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Conclusion

We have recapitulated, in this book, the main manifestations of the multiform activity deployed by the Company of Jesus, during four centuries; we have established also that the militant, even military, character of this famous and ultramontane institution fully justifies the title often attributed to it of “secret army of the Papacy”.

To the front of the action, for the glory of God—and especially of the Holy See—is the order these ecclesiastical soldiers gave themselves and of which they are proud; at the same time, they endeavour, through the book and pious press which they supervise, to disguise as much as possible and present as “apostolic” enterprises the action they exercise in their favourite field: the nations’ politics.

The clever camouflage, the protestations of innocence, the railleries about the “dark schemings” attributed to them by the disordered imagination of their enemies—and which are groundless, according to them—all this is outweighed by the unanimous hostility of public opinion towards them, always and everywhere, and by the inevitable reaction to their intrigues which brought about their explulsion from every country, even from the most strongly Catholic.

These fifty-six expulsions, to quote only the main ones, provide an invincible argument! It would be sufficient to prove the evil nature of this Order.

How could it not be injurious to civil societies as it is the papacy’s most efficacious instrument in imposing its law on temporal governments, and that this law—by nature—has no consideration for the various national interests? The Holy See, being essentially opportunist, does embrace these interests when they coincide with its own—we saw this happen in 1914 and 1939—but, if it brings them a substantial help then, the final result is not beneficial for all that. This was seen also in 1918 and 1945.

Terrible to its enemies, or those who oppose it, the Vatican, this amphibious clerico-political organisation, is even more deadly to its friends. By observing some vigilance, one can be forewarned of its underhand thrusts, but its embraces are deadly.

On that subject, Mr. T. Jung wrote, in 1874, the following lines which have not grown old-‘The power of France is in inverse ratio to the intensity of her obedience to the Roman Curia”.(l)

And from a more recent witness: M. Joseph Hours, when studying the effects of our very relative “disobedience”, he wrote: “There is no doubt about it; right through the continent (and maybe, today, all over the globe), wherever Catholicism is tempted to become political, it is also tempted to become anti-French”.(2)

A just remark indeed, even though the term “tempted” is rather weak. We will nevertheless conclude that “to obey” would be more to the point. Is it not better, in fact, to expose oneself to this hositlity, rather than to have to come to this conclusion, like Colonel Beck, former Foreign Affairs minister of the very Catholic Poland (2a)”.

“The Vatican is one of those principally responsible for the tragedy of my country. I realised too late that we had pursued our foreign politics just to serve the sole interests of the Catholic Church”.

Moreover, the fate of the very apostolic empire of the Hapsburgs was not too encouraging; as for Germany, so dear to the hearts of popes, and especially Pius XII’s, she could not be pleased, finally, with the costly favours Their Holiness lavished on her.

In fact, we wonder if the Roman Church reaped any profit at all from this mad aspiration to govern the world, a pretension kept alive by the Jesuits more than anyone else. In the course of four centuries in which these firebrands spread strife and hatred, slaughter and ruins in Europe, from the Thirty Years War until the Hitler Crusade, did the Church enjoy gain or suffer loss?

The answer is easy: the clearest and most incontestable result is a continuous diminution of the “heritage of Saint-Peter”—a sad end to so many crimes!

Did the Jesuits’ influence obtain better results within the Vatican itself? It is very doubtful.

(1) T. Jung: “La France et Rome”, (Charpentier, Paris 1874, p.369). (2) “L’Annee politique et economique”, 19, quai Bourbon, Paris 4e, January-March 1953, pp.2 ss. (2a) Declaration made on the 6th of February 1940.

A Catholic author wrote:

“They always aim at concentrating the ecclesiastical power which they control. The pope’s infallibility exasperates bishops and governments: they nevertheless ask forit at the Council of Trent and obtain it at the Vatican Council (1870)… The Company’s prestige fascinates, within the Church, its adversaries as much as its friends. We have respect or, at least, we fear it; we think it can do anything, and we behave accordingly”.(3) Another Catholic writer strongly stated the effects of this concentration of power in the Pontiffs hands:

“The Society of Jesus was suspicious of life, the source of heresy, and opposed authority to it.

