius VII, re-established the Society, insistent appeals were made by those devoted and overtaxed missionaries to have the Jesuits resume their old place in that part of the Peninsula. The petition was heeded and the Jesuits returned to Madura in 1837. They were confronted by a frightful condition of affairs. In spite of the heroic labors of their immediate predecessors, there were scandals innumerable, and a large part of the population had lapsed into the grossest superstition and idolatry. The missionaries were well received at first, but a fulmination from Goa incited the people to rebellion. Moreover their labors were so crushing that four of the Fathers died of exhaustion in the year 1843 alone. Little by little however a change of feeling began to manifest itself, and as early[804] as 1842, there were 118,400 Catholics in the mission, many of them converts from Protestantism and paganism. In 1847 Madura was made a vicariate Apostolic under Mgr. Alexis Canoz, a year after the Hindo-European college was established at Negapatam.
Madura has another great achievement to its credit. The English government had put an end to the suttee: the frightful and compulsory custom of widows flinging themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands who were being incinerated. The prohibition was universally applauded but the Fathers started another movement. It was against the enforced celibacy of widows, some of whom had been married in babyhood, often to some old man, and were consequently obliged to live a single life after his death. The moral results of such a custom may be imagined. It was difficult at first to convince a convert that it was a perfectly proper thing for him to marry a widow, but little by little the prejudice was removed. Of course there are orphanages, old people's homes, Magdalen asylums, maternity hospitals, industrial schools, and other charitable institutions in prosperous Madura.
The work among the lower classes in the country districts is of the most trying description. There is no place for the itinerant missionary to find shelter in the villages except in some miserable hut. Indeed, 1,853 of these hamlets out of 2,035 have no accommodations at all for the priest, who perhaps has travelled for days through forests to visit them. Moreover, though the people have their good qualities and a great leaning to religion, they are fickle, excitable, ungrateful, unmindful as children at times, and hard to manage. In certain quarters, especially in the south, conversions are multiplying daily. The movement began as early as 1876, after a frightful famine that swept the country, and in one place the Christian population grew in[805] fifteen years from 4,800 to 68,000. In 1889 around Tuticorin whole villages came over in a body. In December, 1891, 600 people were clamoring for baptism in one place, and they represented a dozen different castes. In 1891 one missionary was compelled to erect thirty-two new chapels. "I said we have 75 new villages;" writes another, "if we had priests enough we could have 75 more."
In 1920, there were in the Diocese of Trichinopoly besides the bishop, Mgr. Augustine Faisandier, 119 Jesuit priests of whom 28 are natives. There are a number of native scholastics. Besides this group there are 27 natives studying philosophy and theology in the seminary at Kandy. Add to this 32 Brothers of the Sacred Heart, an institute of Indian lay religious, who assist the missionaries as catechists and school teachers; 75 nuns in European and 346 in Indian institutions; and 75 oblates or pious women who devote themselves to the baptizing of heathen children; and you have some of the working corps in this prosperous mission. The Catholic population was 267,772 in 1916. There are 1,100 churches and chapels, 2,620 posts, a school attendance of 27,378 children, and 7 Catholic periodicals.
The missions in Mohammedan countries were particularly difficult to handle, because Turkey is a veritable Babel of races, languages and religions. There are Turks, and Syrians, and Egyptians and Arabians, along with the Metualis of Mount Lebanon and the Bedouins of the desert. There are Druses, who have a slender link holding them to Islamism; there are idolaters of every stripe; there are Schismatical Greeks, who call themselves Orthodox and depend on Constantinople; and there are United Greeks or Melchites who submit to Rome; Monophysite Armenians, and Armenian Catholics; and Copts also of the same[806] divided allegiance. Then come Syrian Jacobites and United Syrians, Nestorians, Chaldeans, Maronites, Latins, Russians, with English, German and American Protestants, and to end all, the ubiquitous Jews. The missionaries who labor in this chaos are also of every race and wear every kind of religious garb. What will be the result of the changes consequent upon the World War no one can foretell. There is nothing to hope for from the Jews or Mohammedans; and only a very slight possibility of uniting the schismatics to Rome, or of converting the Protestants who have nothing to build on but sentiment and ingrained and inveterate prejudice. There is plenty to do, however, in restraining Catholics from rationalism and heresy; in lifting up the clergy to their proper level, by imparting to them science and piety; forming priests and bishops for the Uniates; promoting a love for the Chair of Peter; and all the while not only not hurting Uniate susceptibilities, but showing the greatest respect for the jealous autonomy of each Oriental Church.
