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COUNT  VON  HOENSBROECH 


Translated   by 


ME   ZIMMERN 


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FOURTEEN  YEARS  A  JESUIT 


Fourteen   years 
a  Jesuit 


A  Record   of  Personal  Experience 
and  a   Criticism 


BY 

COUNT  PAUL  VON   HOENSBROECH 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN  BY 

ALICE  ZIMMERN 

(Girton  College,  Cambridge) 


VOLUME  II 


CASSELL  AND  COMPANY,  LTD. 

London,  New  York,  Toronto  and  Melbourne 

1911 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRaKT 
CHFSTNUTHILL   MASS 


ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


CONTENTS 

CH  U'TER  PAGE 

15.  A  Criticism  of  the  Inner  Constitution  of  the  Order  : 

Some  General  Characteristics    ....  1 

16.  The  Criticism  Continued  :    Theory  and  Practice  of 

the  Vows 49 

17.  The  Criticism  Continued  :    Theory  and  Practice  of 

the  Constitutions        ......  105 

18.  The  Criticism  Continued  :    Politics  and  Confessors  133 

19.  The  Criticism  Continued  :    Court  Confessors  .         .  172 

20.  Scholastic  Years  at  Wynandsrade,  Blyenbeck  and 

Ditton  Hall 199 

21.  The  Scholastic  Studies 227 

22.  The  Philosophical  and  Theological  Studies  of  the 

Scholasticate       .......  246 

23.  The  Attitude  of  the  Order  to  Learning        .         .  270 

24.  Jesuit  Morality 286 

25.  Jesuit  Morality  and  the  State        ....  338 

26.  Exaeten 369 

27.  Berlin 399 

28.  The  Tertiate  and  the  End 412 

29.  General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order           .         .  423 

30.  From  Then  Till  Now 447 

Index 469 


Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 


CHAPTER   XV 

A  CRITICISM  OF   THE   INNER  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE   ORDER  : 
SOME   GENERAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

By  the  "  inner  constitution  of  the  Order  "  I  mean  the 
spirit  of  the  Order.  Theoretically,  it  is  manifested  in 
the  Constitutions  of  the  Order,  and,  practically,  in  its 
activity.  Thus  the  inner  and  outer  are  combined,  the 
organism  of  the  Order,  with  its  actual  and  its  historical 
life,  being  formed  by  both. 

Criticism  will,  therefore,  extend  to  the  whole  of  this 
domain.  But,  first,  some  preliminary  questions  must  be 
answered. 

1.  Have  we  the  real,  and,  above  all,  the  complete 
Constitutions  of  the  Order  in  the  extant  editions  of  the 
"Institute  of  the  Society  of  Jesus?"* 

A  positive  answer  cannot  be  given.  We  can  only 
take  what  is  offered  as  the  "  complete  "  Constitutions  in 
good  faith,  trusting  in  the  honour  of  those  who  issue 
them,  namely,  the  Jesuit  Order  itself.  Nor  is  corrobora- 
tion by  another  authority  of  the  completeness  of  the 
Constitutions,  to  be  found  anywhere — of  course  I  am  only 

*  Prague,  1757  ;  Rome,  1870 ;  etc.  The  latest  edition  of  the  "  Institute," 
published  in  Florence  in  1893,  cannot  be  obtained  at  ordinary  booksellers. 
When  I  sought  to  procure  a  copy  from  the  Order  through  the  Berlin  branch  of 
the  Herder  firm  of  publishers  at  Freiburg  i.  Br.,  which  is  closely  connected  with  the 
Order,  my  request  was  refused.  They  would  not  supply  me  with  the  latest 
edition,  even  for  payment. 

B 


2  Fourteen    Years  a  Jesuit 

thinking  of  an  ecclesiastical  authority — which  has  had  an 
insight  into  the  original  documents,  the  first  drafts  and 
editions  of  the  Constitutions.  The  Order  alone  tells  us, 
"  These  are  my  constitutions  and  rules."  But  not  even 
the  Order  itself  has  ever  stated  officially  and  solemnly, 
"  These  are  my  complete  constitutions,  my  complete 
rules  :    there  are  no  others." 

Serious  doubts  arise  as  to  their  completeness  when 
we  peruse  the  Summarium  Constitutionum  and  the 
Regulae  Communes  * — i.e.  those  portions  of  the  Con- 
stitutions which  are  supposed  to  contain  a  summary, 
the  quintessence  of  the  principles  and  rules :  "A  sum- 
mary (summarium)  of  those  statutes  which  relate  to  the 
spiritual  direction  of  our  members  and  which  are  to  be 
observed  by  all." 

An  incoherent  mass  of  matter  is  to  be  found  here, 
consisting  of  fifty -two  points  and  forty-nine  rules.  Regu- 
lations dealing  with  mere  externals  stand  side  by  side 
with  others  concerned  with  ascetic  discipline.  Funda- 
mental rules  for  the  structure  and  direction  of  the  Society 
alternate  with  what  is  obviously  unimportant  and  tran- 
sitory. What  astonishes  us  is  not  so  much  the  lack  of 
arrangement  as  the  lack  of  coherence.  We  are  sensible 
of  gaps,  and  involuntarily  the  thought  arises,  "  Has  not 
something  been  omitted  here  and  here  and  here  ?  " 

The  Summarium  and  the  Regulae  Communes  were 
read  once  every  month  during  meals  from  the  pulpit 
of  the  refectory.  The  more  often  I  heard  them  the 
more  strongly  I  doubted :  "  Am  I  hearing  something 
complete  or  something  consciously  and  intentionally 
curtailed  ?  "  In  important  and  decisive  conversations,  to 
be  mentioned  later,  I  expressed  my  doubts  to  the  Pro- 
vincial of  the  German  Province,  Father  Jacob  Ratgeb. 
I  received  the  evasive  reply :    "  Leave  alone  such  quib- 

*  Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  70-78. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    3 

bling.     Take  things  as  they  come  ;   what  lies  in  the  future 
does  not  concern  to-day." 

The  Transactions  of  the  fifth  General  Congregation 
(1593-1594)  afford  abundant  food  for  doubt  and  con- 
sideration from  this  point  of  view.  We  know  them  only 
from  the  Decrees  published  by  the  Order  itself.  Inci- 
dentally, why  has  the  Order  never  yet  published  the  com- 
plete minutes  of  even  a  single  General  Congregation — and 
there  have  been  twenty-five  of  these  up  to  the  present 
time  ?  Space,  surely,  has  not  been  lacking  in  its  numer- 
ous and  voluminous  works  on  the  inner  and  outer  history 
of  the  Order.  But  even  from  these  Decrees  it  can  clearly 
be  seen  that  there  is  intentional  obscurity  with  regard  to  the 
Constitutions,  so  that  we  have  a  full  right  to  doubt  their 
completeness  when  printed  and  published  by  the  Order. 

We  find,  in  the  first  place  : 

"  Everything  in  the  Formula  Instituti  which  was 
laid  before  Pope  Julius  III.  and  sanctioned  by  him  and 
his  successors,  and  everything  in  it  referring  by  way  of 
explanation  to  our  Constitutions  is  and  must  be  looked 
upon  as  the  substance  of  our  Institute.  And  although 
there  is  other  matter  belonging  to  the  substance  of  our 
Institute,  the  Congregation  has  decided  that  it  need  not 
be  discussed  at  the  present  time."  * 

Directly  after  this  we  read  that  a  request  was  made 
to  explain  more  clearly  what  are  the  substantiate  [of 
the  Institute],  and  a  question  was  raised  as  to  whether 
it  would  not  be  advantageous  to  add  some  examples  of 
substantials,  which  seemed  opportune,  to  the  sentence, 
"  There  is  other  matter  belonging  to  the  substance  of 
the  Institute."  The  Congregation  consequently  deter- 
mined to  amend  the  Decreet 

The  58th  Decree  is  the  result  of  the  amendment : 

"  The  substance  of  the  Institute  is,  in  the  first  place, 

*  Decree  44.  f  Decree  45. 


4  Fourteen   Years   a   Jesuit 

:  contained  in  the  formula  or  regula  of  the  Society, 
which  was  submitted  to  Pope  Julius  III.  and  was  con- 
firmed by  him  and  some  of  his  successors  :  in  the  second 
place,  that  without  which  the  contents  of  the  formula 
could  not  hold  good  at  alL  or  only  with  difficulty,  namely  : 

1    There  are  some  essential  impediments  to  admission ; 

_  a  judicial  form  need  not  be  observed  on  dismissal ; 
(3)  a  statement  of  conscience  must  be  made  to  the 
Superior ;  (4)  everyone  must  be  content  that  anything 
about  him,  which  has  been  learnt  outside  confession, 
should  be  notified  to  the  Superior  :  ( 5 )  all  must  be  pre- 
pared to  ah  iw  suitable  love  and  charity  to  one  another. 
And  other  similar  points,  the  confirmation  of  which  the 
Congregation  has  no  time  to  consider  at  present,  especi- 
ally as  the  Generals  can  confirm  them  when  necessary,  if 
they  are  no:  :  firmed  in  other  General  Congregations." 
But  the  seventh  General  Congregation  of  1616  decrees 
almost  in  contradiction  to  the  fifth  : 

"  The  Congregation  decided  that  it  would  be  more 
advisable  to  abstain  from  the  confirmation  of  other  things 
pertaining  to  the  substance  of  the  Institute,  besides  tb  - 
expressed  in  the  formula,  because  it  is  not  possible  to 
express  everything  in  summary.  If  anybody  should  feel 
any  doubt,  he  can  apply  to  our  worthy  Father  [the 
General  of  the  Order]  and  learn  from  him  what  he  ought 
I     think  in  this  respect."  * 

TJL~re  is  here  an  evident  unwillingness  to  make  known 
the  complete  "  substantialia  of  the  Institute."  It  is  a 
mere  pretext  for  the  seventh  General  Congregation  to 
say  that  they  cannot  be  summarised  ;  and  there  is  an 
avowal  of  the  existence  of  still  other  suhstantialia  when 
the  fifth  General  Congregation  says  that  '*  There  is  other 
matter  besides.    - 

•  1  r'.rtr    -i     . 

:rr  XIV    :       .        ~   -muta  IratitUi. 


Criticism   of  the    Inner   Constitution    5 

The  doubt  concerning  the  incompleteness  of  the  edi- 
tions of  the  statutes,  etc.,  published  by  the  Order  becomes 
a  certainty  through  the  proceedings  of  the  eighth  and 
fourteenth   General   Congregations. 

The  Order  carefully  conceals  in  its  published  collec- 
tions of  the  Congregational  Decrees*  the  transactions  and 
resolutions  of  the  eighth  General  Congregation  (1645-46) 
as  to  an  important  letter  by  Innocent  X.,  dealing  in 
eighteen  points  with  comprehensive  reforms  of  the  Jesuit 
Order. 

At  the  fourteenth  General  Congregation  in  1696,  the 
General,  Thyrsus  Gonzalez,  proposed  that  the  Congrega- 
tion should  agree  that  the  past  events — i.e.  the  dispute 
as  to  the  General's  attack  on  probabUism — should  not 
again  be  touched  upon.  The  Congregation  decided 
accordingly,  but  this  important  resolution  is  missing  in 
every  official  publication  of  the  Decrees. t  The  editions 
of  the  Decrees  intended  for  publicity  must  not  contain 
anvthino;  which  could  throw  an  unfavourable  li^ht  on 
inner  transactions.  How  frequently  may  this  sum- 
marised procedure  have  taken  effect  ?  How  can  history 
be  written  when  founded  on  such  "official  transactions"? 

In  the  rules  of  the  Socius  of  the  Provincial  also,  allu- 
sions are  made  to  secret  statutes  of  the  Order,  only  exist- 
ing in  manuscript  form. 

>;  He  must  take  care  of  the  separate  archives  of  the 
Province  of  the  Order,  inasmuch  as  they  contain  manu- 
scripts, which  are  especially  important  for  the  direction  of 
the  Province."  Amongst  these  books  are  included,  "  The 
book  which  contains  the  imprinted  regulations  {ordina- 
tiones)  by  the  Generals  of  the  Order  binding  on  the  whole 
Societv.      The    book    which    contains    another    kind    of 

m 

unprinted  circulars  of  the  Generals."  i 

*  Prague  edition  of  the  Inst.  S.J.,  I.,  449-696 ;  Roman  edition,  L,  139-461. 
|  For  proofs  of  this  see  Dollinger-Reusch,  Moraktreitigkeitcn,  II.,  214. 
%ItuL  S.J.,  II.,  S6. 


6  Fourteen   Years   a   Jesuit 

The  latter  book  especially  must  be  characterised   :.s 

Secret  statutes  must  also  be  inferred  from  an  utter- 
ance of  the  Spanish  Jesuit  Miranda,  appointed  as  Assis- 
tant to  the  General,  which  is  contained  in  a  letter  wrirri 
::  ;.  inirnd  in  1736.  and  communicated  by  the  Jesuit 
Ibanez  in  his  report  on  the  Jesuit  state  of  Paraguay. 

"  Until  I  came  here  [Rome],  where  I  first  obtained 
accurate  information  abou:  e  :  :hing,  I  did  not  com- 
prehend  what  our  Society  w^s.  Its  -'^rnmpr-  is  a 
special  study,  which  nut  even  the  Provincials  under- 
stand. Only  one  who  fills  the  office  which  I  now  occur y 
can  even  begin  to  understand  ::.'*  x 

Since  Miranda  was  i  Provincial  before  he  was  nomi- 
nated Assistant,  he  must  have  understood  what  he  was 
writing  about,  Ibanez  also  mentions  unprinted  4i  ordin- 
ances, regulatirris.  and  letters  ;:  the  General  and  Pr:- 
viiiiiili  "'  which  doubtless  were  to  be  kept  Sri:-:.^ 

The  words  of  Don  Juan  de  Palafox.  Bishop  of  L:s 
Angeles,  whom  the  Jesuits  hated  with  a  deadly  hatred 
and  persecuted  even  in  the  grave,  are  significant  in  this 
::zz.~-.t.:z..  He  =ays  in  ins  nnns  letter  •:•:  Jnu^v 
Srn.  ii-  .  ::  Ltn::er.t  X..  :■:  ~ni:i:  I  tins:  reiri  .-;:n 
later  : 

What  other  Order  has  Constitutions  which  are  not 
i_:~T^  to  :e  seen  nn.r:T=  ~inei:  :t  zn.enls.  ±z.i  St::^ 
rules  and  everything  relating  to  the  arrangement  of  the 
Order  hidden  behind  a  curtain  ':  The  rules  of  every  other 
Order  may  be  seen  by  all  the  world.  .  .  .  But  among 
:ir  Jernts  tlere  :-.:-  ever,  snne  :■:  tie  I:  :  i  —  i. :  .1  . 
- '-•'-  m:_  tiie  sr  -:  ites.  tri—ile^es.  ami  rvn  tn^  riles  ;: 
the  Society,  although  they  ue  pledged  to  observe  them. 
Therefore  they  are  not  governed  by  their  Superiors  accord- 
ing to  the  rules  of  the  Church,  but  according  to  certain 

■  Lt  Bra  Mmfaam,  EL,  458.  f  Ibid,  IL,  373. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    7 

concealed  statutes  kno^u   by   the    Superiors  alone,  and 
.    jrding  :      sextain  secret  and  pernicious  denuu  a :-. :  :  ns, 
which  leads  to  a  large  number  being  drlv-n   mom  the 
bosom  of  the  Society."  * 


2.    Has   the   Jesuit    Order   secret   instructions,   and    are 
the  oft-quoted  M  Monita  privata  '"  authentic  ? 

From  what  his   brer,  and   must  sri_l   be   said   I  fa  vt 
net  rue  Iris:    dcm:   mat  the   Order  lis   ~e::ec   staru: 
which  it  guards  carefullv.     The  Jesuit  Order  merits  -.-- 
resign  :i;n  "secret  surety'1  more  than  an"    tier  asso- 
uation. 

Tie  :ues:i  u  :;  t-:  the  antheutreiry  ::  s* urimsuess 
of  the  Monita  carmot  be  answered  so  easily  and 
amply. 

T-~  M:r.itj  priv-ztc  ducietru's  J-:s.,  "' deerer  Instruc- 
tions 0:  tie  >::ir:y  ::  Jesus  "'  nrs:  appeared  in  print  it 
Cracow  in  1612,  aftei  they  had  already  been  circnlated  in 
manuscript  form.  The  edit  :  seems  to  have  been  the 
ex-Jesuit  Zahoro~s'ui.  Aim  s:  innumerable  editions  and 
reprints  in  all  :u  rosed  tongues  followed  one  another. 
The  latest  edition  was  published  at  Bamberg  in  1  MM 

The  importance  of  the  publication  follows  from  the 
fact  that,  directly  after  its  appearance,  the  General  ol 
the  Order,  Mutius  VHeDeechi,  twice  m  1616  and  It  IT 
instructed  the  German  Jesuit,  '-reiser,  a  prrmiueur  the:- 
logian  of  the  Order,  to  refute  it.  wad  that  ut  t:  most 
recent  tms  Jesui:  arte:  Jesm:  Its  lime  :::mm  t: 
repudiate  it.~ 

A  few  years  am.  Adoli  Hamack  asked  my  crimen  as 
to  whether  the   31:  ::':.:   ~ere   genuine    :r  net.     I  replied 

*Don  Juan  de  Palafox.  1-  --:-.■  :.  :  I.    ?r^r.V:—  3^i  l..T:.r.   1"" 

p.  116  et  Mf. 

—   .:__:      SO.   :.:..:,;-;-._:,.   -.-:-_    c\U:.;-     ?ts;:~£    L    Br.  . 


8  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

that  we  had  to  distinguish  between  the  genuineness  of 
the  form  and  of  the  matter,  and  I  still  hold  to  this 
distinction. 

The  genuineness  of  the  form — i.e.  that  the  Monita 
were  drawn  up  by  the  Order  itself  in  the  published  text 
as  a  secret  supplement  to  the  official  Constitution  of  the 
Order — is  hard  to  prove. 

Of  the  genuineness  of  the  contents — i.e.  that  the 
Monita  contain  regulations  in  harmony  with  the  spirit 
of  the  Order,  whether  its  author  were  a  Jesuit  or  an 
enemy  of  the  Jesuits,  whether  he  wished  to  write  a 
serious  or  a  satirical  work — I  am  as  positive  as  of  the 
existence  of  secret  instructions  of  the  Order. 

But  even  the  genuineness  of  the  form  cannot  be  as 
easily  disposed  of  as  has  been  done  by  the  Jesuits,  and 
recently,  in  an  especially  superficial  manner,  by  the  Jesuit 
Duhr.*  In  face  of  the  historically  indisputable  facts 
bearing  on  the  Monita,  it  only  remains  to  the  disin- 
terested and  conscientious  examiner  to  pronounce  "Not 
proven '    over  the  genuineness  of  the  form. 

Ecclesiastical  opinions  (those  of  bishops,  Congrega- 
tions of  the  Index,  etc.)  regarding  the  genuineness  are  of 
no  value,  because  they  are  partial,  are  prompted  by  the 
Jesuits  themselves,  and  condemn  them  as  false  without 
attempting  to  produce  proofs. 

It  is  natural  that  the  Jesuits  themselves  should  deny 
the  genuineness  in  a  flood  of  refutations.  But  such  denials 
only  merit  the  belief  or  unbelief  which  the  denial  of  every 
defendant  deserves.  Only  sound  proof  can  turn  the 
scale  against  the  genuineness  of  the  Monita.  And 
such  proofs  have  not  been  produced  up  to  now  by  the 
Jesuits.  Nor  has  any  convincing  invalidation  of  the  facts 
advanced  on  behalf  of  its  genuineness  been  produced. 

The  advocates  of  their  genuineness  rely  essentially  on 

*  Jesuitenfabeln,  p.  91  et  seq. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    9 

the  fact  that  the  manuscript  copies  of  the  Monita,  upon 
which  the  printed  edition  is  based,  were  to  be  found 
in  Jesuit  colleges.  The  discovery  of  such  copies  in  the 
colleges  of  Prague,  Paris,  Roermond  (Holland),  Munich, 
and  Paderborn  is  beyond  question.  The  copy  in  the 
Jesuit  house  at  Paderborn  was  found  "in  a  cupboard  in 
the  Rector's  room"  (in  scriniis  rectoris*).  The  manu- 
script copy  at  Munich,  belonging  to  the  contents  of  the 
library  of  the  Jesuit  college  of  this  place,  which  was  sup- 
pressed in  1773,  was  only  found  in  1870  in  a  secret  recess 
behind  the  altar  of  the  old  Jesuit  Church  of  St.  Michael  at 
Munich.  It  would  be  a  decisive  token  of  genuineness  if 
it  could  be  proved  positively  that  the  Prague  copy  was 
already  there  in  1611 — i.e.  before  the  first  printed  edition 
of  1612.  J.  Friedrich's  statementf  makes  this  seem  prob- 
able, but  not  certain.  What  the  Jesuit  Duhr  J  writes  to 
the  contrary  is  of  no  value.  It  is  certain,  however,  that 
the  discovery  in  Prague  was  so  disagreeable  to  the  Jesuits 
that  the  chief  champion  of  the  spuriousness  of  the 
Monita,  the  Jesuit  Forer,  considered  it  advisable  to 
pass  it  over  in  silence  in  his  work  of  repudiation,  Ana- 
tomia  Anatomiae  Societatis  Jesu.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
zealously  demonstrated — what  no  one  disputed — that 
the  copy  at  Paderborn  was  only  brought  to  light  after  the 
first  edition  had  been  published.  Forer's  silence  is  the 
more  remarkable,  as  a  manuscript  note,  intended  for  his 
book,  treats  the  Prague  discovery  as  a  fact.§  The  say- 
ing that  those  who  keep  silence  when  they  could  and 
should  speak  seem  to  give  consent,  comes  to  my  mind  in 
the  case  of  this  ominous  silence.  || 

*  Anatomia,  p.  49.  t  J-  Friedrich,  Beilrage,  p.  8. 

J  Jesuitenfabeln,  p.  94.  §  Friedrich,  pp.  9  and  65. 

||  Cretin  eau-Joly,  who  writes  in  the  pay  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  has  indeed  the 
audacity  to  designate  the  discovery  of  the  manuscript  Monita,  in  the  Jesuit 
Colleges  of  Prague  and  Paderborn  as  "  a  base  historical  lie  "  ("  vn  grossier  mensonge 
historique  ").     (Histoire  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jisus.     Paris,  1844,  III.,  372,  2.) 


io  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

I  will  give  a  few  extracts  from  the  edition  in  the 
Arcana  Societatis  Jesu,  1635  (without  place  of  publica- 
tion), from  the  manuscript*  found  by  Christian  von 
Braunschweig  in  a  secret  drawer  belonging  to  the  Rector 
in  the  Jesuit  college  at  Paderborn,  adding  my  own 
remarks. 

"  What  attitude  ought  the  Society  of  Jesus  to  take 
up  on  re-organisation  ?  "  The  directions  supplied  (attain- 
ment of  the  favour  of  the  population  through  the  render- 
ing of  services,  almsgiving,  edifying  behaviour  for  the 
edification  of  others)  are  in  absolute  harmony  with  the 
Constitutions  and  rules. 

"  How  should  the  friendship  of  princes  and  other 
great  people  be  gained  ? "  Although  the  means  indi- 
cated for  ensuring  princely  favour  cannot  be  verified  in 
detail  from  the  statutes,  the  whole  tendency  of  the  pre- 
cepts given  corresponds  with  the  official  "  explanation  ' 
(Declar.  B)  to  Part  10  of  the  Constitutions :  "  Above  all, 
we  should  retain  the  goodwill  ...  of  temporal  princes 
and  great  men  and  persons  holding  prominent  posi- 
tions." f  The  practice  of  the  Order  also  in  greeting 
and  receiving  princes  with  a  display  of  magnificence  and 
grandiloquent  speech  harmonises  with  what  is  said  on 
this  point. 

"  What  attitude  must  be  taken  up  by  court-chaplains 
and  princely  confessors  ?  "  The  answer  suggests  a  com- 
mentary to  General  Acquaviva's  "  Ordinance ':  of  1602. 
The  confessors  must  seem  to  exercise  reserve  in  political 
matters. 

"  Of  their  attitude  to  other  religious  Orders."  Quar- 
rels with  other  Orders  are  recorded  on  almost  every  page 
of  Jesuit  history.  They  arose  mostly  because  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  under  a  pretence  of  humility  (haec  minima 
societas — this    most    humble    society)    represented    itself 

*  Friedrich,  pp.  4-32.  f  Inst.  S.J.,  I.,  130. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner  Constitution  n 

as  greater  and  superior  in  virtue  and  perfection  to  all 
other  Orders.  The  advice  given  for  making  good  the 
reputation  of  highest  perfection  everywhere  is  written 
in  the  Order's  arrogant  spirit,  of  which  I  shall  speak  later. 

"  How  may  rich  widows  be  kept  well  disposed  towards 
the  Society  of  Jesus  ?  "  The  chief  directions  in  this  sec- 
tion concern  the  appointment  of  Jesuits  as  confessors 
and  spiritual  guides,  their  interference  in  household  regu- 
lation and  private  affairs,  incitations  to  donations  and 
alms -giving,  and  correspond  to  the  actual  attitude  of  the 
Order,  which  I  myself  have  observed  in  my  home  and  in 
many  other  houses  of  near  relations.  Especially  the  secur- 
ing of  money  from  wives  and  widows  under  the  mask  of 
piety  (confession  and  exercises)  is  a  world-wide  and 
ancient  malpractice  of  Jesuit  confessors  and  spiritual 
guides.  The  activity  of  the  Jesuit  Order  in  England  at 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  affords  very  interesting  examples  of 
this.  The  English  Jesuit,  Gerard,  relates  of  himself : 
"  I  also  received  many  general  confessions ;  among 
others  that  of  a  widow  lady  of  high  rank  (Lady  Lovel), 
who  for  the  rest  of  her  days  applied  herself  to  good  works 
and  gave  me  an  annual  sum  of  1,000  florins  for  the 
Society ;    another  widow   (Mrs.   Fortescue)   gave  700."  * 

The  Catholic  priest,  William  Watson,  reports  more 
fully :  "In  like  manner  he  (the  Jesuit  Gerard)  dealeth 
with  such  gentlewomen  as  the  Ladie  Louell,  Mistresse 
Haywood,  and  Mistresse  Wiseman,  of  whom  he  got  so 
much  as  now  shee  feeleth  the  want  of  it.  By  drawing 
Mistress  Fortescue,  the  widow  of  Master  Edmond  For- 
tescue, into  his  exercise,  he  got  of  her  a  farme  worth 
50  pounds  a  yere  and  paid  her  no  rent.  Another  drift 
he  hath  by  his  exercise  of  cousinage  :  which  is  to  perswade 

*  The  Life  of  Fr.  John  Gerard  (London,   1882),  p.  63,  quoted  by  Taunton. 
History  of  the  Jesuits  in  England  (London,  1901),  p.  162. 


12  Fourteen   Years   a  Jesuit 

such  gentlewomen,  as  haue  large  portions  to  their  mar- 
riage, to  give  the  same  to  him  and  his  companie,  and  to 
become  nuns.  So  he  preuailed  with  two  of  Mr.  William 
Wiseman's  daughters,  with  Elizabeth  Sherly,  with  Dorothy 
Ruckwood,  with  Mary  Tremaine,  with  Anna  Arundell, 
and  with  Lady  Mary  Percie."  *  What  is  said  in  the 
Monita  of  "careful  excitement  of  the  sensuous  faculty" 
in  women  and  widows  does  not  correspond  with  reality, 
from  my  knowledge  of  facts. 

"  Of  the  means  by  which  sons  and  daughters  of  our 
confessional  children  are  to  be  brought  to  a  spiritual 
state."  The  directions  contain  nothing  which  has  not 
been  practised  hundreds  of  times.  The  chapter,  "  Of 
the  choice  of  young  men  for  our  Society  and  of  the  manner 
of  keeping  a  firm  hold  on  them,"  is  taken  from  life. 

"  What  attitude  should  be  taken  up  by  our  followers 
in  regard  to  those  dismissed  from  the  Order  ?  "  The 
spreading  of  evil  reports,  here  recommended,  about  those 
who  have  either  been  dismissed  or  have  withdrawn  is 
an  almost  regular  practice.  The  advice  to  ill-treat  those 
to  be  dismissed  and  to  hinder  their  advancement  after  dis- 
missal is  confirmed  by  the  practice  of  the  Order.  The 
German  Jesuit,  Streicher,  relates  in  a  confidential  letter 
(now  in  the  State  archives  at  Munich)  from  Spain,  dating 
from  the  eighteenth  century,  "  Half  a  year  before  dis- 
missal the  person  to  be  dismissed  is  thrown  into  a  dungeon 
and  there  reduced  (maceratus)  by  a  diet  of  bread  and 
water.  Every  Friday  he  is  brought,  with  chains  fas- 
tened on  both  feet,  by  a  lay  brother  into  the  refectory, 
and  he  must  scourge  himself  there  [before  the  others].  Our 
members  have  also  contrived  that  no  one  who  has  not 
withdrawn  for  legitimate  and  conclusive  reasons  shall  be 
appointed  to  a  parish  or  any  other  benefice."  t     That  this 

*  Decacordon  of  Ten  Quodlibetical  Questions  (London,  1602),  p.  89  et  seq. 
f  Reprinted  from  Friedrich,  Beitrdge,  p.  73  et  seq. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner    Constitution  13 

inhumane  treatment  was  customary  not  only  in  Spain  is 
proved  by  a  saying  of  the  Archbishop  of  Lemberg,  Deme- 
trius Sulkow,  recorded  by  Harenberg  *  :  "  It  is  difficult 
for  the  persons  dismissed  [by  the  Jesuits]  to  attain  to  any 
ecclesiastical  dignity  .  .  .  owing  to  the  antipathy  engen- 
dered by  the  Jesuits  in  the  King  towards  the  persons 
dismissed.  It  is  certain  that  they  wished  to  dissuade 
me  from  appointing  any  persons  dismissed  from  amongst 
them  to  positions  in  my  diocese,  and  when  I  asked 
why,  they  replied,  '  The  person  dismissed  must  vanish 
into  some  obscure  corner,  so  that  he  may  not  mislead 
others.' " 

From  my  own  experience  regarding  the  behaviour 
of  the  Order  towards  dismissed  persons,  I  shall  give  at 
least  one  staggering  case  further  on. 

3.  Is  there  a  secret  class  of  members  existing  side 
by  side  with  the  grades  of  the  Order  mentioned  in  the 
Constitutions  ?     Are  there  affiliates  of  the  Jesuit  Order  ? 

We  saw  in  Chapter  V.  that  the  Jesuit  Order  does 
not  recognise  so-called  second  and  third  Orders,  such 
as  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans  organised  among  the 
laity,  but  that  the  Marian  Congregations  might  be 
characterised  as  third  or  second  Orders  of  the  Jesuits. 
But  however  closely  the  Congreganists  may  have  been 
connected  with  the  Jesuits,  they  were  not  attached  to  the 
Order  by  the  bond  of  obedience.  This  bond  alone  con- 
stitutes real  affiliates,  and  the  Jesuit  Order  possesses 
them. 

The  possibility  of  affiliates  seems  to  me  to  be  chiefly 
indicated  in  two  passages  in  the  official  "  Institute."  It 
is  stated  in  the  Constitutions  : 

"  The  Society  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the  word  com- 

*  Pragmatische   Geschichte    des  Ordens  der  Jesuiten  (Halle-Helmstadt,    1760), 
II.,  965. 


14  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

prises  all  who  owe  obedience  to  the  General,  also  novices 
and  whoever,  with  the  desire  to  live  and  die  in  the  Society, 
places  himself  in  a  position  of  probation  for  admission 
into  it  and  to  any  of  the  grades  which  will  be  discussed."  * 

And  the  129th  Decree  of  the  first  General  Congre- 
gation (1558)  is  as  follows  : 

"  May  the  laity  who  take  the  vows  in  a  military 
Christian  Order  be  admitted  into  our  Order,  although  it 
must  be  supposed  that  they  will  not  make  their  profession 
in  our  Society  ?     Answer  :    They  may  be  admitted."  f 

In  the  first  passage  reference  is  made  to  those  who  owe 
obedience  to  the  General,  including  novices,  and  to  others 
who  place  themselves  in  a  position  of  probation  with  the 
desire  to  be  admitted  into  the  Society.  Unless  we  assume 
gross  tautology,  a  distinction  is  drawn  between  those 
mentioned  in  the  first  place  and  those  in  the  second  by 
the  "  and  " — i.e.  those  mentioned  in  the  second  place, 
as  opposed  to  those  already  belonging  to  the  Order,  the 
novices,  are  "  in  a  position  of  probation,"  but  do  not 
(yet  ?)  belong  to  the  Society — i.e.  are  consequently 
affiliates. 

The  second  passage  clearly  speaks  of  "  laity,  who  are 
to  be  admitted  into  the  Society  without  making  their 
profession."  I  acknowledge  that  the  word  "  profession  ' 
may  be  understood  in  a  restricted  sense — i.e.  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  vows  of  the  coadjutors ;  but  the  possibility 
of  understanding  it  in  a  general  sense — i.e.  in  the  sense  of 
the  vows  of  the  Order  generally — cannot  be  denied.  We 
have,  then,  here  also  to  do  with  affiliates. 

Moreover,  the  Constitutions  openly  mention  in  Part 
10  a  class  of  members  who  might  properly  be  styled 
affiliates — namely,  all  those  Jesuits  who  have  become 
bishops  or  cardinals. 

*  Constit.  V.,  1  ;    Declar.  A. 
tlfwfc  S.J.,  L,  170. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution  15 

"  He  must  also  vow  to  God  that  if  ever  he  is  com- 
pelled to  accept  any  preferment  outside  the  Society  he 
will  at  all  times  listen  to  the  advice  of  the  General  for 
the  time  being,  or  of  any  person  appointed  by  him  to 
take  his  place ;  and  if  he  thinks  what  is  so  recommended 
to  be  desirable,  will  perform  it ;  not  that  he  who  is  pre- 
ferred holds  any  member  of  the  Society  in  the  place 
of  the  Superior,  but  that  he  desires  of  his  own  free 
will  to  be  bound  in  the  sight  of  God  to  do  that  which 
he  shall  perceive  to  be  best  for  God's  service  ;  and  is 
content  that  there  should  be  one  to  set  it  before  him 
in  charity  and  Christian  liberty,  to  the  glory  of  God 
and  our  Lord."  * 

This  regulation  is,  it  is  true,  directly  opposed  to  the 
general  canonical  definitions,  according  to  which  a  bishop 
or  cardinal  is  no  longer  bound  by  an  oath  to  the  superiors 
of  his  Order  (when  he  has  been  a  member  of  an  Order), 
but  only  to  the  Pope  (soli  R.  Pontifici),  but  it  is  for  that 
very  reason  a  particularly  striking  example  of  the  per- 
tinacity with  which  the  Jesuit  Order  retains  those  belong- 
ing to  it  in  bondage,  in  the  interests  and  through  the 
egotism  of  the  Order.  Ecclesiastical  decisions  do  not  regu- 
late its  conduct,  but  its  own  interests  and  extension  and 
the  consolidation  of  its  own  power. 

It  will  also  be  observed  how  skilfully  the  words  chosen 
conceal  their  opposition  to  the  canonical  law.  The  Jesuit 
who  has  become  a  prelate  has  no  Superior  in  the  Society 
— this  is  not  allowed.  He  only  chooses  "  of  his  own  free 
will  "  someone  to  obey,  and  this  happens  to  be  the  General 
of  the  Order. 

Thus  all  bishops  and  cardinals  chosen  from  the  Jesuit 
Order  are  its  affiliates  according  to  the  Constitutions.! 

Let   us,   however,   disregard    what   the   Constitutions 

*  Cons  tit.  X.f  1,  6. 

I  See  Chapter  XIV.  for  the  vow  of  the  professed  Jesuits. 


16  Fourteen   Years   a  Jesuit 

say,  secretly  or  openly,  regarding  affiliates.  The  histori- 
cal fact  of  their  existence  is  clear  and  nnniistakable. 

The  founder  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  Ignatius  Loyola, 
made  a  number  of  affiliations.  Thus  the  Spaniard, 
Miguel  Torres,  whom  Ignatius  called  "  the  apple  of  his 
eye,"  lived  as  a  man  of  the  world.  Xo  one  knew  that 
he  was  a  Jesuit  and  that  Ignatius  himself  had  admitted 
him  years  previously  into  the  Order.  Francis  Borgia 
governed  his  Duchy  of  Gandia,  living  outwardly  as  a 
duke,  although  he  had  already  four  years  previously 
made  the  Jesuit  profession  with  Ignatius's  consent.  And 
when  Borgia  was  canonised  in  1724  by  Benedict  XIII. , 
reference  to  his  affiliation  was  even  inserted  in  the  bull 
of  canonisation  : 

"  Whilst  still  Duke  of  Gandia  he  was  permitted  by 
our  predecessor,  Paul  III.,  at  St.  Ignatius's  request,  to 
take  the  vows  with  the  knowledge  of  only  a  few  members 
of  the  Order.  He  was  granted  four  years  by  the  Pope 
to  arrange  his  affairs."  * 

Ignatius  did  the  same  with  the  rich  Spanish  abbot, 
Domenech,  and  the  secular  priest,  Yergara,  who  nearly 
became  Grand  Inquisitor  of  Spain  whilst  still  a  secret 
Jesuit.  The  Infant  Dom  Luis  of  Portugal  also  joined 
Ignatius's  Order  as  an  affiliate. f 

We  have  even  a  positive  theoretical  recognition  of 
affiliation  bv  Ignatius.  Ex-members  of  other  Orders 
wished  openly  to  join  the  Jesuit  Order.  Ignatius  rejected 
the  open  union,  but  caused  his  secretary,  the  Jesuit 
Polanco,  to  write  in  general  terms : 

"  I  observe  that  some  are  joining  the  Society  and  help- 
ing it  according  to  the  talent  given  them  by  God,  and 
although  they  are  really  not   Professed,  Coadjutors,  nor 

*lnsi.  S.J.  (Prague,   1757),  L,  181. 

t  The  evidence  is  given  by  Gothein.     Ignatius  von  Loyola  und  die  Gegenreforma- 
tion  (Halle,  1895),  pp.  359  et  seq.  and  788. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    17 

Scholastics,  they  faithfully  perform  the  same  duties  as 
these,  and  may,  on  their  part,  possess  the  merit  of  obedi- 
ence." * 

In  an  Italian  record,  dating  from  1617,f  regarding  the 
aims  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  and  the  means  of  attaining 
them,  we  are  told  : 

"  That  the  Jesuits  in  England  had  succeeded  in 
appointing  an  archpriest,  who  was  a  Jesuit  by  vow 
(hanno  fatto  eleggere  uno  arciprete  Giesuita  in  voto),  and 
who  had  persecuted  the  priests  outside  the  Jesuit  Order 
like  a  ravening  wolf,  brought  them  to  extreme  distress, 
and  been  so  successful  that  almost  all  the  priests  in 
England  were  Jesuits  by  vow '    {Giesuiti  in  voto).% 

Prince  William  of  Orange  forwarded  to  his  ambassador 
in  London,  Dykvelt,  an  intercepted  letter  from  the  Jesuits 
of  Liege  to  the  members  of  their  Order  in  Freiburg-i.-Br., 
in  which  it  was  stated  that  the  King  of  England, 
James  IL,  the  father-in-law  of  the  Prince  of  Orange, 
had  become  an  affiliate  of  the  Jesuit  Order.  Even 
Cretineau-Joly  did  not  dare  to  pronounce  the  letter 
apocryphal.  He  only  says,  "  Authentique  ou  controuvee 
.  .  .  une  correspondance  dont  V original  n'a  jamais  pu 
eire  represented $  J.  Friedrich  supplies  a  valuable  con- 
firmation of  the  affiliation  of  the  English  king  here  re- 
ported, in  an  original  letter  from  the  Jesuit  Euga,  in 
London  on  March  13th,  1687,  to  the  Jesuit  Pusterla  in 
Milan,  which  is  to  be  found  amongst  the  Jesuit  papers 
in  the  State  Library  at  Munich.  ||  The  Jesuit  Ruga  there 
says  that,  at  the  first  audience  which  he  obtained  soon 
after  his  arrival  in  England,  James  II.  said  to  him,  "  I 

*  Gotthein,  Ibid.,  p.  361. 

t  Reprinted  in  D611inger-Reusch,"J/  oralstreitigkeiten,   II.,   376-390. 

%  Ibid.,  p.  388.  §  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus,  4,  174. 

||  Codex  lot.   Mon.,   26,473,   f.   311;     Friedrich:    Beitrdge  zur  Geschichte  des 
Jesuitenordens    (Munich,    1881),   pp.   30,   78;    Abhandlung    der    kgl.   layerischen 
Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  Class  III.,  Vol.  XVI.,  Part  1. 
C 


18  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

am  a  son  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,"  and  the  Queen,  "  I  am 
its  daughter."  A  few  days  after  this  the  Queen  repeated 
to  him,  "  It  is  my  ambition  to  be  a  daughter  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus." 

A  document  of  the  seventeenth  century,  "  Instruc- 
tions for  Princes  as  to  how  the  Jesuit  Fathers  rule,"  * 
speaks  openly  of  affiliation. 

'  There  is  a  class  of  secular  Jesuits  of  both  sexes, 
which,  with  blind  obedience,  attaches  itself  to  the  Society, 
adjusting  all  its  actions  in  accordance  with  the  advice  of 
the  Jesuits  and  obeying  all  their  commands.  This  is 
mostly  composed  of  gentlemen  and  ladies  of  rank,  especi- 
ally widows,  also  citizens  or  very  rich  merchants.  Women 
especially  are  led  on  to  renounce  the  world  by  the  Jesuits, 
who  then  receive  from  them  pearls,  garments,  furniture, 
and  revenues.  Another  class  of  Jesuits  consists  of  men 
holding  clerical  and  lay  positions,  who  live  in  the  world 
supported  by  the  Order  and  obtain  pensions,  abbeys, 
and  benefices  through  it.  These  must  solemnly  promise 
to  put  on  the  garb  of  the  Order  at  the  General's  com- 
mand ;  they  are  called  Jesuits  in  voto.  The  Order  makes 
wonderful  use  of  them  for  the  support  of  its  rule.  They 
are  kept  at  courts  and  near  the  most  prominent  people 
in  all  kingdoms,  so  that  they  may  act  as  spies  and  give 
an  account  of  all  that  is  transacted  to  the  General  of  the 
Order." 

A  despatch  of  the  Paris  Nuncio  of  February  8th,  1773, 
communicated  by  Theiner,"]"  coincides  with  this  asser- 
tion : 

"  Far  from  acquiescing  in  the  dissolution  of  the 
Jesuits,  I  know  from  her  [Madame  Louise,  Carmelite, 
daughter  of  Louis  XV.  of  France]  that  not  only  is  she 
convinced  that  the  suppression  will  never  come  to  pass, 

*  Manuscript  of  the  Parisian  Bibliothdque  Nationale,  fonds  italiens,  No.  986. 
f  Oeschichte  des  Pontifikats  Klemens  XIV.  (Leipzig,  1853),  II.,  321. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    19 

but  also  that  the  Pope  has  not  sufficient  authority  to 
carry  it  out.  This  is  also  the  opinion  which  all  Jesuit 
tertiaries  secretly  propagate  everywhere." 

Therefore  such  a  well-informed  man  as  the  Papal 
Nuncio  recognises  the  existence  of  ''  Jesuit  tertiaries ' 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Since,  however,  the  Jesuit  Order 
does  not  possess  real  tertiaries — i.e.  a  third  Order,  as  the 
Dominicans  and  Franciscans  do — only  affiliates  of  the 
Order  can  be  understood  when  the  expression  chosen 
by  the  Nuncio  is  used. 

Saint-Simon  also  recognises  affiliates. 
"  The  Jesuits  always  have  lay  members  in  all  the 
professions.  This  is  a  positive  fact.  Doubtless  Noyers, 
Louis  XIII.'s  secretary,  belonged  to  them,  and  also  many 
others.  These  affiliates  take  the  same  vows  as  the 
Jesuits  so  far  as  their  position  allows — i.e.  the  vow  of 
absolute  obedience  to  the  General  and  the  Superiors  of 
the  Order.  They  are  to  substitute  for  the  vows  of  poverty 
and  chastity  the  service  rendered  and  protection  afforded 
to  the  Society,  and  especially  unlimited  submission  to 
the  Superiors  and  confessor.  .  .  .  Politics  thus  come 
within  their  scope  through  the  certain  help  of  these 
secret  allies."  * 

The  Jesuit  Lallemant  reported  in  1642  from  Canada 
that  there,  with  the  consent  of  the  Provincial  of  the 
French  Province,  to  which  Canada  belonged,  lay  mem- 
bers were  attached  to  the  Society  of  Jesus.  They  took 
the  vow  to  serve  the  Jesuit  Order  throughout  their  whole 
life  wherever  their  services  were  required.  The  vow 
was  modelled  on  one  which  was  previously  commonly 
used,  with  the  consent  of  the  General,  in  the  Champagne 
Province  of  the  Order.  It  was  taken  secretly,  without 
outward  ceremony,  in  presence  of  the  confessor.  Those 
joined  to  the  Jesuit  Order  in  this  manner  received  the 

*  Memoir es,  12,  164. 


20  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

official  designation,  "  Donnes."  *  This  points  to  a  whole 
class  of  affiliates. 

We  also  meet  with  the  same  arrangement  in  the 
English  Province  of  the  Order.  In  the  "  Records  of  the 
English  Province,"  f  published  by  the  Jesuit  Foley  (a 
lay  brother),  the  following  entry  is  to  be  found : 

"  Oliver,  George,  Rev.,  D.D.,  born  in  Newington, 
Surrey,  on  February  9th,  1781  ;  ordained  priest  in  1806. 
He  was  the  last  survivor  of  a  number  of  Catholic  clergy- 
men, scholars  of  the  English  Jesuits,  who,  though  never 
entering  the  Society,  always  remained  in  the  service  of 
the  English  Province  [of  the  Order]  and  subject  to  its 
[the  English  Province's]  Superiors.  ...  He  died  at 
Exeter  a  few  years  after  1851." 

In  England,  therefore,  the  institution  of  affiliates, 
already  mentioned,  in  1617,  was  maintained  for  nearly 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years — to  1851. 

These  historical  events  are  so  convincing  that  the 
secret  institution  of  affiliates  must  be  admitted  as  an 
irrefutable  fact. 

To  be  sure,  the  Jesuits  still  deny  the  proofs  which 
I  have  brought  forward  and  which  are  also  known  to 
them,  suppress  them,  and  content  themselves  with  an 
avowal  of  the  existence  of  affiliates  during  the  first  period 
of  the  Order.  Thus  the  arch-falsifier,  the  Jesuit  Duhr, 
who  has  already  been  unmasked  frequently  and  will  be 
unmasked  yet  again,  writes  : 

"  A  few  cases  in  (sic)  the  difficulties  of  the  first  period  do 
not  give  any  right  to  generalise  or  speak  of  an  'Institution.' "{ 

"  The  few  cases  of  the  first  period "  (which  Duhr 
carefully  suppresses,  however)  are  the  above-mentioned 
affiliations  of  Duke  Francis  Borgia,  Miguel  Torres,  etc. 

*  The  Jesuit  Relations  and  Allied  Documents  (Cleveland,  Burrow  Brothers  and 
Company),  XXI.,  293  et  seq. 

t  VII.,  559.  %  Duhr,  S.J.,  Jesuitenfabeln  (4),  p.  921. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    21 

Moreover,  everything  is  really  admitted  by  the  avowal 
that  there  were  affiliates  during  the  first  period.  For 
what  was  then  possible  and  actual,  "  owing  to  special  cir- 
cumstances," is  always  possible,  and  will  always  be  actual 
when  the  special  circumstances  again  occur.  Their  occur- 
rence consequently  only  depends  upon  the  will  of  the 
Superiors  of  the  Order.  If  they  declare  that  the  circum- 
stances have  occurred,  they  have  occurred. 

4,  Are  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order,  and  the  Jesuit 
Order  itself,  authoritatively  directed  against  Lutheranism 
and  generally  against  heresy  ? 

A  distinction  must  here  be  drawn  between  the  form 
and  the  matter,  as  in  the  question  of  the  genuineness  or 
spuriousness  of  the  Monita.  Ignatius  Loyola,  when 
founding  his  Order  and  drawing  up  his  Constitutions, 
can  scarcely,  indeed,  have  had  Lutheranism  and  heresy 
formally  in  mind.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  the  Jesuit 
Order  from  its  very  foundation  actually  considered  the 
combat  with  heresy,  and  especially  Lutheranism,  to  be 
its  chief  task.    We  have  the  strongest  evidence  of  this. 

Urban  VIII.'s  Bull  of  Canonisation  of  Ignatius  Loyola 
in  1623  states  : 

"  God's  inexpressible  goodness  and  mercy,  which 
provides  for  every  age  in  wonderful  ways,  raised  up  the 
mind  of  Ignatius  Loyola  .  .  .  when  Luther,  that  hor- 
rible monster  (monstrum  teterrimum),  and  the  other 
detestable  plagues  (aliaeque  detestabiles  festes),  with  their 
blasphemous  tongues,*  strove  to  destroy  in  the  northern 
regions   the   ancient   religion,  with   all   its   sanctity   and 

*  What  extraordinary  expressions  (let  us  take  this  opportunity  of  remarking) 
the  Papacy  employs,  even  in  its  most  authoritative  proclamations,  against  the 
Reformation  and  the  Reformers  !  Rome  is  not  bound  by  scruples  or  dignity  of 
utterance  when  heretics  are  in  question.  Then  the  most  vulgar  abuse  is  in  place. 
It  claims  as  its  right  not  only  freedom  to  abuse,  but  also  to  anathematise.  I  cer- 
tainly do  not  recommend  that  the  Papal  tone  should  be  imitated  by  the  non- 
ultramontane  party.     But  we  must  not  marvel  too  much  when  this  occurs. 


22  Fourteen   Years  a   Jesuit 

its  ideal  of  a  perfect  life,  and  to  degrade  the  authority  of 
the  apostolic  see.  This  Loyola  surrendered  himself  so 
implicitly  to  the  guidance  and  fashioning  of  the  Divine 
authority  .  .  .  that  after  the  establishment  of  the  new 
Order  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  which,  amongst  other  works 
of  piety  and  love,  entirely  devoted  itself,  according  to 
its  Constitutions,  to  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  and 
the  leading  back  of  heretics  to  the  true  faith,*  he  came 
to  a  saintly  end." 

The  conclusiveness  of  this  Papal  pronouncement  is 
strengthened  greatly  by  a  remark  of  Cardinal  Monte, 
which  he  addressed  to  Pope  Gregory  XV.  in  the  secret 
consistory  in  connection  with  the  canonisation  of  Ignatius 
Loyola  in  1622  : 

"  When  in  the  previous  century  the  devil  sowed  tares 
in  the  well-tilled  and  prepared  field  of  the  Church  and 
tried  to  undermine  religion  by  Luther's  blasphemous 
tongue  in  Germany  and  Henry  VIII.'s  unprecedented 
ferocity  in  England,  God's  inexpressible  goodness  and 
mercy   .    .    .  raised  up  Ignatius  Loyola."  f 

It  is  explicable,  therefore,  that  Clement  XIV.  actu- 
ally states  in  the  Brief,  "  Dominus  ac  Redemptor,"  of  July 
21st,  1773,  by  which  he  suppressed  the  Jesuit  Order : 

"It  is  certain  that  the  Jesuit  Order  was  founded 
...   for  the  conversion  of  heretics." 

The  official  historian  of  the  Order,  Cretineau-Joly,  who 
wrote  his  voluminous  work  with  the  material  and  intellec- 
tual support  of  the  Order,  also  lets  slip  this  admission  : 

"  In  the  Society  of  Jesus  missions  are  of  secondary 
importance  (accessoires).  The  chief  object  is  .  .  .  the 
battle  against  heresy  in  Europe."  J 

Numerous  proofs  from  the  sphere  of  the  Order  itself 

*  Inst.  S.J.  (Prague,  1757),  L,  119  et  seq. 

f  Dollinger-Reusch,  Selbstbiogra-phie  des  Kardinals  Bdlarmin,  p.  336. 

J  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie.  de  Jesu*,  I.,  318. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    23 

can  also,  of  course,  be  produced  of  the  extreme  hostility 
of  the  Jesuit  Order  to  heresy,  even  though  the  Constitu- 
tions be  not  actually  directed  against  it. 

Thus,  to  begin  with  the  founder  of  the  Order,  the 
activity  of  Ignatius  in  the  interests  of  the  Inquisition  is 
especially  noteworthy.  He  writes,  in  1542,  to  his  fellow 
member,  Simon  Rodriguez,  in  Lisbon,  that  Pope  Paul 
III.,  at  his  instigation,  has  decided  to  set  up  a  Cardinal's 
Congregation  of  the  Inquisition.  Thus  Ignatius  Loyola 
is  the  intellectual  originator  of  the  Roman  Inquisition 
which  exists  even  to  this  day,*  and  of  its  bloodshed. 
Ignatius  also  tried  his  hardest  to  prevail  on  Paul  III.  to 
consent  to  the  request  of  John  III.  of  Portugal  and 
establish  the  Inquisition  there  on  the  same  lines  as  in 
Spain.  Indeed,  in  a  letter  to  the  Jesuit  Miron,  of  June 
20th,  1555,  he  declares  that  he  is  prepared  to  place  mem- 
bers of  his  Order  at  the  head  of  the  Portuguese  Inquisi- 
tion, but  wishes,  so  as  to  keep  up  appearances,  that 
this  should  be  done  at  the  express  command  of  the  Pope.f 
The  matter  fell  through,  however. 

The  hatred  of  heretics,  and  not  only  heresy,  which 
blazed  up  in  the  Inquisition  to  a  bloody  persecuting  fury, 
is  therefore  a  pious  legacy  to  Jesuits  from  their  founder. 
They  guard  the  inheritance  carefully  and  augment  it 
forcibly  by  putting  themselves  forward  in  their  writings, 
from  the  commencement  of  their  existence  to  the  present 
day,  as  definite  supporters  of  the  bloody  persecution 
of  heretics.  I  refer  to  the  leading  theologians  of  the 
Jesuit  Order — Tanner,  Laymann,  Castropalao  (seven- 
teenth century) ;  Perrone,  Wenig,  de  Luca,  Granderath, 
Laurentius  (nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries). { 

*  Cartas  de  San  Ignacio  (Madrid,  1874),  I.,  132,  quoted  by  DrufEel ;  Ignatius 
von  Loyola  an  der  romischen  Kurie  (Munich,  1879),  pp.  12  and  38. 

f  Genelli,  S.  J.,  Leben  des  hi.  Ignatius  von  Loyola  (Innsbruck,  1848),  p.  256  et  seq. 

