Footprints of the Jesuits – R. W. Thompson
Chapter XI. The Portuguese and the Jesuits.
Contents
At the period referred to in the last chapter the Jesuits were held in low esteem everywhere in Europe. They were severely censured, not alone by Government authorities, but by the great body of the Christian people, more especially those who desired to save the Roman Church from their dangerous and baneful influences, The leading Roman Catholic Governments were all incensed against them, and it only required some master spirit, some man of courage and ability, to excite universal indignation against them. Protestants had comparatively little to do with the matter—nothing, indeed, but to make public sentiment somewhat more distinct and emphatic.
Pombal understood thoroughly the character of the adversary he was about to encounter—the adroit artifices which the Jesuits, collectively and individually, were accustomed to practice, and by which they had often succeeded in obtaining assistance from unexpected quarters. Therefore he resolved at the outset not to temporize with them, but to put in operation immediately a series of measures of the most active and energetic character. He may not have known that the other Roman Catholic Governments would unite with that of Portugal, but he must have seen ground for believing that they would, in the general displeasure they exhibited at the conduct of the Jesuits throughout Europe. Howsoever this may have been, he saw plainly his own line of duty toward the Portuguese Government, and had not only the necessary courage, but the ability to pursue it. A royal council was held at the palace of the King of Portugal in 1757, at which he suggested “the imperative necessity of removing the Jesuits from their posts of confessors to the royal family,” for the reason that the controversy in South America could not be satisfactorily settled, if at all, s0 long as they remained in a condition to influence the action and opinions of the king in any degree whatsoever.” He knew perfectly well how ingeniously they had wormed themselves into the confidence of kings, so that by becoming their confessors they should not only obtain a knowledge of the secrets of State, but so to influence the policy and action of Governments as to promote their own interests. And like a sagacious and skillful statesman, as he undoubtedly was, he saw at a glance how necessary it was that they should not be permitted to have further access to the king. The Jesuits represent the king as having been unwilling to assent to this proposition; but that is not of the least consequence, because, as they admit, he signed “ the decree which excluded all Jesuits from their office of confessors of the court.”” This was a terrible blow to them—perhaps the first of a serious character they had ever encountered. It was made the more serious by the fact that Portugal was recognized as a thoroughly religious country, and sincerely devoted to the Church of Rome. Whatsoever may have been its immediate effect upon the Jesuits, it left no ground for retreat or equivocation upon either side, but placed the contestants in direct and open hostility, each with drawn swords. From that time forward the conflict, on the part of the Jesuits, was one of life or death, and they fought it with a desperation born of that belief.
To justify itself, and to explain to the European nations the reasons which influenced it, the Portuguese Government caused to be prepared a statement of grievances, wherein the course of the Jesuits “in the Spanish and Portuguese dominions of the New World, and of the war which they had carried on against the armies of the two crowns,” were set forth. It is insinuated that Pombal was the author of this pamphlet, but no evidence of that has been produced. It does not matter whether he was or not, inasmuch as it amounted to such an arraignment of the Jesuits as gave tone to the public sentiment of Europe, and influenced the course of all the Governments toward the society. Viewed in this light, it becomes of the utmost importance, inasmuch as we may rightfully regard as true, even without special investigation, whatsoever influences the action of Governments and communities, and can not safely accept in opposition to it what intetested parties—such as the Jesuits were—may assert to the contrary. The substance of this statement is contained in the work of Weld, one of the most earnest of the Jesuit defenders. It is in the nature of an indictment against the Jesuits, preferred by one of the leading Roman Catholic Governments of Europe, and on that account is both important and instructive. Abuse and vituperation— in the use of which the Jesuits are trained as experts—are no answer to it.
After alleging that the power of the Jesuits had so increased as to render it evident that there must be war between them and the Government in Paraguay, it proceeds to affirm “that they were laboring sedulously to undermine the good understanding existing between the Governments of Portugal and Spain,” and that “their machinations were carried on from the Plata to the Rio Grande.” It then embodies in a few expressive words, as given by the Jesuit Weld, these serious charges:
“That they had under them thirty-one great populations, producing immense riches to the society, while the people themselves were kept in the most miserable slavery; that no Spaniard or Portuguese, were he even governor or bishop, was ever admitted into the Reductions; that, “with strange deceit,’ the Spanish language was absolutely forbidden; that the Indians were trained to an unlimited, blind obedience, kept in the most “extraordinary ignorance,’ and the most unsufferable slavery ever known, and under a complete despotism as to body and soul; that they did not know there was any other sovereign in the world than the fathers, and knew nothing of the king, or any other law than the will of the “holy fathers;’ that the Indians were taught that white laymen adored gold, had a devil in their bodies, were the enemies of the Indians, and of the images which they adored; that they would destroy their altars, and offer sacrifices of their women and infants; and they were consequently taught to kill white men wherever they could find them, and to be careful to cut off their heads, lest they should come to life again.”