Before the Suppression, the missions of the Levant were largely entrusted to the Jesuits of the province of Lyons. The alliance of the Grand Turk with the kings of France assured the safety of the missionaries and hence there were stations not only at Constantinople, but in Roumelia, Anatolia, Armenia, Mingrelia, Crimea, Persia, Syria, Egypt and in the Islands of the Ægean Sea. The work of predilection in all these places was toiling in the galleys with the convicts, or in the lazar houses with the plague-stricken. Between 1587 and 1773, more than 100 Jesuit missionaries died of the pest. In 1816, that is two years after the re-establishment of the Society, the bishops of the Levant petitioned Rome to send back the Jesuits. Thanks to Paul of Russia, they had resumed their old posts in 1805 in the Ægean, where one of the[807] former Jesuits, named Mortellaro, had remained as a secular priest, and lived long enough to have one of the Fathers from Russia receive his last sigh and hear him renew his religious vows. This was the beginning of the present Sicilian Jesuit missions in the Archipelago. The Galician province has four stations in Moravia, and the Venetian has posts in Albania and Dalmatia.
In 1831 Gregory XVI ordered the Society to undertake the missions of Syria; but at that time Mehemet Ali of Egypt was at war with the Sultan, and the Druses and Maronites were butchering each other at will. Finally, in the name of the Sultan, Emir Haidar invited the Fathers to begin a mission at Bekfaya on the west slope of Mount Lebanon and about 10 miles west of Beirut. Simultaneously Emir Beckir, who was an upholder of Egypt, established them at Muallakah, a suburb of Zahlé on the other side of the mountain. At Hauran, on the borders of the desert, they found a Christian population in the midst of Druses and Bedouins. They were despised, ill-treated and virtually enslaved. They had no churches and no priests, were in absolute ignorance of their duties as Christians, and were stupefied to find that Rome had come so far to seek them. The work of lifting them up was hard enough, but it was a trying task to be commissioned by Rome to settle the disputes that were continually arising between Christian, Orthodox, and Turk, and even between ecclesiastical authorities. Father Planchet was the chief pacificator in all these wrangles, and for his punishment was made delegate Apostolic in 1850, consecrated Bishop of Mossul in 1853, and murdered in 1859 when about to set out for Rome.
Father Planchet was a Frenchman; with Father Riccadonna, an Italian, and Brother Henze, a Hanoverian, he went to Syria in 1831, at the joint request[808] of the Melchite bishop, Muzloum, Joseph Assemani, the procurator of the Maronite patriarch and the Maronite Archbishop of Aleppo, Germanus Harva. A hitherto unpublished document recently edited by Father Jullien in "La Nouvelle Mission en Syrie" gives a detailed account of the journey of this illustrious trio from Leghorn to Syria.