The Council of Trent seems already to be the testament of Catholicism. It is the last genuine Council.

“After that, there will only be the Vatican Council which consecrates the abdication of the councils.

We are well aware of the popes’ gain at the end of the councils. What a simplification—what an impoverishment also!

Roman Christianity takes possession of its character of absolute monarchy, founded now and forever on papal infallibility. The picture is beautiful but life bears its costs.

Everything comes from Rome, and Rome is left to lean only on Rome”.(4)

Further on, the author sums up what the famous Company must be credited for: “It delayed maybe the death of the Church, but by a kind of pact with death”.(5)

A kind of sclerosis, if not necrosis, is spreading and corrupting the Church, under that Loyolan ascendancy. Vigilant guardians of the dogma, whose antiquated character they accentuate with their aberrant worship of the Virgin Mary, the Jesuits, masters of the Gregorian Pontifical University which was founded by Ignatius of Loyola, check the teaching of the seminaries, supervise the Missions, reign at the Holy-Office, animate the Catholic Action, censure and direct the religious press in every country, patronize with tender love the great centres of pilgrimages: Lourdes, Lisieux, Fatima, etc. In short, they are everywhere, and we can regard as significant the fact that the pope, when ministering at the mass, is necessarily assisted by a Jesuit; his confessor is always a Jesuit, too. By working at perfecting the concentration of power in the hands of the Sovereign Pontiff, the Company is in fact working for itself and the pope, apparent beneficiary of that work, could echo these famous words: “I am their chief, so I follow them”.

So, it becomes more and more hopeless trying to distinguish the action of the Holy See from the one of the Company. But this Order, the very back bone of the Church, tends to dominate her entirely. For a long time now, the bishops have been nothing more than “civil servants”, docile executors of the orders coming from Rome, or rather from the Gesu.

(3) Andre Mater- “Les Jesuites” (Reider, Paris 1932, p. 118). (4) and (5) Henri Petit: “L’Honneur de Dieu” (Grasset, Paris 1958, p.88).

Without any doubt, Loyola’s disciples endeavour to mask from the eyes of the faithful, the harshness of a more and more totalitarian system. The Catholic press, under their direct control, assumes some variety of inspiration, to give its readers the illusion of a kind of independence, to be open to “new” ideas: the Fathers, who are all things to all men, willingly practise these juggler’s tricks which deceive only the star-gazers. But, behind these petty amusements, the everlasting Jesuit is watching, about whom an aforementioned author wrote: “Intransigence is inborn in him. Capable of being a shuffler, because of his craftiness, he only excels at being stubborn”.(6)

We find excellent examples of that stubborness and insidious bias in the patient work of the Company’s members, to conciliate, for better or worse, the “modern” and scientific spirit to which they take care to be attentive with the demands of the “doctrine” in general and, especially, with these rather idolatrous forms of devotion—the worship of Mary and wonder working—of which they remain the most zealous propagators.

To say that these efforts are crowned with success would be an exaggeration: when blending water and fire, we obtain mainly steam. But even the inconsistency of these clouds is rather pleasing to certain subtle minds, even though warned about the dangers too much precision in the thoughts brings to a sincere piety. “Vade retro, Satanas”!

As far as that is concerned, German metaphysics are most helpful; we find in them everything we need, and even the opposite. There isn’t any childish superstition which, after pedantic treatment, does not acquire some appearance of seriousness and even depth. It is rather amusing to follow the game in the periodicals and bulletins of various cultural groups. There, the enquirer finds the material he needs, and especially the one who, through an inclination somewhat aberrant, enjoys reading between the lines.

(6) Andre Mater, op.cit., p. 192.

However, these men full of bitterness do not live only the speculative sphere, the good Fathers made sure they gave their apostolate amongst “intellectuals” a solid temporal foundation. To the gifts of the Spirit the lavishly bestow upon their disciples are added substantial advantages. Besides, it is an ancient tradition. In Charlemagne’s time, the converted Saxons received a white shirt. Nowadays, the beneficiaries of a newly-found or re-discovered Faith enjoy other favours, especially in the academic and scientific worlds: the not very clever student passes examinations without difficulties; the professor is given the professorial chair of his choice; the physician who is a “believer”, in addition to rich clients, has preference when wanting to join some important society, etc.. Through a natural mechanism, these choice recruits will bring others and, as there is strength in numbers, their conjugated action will be most efficacious in what we call the leading spheres.