%  Cf.  my  work,  Moderner  Staat  und  romische  Kirche  (Berlin  :  C.  A.  Schwetschke 
u.  Sohn),  pp.  146  et  sea% 


24  Fourteen    Years   a  Jesuit 

Some  passages  from  one  of  the  most  outstanding  works 
in  Jesuit  literature  and  from  the  official  Ratio  Studi- 
orum  of  the  Order  may  still  further  illustrate  theoretic- 
ally its  hatred  of  heretics,  while  a  historical  occurrence 
and  a  personal  experience  may  supply  practical  illus- 
tration. 

We  read  in  the  Imago  primi  saeculi  : 

"  A  time  ago  it  was  1617.  The  Lutherans  reckoned 
this  as  the  centenary  of  their  godless  religion,  because  a 
hundred  years  before  there  appeared  the  first  sparks  of 
the  pestilential  flame,  which  afterwards  spread  quickly, 
with  a  hopeless  fury,  like  a  storm,  first  through  Germany 
and  then  through  some  neighbouring  provinces.  .  .  . 
Ignatius,  whom  God  in  His  eternal  wisdom  raised  up  to 
oppose  Luther,  shall  confront  him  in  our  work,  too.  .  .  . 
In  presence  of  Ignatius  does  Luther,  the  stigma  of  Ger- 
many, the  Epicurean  swine,  the  ruin  of  Europe,  the 
monster  who  brought  disaster  on  the  globe,  the  outcast 
of  God  and  man,  deserve  a  centenary  jubilee  ?  *  After 
Luther,  false  to  God  and  religion,  had  forsaken  the  ancient 
faith,  he  was  joined  by  a  mob  of  petty  schoolmasters, 
insolent  grammarians,  degenerate  poets,  frivolous  little 
Hellenists,  drunken  orators,  and  Heaven  knows  what 
other  ridiculous  objects  of  philosophers  and  philologists. 
The  dregs  of  the  population,  cobblers,  dyers,  butchers,  and 
weavers  followed  their  example.  .  .  .  From  all  sides 
streamed  together  the  most  vicious  people — persons 
notorious  through  infamy,  condemned  by  judges,  bear- 
ing visible  brands  of  shame  .  .  .  they  trampled  down 
everything  humane  and  godly.  ...  In  front  marched 
Luther,  carrying  the  godless  torch  which,  in  the  form  of 
an  abominable  treatise,  tried  to  make  all  believe  that 
unchastity  was  more  necessary  than  food,  drink,  and 
sleep.   .    .    .   This    infamous    apostate    [Luther]    led    to 

*  Imago  primi  saeculi,  pp.  18  et  seq. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    25 

battle  ignorant  persons,  who  had  sprung  from  foul  dens 
and  the  lowest  dregs,  of  godless  and  infamous  life,  notori- 
ous through  immorality,  harpies  of  the  Holy  Scripture. 
With  what  an  honourable  and  well- equipped  host — 
really  with  word  and  deed — did  the  Society  of  Jesus 
oppose  him.*  Certainly  we  do  not  deny  that  we  have 
entered  into  a  bitter  and  eternal  struggle  for  the  Catholic 
religion  against  heresy.  Like  St.  Jerome,  each  of  us  says 
to-day,  '  I  cannot  agree  with  you  on  one  point — namely, 
that  I  spare  the  heretics  [not  "  heresy  "  ;  haereticis,  not 
liaeresi]  and  do  not  prove  myself  a  Catholic.  If  this  is 
the  reason  of  our  disagreement,  I  can  die,  but  I  cannot  be 
silent.'  It  is  in  vain  for  heresy  to  expect  to  attain  friend- 
ship with  the  Society  of  Jesus  through  silence  alone.  As 
long  as  there  is  life  in  us,  we  will  bark  at  the  wolves  for 
the  defence  of  the  Catholic  flock.  Peace  is  out  of  the 
question ;  the  seed  of  hate  is  innate  within  us  (Desperata 
pax  est,  odii  semina  innata  sunt).  Ignatius  is  for  us  what 
Hamilcar  was  for  Hannibal.  At  his  command,  we  have 
sworn  eternal  war  at  the  altars."  f 

In  the  Ratio  Studiorum  the  thirteenth  "  rule  for  the 
external  students  of  the  Order  "  is  as  follows : 

"  They  must  not  go  to  public  exhibitions,  comedies, 
or  plays,  nor  to  executions  of  criminals,  except  perhaps 
of  heretics." 

This  fine  injunction  remained  in  force  to  1832.  Only 
then — when,  indeed,  there  were  no  longer  executions  of 
heretics — was  the  permission  to  Jesuit  scholars,  boys  of 
tender  age,  to  find  edification  in  executions  of  heretics 
cancelled. 

The  historical  event — one  of  many — was  the  "  Mas- 
sacre of  Thorn,"  brought  about  by  the  Jesuits. 

On  July  17th,  1724,  the  Jesuit  College  at  Thorn  was 
destroyed  by  a  section  of  the  students  and  population.     A 

*  Pp.  550-552.  t  Pp-  843  et  seq. 


26  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

Protestant  had  not  bared  his  head  whilst  a  procession 
was  passing  by,  and  because  a  student  of  the  Jesuit  col- 
lege struck  off  his  hat,  the  fanatical  Jesuit  scholar  was 
thrown  into  prison  by  the  Protestant  magistrate.  This 
led  to  a  great  disturbance,  and  the  destruction  of  the 
Jesuit  establishment  on  the  following  day.  The  matter 
came  before  the  high  court  of  justice  and  the  assessorial 
court  at  Warsaw;  and  the  president  and  vice-president 
of  Thorn,  Rosner  and  Zerneke,  as  well  as  nine  citizens  of 
Thorn,  were  condemned  to  death. 

This  terrible  sentence  was  mainly  due  to  an  inflam- 
matory speech  delivered  to  the  judges  on  October  31st 
by  one  of  the  Jesuits. 

"  '  Oh,  thou  Mother  of  God,  thou  has  fallen  amongst 
Tartar  heathendom  at  Thorn.  See  how  the  godless 
trample  thee  under  foot !  .  .  .  Thou  art  no  Queen  in 
Poland  to  the  inhabitants  of  Thorn ;  rather  has  a  godless 
and  most  ignominious  insult  transformed  thee  into  a 
wench  condemned  to  the  pyre.'  The  Jesuit  recalled  to 
mind  the  oaths  taken  by  the  judges  in  the  Marian  Con- 
gregations, '  I  will  never  permit  anything  against  thine 
honour  to  be  done  by  my  subordinates.'  *  .  .  .  The 
crucified  God  entreats  and  stretches  out  the  hand  hacked 
off  by  the  inhabitants  of  Thorn,  '  Do  right  and  further 
justice  !  .  .  .  The  head  of  the  serpent  must  be  bruised. 
...  I  could  here  speak  on  behalf  of  my  house,  but 
the  wounds  of  my  brothers  [the  Jesuits],  caused  by  here- 
tical hands,  are  marks  of  honour  in  suffering  disgrace  for 
Jesus'  sake.  I  do  not  ask  for  corporal  or  capital  punish- 
ment ;    being  a  priest,  I  do  not  thirst  for  blood.'  "  f 

The  further  details  of  the  affair  show  what  was  really 

*  A  very  instructive  example  of  the  trenchant  effect  of  the  Congregations  on 
the  public  life. 

t  Diarius  von  dem  in  Thorn  a.  1724,  d.  17,  Juli  entstandenen  Tumulte  und  darau 
erfolgten  Jesuitischen  Prozessus,  VIII.,  51  ;   Stddtisches  Archiv  zu  Thorn  ;  Jacobi, 
Das  Thorner  Blutgericht,  1724  (Halle,  1896),  pp.  91  et  seq.  and  173. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    27 

intended  by  this  hypocritical  expression  of  gentleness  on 
the  part  of  the  Jesuits. 

To  the  sentence  of  death  was  added  the  rider :  The 
sentence  is  only  to  be  carried  out  if  a  Jesuit,  together 
with  six  conjurors  from  the  Polish  nobility,  shall  corro- 
borate on  oath  the  guilt  of  the  accused.  This  oath  was 
taken  by  a  Jesuit  at  the  command  of  the  Jesuit  Rector, 
and  the  heretics  were  put  to  death  on  December  7th, 
1724,  in  the  cruel  manner  then  customary. 

Leaving  all  non-essentials  out  of  the  question,  this 
much  is  certain — that  the  lives  of  nine  people,  whose 
offence  consisted  in  the  fact  that  they  had  not  prevented 
the  destruction  of  a  house  belonging  to  the  Jesuits, 
depended  on  the  oath  of  the  Jesuits.  The  Jesuits  took 
the  oath,  and  the  lives  of  the  nine  were  forfeit. 

I  put  the  question,  "  Who  and  what  are  Jesuits  ?  " 
They  themselves  reply,  "  A  band  of  people  following  Jesus 
in  a  quite  special  manner,  and  making  His  principles  their 
own."  The  religious  and  ethical  significance  of  the 
massacre  at  Thorn  instigated  by  the  Jesuits  lies  in  this 
question  and  answer :  The  strongest  antithesis  to  Jesus 
Christ,  the  most  furious  hate  towards  "  heretics." 

A  few  events  connected  with  the  murderous  oath  of  the 
Jesuits  set  it  in  the  worst  of  lights. 

The  Papal  Nuncio,  Santini,  begged  the  Rector  of  the 
Jesuit  College  in  a  letter  not  to  permit  the  oath  to  be 
taken,  so  as  not  to  be  the  cause  of  a  ninefold  murder. 
He  made  this  request  to  the  Jesuit  Superior  by  agree- 
ment with  and  at  the  desire  of  the  Polish  Lord  High 
Chancellor,  who  considered  that  "  such  an  action  would 
be  in  keeping  with  the  sanctity  of  their  [the  Jesuits'] 
position."  *  The  letter  was  placed  in  the  Jesuit  Superior's 
hands  in  good  time,  as  is  shown  by  his  answer,  dated 

*  Text  of  the  entire  letter  :   Leben  und  Tate  Papst  Benedikti  XIII.  (Frankfort, 
1731),  L,  714. 


28  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

December  10th,  1724.  Though  the  "  Annual  Reports  of 
the  College  of  Thorn,"  drawn  up  by  the  Jesuits,  state 
that  it  came  a  day  too  late,  these  "Annual  Reports"  deserve 
no  credence,  as  they  contain  entirely  uncontrolled  Jesuit 
statements  and  are  also  contradicted  by  the  reply  of 
the  Rector  to  the  Nuncio's  letter.  Besides,  it  is  certain 
that  the  judges  drew  the  Jesuit  Rector's  attention, 
directly  before  the  oath  was  sworn,  to  the  fact  that  the 
Papal  Nuncio  had  advised  him  against  it.  But  for  all 
that  the  Jesuit  permitted  his  subordinates  to  take  the 
oath. 

Moreover,  a  real  piece  of  Jesuit  cunning  and  Roman- 
ultramontane  hypocrisy  came  to  light  during  and  after 
the  act  of  swearing.  When  the  judicial  assembly  of  Thorn 
saw  the  Jesuit  with  his  six  conjurors  before  it,  ready  to 
take  the  oath,  attention  was  drawn  to  the  fact  that, 
according  to  the  canonical  law,  priests  might  not  assist 
in  a  death  sentence,  and  the  oath  to  be  taken  involved  such 
assistance.  The  Jesuit  Rector  replied  that  he  knew  the 
prohibition,  but  it  did  not  apply  here,  because  the  Jesuit 
whom  he  had  chosen  to  take  the  oath  was  a  lay  brother 
— i.e.  not  a  priest !  * 

After  the  oath,  which  resulted  in  torture  and  death 
for  the  nine  unfortunate  men,  the  Jesuits,  with  tears, 
implored  mercy  for  the  condemned.  They  thereby 
assumed  a  real  and  fitting  Inquisitorial  hypocrisy,  which 
the  Papacy  carried  on  for  centuries  so  as  to  be  able  to 
justify  outwardly  the  noble  expression,  "  The  Church 
does  not  thirst  for  blood."  f 

After  the  actual  drama  had  taken  place,  the  bearing 
of  the   Jesuits  remained  worthy   of  the   beginning  and 

*  With  reference  to  the  infamous  Jesuit  action  at  Thorn,  cf.  Jacobi,  Das  Thorner 
Blutgericht. 

f  Cf.  my  work,  Das  Papsttum,  etc.,  in  which  I  have  exposed  the  abso- 
lutely infamous  untruthfulness  of  this  Popish  entreaty  for  the  life  of  the  heretics 
condemned  by  the  Popish  Inquisition. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    29 

continuation.  Greed  for  the  possessions  of  the  heretics 
was  associated  with  bloodthirstiness  against  the  heretics. 

In  the  judgment,  the  excessive  compensation  of 
36,400  florins  was  awarded  to  the  Jesuits.  This  was 
finally  reduced  to  22,000  florins  after  the  Jesuits  had 
shown  themselves  very  obstinate  in  their  demands.  Eight 
thousand  florins  were  to  be  paid  them  in  cash,  and  for 
the  remaining  14,000  florins  they  received  the  municipal 
estates  of  Lonzyn  and  Wengorzyn.  The  estates  were 
only  to  revert  again  to  the  municipality  on  the  payment 
of  14,000  florins,  together  with  interest  at  6  per  cent. 
The  estates  remained  in  the  Jesuits'  hands  till  the  autumn 
of  1730.  The  town  found  it  very  difficult  to  raise  the 
8,000  florins  in  cash.  A  merchant,  Marianski,  advanced 
this  sum  to  it,  taking  as  security  the  plate  of  one  of  the 
executed  men,  the  Burgomaster  Eoesner,  and  the  Jesuits 
quietly  pocketed  this  sum,  which  might  doubly  be  termed 
blood-money.  * 

This  is  unsurpassed  hate  on  a  large  scale.  A  personal 
experience  may  show  in  what  a  paltry  manner  hatred  of 
heresy  may  be  expressed. 

When  I  was  stationed  in  1889  at  Exaeten,  as  "  scrip- 
tor,"  the  Geschichte  des  deutschen  Volkes,  by  Johannes 
Jansen,  was  read  aloud  at  table.  In  connection  with 
this  the  question  arose  during  recreation  as  to  whether 
we  should  put  the  accent  on  the  second  or  first  syllable 
of  the  word  "  lutherisch"  I  was  of  opinion  (mistakenly, 
however)  that  the  pronunciation  "  lutherisch  "  expressed 
more  contempt  than  the  pronunciation  '*  lutherisch.'''' 
Accordingly,  I  requested  the  Praefectus  lectionis  ad 
mensam,  the  Jesuit  Spiellmann  (then  chief  editor  of  the 
magazine  Kaiholische  Missionen,  and  a  writer  of  juvenile 
works  which  were  very  much  read  in  Germany),  to  put 
a  stop  to  the  contemptuous  pronunciation  "  lutherisch  " 

*  Jacobi,  Das  Thorner  Blutgericht,  pp.  137  et  seq. 


30  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

during  the  reading  at  table.  This  suggestion  was  indig- 
nantly received ;  it  was  considered  that  the  more  con- 
temptuously this  word  was  pronounced  the  better.  And 
from  that  time  onwards,  as  often  as  a  reader  said  "  luthe- 
risch"  the  "repetat"  of  the  Jesuit  Spiellmann  resounded 
with  especial  emphasis.  It  was  desirable  that  the  con- 
temptuous "  lutherisch "  should  be  drummed  into  the 
young  scholastics  (it  was  they  who  read  aloud). 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    THE    ORDER 

As  the  Society  of  Jesus,  the  Jesuit  Order  prides  itself 
on  possessing  in  a  quite  special  manner  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  Christ.     The  opposite  is  the  case. 

Whoever  reads  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order  care- 
fully will  at  once  notice  how  very  highly  they  esteem 
wealth,  rank,  prominent  position,  and,  in  short,  that  which 
is  desirable  and  coveted  from  a  worldly  point  of  view, 
whereas  Christ's  teaching  stands  in  sharpest  contrast. 
He  designates  the  lowly,  the  poor,  the  small,  the  insigni- 
ficant, the  despised,  as  His  own. 

As  I  shall  deal  in  separate  sections  with  the  arrogance 
of  the  Order,  its  craving  after  honours  and  wealth,  and 
similar  important  points,  I  will  here  give  only  a  few 
selections  from  the  Constitutions  in  order  to  illustrate 
the  conflict  between  the  "  Society  of  Jesus  "  and  Jesus. 

In  the  choice  of  a  person  for  the  position  of  General 
the  man  who,  as  the  head  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  should 
therefore  most  resemble  Jesus,  nobility  of  birth,  the 
possessions  which  he  had  in  the  world,  honours  and  the 
like,  are  considered  as  desirable  qualifications. 

Noble  birth  and  riches  serve  likewise  as  grounds  for 
admission  to  the  profession  of  the  three  vows.  Though 
not  expressly  mentioned  in  the  Constitutions,  both  the 


Criticism   of  the  Inner  Constitution    31 

exponents  whom  I  have  to  thank  for  my  intimate  know- 
ledge of  the  subject,  my  Novice-Master,  the  Jesuit 
Meschler,  and  my  Instructor  during  the  Tertiate,  the 
Jesuit  Oswald,  always  quoted  them  at  the  appropriate 
point  in  their  instructions. 

The  Constitutions  allow  women  of  rank  an  exceptional 
position  as  compared  with  those  of  the  middle  class. 

Finally,  the  all-permeating  spirit  of  worldly  wisdom — 
of  course  expressed  in  unctuous  religious  form — stands 
out  in  the  words  : 

"  Above  all  things,  it  is  necessary  to  retain  the  good- 
will of  the  Apostolic  See  .  .  .  next,  that  of  princes  and 
great  men  (magnatum)  and  persons  holding  prominent 
positions,  upon  whose  favour  or  disfavour  it  depends  to 
a  large  extent  whether  the  way  be  open  or  closed  for  the 
service  of  God  and  for  the  salvation  of  souls."* 

Such  instructions  do  not  exactly  breathe  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

We  have  seen  already  in  the  description  of  its  educa- 
tional activity  how  this  worldly,  arrogant  and  selfish 
spirit  influences  the  conduct  of  the  Order  in  such  things 
as  magnificent  buildings  and  exhibitions,  preference  for 
the  nobility  and  contemptuous  treatment  of  poor  scholars. 
We  shall  encounter  it  in  a  still  more  pronounced  form  in 
other  domains  of  the  extensive  Jesuit  field  of  labour.  It 
is  so  evident  that  it  strikes  all  who  come  in  close  touch 
with  Jesuits.  A  remark  made  by  the  first  Cardinal  Arch- 
bishop of  Westminster,  Nicholas  Wiseman,  the  author  of 
the  much-read  book  Fabiola,  may  here  be  quoted  in 
place  of  numerous  proofs.  Wiseman  writes  to  his  friend, 
the  Oratorian  father,  Frederick  William  Faber,  in  a  con- 
fidential letter,  dated  October  27th,   1852 : 

"  The  Jesuits  have  a  splendid  church,  a  large  house, 
several  priests.   .    .    .   Scarcely  was  I  settled  in  London, 

*  Const.  X.  ;  Declar.  B, 


32  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

than  I  applied  to  their  Superior  to  establish  here  a 
community  in  due  form  of  some  ten  or  twelve  fathers. 
I  also  asked  for  missionaries  to  give  retreats  to  congrega- 
tions, etc.  I  was  answered  on  both  heads,  that  dearth 
of  subjects  made  it  impossible.  Hence,  we  have  under 
them  only  a  church,  which  by  its  splendour  attracts  and 
absorbs  the  wealth  of  two  parishes,  but  maintains  no 
schools,  and  contributes  nothing  to  the  education  of  the 
poor  at  its  very  door.  I  could  say  more,  but  I 
forbear."* 

A  second  characteristic  of  the  Constitutions  is  their 
cosmopolitanism.  When  this  point  is  discussed,  the 
Jesuits  reply  (and  I  myself  believed  for  a  considerable 
time  in  the  validity  of  the  answer) :  "  We  are  no  more 
and  no  less  international  than  Christianity."  This  is 
false  and  a  lie  when  spoken  by  Jesuits. 

No  doubt  Christianity  desires  to  spread  amongst  all 
nations,  but  not  to  deprive  any  nation  of  its  individuality, 
nor  does  it  aim  at  reducing  all  nationalities  to  a  dead 
level.  This  is,  however,  just  the  aim  systematically 
pursued  by  the  Jesuit  Order.  It  discourages  most  severely 
every  national  movement  and  every  national  peculiarity ; 
and  that  not  only  in  the  case  of  its  own  members.  The 
same  international  levelling  effort  is  brought  to  bear  on 
the  young  people  entrusted  to  it  for  education. 

Kink  tells  us  that  a  national  colouring  could  not  be 
given  to  Jesuit  instruction,  if  only  because  the  teaching 
staff  of  the  Order  was  composed  of  men  from  all  lands 
of  Catholic  Christendom.  Although  the  Emperor  Fer- 
dinand I.  had  commanded,  in  1558,  that  the  Jesuits  who 
occupied  the  two  theological  chairs  [in  Vienna]  should 
also  have  a  mastery  of  the  German  language,  his  order 
was  not  obeyed.  It  frequently  occurred  later  on  that 
not  even  one  of  the  Jesuits  teaching  at  the  University 

*  Purcell,  Li/e  of  Cardinal  Manning  (London,  1895),  II.,  3. 


Criticism  of  the   Inner   Constitution    33 

could  understand  German,  and  that  many  government 
decrees  had  to  be  translated  into  Latin  on  their  ac- 
count.* 

As  I  have  minutely  discussed  the  internationalism  of 
Jesuit  instruction  and  education  in  previous  chapters,  I 
will  not  go  further  into  it  here.  I  have  already  quoted  the 
text  of  the  cosmopolitan  and  unpatriotic  rule  of  the 
Order — the  43rd  of  the  Summarium.  This  is  illustrated 
in  an  extremely  instructive  manner  by  the  secret  report 
of  a  Visitatorf  of  the  Upper  German  Province  of  the 
Order  in  1596  : 

"  I  do  not  refer  to  the  party  divisions  between  Catholics 
and  heretics,  for  the  heretics  are  not  worthy  of  being 
included  under  the  word  '  Christian '  [in  the  rule  quoted], 
because,  on  account  of  their  faithless  life,  they  oppose 
Christ  and  true  Christians.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  this 
rule  prevents  us  from  rejoicing  at  the  victory  of  Catholics 
over  heretics,  or  forbids  us  to  deplore  in  our  discourses 
the  hostility  between  Catholics  brought  about  by  the 
heretics.  ...  To  this  is  due  the  misfortune  that  there 
are  some  people  in  our  Society  who  have  not  a  good 
opinion  of  the  brothers  outside  our  nationality,  and  who 
occasionally,  in  jest  and  earnest,  unkindly  censure  their 
customs  and  their  national  failings,  and  cannot  bear  that 
such  should  be  sent  into  this  province.  This  is  a  very 
bad  fault.  It  is  to  be  shunned  like  the  plague,  and  the 
old  confidential  intercourse  between  the  different  nations 
is  very  desirable  and  should  be  revived.  Formerly  there 
was  scarcely  a  greater  ornament  of  the  Society — it  was 
almost  a  miracle — than  that  members  of  such  different 
nationalities  should  dwell  amongst  one  another  on  such 
friendly  terms.     When  this   unity  ceases,   how  can   we 

*  Geschickte  der  kaiserl.  Universitdt   Wien  (Vienna,  1854),  I.,  410. 
"j"  A  Visitator  is  a  Jesuit  commissioned  by  the  General  of  the  Order  for  tha 
inspection  of  one  or  several  Provinces  of  the  Order. 

D 


34  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

speak  of  a  Society,  and  how  can  it  exist  ?  .  .  .  May 
those  be  cut  off  who  disturb  this  harmony,  and  rend  the 
seamless  mantle  of  the  Society  with  their  poisonous 
tongues."* 

Cosmopolitanism  is  particularly  noticeable  in  the 
mixture  of  the  various  nations  within  the  individual 
Provinces  of  the  Order.  The  German  Province,  to  which 
I  belonged,  numbered  Danes,  Swedes,  English,  North 
Americans,  Brazilians,  Irish,  Dutch,  Swiss  and  Austrians 
amongst  its  members.  I  have  already  mentioned  that 
Alsatians  (before  1870)  and  French  Swiss  were  rectors  of 
the  German  school  at  Feldkirch. 

The  destruction  of  national  sentiment  is  inevitably 
connected  with  cosmopolitanism.  To  quote  from  my 
first  little  book  against  the  Jesuit  Order  :f 

"  Even  if  we  merely  conceive  the  Order  as  a  whole  and  as 
what  it  is  meant  to  be — an  organism  animated  by  the  same  life, 
the  same  feelings  and  the  same  thoughts — it  becomes  clear  that 
there  can  be  no  question  of  fostering  or  even  maintaining  patri- 
otism. If  Germans  and  French,  English  and  Russians,  Poles, 
Spaniards,  Italians,  Americans,  Swedes,  Danes,  Hungarians, 
Japanese  and  Chinese  are  to  be  permeated  with  the  same  senti- 
ment, the  distinct  characteristics  which  each  one  of  these  nations 
possesses  must  be  suppressed,  but  it  is  just  in  this  distinct  and 
characteristic  trait  that  the  centre  of  gravity  of  patriotism  lies. 

"It  is  useless  to  point  to  Christianity,  which  also  desires  to 
animate  all  these  national  dissimilarities  with  one  spirit  and  yet 
does  not  kill  patriotism.  In  Christianity  this  one  spirit  is  super- 
natural, directed  towards  the  world  beyond.  Christianity  unites 
the  nations  in  an  ideal  community,  and,  above  all,  Christianity 
leaves  each  member,  the  individual  Christian,  in  the  place  and 
circumstances  in  which  he  was  born  and  bred,  and  does  not  mix 

*  Reusch,  Beitrage  zur  Gcschichte  des  J esuitenordens  :  Zdischrift  fur  Kirchen- 
geschichte,  1894,  XV.,  2,  p.  264  et  seq. 

t  Mein  Ausiritt  aus  dem  J  esuitcnorden  (Leipzig,  Breitkopf  und  Hartel.),  10th 
thousand,  p.  36  et  seq. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    35 

up  peoples  and  nations.  But  Jesuitism,  though  also  striving  after 
an  ideal,  and  though  also  aiming  at  an  ideal  community,  belongs 
absolutely  to  this  world  in  its  social  aims,  for  nobody  could 
seriously  assert  that  the  Jesuit  Order  would  persist  as  an  Order 
in  the  world  to  come.  Its  methods,  therefore,  for  attaining  this 
temporal  ideal  of  unity  are  also  directed  towards  this  world,  i.e. 
even  in  this  world,  national,  social  and  political  diversities  must 
disappear  as  much  as  possible,  so  far  as  the  members  of  the  Jesuit 
Order  are  concerned.  The  more  cosmopolitan  the  Jesuit,  the 
less  attached  to  native  country  and  home  in  his  feelings  as  well  as 
in  his  actions  (this  point  is  important),  the  more  indifferently  he 
views  the  form  of  government  under  which  he  lives,  the  better 
he  is  and  the  nearer  does  he  approach  to  the  ideal  of  a  Jesuit. 

;'  In  this  connection,  the  term  which  almost  takes  the  place 
of  the  word  '  patriotism  '  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  Jesuit  Order 
is  very  characteristic.  The  Jesuit  should  be  animated  by  universal 
love  (universalis  amor)  towards  the  Christian  nations  and  princes. 
And  this  must  be  so ;  it  cannot,  indeed,  be  otherwise,  if  the  Jesuit 
wishes  to  be  what  he  ought  to  be. 

"It  is  impressed  upon  the  Jesuit,  from  his  very  admission  to 
the  Society  until  the  end  of  his  life,  that  he  exists  for  the  world 
and  not  for  this  or  that  nation.  He  is  made  to  understand  this 
practically  by  being  despatched  to  the  most  dissimilar  countries. 
He  goes  from  Germany  to  France,  America,  India,  Brazil,  Italy 
and  Sweden,  and  in  each  he  has  to  accommodate  himself  as  exactly 
as  possible  to  the  existing  social  and  political  conditions,  and 
adapt  himself  to  the  character  and  views  of  the  people. 

''  Such  a  system  may  produce  forces  working  with  irreproach- 
able uniformity,  but  not  patriots. 

"  I  have  already  denned  patriotism  as  self-sacrificing  love  of 
our  native  land.  By  native  land,  however,  I  do  not  only  mean 
the  land  i.e.  the  fields,  woods,  mountains  and  rivers,  but  above 
all,  the  social  and  political  institutions  of  the  land  in  question, 
and  the  ancient  and  traditional  arrangements  upon  which  its 
inner  life  rests.  A  real  patriot  must  love  these,  too,  devotedly. 
Thus,  for  example,  real  patriotism  with  regard  to  Germany  is 
necessarily  connected  with  a  monarchical  sentiment.  If  within  a 
society  the  adherence  of  the  members  to  hereditary  and  national 


36  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

institutions  is  diminished  by  the  system  then  prevailing,  their 
patriotism  is  also  destroyed.  If,  in  spite  of  this,  the  individual 
member  preserves  true  patriotism,  he  does  so  in  opposition  to  the 
system.  No  further  exposition  is  required  to  show  that  the  Jesuit 
system  must  level  away  patriotism.  So  international  a  Society, 
consisting  of  so  many  heterogeneous  national  elements  must  strive 
for  the  abandonment  of  monarchical  or  republican  preferences. 

:'  Besides  their  chief  domiciles  which  are  situated  abroad,  the 
German  Jesuits  have  their  greatest  field  of  work  in  lands  across 
the  sea,  such  as  South  America  and  British  India,  which  are  both 
republican  and  monarchical.  That  state  of  affairs  has  nothing  to 
do  with  their  expulsion  from  Germany.  Within  this  great  sphere, 
comprising  such  numerous  and  such  vast  national  and  political 
differences  as  Europe,  America,  and  Asia,  the  German  Jesuit  has 
to  live  and  work,  not  as  a  permanent  resident,  however,  but  with 
the  pilgrim's  staff  in  his  hand.  Now  he  is  in  the  free  North  American 
republic,  now  in  monarchical  India,  now  in  Brazil,  which  is  always 
in  a  state  of  political  ferment,  now  he  is  recalled  from  any  one  of 
these  lands  to  work  in  the  old  monarchical  European  states,  as 
teacher,  educator,  preacher  and  superior.  He  would  not  be 
human  if  he  did  not  lose  little  by  little  the  old  national, 
patriotic  form  of  sentiment  and  perception,  and  gradually  assume 
the  universal  form  of  cosmopolitanism." 

In  presence  of  these  and  similar  developments,  the 
Jesuit  Order  makes  a  great  boast  of  its  patriotic  activity 
during  the  campaign  of  1870-71,  when  the  German 
Province  of  the  Order  sent  many  of  its  members  into  the 
German  military  hospitals  to  nurse  there,  "  for  love  of 
the  Fatherland." 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  really  no  reason  to  boast 
of  this  work  of  mercy  as  something  unusual.  If  the 
"  German "  Jesuits  had  avoided  giving  assistance,  it 
would  have  been  simply  disgraceful,  and — as  they  knew 
very  well — they  would  have  damaged  their  reputation 
very  much.  But  the  patriotic  motive  for  the  assistance 
may   well   be   impugned.      The   cosmopolitanism   of   the 


Criticism   of  the   Inner  Constitution    37 

Order  is  also  displayed  in  this  patriotic  work.  There 
were,  for  example,  fifty  non-Germans  amongst  the 
"  German "  Jesuits  nursing  "  from  patriotic  motives," 
including  Swiss,  Austrians,  Dutch,  Luxemburgers  and 
Irish.  The  statistics  which  the  Jesuit  M.  Bist  has  added 
as  an  appendix  to  his  vainglorious  book,  Die  deutschen 
Jesuiten  auf  den  Schlachtfeldern  und  in  den  Lazaretten 
1866  und  1870-71,*  reveal  this  imposing  number  of 
"  Germans."  Now,  with  the  best  intentions,  we  cannot 
speak  of  German  patriotism  in  the  case  of  these  fifty 
foreigners,  and  when  amongst  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  Jesuits  (the  number  given  by  Kist)  there  are  fifty 
non- Germans,  evidence  is  afforded  of  the  innate  Jesuit 
untruthfulness,  which  extols  fifty  foreigners  in  a  book 
entitled,  "  The  German  Jesuits,"  etc. 

Eist's  book  throws  at  least  indirect  light  on  the 
"patriotic"  conduct  of  the  "German"  Jesuits  in  1866. 
Whilst  the  "  German  "  Jesuits  were  giving  free  rein  to 
their  hate  of  Prussia  in  their  school  at  Feldkirch,  as  I 
have  shown  in  Chapter  VI.,  the  same  "  German  "  Jesuits 
were  simultaneously  acting  as  pro -Prussians  in  the  mili- 
tary hospitals  at  the  seat  of  war.  This  is  double-faced 
"  patriotism." 

I  do  not  wish  to  disparage  the  nursing  activity  of  the 
individual  "  German '  Jesuit ;  protest  is  only  raised 
against  the  fact  that  it  is  placed  to  the  account  of  the 
Order's  patriotism.  Constitutionally,  the  Jesuit  must 
know  no  patriotism,  must  be  absolutely  international. 
Let  then  the  truth  be  honoured  by  the  Jesuits,  and  let 
them  not  adorn  themselves  with  a  word  which  is  not  to 
be  found  in  even  the  most  exhaustive  index  in  the  volu- 
minous works  on  the  constitutions  and  rules  of  the  Order. 

The  heart  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  (if  we  may  speak 
of  a  heart  at  all)  was  with  Austria  in   1866  and  with 


*  Freiburg,  1904. 


38  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

France  in  1870-71,  and,  therefore,  pretty  far  removed 
from  "  German  patriotism."  This  is  self-evident,  because 
of  the  strong  Jesuit  antagonism  for  everything  non- 
Catholic  ;  and  my  own  experiences  at  Feldkirch  and  in 
my  home  also  prove  it. 

The  brutal  egotism  of  the  Order,  which  has  already 
frequently  been  emphasised,  but  cannot  be  emphasised 
enough,  and  which  manifests  itself  in  everything  within 
the  Order,  is  the  main  root  of  Jesuit  cosmopolitanism, 
and  also  the  poison  which  corrodes  patriotism.  It  is  in 
the  interests  of  the  Order  to  be  international  and  un- 
patriotic— away,  therefore,  with  the  noblest  emotions  of 
the  natural  human  heart  !  But  an  occasional  pretence 
of  such  feelings  is  also  in  the  interests  of  the  Order. 

I  have  already  brought  forward  numerous  proofs  of 
this  egotism,  as  manifested  in  the  work  of  education  and 
the  bringing  up  of  the  young.  Since,  however,  this  side 
of  Jesuit  egotism  is  particularly  pernicious  because  it 
extends  into  the  world  outside  Jesuitism,  I  will  supple- 
ment the  particulars  by  further  historical  facts. 

Prantl,  in  his  History  of  the  Ludwig- Maximilian 
University,  gives  a  clear  statement,  based  on  original 
documents,  of  the  egotistical  intrigues  of  the  Order  at 
the  Ingolstadt  University  during  a  period  of  more  than 
two  centuries  (1550-1773). 

The  University  continually  complains,  he  asserts,  "  of 
the  greed  of  the  Jesuits  in  seizing  upon  everything  (cwpido 
occupandi  omnia)."  "  Ambition  and  self-interest  came 
into  play  always  and  everywhere  when  Jesuits  were  con- 
cerned." "  The  Jesuits  did  everything  in  their  power  to 
calumniate  the  professors  and  vice-chancellor  at  Munich." 
"  They  placed  themselves  on  the  same  level  as  the  lord 
of  the  land,  as  if  he  were  a  mere  party  to  an  agreement." 
"It  is  of  no  use  even  to  set  precise  limits,  because  this 
vermin  creeps  through  all  the  same  (isti  caniculi  semper 


Criticism   of  the   Inner  Constitution    39 

subrepunt)."  "  They  want  to  share  the  artistic  faculty 
like  the  lion  in  iEsop's  fable."  The  Jesuits  are  "  a  rest- 
less and  domineering  race  (inquietum  et  imperiosum  homi- 
num  genus)  which  seeks  to  subjugate  everything."  That 
zealous  Catholic,  Professor  Giphanius,  declares  (in  a 
report  of  1597) :  "  For  some  time  the  Jesuits  alone  had 
the  ear  of  the  Government  and  were  alone  honoured  by 
it,  whilst  the  remainder,  no  matter  how  able,  were  set 
aside  with  contempt ;  whoever  desired  promotion  had  to 
apply  not  to  the  Duke,  but  to  the  Jesuits,  and  whoever 
failed  to  submit  to  them  not  only  attained  nothing,  but 
had  reason  to  fear  that  he  would  be  dismissed."  On 
April  8th,  1609,  the  University  directed  its  attacks  against 
the  attempt  of  the  Jesuits  to  seize  upon  the  entire  juris- 
diction over  the  students  :  "  It  seemed  to  be  the  pre- 
meditated plan  of  the  Jesuits  to  overthrow  (evertendi)  the 
University  and  to  seize  upon  the  entire  control  at  the 
expense  of  the  temporal  professors."  From  a  memorial 
"  of  maturer  students  "  to  the  Senate  of  the  University 
on  March  28th,  1610  :  "  The  Jesuits  tried  to  ruin  the  legal 
faculty,  the  Jesuit  Heiss  openly  compared  the  law-students 
to  swine  and  oxen,  and  the  Jesuit  Mayrhofer,  in  a  sermon, 
called  the  students  of  jurisprudence  '  sons  of  corruption 
and  of  the  devil.'  "  "  They  forbade  that  confession  should 
be  made  to  the  Franciscans,  and  lately  some  students  were 
expelled  because  they  had  attended  vespers  and  a  pro- 
cession at  the  Franciscan  Church."  At  the  end  of  May, 
1610,  the  University  reported  to  Duke  William  V.  :  "  The 
Jesuit  craving  for  rule  aims  at  arrangements  such  as  are 
to  be  found  in  the  Jesuit  colleges  at  Dillingen,  Graz  and 
Munich  ;  the  Jesuit  professors  only  came  to  the  sittings 
of  the  Senate  when  their  own  interests  were  in  question, 
and  at  divisions  they  supported  a  particular  regulation 
more  in  the  interests  of  the  Order  than  in  those  of  the 
University  ;    they  immediately  followed  up  every  trivial 


40  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

concession  by  seeking  for  another ;  every  remark  by  the 
Rector  of  the  University  was  rejected  with  the  words  : 
1  It  is  contrary  to  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order,  and  our 
Provincial  has  already  decided  about  it.'  "  In  a  memorial 
of  February,  1611,  the  University  complained  of  "the 
omnipotence  of  the  Jesuits."  "  They  [the  University]  had 
positive  proof  that  the  Jesuits  only  sought  to  obtain 
advantage  and  glory  for  themselves."  "As  at  Cologne, 
Louvain,  Paris,  and  Padua,  the  Jesuits  also  try  to  obtain 
the  mastery  at  Ingolstadt  over  every  one."  "  Ingolstadt 
would  no  longer  be  an  independent  University,  but  a 
Jesuit  College."* 

As  at  Ingolstadt,  Jesuit  egotism  also  caused  dis- 
turbance at  the  University  of  Freiburg  in  Breisgau. 

As  the  Jesuits  had  the  bigoted  Archduke  Ferdinand, 
afterwards  second  Emperor  of  that  name,  entirely  in  their 
hands,  it  was  easy  for  them  to  induce  him  first  of  all  to 
found  a  Jesuit  College  at  Freiburg.  From  this  vantage 
ground  the  Order  would  proceed  to  take  possession  of  the 
University.  The  Archduke  issued  a  letter  to  the  University 
on  August  9th,  1577,  stating :  "  That  he  purposed  to 
found  in  his  Austrian  borderlands  [Breisgau]  a  college  of 
the  Society  of  Jesus  which  might  be  incorporated  with 
the  University  as  had  been  done  at  Ingolstadt."  The  Uni- 
versity set  itself  in  opposition  and  replied  :  "  .  .  .  Least 
of  all  would  the  Society  of  Jesus  benefit  the  discipline, 
because  the  youths  educated  by  it  are  particularly  in- 
clined to  pride,  disobedience  and  malice,  either  because 
they  are  set  free  from  control  too  early,  or  because  they 
are  not  taught  how  to  use  their  liberty  at  the  Universities 
wisely  and  profitably.  Finally,  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  the  fathers  of  the  Society  dealt  with  collegiate 
affairs,    Ingolstadt   had   supplied   proof   that   peace   and 

*  Prantl,  Geschichte  der  Ludwig-MaximUians-Universitat  (Munich,  1872),  L,  230, 
248,  250,  252,  253,  258,  351,  356,  357  et  seq.,  361,  363,  370. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    41 

concord  amongst  the  professors  had  been  disturbed  by 
their  admission."  The  Jesuits  achieved  their  end,  how- 
ever, and  after  a  hard  struggle  even  obtained  the  supremacy 
in  the  Academic  Senate.* 

The  Order  also  provided  egotistically  for  its  material 
welfare  at  Freiburg,  and  this  at  a  time  when  the  country 
was  suffering  under  the  distress  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

The  Jesuits  caused  16  measures  of  wine,  20  bushels 
of  wheat,  22  bushels  of  rye,  6  bushels  of  barley  and 
4  bushels  of  oats  to  be  supplied  yearly  for  their  two 
members  of  the  Senate.  They  even  planned  to  get  the 
whole  income  of  the  University  into  their  hands,  "  because 
they  could  administer  it  better."  In  this  case,  the  pro- 
fessorial salaries  would  be  paid  by  the  Order.  The  plan 
was  unsuccessful.  How  much  its  revival  was  dreaded, 
however,  is  shown  by  a  remark  in  the  University  records 
of  1665  :  "  Attendite  Posteri ;  requiescit  enim  hie  ipsorum 
(Jesuitorum)  spiritus,  sed  non  dormitabit "  [Beware,  0 
posterity  !  The  spirit  of  the  Jesuits  is  reposing,  but  it 
will  not  sleep]  f  They  refused  to  share  in  the  payment 
of  the  war  tax  imposed  on  the  University.  A  memorandum 
of  March  10th,  1640,  from  the  University  records,  reports  : 
"  Although  a  third  portion  of  the  contribution  is  not 
unjustly  assigned  to  the  Jesuits,  they  have  paid  none  of 
this  up  to  now,  and  the  University  has  made  everything 
good.  And  yet  they  have  enough  to  reimburse  them- 
selves by  considerable  properties  and  other  means. "J 
The  amount  of  means  they  possessed  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that,  in  1745,  8,000  florins,  which  they  had  once 
advanced,  were  returned  to  them  by  the  University.  They 
stipulated  that  this  should  be  paid  in  French  or  Spanish 
gold.|| 

*  Schreiber,     Geschichte    der  Albert-Ludwigs-U  niversitat    zu    Freiburg    i.    B. 
(Freiburg,  1868),  II.,  309,  413. 
t  Ibid.,  II.,  309,  413. 
%  Ibid.,  II.,  428.  ||  Ibid.,  II.,  449. 


42  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

It  is  not  surprising  that  at  Freiburg  also  their  egotism 
should  have  led  them  away  from  German  and  national 
interests ;  but  the  fact  is  so  noteworthy  in  its  singularity 
that  it  merits  special  emphasis. 

In  the  Peace  of  Nimwegen  (February  5th,  1679), 
Freiburg  was  yielded  up  to  France  and  remained  French 
till  the  Peace  of  Kyswick  (October  30th,  1697).  The 
University  had  taken  refuge  at  Constance,  where  it  was 
to  be  re-established.  Louis  XIV.  wished,  however,  to 
have  a  University  in  his  new  acquisition,  and  the  Jesuits 
willingly  offered  to  help.  Although  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  University  was  to  be  an  adpertinens  of  the 
town  of  Freiburg  had  been  answered  in  the  negative  at 
the  Diet  of  Ratisbon,  and  it  was  recognised  as  a  corpus 
independens,  the  Jesuits  opposed  themselves  to  this 
secretly  and  openly,  even  in  the  sermons  in  their  Marian 
Congregations,  and  sent  their  adroit  negotiator,  Father 
Migazzi,  to  Versailles,  where  he  was  graciously  received 
at  court  and  abundantly  provided  with  money.  These 
fathers,  therefore,  to  a  great  extent  attained  the  estab- 
lishment, besides  the  German  University  at  Constance,  of 
a  French  one  (studium  gallicum)  at  Freiburg,  and  the 
privileges  from  the  former  and  their  establishments  in 
Alsace-Lorraine  and  Breisgau  were  transferred  to  the 
latter,  whereby  the  Jesuits  not  only  predominated  entirely 
over  the  secular  professors,  but  enjoyed  other  prerogatives 
besides,  which  they  never  had  and  never  could  have  had 
formerly.* 

The  state  of  affairs  at  the  Vienna  University  presented 
the  same  disagreeable  picture  after  the  Jesuits  set  foot 
there  and  gradually  assumed  the  power ;  endless  conflict 
and  wrangling  on  all  sides  ensued.f 

*  Ibid.,  II.,  434,  from  the  records  of  the  Syndic  of  the  University,  Dr.  Rosen- 
zweig. 

f  Cf.  Kink,  Geschichte  der  kaiaerlichen  Univeraitdt  Wien  (Vienna,  1854),  I.,  304 
et  seq.,  323  et  seq. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    43 

The  Jesuits  were  only  brought  within  bounds  by  hard 
struggles  when,  owing  to  Maria  Theresa's  confidence  in 
him,  the  Dutchman,  Gerhard  van  Swieten,  was  called  to 
Vienna  in  1745  (first  as  physician- in- ordinary,  then  as 
professor  of  medicine,  prefect  of  the  Court  Library  and 
superintendent  of  the  censors.)* 

I  cannot  enter  into  van  Swieten's  interesting  struggle 
with  the  Jesuits,  which  lasted  for  years,  or  into  all  his 
remarks  about  them.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  put  before 
the  reader  some  passages  from  a  memorial  to  Maria 
Theresa : 

"  The  Society  makes  religion  its  excuse  to  .  .  . 
ensure  to  itself  a  profit  at  the  expense  of  the 
printer  and  the  bookseller.  ...  I  have  most  ample 
evidence  to  prove  that  the  real  aim  of  the  Society 
is  to  enrich  itself,  and  that  religion  is  only  a 
cloak  under  which  it  abuses  the  piety  of  Your 
Majesty  and  your  glorious  ancestors.  ...  I  hope 
that  the  examples  I  have  brought  forward  are  suffi- 
cient to  demonstrate  the  cleverness  of  the  Society 
by  means  of  which  they  blandly  rob  '  externals '  and 
enrich    '  our    own    people.'   .    .    .   The    Society    tries    to 

*  Van  Swieten  is  one  of  the  men  best  hated  and  most  slandered  by  the  Jesuits, 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  was  their  convinced  opponent.  A  very  little 
reflection  must,  however,  make  even  the  Jesuits  realise  how  baseless  their 
calumnies  are,  precisely  in  van  Swieten's  case.  For  if  Maria  Theresa,  who,  both 
as  woman  and  Empress,  was  overwhelmed  with  praise  by  the  Jesuits,  and  whose 
confessors  were  Jesuits,  valued  van  Swieten  more  and  more  as  time  went  on,  and 
trusted  him  implicitly,  it  is  very  plain  that  he  deserved  her  confidence.  It  is 
inconsistent  to  praise  Maria  Theresa  and  calumniate  van  Swieten ;  and 
hatred  of  the  latter  can  afford  the  only  explanation.  Van  Swieten  was 
also  a  good  Catholic,  whatever  the  Jesuits  might  say.  He  had  even  been 
forced  to  resign  his  position  as  teacher  in  Holland  owing  to  his  religion, 
and,  therefore,  his  opinion  cannot  be  put  aside  offhand  with  the  favourite 
saying,  "  Antagonistic  towards  Catholicism."  Even  a  man  like  Kink,  who 
was  so  favourably  inclined  towards  the  Jesuit  Order,  and,  therefore,  did  not 
cherish  kindly  feelings  towards  van  Swieten,  acknowledges  with  regard  to 
his  religious  attitude :  "  He  exercised  practical  Christianity  and  also  observed 
the  rules  of  Catholic  worship." 


44  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

appropriate  the  profits  of  '  the  externals  '  for  the  benefit 
of  '  our  people.'  "* 

Jesuit  egotism  is  shown  most  unpleasantly  in  the  form 
of  envy  and  lust  for  power,  by  its  attitude  towards  other 
religious  Orders  and  the  secular  clergy. 

In  the  first  place,  Kink  gives  a  full  account  of  the 
Jesuit  feud  against  the  Dominicans  in  Vienna  : 

"  The  pious  fathers  of  the  most  humble  Society  of  Jesus  (minima 
societas  Jesu,  a  term  of  extreme  lowliness  which  the  Jesuits  loved 
to  apply  to  their  Order,  and  under  which  immeasurable  arrogance 
is  concealed)  did  not  rest  until  an  imperial  decree  of  December  2nd, 
1656,  "  excluded  the  Dominicans  for  ever  from  the  office  of  dean, 
.  .  .  and  refused  their  opponents  [the  Dominicans]  the  personal 
qualification  for  academic  offices."  f 

Kink  goes  on  to  relate  : 

"  The  Franciscans,  Carmelites,  Augustinians  and  Benedictines  in 
Vienna  gave  instruction  in  Latin  and  theology  in  their  monasteries 
in  exactly  the  same  way  as  the  Universities,  but  without  the 
privileges  in  the  matter  of  conferring  degrees,  which  belonged  to 
the  latter  alone.  In  particular,  they  permitted  their  scholars  to 
hold  public  disputations,  and  that  in  their  churches.  This  arrange- 
ment dated  back  to  the  times  when  the  monastic  schools  were 
almost  the  only  educational  institutions.  For  this  reason,  the 
Vienna  University,  which  had  found  this  custom  in  existence  at 
its  foundation,  had  never  raised  a  protest  against  it.  However, 
in  1626,  consequently  three  years  after  the  Jesuits  had  taken  over 
the  philosophical  and  theological  faculty,  the  Jesuit  Order  passed 
a  resolution  at  the  consistory  to  the  effect  that  these  public  debates 
were  forbidden  to  the  above-named  religious  orders.  The  religious 
orders,  however,  found  a  supporter  in  the  papal  legatus  a  latere, 

*  Memorandum  of  December  24th,  1769 ;  complete  French  original  text  in 
Fournier,  Gerhard  van  Swieten  als  Zensor :  Sitzungsberichte  der  philosophisch- 
Mstorischen  Klasse  der  kaiserlichen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  Vol.  24,  p.  337 
et  seq.     Vienna,  1877. 

t  Ibid.,  L,  383  et  seq. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    45 

Caraffa,  who,  on  October  20th,  directed  the  University  not  to 
interfere  any  more  with  persons  and  places  which  were  exempt 
from  the  academic  statutes.  In  spite  of  this,  the  theological  faculty 
soon  afterwards  refused  the  printing  licence  for  their  theses  dis- 
putationis  requested  by  the  Franciscans.  As  a  punishment  for  this 
disobedience,  the  nuncio  then  commanded  that  not  only  were  the 
theses  to  be  approved,  but  that,  in  addition,  all  doctors  of  theology 
belonging  to  the  Society  of  Jesus  should  appear  in  person  at  the 
debates  held  by  the  Franciscans.  They  obeyed,  but  appealed  to 
the  Roman  See,  which,  however,  upheld  the  customs  of  the  religious 
orders,  and  in  1627  gave  a  decision  to  the  same  effect  as  the  nuncio; 
The  Jesuits  now  succeeded  with  the  aid  of  temporal  power  where 
they  had  failed  with  spiritual.  The  religious  orders  were  com- 
manded to  cease  holding  their  debates  in  public  and  to  omit  on 
the  frontispicium  of  their  printed  theses  the  expression  sub  praeside. 
This  command  was  specially  renewed  on  August  23rd  and  October 
12th,  1725,  in  the  case  of  the  [Benedictine]  Scotsmen."* 

So  far  as  the  secular  clergy  are  concerned,  it  is  a 
well-known  fact  that  they  decline  to  have  the  Jesuits 
as  permanent  colleagues,  however  willingly  they  make 
use  of  them  as  temporary  assistants  in  the  cure  of 
souls. 

The  Order  enters  into  the  keenest  competition  with 
the  secular  clergy.  It  attracts  congregations,  especially 
wealthy  ones,  from  the  parish  churches f  into  the  churches 
of  the  Order,  and  tries,  where  its  feet  have  become  firmly 
planted,  to  obtain  a  mastery  over  the  secular  clergy,  a 
mastery  which  is  very  oppressive  to  the  subordinates. 
This  endeavour  emanates  from  the  general  spirit  of  arro- 
gance and  self-seeking  in  the  Order,  which  tolerates  no 
other  gods  but  itself. 

The  "  ordinary "  priest  is  of  inferior  value  in  the 
Jesuit's  eyes  ;  he  requires  guidance  and  supervision.  He 
can   only   be   properly  shaped  by  the   Jesuit   Exercises. 

*  Ibid.,  I.,  415  et  seq. 

f  Cf.  the  remarks  of  Cardinal  Wiseman  quoted  on  p.  31. 


46  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

I  have  heard  Jesuits  express  this  opinion  hundreds  of 
times. 

This  characteristic  of  the  Jesuit  Order  is  as  old  as 
itself.  On  this  account  there  is  generally  secret  strife 
between  Jesuits  and  the  other  Orders  and  the  secular 
clergy,  a  strife  which  is  only  made  public  in  rare  instances. 
Both  parties  try,  in  the  general  ecclesiastical  interest,  to 
avoid  all  din  and  fury  in  the  warfare. 

The  "  resolutions  of  confidence "  which  the  secular 
clergy  pass  on  the  Jesuit  Order,  especially  at  times  of 
persecution,  do  not  alter  this  state  of  affairs.  Such  reso- 
lutions are  only  passed  in  the  general  ecclesiastical  and 
hierarchical  interest,  and  are  in  reality  "  an  illusive  repre- 
sentation of  spurious  facts."  At  heart  the  secular  clergy 
wishes  the  Jesuit  Order  at  Jericho. 