"The vessel was called 'The Will of God,' and the voyage was," says Riccadonna, "an uninterrupted series of misfortunes, — fevers, faintings, rotten water, broken rigging, shattered masts, wild seas, frightful tempests, a sea-sick crew and escapes from English, Turkish and other cruisers on the high seas. When they came ashore the cholera was raging throughout the country." The narrative is full of interest with its picturesque descriptions of the people, their habitations, their festivals, their caravans, their filth, their fanaticism and the continually recurring massacres of Christians. The travellers journeyed to Beirut and Qamar and Bagdad and Damascus, and give vivid pictures of the conditions that met them in those early days. The medical ability of the lay-brother was of great service. He was the only physician in the country, with the result that, according to Riccadonna, each stopping place was a probatica piscina, every one striving to reach him first. "In Arabia," says the Relation, "as in the plains of Ba'albek, there is nothing but ignorance and sin. There are sorcerers and sorceresses in every village; superstitions of every kind, lies, blasphemies, perjury and impurity prevail. It is a common thing for Christians to bear Mussulman names and to pray to Mahomet. They never fast, and on feast days never go to Mass. Of spiritual books or the sacraments they know nothing; clan and personal vengeance and murder are common, and[809] sexual immorality indescribable." Such was the state of these countries in 1831.
In 1843 the mission, which until then depended on the general, was handed to the province of Lyons. In that year a seminary for native priests was begun at Ghazir, in an old abandoned castle bought from an emir of the mountains. It began with two students, but at the end of the year there were twenty-five on the benches, and in that small number, many Rites were represented. A college for boys soon grew up around it, and a religious community of native nuns for the education of children was established. The latest account credits the Sisters with nearly 4,000 pupils.
New posts were established at Zahlé and ancient Sidon and also at Deir el Qamar. The prospects seemed fair for the moment, for had not the French and Turks been companions in arms in the Crimea? But in 1860 the terrible massacres in Syria began as a protest of the ultra-Mussulmans against the liberal concession of Constantinople to the Christians. In the long list of victims the Jesuits counted for something; for on June 18, four of them were butchered at Zahlé and a fifth at Deir el Qamar. In that slaughter eight thousand Christians were killed; 560 churches destroyed; three hundred and sixty villages devastated and forty-two convents burned. Three months later the Turkish troops from the garrison at Damascus butchered eight thousand five hundred people, four prelates, fifty Syrian priests, and all the Franciscan Friars in the city. They levelled to the ground three thousand eight hundred houses and two churches, and would have done more; but the slaughter was stopped when the Algerian Abd-el-Kader arrived on the scene. They still live on a volcano. Preceding[810] and during the war of 1914, massacre of the Christians continued as usual.
Armenia is the Ararat of Scripture. Little Armenia, in which the Jesuits are laboring, is an irregular strip of territory that starts from the Gulf of Alexandretta and continues on towards the Black Sea. Its principal towns are Adana, Cæsarea, Civas, Tokat, Amasia, and Marswan, about two or three days' journey from each other. The country is mountainous, without railroads or other means of transport. The highways are infested with brigands; and the climate is excessively hot and excessively cold. The difficulties with which the Church has to contend in this inhospitable region are first, the government which is Turkish; second, the secret societies which are continually plotting against their Turkish masters; and third, the American Protestant sects which are covering the country with churches, orphan asylums, schools and dispensaries, and flooding it with anti-Catholic literature, and money. In 1886 all the schools were closed by the Turks, but when the French protested they were reopened. In 1894 two of the priests died while caring for the cholera victims and that helped to spread the Faith, for, of course, there are never any parsons on the scene in such calamities. Under Turkish rule also, massacres are naturally chronic, but Brou informs us that on such occasions the Protestants suffer more than the Catholics; for the latter are not suspected of being in the secret revolutionary societies, while the others are known to be deeply involved.
The population of this region consists of 500,000 Christians, of whom 14,000 are Protestants and 12,000 Catholics. The rest are Monophysite schismatics. In the mission besides the secular priests there are 57 Jesuits and 50 teaching sisters from France. There are 22 schools with 3,309 pupils, but only 504 of these[811] children are Uniate Catholics. They are what are called Gregorians, for the tradition is that Armenia was converted to the Faith by St. Gregory the Illuminator. There are few conversions, but the schismatics accept whatever Catholic truth is imparted to them. They believe in the Immaculate Conception; pray for the dead; love the Pope; say their beads; and invoke the Sacred Heart. For them the difference between Romans and Gregorians is merely a matter of ritual. In several places, however, whole villages have asked to be received into Roman unity. As a people they look mainly to Russia for deliverance from the Turk, but neither Turk nor Russian now counts in the world's politics and no one can foresee the future.