One would scarcely suppose that, after this terrible arraignment of the Jesuits in Paraguay, there could be any other counts added to the indictment. But in order to aggravate these offenses and to explain their disloyalty to the Government—as we learn from the same Jesuit authority— they were also charged with opposing and resisting the treaty of boundary between Spain and Portugal; with carrying on a war against the two Governments; fortifying and defending the passes leading to the Reductions with artillery; inciting the Indians to revolt; and with exhibiting an obstinate resistance to royal authority.
There has never been, in the civilized world, such an enumeration of serious offenses charged against any body of men by so high and responsible authority as that of one of the leading Governments, as Portugal was. The modern reader can not avoid the expression of surprise when he realizes that they were made by those who faithfully adhered to the Church of Rome, and against a society which professed to have been organized to promote “the greater glory of God,” for the express reason that no existing order sufficiently did so.
It is scarcely possible that such accusations as these would have been made without some justifying cause. If they were even exaggerated, the Government of Portugal must have obtained information from responsible sources sufficiently reliable to authorize a searching investigation. That, undoubtedly, was the object of Pombal and the king, not merely in explanation of their own official conduct, but to bring the conduct and attitude of the Jesuits to the notice of other Governments. Whatsoever the direct object they had in view, the charges thus formally made by them against the Jesuits led to a fierce and angry controversy. The Jesuits defended themselves with their accustomed violence, and it has required many pages to convey to the world the character of the maledictions visited by them upon the name and memory of Pombal. To us of the present time these amount to very little, inasmuch as they are almost entirely supported by ex parte statements of those implicated by the Government, and which are entitled to no weight whatsoever against the general verdict ultimately rendered by the European nations, in obedience to public opinion. We can not accept the Jesuit theory that these nations were all misled by false accusations, or that the subsequent suppression of the society was the consequence of undue popular prejudices. It is not difficult to deceive individuals, but Governments and communities are not apt to fall into serious errors. The collective judgments of whole populations are seldom wrong.
It was natural that the Christians of Europe should become, not only interested, but in some degree excited, when they came to know the character of the charges made against the Jesuits by the authority of the Portuguese Government. Many of them desired to look favorably upon the order on account of the relations they supposed it to bear to the Church. The Roman ecclesiastics were divided, some attacking and others defending it. It became necessary, therefore, that the matter should be brought to the attention of the pope, in order that the final judgment should be pronounced by him, inasmuch as they were considered a religious order, and, consequently, within the proper jurisdiction of the Church. With this view, Pombal, in behalf of the Government of Portugal, forwarded an official dispatch to Rome, whereby the pope was informed of the causes of complaint against them. The Jesuits say this dispatch is filled with “libels;” but this is to be attributed chiefly to their hatred of Pombal, to whom they, of course, assign the authorship. Nevertheless, it emanated from so responsible a quarter that the pope felt himself obliged to give it due consideration. He owed it to Portugal, no less than to the Church, to cause a searching investigation to be made, so that it might be ascertained whether the charges against the Jesuits were true or false. This could not have been avoided, even if he had desired it, and there is no evidence that he did.
Benedict XIV was at that time pope, and his secretary of briefs was Cardinal Passionei, who had the reputation of being a man of integrity and ability. The initiatory steps had, consequently, to be taken by them. The pope, however, was in infirm health, and the Jesuits insist that his sympathies were with them. This may probably have been so; but if it were, it furnishes no argument in their favor, because there was yet no evidence before him upon which any decision could have been based. The question he had then to decide was not whether they were innocent or guilty, but whether his duty did not require of him to take the necessary steps to ascertain what the truth really was. The charges were too serious to be passed over without this, and whatsoever the fact may have been with regard to his sympathies, Benedict XIV felt himself constrained to order, and did order, an investigation to be made. His brief to that effect was dated April 1, 1758, and addressed to Cardinal Saldanha by Passionei, as the pope’s secretary, and commanded that the charges made by the Portuguese Government should be thoroughly investigated, and the facts laid before him for his pontifical guidance. This was the inauguration of a regular trial before a tribunal of acknowledged jurisdiction, and probably had the effect of suspending, in some degree, the public judgment to await his final decision. The Jesuits could not rightfully have objected to this course; and if it be true, as they insist, that the pope sympathized with them, they doubtless congratulated themselves upon his favorable inclination towards them. Whatsoever may have occurred afterwards, the investigation undoubtedly had an impartial beginning. On this account, the inquirer who desires to understand the history and character of the Jesuits, will be interested in its important details.