In  a  work  by  the  English  Catholic  priest,  Dr.  Christopher 
Bagshawe,  dating  from  the  first  century  of  the  Jesuit 
Order,  we  possess  a  very  interesting  example  of  its  egotis- 
tical attempt  to  subjugate  the  secular  clergy.  A  number 
of  Catholic  priests  were  interned  in  Elizabeth's  reign  in 
Wisbeach  Castle.  They  lived  on  very  friendly  terms  with 
one  another.  The  position  was  changed  when  some 
Jesuits  were  also  interned  there.  Bagshawe  describes 
their  restless  and  arrogant  activity.  It  will  be  sufficient 
to  quote  the  title  of  his  book  : 

"  A  true  Relation  of  the  Factions  begun  at  Wisbeach 
by  Fr.  Edmunds  alias  Weston,  a  Jesuit,  1595,  and  con- 
tinued since  by  Fr.  Whalley  alias  Garnet,  the  Provincial 
of  the  Jesuits  in  England,  and  by  Fr.  Parsons  in  Rome 
with  their  adherents.  Against  us  secular  priests,  their 
brethren  and  fellow-prisoners,  that  disliked  of  novelties 
and  thought  it  dishonourable  to  the  ancient  ecclesiastical 
discipline  of  the  Catholic  Church  that  secular  priests 
should  be  governed  by  Jesuits."* 

*  Cf.  Taunton,  The  Jesuits  in  England,  p.  173. 


Criticism   of  the   Inner   Constitution    47 

My  experience  also  confirms  this. 

One  of  the  private  chaplains  in  my  home,  Dr.  Pings- 
mann,  afterwards  became  Canon  and  Vice-President  of 
the  seminary  for  Roman  Catholic  priests  at  Cologne. 
I  remained  on  friendly  terms  with  him  even  during  my 
Jesuit  period  and  always  visited  him  when  I  had  to  pass 
through  Cologne.  A  conversation  which  we  carried  on  as 
to  the  possible  return  of  the  Jesuit  Order  to  Germany  is 
still  very  vivid  in  my  mind.  On  our  way  back  from  a 
walk,  we  were  standing  at  the  entrance  of  the  college  for 
Roman  Catholic  priests,  which  had  previously  been  a 
Jesuit  College,  when  I  said  jestingly :  "  We  must  get  in 
there  again."  Pingsmann  replied,  not  without  vehemence  : 
"  We  do  not  want  you  back  at  all.  Your  Order  has  never 
yet  agreed  with  us  secular  priests  anywhere."  This 
remark,  by  a  man  whom  I  very  much  esteemed,  made  a 
deep  impression  on  me.  I  was  then  in  almost  complete 
ignorance  of  the  spirit  and  history  of  my  own  Order. 
Surprised  and  startled,  I  communicated  this  incident  to 
my  Provincial  Superior,  the  Jesuit  Ratgeb,  and  obtained 
from  him  (as  he  placed  special  confidence  in  me  at  that 
time,  a  point  to  which  I  shall  refer  later)  the  characteristic 
reply : 

"  My  dear  Father,  Canon  and  Vice-President  Dr. 
Pingsmann,  is  a  very  worthy  man,  but  he  has  nothing 
to  do  with  our  return.  When  we  return  to  Germany,  the 
secular  clergy  will  submit  to  us,  as  they  have  done  hitherto, 
though  very  reluctantly,  it  is  true.  Our  Order  is  a  very 
different  power  from  the  loosely  connected  secular  clergy. 
There  may  be  difficulties  also  for  us  in  the  Catholic  camp, 
but  no  lasting  resistance." 

The  Chancellor  of  the  Paris  University,  Froment,  con- 
sequently only  states  a  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Order, 
and  does  not  utter  a  slander,  when  he  expresses  his  opinion 
as  to  Jesuit  egotism : 


48  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

"  TJniquement  occupes  de  son  agrandissement,  les  Jesuites 
ne  travaillent  que  pour  eux-memes ;  leur  interet  regie  seul 
leur  pretendue  charite.  Par  intime  correspondance,  qu'Us 
ont  les  uns  avec  les  autres,  par  la  faveur  des  Grands,  dont 
Us  flattent  V  ambition,  enfin  par  la  prudence  des  enfants  du 
siecle,  dont  Us  savent  faire  usage  merveilleux,  Us  trouvent  les 
moiens  d'executer  leurs  pro  jets  et  de  se  rendre  formidables."* 

This  egotism  of  the  Order  is  not  incompatible  with 
individual  Jesuit  unselfishness,  which  not  infrequently 
rises  to  heroism,  and  I  am  far  from  denying  it.  The 
individual  Jesuit  sacrifices  himself,  with  all  that  he  is 
and  has,  to  the  Order.  In  his  case,  at  least  as  a  rule,  the 
surrender  of  the  personal  individuality  is  made  without 
side  or  backward  glances  in  his  own  interest. 

Neither  do  I  reproach  the  Order  for  possessing  the 
egotism  which  every  association  must  have,  and  must 
give  practical  proof  of  having,  if  it  is  to  exist  and  prosper 
at  all.  But  Jesuit  egotism  extends  infinitely  further.  In 
its  selfishness  it  has  no  consideration  for  others.  Jesuit 
egotism  is  Moloch-egotism — it  eats  away  the  existence, 
happiness,  honour  and  efficacy  of  others  for  its  own 
aggrandisement. 

Thus  the  characteristics  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  and 
the  characteristics  of  Jesus  Christ  are  in  the  sharpest  an- 
tithesis conceivable,  and  the  fundamental  opposition  is 
justified — Here  is  Christ,  there  is  Jesuitism  ! 

*  Le  Vassor,  Histoire  du  Regne  de  Louis  XIII.,  I.,  1,  61,  quoted  by  Harenberg, 
Pragmatische  Geschichte,  I.,  350. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

THE    CRITICISM    CONTINUED:     THEORY    AND    PRACTICE    OP 

THE     VOWS 

I  have  already  shown,  whilst  discussing  the  Jesuit 
"  Scheme  of  Studies,"  that  many  rules,  and  indeed  just 
those  which  outwardly  appear  good,  are  only  set  down  on 
paper,  that  they  are  not  observed,  and  that  really,  in 
practice,  the  Order  acts  in  opposition  to  them.  It  manages, 
however,  cleverly  to  increase  its  fame  by  means  of  these 
very  unobserved  rules. 

The  same  remark  applies  to  the  Constitutions  of  the 
Order — fine  words  and  opposite  deeds. 

The  real  reason  for  this  characteristic  phenomenon  lies 
in  the  fundamental  Jesuit  failing,  innate  all-pervading 
untruthfulness. 

The  panegyrists  of  the  Order,  be  they  Jesuits  or  others, 
endeavour  to  conceal  the  antithesis  between  its  words  and 
deeds.  According  to  them,  the  most  beautiful  harmony 
prevails,  pious  words  and  pious  deeds. 

I  shall  thoroughly  destroy  the  apparent  harmony  and 
cause  dissonances  to  resound  on  that  great  instrument 
called  history,  which  in  trumpet  notes  will  proclaim  the 
truth  about  the  Jesuit  Order  to  every  ear  that  is  willing 
to  listen. 

Let  us  turn  first  to  the  conflict  between  the  theory 
and  practice  of  its  ascetic  discipline,  and  especially  to  that 
part  which  constitutes  the  essence  of  its  discipline — the 
vows. 

E  49 


50  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

THE   VOW   OP   OBEDIENCE 

Since  the  vow  of  obedience  is  first  and  foremost  con- 
cerned with  obedience  to  the  Superiors  of  the  Order,  there 
is,  of  course,  no  antithesis  between  theory  and  practice, 
so  far  as  this  kind  of  obedience  is  in  question. 

But  the  Order  possesses  a  figure-head  in  the  sphere 
of  obedience,  and  this  is  the  professed  Jesuit's  vow  of 
obedience  to  the  Pope.  In  accordance  with  this,  the 
Society  of  Jesus  loves  to  designate  itself  as  the  "  Flower 
of  the  Pope's  bodyguard."  And  in  general — i.e.  so  long 
as  the  interests  of  the  Order  are  not  opposed — we  see  that 
Jesuits  do  act  in  accordance  with  their  vow  of  obedience 
to  the  Pope.  But  where  the  Pope  interferes  with  Jesuit 
egotism,  he  finds  in  the  Jesuits  the  bitterest  and  most 
obstinate  adversaries,  who,  far  from  fulfilling  their  vows, 
do  not  even  render  him  the  ordinary  obedience  binding 
on  all  Christians.  The  history  of  the  Order  is  full  of  such 
fulfilments  of  vows.  I  will  submit  only  a  few  examples, 
but  they  are  very  striking. 

The  Jesuit,  Thyrsus  Gonzalez  (afterwards  General  of 
the  Order),  originally  a  probabilist,  recognised  the  per- 
niciousness  of  probabilism,  and  wrote  a  work  against  it. 
He  sent  the  manuscript  in  1673  to  Rome  to  the  General 
of  the  Order,  Paul  Oliva,  for  approval.  The  imprimatur 
was  refused.  Gonzalez  then  applied  to  Innocent  XI.,  who 
had  just  condemned  sixty-five  lax  ethical  principles,  very 
many  of  which  originated  in  the  Jesuit  Order.  The  Pope 
caused  Gonzalez's  book  to  be  examined,  and  the  examina- 
tion was  favourable.  An  Inquisitorial  decree  was  there- 
upon issued  on  June  26th,  1680 : 

"  By  order  (injungendum)  of  the  Pope,  the  General  of 
the  Order  is  commanded  in  no  way  to  permit  the  fathers 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus  to  write  in  favour  of  lesser  probable 
opinions,  and  to  oppose  the  views  of  those  who  maintain 


Theory  and  Practice   of  the  Vows    51 

that  it  is  not  permissible  to  follow  a  less  probable  opinion 
when  the  opposite  opinion  has  been  recognised  as  probable. 
Also,  as  regards  the  Universities  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
it  is  the  wish  of  His  Holiness  that  everyone  should  write 
in  favour  of  probabiliorism,  and  should  oppose  the  opposite 
view  [probabilism].  The  General  must  command  all  to 
submit  to  the  will  of  the  Pope."* 

The  assessor  of  the  Inquisition  intimated  this  decree 
to  the  Jesuit  General  on  July  8th,  1680,  and  the  General 
declared  he  would  forthwith  obey  in  all  things.  The  Jesuit 
General,  Paul  Oliva,  however,  was  the  very  one  who  did 
not  obey.  As  the  Jesuit  Gagna  reports,  Oliva,  on  August 
1st,  1680,  drew  up  a  circular  which  was  intended  for  the 
whole  Order  and  embodied  the  Pope's  command — it  is 
said  to  be  in  the  archives  of  the  Order — but  it  was  not 
forwarded.f  For  otherwise  Gonzalez,  as  Professor  of  Dog- 
matics (Cathedraticus  primarius)  at  the  University  of  Sala- 
manca, must  have  known  about  it.  But  it  was  only  in 
1693  that  Gonzalez  heard  of  the  decree  issued  in  1680, 
and  he  himself  says,  in  a  written  petition  to  Clement  XI., 
dated  1702,  that  the  Inquisitorial  decree  and  Innocent 
XL's  command  were  not  conveyed  to  the  Order. 

This  disobedience  in  such  a  weighty  matter  is  especially 
important,  because  it  was  effected  with  exceptional  cunning. 
The  General  of  the  Order,  Paul  Oliva,  laid  the  circular 
drawn  up  by  himself  before  the  Inquisitional  Cardinals,J 
in  order,  1 1  as  Pattuzzi  remarks,  to  make  the  Inquisition 
believe  in  his  prompt  obedience.  Once  the  belief  had  been 
brought  into  existence,  there  was  no  longer  any  necessity, 
from  the  Jesuit  point  of  view,  for  that  which  had 
originated  it,  namely,  the  despatch  of  the  circular. 

Oliva  did  indeed  issue  a  circular  on  August  10th,  1680, 

*  Pietro  Ballerini,  Riposta  alia  Lettera  del  P.  Paolo  Segneri,  1734,  p.  349. 
t  Gagna,  S.J.,  Lettere  d'Eugenio,  p.  611.  J  Ibid. 

||  Lettere  2,  595  ;    6,  218. 


52  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

which  dealt  with  ethical  questions,  but  no  mention  was 
made  in  it  of  the  decree  of  the  Inquisition  of  June  26th, 
1680.*  This  circular  too  was  doubtless  intended  to 
deceive  the  Pope.  It  made  it  possible  to  answer  in  the 
affirmative  the  question  as  to  whether  a  decree  regarding 
disputes  on  ethical  questions  had  been  despatched. 

The  Archbishop  of  Vienna,  Cardinal  Migazzi,  in  a 
memorial  to  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa,  dated  August  14th, 
1761,  writes : 

"  The  French  bishops  only  condemned  the  scandalous 
book  of  the  notorious  [Jesuit]  Berruyer  after  the  Papal 
See  had  most  severely  condemned  it,  and  the  Pope  now 
reigning  [Clement  XIII.]  had  confirmed  and  repeated  the 
decision  made  by  his  most  blessed  predecessor.  In  spite 
of  this,  the  Patres  Societatis  have  recently  sent  this  work 
to  Naples  to  be  published,  and  in  Vienna  have  even 
recommended  it  to  young  people  and  various  other  persons 
who  are  guided  by  them."  The  Archbishop  goes  on  to 
speak  of  Jesuit  manuals  which  have  been  condemned 
in  high  places  and  others  recommended  in  their  stead. 
"  But  affairs  have  taken  quite  a  different  course  since, 
at  Innsbrug  and  Olmiitz,  the  professors  of  the  Society 
have  continued  to  use  the  prohibited  books  for  reading 

aloud."t 

An  occurrence  related  by  Gindely  should  be  quoted 

here,   even  though  it  only  concerns  the  egotistical  dis- 
obedience of  the  Jesuit  Order  to  a  cardinal  and  nuncio : 

"  The  Jesuits  had  taken  advantage  of  their  position 
with  the  Emperor  [Ferdinand  II.]  to  set  aside  the  historic 
right  of  the  Bishop  of  Prague  to  the  Chancellorship,  and 
request  the  surrender  of  the  University  to  their  sole 
authority,   and  had  provisionally  attained  their  object. 

*  Friedrich,  Beitrage  zur  Geschichte  des  Jesuitenordens,  p.  85. 

f  Helf ert,  O-riindung  der  osterreichischen  VolksschuU,  p.  280  ( 1 ) ;   complete  text 
in  Kink,  I.,  417  et  seq. 


Theory  and  Practice  of  the  Vows    53 

The  Emperor  commanded  that  the  adherents  of  the 
Bohemian  denomination  were  to  leave  the  University  build- 
ings and  surrender  the  same,  as  well  as  all  other  possessions, 
to  the  direction  of  the  Jesuits  from  henceforth.  Not  only 
were  the  Protestants  indignant  at  this  measure,  but  also 
the  Catholics,  and  especially  the  clergy,  felt  uneasy 
at  the  thought  that  the  Jesuits  were  to  be  sole  masters 
at  the  University.  The  Archbishop  .  .  .  indeed  pro- 
tested and  also  communicated  his  protest  to  the  nuncio, 
but  without  avail.  His  successor,  Cardinal  von  Harrach 
[a  pupil  of  the  Jesuits],  who  would  not  agree  to  the  retrench- 
ment of  his  rights,  resolutely  continued  the  battle.  The 
struggle  between  him  and  the  Jesuits,  who  would  not  at 
any  cost  let  themselves  be  driven  from  their  position, 
lasted  for  over  twenty  years.  It  led,  on  the  Cardinal's 
side,  to  the  bitterest  accusations  and  attacks  against  the 
Jesuits,  but  for  all  that  he  was  not  able  to  displace  them."* 

These  facts,  distinctive  as  they  are  for  the  Jesuit 
obedience  to  the  Pope,  are  as  nothing  compared  with  the 
disobedience  of  the  Order,  extending  over  many  years  and 
accompanied  by  open  opposition  and  shameful  deeds  of 
violence,  in  connection  with  the  Malabar  and  Chinese  rites. 

In  1702,  Clement  XI.  sent  the  Patriarch  of  Antioch, 
Charles  Tournon,  as  Papal  Legate  to  India  and  China, 
in  order  to  settle,  with  the  Pope's  authority  and  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  Jesuits,  the  disputes  stirred  up  by 
the  Jesuits  about  the  rites  which  the  Christianised  Indians 
and  Chinese  had  brought  over  from  heathenism  and  which 
were  upheld  by  the  Jesuits  and  condemned  by  all  other 
missionaries.  Intense  hate  of  the  Legate  on  the  part  of 
the  Jesuit  Order  was  the  result.  To  increase  his  author- 
ity, Tournon  was  made  a  Cardinal  by  Clement  XL  in 
1707.  But  Tournon's  elevation  in  rank  seemed  to  heighten 
the  fury  of  the  Order,  which  believed  that  its  standing 

*  Geschichte  des  dreissigjdhrigen  Krieg&s,  IV.,  547  et  seq. 


54  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

and  power  in  India  and  China  had  been  compromised  by 
the  Papal  decrees.  The  Jesuits  placed  themselves,  in 
opposition  to  the  Papacy  which  condemned  them,  under 
the  protection  of  the  pagan  Emperor  of  China  and  invoked 
his  aid  against  the  Papal  Legate  and  against  all  the 
remaining  members  of  the  Order  who  obeyed  the  Pope. 
On  July  24th,  1708,  they  secured  the  publication  of  an 
imperial  edict,  which  banished  all  missionaries  who, 
following  the  command  of  the  Pope,  condemned  the  rites, 
thus  actually  making  the  Jesuits  sole  owners  of  the 
Chinese  missions.*  Cardinal  Tournon  himself  was  brought 
by  force,  at  the  instigation  of  the  Jesuits,  in  1707  to  Macao, 
and  died  in  prison  there  on  June  8th,  1710. 

It  can  no  longer  reasonably  be  doubted  that  the 
Jesuits  attempted  to  poison  the  Cardinal  during  his 
imprisonment,  which  had  been  brought  about  by  them- 
selves. The  report  (Rdazione)  of  an  eye-witness,  Canon 
John  Marcell  Angelita,  who  as  Promotor  was  also  the 
official  escort  of  the  Cardinal,  with  reference  to  the 
event,  f  bears  so  much  the  stamp  of  spontaneity  and 
truth  that  it  must  be  believed,  the  more  so  as  the  work, 
in  which  the  report  is  contained,  is  in  other  respects,  too, 
a  mine  of  authentic  and  rare  documents.  Amongst  them 
a  letter  of  the  Lazarist  priest,  Antonio  Appiani  (one  of 
Cardinal  Tournon's  companions),  dated  Canton,  November 
22nd,  1728,  deserves  special  attention. 

"  For  the  same  reason  [because,  at  the  order  of  the 
Pope,  he  condemned  the  Chinese  and  pagan  rites  approved 
by  the  Jesuits]  the  venerable  Cardinal  Tournon  died 
in  imprisonment,  wounded  to  the  heart  (accuorato)  For 
the  members  of  the  above-named  Order  [the  Jesuits], 
because  they  would  not  obey  the  decrees  of  His  Holiness 

*  Wording  of  the  edict  in  Memorie  storiche  della  Legazione  e  morte  dell1  Eminentiss 
Cardinale  di  Tournon,  Venezia,  VII. ,  142  et  seq. 
t  Reprinted  in  Memorie  storiche,  L,  205-232. 


Theory  and   Practice  of  the  Vows      55 

the  Pope,  Clement  XL,  placed  themselves  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  pagan  Emperor  [of  China],  and  he  furthered 
the  stubbornness  of  the  members  of  the  above-named 
Order  by  ill-treating  the  real  Catholics  who  were  obedient 
to  the  Holy  See."* 

Whether  the  expression  "  wounded  to  the  heart "  is 
an  allusion  to  poisoning,  and  thus  a  confirmation  of  the 
report,  is  a  question  we  cannot  decide.  In  any  case, 
Appiani's  letter  is  an  eloquent  proof  of  the  fact  that, 
even  after  eighteen  years,  the  remembrance  of  the  intrigues 
of  the  Jesuits  against  the  Papal  Cardinal  Legate,  Tournon, 
was  still  alive,  and  caused  him  to  utter  sharp  words 
against  the  "  bodyguard  of  the  Pope." 

A  very  important  corroboration  of  the  poisoning  is  to 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  Missionary  Congregation  of 
the  Lazarists,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  missionary 
societies  of  the  Catholic  Church,  in  a  work  officially 
published  by  it,f  has  dealt  with  the  report  as  an  authentic 
document,  and  refers  to  the  poisoning  in  most  positive 
terms  : 

"  Mais  pour  en  revenir  a  notre  douloureuse  histoire,  il 
est  certain,  trte  certain,  indubitable,  que  la  maladie  et  la 
mort  du  cardinal  Tournon  ont  ete  occasionnees  par  le  poison, 
que  lui  ont  fait  donner  les  Jesuites."% 

J.  Friedrich,  therefore,  on  the  basis  of  the  report  and 
the  corroboration  of  the  Memoir es,  states  the  poisoning  as 
a  positive  fact,§  and  H.  Reusch,  certainly  a  very  careful 
investigator,  speaks  of  it  as  "probable."! 

The  Memoires  also  accept  as  authentic  the  whole  of 
the  remaining  contents  of  the  Memorie  storiche,  which  are 

*  Memorie  storiche.,  L,  354.  * 

f  Memoires  de  la  Congregation  de  la  Mission.     Paris,  1865. 

t  Ibid.,  IV.,  309. 

§  Zur  Verteidigung  ratines  Tagebuches  (Nordlingen,  1872),  p.  10  et  seq.,  and 
Abhandlungen  der  III.  El.  der  K.  Bayerischen  Akademie  der  Wissenechaften,  XIII., 
2,  Abtl,  95.  ||  Index,  II.  (1),  772. 


56  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

as  unfavourable  as  possible  to  the  Jesuit  Order;  indeed, 
they  even  give  in  an  introduction  some  information 
which  places  the  trustworthiness  of  the  Memorie  beyond 
doubt : 

"  Ces  faits  [the  documents  incriminating  the  Jesuits] 
ont  ete  imprimes  et  publies  en  particulier  par  le  Cardinal 
Passionei  dans  son  ouvrage :  '  Memorie  storiche  delV  Eminen- 
tissimo  Monsignore  Cardinale  di  Tournon,'  qui  renjerme 
une  partie  des  documents  auihentiques  conserves  dans  les 
archives  du  Vatican  ou  de  la  Propagande  et  dont  la  parpite 
conformite  nous  a  ete  attestee  par  le  Prefet  des  archives  du 
Vatican,  le  Pere  Theiner,  Oratorien."* 

What  the  Jesuits  Comely  and  Duhrf  bring  forward 
against  the  Memoires  of  the  Lazarists  consists  partly  of 
untenable  calumnies  and  partly  of  barren  abuse  of 
Friedrich  and  all  those  who  doubt  the  innocence  of  the 
Jesuits.  The  audacious  attempt  entirely  to  explain  away 
the  evidence  of  the  Memoires  is  especially  hollow.  The 
Jesuits  Cornely  and  Duhr  triumphantly  relate  how  the 
General  Superior  of  the  Missionary  Congregation  explained 
in  April,  1872,  that  the  volumes  in  question  of  the  Memoires 
(IV.-VIII.)  were  "  contumaciously  "  published  without  the 
contents  having  been  previously  examined  by  him. 

I  will  for  once — by  way  of  exception  ! — believe  the 
two  Jesuits'  statement  that  such  an  explanation  exists. 
But  does  it  then  contain  even  a  single  word  as  to  the 
inaccuracy  of  the  contents  of  the  volume  published 
"  contumaciously  "  ?  It  says  nothing  at  all.  It  is  possible 
to  write  even  the  truth  "  contumaciously."  It  would  have 
been  the  business  of  the  General  Superior  to  express  an 
opinion  as  to  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  the  contents, 
especially  concerning  the  poisoning.  His  silence  about 
this  is  a  fresh  endorsement  of  the  truth  of  the  "  report." 

*  Index,  IV.,  126. 

t  Stimmen  aus  Maria-Laach,  III.,  279  et  seq.,  and  Jesuitenfabeln  (4),  776-786. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      57 

It  also  seems  strange  that  the  General  Superior  of  the 
same  Congregation  which  published  the  Memoires  should 
have  waited  seven  whole  years  after  the  issue  of  the  work 
before  declaring  against  the  genuineness  of  the  docu- 
ments contained  in  them.  Moreover,  the  greatest  stress 
must  be  laid  on  the  fact  that  the  Memoires  de  la  Congre- 
gation de  la  Mission,  which  were  so  incriminating  to  the 
Jesuits,  are  an  official  publication  of  the  Lazarist  Congre- 
gation.* This  is  evident  from  the  entire  character  of  the 
work,  which  is  based  throughout  on  letters  and  documents 
from  the  archives  of  the  Order,  and  is  provea  to  demonstra- 
tion by  the  addition  to  the  title-page  of  every  volume, 
"  a  la  maison  principale  de  la  Congregation  de  la  Mission. 
Rue  de  Sevres  95."  The  prefaces  also  of  the  separate 
volumes  clearly  emphasise  the  official  character  of  the 
Memoires — e.g.,  the  preface  to  the  second  volume  : 

"  Ce  fut  pour  maintenir  dans  la  Compagnie  r esprit 
apostolique  de  nos  Peres,  que  nous  eumes  la  pensee  de 
publier  des  rares  fragments  de  leur  correspondance  que  nous 
possedons  encore,  ainsi  que  les  biographies  de  deux  ou  trois 
d'entr'eux  echappees  au  desastre  qui  fit  disparaitre  la  plus 
grande  partie  de  nos  archives." 

A  further  proof  of  their  official  character  and  credi- 
bility is  afforded  by  the  Histoire  generale  de  la  Societe  des 
Missions  Etrangeres  (also  an  official  publication  of  the 
Societe)  which  was  published  in  1894.  For  the  Histoire 
repeatedly  refers  to  the  Memoires  and  even  to  the  part 
(Vol.  IV.)  which  is  unfavourable  to  the  Jesuit  Order,  and 
which  contains  the  report  as  to  Tournon's  poisoning. 
And  yet  the  circular  of  the  Superior  of  the  Missionary 
Congregation  (Lazarist),  mentioned  by  the  Jesuits  Comely 
and  Duhr — if  it  exists  at  all — must  have  been  known  to 
the  author  of  the  Histoire.  So,  in  his  opinion,  the  circular 
does  not  dispute  the  contents  of  the  Memoires,  but  is 

*  Congregation  de  la  Mission,  founded  by  St.  Vincent  de  Paul. 


58  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

directed  solely  against  the  opportuneness  of  their  publica- 
tion. Weighty  evidence  is  afforded  by  the  fact  that  the 
General  Superior  of  the  Missionary  Society,  Delpech,  con- 
gratulates "  his  dear  colleague,"  Launay,  in  a  letter  pre- 
fixed to  the  first  volume,  on  his  work,  especially  on  his 
"exactitude''''  and  on  the  "documents  authentiques"  on 
which  it  is  based.  Amongst  these  documents  auihentiques 
are  included  precisely  the  documents  contained  in  the 
Memorie  and  in  the  Memoires  which  are  most  incriminat- 
ing to  the  Jesuits. 

No,  the  Memorie  storiche  and  the  Memoires  are  unas- 
sailable sources,  but  sources  from  which  issue  countless 
proofs  of  insubordination,  and  of  the  open  insurrection  of 
the  Jesuits  against  the  Pope  and  his  ambassadors  (for 
they  persisted  in  disobeying  Tournon's  successor,  the 
Papal  Legate  Mezzafalce,  as  they  had  disobeyed  him), 
and  also  of  Jesuit  cunning,  falseness,  passion  for  calumnia- 
tion, and  malice  attaining  the  limits  of  crime.  Hence  it 
is  clear  why  "  the  Jesuits  so  loyally  attached  to  the  Pope," 
who,  as  their  own  official  historiographer,  Cordara — not, 
I  admit,  in  a  work  intended  for  publication — expresses 
himself,  "  look  down  with  contempt  upon  all  the  other 
religious  associations,"  do  their  very  best,  according  to 
their  unpublished  axiom,  "  The  end  sanctifies  the  means," 
to  choke  up  a  source  which  is  so  tainted  from  their  point 
of  view.  For  this  reason  they  have  attempted  to  buy  up 
the  Memoires,  so  that  copies  have  become  extremely  rare. 
In  Germany,  for  example,  there  are  only  two  copies,  not 
even  complete  ones,  both  of  which  are  at  Munich ;  one 
(only  three  out  of  the  eight  volumes)  at  the  Court  and 
State  Library,  and  the  second  (only  one  volume)  at  the 
University  Library.  The  method,  which  I  have  referred 
to  already,*  of  secretly  making  away  with  incriminating 
works  must  have  been  employed  also  in  this  case. 

*  Chap.  V.,  p.  189. 


Theory  and  Practice  of  the  Vows      59 

I  give,  in  addition,  some  documents  printed  in  the 
Memorie  and  in  the  Memoires,  as  an  illustration  of  the 
'  absolute   submissiveness   to   the   Pope "   of  the   Jesuit 
Order. 

A  letter  of  Tournon,  dated  Macao,  December  10th, 
1707,  to  the  Priest,  Fatinelli,  in  Rome  :  The  Legate  com- 
plains in  the  bitterest  words  that  the  Jesuits  hindered  his 
communication  by  writing  with  Rome  in  every  possible 
way,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  they  themselves  sent 
numerous  letters  and  messengers  to  Europe  to  bias  public 
opinion  against  him.  The  Jesuits  sought  the  protection 
of  the  pagan  Emperor  against  the  decisions  of  the  Pope, 
conveyed  by  Tournon,  as  to  the  illegality  of  the  heathen 
rites,  without  incurring  any  of  the  canonical  penalties 
with  which  such  disobedience  is  threatened.  They  had 
brought  about  the  banishment  of  the  apostolic  vicars, 
Maigrot  and  Mezzafalce,  and  of  all  the  missionaries  who 
were  not  on  their  side  in  the  question  of  the  Chinese  rites. 
Their  opposition  to  the  Papal  decree  was  unprecedented 
throughout  Christendom.*  A  letter  by  Tournon,  dated 
Nanking,  January  9th,  1707,  to  the  Dominican  Croquer : 
The  Jesuits  had  brought  about  the  ruin  of  the  Chinese 
Mission  through  their  lies  (menzogne)  and  intrigues.f 
Tournon's  remarks  regarding  the  above-mentioned  imperial 
edict  of  banishment  which  the  Jesuits  had  procured  against 
all  missionaries  who  had  obeyed  the  command  of  the  Pope 
— scathing  condemnation  of  the  attitude  of  the  Jesuits.J 
Bull  of  Clement  XL,  dated  March  15th,  whereby  the 
Bishop  of  Macao,  who,  at  the  Jesuits'  instigation,  had 
opposed  the  Cardinal  Legate,  was  excommunicated.  The 
noteworthy  fact  is  reported  in  the  Bull  that  the  Cardinal 
Legate  felt  himself  obliged  to  place  the  college  seminary 
and  church  of  the  Jesuits  in  Macao  under  an  interdict. 

*  Memorie,  I.,  169  et  seq.  f  Ibid.,  VII.,  118,  et  seq. 

%  Ibid.,  VII.,  200  et  seq. 


60  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

The  Pope  not  only  does  not  condemn  the  measure,  but, 
by  connecting  the  Jesuits  with  the  persecutions  to  which 
his  Legate  is  exposed,  he  clearly  refers  to  them  as  the 
instigators.*  A  letter  by  Tournon,  dated  December  27th, 
1707,  to  Cardinal  Paolucci,  states  that :  The  Jesuits  were 
extremely  antagonistic  to  him ;  since  1705  they  had 
tried  to  prejudice  the  Emperor  of  China  against  him ; 
Grimaldi,  one  of  the  most  influential  Jesuits,  was  double- 
faced  ;  the  Jesuits  incited  the  Christians  against  him ; 
they  calumniated  his  companion,  the  Lazarist  priest, 
Appiani.f  A  report  by  Tournon  to  the  Cardinal-Prefect 
of  the  Propaganda  says  that :  The  hate  of  the  Jesuits 
against  him  as  the  apostolic  Visitator  extended  so  far 
that  they  caused  snares  to  be  laid  for  him  at  confession.  { 
The  missionary  priest,  Sala,  reports  that  Cardinal  Tournon 
received  information  through  the  Bishop  of  Pekin  that 
the  Superior  of  the  Portuguese  Jesuits,  Pereyra,  did 
everything  possible  at  Court  (faisait  tons  les  efforts  possibles) 
to  have  him  driven  from  China. §  From  "remarks"  by 
the  Secretary  of  the  Propaganda :  ||    The  Lazarist  priest, 

*  Memorie,  VII.,  67  et  seq.  f  Mimoires,  4,  230  et  seq  ;    254  et  seq. 

%  Ibid.,  4,  260. 

§  Ibid.,  4,  296.  The  report  also  contains  a  remarkable  "passage  with  reference 
to  the  Jesuit  mathematician,  Adam  Schall,  a  monk  of  Cologne,  who  became 
famous  at  the  Chinese  Court.  "  Ce  Pere  Schall  voulant  jouir  plus  d  raise  des  liberalites 
et  faveurs  de  ce  Prince  [the  grandfather  of  the  Emperor  at  the  time  of  this  report], 
s'etait  separe  des  autres  Jesuites  et  de  I'obeissancedeses  superieurs,  avait  pris  femme 
et  s'etait  retire  dans  cette  maison  privee.  Apres  avoir  joui  des  faveurs  imperiales  il 
termina  tristement  sa  vie,  laissant  deux  enfants  a  celle  qu'il  avait  prise  pour  femme  " 
(Ibid.,  4,  296).  What  Duhr  (Jesuitenfabeln  (4),  240-244)  brings  forward  against 
the  communication  does  not  sound  very  convincing.  For  a  confession  by  Schall 
regarding  other  things,  a  letter  of  one  of  his  fellow-members  of  the  Order  and  a 
audatory  remark  by  the  sinologist,  Remusat,  with  reference  to  Schall's  mathe- 
matical merit,  cannot  surely  serve  as  counter-evidence.  Schall's  portrait  has  been 
placed  in  a  window  of  Cologne  Cathedral.  But  what  should  the  building  committee 
of  the  Cathedral  know  of  the  real  history  of  the  Jesuit  Order  ? 

||  In  1726,  the  Pope,  Benedict  XIII.,  had  charged  the  then  Secretary  of  the 
Propaganda  (apparently  Dominico  Passionei,  who  later  became  Cardinal)  to 
annotate  a  memorial  presented  to  Innocent  XIII.  by  the  Jesuits.    These  comments 


Theory  and  Practice   of  the  Vows      61 

Appiani,  Tournon's  faithful  companion,  is,  for  that  very 
reason,  persecuted  and  calumniated  by  the  Jesuits  in 
every  possible  way  ;  a  pamphlet  composed  and  circulated 
by  the  Jesuit  Superior  at  Pekin,  Antonius  Thomas,  is 
especially  noteworthy  in  this  connection :  "A  memorial 
of  the  unquenchable  hate  and  the  rare  talent  [for  calumny] 
of  the  Pekin  Jesuits.  ...  I  will  reveal  the  true  cause 
of  the  monstrous  violation  of  Christian  love  and  justice 
[with  reference  to  Appiani].  He  has  always  been  the 
faithful  interpreter  of  the  Patriarch  [the  Papal  Legate 
Tournon].  For  this  reason  he  is  no  longer  to  see  the 
light.  .  .  .  The  invariable  axiom  of  this  '  good  com- 
munity '  [the  Jesuits]  is  to  do  all  that  is  possible, 
be  it  just  or  unjust,  to  conceal  the  stains  on  its 
honour."* 

A  letter  of  Cardinal  Tournon  to  Cardinal  Paolucci,  of 
October  27th,  1707  :  The  whole  letter  is  a  denunciation 
of  the  Jesuits,  who  even  went  so  far  as  to  declare  openly 
that  he,  the  Cardinal  Legate  of  the  Pope,  possessed  no 
jurisdiction.  Two  or  three  Jesuits,  "  who  only  look  with 
pain  upon  the  rebellion  (la  rebellion)  against  him  of  their 
Superiors  and  their  fellow-members  of  the  Order,"  were 
imprisoned  and  punished  by  the  remaining  Jesuits ;  "  they 
suffer  imprisonment,  sequestration,  insult  and  a  thousand 
hardships."  The  Jesuits,  especially  those  in  Pekin,  were 
the  originators  of  the  opposition  against  the  Papal  decree, 
proclaimed  by  him,  discountenancing  the  Chinese  rites 
in  the  Christian  churches.  "  Even  if  the  Jesuits  were 
able,  at  first,  to  hide  their  opposition  to  the  Papal  decree 

are  contained  in  a  manuscript  comprising  twelve  volumes  from  the  bequest  of 
the  Cardinal-Prefect  of  the  Propaganda  at  that  time,  Corsini,  Raccolta  di  scritture 
e  summari  diversi  sopra  la  causa  dei  P.  P.  Gesuiti  intorno  alle  Missioni  della  Cina 
nella  Congregazione  di  Propaganda.  From  this  voluminous  and  authentic  collec- 
tion of  documents  (at  present  in  the  Corsini  Library  at  Rome),  the  Memoires  have 
reprinted  the  extracts  of  chief  interest.    (Cf.  Memoires,  4,  130  et  seq.) 

*  Memoires,  4,  408  et  seq. 


62  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

under  the  deceitful  pretence  that  the  existence  of  the 
entire  mission  in  China  was  at  stake,  they  cannot  now  any 
longer  conceal  the  fact  that  their  outrage  [on  the  Papal 
authority]  is  premeditated  and  deliberate.  For  they 
publish  new  books  full  of  teachings  which  the  Holy  See 
has  condemned,  and  the  contents  of  which  are  more 
detestable  than  any  published  before  the  condemnation. 
As  a  specimen,  I  am  sending  you  a  book  translated  from 
Chinese  into  Latin,  which  Father  Barelli  and  other  Jesuits 
triumphantly  circulate  in  the  capital  of  Cheh-chiang  and 
show  to  the  mandarins.  Through  this  poisonous  seed  they 
destroy  the  Gospel  harvest  more  than  ever,  they  dishonour 
the  Papal  authority  in  the  eyes  of  the  Christians  and  cause 
frightful  scandal,  above  all,  amongst  the  heathen,  who 
know  what  is  taking  place.  .  .  .  Was  it  necessary  to 
employ  such  detestable  means  of  provocation  in  order 
to  maintain  their  [the  Jesuits]  damnable  manner  oi 
proclaiming  the  Divine  Law  ?  " 

The  Cardinal  then  openly  accuses  the  Jesuits  of  being 
the  authors  of  his  imprisonment  in  Macao  ;  he  accuses  the 
Jesuit,  Emanuel  Ozorio,  of  having  intercepted  his  [the 
Legate's]  letters  (qui  est  le  principal  pecheur  de  mes  lettres), 
acting  thereby  in  agreement  with  the  Superior  of  the 
Jesuit  Mission,  Father  Thomas  Pereyra  ;  the  Jesuits  hated 
the  secular  clergy ;  in  their  letters  they  designate  the 
secular  clergy  as  "  vulgar  persons  "  (populace),  an  expres- 
sion which  they  had  also  used  in  presence  of  the  Emperor. 
"  These  people  [the  Jesuits]  have  no  fear  of  God ;  they 
have  intercepted  and  opened  my  letters  to  Rome  as  well 
as  the  bulls  for  the  Bishop  of  Pekin ;  they  arm  the 
ecclesiastical  and  temporal  power  against  me  and  the 
missionaries  ;  they  preach  by  word  and  example  rebellion 
against  the  Papal  jurisdiction;  they  declare  my  instruction 
to  be  invalid  because  I  possess  no  jurisdiction  ;  they  goad 
on  the  soldiers  who  guard  me  to  deeds  of  violence  against 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      63 

my  person,   and  advise  them  to  strike  me  if  I  should 
attempt  to  leave  my  house."* 

A  circular  of  the  General  Superior  of  the  Lazarist 
Congregation,  Bonnet,  dated  January  1st,  1711,  gives  a 
description  of  the  cruel  persecutions  of  the  Lazarist  priest, 
Appiani,  in  China  by  the  Jesuits  of  that  place.  "  Et 
M.  Appiani  emprisonne  pendant  quatre  ans  dans  la  maison 
des  Jesuitesy  quelles  cruautes  inouies  nJa-t-il  pas  endurees 
de  la  part  de  ses  impitoydbles  ge  Slier s  ?  Prive  de  tout 
commerce  humain,  prive  meme  des  consolations  religieusesf 
it  n'eut  jamais  la  permission  pendant  quatre  ans  de  celebrer 
une  seule  fois  la  messe ;  cruaute  dont  les  paiens  chinois 
furent  eux-memes  scandalises. "f 

A  letter,  dated  December  10th,  1707,  from  the  Cardinal 
Legate,  Tournon,  to  the  Papal  Nuncio  in  Lisbon,  Conti 
(afterwards  Pope  Innocent  XIII. ),  says :    "  After  I  had 
taken  the  greatest  pains  to  report  exactly  to  His  Holiness 
concerning  the  distressing  events  in  the  Chinese  Mission, 
which    had   been   thrown   into   the    greatest   excitement 
through  the  violent  proceedings  of  the  Jesuits,  I  now  see 
that  my  way  is  everywhere  closed  for  sending  further 
despatches  to  Rome.    The  Jesuits  make  use  of  the  Chinese 
and   Portuguese   in   Macao,    yes,    even   of   the   heretical 
English  and  Dutch,  to  intercept  my  letters.     It  is  really 
astonishing  to  see  how  these  fathers  send  their  emissaries 
in  all  directions  in  order  to  inundate  Europe  with  their 
false  ideas  and  reports,  whilst  I  am  prevented  from  sending 
even  one  to  give  the  Pope  and  the  Holy  See  the  necessary 
information.   .    .    .   After  the  Jesuits  had  been  informed 
last  year  of  the  Papal  decision,  whereby  their  practice  in 
relation  to  the  Chinese  rites  was  condemned,  they  appealed 
with  shameless  audacity  to  the  [pagan]  Emperor  without 
troubling  about  my  prohibition,  the  ecclesiastical  censure 
and  the  Papal  displeasure  with  which  I  threatened  them. 

*  Mernoires,  4,  464  et  seq.,  484,  495  et  seq.  |  Ibid.,  4,  520  et  seq. 


64  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

They  caused  several  imperial  decrees  to  be  issued  against 
Bishop  Maigrot,  against  myself,  and,  above  all,  against 
the  Holy  See,  so  as  to  oppose  them  to  the  Papal  decisions 
and  to  prevent  their  publication."  The  Cardinal  then 
describes  how  one  of  his  missionary  priests,  Guetty,  was 
tortured  at  the  Jesuits'  instigation  to  compel  him  to  give 
evidence  against  him  [the  Cardinal],  and  how  the  Jesuits 
Pereyra  and  Barros  had  been  present  behind  a  curtain 
and  directed  the  procedure.* 

A  letter  by  the  Cardinal  Legate  to  his  brother,  dated 
December  11th,  1707:  "I  assure  you  that  the  Jesuits 
have  not  omitted  any  calumnies  or  intrigues,  that  they 
have  indeed  made  use  of  devilish  devices  to  blacken  me 
and  my  actions  at  the  pagan  Court.  .  .  .  The  worst  of 
it  is  that  it  is  not  the  heathen  who  persecute  the  mission- 
aries and  destroy  the  Mission,  but  the  Jesuits,  and  they, 
indeed,  do  it  with  sovereign  effrontery."')* 

A  report  of  the  Cardinal  Legate,  dated  November  15th, 
1707  :  He  relates  how  the  Jesuit,  Porquet,  disseminates 
the  following  dogmas  in  Canton :  "  He  who  asserts  that 
the  souls  of  the  dead  rest  on  the  altars  of  their  ancestors 
does  not  sin  against  religion ;  the  Pope  cannot  infallibly 
settle  the  disputes  concerning  Chinese  rites ;  the  mission- 
aries are  not  bound  to  obey  the  commands  of  the  Patriarch 
of  Antioch  [Tournon,  the  Papal  Legate,  had  this  title] 
with  regard  to  the  Chinese  rites ;  neither  the  Pope  nor 
the  Church  can  infallibly  define  whether  a  thing  is  an 
idol." 

When  an  exhortation  to  retract  proved  useless,  the 
Jesuit,  Porquet,  was  excommunicated  by  the  Legate,  but 
he  took  no  notice  and  was  supported  in  this  by  the 
remaining  Jesuits.  "  Father  Britto  [a  Jesuit  who  was 
canonised  in  the  nineteenth  century]  told  the  missionary 
priest,  Giampe,  to  his  face  that  they  [the  Jesuits]  did  not 

*  Memoires,  4,  522  et  seq.    .  f  Ibid.,  4,  529  et  seq. 


Theory  and  Practice  of  the  Vows      65 

recognise  the  Patriarch  either  as  the  legitimate  Visitator 
or  as  Papal  Legate,  and  they  considered  his  power  of 
jurisdiction  invalid."* 

Report  of  the  Lazarist  priest,  Miillener  [a  German]  to 
his  General  Superior,  Watel,  dated  December  30th,  1708  : 
At  the  Jesuits'  instigation,  almost  all  the  missionaries  who 
had  submitted  to  the  decision  of  the  Pope  (en  fils  soumis 
de  Ffiglise)  were  banished  from  China,  f  A  report  of  the 
Cardinal  Legate,  dated  1708,  concerning  a  new  imperial 
decree  of  June  24th,  1708  :  The  decree,  which  was  unfavour- 
able to  the  missionaries  obeying  the  Pope,  was  published 
through  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  who  take  up  the 
position  that  they  would  rather  see  the  Mission  destroyed 
than  that  it  should  be  reformed  in  accordance  with  the 
Papal  decrees.} 

A  peep  behind  the  scenes  of  the  Chinese  and  Malabar 
drama,  which  led  to  the  death  of  the  Papal  Legate, 
Tournon,  is  also  afforded  by  a  remark,  not  intended  for 
publication,  made  by  the  Jesuit  Cordara,  official  histori- 
ographer of  the  Order  for  thirty-five  years.  In  a  most 
weighty  secret  report  (to  be  dealt  with  more  fully  later), 
addressed  to  his  brother,  Cordara  states  that  Innocent  XL 
had  issued  a  "  very  severe  decree  (atrox  decretum)  against 
the  Jesuits  with  reference  to  their  behaviour  in  the  Chinese 
and  Indian  Mission,  which,  if  it  had  been  published, 
would  have  been  very  bad  (male  admodum)  for  the  entire 
Society."^ 

The  death  of  the  Pope  prevented  the  publication.  His 
successor,  Benedict  XIII. ,  who,  as  Cordara  himself  says, 
was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits  (societati  addictis- 
simus)  left  everything  to  his  favourite,  Coscia,  bartered 

*  Memoires,  4,  538  et  seq.  f  Ibid.,  4,  549  et  seq. 

%  Ibid.,  4,  562  et  seq.,  572. 

§  Denkvriirdigkeiten    des   Jesuiten    Cordara    zur    Geschichte    von    1740-1773 ; 
Dollinger,  Beitrdge  zur  politischen,  kirchlichen  und  Kultur -Geschichte  der  sechs  letzten 
Jdhrhunderte  (Ratisbon,  1883),  3,  3. 
F 


66  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

the  important  official  positions  for  money,  and  only 
thought  of  the  enrichment  of  his  family,*  abstained  from 
publishing  the  decree,  which  reflected  disgrace  on  the 
Order. 

Submission  only  followed  tardily  when  Benedict  XIV., 
in  two  bulls  quickly  succeeding  one  another  (1742  and 
1744),  reminded  the  Jesuits,  with  the  greatest  severity, 
of  their  duty  of  obedience.f 

I  have  dwelt  a  long  time  on  the  disputes  concerning 
the  Chinese  rites.  But  there  is  no  stronger  proof  than 
this  of  the  falsity  of  the  Jesuit  boast  as  to  the  uncondi- 
tional submission  of  the  Order  to  Rome  and  of  the 
unscrupulousness  with  which  the  Jesuits  work  against  the 
Papacy  itself  when  the  defence  of  their  interests  is  in 
question.  J 

From  the  conduct  of  the  Order  also  at  the  time  of  its 
suppression  by  Clement  XIV.  in  1773,  we  miss,  in  spite 
of  all  assertions  on  the  Jesuit  side  to  the  contrary,  the 
absolute  submission  to  the  Pope,  which  has  been  solemnly 
extolled. 

In  this  connection,  I  can  contribute  the  following 
from  my  own  experience : 

In  1880  Leo  XIII.  tried  to  make  peace  with  Prussia, 
and  a  hostile  feeling  was  thereby  aroused  against  him 
in  the  Jesuit  Order.  During  this  time  I  heard  him 
attacked  most  violently  by  my  comrades  of  the  Order. 

*  Cordara,  Ibid.,  p.  4. 

t  Bullarium  Romanum  (Edit.  Luxernb.,  1748),  16,  230  et  seq. 

J  I  have  already  called  attention  to  the  attempts  of  the  Jesuits,  Comely  and 
Duhr,  to  represent  the  Tournon  case,  and  the  agitations  in  China  connected  with 
it,  as  insignificant.  Side  by  side  with  this  misrepresentation  must  be  mentioned 
the  work  of  another  Jesuit,  who  undertook  the  whitewashing  of  the  subject  more 
than  a  century  ago,  and  even  to-day  is  looked  upon  as  a  great  authority.  A  History 
of  the  Disputes  with  reference  to  the  Chinese  Bites  was  published  in  1791  at  Augsburg. 
The  author  remained  anonymous,  after  the  favourite  style,  but  it  was  soon  known 
that  the  Jesuit  Pray  was  the  originator.  The  three  volumes  form  a  single  spiteful 
pamphlet,  teeming  with  calumnies  against  the  very  persons  who  make  the  best 
appearance  in  the  light  of  history — Tournon,  Appiani,  Maigrot,  etc. 


Theory  and   Practice  of  the  Vows      67 

The  Jesuits  Pachtler  and  Cathrein  were  especially  reckless 
in  their  speech.  For  instance,  it  was  asserted  that  the 
jubilee  (of  the  priesthood)  of  such  a  Pope,  who  watched 
so  badly  over  the  interests  of  the  Church,  ought  not  to 
be  celebrated.  The  animosity  went  so  far  that  I  felt 
myself  compelled  to  write  to  the  General  of  the  Order, 
Anderledy,  with  reference  to  the  statutory  loyalty  to  the 
Pope  and  to  ask  him  to  interpose.  Characteristically 
enough,  I  received  no  answer,  and  the  ostracism  of  the 
Pope  continued  uninterruptedly.  The  action  of  Leo  XIII. 
in  bringing  about  the  close  of  the  KulturJcampf  was  at 
variance  with  the  egotism  of  the  Order,  which  dreaded 
lest  a  truce  between  Church  and  State  should  compel  it 
to  retire  into  the  background.  Hence  the  rage  against 
the  Pope  and  the  insubordination  to  the  Papal  measures. 


THE   VOW   OF   CHASTITY 

"  What  pertains  to  the  vow  of  chastity  requires  no 
explanation,  it  being  clear  how  perfectly  it  should  be 
observed,  namely,  by  striving  to  imitate  the  angelic  holi- 
ness in  the  purity  both  of  our  mind  and  body."* 

On  this  regulation  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order, 
the  Jesuit  Genelli  makes  the  "  historic  "  remark : 

"  As  regards  chastity,  it  deserves  to  be  emphasised 
.  .  .  that  the  Society  is  so  immaculate  in  this  respect 
that  its  opponents  have  never  been  able  to  prove  any 
assertion  against  it,  although  the  Jesuits,  by  living  in  the 
world  and  having  intercourse  with  all  kinds  of  persons, 
are  exposed  to  the  sharpest  scrutiny,  and  their  work  leads 
them  frequently  into  temptation  and  danger."-)* 

It  must  be  freely  acknowledged  that  unchastity  has 
never  tainted  the  Jesuit  Order  permanently,  and  that  the 


*  Constit.  VI.,  1,  1  ;    Summar.  n.  28. 

f  Das  Leben  des  heiligen  Ignatius  von  Loyola  (Innsbruck,   1848),  p.  230. 


68  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

unnatural  restraint  of  celibacy  does  not  work  so  destruc- 
tively here  as  in  so  many  sections  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
clergy.  But  it  must  be  stated  most  distinctly  that  in  this 
point  also  Jesuit  theory  and  Jesuit  practice  are  opposed 
to  one  another,  and  that  the  statements  of  Jesuit  writers, 
e.g.  Genelli,  with  reference  to  the  "  angelic  purity  "  of 
the  Order,  are  untrue.  In  that  very  sphere  of  activity 
which  the  Order  regards  above  all  others  as  its  domain 
of  glory — the  education  of  the  young — the  Jesuits  have 
paid  their  full  tribute  to  sexual  humanity.  In  Chapter  VI. 
I  have  already  touched  lightly  on  this  subject,  but  now  I 
shall  deal  with  it  more  fully. 

Heinrich  von  Lang,  the  director  of  the  Bavarian  State 
Archives,  gives  the  following  information  from  papers  of 
the  Upper  German  Province  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  which 
are  now  lying  in  the  Imperial  Archives  at  Munich — i.e. 
reports  concerning  members  of  the  Order  which  were  sent 
from  the  Superior  of  the  Province  to  the  General  of  the 
Order  in  Rome.* 

In  the  first  place,  Lang  gives  a  complete  account  of 
the  vicious  conduct  of  the  Jesuit,  Jacob  Marell,  towards 
pupils  of  the  Jesuit  establishment  at  Augsburg.  Lang 
produces  original  letters  of  the  Jesuits  Banholzer,  Erhart, 
and  Osterpeutter,  dated  July  3rd,  September  22nd,  and 
December  26th,  1698,  which  they,  in  their  capacity  of 
confessors,  consultors  and  rectors,  addressed  from  Augs- 
burg to  the  Provincial  Superior,  Martin  Muller,  and  in 
which  the  abominable  details  of  the  doings  of  their  fellow- 
Jesuit,  Marell,  are  reported. f  Lang  also  prints  signed 
statements  by  three  pupils,  Count  Oettingen  and  the  two 
Counts  Fugger,  who  were  most  frequently  misused  by  the 
Jesuit  Marell. 