Father Roothaan had long been dreaming of sending missionaries to what until very recently has been called the Unknown or Dark Continent, Africa. Hence when the authorities of the Propaganda spoke to him of a proposition, made by an ecclesiastic of admitted probity, about establishing a mission there, Roothaan accepted it immediately, and in the year 1846 ordered Father Maximilian Ryllo with three companions to ascend the Nile as far as possible and report on the conditions of the country. Ryllo was born in Russia in 1802 and entered the Roman province in 1820. After many years of missionary work in Syria, Malta and Sicily he was made rector of the Urban College in Rome on July 4, 1844, and was occupying that post when he was sent by Father Roothaan to the new mission of Central Africa.
In 1845 Ryllo was at Alexandria in search of "the eminent personage" who had suggested the mission and had been consecrated bishop in partibus, for the purpose of advancing the enterprise. But the "eminent personage" was not to be found either there or[812] in Cairo. Hence after waiting in vain for a month, Ryllo and his companions started for Khartoum which was to be the central point for future explorations. After a little rest, they made their way up the White Nile. They were then under the equator, and had scant provisions for the journey, and no means of protection from the terrible heat, and, besides, they were in constant peril of the crocodiles which infested the shores of the river. The first negro tribes they met spoke an Arabic dialect, so it was easy to understand them. The native houses were caves in the hillsides, a style of dwelling that was a necessity on account of the burning heat. Their manner of life was patriarchal; they were liberal and kind, and seemed to be available foundation stones for the future Church which the missionaries hoped to build there. Satisfied with what they had discovered, they returned to Khartoum, but when they reported in due time to Propaganda, the mission was not entrusted to them. It was handed over to the Congregation of the Missionaries of Verona.
In 1840 the Jesuits went to Algeria. The work was not overwhelming. They were given charge of an orphan asylum. But unfortunately though they had plenty of orphans they had no money to feed them. Nevertheless, trusting in God, Father Brumauld not only did not close the establishment, but purchased 370 acres of ground, in the centre of which was a pile of buildings which had formerly been the official baths of the deys of Algiers. In 1848 the asylum sheltered 250 orphans. Fr. Brumauld simply went around the cafés and restaurants and money poured into his hat, for the enterprise appealed to every one. He even gathered up at the hotels the left-over food and brought it back to the motherless and fatherless little beggars whom he had picked up at the street corners. They were[813] filthy, ragged and vicious, but he scraped them clean and clothed them, taught them the moral law and gave them instructions in the useful trades and occupations. Marshal Bougeaud, the governor, fell in love with the priest and when told he was a Jesuit, replied "he may be the devil himself if you will, but he is doing good in Algeria and will be my friend forever." One day some Arab children were brought in and he said to Father Brumauld "Try to make Christians out of these youngsters. If you succeed they won't be shooting at us one day from the underbrush."
The Orphanage stood in the highroad that led to Blidak and permission was asked to get in touch with natives. Leave was given Father Brumauld to put up a house which served as café for the Arabs. It had a large hall for the travellers and a shed for the beasts. Next to it was a school the upper part of which gave him rooms for his little community. It was a zaoui for the Christian marabouts, a meeting place for the French and natives, and a neutral ground where fanaticism was not inflamed but made to die out. All the governors, Pelissier, the Duc d'Aumale, MacMahon, Admiral de Guéydon and General Chanzy were fond of the Father and encouraged him in his work. One day General d'Hautpoul praised him for his success, and advised him to begin another establishment. The suggestion was acted on immediately. The government was appealed to and soon a second orphanage was in operation at Bouffarik further South. Finally, as the number of Arab orphans was diminishing in consequence of better domestic conditions, Brumauld asked why he could not receive orphans from France? Of course he could, and he was made happy when 200 of them were sent as a present from Paris. There would be so many gamins less in the streets of the capital.
