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THE JESUITS IN HISTORY

The true church of the Lord Jesus Christ has suffered reproach and endured persecution in almost every age since Stephen was martyred. In the early years of the church to confess Christ invited persecution and martyrdom. As the years rolled by and the church gained more power, it was not long until the church was doing the persecuting instead of being persecuted.

Augustine was one of the first, but certainly not the last, to advocate the necessity of force to extirpate error. As Farrar points out: “His writings became the Bible of the inquisition.”¹ So from then on, inquisitorial methods became part and parcel of Rome’s intrigues although stridently denied by some contemporary writers.

Martin Luther was used of God to set forth the liberating doctrine of justification by faith in the finished work of Christ and so dealt a death blow to Roman Catholicism. For this great Biblical doctrine destroys completely the whole-sacramentarian-good-works-priestly enterprise known as Roman Catholicism. Since the time of Luther the Roman institution has been working day and night to overthrow Bible Protestantism and return the “separated brethren” to the one true fold—the Vatican. No greater effort has been made than that made by the Jesuits. The Society of Jesus, founded by Loyola, has been at the origin of many conspiracies directed against Protestantism. They are documented conspiracies, not figments of an over active imagination. So it is nothing short of amazing when Gary Allen, who claims to be an authority in the field of conspiracy, calls in Pedro Arrupe to substantiate his thesis that a conspiracy exists. At the time that Allen wrote ten years ago, Pedro Arrupe was the head of the Jesuits.

The Jesuits are famous in history for their conspiracies, intrigues, assassinations, and their undying hatred of the Protestant Reformation. Pedro Arrupe was the head of an organization which every well informed Protestant knows was the main force behind the Counter Reformation. The Counter-Reformation sought by every means, fair or foul, to overthrow and undo the work of the glorious Protestant Reformation.

If there were no other reason to be against the Jesuits but this, that they attempted wherever possible to stop or hinder the true work of revival and gospel enlightenment in the church, it would be more than enough. But there are many more reasons than this. So for anyone claiming to be knowledgeable in the field of conspiracy to align himself with the head of the Jesuits is a severe blow, to say the least, to his credibility. Yet thousands of fundamental and conservative preachers speak constantly about Allen’s “Insider” conspiracy without once stopping to consider the work of the Jesuits and their sponsor, the Vatican.

The Jesuits were so evil that they were feared even by Roman Catholic kings! MacPherson notes:

The (Roman) Catholic king of Portugal says: it cannot be but that the licentiousness introduced by the Jesuits, of which the three leading features are falsehood, murder and perjury, deprive the laws of their power, destroy the submission of subjects, allow individuals the liberty of killing, calumniating, lying, and forswearing themselves as their advantage may dictate.²

McKinley adds his testimony to that of MacPherson.

This society which has dared to appropriate to itself the Name, which is above every name, by calling itself, “The Order of Jesus,” deserved rather from the nature of its doctrines and from the work it has done in the world to be called the Order of Satan.³

Even the secular historian, W. E. Lunt, whose text was used for years in American colleges and universities, recognized the conspiracies of the Jesuits.

In this development the English Catholics had no small part…They were not a serious political menace until 1580 when two Jesuits came to England and began to plot with the Spanish ambassador…to place Mary on the throne. From that time Catholic plots were continually being hatched. Some had as their method a rebellion aided by foreign invasion while others sought their object by the simple mode of Elizabeth’s assassination. None of the plots succeeded… Walsingham…laid bare the plots….and arrested several of the conspirators.⁴

The Jesuits actually became so powerful and overbearing that they were disbanded by none other than the pope himself. In 1773 Ganganelli, who succeeded Clement XIII, issued a papal bull in which he declared them suppressed and extinct and their statutes annulled. They remained suppressed for forty years, but in 1814 Pius VII issued a bull solemnly restablishing the society under the constitutions of “St. Ignatius.”

The fact that the society was held in such disrepute even by its own institution is certainly not much of a recommendation for its evil practices. Yet, the man who headed this society when Gary Allen wrote his book, “NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY,” was called in by Allen to corroborate the fact that an international conspiracy exists. It is obvious that it is very easy to postulate a Bilderberger, Insider, or Trilateralist type of conspiracy without generating any animosity among the general public. Everyone and anyone can identify against a few rich evil men lurking in the shadows and working to take over the world. But to identify religious men as conspirators causes millions of people to bridle in anger and disbelief.