From  p.  26  onwards,  in  an  extract,  Lang  gives  thirty- 
six  "  informations  "  regarding  the  immoral  behaviour  of 

*  Jacobi  Marelli,  S.J.,  amores.     Munich,  1815.  f  Ibid.,  pp.   1-22. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      69 

as  many  Jesuits.  The  following  are  examples  :  Informa- 
tion against  Father  Werner  Ehinger  for  disgraceful 
intercourse  with  a  Baron  of  Ratisbon ;  against  Father 
Haas  at  Freiburg  for  illicit  intercourse  with  two  youths ; 
against  Father  Adam  Herler,  of  Constance,  who  corrupted 
seventeen  youths  ;  against  Father  Franz  Schlegl,  of  Munich, 
for  assaults  on  seven  boys ;  against  Father  Ferdinand,  of 
Augsburg,  for  misusing  a  servant  girl ;  against  Father 
Michael  Baumgartner,  who,  whilst  he  was  sub -regent  at 
Dillingen,  entered  into  an  entanglement  with  a  woman  of 
seventy  and  seduced  two  girls,  one  of  whom  then  said, 
"  For  shame,  what  kind  of  priests  are  these  ?  "  and  so  on, 
in  one  continuous  catalogue  of  similar  abominations. 

In  considering  this  list  of  grave  offences  we  must  bear 
in  mind  that  it  deals  with  only  one  Province  of  the  Order, 
the  Upper  German,  that  the  numerous  cases  happened  in 
the  short  time  between  1650-1723,  and  that  the  editor, 
Lang,  Director  of  the  State  Archives,  declares  that  he 
could  easily  quote  "  hundreds  and  hundreds "  of  such 
"  informations  "  from  the  manuscript  material  at  his  dis- 
posal in  the  Munich  archives.  Kluckhohn,  who  thoroughly 
searched  through  the  Jesuit  papers  at  Munich  in  1874, 
and  gave  reports  on  them  before  the  Royal  Bavarian 
Academy  of  Science,  also  confirms  the  data  supplied  by 
Lang.* 

Paul  Hoffaus,  who  in  1596  was  appointed  by  General 
Acquaviva  Visitator  for  the  Upper  German  Province  of 
the  Order,  and  who  was  one  of  the  most  important  Jesuits 
of  that  time,  as  the  result  of  his  visitation  wrote  in  his 
Memorial  intended  for  the  Jesuit  College  at  Munich : 

"It  is  to  be  regretted  that  so  many  beneficial  precautionary 
measures  [for  the  preservation  of  chastity]  are  not  always  observed; 
or  are  observed  very  carelessly.     Feasting  (commessationes)  and 

*  For  Kluckhohn's  comment,  see  I.,  p.  207. 


70 


Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 


frequent  visits  to  single  females  at  their  residences  take  place 
without  necessity.  Rendezvous  are  given  in  the  church  for  long 
conversations  with  women,  and  there  are  scandalously  long  con- 
fessions (confessiones  scanddose  prolixae)  of  women,  even  of  those 
who  frequently  confess.  Confessions  of  sick  women  in  their  houses 
are  heard  without  [as  the  rule  prescribes]  the  presence  of  a  com- 
panion who  can  see  the  confessor  and  penitent.  Frequently,  yes, 
very  frequently,  intimacy  prevails  between  two  persons  [confessor 
and  his  female  penitent]  without  any  trace  of  strict  repression  on 
the  confessor's  part.  I  fear  that  sweet  and  agreeable  words  are 
exchanged,  which  are  tinged  with  carnal  lust  and  carnal  feelings. 
Unpleasant  occurrences,  which  lead  to  apostasy  and  to  expulsions 
from  the  Society,  teach  us  what  great  evils  are  caused  by  such 
transgressions  in  the  case  of  confessors.  Must  there  not  be  a 
strange  aberration  of  intellect  and  heart  when  confessors  in  a  free 
and  unembarrassed  manner,  and  without  fear  of  shame,  dare  to 
pass  many  hours  joking  with  women  before  the  criticising  eyes  of 
the  world,  as  if  they  themselves  and  their  penitents  were  not  in 
any  danger  from  such  unrestricted  intercourse  ?  It  is  known  and 
has  also  reached  the  ears  of  the  princes  [referring  to  the  two 
dukes  of  Bavaria]  that  confessors  from  amongst  our  Order  have 
become  entangled  through  such  Satanic  examples  of  vice,  and 
have    apostatised    or    been    expelled    from   the    Society    as    evil 


nuisances."* 


This  Memorial,  to  which  I  shall  again  refer,  affords  the 
more  food  for  thought  because  it  is  a  secret  report  and 
was  drawn  up  only  forty-six  years  after  the  founding  of 
the  Jesuit  Order.  Consequently,  even  in  its  first  youth, 
— i.e.  at  a  time  in  which  zeal  and  the  active  practice  of 
virtue  should  still  have  prevailed — the  Order  suffered  from 
grave  improprieties. 

In  these  cases  it  is  very  important  to  notice  that 
although,  formally  and  directly,  the  offences  of  individuals 
are  in  question,  nevertheless  the  Order  as  such  is  impli- 

*  Printed  by  B-eusch,  Beitrage  zur  Geschichte  des  Jesuitenordens  :  Zeitschrift 
fur  Kirchengeschichte,  1894,  XV.,  2,  262  et  seq. 


Theory  and   Practice  of  the  Vows      71 

cated  because,  in  these  and  in  other  instances,  it  failed  to 
punish  the  culprits  adequately. 

There  is  no  mention  of  punishment  in  the  above- 
mentioned  "  information."  In  one  of  the  worst  cases, 
that  of  the  Jesuit  Theoderich  Beck,  the  Provincial  Superior 
even  recommends  that  clemency  should  be  shown,  "  because 
the  offences  were  not  publicly  known."  He  acted  here 
quite  in  accordance  with  the  ordinance  already  quoted, 
issued  by  General  Acquaviva  in  1595,  that  immoral  actions 
should  not  be  punished  by  dismissal  when  they  had  led 
to  no  open  scandal.*  How  exactly  the  advice  was  followed 
is  shown  further  by  the  following  facts  : 

A  Jesuit,  W.  K.  (he  is  careful  not  to  mention  his  name), 
reported,  under  date  1st  December,  163-  (he  also  does  not 
mention  the  year),  from  Rome  to  the  Jesuit  Forer  at 
Dillingen  that  the  Jesuit  Mena,  "  an  exceptionally  clever 
man,  who  is  sought  out  by  all  as  an  oracle,"  made  a 
woman,  who  was  his  penitent,  believe  that  she  might  live 
with  him  legitimately.  He  subsequently  denounced  him- 
self and  "  died  in  the  Society  of  Jesus "  before  the 
close  of  the  lawsuit  which  followed.  It  is  related  in  the 
same  letter  of  another  Jesuit,  Azevedo,  that  "  he  had 
only  been  detected  (nihil  aliud  fecisse  deprehensus)  observ- 
ing or  touching  that  belonging  to  a  woman  which  one 
ought  bashfully  to  keep  away  from."  He  also  "  died  in 
the  Society  of  Jesus."+ 

THE   VOW    OF   POVERTY 

The  scope  of  the  vow  of  poverty  (also  of  the  special 
vow  of  poverty  of  the  professed  Jesuits)  is  explained  by 
the  following  passages  in  the  Constitutions  : 

"  Whoever  wishes  to  live  in  the  Society  must  be  con- 
vinced that  food,  drink,  clothing  and  bedding  should  be 

*  See  Chapter  VI. 

■j-  Dollinger-Reusch,   Moralstreitigkeiten,  I.,  587  ;    IT.,  305. 


72  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

of  such,  a  kind  as  appertains  to  poverty,  and  that  the 
worst  things  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  house  are 
assigned  to  him  to  produce  greater  self-denial  and  spiritual 
development ;  also  in  order  that  a  certain  equality  and 
a  common  social  measure  should  be  attained.  As  those 
who  established  the  Society  were  specially  tried  by  such 
poverty  and  a  greater  want  of  bodily  necessaries,  so  those 
also  who  follow  them  must  endeavour,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  to  equal  and  excel  them.  .  .  .  Poverty  is  to  be 
loved  as  the  strong  wall  of  the  Order,  and,  with  the  help 
of  Divine  grace,  is  to  be  maintained  in  its  purity  as  far 
as  possible.  All  must  love  poverty  as  a  mother  and 
endure  its  effects  in  fitting  season,  according  to  a  measure 
of  holy  discretion ;  nothing  is  to  be  used  as  an  individual 
possession,  and  they  must  also  be  ready  to  beg  from  door 
to  door  when  obedience  or  necessity  requires  this."* 

And  with  reference  to  the  gratuitous  performance  of 
the  work  of  the  Order  which  is  connected  with  poverty, 
the  Constitutions  say : 

"  All  who  are  under  obedience  to  the  Society  should 
remember  that  they  ought  to  give  gratuitously  what  they 
have  gratuitously  received,  neither  demanding  nor  receiv- 
ing pay,  or  alms,  by  which  masses,  or  confessions,  or 
sermons,  or  lessons,  or  visitations,  or  any  other  duty  of 
all  those  which  the  Society  can  render  according  to  our 
Institute,  may  appear  to  be  remunerated.  .  .  .  Also 
they  must  not,  although  others  are  allowed  to  do  so, 
accept  any  pay  or  any  alms  for  masses,  sermons,  lessons, 
or  administration  of  sacraments,  or  for  any  other  pious 
work  which  the  Society  may  carry  out  in  accordance 
with  its  Constitutions,  as  recompense  for  such  services, 
from  any  other  person  than  from  God  (for  whose  service 
alone  they  are  to  do  everything)."! 

*  Exam,  gen.,  IV.,  26 ;    Summar.  23,  24. 

f  Oonstit.  VI.,  2,  7  ;   Examen  generale,  I.,  3 ;   Can.  1,  Congreg.  5  ;  Summar.  27. 


Theory  and   Practice  of  the  Vows     73 

Only  on  one  point,  which  is  to  be  discussed  minutely 
further  on — the  interference  of  the  Jesuit  Order  in  politics 
— is  the  opposition  between  Jesuit  theory  and  Jesuit 
practice  so  sharp  as  in  the  case  of  poverty.  We 
may  [say  at  once  that  Jesuit  poverty  is  communistic 
wealth. 

Apart  from  actual  business  associations,  there  is 
scarcely  any  non-religious  society  which  strives  so  intently 
and  with  such  considerable  success  after  possessions  and 
riches  as  the  Society  of  Jesus,  a  name  which,  in  just  this 
connection,  is  a  cruel  mockery.  But  amongst  the  religious 
bodies,  the  so-called  spiritual  Orders,  the  Jesuit  Order 
occupies  a  supreme  and  exceptional  position  through  its 
"  poverty." 

I  will  give  some  personal  recollections  first  of  all. 

No  doubt  I  have  felt,  as  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order 
express  it,  "  the  effects  of  poverty."  The  already  described 
dormitory  and  living  arrangements  during  my  novitiate, 
which  continued  throughout  the  scholasticate,  afforded 
full  opportunities  for  the  practical  experience  of  poverty. 
Bedding  and  clothing  were,  if  not  exactly  mean  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word,  far  from  any  suggestion  of 
opulence.  A  palliasse  which  was  frequently  very  hard, 
coarse  bed-linen,  a  small  blanket  and  a  narrow  and  short 
bedstead  formed  my  nightly  couch  for  years.  The  cloth- 
ing was  outwardly,  it  is  true,  generally  clean.  As  regards, 
however,  the  cleanliness  underneath,  e.g.  the  cleanliness 
of  the  undergarments,  there  was  none,  since,  for  example, 
one  and  the  same  pair  of  trousers  was  worn  next  to  the 
skin  for  years,  and  shirt  and  stockings,  in  spite  of  per- 
spiration and  in  spite  of  scanty  washing  and  rare  baths, 
were  only  changed  once  a  week.  Thus  I  also  experienced 
the  uncleanliness  which  is  frequently,  but  not  necessarily, 
connected  with  poverty. 

But  two  points  must  be  noted  in  the  case  of  these 


74  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

"  effects  of  poverty,"  and  they  are  not  the  only  ones,  as  I 
shall  show.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  a  poverty  brought 
about  by  force  of  circumstances.  The  German  Province 
of  the  Order  was  obliged,  while  established  abroad  (in 
Holland  and  England)  after  its  expulsion  from  Germany, 
to  cut  its  cloak  according  to  its  cloth  ;  it  could  not  imme- 
diately have  everything  in  good  order.  And  in  the  second 
place,  this  effect  of  poverty,  to  which  still  others  were 
added  according  to  necessity  (threadbare  or  torn  clothing) 
are  the  tests  imposed  on  the  individual  to  prove  his  con- 
tempt for  the  world,  his  obedience,  his  constancy,  etc. 
They  are  not  phenomena  which  develop  from  the  attitude 
and  from  the  spirit  of  the  Order.  Thus  even  the  meagre 
"  effects  of  poverty,"  regarded  from  religious  and  ascetic 
points  of  view  as  characteristic  of  the  Order,  are  still 
further  reduced.  Hence  I  have  a  perfect  right  to  dis- 
regard these  things  in  describing  the  poverty  which  I 
personally  endured. 

In  other  respects  I  have  learnt  to  know  the  poverty 
of  the  Jesuit  Order  as  easy  living,  based  on  wealth,  and 
even  luxury,  combined  with  a  spirit  of  intense  eagerness 
for  money  and  gain. 

It  is  obvious  that  an  Order  which  clothes  and  feeds 
thousands,  and  in  many  instances  lodges  them  in  magni- 
ficent and  spacious  buildings,  must  be  rich,  very  rich. 
The  revenues,  from  which  the  enormous  sums  for  main- 
taining the  members,  houses  and  churches  of  the  Order 
are  derived,  point  to  a  capital  of  many  millions.  I  saw 
this  clearly  from  the  beginning.  But  I  came  to  see  other 
things  clearly  as  well. 

The  material  foundation  of  the  Order,  safeguarded  by 
an  enormous  fortune  of  millions,  was  not  the  only,  not 
even  the  most  marked,  feature  of  opposition  to  its  theo- 
retically ascetic  and  religious  foundation — i.e.  to  Jesus 
Christ's  vow  of  poverty.    We  find  it  in  the  daily  life  and 


Theory  and   Practice  of  the  Vows      75 

in  the  habits  of  the  Order  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  certain 
circumstances. 

The  daily  fare  at  dinner  and  supper  is  very  good  and 
very  abundant,  incomparably  better  than  that  of  the 
secular  priests  and  even  most  comfortably  situated  and 
well-to-do  families,  of  the  middle  class.  The  Jesuit  Order 
knows  no  trace  of  poverty  in  eating  and  drinking. 

The  "  poor  "  Jesuit  daily  eats  a  dinner  consisting  of 
soup  and  two  meat  dishes,  with  suitable  additions  and 
stewed  fruit,  and  a  supper  consisting  of  a  meat  dish  or 
other  hot  food,  and  he  drinks  good  beer  with  this.  On 
festival  days,  according  to  their  importance,  several  dishes, 
amounting  to  five  or  six,  are  served,  and  wine  is  supplied 
besides  the  beer.  In  the  English  Jesuit  houses  (Ditton 
Hall,  Stonyhurst,  London,  Liverpool  and  Manchester)  I 
have  enjoyed  meals  which  must  be  characterised  as  very 
well  cooked,  sumptuous  dinners,*  at  which  neither  oysters 
and  champagne,  nor  pastry,  poultry  and  game,  nor  even 
the  after-dinner  cigarette  with  coffee  and  liqueurs  were 
lacking. 

Was  the  meal  of  which  Christ  and  His  company  par- 
took before  His  passion  and  death,  the  picture  of  which 
frequently  adorns  the  refectories  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
of  the  same  nature  ? 

The  "  magister  meals  "  constitute  a  special  kind  of 
feast.  Every  three  months,  or  even  more  frequently,  the 
Jesuits  appointed  as  magistri  in  the  different  colleges  have 
special  festivities  with  a  meal  at  which  things  are  done 
in  great  style.  From  a  purely  human  point  of  view,  I  am 
quite  capable  of  appreciating  such  recreation,  spiced  with 

*  Such  feasts  are  called  Duplicia  ;  they  are  divided,  according  to  their  import- 
ance, into  Duplicia  secundae,  primae  and  primissimae  {sic  I)  classis — a  division 
which,  it  is  important  to  notice,  has  been  copied  from  the  Liturgy,  which  classes 
the  feasts  of  the  Church  under  festa  simplicia  and  duplicia,  and  these  again  under 
duplicia  secundae  and  primae  classis.  The  designation  duplex  primissimae  classis 
for  specially  sumptuous  meals  is  Jesuit  Latin,  or  rather  Jesuit  dog-Latin. 


76  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

pleasures  of  the  table,  in  the  course  of  a  hard  and  monot- 
onous professional  life.  But  the  purely  human  point  of 
view  is  by  no  means  that  which  is  accepted  by  the  Society 
of  Jesus ;  it  takes  to  itself  very  emphatically  the  ideal 
of  Christly  perfection  and  asceticism,  and  such  feastings 
are  out  of  place  for  the  wearers  of  the  soutane  and  biretta. 

A  true  Jesuit  peculiarity  may  be  added.  It  is  that  the 
good  living,  expressing  itself  in  luxurious  meals  and  feast- 
ing, is  most  carefully  kept  from  the  laity.  In  their  eyes 
the  Jesuit  appears  as  the  poor,  mortified  member  of  an 
Order  which  is  very  much  in  want  of  support  and  alms. 
The  liberality  of  the  unsuspecting  public  would  receive 
its  deathblow  if  it  got  wind  of  such  things. 

An  event  during  my  stay  at  the  Jesuit  college  in 
Holland,  Blyenbeck,  where  I  studied  philosophy  as  a 
scholastic  from  1881-1883,  shows  to  what  serio-comic 
situations  such  secret  proceedings  frequently  lead. 

One  fine  summer  afternoon  my  uncle,  Baron  Felix  von 
Loe  (Centre  Deputy  and  founder  of  the  Catholic  National 
Union),  came  over  the  moor  from  his  estate  at  Terporten, 
situated  on  the  other  side  of  the  neighbouring  Prussian 
border,  as  he  frequently  did,  to  visit  his  friend,  the  Jesuit 
Joseph  Schneider  (author  of  an  "  official "  work  on  Indul- 
gences), who  was  stationed  in  Rome  as  Consultor  of  the 
Congregation  of  Indulgences,  but  was  spending  his  holidays 
at  Blyenbeck.  It  was  just  the  time  for  a  "  magister  meal," 
and  Father  Schneider  as  a  distinguished  guest  took  part 
in  it.  A  great  dilemma  occurred  !  I  was  called  to  the 
Rector,  and  requested  to  entertain  my  uncle  in  the  mean- 
time and  explain  to  him  that  Father  Schneider  could  not 
be  spared  just  then  "  owing  to  urgent  business."  About 
an  hour  later,  Father  Schneider  appeared  with  a  face 
rubicund  from  eating  and  drinking,  and  in  a  very  cheerful 
frame  of  mind.  He  repeated  the  excuse  about  important 
business.    I  suffered  torture,  partly  owing  to  the  untruth 


Theory  and  Practice   of  the  Vows      77 

with  which  we  had  regaled  my  uncle,  and  partly  because 
I  was  afraid  that  Father  Schneider's  evident  cheerfulness 
might  cause  the  "  urgent  business  "  to  appear  in  a  some- 
what curious  light. 

From  this  may  be  deduced  the  value  of  the  con- 
stantly repeated  pitiful  complaints  made  by  the  Order  in 
newspaper  articles  and  elsewhere  with  reference  to  the 
"  bread  of  exile  "  which  it  is  compelled  to  eat. 

The  country-houses  of  the  Order,  officially  named 
"  villas,"  are  peculiarly  characteristic  of  Jesuit  poverty. 
The  Order  seeks  to  acquire  country-houses,  frequently  at 
great  expense,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  its  colleges,  where 
every  Thursday  the  inmates  of  the  colleges,  fathers  and 
scholastics,  may  be  recuperated  by  good  air,  good  food 
and  all  kinds  of  active  games.  This  is  certainly  an  excel- 
lent arrangement  from  the  point  of  view  of  health  and 
the  care  of  the  body.  It  may  reasonably  be  doubted, 
from  the  knowledge  revealed  to  us  in  the  Gospels  of  the 
Christly  spirit  of  poverty,  whether  it  is  in  accordance  with 
the  spirit  of  poverty  of  a  Society  of  Jesus.  Notwith- 
standing the  exile  in  which  the  German  Province  of  the 
Order  lived  in  Holland  and  England,  the  wealth  of  the 
Order  was  sufficient  for  the  expensive  purchase  and 
support  of  such  villas.  Thus,  the  novitiate  house  at 
Exaeten  had  its  villa  at  Oosen  on  the  banks  of  the  Maas, 
and  the  college  at  Wynandsrade  had  its  villa  at  Aalbeck. 

On  journeys,  the  "  poor  "  Jesuit  travels  second  class. 
I  was  accustomed  to  travel  third  class  as  long  as  I  believed 
in  the  Jesuit  Order.  When  I  went  with  other  comrades, 
I  found  it  rather  difficult  to  persuade  them  to  use  the 
lower  class. 

The  Jesuit  father  (not  the  brother)  has  his  own  spacious 
room,  not  luxuriously  but  comfortably  furnished,  with 
bed,  writing-table,  standing-desk,  chairs,  prie-dieu,  book- 
case and  stove. 


78  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

Consequently  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at — and  this  is 
also  an  effect  of  Jesuit  poverty — that  when  Jesuits,  brought 
up  in  such  comfort,  become  through  exterior  events  the 
possessors  of  a  large  income  they  incline  towards  prodi- 
gality. For  example,  the  Jesuit  Cienfuegos,  who  was 
made  Cardinal,  "  made  an  enormous  display,"  as  his 
fellow- Jesuit,  Cordara,  the  historiographer  of  the  Order, 
tells  us.  This  "  poor  "  member  of  the  Order  wasted  over 
70,000  gold  florins  yearly  in  dissipation  as  Imperial  ambas- 
sador at  Madrid  and  holder  of  the  rich  archbishopric  of 
Monreale.* 

It  is  a  fair  question  then  :  '  Where  does  poverty  come 
in  when  the  exterior  life  of  the  Jesuit  is  so  comfort- 
ably, even  luxuriously  appointed  ?  "  And,  further,  "  Are 
there  not  many  amongst  the  Jesuits  who  are  struck  by 
the  antithesis  of  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order  and  the 
actual  life,  and  who,  as  a  result  of  these  thoughts,  doubt 
whether  they  are  really  in  the  Society  of  Jesus,  that  Jesus 
who  entered  the  world  in  exceeding  poverty,  passed  through 
it  in  exceeding  poverty,  and  left  it  in  exceeding  poverty  ?  " 
Of  course,  there  are  many  whose  spirit  of  idealism  and 
aversion  from  the  world  takes  offence  at  the  "  poor ' 
things  offered  for  their  use  and  enjoyment  by  the  Jesuit 
Order.  I  belonged  to  this  number.  I  frequently  ex- 
pressed my  trouble  and  doubts  to  my  Superior,  especi- 
ally during  the  novitiate.  I  received  the  stereotyped 
reply : 

"  Our  poverty  does  not  consist  in  privation,  but  in  our 
aloofness  in  the  midst  of  possessions ;  also  especially  in 
the  fact  that  we  do  not  call  anything  our  own  amongst 
the  objects  with  which  we  are  surrounded  and  which  we 
use.  Every  pencil,  every  piece  of  paper,  every  book, 
every  pen  and  every  sheet  of  note-paper,  our  food,  the 
rooms  and  the  clothes  which  we  use,  have  to  be  asked  for; 

*  Cordara,  S.J.,  Denkumrdigkeiten  ;    Dollinger,  Beitrage,  3,  3. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      79 

we  are  possessors,  or  masters,  of  nothing.    Hence  we  are 
poor." 

A  sentence  uttered  by  my  Novice-Master,  afterwards 
my  Provincial,  the  Jesuit  Mauritius  Meschler,  also  throws 
interesting  light  on  this  poverty.  When  I  once,  at  the 
Annual  Statement  of  Conscience,  expressed  my  misgiv- 
ings as  to  the  sumptuous  feasts,  he  said : 

"  But,  dear  brother,  are  only  the  wicked  to  enjoy  the 
good  things  of  this  world  ?  Has  not  God  also  created 
them  for  the  righteous  ?  " 

I  was  not  then  quick  enough  at  repartee  to  answer 
him  with  the  saying  of  Christ,  who  certainly  also  belonged 
to  the  "  righteous  "  : 

"  The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have 
nests  ;  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his 
head." 

It  does  not  strike  anyone,  who  believes  in  the  authority 
and  piety  of  the  expositors,  that  such  explanations  are 
humbug  and  devoid  of  the  Evangelical  spirit ;  indeed, 
they  gradually  lull  the  ascetic  and  religious  conscience  to 
sleep.  The  individual  considers  that  he  and  the  Order 
are  poor,  whilst  he  lives  a  very  comfortable  life  on  the 
interest  of  the  Order's  millions  and  enjoys  in  a  duly 
"  detached  "  manner  the  good  things  of  this  world. 

I  repeat  that  Jesuit  poverty  is  in  reality  communistic 
wealth,  not  Evangelical  poverty. 

I  have  also  had  experience  in  various  ways  of  the 
famed  gratuitousness  with  which  the  Jesuit  carries  out 
his  spiritual  work  (sermons,  hearing  of  confessions,  giving 
of  exercises,  and  saying  mass). 

During  my  third  probationary  year,  the  tertiate,  which 
I  passed  at  Portico  in  England  (near  the  manufacturing 
town  of  St.  Helens),  we  tertiaries  were  sent  on  Sundays 
into  the  neighbouring  parishes  to  help  the  priests,  at  their 
request,  in  preaching,  hearing  confessions  and  saying  mass. 


80  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

The  "  gratuitousness "  of  such  assistance  comes  very 
forcibly  to  light.  Our  rector  and  tertiate  instructor,  the 
Jesuit  Oswald,  carefully  selected  from  amongst  the  requests 
submitted  those  which  promised  to  be  most  lucrative. 
He  openly  stated  that  he  preferred  to  decline  absolutely 
requests  which  did  not  promise,  besides  the  allowance  for 
travelling,  at  least  one  pound  sterling  ! 

This  instance  of  the  application  of  the  principle  is  the 
more  noteworthy  because  it  belonged  to  the  tertiate  period, 
i.e.  the  highest  stage  of  the  Jesuit  training,  and  because 
the  very  man  who  was  appointed  by  the  Order  to  instruct 
us  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order  and  initiate  us  into 
its  spirit  proclaimed  this  principle  with  reference  to 
"  gratuitous  "  money-making. 

The  Order  charges  high  fees  for  Exercises,  popular 
missions,  festival  sermons  and  masses  for  souls.  It  prefers 
to  give  Exercises  to  rich  and  noble  people,  because  the 
donations,  too,  are  rich  and  noble.  When  I  gave  Exercises 
in  1889  to  a  number  of  noble  ladies  at  Minister,  I  received 
500  marks  (£25)  for  my  exertions,  which  only  lasted  three 
days.  The  Procurator  of  the  Province,  the  Jesuit  Cadufi, 
accepted  the  money  with  pleasure,  and  remarked  face- 
tiously that  I  seemed  able  to  give  profitable  Exercises. 
I  never  brought  back  less  than  300  marks  (£15)  from  the 
castle  of  Count  D.-V.,  in  Westphalia,  where  I  often  went 
to  preach,  hear  confessions  and  say  mass.  At  the  death 
of  my  father,  my  mother  gave  from  two  to  three  thousand 
marks  (£100-£150)  to  the  Order  for  saying  masses  for 
the  dead.  I  have  already  stated  how,  in  all  probability, 
the  Order  also  received  a  considerable  portion  of  my 
mother's  fortune  through  the  agency  of  the  Jesuit 
Behrens. 

Such  and  similar  occurrences  might  be  multiplied  a 
thousandfold,  and  an  idea  can  be  obtained  through  them 
of    the    productive   source    of    revenue    for    the    Order 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      81 

which  springs  from  the  gratuitousness  of  its  spiritual 
aids. 

So  much  regarding  Jesuit  poverty  from  the  limited 
history  of  my  personal  experiences.  I  will  now  deal  with 
the  larger  history  of  the  Order's  poverty. 

Here  also  stress  must  be  laid  on  the  fact  that  the 
defection  from  the  rules  drawn  up  in  the  Constitutions  is 
observable  even  in  the  early  youth  of  the  Order.  The 
Jesuit  primitiae  spiritus,  the  first  fruits  of  the  spirit,  are 
degenerate  already,  and  the  high-sounding,  ascetic  theory 
of  the  Order  is  in  sharp  antithesis  to  them. 

In  the  already  mentioned  secret  report  of  the  Upper 
German  Province  of  the  Order,  by  the  Visitator,  Paul 
Hofraus,  appointed  by  General  Acquaviva,  we  find,  under 
date  1596: 

'  We  have  swerved  aside,  we  have  fallen  away  violently,  indeed, 
from  the  first  form  of  poverty.  We  are  not  content  with  necessary 
things,  but  desire  that  all  shall  be  comfortable,  plentiful,  diverse, 
profuse,  rare,  select,  elegant,  splendid,  gilded,  precious  and  luxu- 
rious. I  can  only  think  with  shame  and  pain  of  how  many  thousand 
florins  have  been  expended  here  [in  Munich]  in  latter  years  for 
the  maintenance  and  the  embellishment  of  the  college,  as  if  we 
were  not  poor  members  of  an  Order,  but  courtiers  and  spend- 
thrifts. Woe  to  those  who  have  brought  about  and  devised  this 
damnable  and  accursed  expenditure  to  the  corruption  of  our 
religious  poverty.  This  is  the  more  to  be  regretted  because  the 
corruption  has  already  become  a  habit  which  can  no  longer  be 
exterminated  unless  the  axe  is  placed  at  the  root.  There  is  not 
a  trace  left  of  the  poverty  of  our  fathers.  Everything  is  done  in 
grand  style."* 

It  is  praiseworthy  that  the  officials  in  the  Order  raised 
their  voices  in  warning.  But  this  did  not  help  matters. 
The  evil  spread.  And  when  the  whole  is  surveyed,  when 
we  observe  the  continually  increasing  gigantic  riches  of 

*  Reprinted  in  Reusch,  Beitrage,  p.  262. 
G 


82  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

the  Order  and  see  innumerable  examples  of  its  remarkable 
commercial  aptitude  for  money-making,  the  not  unjusti- 
fiable doubt  arises :  "  Are  not  the  warning  voices  of 
officials  only  raised  pro  forma,  ut  aliquid  fecisse  videantur  ?  " 
Be  that  as  it  may,  the  historical  life  and  behaviour  of  the 
Order  gives  the  lie  to  its  theoretical  warnings. 

As  the  pseudo-mysticism  of  the  Jesuit  Order  is  an 
inheritance  from  its  founder,  Ignatius  Loyola,  so  its 
pseudo -poverty  and  its  notable  acquisitiveness  are  charac- 
teristics handed  down  from  the  founder. 

Ignatius  Loyola  instructed  the  Jesuit  Laynez,  appointed 
by  himself  confessor  to  Duke  Cosimo  de  Medici,  who  after- 
wards played  an  important  part  at  the  Council  of  Trent, 
and  became  Ignatius's  immediate  successor  in  the  general- 
ship of  the  Order,  that  "he  was  to  'insinuate'  [this  was 
the  expression  used  by  Ignatius]  to  the  Duke's  wife,  who 
was  to  be  confined  shortly,  that  she  should  act  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  Queen  of  Portugal  had  acted  before 
her  confinement,  namely,  make  a  settlement  of  500  gold 
florins  on  the  Jesuit  College.* 

These  1,000  gold  florins  obtained  from  two  princesses 
during  childbed  travail  have  themselves,  as  it  were,  become 
reproductive — they  have  produced  a  million  future  gene- 
rations. The  "  insinuation  "  of  the  founder  of  the  Order 
has  remained  a  model  for  all  later  "  insinuations,"  at  the 
death-bed,  in  confessionals,  etc.,  and  thus  the  Order  has 
heaped  up  possessions  on  possessions. 

K.  von  Lang  points  out|  that  the  Upper  German 
Province  of  the  Jesuit  Order  received  in  the  years  1620- 
1700  alone  through  "  insinuations,"  800,000  florins. 
Amongst  these  are  single  sums  of  15,000,  32,000,  56,000, 
92,000  and   117,000  florins.     In   1718  a  member  of  the 

*  Druffel,  Ignatius  von  Loyola  an  der  romischen  Kurie  (Munich,  1879),  p.  18 
et  seq. 

f  Geschichte  der  Jesuiten  in  Bayern,  1819,  p.  57. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      83 

Peutinger  family  bequeathed  100,000  florins  to  the  Jesuit 
College  at  Ellwangen.  From  about  1700  onwards,  the 
donations  in  the  Upper  German  Province  were  only  noted 
down  in  the  secret  books.  The  size  of  the  sums — which 
were  frequently  gigantic  for  that  period — was  to  remain 
concealed.*  The  yearly  fixed  revenue  of  the  Upper 
German  Province,  which  consisted  of  583  persons,  amounted 
in  1656  to  185,950  florins,  according  to  von  Lang'sf 
minutely  verified  documents.  To  this  should  be  added 
many  thousands  through  gifts,  donations,  fees  for  masses, 
etc. 

It  was  especially  Duke  William  V.  of  Bavaria  who  laid 
the  foundation  for  the  wealth  of  the  Upper  German 
Jesuits.  He  endowed  the  Jesuit  College  in  Munich  with  a 
yearly  income  of  2,675  florins,  and  to  this  were  added  the 
tithes  from  Ainling  and  Edenhausen  to  the  amount  of 
3,000  florins,  and  the  monastery  of  Ebersberg,  with  all  its 
revenues  and  landed  property.  { 

He  met  their  endeavours  to  get  the  most  popular 
places  of  pilgrimages  into  their  hands  by  building  them 
a  college  at  Altotting.  He  presented  them,  moreover,  with 
the  abbeys  of  Biburg  and  Monchsmunster,  and  contrived, 
in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  district,  and  against  Papal 
decrees,  that  the  Jesuits  connected  with  the  foundations 
should  become  members  of  the  Bavarian  prelacy,  and 
should  receive  a  seat  and  vote  in  the  Diets.  § 

The  predilection  of  this  duke  for  the  Jesuit  Order  was 
so  boundless  that  there  was  a  general  complaint  that  the 
avarice  of  the  Jesuits  would  eventually  devour  the  whole 
of  Bavaria. 

William's  example  was  imitated.    His  princely  neigh- 

*  Lang,  Ibid.,  p.  58.  t  Ibid.,  p.  158  et  seq. 

J  Sugenheim,  Baierns  Kirchen  und  V  olkszustande  imlQ.  Jahrh.  (Giessen,  1842), 
p.  317  (2). 

§  F.  Stieve,  Briefe  und  Akten  zur  Oeschichte  des  30  jahrigen  Krieges,  IV.,  414. 


84  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

bour,  the  Archduke  Leopold,  Prince  Bishop  of  Passau, 
a  boy  of  fourteen,  endowed  the  Jesuit  College  at  this 
place  with  30,000  florins. 

Thus  it  is  explicable  that  on  the  suppression  of  the 
Jesuit  Order  in  1773  the  Upper  German  Province  pos- 
sessed a  gigantic  landed  property  which  was  distributed 
as  follows : 

To  the  college  at  Munich  belonged :   the  monastery  of 
Ebersberg  with  the  priory  of  Erding,  Aham,  the  domain 
of   Pfaffenhausen   with   Tondorf,    Eugenbach,   Hornbach, 
Holzhausen,    Wolfshausen    and    Rannerzbach ;     to    the 
college   in   Ingolstadt :     Monchsmiinster   with   fifty-eight 
farms,  Biburg  with  Leitenbach  and  Rozenhausen  of  ninety- 
one  farms,  the  estate  of  Randeck  and  Essing,  the  manors 
of  Prunn,  Stockau,  Oberhaunstadt,  Oberdolling  with  Hell- 
mansperg ;  to  the  college  at  Landsberg :  the  manors  of 
Vogach,  Pestanagger,  Winkel  and  Zangenhausen ;    to  the 
college  at  Amberg :    the  Abbey  of  Kastell  together  with 
the  manors  of  Engenreut,  Hofdorf,  Heymaden,  Garstorf, 
Gebersdorf  ;    to  the  college  at  Ratisbon  :    the  monastery 
of  St.  Paul,  the  manors  of  Gieselshausen,  the  tithes  and 
dues   of   Kalmiinz,    Lengenfeld   and   Holzheim ;     to   the 
college  at  Straubing :    the  manor  of  Schierling ;    to  the 
college  at  Landshut :    the  estate  of  Niederding ;    to  the 
college  at  Burghausen  :   the  tithes  of  Markel  and  Seibels- 
dorf  ;   to  the  college  at  Feldkirch  (Vorarlberg)  :   the  tithes 
of  Frastanz  and  the  pasturage  of  Streichenfeld ;    to  the 
college  at  Neuburg :    the  monasteries  of  Berg,  Neuburg, 
and  Echenbrunn  ;  to  the  college  at  Augsburg  :  the  domain 
of  Eitenhofen,  the  manors  of  Kissingen  and  Mergethau 
with   the    laundry    at    Lechhausen ;     to    the   theological 
seminary    at   Dillingen :     Lustenau ;     to    the    college    at 
Eichstatt :    Wittenfeld  and  Landershofen  ;    to  the  college 
at  Bamberg :    the  estates  of  Sambach,  Winden,  Stetbach, 
Leimershof,  Hohengussbach,  Knetzgau,  Merkendorf,  Sand- 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      85 

hof  and  the  vineyard  of  Ziegelang.  The  Imperial  Com- 
mission found  assets  of  more  than  three  millions  in  the 
college  at  Ingolstadt.* 

When  the  Austrian  State  officially  estimated  the 
wealth  of  the  Order  directly  after  its  suppression,  it 
amounted  to  15,415,220  guldens,  for  Bohemia,  Moravia, 
Silesia  and  the  remaining  German-Austrian  hereditary 
lands.  But  this  does  not  seem  to  have  been  nearly  all. 
For  the  President  of  the  Imperial  Exchequer  reports, 
under  date  of  August  16th,  1782,  that  more  than  120,000 
guldens  of  "  Jesuit  gold  "  had  been  discovered  at  Genoa, 
and  more  than  eighteen  millions  were  supposed  to  be 
lodged  in  the  Order's  name  in  Holland,  four  millions  of 
which  belonged  to  Austria.  The  President  even  learnt 
the  names  of  the  banks  at  Frankfort  which  had  negotiated 
the  payment  of  the  interest.  But  the  further  levy  arranged 
by  the  Bethmannf  firm  led  to  no  results.  J 

The  following  facts  from  the  same  period  throw  the 
Jesuit  wealth  into  bold  relief : 

The  Bohemian  and  Austrian  Chancery  Court  reports, 
under  date  of  April  28th,  1781,  that  of  the  outstanding 
claims  of  the  Jesuits  on  private  individuals,  3,214,000 
guldens  have  already  been  collected,  2,674,939  guldens 
were  converted  into  ready  money,  and,  in  addition  to  this, 
381,654  guldens  earnest  money  would  be  collected. 

The  Emperor  (Joseph  II.)  considered  it  "  unseemly  " 
that  the  State  as  an  assignee  of  the  Jesuits  should  have 
private  debtors,  and  privately  advised  Prince  Schwarzen- 
berg,  who  was  placed  in  sad  difficulties  through  the  notice 
to  redeem  this  outstanding  debt,  to  sell  one  of  his  estates 

*  From  the  documents  quoted  by  Lang,  Geschichte  der  Jesuiten  in  Bnyern, 
p.  205  et  seq. 

t  The  fifth  German  Chancellor,  von   Bethmann-Hollweg,  is  descended   from 
a  member  of  this  banking  firm. 

J  Hock-Biedermann,   Der  osterreichische  Staalsrat,  1760-1848  (Vienna,  1879), 
pp.  67,  444. 


86  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

in  the  German  Empire  so  that  he  might  pay  the  proceeds 
into  the  Austrian  Government  Credit-bank  and  thus 
liquidate  the  debt  contracted  with  the  Jesuits.* 

On   May   25th,    1647,   John   Palafox,    Bishop   of   Los 
Angeles,  wrote  to  Pope  Innocent  X.  :f 

*  Hock-Biedermann,  ibid.,  p.  521. 

f  The  evidence  of  Bishop  Palafox  (who  died  in  1659  when  Bishop  of  Osma, 
in  Spain)  is  especially  unfavourable,  and  is  consequently  contested  by  the  Jesuits 
with  all  manner  of  culumnies.  Palafox  lived  and  died  in  the  odour  of  sanctity, 
so  that  his  beatification  was  instituted  and  almost  completed.  Therefore  the 
Jesuits,  fighting  as  is  their  wont  by  means  of  falsifications  and  misrepresentations, 
have  tried  to  discredit  his  letter  directed  to  the  Pope,  from  which  the  above  quota- 
tion has  been  taken.  But  the  authenticity  of  the  letter  is  guaranteed,  apart  from 
other  proofs,  by  a  decree  of  the  Congregation  of  Rites,  dated  December  16th,  1760, 
in  which,  amongst  the  writings  of  Palafox,  these  two  letters  are  also  mentioned, 
and  it  is  said  of  them,  as  of  the  remaining  writings  :  "  They  contain  nothing 
against  religion  and  good  morals,  nor  do  they  contain  any  new,  strange  doctrine 
opposed  to  the  general  belief  and  custom  of  the  Church."  The  Congregation 
announces  at  the  same  time  that,  after  the  examination  of  his  writings,  the  beati- 
fication of  Bishop  Palafox  could  be  continued  (Decret  rendu  dans  la  cause  de  I'^glise 
d'Osma,  p.  30.  Rome:  De  I'Imprimerie  de  la  Chambre  Apostolique,  1760.  In  a 
collection  belonging  to  the  Court  and  State  Library  in  Munich  :  Jes.  832).  This 
official  document  is  of  the  greatest  importance  also  in  connection  with  the  contents 
of  the  letters.  For  the  Congregation  of  Rites  could  not  possibly  declare  that  the 
letters  were  "  not  opposed  to  good  morals  "  if  they  had  not  become  convinced 
after  minute  examination  that  they  contained  nothing  slanderous  and  untrue. 
When,  therefore,  Duhr  (Jesuitenfabeln,  p.  640  et  seq.),  who,  moreover,  carefully 
keeps  this  important  decree  secret,  asserts  most  positively :  "  A  number  of  his 
[Bishop  Palafox's]  assertions  are  in  disagreement  with  known  facts  and  are 
accordingly  shown  to  be  untruths,"  he  makes  an  audacious  attempt  to  deceive, 
which  is  not  improved  by  the  fact  that  Duhr  refers  to  "  remarks  "  (animadversiones) 
by  the  Promoter  Fidei  in  the  proceedings  in  regard  to  Bishop  Palafox's  beatification. 
For  it  is  the  business  of  the  Promotor  Fidei  to  raise  difficulties  from  all  available 
quarters  against  a  beatification,  and  that  is  why  he  is  also  called  the  advoeatus 
diaboli,  the  devil's  advocate.  Moreover,  this  quotation  by  Duhr  requires  to  be 
explained.  As  I  could  not  find  the  remarks  of  the  advocatus  diaboli  at  any  German 
library,  I  begged  the  Intelligence  Bureau  for  German  Libraries  in  Berlin  to  ask 
Duhr  in  which  library  the  remarks  could  be  found.  Duhr  replied  that  they  were 
private  property.  Thus  I  am  deprived  of  the  possibility  of  verifying  them.  And 
until  Duhr  produces  the  work  itself,  I  must  place  a  note  of  interrogation  after 
his  quotation.  I  have  already  caught  Duhr  tripping  in  regard  to  many  of  his 
quotations,  and  shall  do  so  again,  no  doubt.  The  accuracy  of  the  contents  of 
the  letter  is,  moreover,  supported  by  the  fact  that,  on  account  of  the  remonstrance 
of  the  Jesuit  Order,  Rome  caused  an  examination  to  be  carried  out,  with  the 
result  that  Innocent  X.  decided  in  three  briefs  (May  14th,  1648,  November  19th, 
1652,  and  May  27th,  1653)  in  favour  of  the  Cardinal  and  against  the  Jesuits. 
These  briefs  were  so  embarrassing  to  the  Order  that  it  tried  to  divert  their  influence 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      87 

"  Most  Holy  Father, — I  found  almost  all  the  wealth,  all  immov- 
ables and  all  treasures  of  this  Province  of  America,  in  the  hands 
of  the  Jesuits,  who  still  possess  them.  Two  of  their  colleges  have 
30,000  sheep,  without  counting  the  small  flocks  ;  and  whilst  almost 
all  the  cathedral  churches  and  all  the  Orders  together  have  hardly 
three  sugar-refineries,  the  Society  alone  has  six  of  the  largest. 
One  of  these  refineries  is  valued  at  more  than  half  a  million  thalers, 
and  this  single  Province  of  the  Jesuits,  which,  however,  only 
consists  of  ten  colleges,  possesses,  as  I  have  just  said,  six  of  these 
refineries,  each  one  of  which  brings  in  100,000  thalers  yearly. 
Besides  this,  they  have  various  corn-fields  of  enormous  size.  Also 
they  have  silver  mines,  and  if  they  continue  to  increase  their  power 

in  a  truly  Jesuitical  way.  It  smuggled  into  the  bullariuru  (Lyons  edition  of  1655, 
4  vols.),  directly  after  the  briefs,  a  document  (Processus  et  finis  causae  Angelo- 
politanae)  of  which  the  essential  part  is  as  follows  :  "  Decisions  in  favour  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Society  [of  Jesus]  from  the  accompanying  brief."  The  ruse  was 
discovered,  however,  and  the  Congregation  of  the  Index  censured  this  volume 
of  the  bullarium  by  means  of  a  decree  of  August  3rd,  1656,  "  until  it  was  cleansed 
from  the  additions  "  (donee  expurgetur  ab  adjectis).  In  two  further  decrees  (July  27th, 
1657,  and  June  10th,  1658),  the  resolutions  interpolated  by  the  Jesuits  were 
emphatically  designated  as  such  "additions."    (Reusch,  Index  II.,  485,  495.) 

A  second  Jesuit  trick  must  also  be  reported  in  the  Palafox  matter.  When, 
as  has  already  been  mentioned,  Bishop  Palafox's  beatification  was  proposed,  the 
Jesuits  vehemently  opposed  it.  The  proceedings  continued,  however,  in  the  usual 
slow  fashion.  Then,  in  1765-1770,  there  appeared  pseudonymous  and  anonymoug 
writings,  most  probably  by  Jesuits,  which  designated  as  suspect  the  works  declared 
by  the  Congregation  of  Rites  to  be  blameless  in  regard  to  dogma  and  morals. 
The  nuisance  increased  so  much  that  the  Congregation  of  the  Index  was  obliged 
to  put  an  end  to  it  by  means  of  a  decree,  dated  September  10th,  1771.  At  the 
same  time,  it  again  confirmed,  at  the  Pope's  command,  the  earlier  decrees  in 
favour  of  the  orthodoxy  of  Palafox's  works  and  enjoined  silence  on  the  Promoter 
Fidei  (advocatus  diaboli),  (ibid.,  495  et  seq.) 

Nothing  is  to  be  found  of  all  these  important  facts  in  the  "  historical  "  state. 
ment  by  the  Jesuit  Duhr.  He  brings  forward,  as  has  already  been  mentioned,  an 
unverifiable  and  unfavourable  expression  of  the  advocatus  diaboli  and  lays  stress 
upon  the  assertion,  which  has  already  been  proved  untrue  by  Arnauld,  that 
Palafox  has  described  his  letters  as  written  ab  irato  (ibid.,  p.  643).  The  confession, 
not,  of  course,  intended  for  publication,  which  the  official  historiographer,  the 
Jesuit  Cordara,  makes  in  a  report  regarding  the  intrigues  of  his  Order  against  the 
beatification  of  Palafox  is  very  interesting:  "  If  John  Palafox  had  obtained  the 
heavenly  honours  [the  canonisation],  the  letters,  which  he  is  supposed  to  have 
addressed  to  Innocent  X.,  would  doubtless  have  reflected  disgrace  on  the  Society 
[of  Jesus]  .  .  .  The  Jesuits  tried,  with  good  reason,  but  not  perhaps  in  a  very 
well-considered  manner,  to  hinder  the  case  of  Palafox."  (Denkwilrdigkeiten  : 
Dollinger,  Beitrdge,  3,  29.) 


88  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

and  wealth  as  excessively  as  they  have  done  up  to  now,  the  secular 
clergy  will  become  their  sacristans  and  the  laymen  their  stewards, 
whilst  the  other  Orders  will  be  forced  to  collect  alms  at  their  doors. 
All  this  property  and  all  these  considerable  revenues,  which  might 
make  a  sovereign  powerful,  serve  no  other  purpose  than  to  maintain 
ten  colleges.  ...  To  this  may  be  added  the  extraordinary  skill 
with  which  they  make  use  of  and  increase  their  superabundant 
wealth.  They  maintain  public  warehouses,  cattle  fairs,  butchers' 
stalls  and  shops.  They  send  a  part  of  their  goods  by  way  of  the 
Philippine  Islands  to  China.  They  lend  out  their  money  for  usury 
and  thus  cause  the  greatest  loss  and  injury  to  others."* 

One  of  Palafox's  colleagues,  the  Bishop  of  Maragnon, 
Gregorio  de  Almeida,  complained,  in  1679,  that  the  Jesuits 
yearly  snatched  40,000  gold  ducats  from  him.f 

With  reference  to  the  wealth  of  the  Jesuits  in  China 
in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  the  records 
of  the  Missions  Etrangeres  of  Paris  (the  oldest  Catholic 
Missionary  Society  existing  to-day)  contain  interesting 
information : 

"  Les  Jesuites  ont  trois  maisons  a  Pekin.  Chaque 
maison  a,  dans  un  commerce  usuraire,  la  valeur  de  cinquante 
ou  soixante  mille  taels.  Chaque  tael  vaut  au  moins  quatre 
livres  de  notre  monnaie  de  France.  Uinteret  de  Vargent  a 
la  Chine  est  ordinairement  de  trente  four  cent.  Les  Jesuites 
pretendent  quails  n'en  prennent  que  vingt-quatre,  ou,  ce  qui 
ne  vaut  pas  mieux,  deux  pour  cent  par  mois.  Le  calcul  du 
profit  est  facile  a  faire.  Le  capital  de  60,000  taels  pour 
chaque  maison  fait  pour  les  trois  maisons  ensemble  un  total 
de  720,000  livres  et  la  rente  d'environ  80,000  liv.  pour 
nourrir  onze  '  pauvres  religieux.'  Mais  ce  profit  n'est 
rien  compare  au  profit  du  commerce  de  vin,  d'Jwrloges  et 
d'autres  industries,  avec  lesquelles  ces  Peres  amassent  des 

*  Don  Juan  Palafox,  Briefe  an  Papst  Innozenz  X.  (Frankfort  and  Leipzig, 
1773),  pp.  7-9. 

t  Evidence  given  by  Friedrich,  p.  40. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      89 

tresors  immenses,  qui  les  rendent  beaucoup  plus  riches  dans 
les  I  tides  que  le  roi  de  Portugal" 

As  the  Lazarists  (founded  by  St.  Vincent  de  Paul) 
reprinted  these  data  in  the  official  history  of  their  Con- 
gregation,* we  have  evidence  as  to  the  truth  of  these 
facts  from  two  of  the  most  distinguished  Catholic  Missionary 
Societies,  who,  owing  to  their  activity  in  China  and  India, 
knew  quite  well  what  they  were  writing  about. 

In  the  same  place,f  the  Lazarists  also  publish  the  text 
of  several  previously  mentioned  usurious  agreements  (con- 
trats  usuraires)  which  the  Jesuits  had  concluded,  partly 
with  Christian  and  partly  with  heathen  Chinese,  and 
which  the  Papal  Legate  in  China,  Cardinal  Tournon,  had 
declared  to  be  null  and  void,  for  the  very  reason  of  their 
usurious  character,  threatening  ecclesiastical  punishments 
in  case  of  repetition. 

The  sums  with  which  the  Jesuit  Order  had  to  do  at 
the  time  of  its  suppression  are  shown  by  a  remark  of  the 
Jesuit  Cordara,{  that  Cardinal  Marefoschi,  who  was 
nominated  by  the  Pope  as  Commissioner  of  Enquiry  of 
the  Jesuit  Seminarium  Romanum,  had  discovered  that  an 
item  of  500,000  scudi  had  not  been  entered  at  all. 

In  short,  the  wealth  of  the  Jesuit  Order  was  and  is  so 
notorious,  that  Cretineau-Joly,§  the  fanatical  defender  of 
the  Order,  in  the  face  of  undeniable  facts,  was  obliged  to 
admit  that  the  wealth  of  the  Jesuit  Order  in  France 
amounted  to  fifty-eight  millions  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Neither  the  property  of  the  missions 
in  the  colonies  nor  the  alms  and  gifts  were  included  in 
this  gigantic  sum,  as  he  mentions  specially.  But  experience 
shows  that  the  alms  and  gifts  amount  to  a  considerable 

*  Memoires  de  la  Congregation  de  la  Mission  (Paris,  1865),  4,  239. 
t  Ibid.,  4,  240  et  seq. 

$  Denkwiirdigkeiten  :  Dollinger,  Beitrdge,  3,  49. 
[  §  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus  (Paris,  1845),  5,  275  (1). 


90  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

total  yearly,  and  that  the  property  of  the  missions  was 
enormous,  so  that  many  millions  must  be  added  to  the 
fifty-eight.  The  number  of  French  Jesuits  who  enjoyed 
the  interest  on  these  millions  was  then  scarcely  more 
than  four  thousand. 

The  fact  of  the  great  wealth  of  the  Jesuits  is  therefore 
firmly  established.  A  certain  piquancy  is  added  by  the 
way  in  which  the  Order  acquires  its  millions. 

It  follows  two  paths  to  reach  this  goal.  The  one  is 
apparently  spiritual  and  religious,  and  we  encounter  on  it 
the  Jesuit  as  Preacher,  Director  of  Exercises,  Confessor 
and  Spiritual  Director.  The  other  path  is  the  usual  way 
of  all  business  people. 

I  have  already  indicated  repeatedly  the  profitableness 
of  the  first  way,  which  bears  the  official  designation 
'*  gratuitous  service  "  in  spiritual  affairs.  I  can  also  con- 
firm from  personal  experience  how  well  trodden  and 
profitable  is  this  road. 

In  this  connection  I  give  a  few  further  characteristic 
passages  from  the  history  of  the  Order. 