Cardinal Saldanha was appointed “visitor and reformer of the society,” with full power to reform whatsoever abuses should be found to exist, and if, after investigation, “any grave matters” were discovered, he was required to report them to the pope, who would then decide what subsequent steps were to be taken. “The proceedings up to that point were therefore judiciously conducted. The death of Benedict XIV, however, within about a month after the date of this brief, passed it over to Clement XIII, his immediate successor. The Jesuits strive hard to show that although the pope referred in his brief to the reform of abuses, he did not intend thereby to signify that he had then decided that reforms were necessary. If they be allowed the benefit of this argument, it does not avail them against the fact that Cardinal Saldanha, after investigation, made a report in which “the fathers of the society in Portugal, and its dominions at the end of the earth, are declared, on the fullest information, guilty of every crime of worldly traffic that could disgrace the ecclesiastical state.”° Whilst the special accusation here made had reference to the commercial traffic by which, in express violation of the rules of the society, the Jesuits had accumulated immense wealth in all parts of the world, and in direct violation of their vow of “extreme poverty,” Pombal considered himself justified, with the assent of the king, in requiring of the cardinal patriarch of Lisbon the issuance of an official order “to suspend from the sacred ministry, or preaching and hearing confessions, all the religious of the Society of Jesus,” in the Patriarchate of Lisbon. An order to that effect was accordingly issued by the patriarch, which made the issue more serious and complicated than ever; for it was a direct and practical procedure which everybody could understand. In their own defense, the Jesuits urge that the patriarch was intimidated by Pombal, and that, in consequence, he died of remorse within a month, and confessed his error upon his death-bed. Such defenses as this are of no weight as arguments, in the face of actual and known occurrences, and especially when it is well known that the Jesuits are in the habit of resorting so frequently to deathbed repentances, obtained in private by themselves, as to excite general suspicion against them. Even, however, if their statement in this case is accepted as true, the order of the patriarch was carried into effect by the Government of Portugal, and proved, in the end, to be the most fatal blow ever aimed at the society before that time. The proceedings were not arrested by the death of the patriarch; for the vacancy made by it was immediately filled by the appointment of Cardinal Saldanha as his successor, which the Jesuits were compelled to construe as a censure of their society, inasmuch as he had already, in his report, charged them with crimes disgraceful to the “ecclesiastical state.” As this appointment was made by the pope, it is at least to be inferred that he, up to this point, regarded the investigation as fairly and impartially made. After his appointment as patriarch, Cardinal Saldanha banished the father superior of the Jesuit “Professed House,” and caused such measures to be taken as resulted in the arrest of two Jesuits in Brazil, who were sent to Portugal and imprisoned. He appointed the Bishop of Para, in Brazil, as his ecclesiastical delegate to act in his name in South America. It would be impracticable to trace here all the events which followed; nor is it necessary, inasmuch as it is of far more importance to know the results than the series of details that led to them. The first important result that occurred in South America, under the ecclesiastical administration of the Bishop of Para, was the issuance by him of a decree whereby “he suspended all Jesuits in his diocese “from the functions of the confessional and the pulpit.” He then continued to investigate the conduct of the Jesuits, and found that the ecclesiastics were divided with reference to them—some accusing and others defending them. Among those who opposed them were the Bishop of Olinda and the Bishop of San Sebastian, and these two prelates of the Church have been violently denounced by the Jesuits on that account. This, however, is a fixed habit with them. They denounce all who oppose them, and bestow fulsome praises upon all their defenders. By this indiscriminate method they impair confidence in themselves, and make it difficult to decide how much of what they say shall be accepted and how much rejected. The safer plan is to follow the course of public events, giving but little heed to the vituperation with which Jesuit works abound.
There can be no doubt of the fact that Benedict XIV had authorized the cardinal visitor appointed by him to apply all the measures necessary to reform the Jesuits, if, after investigation, he found any to be required. Thus the visitor was empowered to act for the Church and the pope; and, hence, the Jesuit resistance to his decrees was disobedience and insubordination. When Clement XIII became pope, he found just this condition of things existing, which not only increased his responsibilities, but added greatly to his embarrassment. The Jesuits say that Cardinal Passionei unjustly impressed his mind with the idea that Benedict XIV had already decided that the reform of their society was necessary, and that whatsoever he did under the influence of this false impression should not be considered to their prejudice. This is barely possible; but whether he did or not is immaterial, since Clement XIII could not, under any circumstances, have found himself justified in either abandoning or suspending the investigation which Benedict XIV had ordered. Nor could he have changed its course at any time after he reached the pontificate—the interests at stake were too important, and the welfare of the Church was too deeply involved. At all events, the investigation was continued under Clement XIII; and when the Jesuits realized that he could not be persuaded to abandon it, they endeavored to shift the issue by insisting that the hostility exhibited towards them had not arisen out of any of the things charged by the Government of Portugal, but had been created by the opposition of the “Jansenists and heretics” to them on account of their orthodox adherence to the Church of Rome. In this they exhibited their usual sagacity and cunning, evidently believing that it was the only means left them to bring over the body of the Roman Christians—the pope and all—to their side. It did, probably, tend somewhat to that, but fell far short of what they must have expected from it; for the further the investigation proceeded, the more unpopular their society became, not only on account of the proceedings in Paraguay, but because of their interference with all the Governments of Europe. We see this in the measures adopted in those Governments, and in the unanimity of the public sentiment which sustained them. “The belief can not be indulged for a moment that these Governments and peoples—faithful and devoted as they always had been to the Church of Rome—were influenced by prejudices alone, and acted without some strong, controlling, and justifiable cause. It is worthy of repetition that Governments and communities do not thus act. And we shall soon see that there have been scarcely any other events in history so ratified by public approval as the expulsion of the Jesuits from the leading nations of Europe, and their final suppression and abolition by the pope. The evidence upon these subjects is so complete and overwhelming that it can not be set aside by volumes of eloquent denunciation, or weakened by Jesuitical sophistry.