This can be seen in Spain, so we are told, and even elsewhere. In “Le Monde” of the 7th of May 1956, M. Henri Fesquet devoted an important article to the Spanish “Opus Dei”. When defining the action of the pious and occult organisation, he wrote: “Its members… aim at helping intellectuals to reach a religious state of perfection through the exercise of their professions, and sanctify professional work”.

This is no new story, and M. Fesquet knows it, for he says a little further on: “They are accused—and the fact doesn’t seem deniable—of wanting to occupy the keyposts of the land, to be at the core of the University, administration, government, to prevent from entering or even expel from them unbelievers and liberals”.

The “Opus” apparently entered France “clandestinely” in November 1954, “brought in” by two priests and five laymen, doctors or medical students. That may be so, but we doubt if this reinforcement coming from “tras los montes” was really necessary to the pursuit of their work which has been going on for a long time now, in France, mainly in the medical and academic worlds, as certain scandals in examinations and competitions revealed it. In any case, the French branch of this Action, supposed to be “God’s work”, doesn’t seem to be clandestine after all, judging by what Francois Mauriac wrote about it:

“… I was the recipient of a strange confidence, so strange in fact that, if it had not been signed by a Catholic writer who is one of my friends and whom I trust, I would think it was a practical joke. He had offered an article to a periodical which accepted the offer gladly, but never acknowledged its receipt. Months go by, my friend becomes anxious, makes inquiries, and eventually receives this answer from the director of that periodical: “As you probably know, the “Opus Dei” has been checking what we publish for the past few months. And this “Opus Dei” absolutely refused to allow that text to be printed”. This friend asks me the question: “What is the “Opus Dei”? And I, too, openly and candidly ask it…”(7)

(7) “Le Bloc-notes de M. Francois Mauriac”, in the “Express” of the 29th of October 1959

This question—about which M. Francois Mauriac hints is not as “candid” as he says—the eminent academician could have asked it from people he knew well: writers, publishers, booksellers, men of science, lecturers, theatre and cinema people—unless he preferred to inform himself quite simply at the editing centres. As for the opposition the “Opus Dei” is supposed to meet from certain Jesuits, we see in it nothing more than group rivalry. The Company as we have said and proved—is “modernist” as easily as “integrist”, according to the opportunities, as it is determined to have a foot in both camps. In fact, the same publication “Le Monde” printed an article by M. Jean Creach, ironically inviting us to admire an “Auto-da-fe of the Spanish Jesuits”, fortunately limited to the works of French literature. Indeed, this Jesuit censor doesn’t seem to be a “modernist”, judging by what M. Jean Creach says: “If Father Garmendia had the power of Cardinal Tavera, the one whose gaze was resuscitated by Greco like lightning in a greenish mask, above the purple, Spain would be acquainted only with our literature by emasculated… or even beheaded authors”.

Then, after quoting several amusing examples of the Reverend Father’s purifying zeal, the author tells this pertinent reflection:

“Are the brains formed by our Jesuits so weak that they cannot confront even the smallest danger to triumph over it themselves?”, whispered a mischievous tongue? “Tell me, dear friend; if they are incapable of it, what is the value of the teaching which renders them so feeble?”(8)

To this humorous critic, we can answer that the said weakness of the brains moulded by the Jesuits is, in fact, the main value of their teaching— and its danger as well.

This is the place to which we always have to return. Through a special vocation—and in spite of some honourable, even famous, exceptions— they are the sworn enemies of freedom of the mind: Brainwashed brainwashers! This is their strength, as well as their weakness and injuriousness. M. Andre Mater stated extremely well the absolute totalitariansim of their Order when he wrote: “Through the discipline which unites him, in spirit, to all his fellow-members, each one of them acts and thinks with the intensity of thirty-thousand others. This is Jesuitic fanaticism”.(9)

More terrible nowadays than ever before, this Jesuitic fanaticism, absolute master of the Roman Church, has embroiled her deeply in the competitions of world politics in which the militant and military spirit distinguishing this Company delights in. Under its care the papal organisation and the swastika launched a deadly attack on the hated liberalism and tried to bring about the “new Middle-Ages” Hitler promised Europe.(10)

(8) “Le Monde”,.31st of August 1950. (9) Andre Mater, op.cit., p. 193. (10) Frederic Hoffet, op.cit., p.172.