It is obvious that very few people know anything about the Jesuits today. Let us look at the organization that Ignatius of Loyola brought into being. There were several steps through which every well-trained Jesuit was to pass before he was graduated from his training.

1. The Spiritual Exercises.
These were undertaken with the object of inducing among other things a state of complete subjection of the will.⁵

2. If the trainee passed the first test, he was invited to become a novice.

From this time on, he is excluded from all earthly friends and is to have no will of his own as to his future. He is to put himself in the hands of his director as the interpreter of heaven toward him. Complete obedience is the thing that is absolutely required. His conscience must never assert itself in opposition to his superiors. Newman notes: “Absolute destruction of individual will and conscience is aimed at and to a great extent accomplished.”⁶

Can anyone imagine a better base upon which to build a global conspiracy than complete and unquestioning obedience? In every small conspiracy about which details can be studied, one of the primary goals is to get each conspirator to give his unquestioning and complete obedience to the plan.

The Novitiate usually lasts two years. If the novice is found to possess the right qualities, he is accepted as a Scholar. Notice the weeding out process that continues all through the entire program. Only the most dedicated make it through to the final stages of the Society.

The Scholar now undergoes a protracted course of training in various branches of knowledge. Attention is paid to the cultivation of a sound physical make-up. If the Scholar is able to meet the requirements of this stage, he becomes a Coadjutor. Those who attain this rank are to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the advancement of the society. They serve as priests, missionaries, teachers and businessmen for the society.

The next rung on the ecclesiastical ladder is a group called the Professed. These are composed of a small proportion of the Coadjutors who have proved themselves and have been tested as to their complete trustworthiness regarding the aims of the society. It is from this group the officers of the society are drawn. They are the ones who are entrusted with its secrets. Watchcare is another important part of the society. Each member including the general is responsible to another, and according to Newman:

to whom he must regularly make confession of his inmost thoughts, and who is required to exercise a watch care over him and to report every deviation from rectitude, according to the standards of the body.⁷

The aim of the Order was, according to Ignatius, the promotion of the greater glory of God. According to Newman:

The greater glory of God was identified by them in the most absolute way with the world wide and undisputed dominion of the Roman Catholic Church.⁸

The methods of the Order are well known. In most cases the Jesuits deny the charges against them. But it has been charged that they infiltrate into places of power using as their watchword, the phrase “the end justifies the means.” The fact that they deny such actions should not cause any surprise since that is part and parcel of their method of operation.

Their ethical system allows all kinds of loopholes by which to escape any situation that might cause embarrassment to the Society or to the Roman Catholic Church. The society did openly defend their recommendation that tyrants should be assassinated.⁹ Their doctrine of Probabilism, although rejected by some members, nevertheless secured papal recognition. Their ability to escape responsibility by the method of “directing the intention” also demonstrates that the phrase “the end justifies the means,” although never appearing in their writings, is there in their purpose as plain as day.

Another equally objectionable doctrine was their teaching on mental reservation or restriction, whereby one, without burden to his conscience, might tell a downright lie provided the word or clause that would make it true is in his mind.

Thus, one accused of having committed a certain act last week in a certain place may swear that he was not there, reserving the statement “this morning.”¹⁰ The Secret Instructions, supposed to be the frank directions of the generals to the provincials and others involving unscrupulous commands, can no longer be used. The genuineness of the document has been denied by the society. It was first published in 1612, and, if not genuine, was probably the production of the ex-Jesuit Hieronymus Zaorowski.¹¹ However, as Newman cogently reasons:

The repudiation of the work by the Society is, of course, no conclusive evidence of its spuriousness. It has been the consistent policy of the society from the beginning to deny everything disadvantageous to the church or to itself.¹²

The supreme end as noted above was the greater glory of God. So any superior can declare an end, however diabolical, to involve the greater glory of God, and command his inferior to use any means whatever for the accomplishment of this end, including, as Newman points out: “deceit, theft, and even murder; and the inferior must unquestioningly obey.”¹³

Hodge also points out in his work the notoriety which the Jesuits attained through their principle of mental reservation.

The doctrine that the character of an act depended solely on the intention. If the intention be good, the act is good; whether it be falsehood, perjury, murder, or any other conceivable crime. Pascal quotes the Jesuit moralist Escobar as laying down the general principle, “that promises are not binding unless there was an intention of keeping them, at the time they were made.” On the same principle, that the intention determines the character of the act, the murder of Henry III, in 1589; of the Prince of Orange in 1584; of Henry IV, of France in 1610; and especially the massacres on the feast of St. Bartholomew, were all justified,.¹⁴

Gordon Liddy, who was also educated by the Jesuits, used the same type of reasoning for justifying his part in the Nixon Watergate scandal. It is very significant that Liddy, who now claims he does not believe in God, nevertheless uses the various definitions of the Roman moralists to justify murder.