Whilst it is not proper to exclude from our consideration all that the Jesuit writers have said with reference to the period and controversy here referred to, it should be accepted with a great many grains of allowance. Their warmth and vehemence excite suspicion, indicating more of passion than comports with the quiet composure of innocence. They are not willing that the least credit shall be given to anything against them, and demand that whatsoever is said in their behalf shall be accepted as indisputably true. It is not difficult to see, however, that much of the matter offered by them as historic truth does not reach the dignity of impartial evidence, and ought not to be given any serious weight when in conflict with allegations proceeding from reputable and responsible sources. Within a recent period an elaborate defense of the society has been made by one of its leading and most learned members, and sent forth to the world as a conclusive and unanswerable vindication. It is contained in the volume so frequently referred to in this chapter, and alleged to be mainly founded upon what “writers of the society” have said. He supports his defense of this method of making history by introducing the statements of anonymous authors which bear upon their face presumptive evidence that they were manufactured for the purpose by interested parties, He does not, of course, rely exclusively upon them, but, with true Jesuit ingenuity, has so interwoven these irresponsible statements with less suspicious authorities as to give coloring and credibility to the whole. He says: “The details have been filled chiefly in from three well-known contemporary works, the names of the authors of which have not reached us.” Such a course indicates the partisan rather than the impartial chronicler of events, and an absence of the candor with which so important a discussion should be conducted. Anonymous statements should not be entirely discredited, because they may be true; but in searching after the “truth of history” they should avail nothing unless consistent with the general course of events, and then only because of that consistency. One illustration must serve. It is argued that Benedict XIV sympathized with the Jesuits, and was favorable to them at the time he appointed Saldanha as visitor with authority to investigate and reform, and yet this same pope was constrained by their persistent disobedience to declare them “contumacious, crafty, and reprobate men.”
One reason why the papal authorities found so much difficulty in prosecuting the investigation of Jesuit affairs, was the impenetrable mystery which hung over the conduct of the society for more than two hundred years. By means of this secrecy and the concealment of the principles of their constitution, they were so enabled to compact their organization as to present a solid front to the world, with all its energies devoted alone to its own success. It was only when the constitution became known that Governments and society could defend against their machinations, which, as we have seen, were sufficiently well planned to defy even the pope and the Church functionaries appointed by him to inspect their conduct. Their persistency in refusing to expose to the public the principles of their constitution indicated, in the public judgment, that they feared a knowledge of them would add to the public indignation at their presumptuousness and vanity. And so decided was this refusal that it required the authority of the French Parliament—the highest judicial authority in that country—to drag the constitution from its hiding-place. One of their members had engaged in a mercantile adventure until he became bankrupt. Professing to have no property ofhis own out of which his debts could be collected, his creditors brought suit against the society, insisting that as the property it possessed was held in common for the benefit of all the members, it should be made liable for the debts of each. This having been resisted by the society, the Parliament, in order to reach a correct decision, compelled the surrender of the constitution. It was then decided that the defense set up could not be maintained, whereupon judgment was rendered against the society, and the debt was paid. After this time—when the principles of the constitution became known—the odium in which the Jesuits were held rapidly increased among both Roman Catholics and Protestants, but more particularly among the former, on account of their unremitting efforts to defeat and embarrass the investigation ordered by the pope. Unsophisticated minds, accustomed to respect the Church and obey its authority, could not understand why so many impediments should be thrown in the way of the pope in his efforts to discover the truth, if the society were, as it pretended to be, entirely faultless in its conduct. Even the authority of the Church was comparatively powerless to resist and overcome their obstinacy, as we shall have many occasions to observe in the course of our inquiries.