The  English  Jesuit,  Gerard,  says  of  himself : 

"  I  also  gave  a  retreat  to  two  fine  young  men  who  were  brothers, 
who  both  came  to  the  resolution  of  entering  the  Society.  .  .  . 
Before  his  departure  (the  elder),  among  other  almsdeeds,  he  gave 
to  the  Society  eleven  to  twelve  thousand  florins.  My  host  (Henry 
Drury)  bestowed  nearly  one-half  of  his  goods  upon  the  Society."* 

The  particulars  are  supplemented  by  information 
given  by  the  Catholic  priest,  William  Watson,  about 
1599-1600  : 

"  Father  John  Jerard  (Jesuit)  caused  Henry  Drurie  to  enter 
into  this  exercise  ;  and  thereby  got  him  to  sell  the  Manor  of  Lozell 
in  SufEolke,  and  other  lands  to  the  value  of  3,500  pounds,  and  got 

*  The  Life  of  Fr.  John  Gerard  (London,  1882),  from  Taunton,  p.  162. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      91 

all  the  money  himself e.  Two  others  had  the  exercise  giuen  them 
at  that  time  by  Fr.  Jerard  :  vz.  Maister  Anthony  Rowse  and 
Edward  Walpole,  of  whom  he  got  1,000  pounds  each.  .  .  .  He 
dealt  so  in  like  manner  with  Maister  lames  Linacre,  from  whom 
he  drew  400  pounds.  He  also  received  from  Edward  Huddlestones 
1,000  under  pretence  of  the  said  exercise,  and  he  hath  drawne 
Maister  William  Wiseman  into  the  said  exercise  so  oft,  as  he  hath 
left  him  now  very  bare  to  Hue." 

Watson  also  reports  the  same  of  other  wealthy 
people.* 

Abundant  details  regarding  the  commercial  and  busi- 
ness road  are  available,  and  I  will  select  a  few  of  them ; 

M.  Martin,  the  manager  of  the  French  Trading  Company 
at  Pondicherry,  says  in  his  Report  : 

"It  is  an  established  fact  that,  next  to  the  Dutch,  the  Jesuits 
carry  on  the  greatest  and  most  successful  trade  in  the  East  Indies. 
They  surpass  the  English  and  other  nations,  even  the  Portuguese, 
in  this  respect.  .  .  .  They  have  carried  on  this  [the  trade]  to 
such  an  extent  that  Father  Tachard  alone  owes  the  Trading 
Company  [at  Pondicherry]  more  than  160,000  piastres,  i.e.,  more 
than  450,000  French  livres.  You  have  been  able  to  observe  that 
the  58  bales  which  belong  to  these  fathers,  and  the  smallest  of 
which  was  as  large  again  as  one  of  those  belonging  to  the  '  French  ' 
Trading  Company,  were  distributed  among  all  the  ships  of  the 
squadron  [which  Louis  XIV.  had  sent  to  the  East  Indies  under 
Admiral  du  Quene]  and  were  not  filled  with  rosaries  or  Agnus  Dei 
or  other  weapons  which  would  be  characteristic  of  an  apostolic 
consignment.  These  are  the  fine  and  good  wares  which  they  bring 
out  from  Europe  to  sell  in  this  country,  and  they  import  as  much 
as  they  can  get  on  the  ships  at  every  outward  sailing."f 

The  agreement  between  this  information,  given  by 
a    merchant    holding    a   trustworthy    position,    and    the 

*  Decacordon  of  Ten  Quodlibetical  Questions,  1602,  p.  89  et  seq. 

f  Voyages  de  Mr.  du  Quene,  III.,  15  :  in  Harenberg,  Pragmatische  Geschichte 
des  Ordens  der  Jesuiten,  II.,  543  et  seq. 


92  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

above-quoted  statements  of  the  Lazarist  priests  and 
the  missionaries  of  the  Missions  Etrangeres  is  note- 
worthy. 

We  also  encounter  Jesuit  trading  on  a  large  scale  in 
the  Island  of  Martinique. 

The  commercial  transactions  of  the  Jesuit  Lavalette 
in  the  Island  of  Martinique  resulted  in  the  bankruptcy  of 
the  large  mercantile  house  of  Lioncy  and  Gouffre  at 
Marseilles.  The  General  of  the  Order,  Centurione,  caused 
500,000  livres  to  be  paid  as  partial  compensation  to  the 
mercantile  house  by  the  French  Provincial  of  the  Order, 
the  Jesuit  de  Sacy.  But  the  half-million  could  not  avert 
the  ruin  of  Lioncy  and  Gouffre.  The  Jesuit  de  la  Marche, 
who  was  sent  as  Visitator  by  the  Order  to  Martinique,  was 
also  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  Lavalette  had  been 
drawn  into  illicit  commercial  transactions.  Lavalette's 
liabilities  amounted  to  2,400,000  livres  in  1761.  In  1762 
the  Jesuit  Order  took  up  eighty-six  of  the  bills  put  into 
circulation  by  Lavalette  amounting  to  more  than  one 
million.  By  way  of  counterbalancing  the  Lavalette  case, 
the  Order  had  recourse  to  a  method  which  it  had  frequently 
made  use  of,  and  which  was  almost  always  efficacious  in 
face  of  the  credulous  multitude.  It  caused  a  certificate  of 
good  conduct  to  be  drawn  up  with  reference  to  his  spiritual 
zeal,  his  success  in  the  education  of  the  young,  his  zeal  in 
preaching,  hearing  of  confessions,  etc.,  by  the  Bishop  of 
Marseilles  and  numerous  inhabitants  of  the  town  (for  the 
affair  had  caused  the  greatest  stir  in  Marseilles).  But  such 
artifices  had  no  effect  on  the  Parliaments  of  Aix  and  Paris, 
and  in  August,  1762,  they  condemned  the  Order  to  pay 
one  and  a  half  million  livres. 

The  Jesuit  Soullier,  who  tries  to  cloak  Lavalette's 
offence  and  that  of  the  Order  by  every  possible  means, 
was  obliged  to  admit  these  facts.* 

*  Soullier,  S.J.,  Les  Jesuitcs  d  Marseille  (Marseilles,  1899),  p.  179  et  seq. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows 


93 


Adrien  Artaut  gives  an  excellent  description  of  Lava- 
lette's  cunning  methods  : 

"  En  quelques  annees  il  [Lavalette]  dota  la  maison  [des  Jesuites] 
de  la  Martinique  d'un  fonds  dont  a  estime  le  revenu  annuel,  peutetre 
avec  un  peu  d'exageration,  a  280,000  limes.  .  .  .  La  nature  de  ses 
operations  7%  est  pas  encore  completement  connue,  mais  il  ressort  des 
discussions  qu'elles  ont  soulevees,  que  ce  religieux  arriva  d  diminuer, 
dans  une  proportion  enorme,  le  charge  qui  grevait  les  retours  de  la 
Martinique  sur  France.  .  .  .  Des  que  les  recoltes  de  la  Mission 
devinrent  trop  importantes  pour  trouver  acquereur  sur  place,  le 
P.  Lavalette  se  vit  oblige  de  les  envoy er  en  France  oil  on  les  vendait 
pour  le  compte  de  cette  Mission.  .  .  .  Le  P.  Lavalette,  combinant 
Vavantage  de  la  Mission  et  celui  des  colons,  offrit  de  delivrer  sur  ses 
correspondants  de  France,  charges  de  la  vente  de  ses  recoltes,  des 
traites  a  valoir  sur  le  net  produit  de  ces  recoltes  et  de  delivrer  ces 
traites  au  pair.  En  d'autres  termes  :  pour  mille  livres  recues  a  la 
Martinique,  le  P.  Lavalette  faisait  payer  mille  livres  en  France  ;  et 
cependant  les  mille  livres  recues  d  la  Martinique  n'en  valaient  en 
France  pas  plus  de  six  cent  soixante-six.  .  .  .  Les  traites  etaient 
donnees  a  des  echeances  tres  eloignees.  .  .  .  Les  produits  coloniaux 
se  vendaient  en  France  a  de  bons  prix,  ce  qui  permettait  de  perdre 
un  peu  pour  realiser  tout  de  suite  ce  prix.  Enfin,  les  conditions 
avantageuses  memes  auxquelles  ces  traites  etaient  offertes,  inspi/rerent 
d'abord  de  la  mefiance  aux  colons,  qui  n'en  prirent,  en  premier  lieu, 
que  pour  de  faibles  sommes,  et  a  qui  le  P.  Lavalette  n'en  remit  jamais 
que  pour  une  partie  de  la  valeur  de  ses  envois.  II  resta  done  toujours 
une  partie  de  cette  valeur  a  remettre  directement  de  France  et,  pour 
le  retour  de  cette  partie,  tres  considerable  avant  que  les  traites  du 
P.  Lavalette  eussent  acquis  la  vogue  dont  dies  jouirent  par  la  suite, 
V intelligent  administrateur  combina  une  operation  toute  contraire  qu'il 
epargnait  aux  colons:  il  se  fit  renvoyer  le  solde  de  la  valeur  de  ses 
envois  en  especes  qui  gagnaient  aux  lies  cinquante  pour  cent.  E en- 
semble de  ces  combinaisons  permettait,  on  le  voit,  au  P.  Lavalette  de 
delivrer,  a  peu  pres  sans  perte,  des  traites  au  pair  de  Martinique 
sur  France.''''* 

*  Georges  Roux,  Un  Armateur  Marseillais  (Paris,  1890),  p.  132  tt  seq. 


94  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

Evidently  the  Jesuit  Lavalette  would  have  played  a 
prominent  part  in  any  corn  exchange,  option  business  or 
banking-house. 

It  is,  of  course,  untrue  that  the  Superiors  of  the  Order 
knew  nothing  of  Lavalette's  affairs,  and  had  not  sanctioned 
them,  as  the  defenders  of  the  Order,  with  Duhr  at  their 
head,  assert.  How  could  it  have  been  possible,  under 
the  perfect  system  of  control,  for  the  Superiors  to  know 
nothing  for  years  of  their  subordinate's  important  and 
extensive  affairs  which  involved  France's  largest  banking 
houses  ?  No,  the  Superiors  remained  silent  so  long  as  all 
went  well  and  advantageously  for  the  Order.  And  in  this 
case  silence  certainly  means  consent. 

The  "  Kecords  of  the  House  "  (historia  domus)  of  the 
Jesuit  College  at  Colmar  from  1698-1750,*  published  by 
Julien  See  and  M.  X.  Mossmann  in  1872,  are  especially 
instructive,  because  they  afford  us  interesting  glimpses 
into  the  business  activity  and  business  ability  of  the  Order. 
The  glimpses  are  the  more  interesting  because  the  Records, 
not  being  intended  for  publication,  contain  uncoloured 
information.  Almost  every  page  gives  accounts  of  pur- 
chases, sales,  revenues,  legacies,  gifts,  financial  law-suits, 
etc.,  etc.  The  entries  connected  with  material  profit  or 
loss  are  much  fuller  than  those  relating  to  spiritual  and 
religious  matters.  Characteristic  "  kindnesses  "  towards 
other  Orders  also  come  to  light.    I  will  give  a  few  instances  : 

From  1720  :  "  Cette  Residence  accepta  une  petite  fonda- 
tion,  que  le  Sr  Benoist  Singler  de  Turgheim  et  le  Sr  Medinger 
et  sa  femme,  ses  beaupere  et  belle-mere  firent  en  la  ditte 
annee  au  profit  de  la  Residence."  A  long  lawsuit  with  the 
relatives,  who  were  prejudiced  to  the  Jesuits'  advantage, 
was  connected  with  the  fondation.  In  this,  an  assertion 
was  made  by  the  plaintiffs'  lawyer :  "  que  les  Jesuites 
etoient  des  heredipets,  des  furets  de  succession,  des  fabrica- 

t  Memoires  des  R.B.P.P.  Jesuites  du  College  de  Colmar.    Geneva,  Paris,  Colinar. 


Theory  and   Practice  of  the  Vows      95 

teurs  des  deux  actes,  dont  etait  plainte  et  quHl  etoit  temps 
d'avertir  le  public  d'etre  en  garde  contre  ces  sortes  de  gens." 
The  lawsuit  concluded  with  an  accommodement,  que  le  dit 
College  {de  Colmar)  accepta  pour  le  bien  de  la  paix,  et  depuis 
il  a  vendu  du  vin  provenant  de  la  dite  succession,  au  moyen 
de  quoy  il  en  a  aquite  plus  de  mille  ecus  de  dettes,  de  maniere 
que  de  sept  mille  francs  deubs  par  le  defunt,  il  reste  encore 
quatre  mille  livres  et  plus  a  payer  au  College  de  Strasbourg, 
tant  en  capitale  qu'en  interest"* 

From  1727  :  It  is  reported  with  satisfaction  that  un 
marchand  lutherien  de  Strasbourg  was  assez  simple  to  rent 
for  sixty  livres  yearly  an  unused  cellar  belonging  to  the 
Jesuits,  which  had  never  brought  in  anything  previously, 
and  son  bail  est  pour  9  ans  et  sera  avantageux  au  College.^ 
The  above-mentioned  lawsuit  regarding  the  fondation  Sr 
Benoist  Singler  reappears,  but  on  a  trouve  que  nous  posse- 
dons  la  quantite  de  vignes,  prez,  terres  labour  ables,  jar  dins, 
contenus  dans  facte  de  la  ditte  donation.%  Au  mois  d'Aoust 
de  cette  annee  on  a  hue  les  deux  gros  tonneaux  qui  etoient 
vuides,  en  sorte  que  le  loyer  de  la  cave  est  presentement  de 
228  livres.^ 

From  1729 :  (If  gain  or  loss  were  in  question,  the 
Jesuits  made  short  work  of  it.)  Apres  avoir  averti  la 
menagere  de  Turchheim  que  nous  voulions  finir  avec  elle, 
nous  avons  loue  le  petit  jardin  et  le  pre  dont  elle  jouissoit, 
ce  qui  produit  au  College  une  rente  de  21  livres. \\  In  July 
two  advantageous  purchases  of  houses  were  concluded  sous 
un  nom  emprunte,  and  as  Monsieur  le  Stdtmestre  Charlepaur, 
un  lutherien,  also  endeavoured  to  get  the  houses,  the  sale 
was  effected  en  secret  et  au  plus  tot.^  The  following  entry 
shows  how  versed  the  Jesuits  were  in  money-making: 
La  Demoiselle  Dupuy,  surnommee  la  Flamande,  etant 
morte  en  1727  apres  nous  avoir  donne  400  livres  par  son 
testament :    le  Pere  Beaujour  pris  des  mesures  en  arrivant 

*  Memoires,  pp.  47,  48.     t  P-  66.     J  p.  G9  et  seq.     §  p.  70.     ||  p.  72.     ^  P-  74. 


96  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

d  Cohnar  pour  etre  paye  de  la  ditte  somme,  mais  le  Sieur 
du  Puy  n'etant  pas  en  etat  d'y  satisfaire  en  donnant  de 
I' argent,  on  a  tire  de  luy  des  toiles  et  autres  marchandises 
pour  la  valeur  de  la  somme  en  question"* 

The  following  remark  is  characteristic  of  the  followers 
of  Jesus  :  II  y  a  longtemps  que  nous  souhaitons  de  vendre 
du  vin  en  gros  par  le  moyen  des  gourmets  de  cette  ville,  mais 
enfln  nous  avons  reussi  cette  annee  et  nous  en  sommes 
redevdbles  a  Mr.  Muller,  Statmestre,  qui  a  engage  les  gour- 
mets a  nous  rendre  service  en  nous  faisant  vendre  notre  vin 
aux  Suisses.'f 

From  1730  :  Under  date  of  May  29th,  it  is  reported 
that  three  fields  at  Vintzenheim  had  been  let  on  lease, 
and  the  tenant  doit  nous  donner  chaque  annee  trois  sacs  de 
beau  froment  bien  vanne  et  bien  nettoye,  soit  que  les  terres 
se  reposent  ou  qu'elles  soient  ensemencees  en  orge  et  avoine. 
These  very  favourable  terms  for  letting,  which  held  good 
in  all  circumstances,  were  confirmed,  although  it  is 
reported  of  the  three  fields  deux  etoient  en  friche  et  le 
troisieme  cultive  a  grands  frais  et  peu  de  profit.  The  tenant 
was  therefore  regularly  cheated.  J 

The  following  is  an  instance  of  "  Christian  friendli- 
ness " :  The  Dominicans  had  placed  carts  at  the  Jesuits' 
disposal  free  of  charge,  so  that  the  vineyards  of  the  Jesuit 
College  might  be  prepared,  ce  qui  nous  a  epargne  au  moins 
40  limes.  In  return  for  this  friendliness,  the  Jesuits  pre- 
vented the  Dominicans  from  taking  foreign  pupils.  §  A 
Christian  spirit  also  pervades  the  following  :  As  the  winter 
was  severe,  the  Jesuits  applied  to  the  town  for  a  consign- 
ment of  wood.  They  received  it  in  the  form  of  10  cordes 
de  bois.  But  the  Capuchins  also  seem  to  have  received 
wood  :  il  est  surprenant  que  les  Capucins  aient  30  cordes 
de  bois  cliaque  annee  et  nous  seulement  douze.\\ 

From    1731  :    Le   6.  du  mois  de  May  nous  avons  fait 

*  Memoir es,  p.  74.     f  pp.  78,  79.     J  p.  81.     §  pp.  95,  126.     ||  p.  96  et  seq. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows      97 

acquisition  de  deux  schatz  [a  square  measure]  de  terre 
labourable  au  canton  dit  Logelweg,  ban  d' Ingersheim,  moyen- 
nant  la  somme  de  cent  limes  et  trois  livres  de  tringelt  (T rink- 
geld).  Les  raisons  qui  nous  ont  forte  a  faire  cet  achapt 
sont :  1.  que  ces  deux  schatz  sont  voisines  des  4  autres  que 
nous  faisons  planter  en  vigne  ;  2.  qu'il  y  a  liuit  noyers  dans 
les  dittes  deux  schatz,  lesquels  noyers  auroient  donne  beau- 
coup  d'ombrage  a  la  nouvelle  vigne ;  3.  que  ne  faisant  pas 
cette  acquisition,  il  auroit  fallu  fair  une  separation  entre 
V autre  proprietaire  et  nous,  ce  qui  auroit  coute  considerable- 
ment.*  .  .  .  Au  mois  d'Aoust  de  cette  annee  nous  avons 
appris  que  Mademoiselle  Chauffour  avoit  fait  son  testament, 
et  qu'elle  nous  avoit  legue  600  livres.  .  .  .  Pendant  le  mois 
de  Decembre  le  P.  Beaujour  a  veu  la  copie  du  testament  de 
Mademoiselle  Chauffour,  ou  elle  augmente  son  leg  pieux  de 
600  livres,  ainsi,  si  ce  testament  subsiste,  nous  toucherons 
apres  sa  mort  la  somme  de  1,200  livres. ~f 

From  1736 :  Feu  Madame  Marguerine)  a  legue  a 
notre  Eglise,  pour  orner  le  Saint- Sacrement,  29  iperles 
fines.  J 

The  Capuchins  were  also  forbidden,  at  the  instigation 
of  the  Jesuits,  to  take  foreign  pupils.     This  right,  which 
brought  material  advantages  with  it,  was  reserved  to  the 
Jesuits.  §     Dans  un   temps  auquel  les    vignes  etoient  fort 
recherchees  a  cause  du  prix  excessif  du  vin,  the  Jesuits  sold 
a   part   of  their   vineyards   for   1,272   livres   pour  placer 
V argent  plus  utilement  ailleurs.\\     Purchase  of  vineyards  for 
840,  640  124  livres.^f    Testamentary  dispositions  in  favour 
of  the  Jesuits  to  a  not  insignificant  amount.**     Through 
the  adroitness  of  their  Rector,  the  Jesuits  obtained  gratis 
from  different  communities  460  arbres  de  sapin  non  ordin- 
aires  mais  extraordinairement  longs  et  gros.    The  whole  was 
valued  at  1,600  livres.ff    Madame  la  Dauphine  presented 

*  Memoires,  p.  99.         f  PP-  107,  108.        %  p.   114.        §  p.  114.        ||  p.  115. 
<I  pp.  117,  120.         **  p.  129  ct  seq.,  pp.  132,  136,  143.         ft  P-  135. 
H 


gS  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

1,000  thalers  to  the  college  at  the  request  of  her  confessor, 
the  Jesuit  Croust.*  Favourable  letting  of  vineyards, 
which  did  not  bring  in  much,f  etc.,  etc. 

In  1762,  the  Chapter  of  Spalatro  presented  a  memorial 
to  the  Venetian  Senate  in  which  it  complained  bitterly  of 
the  "  intrigues  and  violence  "  of  the  Jesuits,  who  tried  to 
seize  upon  everything : 

"  Besides  the  handsome  allowance  which  is  settled  on  them 
from  the  public  treasury  for  the  maintenance  of  two  missionaries, 
they  have  seiaed  2,000  ducats  which  fell  to  them  as  a  legacy.  The 
late  Archbishop  Biaaa  has  also  provided  for  them  by  another 
legacy  of  8,000  sequins.  In  addition  to  this  they  possess  several 
houses.  They  have  let  other  houses  ;  they  have  some  properties 
in  the  Spalatro  district,  and  still  more  important  ones  on  the 
Island  of  Braaaa.  Consequently  things  have  gone  so  far  that 
three  or  four  strangers  [the  Jesuits]  are  much  better  off  than  many 
spiritual  communities,  and  especially  than  the  Chapter  of  Spalatro, 
which  consists  of  sixty  persons  and  has  a  revenue  of  not  more  than 
160  sequins."J 

The  greed  and  covetousness  of  the  Jesuits  are  brought 
out  in  a  strong  light  through  events  in  a  German  town  : 

A  bitter  and  continuous  feud  had  begun  between  the 
Jesuits  and  several  Orders  [shortly  after  the  capture  of 
Magdeburg  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War]  because,  contrary 
to  the  text  of  the  Edict  of  Restitution,  the  churches  and 
Church  property,  which  were  refused  to  the  Protestants, 
were  not  returned  to  the  former  possessors,  these  very 
Orders,  but  were  taken  possession  of  by  the  Jesuits  who 
had  no  legal  right  to  them.  The  Premonstrants,  as  well 
as  the  Benedictines  and  Cistercians,  had  had  to  suffer 
from  the  deeds  of  violence  of  the  Jesuits.  They  saw 
how  these  sheltered  themselves  under  the  favour  of 
the  Emperor,  who,  in  order  to  stamp  out  heresy  the 
more  effectively,  would  have   preferred  to   transform  all 

*  Memoires,  p.  141.  f  P-  142.  %  Le  Bret  Magazin,  1,  p.   188. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows 


99 


the  old  monasteries  into  Jesuit   colleges,  academies   and 
seminaries.* 

Jesuit  acquisitiveness  frequently  assumed  such  forms 
that  even  Popes  intervened. 

Urban  VIII.,  in  the  Constitution  Ex  debito  of  February 
22nd,  1622,  forbids  all  members  of  Orders,  "  also  those 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus,"  to  carry  on  commerce.  Clement  IX. 
renewed  this  prohibition  in  the  Constitution  Sollicitudo 
pastoralis  of  June  17th,  1669,  again  calling  special  atten- 
tion to  the  "  Religious  of  the  Society  of  Jesus."  He  lays 
stress  on  the  fact  that  many  from  the  above-mentioned 
Orders,  consequently  also  from  the  Society  of  Jesus,  had, 
in  spite  of  the  ecclesiastical  laws,  carried  on  commerce 
and  had  evaded  the  instructions  of  Urban  VIII.  by  means 
of  subterfuges  and  pretexts. f 

It  is  noteworthy  here  that,  whilst  the  remaining 
Orders  are  only  mentioned  in  a  general  way  (Mendicants 
and  non-Mendicants),  the  Society  of  Jesus  is  specially 
mentioned  and  not  less  than  nine  times.  J 

Two  lawsuits  of  recent  times  reveal  the  avarice  of  the 
Jesuits  and  the  roundabout  ways  in  which  they  satisfy 
their  rapacity  in  exactly  the  same  hideous  forms : 

From  May  13th  to  May  16th,  1864,  the  trial,  which  at 
the  time  agitated  the  whole  world,  of  Benedict  de  Buck, 
accused  of  having  threatened  to  kill  the  Belgian  Jesuit 
Lhoire,  was  held  at  the  Brussels  Assizes.  After  the  first 
few  hours  of  the  proceedings,  however,  it  was  no  longer 

*  K.  Wittig,  Magdeburg  als  katholisches   Marienburg :  Historische  Zeitschrift 
1891,  vol.  66,  p.  60. 

t  Acta  Sanctae  Sedis,  VII.  (1872),  319  et  seq. 

J  Duhr  tries  to  soften  down  the  special  mention  of  the  Jesuit  Order  when 
he  writes  (p.  645)  that,  according  to  Papal  privileges,  "  the  Society  of  Jesus  was 
not  understood  in  certain  prohibitions,  even  if  these  had  to  do  with  all  the  spiritua 
Orders,  unless  specially  mentioned."  Duhr  does  not  see  that,  if  this  is  really 
as  he  says,  the  special  mention  of  the  "  Society  of  Jesus  "  by  Urban  VIII.  and 
Clement  IX.  is  a  convincing  proof  that  the  Jesuit  Order  had  had  an  active  share 
in  commercial  and  financial  operations.  For  otherwise,  on  account  of  the  Papal 
privileges,  it  would  not  have  been  mentioned. 


ioo  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

the  accused,  de  Buck,  who  stood  in  the  dock,  but  the 
Jesuits  Lhoire,  Hessels,  Bossaert  and  Franqueville.  They 
were  convicted  of  having  induced  the  millionaire,  William 
de  Boey,  who  died  in  Antwerp  in  1850,  to  make  a  will 
which  handed  over  his  estate  of  millions  to  the  Belgian 
Jesuits,  unjustly  passing  over  de  Boey's  poor  relations 
(the  de  Bucks)  and  appointing  a  sham  heir,  the  lawyer 
Valentyns,  who  was  attached  to  the  Jesuits  and  almost 
unknown  to  the  testator.  The  accused,  de  Buck  (who 
had  uttered  the  threat  in  a  rage  at  his  unjust  disinheritance 
brought  about  by  the  Jesuits),  was  acquitted,  and  the 
accusing  Jesuits  left  the  Assize  Court  branded  as  legacy- 
hunters.* 

A  lawsuit  which  took  place  in  July,  1890,  at  Straubing, 
in  Bavaria,  likewise  ended  disadvantageously  for  the 
Jesuits.     Personal  recollections  are  connected  with  this  : 

In  1881,  during  my  stay  at  Wynandsrade,  my  fellow- 
scholastic,    Brother    Karl    Ebenhoch,    died    there    from 
inflammation  of  the  lungs.     He  had  been  my  "  guardian 
angel "   during  my  postulancy  at  Exaeten.      I  therefore 
obtained  permission  to  help  in  nursing  him.     I  was  a 
witness  of  his  hard  death-struggle  and  death.     He  re- 
peatedly cried  out  during  his  last  hours :    "  Mother,  the 
money  !    Mother,  the  money  !  "     The  cry  sounded  to  me 
so  strange  and  weird  that  I  made  known  my  uneasiness 
to  the  Rector,  the  Jesuit  Hermann  Nix.     He  eased  my 
mind  and  explained  everything  away  by  ascribing  the 
ciy  to  "  inexplicable  hallucinations  of  delirium."     I  only 
learnt  after  my  departure  from  the  Order  that  a  lawsuit 
had  taken  place  in  1890  before  the  jury  at  Straubing,  in 
which  the  widowed  mother  of  the  late  Karl  Ebenhoch, 
Babette    Ebenhoch,    the    Catholic   priest   of   Kronungen, 
Johann  Hartmann,  the  Jesuit,  Hermann  Nix,  and  a  sum 

*  Cf.  the  pamphlet,  Der  Jesuitenprozess  in  Brussel.    Cologne  and  Diisseldorf , 
1864. 


Theory  and   Practice  of  the  Vows    101 

of  66,000  marks  had  played  the  leading  parts.  The  priest 
Hartmann  was  condemned  to  three  years'  imprisonment 
and  ten  years'  loss  of  civil  rights  for  inciting  to  perjury, 
and  Frau  Ebenhoch,  whom  Hartmann  had  incited  to 
commit  perjury,  was  acquitted.  It  appeared  from  the 
documents  of  the  action  that  Frau  Ebenhoch's  son,  the 
Jesuit  Ebenhoch,  who  died  in  my  presence,  had  inherited 
a  sum  of  66,000  marks  from  his  grandmother.  It  was 
stated  in  the  will  that  if  the  heir  died  without  issue,  the 
inheritance  should  pass  to  two  aunts,  his  mother's  sisters- 
in-law.  The  accused  woman  did  not  at  first  reply  to  the 
President's  question  as  to  what  had  become  of  the  money 
after  her  son's  death.  And  thus  the  President  ascertained 
that  the  money  had  not  come  to  the  two  aunts,  but  had 
been  handed  over  to  the  Jesuits  in  Holland.  Finally,  the 
accused  declared  that  36,000  marks  out  of  the  66,000  had 
been  given  back  to  her  by  the  Jesuits.  The  two  aunts 
sued  for  the  delivering  up  of  the  inheritance  for  which 
the  accused  was  responsible.  The  proceedings  disclosed 
that  Frau  Ebenhoch  had  obtained  the  advice  of  the 
Jesuits,  and  especially  that  of  the  Jesuit,  Hermann  Nix, 
as  to  her  action  in  the  case.  Letters  from  this  Jesuit, 
but  without  any  signature,  dated  from  Ditton  Hall,  in 
England,  where  Nix  was  then  the  "  spiritual  father,"  i.e. 
the  spiritual  director  of  the  theological  scholastics,  were 
found  in  Frau  Ebenhoch's  possession.  The  participation 
of  the  Jesuit  Nix  also  follows  from  the  letters  of  the  priest 
Hartmann,  who  had  induced  the  accused  woman  to  make 
false  affidavits  as  to  her  fortune.  Nix  is  not  called  by  his 
proper  name  in  these  letters,  but  "  Mr.  Dittonhall "  (his 
place  of  residence  in  England),  or  "  Mr.  Widnes  "  (the 
Ditton  Hall  post  town),  and  the  remittances  of  the  Jesuits 
to  Frau  Ebenhoch  are  mentioned  as  "the  sending  of 
pictures."  A  legal  document  drawn  up  in  the  Jesuit  Nix's 
presence    was    read    aloud    in    which    young    Ebenhoch 


102  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

bequeathed  his  wealth  to  the  Jesuits.  The  priest  Hart- 
mann,  who  lied  at  the  opening  of  the  case,  admitted 
finally  with  tears  that  he  had  only  lied  "  because  he  had 
believed  it  to  be  his  sacred  duty  not  to  expose  the  Jesuits." 
To  the  President's  question  as  to  whether  the  Jesuits,  and 
especially  the  Jesuit  Nix,  were  consequently  at  the  bottom 
of  the  matter,  Hartmann  began  a  reply,  but  then  stopped 
short.    No  doubt  this  was  a  reply.* 

When  the  dying  Ebenhoch's  cry,  "  Mother,  the  money! " 
sounded  in  my  ears,  I  had  no  idea  of  the  story  behind 
it,  which  was  to  be  unfolded  a  few  years  later  in  the 
Assize  Court  of  Lower  Bavaria.  I  believed  the  statement 
of  the  Jesuit  Nix,  the  chief  culprit  in  the  lawsuit,  that  the 
dying  man  had  spoken  in  "  inexplicable  hallucinations  of 
delirium." 

All  that  has  been  said  with  reference  to  the  wealth  and 
the  money-making  of  the  Order  and  the  love  of  luxury 
which  sprang  from  it  is  confirmed  by  the  strictly  private 
Memoirs  written  by  the  Jesuit  Cordara  and  so  frequently 
quoted.  Dollinger  has  brought  this  important  document 
to  light  from  the  dust  of  the  archives  at  Munich : 

"  Many  reproach  the  Society  with  avarice  and  an 
extravagant  lust  for  wealth.  It  caused  a  stir  that  the 
Society  should  be  provided  with  such  large  revenues,  and 
that  in  a  short  time  its  wealth  should  have  reached  and 
even  surpassed  that  of  the  old  Orders." 

And  its  historiographer,  for  Cordara  was  this  for 
thirty-five  years,  can  give  no  other  answer  to  the  accusa- 
tion than : 

"  That  which  is  attributable  to  the  piety  of  the  faithful 
was  imputed  to  the  avarice  and  cunning  of  the  Jesuits,  "f 

Cordara    therefore   acknowledges    the   wealth   of    his 

*  The  documentary  account  of  the  lawsuit,  with  its  previous  history,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  writing  :  Der  Jesuiten-Sensationsprozess  des  Pfarrer  Hartmann 
von  Kronungen  verhandelt  vor  dem  Schwurgerichte  in  Straubing.     Barmen,  1891. 

f  Denkwiirdigkeiten  :    Dollinger,  Beitrdge,  3,  66. 


Theory  and   Practice   of  the  Vows    103 

Order,  but  he  traces  back  its  origin  to  the  "  piety  of  the 
faithful,"   and   abstains   from  saying  that  the   "  piety ' 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  largely  stimulated  by  the  "  insinua- 
tions "  and  the  "  gratuitous  "  aid  of  the  Jesuits. 

Cordara's  account  of  a  conversation  he  had  with  the 
King  of  Sardinia  is  still  more  plain  and  incriminating : 

The  King  told  him  that  two  things  had  been  specially 
harmful  to  his  Order — its  boundless  wealth  (divitias 
immodicas)  and  its  predominance  over  the  other  Orders. 
I  replied  :  "  This  may  be  so  (id  ita  esse  fortasse).  And 
so  far  as  the  wealth  is  concerned,  I  have  frequently  ad- 
mitted that,  although  many  colleges  suffered  from  want, 
the  whole  Society  might  be  called  rich  and  opulent  (divitem 
et  opulentam)."* 

Cordara,  it  is  true,  lays  stress  on  the  poverty  and  the 
simplicity  of  life  of  the  individual  Jesuits  in  opposition 
to  the  admitted  wealth  and  luxury  of  the  whole  Society. 
But  the  results  are  poor.  For  he  cannot  unwrite  the 
words  which  he  sets  down  in  a  spirit  of  complaint  and 
blame  a  few  pages  further  on  regarding  the  effeminacy 
and  luxuriousness  of  individual  Jesuits,  of  the  "  apostles," 
as  he  sarcastically  calls  them  :f 

"...  Many  of  our  '  apostles  '  wished  for  a  quiet  and  inactive 
life  under  the  shade  of  the  colleges  ;  they  believed  that  they  had 
worked  very  hard  when  they  had  spent  the  whole  morning  in 
hearing  the  confessions  of  a  few  pious  women  (midierculae).  .  .  . 
Many  of  them,  after  preaching  once  a  week  to  a  pious  congregation 
of  noblemen  or  merchants,  devoted  the  rest  of  their  time  to  the 
care  of  their  bodies  or  to  reading,  or  else  spent  it  in  intercourse 
with  friends  or  unprofitable  conversation.  I  myself  have  known 
*  apostles,'  who  not  only  shunned  all  labour  and  trouble,  but  were 

*  Denkwilrdigkeiten :  Dollinger,  Beitrage,  p.  35  et  seq. 

+  To  the  King's  reproach  with  regard  to  the  Jesuit  predominance  over  other 
Orders,  Cordara  replies  by  referring  to  the  tyranny  of  the  Dominicans,  who 
as  Inquisitors,  had  at  their  disposal  against  their  antagonists  "  the  dungeon  and 
executioner  "  (carceres  lictoresque). 


104  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

more  effeminate  than  women ;  who  thought  themselves  very 
ill-used  if  they  had  to  forgo  their  morning  chocolate  or  their  after- 
dinner  nap,  if  they  were  deprived  at  any  time  of  food  or  sleep. 
And  yet  these  were  men  whom  birth  and  education  had  not  accus- 
tomed to  luxury  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  had  from  youth  upwards 
received  a  hard,  even  a  harsh  training.  Their  effeminacy  was 
acquired  in  the  Society  of  Jesus."* 

I  will  conclude  this  chapter  with  an  amusing  and 
doubtless  true  story  from  the  satirical  pen  of  Saint- Simon  : 

"  When  a  fleet  from  India  was  unloading  at  Cadiz,  eight  large 
cases  came  to  hand  labelled  '  Chocolate  for  the  Most  Venerable 
Father  General  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.'  The  cases  were  so  exceed- 
ingly heavy  as  to  cause  curiosity  as  to  their  contents.  They 
proved  to  be  large  balls  of  chocolate,  the  weight  of  which  aroused 
suspicion.  A  ball  was  broken  open,  and  gold  was  found  concealed 
inside,  covered  by  a  layer  of  chocolate  of  the  thickness  of  a  finger. 
The  Jesuits  were  informed  of  the  circumstance  ;  but  these  cunning 
politicians  were  very  careful  not  to  claim  this  valuable  '  chocolate.' 
They  preferred  losing  it  to  confessing.''^ 

*  Denkvriirdigkeiten :  Dollinger,  Beitrcige,  p.  64  et  eeq. 
f  Memoires,  EL,  433,  434. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

THE   CRITICISM  CONTINUED:     THEORY   AND  PRACTICE   OF 

THE   CONSTITUTIONS 

Vows  are  more  or  less  common  to  all  Orders ;  it  is  the 
constitutions  which  show  the  special  characteristics  of 
each.  So,  too,  in  the  case  of  the  Jesuit  Order.  My  in- 
tention is  to  show  the  great  discrepancy  between  the 
theoretical  excellence  of  the  Jesuit  Constitutions  and  the 
actual  life  and  work  of  the  Order. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  refer  to  all  the  facts  in 
question  ;   a  few  important  items  must  suffice. 

THE   ARROGANCE    OF   THE   ORDER 

The  Constitutions  overflow  with  humility ;  the  glory 
of  God  is  everything,  the  glory  of  the  Order  nothing.  And 
indeed  a  Society  of  Jesus  should  be  founded  on  humility. 
But  it  is  only  on  paper  that  humility  is  the  basis  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus.  Its  life  and  work  are  characterised  by 
a  spirit  of  unlimited  arrogance.  Though  the  Constitutions 
constantly  refer  to  the  Jesuit  Order  as  "  our  poor  little 
Society  "  (minima  societas),  in  word  and  deed  it  assumes 
the  rank  of  the  greatest,  the  maxima  societas,  whose  glory 
fills  the  world,  and  in  comparison  with  which  all  else  is 
small  and  mean.  "  God,  I  thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as 
other  men  are  ...  or  even  as  this  publican."  These 
hard  and  haughty  words  of  the  Pharisee  express  the  real 
but  unwritten  motto  of  the  Jesuit  Order.     Their  current 

105 


io6  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

motto,  '  Everything  to  the  greater  glory  of  God " 
(Omnia  ad  major  em  Dei  gloriam),  proclaimed  aloud  wherever 
they  set  foot,  and  graven  in  gold  and  stone  on  all  their 
works,  appears  in  the  light  of  history  to  be  a  mere  false 
pretence  under  the  cloak  of  religion. 

Hard  words  these,  and  before  I  attempt  to  justify 
them  by  the  acts  and  declarations  of  the  Order  itself,  I 
will  make  way  for  a  man  whose  judgment  on  the  Jesuit 
Order  is  of  the  first  importance  and  whose  heart  was  full 
of  love  and  enthusiasm  for  it. 

I  refer  to  the  Jesuit  Cordara,  of  whom  I  have  spoken 
before.  For  thirty-five  years,  up  to  the  suppression  of  the 
Order  in  1773,  he  held  one  of  the  most  important  positions, 
that  of  historiographer  to  the  Order,  which  gave  him 
official  knowledge  of  everything,  even  the  secret  reports. 
After  the  suppression  of  the  Order,  Cordara  published 
Memoirs,  in  which  he  raises  this  among  other  questions  : 
"  Why  did  God  permit  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuit 
Order  ?  "     Here  is  his  answer  : 

"It  is  doubtless  true  that  we  had  also  grown  accustomed  to 
condoning  numerous  crimes  according  to  human  fashion.  (Multa 
etiam  inter  nos  admitti  consuevisse  humano  more  crimina  pro  non 
dubio  habendum.)  It  may  also  be  assumed  that  a  special  stain 
attached  to  the  Society,  which  excited  the  wrath  of  God  against  us. 
Let  us  examine  its  nature  more  closely,  although  the  Divine  judg- 
ment be  dark  and  far  from  human  comprehension.  The  investigation 
will  lead  us,  if  not  to  positive,  at  least  to  probable  conclusions. 
...  I  presume  that  it  [the  Society  of  Jesus]  appeared  holier 
than  it  was,  in  any  case  not  of  such  holiness  as  is  required  by  the 
Constitutions  and  the  sacredness  of  our  duties.  .  .  .  Our  churches 
were  splendid,  and  their  adornment  expensive.  The  festivals  of 
the  saints  were  celebrated  with  pomp  and  splendour.  But  was  it 
solely  for  the  sake  of  religion,  or  rather  to  show  off  our  power  ? 
This  is  hidden  from  men,  who  only  see  the  exterior,  but  not  from 
God,  who  proves  hearts  and  reins.  ...  I  have  often  wondered 
why  it  was   that  with  us  any  transgression  against  chastity  was 


The   Constitutions  107 

so  severely  punished,   whereas  our  Superiors  were  so  mild  and 
indulgent  towards  other  transgressions  of  a  more  grievous  nature, 
such  as  backbitings,  slanders,  and  revilings.      And  I  believe  that 
it  was  not  because  the  former  were  worse  and  more  displeasing 
to  God,  but  because,  if  they  had  become  known,  they  might  have 
obscured  the  power  and  glory  of  the  Society.*     The  sin  of  pride 
is  secret.     It  creeps  into  good  actions,  so  as  to  be  hardly  distin- 
guishable from  virtue.     But  God,   Who  seeth  in  secret,   is  not 
deceived.   .    .    .  Nothing    is    more    hateful    to    God    than    pride. 
Nothing  rouses  His  anger  more    or   provokes  Him  to  vengeance. 
God  resists  the  proud,  and  gives  His  grace  to  the  humble.     But 
if  we  do  not  wish  to  deceive  ourselves,  we  must  confess  that  our 
community  has   suffered   much   from   this   disease.      Our  novice  - 
masters  filled  us  with  this  spirit  when  they  impressed  on  our  tender 
minds   so   great   an   estimate  of  the   Society.    They   represented 
admission  to  the  Society  as  an  incomparable  gift,  a  benefit  of  God, 
than  which  there  could  be  no  greater.     They  tell  anecdotes  of 
those  who  preferred  the  habit  of  the  Society  to  tiara  and  purple. 
It  is  in  vain  that  they  afterwards  combat  pride  after  having  sown 
such  seeds  of  it.     With  this  same  spirit  the  youths  are  inspired 
during  their  studies,  as  no  authors  are  praised  except  Jesuits,  no 
books  prescribed  but  such  as  are  written  by  Jesuits,  no  examples 
of  virtue   quoted  but  such  as  are  represented  by  Jesuits,  so  that 
these  poor  youths  are  easily  convinced  that  the  Society  of  Jesus 
excels  all  other  Orders  in  learning  and  holiness.      And  some  weak- 
minded   persons  even  believe  that  everything  praiseworthy  done 
in  the  world  was  done  under  the  auspices  of  our  Society.      This 
opinion,  adopted  in  youth,  the  majority  do  not  abandon  in  later 
life,  and  I  know  some  old  men  who  still   continue  to  live  in  this 
delusion.      And  I  confess  that  I  myself  was  thus  deluded  for  a 
long  time.   .    .    .  And  all  the  external  circumstances  favoured  this 
pride  and  arrogance.      The    magnificence  of    the  buildings,   the 
splendour  of  the  churches,  the  pomp  of  the  festivals,  the  favours 
of  the  populace  inspired  us  with  pride.     Wherever  we  turned  our 
eyes,  we  met  with  occasions  for  pride.   .    .    .  Then  there  was  the 

*  Cordara's  words  are  a  valuable  testimony  to  the  fact  that  the  Ordinance 
of  General  Acquaviva,  not  to  punish  breaches  of  chastity  if  they  have  not  given 
rise  to  public  scandal,  is  generally  observed. 


108  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

great  multitude  of  our  flatterers,  who  spoke  to  us  almost  solely 
about  the  superior  merits  of  the  Society  and  the  defects  of  other 
Orders.  .  .  .  There  were  certain  differences,  too,  between  the 
Society  of  Jesus  and  the  other  Orders,  so  that  the  main  body  of 
Jesuits  believed  that  they  had  nothing  in  common  with  members 
of  other  Orders  and  considered  them  as  greatly  inferior.  .  .  . 
Another  source  of  pride  within  the  Society  was  the  noble  rank  of 
many  Jesuits.  As  all  [Jesuits]  treated  one  another  as  brothers, 
even  those  who  were  not  of  the  nobility  seemed  to  acquire  that 
rank,  and  were  regarded  outside  the  Order  as  aristocrats.  .  .  .  The 
entire  Society  of  Jesus,  at  least  in  Italy,  was  permeated  by  irrational 
pride,  and  but  rarely  a  Jesuit  gave  precedence  to  a  member  of 
the  nobility.  Even  our  lay  brothers  regarded  themselves  as  noble, 
and  on  this  account  better  than  members  and  priests  of  other 
Orders.  I  may  quote  here  an  occurrence,  true,  though  almost 
incredible,  which  happened  to  me  when  I  was  staying  for  my 
health  at  the  country  house  of  the  Roman  College  at  Albano.  One 
of  our  lay  brothers  named  Jarolfo  was  there  as  manager  of  the 
country  house  and  other  property  belonging  to  the  Collegium 
Romanum.  Although  himself  the  son  of  a  peasant,  he  was  much 
honoured  by  the  villagers  as  the  superintendent  of  great  possessions 
and  treated  almost  as  a  prince  (dynasta).  He  told  me  that  at 
some  festivals  he  was  invited  to  the  banquets  of  the  Franciscans, 
and  boasted  that  on  such  occasions  the  seat  of  honour  usually 
occupied  by  the  superintendent  of  the  monastery  was  given  to 
him.  I  reproved  him  gently,  and  tried  to  make  him  understand 
that  he  should  take  precedence  of  lay  brothers,  but  not  of  priests, 
which  latter  was  not  seemly.  To  which  he  replied  in  irritation 
(stomachans)  :  '  As  if  lay  brothers  of  our  Society  were  not  equal 
to  the  priests  of  other  Orders.'  So  much  superior  our  people  deemed 
themselves  to  those  of  other  Orders.  The  majority  of  Jesuits 
believed  that  they  had  nothing  in  common  with  other  Orders,  and 
considered  them  as  greatly  inferior  to  themselves  ...  Of  these 
differences  [between  other  Orders  and  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits] 
the  Jesuits  boasted,  and  held  them  as  marks  of  distinction  and 
deemed  themselves  above  all  other  monks.  .  .  .  All  this  [the 
merits  of  the  Dominicans]  most  of  our  people  either  ignored  or 
deprecated,  and  considered  themselves  equal  or  superior  to  the 


The   Constitutions  109 

Dominicans  ;    their  opposition  they  declared  to  be  creditable  to 
themselves,   and  whatever  could  break  the  power  of  this  most 
powerful  Dominican  Order,  and  obscure  its  reputation,  they  attri- 
buted to  their  own  glory.     On  all  other  Orders  they  looked  with 
something  approaching  contempt.    They  were  continually  bragging 
of    their    Bellarmin,    Suarez,    Sirmond,    Petavius    [famous    Jesuit 
authors],  and  boasted  the  more  insolently  of  the  merits  of  these 
others,  because  they  themselves,  having  little  or  no  knowledge  of 
the  history  of  literature,  believed  that  hardly  one  other  first-class 
author  existed  besides  those  mentioned.   ...  I  have  known  few 
among  my  fellows,  who  preferred  foreign  [non-Jesuit]  preachers 
or  scholars  to  their  own,  but  many  who  despised  and  ridiculed 
them.    Another  more  subtle  kind  of  pride  I  seem  to  have  recognised 
in  that  immaculate  chastity  of  the  members  so  much  extolled  by 
the  multitude,  and  I  do  not  know  if  God  has  not  been  provoked 
by  this  very  pride  to  desire  the  destruction  of  the  Society.   Chastity 
was  highly  valued  by  the  Jesuits  ;    they  basked  in  its  splendour, 
they  boasted  of  being  distinguished  by  it  from  other  monks.     I 
have  often  heard  them  say   that  much  that  was  disgraceful  was 
spread  abroad  about  other  Orders,  many  bad  examples  were  set 
by  them,  but  that  nothing  of  the  kind  happened  among  the  Jesuits. 
By  means  of  such  talk  they  were  not  only  tempted  to  secret  vain- 
glory, but  they  took  occasion  in  consequence  to  lord  it  over  other 
Orders,  and  to  despise  these  latter  as  the  scum  of  humanity.    They 
did  not  consider  that  the  boast  of  chastity  is  as  nothing  in  God's 
eyes  if  love  be  not  added  unto  it,  and  that  in  the  Gospel  those 
virgins  were  called  foolish  who  had  not  the  oil  of  love  in  their 
lamps.      They  did  not  consider  that  before  God  humility  is  worth 
more,  and  is  more  excellent,  than  chastity."* 

To  these  words,  so  full  of  emotion  and  religious 
feeling,  I  need  add  nothing  of  my  own.  It  will  suffice  to 
quote  a  few  more  facts  from  the  Order's  endless  record 
of  arrogance. 

It  was  revealed  to  Saint  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi 
that  God  in  heaven  delighted  so  greatly  in  two  saints, 
that   it  was  as  if  there  were  no  other   saints   in  heaven 

*  Cordara,  S.J.,  Denkwiirdigkeiten.     Dollinger,  Beitrage,  3,  64-74. 


no  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

beside  them ;  these  were  St.  John  the  Evangelist  and 
St.  Ignatius  Loyola.* 

The  Jesuit  Ludovicus  Mansonius,  Provincial  of  the 
Neapolitan  Province,  a  particularly  prominent  member  of 
the  Order,  reports  that  Christ  had  appeared  to  the  sainted 
virgin  Johanna  ab  Alexandro,  a  penitent  of  his  confes- 
sional, on  the  seventh  of  June,  1598,  in  the  Jesuit  church 
at  Naples,  and  had  said  to  her : 

"  I  desire  that  everyone  should  love  the  Society  [of 
Jesus]  specially,  because  it  is  My  Society,  and  I  constantly 
bear  it  in  My  heart,  and  cannot  allow  that  a  member 
thereof  should  suffer  from  any  greater  fault.  .  .  .  Know 
also,  0  My  daughter,  that  as  long  as  My  Society  con- 
tinues, and  I  desire  that,  being  named  with  My  name, 
it  should  continue  to  the  end  of  the  world,  I  require  this 
one  thing  of  its  members,  that  they  walk  in  My  footsteps."f 

In  the  discussion  on  the  surrender  of  the  Carolinian 
Academy  at  Prague  to  the  Jesuits,  the  Order  declared : 

"  No  one  could  watch  more  carefully  or  conscientiously 
over  the  maintenance  of  the  Catholic  Faith  in  the  kingdom, 
no  one  could  distinguish  more  accurately  and  safely 
between  true  and  false  doctrine,  finally  no  one  could 
better  train  the  young  in  piety  and  good  conduct,  than 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  which  disregarded  all  earthly  gain 
or  profit,  and  was  wholly  consecrated  to  virtue  and 
religion."  f 

The  Jesuits  Hover  and  Miller  write : 

"  The  reputation  of  the  comparatively  new  Society  of  Jesus 
began  just  at  that  time  to  spread  more  and  more.     Its  founder, 

*  See  Dollinger-Reusch,  Moralstreitigkeiten,  II.,  350. 

f  Ibid.,  L,  529,  and  II. ,  346.  The  "  revelation  "  on  the  retaining  of  the 
name — Society  of  Jesus — is  a  favour  "  from  Heaven  "  to  Sixtus  V.,  who,  hav- 
ing resolved  to  alter  the  name,  died  suddenly  in  1590,  and  perhaps  also  a  warning 
"  from  heaven  "  to  his  successors  not  to  expose  themselves  to  a  similar  fate. 
Comp.  Hiibner,  Sixte-Quint  (Paris,  1870),  II.,  54,  55. 

+  Tomek,  Oesckichte  der  Prager  Universitat  (Prague,  1849),  p.  253. 


The   Constitutions  in 

Saint  Ignatius  Loyola,  had  recently  been  beatified  by  Paul  V.  ;  the 
fame  of  Francis  Xavier,  the  Apostle  of  India  and  Japan,  filled  the 
Catholic  world.  Peter  Canisius  was  considered  the  '  hammer  of 
heretics '  in  Germany ;  Spain  was  proud  of  her  Duke  of  Gandia, 
the  humble  holy  Jesuit  Francis  Borgia ;  Laynez,  and  Salmeron  had 
distinguished  themselves  in  the  Council  of  Trent  as  extremely 
learned  theologians  ;  Aloysius  and  Stanislaus  were  venerated  as 
examples  to  the  young,  and  '  angels  in  the  flesh '  ;  Bellarmin  and 
Suarez  were  quoted  by  all  people  of  culture.  News  penetrated 
to  Europe  from  Japan,  India,  China,  and  the  rest  of  the  foreign 
missions  of  the  splendid  successes  of  Jesuit  missionaries.  From 
England  came  reports  of  the  glory  of  their  preachers  and  martyrs, 
of  a  blessed  Father  Edmund  Campian,  Garnet,  Parsons,  and  so 
many  others.  Germany  boasted,  besides  the  blessed  Father 
Canisius,  of  a  venerable  Johannes  Rem,  and  of  many  other  notable 
preachers  and  great  men.  The  schools  and  universities  of  the 
Jesuits  vied  with  the  best  establishments  of  Europe.  .  .  .  When 
Donna  Arsilia  Altissimi  heard  the  funeral  bell  of  the  Roman  College 
in  the  morning  of  the  13th  of  August,  she  said  to  her  two  daughters  : 
'  A  Jesuit  must  have  died  just  now  ;  come,  let  us  pray  for  his 
soul.'  They  knelt  down  at  the  altar  of  their  private  chapel,  and 
(to  quote  her  statements  on  oath) :  '  With  Victoria  and  Anna  I 
desired,  beads  in  hand,  to  say  the  De  Profundis  for  the  dead,  but, 
strange  to  say,  the  Te  Deum  rose  to  my  lips  instead.  I  tried  for 
a  second,  third,  and  fourth  time,  but  never  could  utter  the  De 
Profundis.  Then  my  daughter  Victoria  tried,  but  she  could  not 
say  it  either,  but  said  against  her  will :  '  Glory  be  to  the  Father, 
and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost.'  We  marvelled,  and 
said  to  one  another :  '  A  great  saint  must  have  died  in  the 
College.'  In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  the  Church  of  the  College, 
and  found  an  enormous  crowd  of  people  in  it.  There  we  heard 
that  a  young  Belgian  Father  [the  Jesuit  Berchmanns,  canonised 
by  Leo  XIIL]  had  died  in  the  odour  of  sanctity.   .    .    . 

