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2. Germany

“It was not southern Europe, but central Europe: France, Holland, Germany, Poland, which were the site for that historical struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism. So these countries were the main fields of battle for the Society of Jesus.” (11)

The situation was particularly grave in Germany. “Not only notorious pessimists, but also thinking and wise Catholics considered the old church’s cause in all German lands as almost lost. In fact, even in Austria and Bohemia, the break with Rome was so general that the Protestants could reasonably hope to conquer Austria within a few decades. Then how is it this change did not take place and the country was divided into two sections instead? The Catholic party, at the close of the 16th century, had no hesitation in answering this question, for it always acknowledged that the Witelsbach, Habsburg and Jesuits were responsible for this happy turn of events.”(12)

Rene Fulop-Miller wrote about the Jesuits’ role in these events: “The Catholic cause could hope for a real success only if the Fathers were able to influence and guide the princes, at all times and in all circumstances. The confessionals offered the Jesuits the means to secure a lasting political influence, therefore an effectual action” .(13)

In Bavaria, the young duke Albert V, son of a zealous Catholic and educated at Ingolstadt, the old Catholic city, called on the Jesuits to combat effectively the heresy:

“On the 7th of July 1556, 8 Fathers and 12 Jesuit teachers entered Ingolstadt. It was the start of a new era for Bavaria… the State itself received a new Seal…. the Roman Catholic conceptions directed the politics of princes and the behaviour of the high classes. But this new spirit got hold of the higher classes only. It did not gain the hearts of ordinary people… Nevertheless, under the iron discipline of the State and the restored Church, they again became devout Catholics, docile, fanatic, and intolerant towards any heresy…”

(11) and (12) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.89, 104, ,112, 114. (13) Rene Fulop-Miller, op.cit., II, pp.98, 102.

“It may seem excessive to attribute such prodigious virtues and actions to a mere handful of strangers. Yet, in these circumstances, their force was in inverse ratio to their numbers and they were immediately effective as no obstacles were met. Loyola’s emissaries won the country’s heart and mind from the start… From the next generation on, Ingolstadt became the perfect type of the german Jesuit city”.(14) One can judge the state of mind the Fathers introduced to this stronghold of faith by reading the following:

“The Jesuit Mayrhofer of Ingolstadt taught in his “Preacher’s mirror”: “We will not be judged if we demand the killing of Protestants, any more than we would by asking for the death penalty on thieves, murderers, counterfeiters and revolutionaries.”(15)

The successors of Albert V, and especially Maximilian I (1597-1651), completed his work. But Albert V already was conscientious in his “duty” of assuring his subjects’ “salvation”.

“As soon as the Fathers arrived in Bavaria, his attitude towards Protestants and those favourable to them became more severe. From 1563 on, he pitilessly expelled all recalcitrants, and had no mercy for the anabaptists who had to suffer drownings, fire, prison and chains, all of which were praised by the Jesuit Agricola… In spite of all this, a whole generation of men had to disappear before the persecution was crowned a complete success. As late as 1586, the moravian anabaptists managed to hide 600 victims from the duke Guillaume. This one example proves that there were thousands and not hundreds who were driven out, an awful breach into a thinly populated country.

“But”, said Albert V to the Munich City council, “God’s honour and the salvation of souls must be placed above any temporal interests”. 16)

Little by little, all teaching in Bavaria was placed in the Jesuits’ hands, and that land became the base for their penetration in eastern, western and northern Germany.

“From 1585 on, the Fathers converted the part of Westphalia depending on Cologne; in 1586, they appear in Neuss and Bonn, one of Cologne’s archbishop’s residences; they open colleges at Hildesheim in 1587 and Munster in 1588. This particular one already had 1300 pupils in 1618… A large part of western Germany was reconquered in that way by Catholicism, thanks to the Wittelsbach and Jesuits.

(14) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.89, 104, 112, 114.
(15) Rene Fulop-Miller, op.cit., II, pp.98, 102.
(16) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.89, 104, 112, 114.