In spite of von Ledochowski’s prodigious plans, in spite of Himmler, “our Ignatius of Loyola”, in spite of the slow-death camps, in spite of the corrupting of minds by Catholic Action and unrestrained propaganda of the Jesuits in the United States, the “providential man’s” enterprise was a failure, and the “heritage of Saint-Peter”, instead of increasing in the East, was reduced by that much.

An undeniable fact remains: the national-socialist government, “the most Catholic Germany ever had”(10), was also and by far the most abjectly cruel—without excluding from the comparison the barbarian epochs. Painful declaration indeed for many believers, but one it would be wise meditating upon. In the Order’s “burgs”, where the training was a copy of the Jesuitic method, the master—apparent, at least—of the Third Reich formed this “SS elite” before which, according to his wishes, the world “trembled”—but also vomited with disgust. The same causes produce the same results. “There are disciplines too heavy for the human soul to bear and which would utterly break a conscience… Crime of alienation of oneself masked by heroism… No commandment can be good if, first of all, it corrupts a soul. When one has engaged oneself fully in a society, other beings lose much of their importance”.(11)

In fact, the Nazi chiefs had no consideration for the “other beings”; we can say the same as well of the Jesuits! “They made obedience their idol”.(12)

And this utter obedience was invoked by the accused of Nuremberg to excuse their awful crimes.

Finally, we borrow from the same author, who analysed Jesuitic fanaticism so well, this final judgment:

“We reproach the Company with its skill, its politics and deceit, we ascribe to it all the calculations, all the hidden motives, all the underhand blows; we reproach her even with the intelligence of its members. Yet there isn’t one country where the Society has not experienced great disappointment, where it hasn’t behaved in a scandalous manner and drawn upon itself righteous anger.

“If their machiavellism had the depth generally attributed to it, would these grave and thoughtful men constantly throw themselves into abysses human wisdom can foresee, into catastrophes they were bound to expect as the Order experienced similar ones in all civilized States?

“The explanation is simple: a powerful genius governs the Society, a genius so powerful that it thrusts it sometimes even against stumbling- blocks, as if it could break them, ad majorem Dei Gloriam”. “This genius is not the one of the general, of his advice, of the provincials, nor the heads of every household…

(11) and (12 Henri Petit: “L’Honneur de Dieu”, pp.25, 72, 73.

“It is the living genius of this vast body, it is the inevitable strength resulting from this gathering of sacrificed consciences, bound intelligences; it is the explosive strength and domineering fury of the Order, resulting from its nature itself.

“In a great accumulation of clouds, lightning is powerful and the storm is bound to break out”.(13)

Between 1939 and 1945, the storm killed 57 million souls ravaging and ruining Europe.

We must be on our guard; another and even worse catastrophe may lie hidden in these same clouds; lighting may strike again, throwing the world into “abysses human wisdom can foresee”, but out of which, if it had the misfortune to let itself be thrown into, no power could rescue it. In spite of what Rome’s spokesmen may say, it is not “anticlericalism” which prompted us to study carefully the Vatican’s politics, or those of the Jesuits’, and to denounce its motives and means, but the necessity to enlighten the public about the sly activity of fanatics who do not retreat before anything—the past has proved this too often—to reach their aims. We have seen how, during the 18th century, the European monarchies united to demand the suppression of this evil Order. Nowadays, it can concoct its intrigues in peace and the democratic governments do not seem to appear concerned.

The danger the world is exposed to because of this Company is far greater today than at the time of the “family pact”, and even greater than when the two World Wars broke out.

No one can nurse any illusion as to the deadly consequences another conflict would have.

(13) Henri Petit, op.cit, pp.152-153.

THE END