It is the same rationale by which I was willing to obey an order to kill Jack Anderson. But I would do so only after satisfying myself that it was: (a) an order from legitimate authority; (b) a question of malum prohibitum; and (c) a rational response to the problem.¹⁵

Once we allow the reasoning of the Jesuits to prevail, then murder becomes a viable means of policy if we feel that it is necessary. It is tragic that many fundamental and evangelical Christians agree with this tvpe of reasoning today, showing that Jesuitical casuistry has made vast strides since the sixteenth century.

We believe in capital punishment. We do not believe, however, that any man has the right to be judge, jury and executioner. Once allow this type of thinking, and Tomas Torquemada and the Inquisition will not be far away.

The Jesuits were well received in Italy and in Portugal at first. However in Spain, Charles V was opposed to their methods and to their ideas of papal absolutism. Leading Roman Catholic Spanish theologians such as Melchior Canus denounced them as the forerunners of anti-Christ foretold by the Apostle in II Timothy 3:2.

In France they met with opposition but finally gained a foothold and permission to establish a college at Clermont. In Lyons, their presence and preaching resulted in the burning of the books and churches of the Huguenots. It is probable that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day was due in some measure to their influence.¹⁶ In England, Trevelyan says of the Jesuits that their policy aimed “at the overthrow of the existing regime and the forcible extirpation of Protestantism.”¹⁷ A likelier group to originate a global conspiracy would indeed be difficult to find. Their zeal knew no bounds. They were and are the heart and soul of the Counter-Reformation. As Newman, the great Southern Baptist Historian, points out:

The chief means that were used by the Counter-Reformation from this time onward (1541) were the Council of Trent, The Society of Jesus, and the Inquisition…These means of fortifying the church and repressing heresy are closely interlinked. The Council of Trent, especially in its later and more important phases, and the establishment and working of the Inquisition, like the policy of the papacy in general, were due to Jesuit influence.¹⁸

So for someone to call in Pedro Arrupe to comment on the possible existence of a conspiracy is like calling in Adolf Hitler to comment on the possible existence of Nazism. It is better to go with known facts about conspiracy than to hint at hidden conspiracies which may not even exist.

The Jesuits were indefatigable in their efforts to restore Romanism to its former glory in the areas where Protestantism had gained a foothold. Von Ranke tells of the return of the idolatry of Romanism to parts of Germany.

In Cologne it was again an honor to wear the Rosary. Relics were once more held up to public reverence in Treves, where for many years no one had ventured to exhibit them… the youth of Ingolstadt belonging to the Jesuit school walked… on a pilgrimage…in order to be strengthened for their confirmation “by the dew that dropped from the tomb of St. Wal-purgis.”¹⁹

The Jesuits were the first effective counter action against the progress of Protestantism that the Roman Catholic Church was able to wage. Yet few Protestants then, and now, fail to realize the eternal issues which are at stake in this battle. Grace and idolatrous works are mutually exclusive. Error is only defeated by the proclamation of the truth. It is never defeated by compromise, half-truths, or a failure to recognize its existence.

REFERENCES

1. Farrar, F. W. History of Interpretation, Baker Book House, Reprint, p. 235

2. MacPherson, Hector, The Jesuits in History, Edinburgh, Scotland. 1914, pp. 104-105

3. Ash, McKinley, The Antichrist, Blackwood, N.J. p. 91

4. Lunt, W.E., History of England, p. 378

5. Newman, Albert Henry, A Manual of Church History, Vol. II, Philadelphia, 1947, p. 369

6. Ibid., p. 370

7. Ibid., p. 371

8. Ibid., p. 372

9. loc cit.

10. Ibid., p. 372

11. loc. cit

12. Ibid., p. 378

13. Ibid., p. 379

14. Hodge, Charles, Systematic Theology, Vol. Ill, N.Y. 1873, pp. 445-446

15. Liddy, G. Gordon, Will, Dell Pub. Co. 1981, p. 291

16. Newman, p. 381 17.Trevelyan, G.M., History of England, Vol II., Doubleday, N.Y. 1953, p. 158

18. Newman, p. 355

19. Von Ranke, Leopold, History of the Popes, Vol II, Collier, N.Y. 1901, p. 23