[814] Meantime, residences and colleges were being established in the cities of Al-Oran, Constantine and Algiers, but when at the instance of the bishop, Father Schimbri opened a little house in the neighborhood of Selif and was ingratiating himself with the natives, the authorities demanded his immediate recall. Later, when the bishop solicited leave to begin a native mission he was denounced in Paris for influencing minors, because he had asked some Lazarists to teach a few vagabond Arab children; but the government, whose disrespect for religion was a by-word with the natives, had no scruple in building Moslem schoolhouses, allowing a French general to pronounce an eulogy of Islamism in the pulpit of a mosque. While it forbade religious processions, it provided a ship to carry Arabian pilgrims to Mecca. It was so scrupulously careful of the Moslem conscience that it forbade the nuns to hang up a crucifix in the hospital when these holy women were nursing sick Mohammedans.
In 1864 there were Jesuit chaplains in two of the forts, and from there they ventured among the natives with whom they soon became popular. That was too much to put up with, so they were ordered to discontinue, because, forsooth, they were attacking the right of freedom of conscience. The result of this governmental policy was that in the revolt of the Kabyles in 1871 the leaders of the insurgents were the Arab students who had been given exclusively lay and irreligious instructions in Fort Napoleon. Father Brou says (viii, 218) that MacMahon who was governor of the colony was opposed to Cardinal Lavigerie's efforts to Christianize the natives, but that Napoleon III supported the cardinal, who after his victory, installed the Jesuits in the orphanage and also made Father Terasse novice master of the community[815] of White Fathers, which was then being founded; two others were commissioned to put themselves in communication with the tribes of the Sahara and when they reported that everything was favorable the new Order began its triumphant career. That was in 1872. When Vice-Admiral de Guéydon was made governor he willingly permitted the cardinal to employ Jesuits as well as White Fathers in the work among the Kabyles, but de Guéydon was quickly removed from office and the old methods of persecution were resumed. When the year 1880 arrived and the government was busy closing Jesuit houses, the single one left to them in Algeria was seized.
Portugal graciously made a gift to Spain of the Island of Fernando Po in the Gulf of Guinea. Brou calls it "an island of hell," with heat like a lime-kiln, and reeking with yellow fever. It was inhabited by a race of negroes called Boubis, who were dwarfs, with rickety limbs, malformed, tattooed from head to foot, smeared with a compound of red clay and oil, speaking five different dialects, each one unintelligible to speakers of the others; they had been charged with poisoning the streams so as to get rid of the Portuguese and were trying to kill the Spaniards by starvation. It cannot have been brotherly love that suggested this Portuguese present. To this lovely spot Queen Isabella of Spain invited the Jesuits in 1859, and they accepted the offer. They lived among the blacks, unravelled the tangle of the five dialects and won the affection of the natives. Their success in civilizing these degraded creatures was such that whenever a quarrel broke out in any of the villages the governor had only to send his staff of office and peace descended on the settlement. In other words the missionaries had made Fernando Po a Paraguay. This condition[816] of things lasted twelve years, but when Isabella descended from her throne the first act of the revolutionists was to expel the Jesuits from the mission.
Leo XIII had ordered the General, Father Beckx to begin a seminary at Cairo. It was opened with twelve pupils. Three years afterwards occurred the Turkish massacre of Damascus and Libanus and the bombardment of Alexandria by the English. In consequence of all this the seminarians fled to Beirut, and after the war a college was begun at the deserted establishment of the Lazarists at Alexandria. Cairo was near by, but there was such an antagonism between the two cities that two distinct colleges with different methods and courses had to be maintained. Cairo was Egyptian in tone; Alexandria was French. Meanwhile, a mission was established on the Nile at Nineh which was some distance south of Cairo. In this mission the young priests trained at Beirut were employed, and they proved to be such excellent apostles that Leo XIII made three of them bishops and thus laid the foundation of the United Coptic hierarchy. In 1905 there were 20,000 United Copts in Egypt, four-fifths of whom had been reclaimed from the schism. This is all the more remarkable because the Protestants had spent enormous amounts of money in schools, hospitals, and asylums.