"  On  August  14th,  1621,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the 
Jesuit  lay-brother,  Thomas  di  Simoni,  was  favoured  with  the 
following  revelation  :  He  saw  heaven  open.  From  a  lofty,  shining 
throne  of  clouds  he  beheld  Mary,  Queen  of  Angels,  descending  to 
him.     Two  princes  of  heaven  carried  her  on  a  splendid  throne. 


ii2  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

One  of  them  was  robed  in  a  white  surplice.  As  he  was  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  the  lay  brother  could  not  see 
his  face,  but  he  thought  it  must  have  been  St.  Aloysius  [also  a 
Jesuit].  The  other  was  Johannes  Berchmanns  in  the  habit  of  the 
Jesuits."* 

The  bombastically  boastful  words  of  the  Jesuit  Loffler, 
quoted  in  Chapter  V.,  on  the  Marian  Congregations,  are 
applicable  here  too,  also  the  arrogant  "  revelations " 
as  to  the  predestination  of  all  Jesuits  to  salvation  and 
above  all  a  literary  monument  of  pride,  self-erected,  by 
the  Order. 

The  work,  Imago  primi  saeculi  Societatis  Jesu,  "  A 
Picture  of  the  First  Century  of  the  Society  of  Jesus," 
appeared  in  1640  at  Antwerp.  On  account  of  their 
unbounded  arrogance,  its  contents  gradually  grew  ex- 
tremely unpleasant  to  the  Order.  How  much  this  work 
was  felt  to  be  an  incubus  by  the  Order  was  proved  by 
the  communication  made  by  Gerhard  van  Swieten  to 
Maria  Theresa  on  December  24th,  1759,  according  to  which 
the  Order  was  trying  to  buy  up  all  the  copies  at  high  prices. 

"  Le  '  saeculum  primum  societatis  '  est  tel  que  la  Societe 
[de  Jesus]  rachepte  tous  les  exemplaires  a  grand  prix  pour 
aneantir  la  memoire,  s'il  Jut  possible.  .  .  .  Ce  lime  fera 
toujour s  la  confusion  de  la  Societe."^ 

To  this  day  the  Jesuits  try  to  represent  the  "  Imago  " 
as  "  essays  of  young  scholastics,"  or,  as  the  Jesuit  Duhr 
expresses  it,  merely  "  a  poetical  and  rhetorical  festival 
oration."J     The  attempt  is  thoroughly  dishonest. 

The  mere  outward  form  of  the  folio  volume  published 
by  the  then  famous  Plantin  Press  (Balthasar  Moretus), 
almost  1,000  pages,  typed  and  illustrated  with  obtrusive 

*  Leben  des  heiligen  Johannes  Berchmanns  (Dulnien,  1901),  p.  50  f,  190  f,  194. 

f  Contributed  by  Fournier,  Gerhard  van  Swieten  als  Zensor  :  Sitzungsberichte 
der  philoso'phisch-historischen  Klasse  der  Kaiserlichen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaftent 
v.  24,  p.  454. 

J  J  esuitenfabeln,  p.  560. 


The  Constitutions  113 

luxuriousness,  such  that  Cretineau-  Joly  is  forced  to  admit 
"  le  luxe  de  la  typographic  et  Vart  de  la  gravure"*  contradicts 
the  repeated  assertion  of  Jesuits  as  to  "  mere  exercises  in 
style  of  young  scholastics."  "  Mere  exercises  "  are  not 
published  in  such  luxurious  garb.  Indeed  the  title-page 
states  that  the  Flemish-Belgian  Province  of  the  Order 
had  "  designed "  the  "  picture "  :  Imago  .  .  .  a  pro- 
vincia  flandro-belgica  .  .  .  repraesentata,  and  in  the 
Imprimatur  of  January  8th,  1640,  the  Jesuit  Johannes 
van  Tollenare,  Provincial  Superior  of  the  Flemish- Belgian 
Province,  says : 

"  After  three  theologians  of  our  Society  had  revised 
the  book,  '  A  Picture  of  the  First  Century  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,'  drafted  by  the  Flemish- Belgian  Province  of  the 
Order  of  the  same  Society." 

The  portentous  volume  is,  therefore,  the  description  of 
the  life  and  work  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  officially  drafted 
by  one  of  its  Provinces  and  presented  to  the  Society  on 
the  special  occasion  of  the  centenary  celebration  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus. 

In  these  circumstances  it  would  be  absolutely  impos- 
sible to  speak  of  insignificance  in  connection  with  the 
Imago,  even  if  its  authors  had  been  really  "  young 
scholastics."  For  the  prestige  they  lacked  would  be  amply 
supplied  by  that  of  the  three  theologians  who  were  com- 
missioned by  the  Provincial  to  examine  the  work  and 
who  passed  it  for  press.  Above  all,  there  would  be  the 
important  prestige  of  a  whole  "  Province,"  which  adopted 
and  published  the  contents  of  the  work  as  its  intellectual 
property. 

But  the  Jesuitical  evasion  as  to  the  scholastic  author- 
ship may  be  refuted  from  the  work  itself.  For  the  very 
preface  states  that  the  work  had  been  composed  and 
published  by  very  busy  men  (conceptum,  compositum  ah 

*  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus.  3,  471. 


H4  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

hominibus  occwpatissimis),  an  expression  utterly  inapplic- 
able to  scholastics,  and  on  page  24  it  says  that  the 
strenuous  occupation  of  the  authors  consisted  of  preaching, 
teaching  of  various  branches  of  knowledge,  and  perform- 
ance of  the  other  offices  of  the  Society.  But  such 
occupations  are  not  for  scholastics. 

These  words  of  the  Imago  were  naturally  known  to  the 
Jesuit  Duhr.  Yet  he  writes  untruthfully  of  "  poetical  and 
rhetorical  festival  orations "  and  of  the  "  poetical  and 
rhetorical  effusions  of  the  Jesuits  and  Jesuit  students " 
which  had  been  "  collected  "  in  the  Imago* 

Through  the  irony  of  history,  however,  Duhr  was  given 
the  lie  by  one  of  his  own  Order.  The  Jesuit  Bremer  con- 
fesses, in  his  small  Church  Lexicon,  f  that  the  author  and 
designer  of  the  Imago  was  no  less  a  person  than  the  chief 
hagiographer  of  the  Order,  the  Jesuit  Bollandus,  whose 
name  is  on  the  gigantic  work  Acta  Sanctorum.  Let  us, 
however,  assume  Duhr's  gross  prevarication  to  be  true.  If 
young  scholastics  had  really  collaborated  in  the  work,  this 
would  render  its  significance  the  greater.  For  the  deduction 
would  be  that  the  contents  of  the  Imago  are  the  genuine 
embodiment  of  the  true  Jesuit  spirit,  that  spirit  in  which 
the  young  scholastics  of  the  Order  have  themselves  been 
trained,  that  spirit  which  is  fostered  in  them  by  the 
Order  itself  from  the  first  hour  of  their  novitiate,  as  the 
Jesuit  Cordara  has  so  well  described  it. 

Besides,  the  written  work  of  students  is  submitted  to 
the  strictest  supervision  and  examination  by  their  superiors. 
And  if  the  spirit  of  the  Imago  had  not  been  the  genuine 
spirit  of  the  Jesuits,  how  could  a  whole  Province  with 
its  head  have  backed  the  young  students,  and  have 
imprinted  on  their  work  the  official  stamp  of  its  approval  ? 
No  !  the  magnificent  volume,  Imago  primi  saeculi  Societatis 

*  Duhr,  Jesuitenfabeln,  pp.  506,  507. 

t  Kirchliches  Handlezikon  (Munich,  1907),  I.,  685. 


The  Constitutions  115 

Jesu,  is  a  Jesuit  product,  the  genuineness  and  originality 
of  which  it  would  be  hard  to  match,  and  it  is,  therefore, 
of  the  first  importance  in  forming  an  estimate  of  the 
Jesuit  system.  It  is  true  that  the  estimate  must  be  based 
on  the  point  of  view  of  religious  asceticism. 

The  Order  of  the  Jesuits  is  a  religious  Order.  It  even 
professes  to  be  a  prominent  type  of  what  the  Church  of 
Rome  calls  "  the  state  of  an  Order,  state  of  Christian  per- 
fection " — so  prominent  as  to  consider  itself  justified  in 
taking  to  itself  the  name  of  the  Founder  of  the  Christian 
religion,  the  ideal  of  Christian  perfection,  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ.  But  the  essential  characteristics  of  Jesus 
are  humility,  absence  of  self-aggrandisement,  of  all  self- 
praise,  all  vainglory,  or  boasting  of  His  own  actions. 

From  this  point  of  view  of  Christ,  an  estimate  of 
the  Imago  and  the  spirit  which  produced  it  must  be 
condemnatory.  Not  the  spirit  of  Christ  is  expressed  in  it, 
but  the  anti- Christian  spirit  of  what  Catholic  asceticism, 
in  strongest  aversion,  calls  "  the  world."  Most  substantial 
pride,  vain  arrogance,  immeasurable  ambition  abound  in 
this  centennial  volume.  Spiritual  pride  it  was,  that  cardinal 
sin  against  which  the  Scriptures  so  specially  warn  Christians, 
which  alone  indited  the  composition  of  the  Imago,  so 
exclusively  and  so  emphatically  indeed  that,  even  if  the 
work  had  been  the  product  of  a  secular  society,  not  obliged 
to  follow  ascetic  principles  in  the  description  of  its  actions, 
the  excess  of  self-glorification  displayed  in  it  would  still 
be  loathsome  and  revolting. 

In  the  first  place,  let  us  look  at  the  illustrations  of  the 
Imago  : 

The  title-page  displays,  in  the  figure  of  a  virgin,  the 
Society  of  Jesus  enthroned  on  the  back  of  Chronos,  the 
God  of  time.  Above  it  are  floating  angels,  holding  crowns 
of  victory  with  the  inscriptions  :  To  the  teacher  (doctori), 
the  martyr  (martyri),  the  virgin  (virgini).    On  lofty  columns 


n6  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

there  are  two  angels  blowing  trumpets,  whence  issue 
scrolls  with  the  words  :  "  Loyola  embraces  a  hundred 
years,"  and  "  May  he  encompass  the  whole  world."  Six 
shields,  borne  by  angels,  represent  the  birth  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  the  spread  of  the  Society  over  the  whole  earth, 
the  Society  as  benefactress  of  the  world,  the  Society 
growing  famous  through  persecutions,  the  Society  loved 
by  Belgium  (referring  to  the  publication  of  the  Imago  by 
the  Belgian-Flemish  Province).  Like  the  frontispiece  are 
the  illustrations  of  the  text.  Under  the  superscription : 
"  The  Society  of  Jesus,"  is  a  picture  of  the  sun  shining 
on  the  globe  ;  below  this  the  verse  of  the  Psalm  :  "  And 
nothing  is  hid  from  the  heat  thereof."*  Under  the  heading : 
"  Prophecy  for  the  coming  century  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,"  a  picture  of  Noah's  Arkf  floating  on  the  waters. 
Under  the  heading :  '  The  Society  of  Jesus  spread  over 
the  whole  globe  fulfils  the  prophecy  of  Malachi :  '  For 
from  the  rising  of  the  sun  even  unto  the  going  down  of 
the  same,  My  name  is  great  among  the  Gentiles ;  and  in 
every  place  incense  shall  be  offered  unto  My  name,  and 
a  pure  offering,'  "  the  two  hemispheres  are  represented. J 
Under  the  heading  :  "  The  Society  spreads  the  faith  over 
the  whole  world,"  a  picture  of  four  trumpets  resounding 
from  clouds,  below  which  is  the  verse  of  the  Psalm : 
"  Their  line  is  gone  out  through  all  the  earth."  §  Under 
the  heading  :  "  Conversion  of  kingdoms  and  provinces  by 
the  Society  of  Jesus,"  a  picture  of  the  globe  suspended 
and  floating  freely  from  an  elaborate  pulley,  with  an  angel 
turning  the  lever  ;  below  this  :  "  Give  her  a  foothold  and 
she  will  move  the  earth,"  and  below  a  bombastic  poem 
on  this  gigantic  feat  of  "  the  descendants  of  Loyola." || 
Under  the  heading  :  "  The  Society  equipped  for  missions," 
a  picture  of  lightning  darting  from  clouds,  and  splitting 
rocks,  below  this  a   verse  from  the  book  of  Job  :   "  He 

*  P.  43.  t  P-  51.  %  P-  318.  $  P.  320.  ||  P.  321. 


The  Constitutions  117 

sendeth  lightnings,  that  they  may  go,  and  returning  say 
unto  him,  Here  we  are."* 

Under  the  heading :  "  The  Indian  Missions  of  the 
Society,"  a  picture  of  an  angel  with  a  bow  and  arrow, 
standing  between  the  two  hemispheres  ;  below  this  :  "  One 
sphere  does  not  suffice."!  Under  the  heading :  "  The 
Society's  task  is  to  act  and  suffer  strenuously,"  a  picture 
of  a  bull  standing  between  ploughshare  and  sacrificial 
altar  ;  below  this,  "  Ready  for  either."  X  Under  the  head- 
ing :  "  The  Society  exhausts  itself  without  remuneration 
in  the  service  of  its  neighbour,"  a  picture  of  a  fountain 
with  sevenfold  jet ;  below  this  the  words  from  Isaiah  : 
"  Ho,  everyone  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters  .  .  . 
buy  without  money  and  without  price."  §  Under  the 
heading  :  "  Congregation  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,"  a  picture 
of  the  Milky  Way,  extending  across  the  nocturnal  sky ; 
below  this  :  "  The  way  to  the  Heights."|J  Under  the  head- 
ing :  '  The  Society  by  precept  and  example  shows  the 
way  to  salvation,"  a  picture  of  three  angels  holding  torches 
with  flames  uniting  into  one  ;  below  this  the  words  :  "  The 
light  itself  enflaming  giveth  light,  though  lightened  for 
others."U  Under  the  heading :  "  Education  of  Boys,"  a 
picture  of  an  eagle  teaching  her  young  to  fly ;  below  this 
the  verse  of  the  Scriptures :  "As  the  eagle  sheweth  her 
young  to  fly."**  Under  the  heading,  "  The  Society  trained 
to  fight  during  a  whole  century,"  a  picture  of  a  strong  arm, 
proceeding  from  the  clouds,  holding  a  flag  rent  by  the 
storm ;  below  this  the  words :  "It  hath  beauty  greater 
than  its  own."ff  Under  the  heading  :  "  The  Society  is  in 
vain  attacked  by  its  enemies,"  a  picture  of  a  crowd  of  men 
wearing  fool's  caps  aiming  arrows  at  the  sun  ;  below  this  : 
"  No  arrow  hits  the  sun."J{  Under  the  heading  :  "  The 
frequent  fastings  of  Ignatius  enduring  for  several  days," 

*  P.  324.  t  P.  326.  X  P-  453.  §  P.  455.  ||    P.  464. 

1  P.  466.  **  P.  470.  ft  P-  564.  J$  P.  565. 


n8  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

a  picture  of  a  bird  of  Paradise  flying  across  desert  lands, 
below  this  i  "  He  lives  on  little,  because  he  is  close  to 
heaven."* 

All  these  pictures  are  explained  by  long  poems,  over- 
flowing with  complacency  and  self-righteousness. 

The  poems  suggest  the  text  of  the  work,  which  is  com- 
posed of  poetry  and  prose.  Setting  aside  the  poetry,  I 
will  proceed  to  give  specimens  of  the  prose :  The  Preface 
declares  Jesus  to  be  the  sun,  and  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits 
the  moon  ;  it  also  remarks  that  it  is  useless  to  supply  the 
Preface  with  a  date,  as  this  is  naturally  suggested  by  the 
universal  rejoicing  at  the  centenary  jubilee  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus.  Still,  the  authors  seem  to  have  been  somewhat 
afraid  of  the  accusation  of  vainglory,  and  they  therefore 
say  "  modestly  "  :  "  Our  work  could  not  be  under  sus- 
picion of  conceit,  as  though  we  wished  to  praise  ourselves 
or  our  own.  The  Society  is  wholly  the  work  of  God  and 
not  of  men.  We  glorify  God's  work.  Has  He  not  often 
commanded  that  His  works  should  be  extolled  with  the 
highest  praises  ?  Nor  need  we  keep  silence  concerning 
the  praise  of  our  forefathers  for  fear  of  sounding  our  own. 
Those  whom  God  has  employed  as  helpers  and  labourers 
in  so  great  a  work  could  not  be  omitted  from  our  pre- 
sentment ;  their  merits  are  new,  divine  benefits  declared 
merely  as  a  public  thanksgiving." 

The  conclusion  is  in  harmony  with  the  introduction. 
When  the  praise  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  had  been  con- 
tinuously proclaimed  for  949  folio  pages,  we  read  on 
page  950  :  "  If  we  take  into  account  the  merits  of  the 
Society  and  the  desires  of  its  members,  much  yet  remains 
to  be  said.  But,  in  order  to  bring  it  to  a  conclusion,  let 
us  greet  it  [the  Society  of  Jesus]  with  the  words  of  most 
eminent  men,  but  recently  written  or  spoken."  Then 
follow  laudatory  comments  by  Popes  and  other  persons. 

*  p.  715. 


The   Constitutions  119 

The  work  is  divided  into  six  books.  The  synopsis  at 
the  end  of  the  preface  gives  an  excellent  general  im- 
pression of  the  arrogant  spirit  pervading  the  whole,  as 
a  short  sketch  of  the  contents  of  each  book,  based  on  a 
passage  of  Scripture  referring  to  Christ,  institutes  a  com- 
parison between  the  Jesuit  Order  and  a  definite  period  in 
the  life  of  Christ :  "  Who  being  in  the  form  of  God  .  .  . 
made  Himself  of  no  reputation,  and  took  upon  Him  the 
form  of  a  servant,"  and  was  born  a  beggar  in  a  stable. 
Thus  the  first  book  will  show  how  Ignatius,  a  descendant 
of  the  highest  nobility,  became  a  beggar,  and  as  a  result 
this  "  poor  little  Society  "  was  founded.  After  the  birth 
of  Christ  we  are  told  of  Him :  "  '  Jesus  increased  in  wisdom 
and  stature,  and  in  favour  with  God  and  man.'  Following 
in  His  footsteps,  we  shall  describe  in  the  second  book  the 
growth  of  the  Society,"  etc.,  etc. 

The  first  book  is  preceded  by  an  introduction,  con- 
sisting of  seven  dissertations.  They  contain  this  passage  : 
"  Those  who  have  died  in  the  Society  of  Jesus  have  ful- 
filled a  century,  for  age  is  not  measured  by  the  length 
and  number  of  years,  but  wisdom  is  better  in  men  than 
grey  hairs."*  The  first  book  describes  "  The  Birth  of  the 
Society."  "  When  that  monster  of  the  universe,  that 
fatal  plague,  Martin  Luther,  had  cast  out  all  religion  from 
his  mind,  and  had  divested  himself  not  only  of  the  garb 
of  religion,  but  also  of  all  its  external  forms,  even  the  fear 
of  sin  .  .  .  did  not  the  warrior  Ignatius  face  him  in 
the  arena  ?  "f  As  Christ  Himself,  so  also  the  Jesuit 
Order  was  foretold  by  the  prophets.  J  Jesus  Himself  is 
the  true  founder  of  the  Society.  "  It  is  evident  that  the 
Society  of  Jesus  is  distinguished  as  to  time  only  from  the 
community  of  the  Apostles.  It  is  not  a  new  order,  but 
only  a  renewal  of  that  first  religious  community  whose 
one  only  founder  was  Jesus." §     The  name  "  Society  of 

*  P.  35.  f  P.  55.  J  Pp.  59-64.  §  Chap.  III.,  p.  65. 


120  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Jesus  "  was  revealed  to  Ignatius  by  God  Himself.*  "  By 
no  other  means  is  chastity  so  much  endangered  as  by 
the  other  sex,  which  often,  without  any  participation  of 
its  own,  weakens  resolution,  shakes  firmness  and  suddenly 
precipitates  the  highest  virtue  into  the  abyss. "t 

The  subject  of  the  second  book  is  the  growth  of  the 
Society.  In  ten  chapters,  four  discourses  and  eighteen 
poems,|  with  bombastic  self-glorification,  the  spread  of 
the  Order  of  the  Jesuits  over  the  whole  world  is  traced 
to  the  Order's  intrinsic  merit.  Fifteen  pages  are  rilled 
with  funeral  orations  (dogia  s&pulcralia)  on  Ignatius  and 
his  first  disciples,  which  vie  with  one  another  in  arrogant 
expression.  §  The  third  book  describes  the  actual  work 
of  the  Society.  In  preaching,  instruction  and  education, 
the  Jesuit  Order  attains  the  most  excellent  results.  By 
its  means  morality  and  piety  have  been  restored,  its 
charity  is  unlimited.  ||  The  successful  activity  of  the 
Jesuit  Order  in  the  confessionals  is  described  and  praised 
in  these  frivolous  words :  "  How  crowded  they  are 
everywhere  !  How  often  has  the  industrious  zeal  of  our 
confessors  been  insufficient  for  the  number  of  penitents. 
Crimes  are  now  redeemed  more  cheerfully  and  eagerly 
than  they  were  formerly  committed.  .  .  .  The  majority 
wash  off  their  sins  almost  as  soon  as  they  have  burdened 
themselves  with  them."^f  The  chariot  of  God  described 
by  the  prophet  Ezekiel  foreshadows  the  Jesuit  Order, 
"  as  any  honest  critic  may  easily  recognise."**  The  noble 
spirit  of  the  Jesuits  (generositas)  is  eloquently  praised. ff 
Through  the  sagacity  of  its  members,  the  Jesuit  Order 
resembles  the  eagle.  .  .  .  Equipped  with  wisdom,  virtue, 
mental  qualities,  sagacity,  and  industry,  they  dis- 
tinguish truth  from  falsehood ;  they  examine,  perceive, 
and    understand    everything,    nor    do    they    occupy   the 

*  Chap.  IV.  f  P-  92.  X  PP-  204-330.  §  Pp.  280-295. 

||  Pp.  331-400.  TI  P.  372.  **  P.  401.  tt  P.  403. 


The  Constitutions  121 

lowest  place  in  the  arena  of  art  and  science.  All  that  is 
flourishing  in  the  humanities,  all  the  intricacies  of  philo- 
sophy, all  the  hidden  things  in  Nature,  all  the  difficulties 
in  mathematics,  all  the  mysteries  of  the  Godhead  shining 
in  darkness  would  be  proclaimed  by  their  works,  which 
fill  great  libraries,  though  I  were  to  pass  them  over  in 
silence."*  This  self-praise  continues  for  another  seventy- 
four  folio  pages  of  prose  and  verse,  f 

The  fourth  book  deals  with  the  tribulations  of  the 
Order} ;  these  are  unmerited ;  their  chief  cause  is  the 
hatred  of  the  wicked  against  the  Jesuits.  On  the  slanders 
directed  against  the  Order :  "  The  Son  of  Man  came  eating 
and  drinking  [the  Society  of  Jesus  came  after  the  example 
of  its  leader,  contenting  itself  with  ordinary  food  and 
raiment]  and  they  say :  '  Behold  a  glutton,  a  drunkard,' 
the  Society  is  soft,  luxurious,  effeminate."  § 

The  fifth  book  revels  in  a  display  of  honours  gained  by 
the  Order  of  the  Jesuits.  |]  One  chapter  (the  fifth)  is  filled 
with  miracles  wrought  by  Jesuits.  The  next  chapter 
describes  the  heroic  virtues  practised  in  the  Order.  The 
eighth  chapter  proves  from  special  "  revelations  "  that 
everyone  who  dies  a  Jesuit  goes  to  heaven.  "  It  is  the 
privilege  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  that  Jesus  Himself  comes 
to  meet  every  dying  Jesuit. "^f  The  ninth  chapter  enume- 
rates the  honours  shown  to  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits  by 
Popes,  kings  and  princes.  In  the  tenth  chapter  the  list 
of  honours  is  continued  by  quotations  from  panegyrics 
on  the  Jesuits  by  famous  men,  among  them  a  bishop : 
"  0  sacred  Society,  formerly  not  sufficiently  known  or 
appreciated  by  me,  thou  excellest  the  pastoral  staff, 
mitres,  cardinal's  purple,  sceptres,  empires  and  crowns  !  "** 
It  is  significant  that  this  fifth  book,  which  extols  the 
honours    of     the    Jesuit    Order,     contains     nearly    the 

*  P.  406  et  seq.  f  Pp.  406-480.         J  Pp.  481-580.  §  P.  559. 

til  Pp.  581-727.  U  Pp.  648,  649.  **  P.  667. 


122  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

largest  number  of  pages  (147)  of  the  six  books  of  the 
Imago. 

The  sixth  book,  extolling  the  glorious  achievements 
of  the  Flemish- Belgian  Province  of  the  Order,  which  con- 
cludes the  work,  displays  to  the  last  the  same  arrogant 
spirit  and  hatred  of  Luther.  On  page  937,  the  Belgian 
lion  is  depicted  with  the  Jesuit  emblem  on  its  breast, 
inscribed  all  over  with  the  names  of  Belgian-Flemish 
Settlements  of  the  Jesuits.  Below  the  picture  is  a  poem, 
entitled  :  '  The  sun  [i.e.  the  sign  or  emblem  of  the  Jesuits] 
on  the  Belgian  lion."  Here  is  a  verse  of  this  poem : 
"  He  [the  Belgian  lion]  bears  Loyola's  emblem  graven  on 
his  breast.  Greeting  from  afar  with  bowed  neck  the 
divine  [Ignatius],  he  rejoices  to  lick  his  sacred  feet." 

Enough  of  quotations.  Those  given  are  not  forced  and 
far-fetched  passages,  but  real,  ordinary  samples. 

Whoever  has  struggled  through  this  folio  volume,  so  full 
of  hatred  for  those  of  different  faith,  and  above  all,  of 
endless  self-praise,  of  pompous  prayers  to  God,  Christ, 
and  Mary,  all  to  the  tune  of  "  We  Jesuits  are  specially 
favoured,  holy,  perfect,"  of  boasts,  of  exploits,  and  good 
works  accomplished  by  the  Jesuit  Order,  while  realising 
at  the]same  time  that  it  is  all  meant  to  be  a  picture  of  the 
essence  and  history  of  the  "  genuine  associates  of  Jesus  " 
(genuini  Jesu  Socii),  must  needs  recall  the  words  of  Jesus  : 

rt  Take  heed  that  ye  do  not  your  alms  before  men,  to 
be  seen  of  them  .  .  .  Therefore  when  thou  do  est  thine 
alms,  do  not  sound  a  trumpet  before  thee,  as  the  hypocrites 
do  in  the  synagogues  and  in  the  streets,  that  they  may 
have  glory  of  men  ...  let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what 
thy  right  hand  doeth.  .  .  .  And  when  thou  prayest,  thou 
shalt  not  be  as  the  hypocrites  are ;  for  they  love  to  pray 
standing  in  the  synagogues  and  in  the  corners  of  the 
streets,  that  they  may  be  seen  of  men."* 

*  Matt.  vi.  1-5. 


The  Constitutions  123 

"  So  likewise  ye,  when  ye  shall  have  done  all  those 
things  which  are  commanded  you,  say,  We  are  unprofit- 
able servants :  we  have  done  that  which  was  our  duty 
to  do."* 

In  the  light  of  these  and  similar  words  of  Jesus  Christ, 
the  hollo wness,  nay  falsity,  of  the  "  Picture  of  the 
First  Century  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  "  must  appear  as 
obvious  and  clear. 

The  magnificent  volume  of  the  Imago  supplies  over- 
whelming testimony  to  the  correct  opinion  of  the  com- 
paratively honest  Jesuit  Cordara,  who  from  his  orthodox 
Christian  point  of  view  saw  in  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuit 
Order  a  judgment  of  God  on  their  arrogance  and  pride : 
"  for  God  resisteth  the  proud."f 


THE    RELATION    OF    THE    ORDER    TO    WOMEN 

In  the  Constitutions  and  history  of  the  Order  there 
are  two  chapters  on  this  subject  which  almost  contradict 
one  another. 

While  Jesus  and  His  disciples  stood  in  simple  and 
natural  relationship  to  women,  and  innocently  admitted 
them  as  followers  and  helpers,  the  Society  of  Jesus 
takes  up  a  position  towards  women  which  in  theory  is 
distorted  and  unnatural,  and  in  practice  selfishly  exploits 
them.  ? 

In  theory  it  sees  in  woman  the  dangerous  and  intel- 
lectually inferior  sex,  to  be  surrounded  by  danger  signals 
and  warnings  ;  in  practice  it  treats  her  as  a  docile  creature, 
easily  influenced,  whose  devotion  is  of  high  value  to  the 
Order. 

The  theory  contained  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order 
is  thus  expressed : 

*  Luke  xvii.  10.  t  L  Pet«  v«  5* 


124         Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

"  Jesuits  are  not  to  undertake  the  regular  cure  of  souls  for  nuns 
or  other  women,  but  they  may  on  occasion  (semel)  hear  confessions 
of  nuns,  of  one  convent  for  some  special  reason."  *  In  hearing 
confessions  of  women  they  should  be  severe  rather  than  familiar. 
If  obliged  to  speak  to  women  outside  the  confessional,  it  should  be 
in  a  public  place  and  with  downcast  eyes.  If  any  priest  be  sent 
to  women  by  his  Superior  to  hear  confession,  or  for  some  other 
purpose,  the  companion  assigned  to  him  by  his  Superior  [generally 
a  lay  brother]  is  to  be  in  a  place  where  he  can  see  both  parties, 
so  long  as  the  priest  may  be  engaged  with  the  women,  but  out  of 
earshot  of  any  secret  conversation,  so  far  as  the  place  admits  of 
this  ;  if  it  does  not,  the  priest  is  to  be  careful  that  the  door  should 
remain  open,  and  that  the  meeting  should  not  take  place  in  a 
dark  spot. 

"  The  cure  of  individual  souls,  especially  of  women,  should 
not  be  undertaken  by  our  members.f  When  they  [lay  brothers] 
accompany  our  priests  on  visits,  especially  to  women,  they  are 
to  observe  carefully  what  rules  are  prescribed  for  priests.  Besides, 
they  ought  to  know  that  they  are  obliged  on  their  return  to  report 
to  the  Superior  without  being  questioned  by  him,  if  [during  the 
visit]  these  rules  have  been  in  any  way  disregarded."  J 

He  [the  Superior]  is  not  to  allow  our  priests  to  visit  women 
nor  to  write  to  them  except  in  an  urgent  case,  or  in  the  hope  of 
great  results,  and  even  then  he  is  only  to  allow  it  to  experienced 
and  prudent  men.§  The  rule,  that  the  companion  of  a  priest 
visiting  women  or  hearing  their  confessions  should  report  to  the 
Superior,  if  Rule  18  [presence  of  the  companion  during  the  visit 
or  confession]  has  been  observed,  is  to  be  maintained  so  strictly 
that  the  Superior  is  to  impose  on  the  companion  omitting  the 
report  a  penance  of  three  scourgings,  besides  one  in  public.  In 
case  of  repetition,  the  matter  should  be  reported  to  the  General, 
who  will  then  consider  if  such  persons  can  remain  members  of 
the  Order.  || 

*  Constit.  VI.,  3,  5.  t  Rules  16-19  for  the  Priests. 

}  Rule  72  for  the  Superior  of  Professed  Houses,  and  Rule  70  for  the  Rector. 
§  Rule  5  for  Lay-brothers. 

[|  From  an  epistle  of  General  Acquaviva,  Nov.   13th,   1607.     Inst.  8.J.,  II. 
308  et  seq. 


The   Constitutions  125 

"  Our  members  (nostri)  should  know  that  not  only  priests,  in 
going  to  women  for  the  purpose  of  confession  or  for  other  reasons, 
should  strictly  observe  Rule  18  on  the  continual  presence  of  the 
companion,  i.e.  that  so  long  as  they  are  engaged  with  the  women 
the  companion  is  to  be  where  he  can  see  them,  but  not  hear  what 
is  to  remain  a  secret ;  but  that  all  lay  brothers  are  under  this 
law,  whether  they  themselves  visit  women  or  accompany  others 
of  our  people.  .  .  .  And  the  companions  should  know  that  they 
must  report  to  the  Superior  anything  that  may  have  occurred 
contrary  to  this  rule  and  ordination  without  being  questioned  by 
him  immediately  on  their  return.* 

''  If  the  place  where  the  sick  woman  is  lying  is  so  small  that 
the  companion  of  the  confessing  priest  cannot  be  present,  the  former 
must  report  to  the  Superior  immediately  on  his  return  [that  the 
confession  of  the  sick  woman  had  been  heard  without  the  com- 
panion's presence],  and  the  Superior  should  consider  if  the  Father 
should  go  to  this  place  a  second  time,  or  if,  as  I  [the  General  of  the 
Order,  Acquaviva]  should  be  more  inclined  to  think,  the  care  of 
the  invalid  should  be  left  to  the  parish  priests."f 

As  regards  the  advancement  of  their  spiritual  life,  e.g. 
by  Exercises,  women  are  placed  in  a  line  with  uneducated 
people  (rudibus).  The  particular  meditations  (of  the 
Spiritual  Exercises)  are  to  be  set  before  women  in  church, 
and  in  doing  this  great  care  must  be  taken  that  no 
suspicion  or  offence  may  arise.  For  this  reason  it  may 
be  well  to  give  the  points  of  meditation  to  women  not  in 
writing  but  verbally,  lest  people  should  think  there  was 
an  exchange  of  letters.  If  anything  has  to  be  given  in 
writing,  it  should  be  done  quite  secretly,  j 

An  ugly  spirit  meets  us  here.  It  is,  of  course,  in  the 
first  instance,  the  general  ultramontane  spirit,  already 
noted,  which  estimates  and  judges  woman  only  as  an"  im- 
mediate occasion  for  sin."     But  here  also  we  meet  with  a 

*  Monita  generalia,  3.     Ibid.  II.,  215. 

f  Instruct™  III.  pro  Confessariis  Societatis,  II.,  285. 

%  Directorium,  9,  16 ;    Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  435. 


126  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

striking  speciality  of  the  Jesuits :  to  the  general  sexual 
contempt  of  women  the  Order  adds  as  its  own  specific 
a  certain  social  classification. 

In  a  secret  instruction  by  General  Mercurian  to  the 
Provincial  Superior  of  the  Upper  German  Province,  the 
Jesuit  Hoffaus,  quoted  by  Dollinger-Reusch*  from  the 
Jesuit  manuscripts  in  the  State  Archives  at  Munich  (con- 
fiscated on  the  suppression  of  the  Order  in  1773),  we  read  : 
"  Women  of  rank,  who  must,  however,  at  least  be  baronesses 
(haec  facultas  ad  eas,  quae  sunt  infra  statum  Baronissarum 
extendenda  non  est),  may  enter  colleges  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus.  But  care  should  then  be  taken  that  steady  matrons, 
and  not  young  ladies  (adolescentulae)  should  be  the  com- 
panions of  the  lady  of  rank." 

Most  carefully,"  writes  another  General  of  the  Order, 
familiarity  with  women  of  poor  or  low  estate  (familiaritas 
tenuiorum  et  igndbilium  feminarum)  should  be  avoided,  as 
they  are  more  exposed  to  suspicion  and  danger."f 

An  "  instruction  "  of  the  sixth  General  Congregation 
of  the  year  1608  is  still  more  explicit.  The  interesting 
words  show  how  skilfully  rigid  theory  may  turn  into 
indulgent  practice  when  the  transformation  seems  desirable 
for  the  advantage  of  the  Order: 

"  Since  custom  has  decreed,  to  the  loss  of  much  time  and 
spiritual  advantage,  that  visits  and  greetings  should  be  exchanged 
[with  women],  we  deem  it  necessary  to  give  definite  instruction 
as  regards  the  strict  observance  of  the  rule  on  not  visiting  women. 
Certainly  we  may  but  rarely  hope  for  great  advantage  therefrom 
except  in  cases  of  necessity  (e.g.  illness,  mourning,  death,  or  some 
religious  ceremony).  But  as  the  customs  of  the  Society,  and  the 
benefits  received,  and  a  certain  discourtesy  implied  by  refusing  these, 
do  not  permit  that  visits   to  women   should   be  forbidden  to  all 

*  Moralstreitigkeiten,  I.,  250. 

t  Instruction  of  General  Acquaviva,  Jan.  1st,  1G04.   De  Spiritu  ad  Superior es, 
c.  5  de  castilate.     Ibid.  II.,  272. 


The   Constitutions  127 

our  members,  a  certain  modification  [of  the  rule]  is  required.  At 
present  we  think  it  most  appropriate  that  regard  should  be  paid 
not  only  to  the  persons  to  be  visited,  but  also  to  those  of  our 
members  who  are  to  pay  the  visit.  Three  conditions  are  necessary 
in  order  that  a  woman  be  found  worthy  (ut  digna  existimetur)  of 
being  visited  by  our  people.  In  the  first  place,  she  must  be  a 
person  of  rank  and  distinction  (persona  nobilis  et  primaria) ;  for 
there  is  no  need  to  show  special  courtesy  to  all  pious  women  of 
whatever  estate  they  be,  as  such  may  be  sufficiently  helped  and 
instructed  in  our  churches  in  confession  and  pious  discourse. 
Secondly,  the  woman  in  question  must  have  uncommon  merit  as 
regards  services  rendered  the  Society.  Thirdly,  the  act  of  courtesy 
must  be  welcome  to  her  husband  or  her  relations."* 

This  division  of  the  female  sex  into  aristocratic  and 
non-aristocratic  women,  and  the  different  treatment  based 
upon  it,  may  be  traced  back  to  the  founder  of  the  Jesuit 
Order,  Ignatius  Loyola,  and  is  thus  an  original  character- 
istic of  the  Jesuits.  In  confidential  communications  on 
himself,  dictated  to  his  amanuensis,  the  Jesuit  Gonzalez, 
we  read  :  "He  [Ignatius]  said  :  '  We  must  behave  pru- 
dently, and  have  no  intercourse  with  women,  except  with 
those  of  very  high  rank  "f  (nisi  essent  admodum  Ulustres). 

And  now  to  pass  from  theory  to  practice. 

There  we  find  that  Jesuits  very  soon  and  very  generally 
break  through  the  wire  fencing  drawn  by  their  Constitu- 
tions round  women,  and  show  no  prudence  at  all  in  their 
intercourse  with  them.  I  have  already  quoted,  in  speaking 
of  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  vows  of  chastity,  the 
accusing  testimony  of  the  Jesuit  Hoffaus,  the  Visitator  of 
the  Upper  German  Province.  To  this  may  be  added  as 
still  more  weighty,  because  founded  on  a  still  more 
universal  knowledge  of  things  pertaining  to  the  Order, 
the  complaint  of  General  Acquaviva  in  a  circular 
epistle  to  the  whole  Order,  dated  December  21st,  1605  : 

*  Instructio  III.  pro  Confessariis  Societalis,  1,  9;    II.,  286. 
t  Ada  8.S.,  Julii  7,  653« 


128  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

"  Lay-brothers  [who  accompany  visiting  priests]  should  be 
exhorted  that,  on  returning  home  in  the  evening,  they  must 
report  to  the  Superior  if  the  rule  [concerning  the  manner  in  which 
women  are  to  be  visited]  has  been  neglected  by  the  priest  or  any 
other  for  any  reason  whatever,  and  those  who  show  themselves 
to  be  less  conscientious  in  this  should  be  treated  with  severity, 
and  their  confessors  should  be  exhorted  to  reprimand  them  sharply, 
if  they  do  not  observe  this  rule.  ...  As  regards  hearing  con- 
fessions [of  women]  in  church,  the  Superiors  are  charged  to  have 
the  confessionals  erected  in  exposed  places  and  in  such  a  manner 
that  confessors  may,  as  it  were,  be  companions  one  to  another  ; 
the  Superior  should  also  occasionally  investigate  if  the  confessionals 
have  not  perchance  been  moved  from  their  position,  and  if  the 
gratings  are  still  intact  and  narrow."* 

Especially  this  last  remark,  on  the  confessionals  not 
being  displaced  and  on  the  gratings  being  intact  and 
narrow,  forces  us  to  the  conclusion  that  there  were  grat- 
ings which  had  been  damaged  and  widened  for  unmis- 
takable purposes. 

An  enlarged  grating  seems  to  have  existed  between 
the  English.  Jesuit  Garnet,  whose  acquaintance  we  have 
already  made,  and  his  penitent,  Lady  Anne  Vaux. 
Passages  from  letters  of  the  lady  to  the  Jesuit  seem,  at 
any  rate,  to  point  to  an  earthly  rather  than  heavenly  love, 
and  in  any  case  their  tone  contrasts  strongly  with  that 
prescribed  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order.  Thus  Lady 
Anne  signs  on  one  occasion :  '  Yours  and  not  my  own, 
A.V."  And  furthermore :  "To  live  without  you  is  not 
life,  but  death.    0  that  I  might  see  you  !  "f 

I  have  spoken  already  of  the  extent  to  which  the 
exploitation  of  rich  women,  especially  in  England,  was 
carried.  Rich  and  aristocratic  women  were  and  are  special 
objects  of  the  spiritual  care  of  the  Jesuits,  in  spite  of  all 

*  Inst.  8.J.,  307,  308. 

t  Jardine,  A  Narrative  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot  (London,  1857),  p.  177  et  seq.  1 


The   Constitutions  129 

decrees  and  ordinances  of  their  official  Constitutions, 
though  women  of  low  degree  are  neglected  in  accordance 
with  the  Constitutions  of  Ignatius  Loyola,  whose  reference 
to  "  women  of  very  high  rank  "  has  been  already  quoted. 
History  reports  that  Elisabeth  Roser,  a  Spanish  lady,  who 
had  bestowed  many  benefits  upon  him  during  the  early 
times  after  his  conversion,  was  curtly  rebuffed  by  him,  when 
he  began  to  aim  higher;  and  when  she  demanded  back 
money  she  had  lent  he  broke  with  her  altogether,  saying 
with  emphasis  that  the  Society  had  no  dealings  with 
women.  At  the  same  time,  however,  he  was  in  close 
intercourse  with  Margaret  Duchess  of  Farnese,  daughter 
of  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  He  became  her  father  confessor, 
and  assigned  to  her  his  most  distinguished  associate,  the 
Jesuit  Laynez  (his  successor  as  General  of  the  Order)  as 
travelling  companion  to  Genoa,  when  the  duchess  went 
to  greet  her  imperial  father  there.  And  he  himself  baptised 
her  twins  born  in  1541.* 

The  activity  of  Jesuit  confessors  at  the  courts  of 
princes,  to  be  treated  in  detail  in  the  next  chapter,  is 
chiefly  directed  to  princesses. 

This  historically  established  attitude  of  the  Order 
is  confirmed  by  my  personal  experience.  I  need  only 
recall  to  memory  what  I  experienced  in  the  house  of  my 
parents,  in  so  many  families  of  relations  and  friends,  and 
later  on  during  my  own  membership  of  the  Order. 

My  mother,  as  a  woman  of  rank,  was  a  continual  object 
of  Jesuit  attention,  which  received  outward  expression  in 
a  diploma,  signed  by  General  Anderledy,  in  which  she  was 
endowed  with  "  all  the  graces  and  dispensations  of  the 
Order."  The  Jesuits  Behrens,  Wertenberg,  Hausherr, 
Meschler  followed  one  another  in  uninterrupted  succession 
for   decades,  till    her    death    in    1903,  as    directors    and 

*  See  Druffel's  Ignatius  von  Loyola  an  der  romischen  Kurie  (Munich,  1879), 
pp.  9  and  36. 

/ 


I3°  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

father  confessors.  My  dear,  good  mother  !  How  com- 
pletely she  surrendered  herself  to  Jesuit  influence  in  the 
best  of  faith  and  with  voluntary  self-sacrifice.  She  obeyed 
her  Jesuit  advisers  like  a  child.  How  trustfully  she  heaped 
benefits  upon  them  and  gave  liberally  of  the  goods  of  this 
world  to  her  "  disinterested  "  spiritual  directors  !  I  am 
filled  with  anger  and  bitterness  when  I  remember  how 
Jesuitism  inveigled  and  exploited  this  remarkable  woman. 

Many  other  women,  relations  of  mine,  fared  similarly. 

The  soul  of  my  sister  Antonia  was  completely  enslaved 
by  the  Jesuits  Behrens,  Brinkmann  and  Hausherr,  as  was 
that  of  my  aunt  Countess  Therese  von  Loe'  (nee  Countess 
Arco-Zinneberg)  by  Hausherr.  The  Jesuits  Behrens, 
Loffler,  Meschler,  Fah,  Schaffer,  frequented  the  castles  of 
the  Rhenish  Westphalian,  Silesian,  and  South-German 
Catholic  nobility,  and  everywhere  it  was  rather  the  lady 
than  the  lord  of  the  manor  that  submitted  to  Jesuit 
direction.  The  noble  families  of  Droste-Vischering,  Galen, 
Fiirstenberg,  Geyer,  Matuschka,  Waldburg-Wolfegg,  Met- 
ternich,  Oberndorf,  Loe,  Stolberg,  and  others  were  and 
are  linked  to  the  Jesuits  by  their  womenkind. 

When  I  myself,  on  completion  of  my  ascetic  and 
scholastic  training,  entered  on  my  work  as  member  of  the 
Order,  it  was  the  obvious  intention  of  my  Superiors  to 
take  advantage  of  my  many  aristocratic  connections,  and 
without  my  own  repeated,  energetic  opposition  I  should 
have  doubtless  turned  into  an  "  aristocratic  ladies'  con- 
fessor." 

When  I  had  to  give  Spiritual  Exercises  to  a  number  of 
ladies  of  rank  in  1889  or  1890,  I  found  out  how  little  the 
Constitutions  of  the  Order,  as  to  the  way  in  which  Exer- 
cises are  to  be  given  to  women,  are  observed  in  the  case 
of  ladies  of  rank.  They  were  not  given  in  either  church  or 
chapel  as  required  by  the  rule,  but  in  the  ballroom  of  the 
splendid  Erbdroste  Manor  at  Munster  in  Westphalia. 


The  Constitutions  131 

The  avoidance,  nay  refusal,  of  the  pastoral  care  of 
nuns  emphasised  in  the  Constitutions  is  humbug  also. 
There  is  no  Order  which  exercises  a  more  comprehensive 
and  systematic  influence  over  nuns,  or  stands  in  closer 
connection  with  them,  than  the  Jesuits.  Even  those  nuns 
who  ought  naturally  to  turn  for  direction  to  the  monastic 
orders  of  their  own  name  and  spirit,  such  as  the  various 
orders  of  Franciscan  nuns,  receive  their  ascetic  and  pious 
training  from  the  Jesuit  Order.  Only  the  Dominican  nuns 
form  an  exception.  The  old  antipathy  between  the  sons  of 
St.  Dominic  and  the  sons  of  St.  Ignatius  is  after  all  too 
strong.  Otherwise  the  Jesuit  is  the  constant  guest  of 
nunneries.  The  number  of  Exercises  he  gives,  of  con- 
fessions he  hears  there,  is  legion.  During  the  short  period 
of  my  work  in  the  Order  I  was  employed  a  good  deal 
in  the  nunneries  of  England,  Holland,  and  Germany. 
This  work  is  much  sought  after ;  the  good  nuns  take 
excellent  care  of  the  father,  and  show  their  gratitude 
abundantly  in  coin  of  the  realm  for  the  pious  services 
rendered  gratuitously.  Violent  outbursts  of  jealousy  are 
not  infrequent  among  the  Jesuits  who,  according  to  their 
Constitutions,  decline  the  pastorate  of  nuns,  on  account  of 
real  or  imaginary  poaching  on  their  special  preserves  in  a 
nunnery.  I  may  quote  a  tragi-comic  experience  of  my 
own.  In  the  summer  of  1892,  when  I  was  studying  in  the 
Royal  Library  at  Berlin  (which  sealed  my  resolution  to 
leave  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  Jesuit  Order), 
the  well-known  Jesuit  Tilmann  Pesch,  the  Gottlieb  of  the 
notorious  Hamburg  Letters,  was  there  at  the  same  time. 
I  was  staying  with  the  Grey  Sisters  in  the  Nieder  Wall- 
strasse,  and  he  I  do  not  know  where.  One  day  at  noon, 
while  I  was  sitting  at  dinner,  Pesch  rushed  into  my  room 
and  heaped  abuse  on  me,  accusing  me  of  wishing  to  give 
Exercises  to  the  Ursuline  nuns  in  the  Lindenstrasse, 
which  he  himself  had  intended  to  do.    As  I  was  absolutely 


132  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

innocent,  I  wrote  to  my  Superior  at  that  time,  the  Jesuit 
Frink  at  Exaeten,  and  complained  seriously  of  this  foolish 
exhibition  of  jealousy.  In  his  answer,  the  Rector  tried 
to  find  excuses  on  the  score  of  "  peculiar  temperament." 

The  following  anecdote  will  show  how  well  these  nun- 
shunning  Jesuits  fare  among  them: 

The  Jesuit  Meschler  was  travelling  with  several  French 
Jesuits  from  Rome  across  the  Alps,  after  the  General 
Congregation  of  1883.  In  some  town  in  the  north  of 
Italy — I  believe  it  was  either  Milan  or  Turin — they  spent 
the  night.  But  the  French  Jesuits  did  not  stay  with 
members  of  their  own  Order  according  to  the  statute,* 
but,  as  Meschler  told  me,  in  the  beautiful  nunnery  of  the 
Sacred  Heart.  Of  course,  they  were  more  comfortable 
there. 

In  the  light  of  all  these  facts,  it  was  truly  Jesuitical 
for  Ignatius  Loyola  to  ask  Paul  III.  to  deliver  himself 
and  his  Order  from  the  spiritual  direction  of  women  and 
nuns,f  and  for  the  Order  to  persist  in  the  pretence  :  "  We 
exist  not  for  women  and  nuns,  but  for  men  !  "  It  would 
be  more  honest  to  add :  "  But  women  and  nuns  exist 
for  us." 

*  Regvlae  peregrinorum,  11. 

f  Genelli,  S.J.,  Leben    des  heiligen    Ignatius  von  Loyola    (Innsbruck,    1848), 
p.  262. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE    CRITICISM    CONTINUED  :    POLITICS   AND   CONFESSORS 

There  has  been  no  more  constant  reproach  against  the 
Jesuit  Order,  and  hardly  any  that  the  Order  itself  has 
repudiated  with  greater  moral  indignation,  than  that  of 
political  activity,  in  contravention  of  the  Constitutions 
and  the  destination  of  the  Order,  which  is  declared 
emphatically  to  be  not  of  the  world,  but  devoted  exclu- 
sively to  the  salvation  of  the  soul. 

In  a  letter  to  the  Courrier  Frangais,  in  Paris,  in  1847, 
Johannes  Roothaan,  General  of  the  Order,  still  declares 
with  an  air  of  most  ingenuous  sincerity : 

"  Politics  are  absolutely  foreign  to  the  Society.  It  has  never 
joined  any  party,  no  matter  what  its  name.  The  purpose  and 
vocation  of  the  Order  is  greater  and  loftier  than  any  party:  .  .  . 
Slander  may  delight  in  spreading  false  assertions  accusing  Jesuits 
of  taking  part  in  political  intrigues.  I  have  yet  to  be  shown  that 
even  a  single  member  of  the  Order  entrusted  to  my  care  has  offended 
in  this  respect  against  the  very  definite  rules  of  the  Order."* 

And,  indeed,  whoever  innocently  peruses  the  Constitu- 
tions would  be  inclined  to  believe  the  simple,  straight- 
forward-sounding words  of  Roothaan.  For  they  state, 
as  plainly  as  could  be  desired  : 

"  As  our  Society,  established  by  the  Lord  for  the  propagation  of 
the  faith  and  the  salvation  of  souls,  can  fulfil  its  purpose  under 
the  banner  of  the  Cross  for  the  benefit  of  the  Church  and  the  edifica- 

*  Ebner,  S.  J.,  Beleuchtung  der  Schrift  des  Dr.  J  oh.  Kelle  :  Die  Jemritengymnasien 
in  Oesterreich  (Linz,  1874),  p.  536. 

133 


134  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

tion  of  our  neighbour  through,  the  spiritual  service  and  weapons 
peculiar  to  it  and  its  Constitution,  it  would  injure  these  and  expose 
itself  to  great  dangers  by  putting  its  hand  to  worldly  concerns  or 
affairs  of  politics  and  the  State.  That  is  why  our  fathers  have 
very  wisely  ordained  that  we  who  serve  God  should  not  become 
involved  in  things  from  which  our  vocation  must  shrink.  And  as  our 
Order,  especially  in  these  dangerous  times,  is  in  bad  odour  in  many 
places,  and  with  various  princes  (the  maintenance  of  whose  love 
and  favour  should  be  counted  as  a  service  to  God,  as  our  Father 
Ignatius  of  sacred  memory  believed),  perhaps  through  the  fault  of 
some,  or  through  ambition,  or  indiscreet  zeal,  whereas  the  odour 
of  Christ  is  needful  for  fruition,  the  Congregation  has  decided  that 
even  the  appearance  of  evil  must  be  avoided,  and  the  accusations 
repudiated,  even  those  arising  from  false  suspicions.  Therefore,  our 
people  are  forbidden  emphatically  and  earnestly  by  this  present 
decree  to  engage  in  these  public  affairs,  even  if  invited  or  tempted 
to  do  so,  or  to  let  themselves  be  moved  by  entreaties  or  persuasions 
to  deviate  from  the  Institute  of  the  Order.  The  Patres  definitores 
have  also  been  charged  to  indicate  the  most  effective  remedies  for 
this  disease."* 

"  By  virtue  of  sacred  obedience,  and  under  penalty  of  ineligibility 
for  all  offices  and  dignities,  and  loss  of  the  right  to  elect  and  be 
elected,  our  people  are  forbidden  to  meddle  with  the  public  and 
worldly  affairs  of  princes  which  concern  the  State,  or  to  presume  to 
be  charged  with  things  political.  The  superiors  are  strictly  charged 
not  to  allow  our  members  to  interfere  with  such  things  in  any  way. 
If  they  perceive  that  some  are  thus  inclined,  they  are  to  report 
them  as  soon  as  possible  to  the  Provincial,  so  that  he  may  remove 
them  from  their  posts,  if  there  is  opportunity  or  danger  of  their 
becoming  involved  in  such  affairs."f  Similar  prohibitions  are 
repeated  in  Canon  12  of  the  fifth  General  Congregation,  and  in  the 
Monita  generalia,  18.J 

Yes,  indeed  !  If  the  Jesuit  Order  were  not  permeated 
by  an  abysmal  contradictoriness  founded  on  conscious 
insincerity,  as  I  have  already  so  frequently  pointed  out. 