“The alliance between the Wittelsbach and Jesuits was maybe even more important for the “Austrian lands” than for western Germany”.(17)

The archduke Charles of Styrie, last son of emperor Ferdinand, married in 1571 a Bavarian princess “who brought into Gratz castle the narrow Catholic tendencies and the friendship for the Jesuits which prevailed at the Court of Munich”. Under her influence, Charles worked hard to “extirpate the heresy” from his kingdom and when he died, in 1590, he made his son and successor, Ferdinand, swear that he would go on with this work. In any case, Ferdinand was well prepared for this. “For five years, he had been a pupil of the Jesuits at Ingolstadt; besides, he was so narrow-minded that, to him, there was no nobler task than the reestablishment of the Catholic Church in his hereditary States. That this task was advantageous or not to his lands was of no concern to Him. “I prefer”, said he, “to reign over a country in ruins, than over one which is damned”. (18)

In 1617, the archduke Ferdinand was crowned king of Bohemia by the emperor. “Influenced by his Jesuit confessor Viller, Ferdinand started at once to combat Protestantism in his new kingdom. This signalled the start of that bloody war of religion which, for the next thirty years, kept Europe in suspense. When, in 1618, the unhappy events in Prague gave the signal for open rebellion, the old emperor Mathias tried at first to compromise, but he did not have enough power to make his intentions prevail against king Ferdinand, who was dominated by his Jesuit confessor; so, the last hope to settle this conflict amicably was lost”. “At the same time, the lands of Bohemia had taken special measures and solemnly decreed that all Jesuits should be expelled, as they saw in them promoters of civil war”.(19)

Soon after, Moravia and Silesie followed this example, and Protestants of Hungary, where the Jesuit Pazmany ruled with a rod of iron, rebelled also. But the battle of the White Mountain (1620) was won by Ferdinand, who had been made emperor again after the death of Mathias.

“The Jesuits persuaded Ferdinand to inflict the most cruel punishment on the rebels; Protestantism was rooted out of the whole country by means too terrible for words… At the end of the war, the country’s material ruin was complete”.

(17) and (18) H. Boehmer, op.cit., pp.117, 120. (19) J. Huber, op.cit., pp. 180-183.

“The Jesuit Balbinus, Bohemia’s historian, wondered how there could still be some inhabitants left in that country. But moral ruin was even more terrible… The flourishing culture found amongst the nobles and middle classes, the rich national literature which could not be replaced: all this had been destroyed, and even nationality had been abolished. Bohemia was open to the Jesuits’ activities and they burned Czech literature en-masse; under their influence, even the name of the nation’s great saint: John Huss, gradually grew dimmer until it was extinct in the hearts of the people… “The height of the Jesuits’ power”, said Tomek, “coincided with the country’s greatest decadence in her national culture; it is because of the influence that Order had, that this unfortunate land’s awakening came about one century too late…” “When the Thirty Years War came to an end, and a peace was concluded assuring German Protestants the same political rights enjoyed by the Catholics, the Jesuits did their uttermost to continue the fighting; it was in vain”.(20)

But they obtained from their student Leopold the First, then reigning emperor, the promise to persecute the Protestants in his own lands, and especially in Hungary. “Escorted by imperial dragoons, the Jesuits undertook this work of conversion in 1671. The Hungarians rose to action and started a war which was to last for nearly a whole generation… But that insurrection was victoroius, under the leadership of Francis Kakoczy. The victor wanted to drive the Jesuits out of all the countries which fell under his power; but influencial protectors of the Order managed to adjourn these measures, and the expulsion did not take place until 1707…

“Prince Eugene blamed, with a harsh frankness, the politics of the imperial house and the intrigues of the Jesuits in Hungary. He wrote: “Austria nearly lost Hungary because of their persecuting of the Protestants”. One day, he bitterly exclaimed that the morals of the Turks were far superior to those of the Jesuits, in practice at least. “Not only do they want to dominate consciences, but also to have the right of life and death over men”.

“Austria and Bavaria reaped the fruits of Jesuit domination in full: the compression of all progressive tendencies and the systematic stultification of the people”.

“The deep misery which followed the war of religion, the powerless politics, the intellectual decadence, the moral corruption, a frightful decrease in the population and impoverishment of the whole of Germany: these were the results of the Order’s actions”.(21)

(20) Rene Fulop-Miller, op.cit., II, pp. 104-105. (21) J. Huber, op.cit., pp.183-186.