Madagascar was originally called the Island of St. Lawrence, because it was first sighted on the festival day of the great martyr by Diego Diaz, who with Cabral, the Portuguese discoverer, was exploring the Indian Ocean in the year 1500. A Portuguese priest was massacred there in 1540; in 1585 a Dominican was poisoned by the natives, and in the seventeenth century two Jesuits came from Goa with a native prince who had been captured by the Portuguese. Their benevolence toward the prince secured them[817] permission to preach Christianity for a while, but when their influence began to show itself, they were, in obedience to a royal order, absolutely avoided by the natives so that one starved to death; the other succeeded in reaching home. The Lazarists came in 1648, but remained only fourteen months, two of their number having died meantime. Other attempts were made, but all ended in disaster to the missionaries. Nothing more was done until the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1832 Fathers de Solages and Dalmond were sent out, but they had been anticipated by the Protestant missionaries who, as early as 1830, had 32 schools with 4,000 pupils. De Solages soon succumbed and Dalmond continued to work on the small islands off the coast until 1843, when he returned to Europe to ask Father Roothaan to send him some Jesuits. Six members of the Society together with two Fathers of the Holy Ghost responded to the call, but they could get no farther than the islands of Nossi-Bé or St. Mary's and Réunion, or Bourbon as it was called.
The Queen Ranavalo, who was a ferocious and bloodthirsty pagan, had no use for any kind of evangelists, Protestant or Catholic, but there was a Frenchman named Laborde in the capital, who was held in high esteem by her majesty, because he was a cannon-founder, a manufacturer of furniture and a maker of soap. Besides these accomplishments to recommend him, he had won the esteem of the heir-apparent. Incidentally Laborde put the prince in relation with the missionaries off the coast. A short time afterwards, there appeared in the royal city another Frenchman who could make balloons, organize theatrical representations, and compound drugs. He was accepted in the queen's service. He was a Jesuit in disguise. His name was Finaz, and he continued to[818] remain at Tananarivo until 1857, when the violence of the queen, who was insanely superstitious, brought about an uprising against her which was organized by the Protestant missionaries. She prevailed against the rebels, and as a consequence all Europeans were expelled from the island, and among them Father Finaz. He could congratulate himself that he had at least learned the language and made himself acquainted with the inhabitants.
Four years later (1861), the queen died, and King Radama II ascended the throne; whereupon six Jesuits opened a mission in Tananarivo. They soon had 2 schools with 400 pupils and numberless catechumens, but their success was not solid, for the Malgassy easily goes from one side to another as his personal advantage may dictate. Radama was killed, and then followed a forty years' struggle between the French and the English to get control of the island. The English prevailed for a time and, in 1869, Protestantism was declared to be the state religion. The number of evangelists multiplied enormously, but they were merely government agents and knew next to nothing about Christian truth or morality. The confusion was increased, when to the English parsons were added American Quakers and Norwegian Lutherans. The Evangelical statistics of all of them in 1892 were most imposing. Thus the Independents claimed 51,033 and the Norwegians 47,681, with 37,500 children in their schools. The names were on the lists, but the school-houses were often empty, and in the interim between the different official visits of the inspectors often no instruction was given. Against this the Catholics had only 22 chapels and 25 schools, and they were mostly in the neighborhood of Tananarivo.