*  Congreg.  5,  Decret.  47,  Inst.  S.J.,  L,  254  et  seq. 

t  Congreg.  5,  Decret.  79,  I.,  269.  J  I.,  485;    II.,  217. 


Politics  and   Confessors  135 

To  the  non-political  programme  of  its  Constitutions,  and 
the  non-political  declaration  of  its  General,  uttered  in  the 
deepest  note  of  conviction,  are  opposed  as  weighty  accusa- 
tions the  political  actions  or  rather  factions  of  the  Order, 
almost  from  the  first  year  of  its  establishment. 

Not  the  "  welfare  of  the  souls  "  of  men,  so  piously 
placed  in  the  foreground,  is  the  purpose  of  the  Jesuit  Order ; 
its  aim  always  and  everywhere,  in  detail  as  in  general,  is : 
Government  of  the  individual,  the  family,  the  State,  attain- 
ment of  a  definite  influence  on  tJie  current  affairs  of  the 
world.  And  that  is  why  the  Order  is  intensely  interested  in 
politics. 

Until  1773,  the  year  of  its  suppression  by  Clement  XIV., 
the  Jesuit  Order  intervened  decisively  and  assiduously, 
but  as  much  as  possible  in  secret,  in  the  politics  of  almost 
all  European  countries.  And  in  the  genuine  ultramontane 
and  Jesuitical  spirit,  the  Order  cloaked  its  political  activity 
with  religion  by  establishing  from  the  beginning  of  its 
labours  the  institution  of  princely  confessors,  an  institution 
— I  emphasise  this  word  as  expressing  an  organisation — 
which,  though  in  the  sharpest  imaginable  contrast  to  the 
Constitutions  of  the  Order,  furnishes  almost  immeasurable 
leverage  to  Jesuit  lust  of  power. 

Since  the  restoration  of  the  Order  by  Pius  VII.,  in 
1814,  its  active  political  power  has  not  even  distantly 
approached  that  of  former  centuries.  Though  the  striving 
for  it  has  remained  the  same,  the  circumstances  are  altered. 
Constitutionalism  is  not  suitable  soil  for  royal  confessors, 
and  many  courts,  where  Jesuit  confessors  used  to  hold 
their  evil  sway,  have  vanished  from  the  scene  (e.g.  France, 
the  Bourbon  Courts  in  Italy,  the  Episcopal  Principalities 
of  Germany  and  Poland).* 

*  One  Jesuit  confessor  of  princes,  in  miniature  (as  regards  the  Court,  not  the 
Jesuit),  has  appeared  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  Jesuit  Beckx  (afterwards 
General  of  the  Order),  who,  with  his  fellow-member,  Devis,  played  the  part  of  such 
Jesuits  as  Lamormaini,  La  Chaise  or  Tellier,  at  the  little  court  of  the  last  reigning 


136  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

By  no  means  always,  but  rarely,  indeed,  have  the 
politics  of  the  Jesuits  been  skilful,  still  less  successful. 
Failure  upon  failure  must  have  been  entered  in  the  political 
log-book  of  the  Order,  until  at  last  it  fell  a  victim  to  its  own 
politics.  Still  the  question  is  not  whether  the  Jesuits  were 
clever  or  clumsy  politicians,  but  only  whether  and  to  what 
extent  they  took  part  in  political  conflicts  in  spite  of  their 
Constitutions  and  the  oft-repeated  solemn  assurances  to 
the  contrary.* 

As  I  am  not  writing  a  history  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  I 
shall  give  no  connected,  complete  description  of  its  political 
activity.  I  shall  present  extracts,  snapshots,  from  the 
course  of  the  Order's  existence,  extending  over  nearly  four 
centuries,  but  in  such  abundance  that  a  complete  estimate 
may  be  formed. 

Neither  shall  I  touch  on  the  question,  whether  and 
how  the  Order,  in  its  vastness  and  intricacies,  could  have 
avoided  political  activity.  We  are  only  concerned  with 
the  fact,  which  is,  moreover,  naturally  evolved  from  its 
system,  of  its  political  activity,  and  with  the  irreconcilable 
contrast  between  this  fact  and  the  assertion  laid  down 
by  the  Order  itself  as  a  principle  regarding  its  avoidance 
of  politics. 

For  this  contrast  contains  a  huge  amount  of  untruth- 
fulness and  hypocrisy,  and  as  both  these  failings  charac- 
terise the  essence  of  Jesuitism — the  system,  not  the 
individual — their  exposure  is  of  special  value  in  a  charac- 
terisation of  the  Order. 

Duke  of  Anhalt-Kothen,  converted  to  Catholicism  at  Paris  in  October,  1825. 
And  possibly,  even  probably,  the  twentieth  century  may  show  us  in  Austria, 
always  greatly  blessed  with  Jesuits,  another  confessor  of  princes  in  the  grand 
old  style  drawn  from  the  Jesuit  Order,  when  the  Archdukes  Francis  Ferdinand 
and,  still  more,  Francis  Salvator,  with  their  wives,  who  are  wholly  devoted  to 
the  Jesuits,  ascend  the  throne  of  the  Habsburgs. 

*  The  political  and  general  ability  of  the  Jesuit  Order  has  been  enormously 
overrated.  In  a  final  estimate  I  mean  to  show  that  the  power  and  danger  of 
the  Order  result  less  from  ability  and  superior  skill  in  applying  its  various  means 
than  from  other  circumstances. 


Politics  and   Confessors  137 

My  long  list  of  political  facts  and  documents  is  prefaced 
by  a  caution  against  political  activity  proceeding  from 
the  Order  itself  and,  moreover,  from  a  part  of  the  Order 
where  facts  were  accurately  known.  But  there  is  this  to 
be  said  about  the  caution :  it  was  not  sincere,  as  I  shall 
prove.     It  was  meant  to  save  appearances  only. 

In  his  treatise  on  "  Remedies  for  the  Cure  of  Diseases 
of  the  Soul "  (Industriae  ad  curandos  animae  morbos), 
incorporated  in  the  "  Institute  "  of  the  Order,  General 
Acquaviva  speaks  of  "  the  worldly  and  insinuating  spirit 
of  the  courtier  seeking  the  familiarity  and  favour  of 
strangers  "  (saecularitas  et  aulicismus  insinuans  in  f ami- 
liar  itates  et  gratiam  externorum). 

This  paragraph  was  addressed  to  the  numerous  Jesuits 
who,  as  the  counsellors  of  princes,  obviously  had  influence 
on  political  affairs.  The  General  does  not  straightway 
forbid  the  acceptance  of  such  positions,  although  they  are 
contrary  to  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order,  but  after  some 
general  ascetic  counsels  as  to  how  the  danger  of  the  worldly 
spirit  of  the  court  might  be  obviated,  Acquaviva  says, 
with  inimitable  cunning  and  equivocation : 

"  They  [i.e.  members  of  the  Order  occupying  such 
positions  at  temporal  courts]  are  to  be  exhorted  to  a  wise 
reserve ;  they  are  to  suggest  (suggerant)  that  in  some 
things  princes  should  apply  to  other  members  of  our  Order, 
or  to  persons  outside  it,  according  to  circumstances,  so 
that  it  may  not  appear  as  though  our  members  directed 
everything  "  (ne  videantur  nostri  omnia  mover e).* 

This  caution  is  easily  understood,  seeing  that  even  in 
a  confidential  letter  of  June  6th,  1579,  General  Mercurian 
writes  to  the  Jesuit  Mengin,  the  confessor  of  Duke  William 
of  Bavaria  :  "  The  other  day  a  father  wrote  to  me  that 
a  man  of  great  distinction  had  said  to  him :  '  Your 
people   would   do  well,  and   it   would   be   much   to   the 

*  Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  358. 


138  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Society's  credit,  if  they  kept  within  their  [pastoral] 
limits.'  "* 

Thus,  but  a  few  decades  after  the  institution  of  the 
Order,  its  interference  in  politics  had  assumed  such  dimen- 
sions that  responsible  men  felt  obliged  to  protect  the 
religious  prestige  of  the  Order,  at  least  in  the  eyes  of  the 
public,  from  the  unconstitutional  and  worldly  political 
activity  of  numerous  members.  These  cautions  were  of 
no  avail,  if  only  because  they  were  not  inspired  by  a 
serious  desire  to  check  the  abuse.  General  Acquaviva,  in 
particular,  played  a  double  part,  as  we  shall  see. 

And  now  to  give  instances  of  the  political  activity  of 
the  Jesuits. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  we  meet  the 
Jesuits  Stanislaus  Warsewicz  and  Anton  Possevin  as 
political  agents  at  the  court  of  John  III.  of  Sweden. 
Possevin  went  about  in  Stockholm  in  splendid  clothes 
and  wore  "  costly  headgear  with  a  black  silk  veil,  more 
like  a  courtier  or  the  ambassador  of  a  prince  than  the 
member  of  an  Order."  Having  received  the  King  into 
the  Catholic  Church,  he  returned  to  Austria  and  Rome  in 
May,  1578,  with  many  commissions  for  the  Emperor  and 
the  Pope.  These  concerned  partly  family  and  partly 
public  affairs,  and  were  addressed  to  the  Emperor,  the 
Kings  of  Poland  and  of  Spain,  and  to  the  Pope.  Possevin 
had  tried  in  every  possible  way  to  bring  about  friendly 
and  peaceful  relations  between  King  John  and  the  Emperor 
and  the  Kings  of  Poland  and  Spain,  in  order,  by  the  pro- 
tection of  these  powerful  rulers,  to  shield  him  from  internal 
and  external  attacks  by  Protestant  princes,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  inspire  him  in  this  way  with  courage  and 
confidence  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  sacred  enterprise  [the 
Catholicising  of  Sweden]. 

*  Dubx,  S.J.,  Die  Jeauiten  an  den  deutschen  Fursterihofen  des  16.  Jahrhunderis 
Freiburg,  1901),  p.  62. 


Politics  and  Confessors  139 

Nor  had  John  failed  to  supply  Possevin  with  the 
requisite  documents  for  the  establishment  and  confirma- 
tion of  these  friendly  relations  with  the  above-mentioned 
courts.  Even  the  affair  of  the  Neapolitan  inheritance  had 
taken  a  happy  turn,  owing  to  the  endeavours  of  Possevin 
and  the  Bishop  of  Mondevi,  Papal  Nuncio  in  Poland. 
Possevin  was  also  to  urge  it  again,  and  if  possible  to 
achieve  its  success  with  the  assistance  of  the  Pope  and  the 
above-mentioned  Powers.  Of  many  things  Possevin  had 
to  treat  in  the  name  of  the  King  with  the  Emperor 
[Rudolph  II.].* 

A  letter  addressed  by  Father  Haller,  Rector  of  the 
Jesuit  College  at  Graz,  to  General  Acquaviva,  June  11th, 
1598,  is  literally  a  political  report : 

"  For  many  years  there  have  been  disputes  between  Bavaria 
and  Austria,  especially  with  the  Emperor.  ...  As  regards  our 
people,  I  doubt  if  they  are  quenching  this  fire  with  the  requisite 
love  and  wisdom.  Father  Viller  acts  to  the  contrary.  .  .  .  Both 
parties  have  their  adherents,  who  report  from  their  party  point 
of  view,  and  thus  add  fresh  fuel  to  the  quarrel.  As  the  matter 
is  submitted  to  our  people  by  these  reports,  there  is  a  danger  that 
the  advice  to  test  the  truth  of  the  reports  be  not  given.  .  .  . 
But  because  the  cause  of  Christianity  in  Germany  is  obviously 
much  concerned  in  the  union  of  the  two  parties,  and  the  great 
influence  of  members  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  on  princes  and  their 
councillors  is  well  known,  it  would  be  well  worth  the  Society's 
while  to  try  with  greater  zeal  than  before,  and  with  every  means 
at  its  disposal,  to  bring  about  this  reconciliation,  especially  at 
Prague,  Vienna,  Munich  and  Graz."f 

The  Father  Viller  here  mentioned  was  one  of  the  most 
active  political  Jesuits  in  Austria.  The  following  two 
passages  from  letters  help  to  characterise  him ;  one 
from  a  letter  of  Archduke  Charles  to  his  mother,  dated 

*  A.  Theiner,  Schweden  und  seine  SteUung  zum  heiligen  Stuhl.  Nach  geheimen 
Staatspapieren  (Augsburg,  1838),  L,  497,  498. 

f  Dukr,  Die  Jtauiten  an  den  deutschen  Furstenhofen,  p.  46. 


140         Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Rome,  the  29th  of  May,  1598,  and  the  other  from  a  letter 
by  Viller  to  the  Spanish  Ambassador  de  San  Clemente. 
The  first  passage  : 

"  To  Sper  [Bavarian  Agent  in  Rome]  I  have  not  said 
a  word,  but  the  Reverent  Nuncio,  the  tutor  and  my  father 
confessor  [the  Jesuit  Viller]  have  given  him  a  piece  of  their 
mind."* 

The  second  passage : 

"  As  the  Archduchess  Maximiliana  was  dead,  he 
[Viller]  recommended  for  marriage  with  the  son  of  the 
King  of  Spain  her  younger  sister  of  thirteen,  Margaret, 
who  was  eligible  in  every  respect. "f 

The  Jesuit  Blyssem,  Austrian  Provincial,  was  also  one  of 
the  political  councillors  of  the  Styrian  Court.  On  the  16th 
of  April,  1580,  he  reports  from  Vienna  to  General  Mercurian  : 

"  Before  Christmas  I  was  summoned  to  Graa  by  Archduke 
Charles,  and  had  various  discussions  with  him  regarding  his  person, 
and  the  general  position  of  things.  Then  he  begged  me  to  stay  till 
Easter,  so  that  what  he  had  begun  so  successfully  should  be  con- 
firmed. Your  Reverence  may  see  from  a  few  points  quoted  here 
that  my  stay  was  not  in  vain." 

The  "  few  points  "  concern  the  difficult  position  of  the 
Archduke  respecting  "  the  Turk  and  his  obdurate  heretical 
subjects.''^ 

Regarding  the  interference  of  the  Jesuits  with  respect 
to  the  Protestants  and  the  Augsburg  Confession  of  Faith, 
we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  these  points  were 
eminently  political.  As  regards  the  Turkish  question,  it 
is  obviously  of  a  political  character,  though  perhaps  not 
for  the  Jesuits.  For  in  a  note  to  the  Jesuit  Viller,  sent  by 
Archduke  Ferdinand  on  a  political  embassy  to  Rome, 
General  Acquaviva  characterises  "  Proceedings  against  the 
Turks  "  as  not  pertaining  to  politics.  § 

*  Hurter,  Ferdinand  II.,  3,  582. 

+  Duhr,  Die  Jesuiten  an  den  deutschen  Furstenhofen,  p.  47. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  58.  §  Hid.,  p.  51. 


Politics  and  Confessors  141 

We  shall  see  how  the  Jesuit  Caussin,  father  confessor 
of  Louis  XIV.  of  France,  utilises  this  principle  of  Acqua- 
viva's  to  justify  his  position.  In  the  winter  of  1581-82 
Blyssem  returned  to  Graz  in  order  to  assist  the  Archduke 
during  the  sessions  of  the  Diet : 

"  Although  I  much  dislike  travelling  because  of  the  dangers 
which  I  know  from  former  experience  and  therefore  dread,  yet  I 
cannot  disappoint  the  pious  prince  or  the  councillors  who  so 
greatly  desire  it.  I  shall,  therefore,  render  assistance,  as  I  did  last 
year,  but  only  in  things  referring  to  God,  conscience  and  holy 
religion  "  * 

In  the  end  everything  was  ranged  under  the  heading 
of  "  God,  conscience,  holy  religion,"  as  indeed  everything 
can  be  ranged  under  it.  In  his  "  Instruction  to  Confessors 
of  Princes,"  to  be  discussed  later,  General  Acquaviva 
simplifies  matters  still  more  by  indicating  "  conscience ' 
as  the  only  limit  to  their  actions. 

The  equivocations  of  the  Jesuit  Blyssem  are  distinctly 
and  hideously  evident  in  a  confidential  report  to  the 
General  Acquaviva,  dated  February  28th,  1582. 

Blyssem  repudiates  interference  with  military  or  poli- 
tical questions,  as  subjects  unsuitable  for  a  confessor; 
while  in  the  same  breath  he  tells  of  having  worked  out  a 
report  on  the  military  and  political  question,  if  and  how 
the  fort  of  Graz  could  be  manned  against  the  Protestants, 
but  that  "  the  document  was  written  in  the  third  person 
and  without  the  name  of  the  author  "  ;  at  the  end  of  this 
document,  actually  written  by  him,  but  apparently  and 
in  the  eyes  of  the  public  anonymous,  "  he  had,  as  a  final 
conclusion,  given  his  own  opinion."  This  conclusion  read 
as  follows  : 

"  Affairs  of  war  are  to  be  discussed  with  warriors,  and  princes, 
and  men  of  the  world  who  are  versed  in  such  things,  and  not  with 
members  of  the  Order:     The  profession  of  the  Jesuits  does  not 
*  Duhr,  Die  Jesuiten  an  den  deutschen  Furstenhofen,  p.  60. 


142  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

extend  to  such  discussions,  on  the  contrary  it  absolutely  forbids 
them."* 

Thus  the  Jesuit  who  meddles  in  politics  is  safe  on  all 
sides.  He  himself  has  composed  a  military  and  political 
report,  but  so  that  the  authorship  is  not  to  be  identified, 
and,  moreover,  he  repudiates  his  own  document  by  refer- 
ence to  his  profession  as  a  Jesuit. 

In  the  second  part  of  his  report  Blyssem  gives  the 
means  to  be  employed  by  the  Archduke  in  order  to  save  the 
Catholic  religion.     These  means  are  anything  but  religious. 

Surrender  of  the  arsenal  and  artillery  to  the  Catholics 
gradual  and  unobtrusive  increase  of  soldiers  in  the  fort 
appointment  of  Catholic  officials ;  favours  to  Catholics 
treaties  with  Catholic  princes ;  expulsion  of  preachers 
from  the  towns ;  prohibition  of  heretical  sermons ; 
pastorates,  and  schools  in  Graz,  etc.f 

Duhr,  the  Jesuit  of  the  twentieth  century,  reporting 
these  "  non-political "  practices  of  his  fellow  member  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  is  not  in  the  least  offended  by  them. 
For  him  also  all  this  was  regulated  by  conscience.  But 
when  Duhr  adds :  "  These  counsels  of  Father  Blyssem 
are  quite  in  harmony  with  the  valedictory  decree  of  the 
Reichstag  of  1555,"{  he  makes  it  plain  to  everyone  not 
trained  as  a  Jesuit  that  there  is  absolutely  no  domain  to 
which  "  pastoral "  counsels  might  not  extend.  Further 
reports  of  the  Jesuit  Blyssem  to  Rome  grew  so  "  non- 
political  "  that  the  author  found  it  advisable  to  employ 
pseudonyms.  The  Nuncio  is  called  Substitutus,  the  Arch- 
duke Bedellus,  the  Provincial  (Blyssem  himself)  Examin- 
ator,  the  General  of  the  Order  Rector  Academiae,  the  Pope 
Promotor,  the  Estates  of  the  Realm,  Eruditi. 

On  the  20th  of  March,  1580,  Blyssem  reported  to  the 
General  of  his  Order  on  his  intervention  in  the  negotiations 

*  Duhr,  Die  Jesuiten  an  den  deutschen  Fiirstenhofen,  p.  62.         f  Ibid.,  p.  63. 

J  Ibid.,  pp.  63,  64,  65. 


Politics  and   Confessors  143 

with  the  Estates,  concerning  the  separation  of  the  other 
Estates  from  the  cities.  This  report  also  ends  with  the 
typical  assurance  :  "I  refrain  from  all  political  advice, 
and  only  discuss  what  belongs  to  my  office,"  i.e.  what 
concerns  conscience. 

What  a  very  elastic  conscience !  Even  the  Jesuit 
Duhr,  at  the  end  of  his  description  of  the  "  pastorate  "  of 
Blyssem  at  the  court  of  Graz,  allows  this  admission  to 
escape  him : 

"  The  Jesuits  might  expect  at  the  court  of  Graz  a 
greater  interest  in  the  real  field  of  their  activity,  the  moral 
and  religious  life  of  the  court,  than  in  the  political  measures 
against  the  refractory  Protestants."* 

The  quarterly  reports  of  the  Jesuit  College  at  Brauns- 
berg,  in  Ermeland,  of  March,  1565,  contain  the  following : 

"  In  February  there  began  in  the  presence  of  the  King 
the  session  of  the  Comitia  of  the  Kingdom  of  Poland,  in 
which  two  of  our  priests  took  part,  one  accompanying  the 
Nuncio  of  the  Pope,  the  other  the  Cardinal  [Hosius].f  In 
May,  1606,  the  Jesuit  M.  Mairhofer,  Rector  of  the  Jesuit 
College  at  Munich,  wrote  to  Duke  Maximilian  of  Bavaria 
on  the  re-election  of  a  prince-abbot  of  Fulda.  The  letter, 
founded  on  a  secret  report  of  the  Jesuit  Rector  of  Fulda, 
is  so  political  that  Mairhofer  himself  thinks  it  well  to 
emphasise : 

'  I  beg  that  this  letter  may  be  kept  secret,  for  it 
would  be  taken  very  ill  of  me  and  of  us  all  [the  Jesuits],  if 
we  interfered  in  political  affairs,  as  indeed  only  suspecti 
vet  qui  non  longe  respiciunt  (suspicious  or  shortsighted 
people)  will  say."J 

*  Duhr,  Die  Jesuiten  an  den  deutschen  FurstenJwfen,  p.  68. 

f  Published  from  the  original  deposited  in  the  archives  of  the  Cologne  Parish 
of  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  by  Karl  Eenrath.  Die  Ansiedelung  der 
Jesuiten  in  Braunsberg,  p.  71. 

%  For  the  whole  letter,  from  an  original  MS.  in  the  State  Archives  at  Munich, 
see  Stieve,  Briefe  und  Akten  zur  Geschichte  des  dreissigjdhrigen  Krieges,  V.  931. 


144  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

It  is  a  very  remarkable  fact  that  the  Jesuits  delegated 
to  Rome  for  the  General  Congregation  of  the  Order  by 
every  Province  were  also  political  agents.  Thus  the 
General  Congregation,  a  purely  religious  institution  ac- 
cording to  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order,  became  the 
centre  of  far-reaching  political  intrigues. 

Steinberger  reports  that  the  Electors  Maximilian  I. 
of  Bavaria  and  Anselm  Kasimir  of  Mayence  charged  the 
Jesuits  Lorenz  Forer  and  Nithard  Biber,  delegated  by  the 
South  German  Province  of  the  Order  in  1645,  to  the 
eighth  General  Congregation  in  Rome,  with  commissions 
and  instructions  in  order  to  induce  Pope  Innocent  X.  to 
promote  a  separation  of  France  from  Sweden,  and  to  sup- 
port Germany  with  money  and  troops.  Innocent  was  so 
unpleasantly  impressed  by  this  Jesuit  importunity  that  he 
addressed  a  serious  warning  to  the  General  Congregation : 
to  beware  lest  anyone  should  interfere  in  worldly  matters.* 

Under  Henry  III.  of  France,  whose  murder  by  Jaques 
Clement  was  glorified  by  the  Jesuit  Mariana,  the  Jesuit 
Matthieu  was  a  chief  promoter  of  the  League  of  the  Guises. 
He  was  active  in  Rome,  Paris,  and  Madrid.  The  heads 
of  the  League  employed  him  repeatedly  as  political  ambas- 
sador, especially  in  treaties  with  Philip  II.  of  Spain.f 

As  the  Jesuit  Cordara  reports,  the  Jesuit  Cabrallius 
was  the  ambassador  of  King  Joseph  I.  of  Portugal  to  the 
Pope.J 

From  the  manuscripts  deposited  in  the  Court  Library  at 
Vienna,  Litterae  annuae  S.J.  Provinciae  austriacae  (Annual 
Reports  of  the  Austrian  Province  of  the  Society  of  Jesus), 
of  1615-1771,  Krones  quotes  some  interesting  details  of 
the  political  activity  of  the  Order  in  Hungary  before  and 
after  the  Peace  of   Tyrnau-Linz  in  the  year  1647.      At 

*  Die  Jesuit  en  und  die  Friedensfrage  bis  zur   Niimberger  Friedensexekuiions- 
hauptrczess,  1635-1650  (Freiburg,  1906),  p.  100  et  seq. 

t  Gregoire,  p.  301.  $  Dollinger,  Beitrage,  3,  18. 


Politics  and  Confessors  145 

the  Hungarian  Election  and  Coronation  Diet  in  1655  the 
Jesuits  sought  with  all  their  might  and  cunning  the  re- 
peal of  the  decrees  of  1606  and  1608,  which  were  unfavour- 
able to  them  : 

''  The  Austrian  Provincial  Bernhard  Geyer  consulted  with  the 
Catholic  leaders  on  the  means  of  carrying  out  this  difficult  enter- 
prise .  .  .  this  was  the  secret  plan  of  campaign  :  First,  ways  and 
means  must  be  found  in  order  to  prevent  the  delegates  of  the 
counties  from  letting  directions  hostile  to  Jesuits  prevail,  and  from 
speaking  in  that  sense  during  the  Diet.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
important  to  guide  the  decisions  of  the  monarch  in  the  proper 
direction.  The  Provincial  undertook  to  do  the  latter.  Father  Geyer 
painted  to  the  monarch  the  dangers  of  heresy,  and  received  from 
him  the  most  welcome  assurances.  The  General  of  the  Order,  Goswin 
Nickel,*  did  not  spare  petitions  to  the  royal  councillors  and  the 
Catholic  magnates  of  Hungary.  But  the  most  effective  measure 
was  the  influence  brought  to  bear  on  the  delegates  of  the  Diet  and 
above  all  on  the  so-called  '  mixed  Compilation  Committee,'  for  the 
compilation  of  objects  of  treaty.  .  .  .  Pope  Alexander  VII.  sent 
his  Nuncio  to  Pressburg  for  the  furtherance  of  the  desires  of  the 
Jesuits  [settlements  and  the  possession  of  landed  property  for  the 
Order]  to  explain  to  the  monarch  there  how  friendly  the  Church  of 
Rome  was  to  the  Order  and  the  interests  of  Catholicism.  ...  In 
the  printed  annual  report  of  the  Order  of  1651  there  is  a  remark 
actually  expatiating  on  the  profit  to  be  derived  from  the  Order  for 
government  purposes.  It  is  too  significant  not  to  find  a  place  here. 
'  The  Secretary  of  State  of  the  Crown  of  Sweden,'  it  says,  '  a  wise 
and  not  unlearned  man,  did  not  hesitate  in  the  presence  of  twenty 
selected  magnates  to  make  the  assertion  that  the  Austrian  dynasty 
had  nothing  more  excellent  or  useful  in  its  realms  and  provinces 
than  the  Society  of  Jesus.  For  with  its  help  the  Emperor  could 
keep  the  nations  conquered  by  him  in  faithful  obedience  with  a 
mere  sign,  and  direct  them  at  his  will.'  The  Report  inserts  the 
remark  that  the  '  Order  did  not  learn  this  without  a  blush  of 
modesty  '  ;   in  any  case,  it  took  good  care  to  divulge  this  equivocal 

*  The  only  German  General  besides  the  present  General  of  the  Order,  Francis 
Xavier  Wernz. 

K 


146  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

praise.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  consider  the  Jesuits  in  the 
State  of  Austria  in  the  light  of  disguised  agents  of  the  Viennese 
Government,  as  grateful  tools  and  supporters  of  monarchical 
interests,  with  which  the  Order  was  determined  to  rise  or  fall. 
In  the  great  structure  of  the  ruling  Order,  which  extended  over  all 
parts  of  the  world,  the  Austrian  Province  (including  Hungary) 
formed  only  a  part,  one  link  in  the  mighty  chain,  the  end  of  which 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  central  administration — the  generalship. 
The  fathers  of  the  Austrian  Province  also  served  the  one  common 
purpose  :  the  authority  and  power  of  the  Order  in  the  denomina- 
tional life  of  the  Catholic  world.  Thus  it  would  be  much  more 
justifiable  to  make  the  assertion  that  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits  had 
used  the  Austrian  and  every  other  dynasty  as  a  means  for  its 
comprehensive  purposes.  It  served  the  dynasty  as  far  as  it  benefited 
itself  by  doing  so.  And  no  unprejudiced  person  following  the 
history  of  the  development  and  activity  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
could  deny  that  the  chief  aim  of  its  ambition  was  pre-eminence  in 
the  world  of  Catholic  Orders."* 

When  the  Polish  throne  had  become  vacant  through 
the  abdication  of  King  John  Casimir  of  Poland,  Duke 
Philip  Wilhelm  of  Neuburg  and  Jiilich-Burg  and  Prince 
Charles  of  Lorraine  applied  for  it.  The  Polish  Jesuits 
worked  for  the  latter;  for  the  former  in  particular  his 
confessor,  the  Jesuit  Joh.  Bodler.  A  few  months  before 
the  election,  which  resulted  eventually  in  the  choice  of 
neither  the  Duke  nor  the  Prince,  but  the  Pole,  Michael 
Wisniowiecki,  Bodler  wrote  on  the  14th  of  January,  1669, 
to  his  fellow  member  Servilian  Veihelin,  Rector  of  the 
Jesuit  College  at  Munich.  His  strictly  confidential  letter 
affords  a  profound  insight  into  the  political  activity  of 
the  Jesuits  and  their  cunning  and  duplicity  : 

"  Recently,"  it  states,  "  a  letter  from  Prince  Auersperg,  Imperial 
Prime  Minister  for  the  Duke  of  Neuburg,  had  come  to  Neuburg. 
As  Auersperg  could  have  no  inkling  that  his  letter  would  be  sub- 

*  Krones,     Zur    Geschichte    des    Jesuitenordens   in    Ungarn   (Vienna,    1893), 
pp.  8,  9,  11,  18  et  seq. 


Politics  and  Confessors  147 

mitted  to  the  Jesuits  he  had  spoken  freely  and  bitterly  about  them. 
On  account  of  Auersperg's  bad  handwriting,  which  only  the  Jesuit 
Carlius  [the  English  Jesuit  Carly]  could  decipher,  Duke  Wilhelm 
had  given  the  letter  to  the  Jesuits.  He  [the  Jesuit  Bodler]  was 
sending  him  [the  Jesuit  Veihelin]  a  copy  of  a  passage  from  Auers- 
perg's letter,  but  it  was  exclusively  meant  for  him  alone,  '  for  you 
see  how  careful  we  [Jesuits]  must  be,  lest  our  prince  [the  Duke  of 
Neuburg]  or  the  other  [the  Prince  of  Lorraine]  should  learn  that 
matters  which  at  their  urgent  request  were  to  have  been  kept 
secret  have  been  read  by  and  made  known  to  us.'  " 

The  important  passage  from  Auersperg's  letter  was 
as  follows  : 

"  The  dilatio  dectionis  would  not  benefit  Lorraine  either.  I  am 
for  dismissing  Isola's  [Baron  L'Isola]  secretary.  These  and  other 
people  are  serving  the  Duke  of  Lorraine,  and  this  might  easily 
have  caused  the  rumour  that  your  Excellency  was  not  in  favour 
here  [in  Vienna].  Your  Excellency  need  not  think  that  it  would 
be  in  his  Majesty  the  Emperor's  power  to  prevent  the  P aires 
Societatis  from  working  in  a  different  direction,  partly  as  confessors, 
partly  as  Polish  Jesuits.  It  is  their  way — how  long  they  may  succeed 
in  it  God  knows — in  all  promotionibus,  that  some  work  for  one 
party,  some  for  the  other,  so  that  they  should  earn  thanks  and 
benefit,  no  matter  how  it  may  turn  out.  If  your  Excellency  now, 
when  there  is  perhaps  still  time,  would  complain  of  it  to  the  General 
[of  the  Jesuits]  it  may  have  the  effect  of  recommending  all  cautela? 
ne  sic  pateat,  but  in  toto  non  esset  remedium.  Your  Excellency  has 
not  deserved  it  of  them  [the  Jesuits],  and  the  more  they  interfere 
with  worldly  affairs,  the  worse  they  come  off,  as  can  be  seen  in 
Spain,  and  I  am  sorry  for  the  Society,  which  did  so  much  good  in 
the  first  century." 

The  Jesuit  Bodler  continues  : 

"  So  much  for  Auersperg.  Father  Gabriel  [Riddler]  has  trans- 
lated this  into  Latin  and  thinks  of  sending  it  to  the  General  [of  the 
Order].  Having  read  these  and  other  similar  communications,  our 
prince  continues  in  kindness  to  us,  but  is  eagerly  trying  to  find  out 
what  reason  induced  our  patres  to  work  for  his  rival." 


148  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

The  General  might  perhaps  be  induced  to  forbid  the 
Polish  Jesuits  their  machinations.  The  Duke  wanted  to 
send  Father  Riddler  to  Prague  : 

"  None  of  us  approve  of  this  plan,  neither  do  we  see  what  he 
could  accomplish  there,  especially  as  the  Duke  seems  to  require 
of  him,  what  he  now  condemns  in  Father  Richard,  the  confessor 
of  the  Duke  of  Lorraine,  and  in  the  Polish  Fathers.  I  hope  Father 
Gabriel  will  speak  to  the  Duke  about  this  journey,  or  at  least  that 
the  Duchess  may  do  so,  as  she  wishes  to  keep  Father  Riddler  here 
for  her  own  sake  (sui  solatii  causa).  ...  I  am  writing  this,  not 
only  that  you  should  know  what  is  going  on,  but  also  that  you 
may  help  me  with  your  advice.  I  have  hitherto  kept  silence  on 
the  matter  as  one  that  does  not  concern  me,  but  now,  if  the  matter 
ends  less  favourably  for  the  Society,  which  is  sure  to  be  the  case  if 
the  Duke's  hopes  are  not  fulfilled,  I  may  possibly  be  reproached 
for  not  having  written  to  the  General  more  carefully  and  in  detail, 
seeing  I  was  familiar  with  the  course  of  events.  I  have  written  to 
him  once,  but  thought  afterwards  that  further  reports  could  be  of 
no  use."* 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  those  who  try  to  promote 
religion  by  force  of  arms  and  political  revolution  are 
taking  part  in  politics.  Indeed,  these  violent  religious 
politics  are  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  Jesuits.  Of  this 
we  have  a  striking  testimony.  A  report  on  affairs  in 
Scotland,  sent  by  the  Papal  Agent  at  Brussels,  Monsignore 
Malvasia,  in  1596,  to  the  Secretary  of  State  of  the  Papal 
Cardinal  Aldobrandini,  says  : 

"  The  Jesuits  consider  as  one  of  their  established  axioms 
(assioma  stabilito),  confirmed  by  the  authority  of  Father  Parsons 
[one  of  the  leading  English  Jesuits],  that  the  Catholic  religion  [in 
England  and  Scotland]  can  only  be  restored  by  force  of  arms. 
For  the  property  and  revenues  of  the  Church,  which  have  in  the 
meantime  been  distributed  among  heretics  and  have  passed  through 
many  hands  already,  cannot  be  recovered  in  any  other  way.    They 

*  Reusch,  Beitrage :  Zeitschrift  fur  Kirchengeschichte  (1894),  Vol.  II.,  p.  2G8. 


Politics  and  Confessors  149 

[the  Jesuits]  believe  that  only  the  arms  of  Spain  may  be  used  to 
bring  about  this  event.  They  [the  Jesuits],  no  matter  whether  from 
Rome  or  anywhere  else,  come  to  these  parts  with  this  idea,  which 
has  been  firmly  impressed  upon  them  by  their  Superiors."* 

Perhaps  Malvasia  was  thinking  of  an  event  which 
caused  this  Jesuit  principle  to  be  made  known  a  decade 
earlier.  In  September,  1584,  the  vessel  in  which  the 
Jesuit  Creighton  was  going  to  Scotland,  furnished  with 
secret  instructions,  was  captured  by  the  English,  and 
Creighton  taken  to  the  Tower  of  London.  On  his  capture 
he  tore  up  a  document,  and  tried  to  throw  the  pieces  into 
the  sea.  They  were  collected  again,  and  the  Catholic 
priest,  Thomas  Francis  Knox,  member  of  the  Oratorian 
Congregation  founded  by  St.  Philip  Neri,  and  thus  a 
trustworthy  witness,  published  this  interesting  document 
for  the  first  time  a  few  years  ago  in  his  Records  of 
English  Catholics.  It  is  sufficient  to  quote  the  following 
from  a  number  of  things  enumerated  which  Creighton  is 
to  accomplish : 

"  Lastelie  and  especially  to  depose  her  Matie  [Queen  Elizabeth] 
and  set  up  the  Scottish  Queene  [Mary  Stuart],  which  indeede  is 
the  scope  and  white  whereto  all  this  practise  dothe  level." f 

In  the  confessions  made  by  Creighton  in  the  Tower, 
and  also  published  literally  by  Knox,  the  "  aim  and  end," 
and  the  means  to  attain  them,  are  very  plainly  expressed. 
Pope  Gregory  XIII.,  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  and  the  Duke  of 
Guise  are  mentioned,  with  the  number  of  troops  to  be 
furnished  by  each,  as  chief  promoters  of  the  "  religious ' 
scheme.  There  was  even  an  exact  estimate  among  the 
papers  of  the  "  non-political "  Jesuit  as  to  the  number 
of  soldiers  required  for  the  conquest  of  England.  Since 
1581  or  1582  the  Jesuit  Parsons  had  been  in  close  touch 

*  Bellesheirn,   Geschichte  der    Kathol.    Kirche  in  Schottland   (Mayence,   1883), 
II.,  466. 

f  Thomas  Francis  Knox,  Records  of  English  Catholics,  II.,  p.  426  et  seq. 


150  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

with  the  Duke  of  Guise,  who  in  his  turn  was  completely 
in  the  hands  of  the  French  Jesuit  Matthieu.  Guise  was 
one  of  the  worst  political  intriguers  of  his  time,  and  tried 
to  promote  in  every  way  the  deposition  of  Queen  Elizabeth 
of  England  and  the  raising  of  Mary  Stuart  to  the  English 
throne.  In  this  endeavour,  supported  above  all  by 
Philip  II.  of  Spain,  which  also  aimed  at  the  assassination 
of  the  odious  "  heretic,"*  Guise  was  eagerly  helped  by  the 
two  above-mentioned  Jesuits.  Especially  Parsons  pursued 
the  cause  most  zealously  with  Philip  II.,  whose  confidence 
he  had  o-ained. 

There  is  no  direct  proof  that  Parsons  and  his  French 
brother-member  Matthieu  promoted  the  murder-plot.  But 
there  is  a  very  suspicious  passage  in  a  letter  of  Parsons 
to  his  General,  Acquaviva,  dated  Rouen,  September  the 
26th.  1581,  in  which  he  stronglv  advocates  Marv  Stuart's 
rights  to  the  throne  and  then,  speaking  of  Elizabeth,  uses 
the  words  :  "  Wnen  she  who  now  reigns  is  destroyed : 
Extincta  ista  quae  nunc  regnat.^f 

An  indirect  and  convincing  proof  of  Parsons'  knowledge 
and  approval  of  the  murder-plot  is  the  fact  that  its  chief 
promoters,  the  Duke  of  Guise,  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  the 
Papal  Nuncio  in  Paris,  and  the  Cardinal  Secretary  of  State 
in  Rome,  were  Parsons'  confidants,  so  that  it  would  have 
been  a  matter  of  impossibility  for  the  Jesuit  going  to  and 
fro  and  mediating  between  these  persons  to  have  remained 
ignorant  of  a  plot  which  had  been  hatching  for  years. 

A  sidelight  on  the  political  activity  of  the  Jesuits  is 
thrown  by  the  report  of  Mendoza,  the  ambassador  of 
Philip  II.  to  the  King,  saying  that :  The  Jesuit  Creighton 
had  promised  the  Duke  of  Lennox  15,000  men  for  the 
war  in  Scotland.  I     Mendoza  adds,  however,  that  Creighton 

*  Cf.  my  work,  Das  Papsttum,  etc.,  201-2u4. 

f  Taunton  gives  the  most  important  part  of  this  interesting  and  wholly  political 
letter,  pp.  89,  90. 

{  S.S.P.  (Simancas),  HI.,  No.  255.     Taunton,  p.  97. 


Politics  and   Confessors  151 

might  have  made  the  promise  "  entirely  on  his  own 
initiative,"  which  is  all  the  more  suggestive  of  the  vast 
"  religious  "  activity  of  the  Jesuits. 

Under  the  pseudonym  of  Richard  Melino,  the  Jesuit 
Parsons  was  sent  to  Rome  in  1583,  with  secret  instructions 
by  the  Duke  of  Guise,  in  order  to  induce  the  Pope  to  give 
money  for  the  enterprise  against  England  ;  troops  were  to 
land  in  several  ports,  and  the  English  Catholics  were  to 
unite  with  them.* 

Parsonsf  is  also  the  author  of  two  political  pamphlets 
which,  under  the  cloak  of  religion,  demand  the  dethrone- 
ment of  Elizabeth  :  "An  Admonition  to  the  Nobility  and 
the  People  of  England  and  Ireland  concerning  the  present 
wars  made  for  the  execution  of  his  Holiness'  sentence 
[Deposition  by  the  Pope  of  Elizabeth]  by  the  high  and 
mighty  Catholic  King  of  Spain,"  and  "  A  Declaration 
of  the  Sentence  of  Deposition  of  Elizabeth,  the  Usurper 
and  Pretended  Queen  of  England."  Like  a  true  Jesuit, 
Parsons  tries  to  pretend  that  his  friend,  the  subsequent 
Cardinal  Allen,  was  the  author  of  these  pamphlets. 

The  Catholic  priest  Taunton  sums  up  Parsons'  highly 
treasonable  plots  in  these  words  : 

"  The  party  to  which  Parsons  attached  himself  had  given 
themselves  wholly  to  furthering  the  Spanish  King's  schemes,  and 
the  Jesuit  became  one  of  the  most  earnest  workers.  Fortunately, 
among  the  Spanish  State  papers  of  the  period  there  has  been  pre- 
served a  document  which  puts  Parsons'  position  in  a  perfectly 
clear  light.  On  18th  of  March,  1587,  he  produced  a  paper  entitled 
'  Considerations  why  it  is  desirable  to  carry  through  the  enterprise 
of  England  before  discussing  the  succession  to  the  Throne  of  that 

*  Teulet,  Relations  politiqu-es  avec  la  France  et  VEspagne,  V.,  308. 

y  So  as  not  to  be  disturbed  in  bis  political  activity  Parsons  used  tbe  following 
pseudonyms  :  Robert,  Perino,  Ralph,  Stefano  Cornelio,  Ottaviano  Inghelberto, 
Richard  Melino,  Marco,  Mercante,  Rowland  Cabel,  John  Howlett,  Redman 
Giacomo  Creletto,  Signor  Hamiano,  Eusebius.  (Taunton,  History  of  the  Jesuits 
in  England,  London,  1901),  p.  48  (2). 


152  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

country,  claimed  by  His  Majesty '  ;  and  the  document  is  of  suffi- 
cient value  to  be  quoted  in  extenso,  for  it  shows  Parsons,  who  as  a 
Jesuit  was  supposed  to  be  particularly  devoted  to  the  Pope's 
interest,  engaged  in  deceiving  both  him  and  the  unfortunate  English 
Catholics  in  the  interests  of  the  King  of  Spain."* 

Taunton  copies  the  document  in  extenso.  The  Jesuit 
coolly  discusses  Philip  II.  's  prospects  after  the  strongholds 
of  England  and  Scotland  had  fallen  into  his  hands,  and  he 
calmly  takes  the  death  of  Mary  Stuart  into  his  political 
and  military  calculations.  Of  himself  Parsons  speaks  in 
the  document  only  as  Richard  Melino,  one  of  the  many 
pseudonyms  under  which  he  concealed  his  political  activity. 
In  1593  Parsons  went  to  Spain  to  the  court  of  Philip  II., 
and  there  continued  his  intrigues  with  great  zeal.  In 
the  following  year,  1594,  appeared  the  worst  of  his  political 
writings — of  course,  again  without  his  name — "  Conference 
on  the  next  Succession  to  the  Crown,"  which  was  so 
hostile  to  Elizabeth  that  its  mere  possession  was  declared 
high  treason  by  Act  of  Parliament.  For  a  long  time  the 
Jesuit  Order  tried  to  deny  the  authorship  of  Parsons, 
but  it  is  undoubtedly  his  work.f 

During  his  residence  in  Spain  Parsons  issued  another 
political  treatise :  "  Principal  Points  to  facilitate  the 
English  Enterprise."  In  this,  after  proposing  that  "  the 
English  exiles  in  Flanders  should  make  constant  raids, 
summer  and  winter,  on  the  English  coast  .    .    ."he  says: 

"  Finally,  the  great  point  which  ought  to  be  considered  first 
is  to  obtain  very  good  information  from  England  of  everything  that 
is  being  done  or  said  by  the  enemy.  .  .  .  An  attempt  may  now 
be  made  to  amend  matters,  as  Father  Henry  Garnet,  Provincial 
of  the  Jesuits,  writes  that  trustworthy  men  may  be  obtained  in 
London  who  will  get  their  information  at  the  fountain-head  in  the 
Council,  and  they  themselves  will  provide  correspondents  in  the 

*  Taunton,  p.  116. 

t  Compare  Historia  Societatis  Jesu,  by  the  Jesuit  Jouvency,  p.  138. 


Politics  and   Confessors  153 

principal  ports,  who  will  keep  advising  as  to  the  warlike  prepara- 
tions."* 

Parsons'  political  and  warlike  intrigues  are  also  evident 
in  a  report  of  the  Spanish  Council  of  State  to  King 
Philip  II.,  dated  July  11,  1600: 

"  The  Queen  of  England  will  not  live  long,  and  the  English 
Catholics  beg  your  Majesty  to  declare  yourself  in  the  matter  of 
the  succession.  .  .  .  Your  Majesty's  decision  may  be  conveyed 
in  confidence  to  the  Arch-priest  and  General  of  the  Jesuits  in 
England,  so  that  it  may  be  published  at  the  proper  time.  .  .  .  The 
answer  to  be  given  to  Father  Parsons  may  also  be  left  to  the  Duke 
[of  Sessa,  ambassador  in  Rome].  We  here  are  of  opinion  that 
Parsons  may  be  told,  as  was  before  resolved,  that  your  Majesty 
would  nominate  a  Catholic  sovereign  as  the  successor  of  Queen 
Elizabeth."t 

Under  James  II.  of  England  (1685-88)  the  Jesuit 
Order  exercised  an  almost  unlimited  influence.  Among 
the  tools  of  the  Order  were  the  King's  confessor,  the  Jesuit 
Warner,  who  was  also  Provincial  of  the  Jesuits  in  England, 
and  above  all  James's  favourite,  the  Jesuit  Edward  Petre. 
Of  him  Macaulay  says :  "Of  all  the  evil  counsellors  who 
had  access  to  the  Royal  ear,  he  bore  perhaps  the  largest 
share  in  the  ruin  of  the  House  of  Stuart." 

To  avoid  entering  into  too  great  detail  about  the 
Jesuit  Petre,  I  will  only  quote  some  extracts  from  the 
reports  of  the  Tuscan  Ambassador  in  London,  Terriesi, 
quoted  by  Taunton  from  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum : 

"  Writing  to  the  Grand  Duke  (22nd  July,  1686)  he  says  :  '  Let 
your  Highness  prepare  to  hear  continually  fresh  news  of  this  country 
both  as  to  its  temporal  and  spiritual  affairs  ;  for  the  King  seems 
determined  to  push  forward  in  matters  of  religion  as  far  as  he  can. 
And  the  Jesuit  Petre,  who  governs  him,  is  the  man  to  force  him  to 
extremes  without  a  thought  as  to  the  consequences.     He  says 

*  Taunton,  pp.  448,  449. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  276,  from  Cal.  S.S.P.  (Simancas),  IV.,  665. 


154  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

plainly  that  Protestants  believe  '  that  the  Jesuits  are  at  present  the 
primum  mobile  of  the  government.'  " 

"  Writing  30th  December,  1686,  he  says  :  '  The  Jesuit  Father 
Petre  rules  His  Majesty's  mind  more  than  ever.   .    .    .' 

"  Writing  15th  August,  1687,  Terriesi  says :  '  The  report  they 
[the  people]  circulate,  ascribing  all  the  trouble  to  the  Jesuits' 
counsel,  by  which  they  say  His  Majesty  is  completely  governed, 
is  most  intolerable  to  the  King.  Yet  I  believe  it  in  a  great  measure 
to  be  a  calumny  ;  still,  as  His  Majesty  has  the  Jesuits  so  constantly 
with  him,  it  causes  suspicions,  which  will  be  worse  if  Father  Petre 
becomes  Cardinal,  as  it  is  said  the  King  certainly  wishes.  .  .  .'  "* 

The  Jesuit  Petre  attained  to  the  height  of  his  political 
activity  on  November  the  11th,  1687,  when  James  II. 
made  him  a  member  of  the  Privy  Council.  As  Privy 
Councillor  Petre  took  an  oath  of  allegiance,  which  would 
naturally  suggest  some  scruples  from  a  Catholic  point  of 
view.f  But  that  is  where  the  use  of  the  Jesuit  maxim, 
"  The  end  sanctifies  the  means,"  would  come  in. 

Petre  accepted  his  political  office  by  express  permission 
of  the  Provincial  of  the  English  Province,  the  Jesuit 
Keynes,  and  with  the  silent  consent  at  any  rate  of  General 
Gonzalez  himself.  A  letter,  dated  January  8th,  1688, 
from  the  General  to  the  English  Provincial  does  certainly 
express  "  surprise  "  that  Petre  should  have  been  allowed 
by  the  Provincial  to  accept  an  office  "  implying  inter- 
ference with  matters  forbidden  by  the  statutes  of  the 
Order,"  but  it  does  not  contain  a  word  of  blame,  let  alone 
a  command  to  relinquish  the  office.  J  The  letter  ends 
with  an  assurance  that  the  General  would  consult  his 
assistants  on  the  matter.  As  Petre  retained  his  office 
undisturbed  even  after  this  consultation,  it  may  be  con- 
cluded that  it  ended  in  approval  of  Petre's  political  office. 
This  conclusion  is  all  the  more  justified  as,  if  there  had 

*  Taunton,  pp.  448,  449. 

f  Of.  Michaud :   Louis  XIV.  et  Innocent  XI.  (Paris,  1882),  2,  113,  118. 

J  Cretineau-Joly,  Historie  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus,  3rd  edition,  4,  148. 


Politics  and  Confessors  155 

been  the  slightest  sign  of  disapproval,  the  Jesuit  authors 
would  certainly  have  pointed  it  out.  But  they  have 
maintained  a  profound  silence. 

Taunton  concludes  his  account  of  the  Jesuit  Petre 
with  these  trenchant  words  : 

"It  is  the  custom  to  speak  sternly  of  Petre's  foolhardy  conduct, 
and  to  accuse  him  of  ambition.  I  think  historians  have  not,  as  a 
rule,  understood  the  full  position  of  the  case.  Petre  has  been  made 
the  scapegoat  for  others.  I  do  not  wish  to  extenuate  his  respon- 
sibility for  the  catastrophe  ;  but  I  do  think  the  chief  blame  rests 
on  other  shoulders.  If  he  were  free  from  ambition,  who^then  were 
the  ambitious  men  ?  Petre,  like  a  good  Jesuit,  was  in  the  hands 
of  his  superiors  perinde  ac  cadaver.  It  was  therefore  the  superiors 
of  the  Society  who  were  the  ambitious  men.  They  and  they  alone 
are  primarily  guilty  of  the  fall  of  the  Stuarts.  Hitherto  they  have 
escaped,  while  Petre  has  borne  the  opprobrium.  The  General,  the 
Provincial  and  the  Confessor  are  the  real  culprits.  If,  as  we  know, 
from  a  letter  dated  3rd  March,  1688,  the  Provincial  had,  without 
the  leave  of  the  General,  allowed  Petre  to  accept  the  office  of  Privy 
Councillor,  still  the  General  tolerated  it.  Considering  that  they 
knew  all  about  the  man,  and  yet  left  him  in  this  position  ;  con- 
sidering that  they  allowed  him  to  take  the  oath  and  become  a 
Privy  Councillor,  who  can  now  say  that  they  were  not  the  ambitious 
men  ?  The  libido  dominandi  eats  into  a  Society  as  well  as  into 
persons,  and  more  easily  where  the  individual  gives  up  all  personal 
ambition  and  makes  the  Society  his  all  in  all."* 

The  historians  of  the  Order  do  not  speak  of  Petre  and 
his  political  doings  unless  absolutely  obliged  to  do  so. 
They  mostly  prefer  to  ignore  the  existence  of  a  Jesuit 
Petre ;  that  is  to  say,  they  pass  him  over  in  absolute 
silence.  In  modern  times  the  Jesuit  Duhr  is  conspicuous 
for  such  silence.  In  his  voluminous  work  of  975  pages, 
Jesuitenfabeln,  published  in  a  fourth  edition  in  1904, 
Petre  is  only  mentioned  once  in  a  superficial  remark 
(p.  674),  though  thirty  pages  are  devoted  to  the  court 

*  Taunton,  pp.  460,  461. 


156  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

confessors  of  the  Order  and  their  doings,  but  Petre  does 
not  exist  for  him. 

This  silence  of  Duhr's  is  all  the  more  striking, 
considering  that  eighteen  years  before  (1886-87),  in  the 
Zeitschrijt  filr  Kaiholische  Theologie,  he  attempted  the 
defence  of  Petre  in  long  articles.  And  in  1904  not  a  word 
of  such  defence,  not  even  a  reference  to  it.  Duhr  must 
have  had  a  feeling  that  it  would  be  best  not  to  reopen  the 
topic  of  Petre. 