[819] France was subsequently the dominant influence in Madagascar but, as in the mother country religion was tabooed, there was little concern about it in the colonies. When the Franco-Prussian war showed the weakness of France, the respect for the alleged religion of France vanished, especially when a crusade began against the Catholic schools. Nevertheless the faithful continued to grow in number, and in 1882 they were reckoned at 80,000 with 152 churches, 44 priests, 527 teachers and 2,000 pupils. War broke out in 1881, and the missionaries were expelled but returned after hostilities ceased, and found that their neophytes, under the guidance of a princess of the royal blood, had held firmly to their religion, notwithstanding the closing of the schools and the sacking of the churches. After these troubles, conversions increased, and in 1894 there were 75 Jesuit priests in the island; and, besides the primary schools which had increased in number, a college and nine high schools as well as a printing house and two leper hospitals were erected. Added to this, an observatory was built and serious work began in geographical research, cartography, ethnography, natural history, folklore and philology.
Just at the height of this prosperity, a persecution began. The missionaries were expelled, their buildings looted, and the observatory wrecked. In 1896 the bishop counted 108 of his chapels which had been devastated, but in 1897 General Galieni arrived, and the queen vanished from the scene. After that the faith prospered, and in the year 1900 alone there were 94,998 baptisms. In 1896 Propaganda divided Madagascar into three vicariates: one entrusted to the Lazarists; another to the Fathers of the Holy Ghost; and a third to the Jesuits of the provinces of Toulouse and Champagne. In the Jesuit portion, the latest[820] statistics give 160,080 Christians and 170,000 catechumens, with 74 priests, 8 scholastics and 11 lay-brothers. The chief difficulty to contend with is the gross immorality of the people who are, in consequence, almost impervious to religious teaching, and at the same time easily captured by the money that pours into the country from England and Norway. The French officials, of course, cannot be expected to further the cause of Catholicity.
In 1877, when Bishop Ricards of Grahamstown in South Africa asked the Jesuits to accept the Zambesi Mission, Father Weld ardently took up the work, and in April, 1879, Father Depelchin, a Belgian, started from Kimberly, with eleven companions for Matabeleland, over which King Lo Benguela ruled. It was a five months' journey and the missionaries did not arrive at the royal kraal until September 2. But as the prospects of conversion of the much-married king and his followers were not particularly bright, only one part of the expedition remained with Lo Benguela, while two others struck for the interior. There several of the strongest missionaries sickened and died. The work went on, however, for ten weary years when the king told them to stop teaching religion and show the people how to till the soil. Otherwise they must go. They accepted the offer, of course, for it got them a better means of imparting religious instruction.
Then a quarrel broke out between the British, the Portuguese, the Boers and Lo Benguela for the possession of Mashonaland. The British as usual won the fight, but when Cecil Rhodes came to the kraal, to arrange matters, Lo Benguela ordered all the whites out of his dominion and the Fathers withdrew. A new difficulty then arose between the English and Portuguese, and the mission was divided between[821] Upper and Lower Zambesi, the latter being assigned to the Portuguese Jesuits. There was trouble with the natives of both sections for some time, and then the Anglo-Boer war broke out, so that for twenty-five years very little apostolic progress was made. In Upper Zambesi or Rhodesia, as it is called, there are at present 40 Jesuit priests and 24 brothers, and 3 missionaries of Mariannhill, with 115 nuns, 20 churches or chapels, and 30 schools of which 26 are for natives, and about 5,000 Catholics. Naturally speaking the result scarcely warrants the outlay but the purpose is supernatural and intelligible only from that point of view. In Lower Zambesi, which was given to the Portuguese Jesuits, there have been no troubles because it is garrisoned by Portuguese soldiers; the four stations in that district with their thirty-five Fathers were doing splendid work when the Portuguese revolution occurred; the Jesuits were then expelled, but twenty-six Fathers of the Divine Word took their place.
The early days of the Zambesi mission evoked splendid manifestations of the old heroic spirit of the Society. Thus we read of one of the missionaries, a Father Wehl, who was separated from his companions and wandered for twenty-six days in the bush, luckily escaping the wild beasts and finally falling into the hands of some Kaffirs who were about to put him to death, when he was saved by the opportune arrival of an English gold-hunter. But starvation and disease had shattered his health and his mind was gone. Six months afterwards he died.
Meantime his two companions Father Law and Brother Hedley found shelter among the natives, but had to live in a clay hut which was a veritable oven. They both fell sick of fever; little or no food was given them, and they slowly starved to death. They lay[822] along side of each other, neither being able to assist his companion, and when finally the Father breathed his last, all the poor lonely brother could do was to place a handkerchief on the face, but when he removed the covering in the morning, he found that the rats had been eating the flesh. The dead missionary lay there for some time because the superstitious natives would not touch the corpse; when finally a rope was tied around it, they dragged it out of the hut and left it in the forest. For three weeks after this horrible funeral the poor brother had to fight off the rats that were attacking himself; at last the chief took pity on him and had him carried on a litter to a band of other missionaries who were approaching. When his friends saw him they burst into tears. He had not changed his clothes for five months and they were in tatters. His whole body was covered with sores and ulcers and the wounds were filled with vermin. He was in a state of stupor when he arrived, but strange to say he recovered. His dead companion, the priest, had been a naval officer, and was a convert to the Faith and the grandson of one of the lord chancellors of England.
The Congo mission was organized by the Belgium Jesuits in 1885, under the auspices of Leopold II of Belgium, who had established the Congo Free State. His majesty requested the Fathers to assist him, but he gave them no financial aid whatever, though he was pointedly asked to do so. The Congo Free State begins 400 miles from the Atlantic ocean and extends to Central Africa. Leopold's plan was to abolish slavery within the boundaries of this domain; then to make the adult male population his soldiers, and meantime to place the orphans and abandoned children in asylums which the missionaries would manage. Some of these establishments were to be supported from the public revenues, others by charity. The whole hope[823] of the mission was in these orphanages, for nothing could be expected from the adult population. The boys were to be taught a trade and then married at the proper time. These households were to be visited and supervised by the missionaries.
It was an excellent plan, but it was opposed by the Belgian anti-clericals, who objected to giving so much power to priests. A number of English Protestants also busied themselves in spreading calumnies about these settlements and brought their accusations to court, where sentence was frequently given without hearing the accused. The charges were based on alleged occurrences in three out of the forty-four mission stations. The persecution became so acute that the Jesuits appealed to the king and received the thanks of his majesty and the government for the work they had performed, but the calumnies were not retracted, until May 26, 1906, when a formal document was issued by the Free State declaring that it greatly esteemed the work performed by the Catholic missionaries in the civilization of the State. In the following year on May 22, it added: "Since it is impossible to do without the missionaries in the conversion of the blacks, and as their help is of the greatest value in imparting instruction, we recommend that the mission be made still more efficacious by granting them a subsidy for the upkeep of their institutions." At the beginning of 1913, the Jesuits had seven stations and forty missionaries. In spite of all this, however, the work of systematic calumniation still continues.
The great war of 1914 brought absolute ruin on all the missions of Asia and Africa. Thus France called to the army every French priest or lay brother who was not crippled by age and infirmity, and made him fight in the ranks as a common soldier or a stretcher bearer in the hospital or on the battlefield. This was[824] the case not only with the Jesuits, but with other religious orders and the secular priesthood. Nor was this call to the colors restricted to those who were in the French colonies; it affected all priests or brothers of French birth who were laboring in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Belgian Congo, Angola, Zambesi, Canada, Haiti, the United States or South America. Sixty priests or brothers had to leave Japan. Out of forty-three missionaries of the Society of African Missions who were in Egypt, half had to leave. Of the twenty-two who were on the Ivory Coast sixteen were mobilized. Indeed, four bishops were summoned to the ranks, Mgrs. Moury of the Ivory Coast, Terrien of Benin, Perros of Siam, and Hermel of Haiti. There were at the outbreak of the war thirty-five Jesuits from the Levant in the army, besides others from Madagascar, Madura and China.
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