From  Duhr's  defence  of  1886-87  we  may  report  as 
curiously  characteristic  that  it  is  almost  exclusively 
restricted  to  refuting  the  reproach  of  Petre's  having 
aspired  ambitiously  to  the  dignity  of  a  cardinal ;  this  was 
impossible,  he  asserts,  since  Petre,  as  a  professed  member 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  had  taken  a  vow  not  to  aspire  after 
such  dignities.  Duhr  ignores  almost  completely  the  far 
more  serious  reproach  of  political  activity,  also  forbidden 
by  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order,  and  seals  his  very 
extensive  defence  of  his  fellow-Jesuit  Petre  with  this 
assertion  : 

"  There  are  no  facts  nor  authentic,  irrefutable  conclusions  to 
justify  the  accusation  brought  against  the  Jesuit  Petre.  But  if 
incontestable  proof  should  be  brought  against  Father  Petre,  there 
would  be  absolutely  no  reason  why  we  should  hesitate  to  recognise 
it,  for  it  would  be  no  more  reasonable  to  reproach  an  Order  of  the 
Catholic  Church  for  having  one  wicked  member  than  the  company 
of  the  Apostles  on  account  of  one  Judas.  In  any  case,  truth  must 
prevail."* 

That  is  Duhr  all  over,  or  rather  the  Jesuit  spirit.  The 
facts,  that  for  years  Petre  exercised  unlimited  political 
influence,  that  he  officially  held  a  political  post  involving 
work  contrary  to  the  statutes  of  the  Order,  as  even  the 
General  was  obliged  to  confess  ;  these  facts,  and  authentic, 
irrefutable  conclusions  drawn  from  them,  exist.     And  yet 

*  Zeitschrijt  fur  Kathol.  Theologie,  Jahrgang,  1887,  p.  232. 


Politics  and  Confessors  157 

he  clamours  for  facts  to  justify  the  accusations.  Jesuit 
and  ultramontane  authors  in  general  know  their  public. 

The  comparison  between  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits  and 
the  company  of  the  Apostles,  among  whom  there  had  also 
been  a  Judas,  is  also  characteristic.  There  we  have, 
first  of  all,  the  genuine  Jesuit  arrogance  :  The  company  of 
the  Apostles  =  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits.  Well,  why  not  ? 
The  Order  of  the  Jesuits  is  the  Society  of  Jesus.  But 
then  there  is  a  suggestion  of  confession  and  resignation  in 
the  reference  to  Judas  ;  after  all,  the  Jesuit  Petre  may 
possibly  have  been  a  Judas.  How  strange,  then,  that 
the  Superiors  of  the  Order  always  gave  this  Judas  the 
highest  praise  and  entrusted  him,  even  after  he  had  played 
his  political,  his  "  Judas  "  part  in  England,  up  to  his 
death  in  1699,  with  the  most  important  offices,  as  Duhr 
himself  reports !  *  In  this  way  the  likeness  to  Judas 
extends  really  to  the  Superiors  of  the  Order,  and  the 
above-quoted  opinion  of  Taunton  is  thus  confirmed. 

Seeing  the  numerous  ways — and  there  will  be  more 
still — in  which  Duhr's  truth  has  been  unmasked,  his 
emphatic  word  in  conclusion :  "In  any  case  the  truth 
must  prevail,"  need  hardly  be  discussed. 

After  all,  Cretineau-Joly  is  more  honest  than  the 
Jesuit  Duhr.  This  is  what  he  says  about  Petre  and 
the  Order's  toleration  of  the  latter's  position  of  political 
power  : 

"  Petre  took  a  position  contrary  to  the  statutes  of 
Saint  Ignatius,  and  the  rest  of  the  Jesuits  raised  no 
objection,  or  else,  which  is  very  improbable,  the  document 
was  lost."f 

It  is  true  that  the  Jesuits  raised  no  objections,  but  they 
tried  to  make  up  for  this  in  another  way.  Their  sixteenth 
General    Congregation    in    1730,    when    Petre's    political 

*  Zeitschrift  fiir  Kathol.  Theologie,  Jahrgang,  1886,  p.  682. 
f  Cretineau-Joly,  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus,  p.  172. 


158  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

activity  was  at  an  end,  issued  a  decree,  the  26th,  which 
says  : 

"  If  Jesuits  are  claimed  for  political  work  by  any 
sovereign,  they  must  declare  that  their  Constitutions 
forbid  their  interference  in  such  matters."* 

Thus  the  Order  had  saved  its  principles  in  the  case  of 
Petre,  and  had  officially  disapproved  of  a  practice  it  had 
known  and  tolerated.  The  Order  would,  if  necessary, 
save  appearances. 

A  pendant  to  the  Jesuit  Petre  is  found  in  the  seventeenth 
century  in  the  Minister  of  State  and  Jesuit,  Eberhard 
Nidhard,  in  Spain,  characterised  tersely  by  the  Ultra- 
montane Historisch-politische  Blatter  (surely  an  unimpeach- 
able source)  as  :  "  Soldier,  Jesuit,  Professor  of  Philosophy, 
Confessor  and  Preceptor  at  the  Viennese  Court,  Father 
Confessor  to  the  Queen  of  Spain,  Spanish  Minister  of 
State,  Inquisitor- General,  Spanish  Ambassador  in  Rome, 
Archbishop,  Cardinal — that  is,  in  brief,  the  biography  of 
the  Austrian  Jesuit  Eberhard  Nidhard. "f 

The  Venetian  Ambassador  at  the  Court  of  Madrid, 
Marino  Zorzi,  states  in  a  report  to  the  Signoria,  of  April, 
1667,  that  Nidhard  "  ruled  the  Spanish  Monarchy."J 

The  fact  that  the  Jesuits  took  an  active  part  and  were 
a  moving  force  in  the  political  and  military  troubles  of 
the  Thirty  Years'  War  hardly  requires  to  be  proved. 
Gfrorer  says  : 

"  After  the  Jesuits  had  fully  established  themselves  under  the 
two  childishly  weak  successors  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian  II.,  and 
had,  as  it  were,  become  masters  of  the  House  [of  Austria],  they 
carried  forward  openly  their  great  political  schemes.  It  was  no 
longer  a  question  of  merely  winning  a  few  provinces  by  cunning, 
but  of  subjugating  by  force  of  arms  the  whole  of  Germany  and, 

*  Inst.  S.J.,  I.,  397. 

f  Historisch-politische  Blatter,  vol.  98,  p.  139. 

|  From  the  Reports  of  the  Embassy,  ibid.,  p.  143. 


Politics  and   Confessors  159 

through.  Germany,  Protestant  Europe,  and  of  suppressing  the 
Reformation.  They  intended  to  bring  about  an  enormous  revolu- 
tion. If  the  Jesuits  themselves  and  their  ambitions  are  not  merely 
to  be  taken  as  products  of  the  period,  the  Thirty  Years'  War  is 
the  work  of  their  Order.  The  princes  and  kings  who  fought  for 
the  Catholic  cause  in  this  terrible  struggle  played  the  parts  assigned 
to  them  by  the  Jesuits.  .  .  .  The  most  important  part  in  this 
far-seeing  plan  was  reserved  for  the  Imperial  House.  Unconditional 
satisfaction  of  their  lust  of  power  was  the  bait  thrown  by  the  Jesuits 
to  the  House  of  Habsburg.  These  princes  were  led  to  imagine 
Germany  at  their  feet  .  .  .  and  were  flattered  in  the  ancient 
claims  of  this  dynasty  to  rule  the  universe,  which  had  been  revived 
since  the  union  of  the  Spanish  and  Austrian  inheritance  in  one 
House.  But  first  the  Jesuits  had  to  procure  an  emperor  suitable 
to  their  plans,  for  what  was  to  be  done  with  men  like  the  Emperor 
Rudolf  II. ,  like  Matthias  ?  They  found  him  in  the  person  of 
Ferdinand  II.  .  .  .  The  establishment  of  a  military  force  inde- 
pendent of  the  Emperor,  under  the  command  of  the  Duke  of  Bavaria, 
alongside  of  the  imperial  sovereign,  was  not  merely  a  natural  result, 
but  rather  the  work  of  a  profound,  far-seeing  policy.  Because 
Wallenstein's  gigantic  genius  tore  this  fabric  to  pieces,  and  tried 
to  imprint  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War  a  purely  imperial  character, 
he  was  bound  to  fall.  That  artful  calling  into  the  ranks  of  the 
Bavarians  and  the  fall  of  the  Duke  of  Friedland  were  the  work 
of  the  Jesuits."* 

This  general  opinion  is  confirmed  by  many  a  fact 
taken  from  the  history  of  the  Order.  On  the  19th  of 
June,  1618,  the  Jesuit  Rumer,  Rector  of  the  Jesuit  College 
at  Passau,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Jesuit  Lamormaini,  Rector 
of  the  Jesuit  College  at  Graz  (who  soon  after  became 
Father  Confessor  to  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  II.),  which 
gives  proof  positive  of  the  activity  of  the  Jesuits  in  urging 
on  the  war : 

"  I  hear  that  an  army  is  being  raised  for  your  Imperial  Majesty 
against  the  Bohemians.    If  this  matter  should  lead  to  war,  I  may 

*  Gfrorer,  Geschickte  Gustav  Adolfs  (Stuttgart,   1837),  p.  339. 


160  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

hope  for  good  results  soon.  But  if  it  leads  to  concord,  I  fear  we 
shall  be  left  out,  as  we  were  at  Venice.  The  Estates  will  certainly 
not  accept  us  unless  obliged  to  it  by  force.  .  .  .  There  has  never 
been  a  better  opportunity  for  depriving  the  Bohemians  of  all  privi- 
leges injurious  to  religion  and  the  Royal  charter  than  now."* 

The  Jesuits  of  Munster  were  also  eagerly  devoted  to 
politics.  Fathers  Schiicking,  Corler  and  Mulmann  were 
specially  prominent. 

In  the  garden  belonging  to  the  House  of  the  Order 
the  Catholic  ambassadors  held  their  preliminary  meetings. 
During  his  sojourn  in  Munster,  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished among  them,  Gaspar  de  Bracamonte  y  Guzman, 
Count  of  Periaranda,  Jie  principal  Spanish  ambassador, 
built  for  himself  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  college  a 
house  which  he  presented  to  the  Fathers  on  his  departure 
in  1648.  .  .  .  In  spite  of  their  rigid  principles  the  Fathers 
managed  to  get  on  very  well  with  the  non-Catholic  states- 
men also  :   "  suaviter  in  modo,  fortiter  in  re.""\ 

Jacob  Balde,  the  famous  Jesuit  composer  of  odes, 
entered  at  the  same  time  from  Munich  into  political 
relations  with  the  French  ambassador  Avaux,  at  Munster. 
These  he  immortalised  by  dedicating  the  Ninth  Book  of  his 
Silvae  Lyricae  to  the  representative  of  France.  J 

One  of  the  most  interesting  proofs  §  of  the  active  share 
of  the  Jesuit  Order  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War  is  the  following 
fact,  drawn  from  the  depth  of  the  State  Archives  of  Munich 
after  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  : 

From  an  official  estimate  of  January,  1729,  made  by  the 
Provincial  Procurator  of  the  Upper  German  Province  of  the 
Order  of  the  Jesuits,  Father  Bissel,  it  appears  that  at  the 

*  Apologia  oder  Entschuldigungsschrift  auss  was  fur  unvermeidlichen  Ursachen 
alle  drey  Stande  des  loblichen  Konigreichs  Boehaimb  sub  utraque  ein  Defensionwerk 
anstellen  miissen  (Prague  1618),  pp.  81,  394. 

t  Steinberger,  p.  54.  J  Ibid.,  p.  48  et  seq. 

§  I  shall  bring  forward  other  proofs  later,  in  discussing  the  activity  of  Jesuit 
confessors  of  princes. 


Politics   and   Confessors  161 

time  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  the  Order  advanced  large 
sums  to  the  Catholic  League  :* 

The  German  Province  had  lent  262,208  guldens,  the 
interest  on  which  in  1729  amounted  to  302,271  guldens 
18  kreuzers  ;  the  College  at  Liege  200,000  guldens,  for 
which  in  1729  interest  of  130,833  guldens  9  kreuzers 
was  due ;  the  Cologne  College  29,250  guldens  for  which 
the  interest  in  1729  amounted  to  30,000  guldens.  The 
sum  total  of  capital  advanced  plus  interest  amounted 
accordingly  to  954,562  guldens  27  kreuzers.  To  his 
estimate  the  Jesuit  Bissel  adds  this  remark : 

"  I  shall  not  reveal  this  to  others  [of  the  Order],  so 
that  our  people  may  not  tell  strangers.  For  this  might 
bring  mischief  and  ruin  on  our  establishments." 

Thus  the  estimate  was  strictly  private  and  only  meant 
for  the  Superiors.  The  Jesuit  Duhr,  trying  to  hide  the 
fact  that  the  Jesuits  had  anything  to  do  with  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  though  referring  to  the  Catholic  League,  of 
course  says  nothing  of  the  Order's  great  money  loans  to 
the  League,  "j" 

On  the  relations  of  the  Jesuits  to  the  French  League 
at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  Jesuit  Prat,  who 
characterises  the  League  as  a  revolutionary  movement, 
admits  : 

;'  The  Society  of  Jesus  supplied  it  [the  League]  at  first  with  a 
few  eager  partisans,  while  other  members  were  on  the  royal  and 
legal  side.  But  eventually,  led  by  the  directions  of  their  General 
[Acquaviva]  and  by  the  example  of  Sixtus  V.,  they  kept  in  the 
background.  .  .  .  Henry  III.  .  .  .  demanded  the  presence  of 
Father  Auger  at  his  court,  and  that  all  the  members  of  his  Order 
should  openly  range  themselves  on  the  Royal  side.  Being  informed 
of  the  complaints  and  wishes  of  the  King,  Claudius  Acquaviva  at 
first    proceeded  to  treat  with  the  French  ambassador  in  Rome. 

*  J.  Friedrich,  Beitrage,  p.  16.      Here  is  also  the  documentary  evidence  from 
the  Jesuit  Papers  in  the  State  Archives  of  Munich. 
t  Jeauitenfabdn,  pp.  151,  161. 
L 


162  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Then  he  entrusted  Father  Maggio  with  the  task  of  explaining  to 
Henry  III.  the  reasons  for  the  measures  [taken  by  the  Order] 
of  which  the  King  had  complained."* 

So  the  amusing  anecdote  which  Saint- Simon  tells  of 
the  1692  campaign  is  probably  no  mere  invention.! 

"  II  arriva  une  chose  a  Namur,  apres  sa  prise,  qui  fit 
du  bruit.  .  .  .  On  visita  tout  avec  exactitude  .  .  . 
Lorsque,  dans  une  derniere  visite  apres  la  prise  du  chateau, 
on  la  voulut  faire  chez  les  Jesuites,  Us  ouvrirent,  toute  en 
marquant  toutefois  leur  surprise,  et  quelque  chose  de  plus, 
de  ce  qu'on  ne  s'en  floit  pas  a  leur  temoignage.  Mais  en 
fouillant  partout  ou  Us  ne  s'attendaient  pas,  on  trouva  leurs 
souterrains  pleins  de  poudre  dont  Us  s'etoient  bien  gardes  de 
parler  :  ce  quails  pretendoient  faire  est  demeure  incertain"\ 

The  participation  of  the  Jesuits  in  the  revolution  in 
Portugal  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  through 
which  John  IV.  of  the  House  of  Braganza  came  to  the 
throne,  has  been  so  clearly  proved  that  even  the  Jesuit 
Ravignan  could  not  but  admit  it : 

"  It  was  the  only  time,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  the  Religious  of 
the  Society  took  part  in  a  political  revolution  that  overthrew  one 
throne  in  order  to  put  another  in  its  place."  || 

Ravignan  tries  to  extenuate  the  awkwardness  of  the 

*  Recherches  historiques  et  critiques  stir  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus  en  France  du 
temps  du  P.  Coton,  1564-1626  (Lyon,  1876),  I.,  65  et  seq. 

■j-  Saint-Simon  is  very  inconvenient  to  the  Jesuits  as  a  witness.  The  Jesuit 
Duhr  disposes  of  him  for  his  readers  with  the  following  words  :  "  Lavallee  [editor 
of  Madame  de  Maintenon's  Letters]  charges  the  Memoirs  of  the  Due  de  Saint-Simon, 
which  have  been  exploited  in  an  anti-Jesuit  manner,  with  blind  hatred  and 
deliberate  untruthfulness."  This  is  a  piece  of  genuine  Jesuitical  misrepresentation. 
Lavallee  does  not  dream  of  discrediting  Saint-Simon's  Memoirs  as  a  whole  ;  indeed 
he  constantly  refers  to  the  Memoirs  in  explanation  of  passages  in  Madame  de 
Maintenon's  Letters.  In  the  passage  quoted  (inaccurately,  too)  by  Duhr,  Lavallee 
speaks  exclusively  of  Saint-Simon's  antipathy  for  Louis  XIV.  and  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  without  saying  a  word  against  the  general  trustworthiness  of  the 
Memoirs. 

%  Memoires  (Paris,  1873),  L,  12. 

||  De  V Existence  et  de  VInstitut  des  Jesuites  (Paris,  1855),  p.  238. 


Politics   and  Confessors  163 

fact  by  saying  that  the  Portuguese  Jesuits  had  acted  here 
rather  as  Portuguese  than  as  Jesuits,  an  evasion  which 
might  serve  in  similar  cases  for  all  countries  in  which 
Jesuits  live  and  support  thrones.  Georgel,  Secretary  of 
the  French  Embassy  in  Vienna,  tells  us  how  great  was  the 
general  influence  of  the  Jesuits  in  Portugal : 

"  At  court  they  were  not  only  directors  of  conscience  to  the 
Princes  and  Princesses  of  the  Royal  Family,  but  the  King  and  his 
Ministers  consulted  them  on  affairs  of  importance.  In  the  govern- 
ment of  State  or  Church  no  office  was  bestowed  without  their 
approval  or  influence,  so  that  the  high  clergy,  the  aristocracy,  and 
the  people  vied  with  each  other  for  their  mediation  and  favour."* 

Even  Pombal  had  to  bow  at  least  once  to  the  prepon- 
derant influence  of  the  Jesuits.  At  one  time  he  seems  to 
have  planned  marrying  the  Princess  de  Beira  to  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland,  and  thus  uniting  Portugal  to  England. 
Surely  a  political  enterprise  !  Who  was  it  that  thwarted 
this  plan  successfully  ?  The  Jesuit  Order.  Thus  reports 
Marechal  de  Belle-Isle,f  and  Cretineau-Joly  is  bound  to 
confirm  him. 

I  have  mentioned  already  the  fact  and  the  reason  why 
the  Jesuits  have  been  less  prominent  politically  since  the 
restoration  of  their  Order  than  formerly.  But  even  during 
the  comparatively  short  period  of  not  quite  a  hundred 
years  numerous  political  intrigues  and  actions  were  set  on 
foot  by  the  Order. 

In  the  diary  of  Manning  (afterwards  Cardinal),  written 
during  his  second  stay  in  Borne  (after  his  secession  to  the 
Church  of  Borne),  November,  1847,  to  May,  1848,  the 
following  passage,  dated  December  5th,  1847,  occurs  : 

"  Broechi  told  me  that  the  Jesuits  are  able  and  excellent  in 
their  duties  as  priests,  but  that  their  politics  are  most  mischievous  ; 

*  Memoires  pour  servir  a  VHistoire  des  tvenementa  de  la  Fin  die  18  Siecle 
Paris,   1817),   1,   16. 

f  Testament  politique,  p.  108,  and  Cretineau-Joly,  5,  176. 


164  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

that  if  a  collision  should  come  with  the  people  the  effect  would  be 
terrible  ;  that  they  stick  to  the  aristocracy,  e.g.  to  the  Dorias, 
the  Princess  being  a  Frenchwoman  ;  that  no  day  passes  but  they 
are  there.     The  people  call  them  Oscuri,  Oscurantisti."* 

In  1866  and  1870-71  I  was  too  young  to  be  able  to 
judge  of  the  political  activity  of  the  Order  in  those  stirring 
times,  but  the  events  at  Feldkirch  and  in  my  family  circle, 
which,  as  I  have  already  shown,  was  completely  under 
Jesuit  dominion,  prove  the  strong  political  partisanship  of 
the  Order  for  Austria  and  France.  The  extensive  influence 
of  the  Order  and  its  traditional  habit  of  political  intrigue 
justify  the  conclusion  that  its  anti-Prussian  and  anti- 
German  sentiments  may  have  led  to  actions,  or  in  any 
case  to  desires. 

But  I  was  old  enough  to  judge  of  subsequent  events. 

In    1883-87,    when    I    was   studying    theology    as    a 

Jesuit  scholastic  at  Ditton  Hall,  in  England,  I  was  sent 

several  times  for  a  short  stay  to  the  Continent  for  various 

purposes   of   no   special   interest.     During   one    of   these 

journeys  (I  forget  in  what  year)  I  spent  the  night  in  the 

Jesuit  College  at  Canterbury,  where  some  of  the  Jesuits 

exiled   from   France   had   settled.     The   Rector   was   the 

renowned    Jesuit   du    Lac.     He   treated    me    with    great 

candour,  and  told  me  with  many  details,  which  I  have 

forgotten,  how  zealously  he  had  been  working  in  France 

for  General  Boulanger  ;  that  he  had  collected  large  sums 

of  money  for  the  "  Deliverer  of  France  "  from  the  Legitimist 

nobility  ;   "  la  sale  et  impie  Republique  "  would  have  to  be 

overthrown  by  Boulanger,  whom  God  (!)  had  elected,  and 

"  le  drapeau  blanc  royal  "  hoisted  once  more.     These  words 

sounded  strange  in  my  ears  from  the  lips  of  so  responsible 

a  person.     I  should  have  thought  them  stranger  still  if 

I  had  known  who  and  what  le  brave  General  was  (but  I 

never  caught  sight  of  a  newspaper),  and  that  the  qualifying 

*  Purcell,  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning  (London,  1895),  I.,  p.  364. 


Politics  and   Confessors  165 

epithets  "  sale "  and  "  impie  "  used  by  du  Lac  of  the 
Republic  applied  particularly  well  to  Boulanger. 

There  was  a  significant  epilogue  to  this  conversation 
at  Canterbury,  In  a  letter  to  General  Anderledy,  well 
known  to  me  from  my  youth,  I  felt  bound  to  report  to 
him  the  political  activity  of  the  Jesuit  du  Lac ;  other 
matters  too  were  dealt  with  in  this  letter.  Anderledy 
replied  to  all,  omitting  only  what  concerned  du  Lac  and 
Boulanger.  Later  I  understood  the  reason  for  this 
omission.  The  General  of  the  Order,  who  may  also  have 
placed  his  hopes  on  Boulanger,  did  not  wish  to  interfere 
with  du  Lac's  political  doings. 

Ever  since  the  establishment  of  the  Centre  Party  in 
Germany  it  has  always  been  closely  connected  with  the 
Jesuit  Order.  Theologians  of  the  German  Province  were 
often  consulted  by  parliamentary  members  of  the  Centre. 
The  leader  of  the  Centre,  Lieber,  was  a  frequent  guest 
in  the  German  Jesuit  Colleges  on  the  Dutch  frontier 
(Exaeten,  Wynandsrade,  Blyenbeck).  The  Provincial, 
Jacob  Ratgeb,  used  to  go  to  Hanover  for  important  con- 
sultations with  Windthorst.  Once  he  returned  in  a  state 
of  great  annoyance,  and  in  his  vexation  at  Windthorst's 
"  prudence  "  he  allowed  these  words  to  escape  him  :  "  If 
Windthorst  is  not  willing,  we  shall  go  ahead  without  him." 
I  never  learnt  to  what  the  cunning  Guelph's  unwillingness 
may  have  referred.  In  1889,  at  Windthorst's  desire,  and 
under  the  pretext  of  study  and  pastorate,  two  Jesuits 
were  sent  to  Berlin  for  permanent  residence.  I  was  one 
of  the  two,  and  the  other  was  Jacob  Fah,  formerly  Rector 
of  Feldkirch,  and  chief  editor  of  Stimmen  aus  Maria- 
Laach.  I  shall  recur  again  to  my  stay  in  Berlin.  Here, 
in  connection  with  politics,  I  can  only  say  that  Windthorst 
and  the  other  Centre  leaders  made  us  very  welcome.  In 
the  lobby  of  the  (old)  parliamentary  buildings  I  had  a  long 
conversation  with  Windthorst,  in  which  he  said  emphatic- 


166  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

ally  that  the  question  of  the  return  of  the  Jesuits,  and  of 
the  territorial  independence  of  the  Pope  (the  Papal  States) 
must  always  remain  in  the  foreground.  Later  on,  up  to 
Windthorst's  death,  another  Jesuit,  Victor  Frins,  was  his 
constant  adviser  in  Berlin.  In  the  discussions  on  the  new 
civil  code  (Burgerliches  Gesetzbuch)  the  celebrated  Jesuit 
Lehmkuhl  played  a  great  part  as  an  inspirer  of  the  Centre 
Party.  August  Reichensperger  also  held  lively  intercourse 
with  the  German  Jesuits.  His  name  recalls  to  me  a  serious 
yet  diverting  "  political  "  occurrence. 

In  the  summer  of  1882  August  Reichensperger  visited 
the  Jesuit  College  at  Blyenbeck.  In  his  honour  an  open- 
air  picnic  was  held.  Piitz,  the  Rector,  made  a  speech 
on  the  guest  of  the  day,  in  which  he  mentioned  the 
exile  of  the  Jesuits  from  Germany,  and  the  hope  of  their 
speedy  return  with  the  aid  of  the  Centre  Party  and  its 
glorious  leader  Reichensperger.  August  Reichensperger 
answered  very  pleasantly,  but  with  reference  to  the  exile 
said,  almost  literally :  "  Those  who  plunge  into  politics 
as  deeply  as  the  Jesuit  Order  must  put  up  with  the 
occasional  political  consequences  of  the  plunge."  Tableau  ! 
The  faces  of  the  surrounding  fathers  (for  we  scholastics 
stood  apart)  grew  long  and  aghast  at  this  candour.  On  the 
very  same  evening  the  Rector  joined  us  young  Jesuits 
during  recreation,  and  tried  to  blot  out  the  impression 
made  by  Reichensperger's  words.  He  said  Reichensperger 
had  been  brought  up  on  Gallo-Josephinian  ideas,  and  a 
little  youthful  infection  was  still  in  him,  and  that  was  why 
he  repeated  things  he  had  heard  in  former  days ;  but  the 
Jesuits  had  never  interfered  in  politics. 

After  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuit  Order  from  Germany, 
the  German  Province  of  the  Order  settled  not  only  in 
Holland  and  England,  but  also  in  Denmark.  Very  soon  the 
Jesuits  succeeded  in  converting  the  widow  of  the  Danish 
multi-millionaire  and   press  magnate,  Berling,  proprietor 


Politics   and   Confessors  167 

of  the  great  Copenhagen  paper  Berlingske  Tidende,  to 
Catholicism.  With  this  lady's  money  the  Jesuit  College  at 
Ordrupshoj,  near  Copenhagen,  was  built,  being  in  the  North 
what  Feldkirch  is  in  the  South.  It  is  naturally  impossible 
to  ascertain  how  far  the  Jesuit  influence  extended  to  the 
Berlingske  Tidende,  and  through  it  to  politics. 

The  Catholic  Princess  Waldemar  of  Denmark,  daughter 
of  the  Duke  of  Chartres,  was  also  in  the  hands  of  the 
German  Jesuits  of  Copenhagen  and  Ordrupshoj.  Her 
intense  hatred  of  Germans  may  doubtless  be  ascribed  to 
Jesuit  influence,  apart  from  her  French  descent.  It  is 
well  known  that  it  was  Princess  Waldemar  of  Denmark  who, 
in  1887,  manipulated  matters  so  as  to  place  the  forged 
documents  against  Bismarck  in  the  hands  of  the  Tsar 
Alexander  III.  Considering  the  simultaneous  political 
activity  of  the  French  Jesuit  du  Lac,  and  the  influence 
of  the  "  German  "  Jesuits  in  Copenhagen  on  the  French 
Princess  Waldemar  of  Denmark,  it  is  not  a  very  romantic 
supposition  to  connect  the  origin  of  the  forged  anti- 
Bismarck  documents,  which  almost  caused  a  war,  with 
the  Jesuit  Order. 

An  interesting  and  instructive  medley  of  the  political 
proceedings  of  the  Jesuit  Order  is  spread  before  us, 
sufficient  to  mark  the  striking  contrast  between  Jesuit 
words  and  deeds  in  this  important  point  also.  It  only 
remains  to  show  the  road  by  which  the  Order  is  enabled 
to  enter  the  political  arena  in  the  most  effective  and,  at 
the  same  time,  the  least  conspicuous  manner.  That  road 
is  confession.  For  centuries  the  Jesuit  Order  supplied 
nearly  all  Catholic  princes  and  politically  influential  men 
with  confessors.  Their  pastoral  work  presents  vistas  of 
quite  enormous  activity,  comprising  in  their  motley  but 
systematic  variety  the  whole  of  Europe. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  Duke 
of  Saint-Simon  writes  : 


168  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

"  Les  Jesuites  maitres  des  cours  par  le  confessional  de 
presque  tous  les  rois  et  de  tous  les  souverains  catholiques  .  .  . 
terribles  far  la  'politique  la  plus  raffinee,  la  plus  profonde, 
la  plus  superieure  a  toute  autre  consideration  que  leur 
domination,  soutenue  par  un  gouvernement  dont  la  Monarchic, 
V  autorite,  les  degres,  les  ressorts,  le  secret,  V  unijormite  dans 
les  vues,  et  la  multiplicite  dans  les  moyens  en  sont  Tame."* 

But  the  Jesuits  do  not  admit  Saint -Simon's  testimony. 
Well !  a  few  decades  later  it  was  borne  out  by  a  man 
whom  they  could  hardly  set  aside  as  a  Jesuit-hater  or 
misinformed.     The  Jesuit  Cordara  admits  in  his  Memoirs  : 

"  Nearly  all  kings  and  sovereigns  of  Europe  had  only 
Jesuits  as  directors  of  their  conscience,  so  that  the  whole 
of  Europe  appeared  to  be  governed  by  Jesuits  only  :  reges 
ac  principes  prope  omnes  Europae  solis  Jesuitis  utebantur 
conscientiae  arbitris,  ut  soli  jam  Jesuitae  tota  dominari 
viderentur  Europa."^ 

Therefore,  Habemus  confitentem  reum.  The  Order  of 
the  Jesuits  governing  Europe  through  its  confessors  of 
sovereigns  stands  here  convicted  before  us  :  the  official 
Constitutions  forbid  the  acceptance  of  the  office  of  confessor 
of  a  sovereign.  The  fortieth  decree  of  the  second  General 
Congregation  of  1565  runs  thus : 

"  Since  it  was  proposed  to  appoint  for  the  illustrious  Cardinal 
of  Augsburg  [Otto  von  Truchsess]  a  theologian  of  our  Society  to 
be  his  father  confessor  and  also  join  his  court,  the  Congregation 
has  decided  not  to  appoint  any  of  our  people  either  to  a  sovereign 
or  any  other  lord  of  the  Church  or  State,  to  attend  his  court  or 
reside  there  in  order  to  fulfil  the  office  of  confessor,  theologian, 
or  any  other  office,  except  for  the  very  short  period  of  one  or  two 
months.":}: 

Is  this  strict  prohibition  meant  to  refer  back  to  the 

*  Memoires  (Paris,  1873),  7,  132  et  seq. 
f  Dollinger,  Beitraqe,  3,  72. 
%  Inst.  8.J.,  I.,  188. 


Politics  and   Confessors  169 

founder  of  the  Order  himself,  Ignatius  Loyola,  who, 
scarcely  twenty  years  before,  by  virtue  of  holy  obedience, 
en  virtud  de  santa  obediencia,  appointed  Fathers  Le  Jay, 
Pollanco  and  Pelletier  as  confessors  to  the  Dukes  Hercules 
of  Ferrara  and  Cosimo  de  Medici,  and  had  placed  Fathers 
Gonzalez  and  Miron  as  confessors  at  the  disposal  of  the 
King  of  Portugal  ?  *  Hardly  !  This  decree,  too,  is  nothing 
but  a  paper  to  save  appearances  prudently  produced  by 
the  Order,  to  be  shown  in  case  of  necessitv  and  soothe 
the  minds  of  the  public.  The  calculated  deceit  of  the 
strict  prohibition  is  almost  proved  by  the  action  of  the 
fifth  General  of  the  Order,  the  Neapolitan  Claudius 
Acquaviva. 

Not  very  long  after  the  decree  was  issued,  in  1602, 
Acquaviva  drew  up  an  Ordinance  in  which  he  gives 
precise  instructions  for  confessors  of  sovereigns,  and  passes 
over  the  previous  "  strict  prohibition "  with  the  truly 
Jesuitical  phrase  of  :    "  The  greater  glory  of  God." 

"  If  the  Society  [of  Jesus]  can  no  longer  escape  such  an  office 
because,  for  various  reasons,  the  greater  glory  of  our  Lord  God 
seems  to  require  it,  then  care  should  be  taken  as  to  the  choice  of 
suitable  persons,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  carry  out  their 
duties,  so  that  the  sovereign  should  derive  benefit,  the  people  be 
edified,  and  the  Society  sustain  no  injury  thereby."f 

Then,  after  apparently  strict  injunctions  (in  Notes  4-7) 
that  the  father  confessor  should  not  engage  "  in  exterior 
or  political  affairs,"  and  not  let  himself  be  employed  as 
"  censor  of  ministers  and  courtiers,"  all  this  is  again 
made  possible  in  another  way  in  Note  8  in  the  shape  of 
an  exhortation  to  the  sovereign: 

"  The  sovereign  should  listen  with  equanimity  and  patience  to 
whatever  his  father  confessor  should  think  fit  to  suggest  {sugge- 

*  Cartas  de  S.  Ignacio  de  Loyola  (Madrid,  1874),  I.,  326  ;   II.,  65  ;   III.,  173. 
t  Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  225. 


170  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

rendum)  to  him  daily  according  to  the  voice  of  his  conscience.  For 
as  a  prominent  person  and  a  sovereign  is  concerned,  it  is  fitting 
that  the  priest  should  be  allowed  to  suggest  what  he  considers 
good  for  the  greater  service  of  God  and  the  sovereign,  and  not 
only  with  regard  to  such  things  as  he  might  know  from  him  [the 
prince]  in  the  character  of  penitent,  but  also  with  regard  to  those 
which  he  might  hear  elsewhere  (quae  hinc  inde  audiuntur),  requiring 
a  remedy,  for  the  removal  of  oppression,  the  lessening  of  annoyances 
frequently  arising  from  the  actions  of  the  ministers,  contrary  to 
the  wish  and  will  of  the  sovereign,  whose  conscience  may  be 
oppressed  by  the  harm  done,  and  the  duty  of  making  provision 
against  it."* 

So  the  confessor  is  to  suggest  [suggerere]  to  the  sovereign 
whatever  his  conscience  may  dictate  to  him  [quidquid 
dictante  sibi  conscientia].  It  is  obvious  that  an  opening 
is  thus  provided  for  the  most  pronounced  political  influence. 
Thus  we  see,  for  instance,  that  the  Jesuit  Caussin,  Father 
Confessor  to  Louis  XIII.  of  France,  wrote  to  General 
Mutius  Vitelleschi : 

"  If  he  dissuaded  the  king  from  an  alliance  with  the  Turks,  it 
would  not  be  interfering  with  politics  ;  for  the  question  whether 
an  alliance  with  the  Turks  should  be  permitted  was  not  a  political 
one,  but  a  matter  of  conscience."! 

A  letter  from  General  Caraffa,  of  May  23rd,  1648,  to 
the  Rector  of  the  Jesuit  College  at  Minister,  Gottfried 
Corler,  cunningly  points  to  "  conscience  "  as  the  road  by 
which  the  official  prohibition  regarding  interference  with 
politics  might  be  evaded.  This  confidential  letter  is  all 
the  more  interesting  because  Caraffa  refers  in  it  to  an 
encyclical,  published  by  himself,  against  interference  with 
politics : 

"  .  .  .As  regards  my  encyclical  that  our  people  should  not 
meddle  with  affairs  of  war  or  peace,  I  did  not  mean  thereby  to 

*  Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  226. 
f  Tuba  Magna,  II.,  310. 


Politics   and   Confessors  171 

prevent  our  people  in  the  confessional  from  directing  the  con- 
sciences of  those  turning  to  them  with  doubts,  but  only  from 
dealing  with  such  affairs  outside  the  confessional."* 

As  the  Jesuit  House  at  Minister,  to  which  the  letter 
was  addressed,  was  just  then  a  chief  hotbed  of  political 
activity,  Caraffa's  duplicity  (for  his  letter  is  the  essence  of 
duplicity)  is  of  particular  significance,  and  was  probably 
particularly  effective. 

We  have  seen  already,  and  shall  see  more  clearly  still, 
what  a  great  part  the  "conscience"  formula,  introduced 
by  the  Generals  Acquaviva  and  Caraffa,  played  in  the 
political  doings  of  the  Order,  how  it  is  applied  again  and 
again  when  Jesuit  confessors  of  sovereigns  desire  to 
represent  their  political  influence  as  unpolitical. 

*  See  Steinberger,  p.  199,  for  Latin  text. 


CHAPTER    XIX 

THE    CRITICISM   CONTINUED:    COURT   CONFESSORS 

Acquaviva,  that  Machiavelli  in  Jesuit  garb,  not  satisfied 
with  an  equivocal  official  "  Ordinance "  destined  to  be 
enrolled  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order,  also  issued  a 
secret  Instruction  for  the  Confessors  of  Sovereigns. 

This  secret  Instruction  was  published  by  the  Benedic- 
tine Dudik,  himself  a  strict  Catholic,  in  his  Archiv  fur 
Oesterreichische  Geschichte*  from  the  manuscripts  of  the 
Court  Library  at  Vienna.f  It  is  composed  through- 
out in  the  form  of  questions,  as  Dudik  expresses  it, 
"  as  a  Confession  Mirror  for  Sovereigns." 

"  From  the  questions,"  says  Dudik,  "  the  purpose  at 
which  the  Jesuits  aimed  through  their  father  confessors 
may  be  clearly  perceived,  namely,  the  supremacy  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  such  as  a  Gregory,  an  Innocent,  or  a 
Boniface  aspired  to  obtain."! 

Here  are  some  questions  from  the  "  Instruction  " : 

Whether  he  [the  father  confessor]  tried  skilfully  to 
find  out  himself,  or  through  trustworthy,  zealous,  and  wise 
men,  how  the  ministers,  magistrates  and  judges  discharged 
their  offices ;  whether  he  had  discreet  and  able  men  at 
hand  through  whom,  by  searching  the  lives  of  citizens 
(explorans),  he  could  inquire  into  (inquirat)  the  source  of 
their  income,  their  expenditure,  and  if  they  had  entered 
into  forbidden  contracts ;  whether  he  [the  prince]  had 
hampered  the  Inquisition ;    whether,  when  called  on  to 

*  Vol.  54,  p.  234.        t  MS.  Chart.  Sign.,  11,821.  J  Vol.  54,  p.  234. 

172 


Court  Confessors  173 

execute  its  sentences  on  heretics,  he  had  refused  to  do  so  ; 
whether  he  had  carried  on  an  unrighteous  war ;  whether 
he  had  broken  his  princely  oaths  ;  whether  he  had  dis- 
obeyed the  Pope  and  Prelates  of  the  Church  ?* 

The  Jesuit  Order — it  should  be  here  noted — is  the 
only  one  of  all  the  monastic  Orders  which  has  official  and 
secret  Instructions  for  the  Confessors  of  Sovereigns.  I 
was,  therefore,  more  than  justified  in  designating  the 
Confession  of  Sovereigns  as  an  institution  of  the  Order. 

Very  characteristic  and  significant  for  the  fundamental 
attitude  of  the  Order  towards  the  confession  of  sovereigns 
is  this  circumstance  : 

The  Generals  Goswin  Nickel  (a  German)  and  Mutius 
Vitelleschi  issued  the  following  orders  in  official  letters  of 
February  23rd,  1641,  and  November  28th,  1654,  both 
addressed  to  the  Provincial  of  the  Upper  German  Province  : 

"  When  sovereigns  require  a  Jesuit's  opinion  on  any  subject, 
the  Jesuit  in  question  is  to  report  the  matter  to  his  Superior,  who 
is  to  lay  it  before  several  Jesuits  for  discussion.  The  resolution 
formed  after  this  consultation  is  supplied  to  the  Jesuit  who  has 
been  consulted  by  the  sovereign."! 

This  Ordinance,  which  is  in  the  first  instance  concerned 
with  the  confessors  of  sovereigns,  could  only  have  the 
result  doubtless  intended  by  the  Generals,  that  it  was 
just  the  most  important  matters  (those  that  required  a 
second    opinion)    which    were    not    kept    secret    between 

*  The  publication  of  the  secret  Instruction  is  exceedingly  inconvenient  to 
the  Jesuit  Duhr.  He  passes  over  this  significant  document  in  a  mere  footnote, 
mentioning  it  casually,  and  just  where  he  ought  to  have  discussed  it  he  misleads 
by  hushing  it  up.  (Die  Jesuiten  an  den  deutschen  Furstenhofen  des  16  Jahrhunderts, 
Freiburg,  1910,  p.  6.)  In  the  Jesuitenfabeln  (4  Ed.,  p.  100)  Duhr  also  displays 
the  same  disingenuousness ;  he  quotes  from  Dudik  a  passage  from  a  letter  of 
General  Vitelleschi,  in  which  the  Imperial  Father  Confessor  in  Vienna,  the  Jesuit 
Lamormaini,  is  referred  to  Acquaviva's  official  Ordinatio,  but  passes  over  the 
secret  Instruction  in  silence. 

•j-  From  the  manuscript  papers  of  the  Jesuits  published  by  Dollinger-Reusch, 
from  the  Archives  at  Munich.     Moralstreitigkeiten,  I.,  650. 


174  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

sovereign  and  confessor,  but  came  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  General  of  the  Order,  and  could  thus  be  utilised  by 
him  in  his  general  calculations  and  measures. 

This  is  clearly  expressed  in  letters  by  the  Jesuit  Caussin, 
Father  Confessor  of  Louis  XIII.  of  France,  to  General 
Vitelleschi.  Caussin,  who  appears  to  have  been  an  in- 
genuous man,  objects  to  being  expected  to  report  to  the 
Superiors  of  the  Order  the  confidences  made  to  him  by 
the  King,  and  the  discussions  he  held  with  him. 

"  I  am  reproached  for  not  seeking  advice  of  my  Superiors  on 
the  matters  I  discuss  with  the  King.  .  .  .  But  I  know  from 
Thomas  [Aquinas]  that,  according  to  natural,  human  and  divine 
right,  matters  of  confession  are  to  be  kept  secret.  .  .  .  What  law 
or  what  constitution  of  the  Society  [of  Jesus]  is  there  that  bids 
the  Father  Confessor  report  to  his  Superiors  on  the  affairs  of  his 
penitents  ?  ...  Is  the  King's  conscience  to  be  revealed  to  as 
many  persons  as  there  are  Consultors  in  our  Houses  ?  "* 

Thus  Caussin  was  of  the  opinion,  and  he  must  surely 
have  known,  that  the  Ordinance  of  his  Superiors  contained 
an  invitation  to  violate  the  secret  of  the  confessional. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  Order  disregards  the 
secrecy  of  the  confessional  in  the  case  of  its  own  members. 
But  here  the  secrecy  of  the  confessional,  which  according 
to  general  theological  doctrine  every  priest  is  bound  to 
preserve  even  at  risk  of  death,  is  set  aside  on  principle 
by  the  Jesuit  Order  for  the  furtherance  of  its  own 
political  ends.  The  Jesuit  Caussin  opposed  the  demand 
of  his  Superiors.  Other  Jesuit  confessors  of  sovereigns 
behaved  differently.  For  instance,  a  great  deal  has  been 
written  in  controversy  about  the  betrayal  of  the  confession 
of  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa.  But  it  appears  to  be  an 
established   fact    that  either  a   genuine  confession  or  a 

*  The  letter  is  published  in  extenso  in  Liberius  Candidas,  Tuba  Magna,  Edit.  4 
(Strassburg,  1760),  II.,  329  et  seq.,  and  in  part  in  Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  651. 


Court  Confessors  175 

strictly  confidential  communication  made  by  the  Empress 
to  him,  as  her  spiritual  director,  was  reported  by  the 
Jesuit  Campmuller  to  his  Superiors  in  Rome.  No  con- 
tradiction such  as,  for  instance,  that  made  by  the  Jesuit 
Duhr*  can  affect  the  gist  of  the  matter.  It  is  positively 
absurd  that  Duhr,  in  order  to  contradict  it,  refers  to  his 
own  researches  in  the  Archives  at  Vienna  and  Simancas, 
and  states  that  there  he  had  found  nothing  about  a 
"  betrayal  of  confession."  From  what  we  know  of  Duhr's 
researches,  we  are  positively  compelled  to  disbelieve  him. 
But  even  if  nothing  were  to  be  found  in  Vienna  and 
Simancas,  what  proof  could  that  be  in  contradiction  of  the 
fact? 

The  rest  of  Duhr's  counterproofs  are  just  as  uncon- 
vincing. They  may  be  summed  up  in  the  silence  preserved 
on  this  matter  by  Arneth,  Maria  Theresa's  biographer,  and 
a  statement  made  by  him  in  answer  to  a  letter  from  Duhr, 
that  in  "  his  researches  in  the  Archives  "  he  had  learnt 
nothing  about  the  matter.  These  assertions  and  purely 
negative  proofs  are  opposed  by  positive  and  permanent 
testimonies. 

Canon  Ginzel,  of  Leitmeritz  Cathedral,  a  strictly 
orthodox  Churchman,  reports  : 

"  On  this  affair,  Dr.  Jacob  Stern,  Royal  and  Imperial  Court 
Chaplain  at  the  time  of  Maria  Theresa,  living  in  retirement  as 
titular  provost  of  Ivanzia  at  Hetzendorf,  near  Vienna,  who  had 
a  very  extensive  knowledge  of  current  events,  told  the  author 
(in  1830)  as  follows  :  '  The  urgent  representations  made  by  the 
Bourbon  Courts  to  Theresa  on  account  of  the  suppression  of  the 
Jesuits  had  not  remained  entirely  without  effect  on  her.  .  .  . 
Then  one  day  the  Abbot  of  St.  Dorothea  (his  name  I  have  for- 
gotten) came  to  Theresa  and  handed  her  a  paper  written  by  her 
Father  Confessor,  the  Jesuit  Campmuller,  containing  one  of  her 
recent  confessions.     Its  main  contents  are  said  to  have  been  her 

*  Jesuitenfabeln  (4),  pp.  40-68. 


176  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

scruples  as  to  the  recent  partition  of  Poland.  Theresa  now  voted 
for  the  suppression  of  the  Society  and  is  supposed  to  have  reported 
to  Ganganelli  this  violation  of  the  seal  of  confession,  as  a  reason 
for  not  allowing  the  Jesuits  to  remain  in  her  dominion.'  "* 

These  recollections  of  a  Court  Chaplain  of  Maria 
Theresa,  told  to  Ginzel  himself,  who,  as  the  latter  points  out, 
"  had  a  very  extensive  knowledge  of  current  events  "  and 
was,  therefore,  still  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  mental  faculties, 
are  doubtless  of  great  significance,  not  lessened  by  Duhr's 
derisive  remarks  about  "  the  old  gentleman." 

Another  remark  added  by  Ginzel  still  further  assists 
in  clearing  up  the  point  in  question  : 

'  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  note  that  the  scruples  which  the 
august  lady  .  .  .  felt  with  regard  to  the  partition  of  Poland 
were  very  openly  expressed  before  all  her  counsellors,  and  if  the 
Father  Confessor  wrote  down  such  scruples,  he  did  not  violate 
the  seal  of  confession,  inasmuch  as  they  had  not  been  uttered  in 
confession  only."f 

What  the  Jesuit  Campmuller  had  reported  to  Rome 
about  his  Imperial  penitent  need  not  have  been  a  confession 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word.  But  it  was  a  breach  of 
confidence  of  the  meanest  kind  if  Campmuller  passed  on 
what  the  Empress  had  put  before  him  as  her  spiritual 
director,  in  the  shape  of  questions  and  doubts,  no  matter 
whether  she  communicated  similar  questions  and  doubts 
to  her  "  counsellors." 

Thus  Campmuller  seems  to  have  acted  strictly  accord- 
ing to  the  decree  of  Mutius  Vitelleschi,  who  did  not  literally 
speak  of  genuine  "  confessions "  either,  but  of  "  points 
requiring  another  opinion."  The  partition  of  Poland  may 
surely  have  been  a  point  that  might  cause  Maria  Theresa 
to  turn  to  her  spiritual  director  in  order  to  obtain  his 
opinion. 

*  Kirchenhistorische  Schriften  (Vienna,  1872),  2,  231. 
t  Ibid. 


Court  Confessors  177 

An  equally  strong  proof  is  furnished  by  the  testimony 
of  the  Imperial  Russian  Professor  and  General  Super- 
intendent of  the  Lutheran  Congregations  at  St.  Petersburg, 
Dr.  Ignatius  Fessler.  Fessler  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
and  sincere  personalities  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries,  whose  experiences  and  adventures  are  not 
sufficiently  known.  In  his  interesting  book,  Reminis- 
cences of  a  Seventy  Years'  Pilgrimage,  he  says  : 

"  The  Professor  at  the  University  of  Vienna,  whom  I  venerated 
most  of  all,  and  who  loved  me  like  a  father,  was  Josephus  Julianus 
Monsperger,  a  hale  old  man  of  seventy-nine,  a  Jesuit  formerly  tertiae 
professionis,  and  consequently  initiated  in  the  secrets  of  the  Order. 
The  Rector  of  the  Professed  House  in  Vienna  had  been  obliged  to 
go  on  a  journey,  and  had  charged  him  to  clear  up  the  rectory  and 
to  have  it  cleaned.  A  picture  had  then  attracted  his  attention  ; 
he  had  taken  it  off  the  wall,  in  order  to  look  at  it  in  a  better  light. 
Meanwhile  he  had  noticed  in  the  place  where  the  picture  had  been 
hanging  a  small  closet  which  appeared  to  him  suspicious  ;  he 
noticed  and  pressed  a  spring,  and  the  door  flew  open.  Among  a 
mass  of  papers  his  glance  fell  on  a  case  with  the  superscription  : 
'  Confessions  of  the  Great  and  Powerful.'  He  opened  it,  and  found 
Confessions  of  the  Empress,  the  Archdukes,  Archduchesses,  several 
Ministers  and  other  persons  of  high  rank.  ...  So  Monsperger 
frequently  informed  me."* 

The  Jesuit  Duhr  tries  to  get  the  better  of  this  testimony 
by  talking  of  "  romantic  embroidery,"  and  by  "  proving  " 
that  Monsperger  had  held  no  position  in  the  Professed 
House  at  Vienna,  and  that  the  journal  of  that  House  did 
not  mention  a  journey  of  the  Rector's  in  the  year  1764. 
Still,  he  does  not  dare  to  attack  Fessler's  trustworthiness. 

Voltaire  also  reports  in  a  letter  to  the  Due  de  Riche- 
lieu, a  "  betrayed  confession,"  and  says  that  the  Jesuit 

*  Fessler,  Biickblicke  auf  eine  siebzigjahrige  Pilgerschaft  (Breslau,  1824),  pp.  166- 
168.     In  consequence  of  this  discovery,  Monsperger  left  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits 
and  became  Professor  of  Oriental  Languages  at  Vienna  University. 
M 


*78         Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

d'Aubanton,  Confessor  to  Philip  V.  of  Spain,  had  told  the 
contents  of  a  confession  of  the  King's  to  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  and  that  the  Count  Fuentes  and  the  Duke  of 
Villa  Hermosa  held  proofs  of  this.* 

Unfortunately  Voltaire  does  not  give  these  proofs. 
But  the  fact  corresponds  with  the  sketch  of  d'Aubanton 
made  on  the  strength  of  long  acquaintance  by  Saint- 
Simon. 

We  will  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  work  of  individual 
Jesuit  confessors  of  sovereigns.  Here  also  a  few  extracts 
will  have  to  suffice.  The  Jesuit  Maggio,  Father  Confessor 
of  the  Emperor  Rudolf  II.,  by  means  of  a  memorandum 
and  by  verbal  representations,  sought  to  induce  the 
Emperor  to  proceed  with  the  utmost  severity  against  the 
Protestants.  It  is  obvious  that,  considering  the  conditions 
of  the  time,  shortly  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  this  was  strong  and  decisive  interference  in 
politics.  The  Jesuit  Duhr,"j*  who  takes  good  care  not 
to  communicate  Maggio's  documentary  memoranda  which 
are  at  his  disposal  in  the  Secret  Archives  of  the  Order,  does 
not,  of  course,  see  anything  touching  politics  in  his  fel- 
low Jesuit's  action,  neither  does  Maggio  himself,  who  is 
naive  enough  to  utter  a  strong  warning  against  inter- 
ference in  politics  when  writing  to  General  Borgia  in 
March,  1571. 

It  is  evident  that  the  double  face  and  even  double 
conscience,  assumed  officially  a  few  years  later  by  the 
Jesuit  confessor  of  sovereigns,  in  accordance  with  General 
Acquaviva's  Instruction,  began  to  manifest  itself  even  then 
in  its  main  features.  J  Only  a  few  months  later  this 
duplicity  appears  distinctly  in  a  report  to  Rome  of  the 
Jesuit  Emerich  Forsler  of  the  21st  of  May,  1571  : 

*  CEuvres,  Edit.  Beaumarchais,  6,  79. 

f  Duhr,  Die  Jesuiten  an  den  deutschen  Fiirstenhofen  des  16.  Jahrhunderts,  p.  18. 

X  Cf.  Sacchini,  S.J.,  Hist.  Societ.  Jesu  ad  ann.  1571,  nr.  139. 


Court  Confessors  179 

"  The  relations  of  our  Father  Stephan  to  Archduke  Charles 
[Governor  of  Graz,  son  of  King  Ferdinand]  are  quite  confidential  ; 
on  the  most  important  matters  the  Archduke  asks  and  receives 
his  advice,  and  thinks  so  highly  of  him  that  he  wished  to  admit 
him  to  the  public  Council  ('publicum  consilium),  when  religious 
matters  would  be  discussed  with  the  Estates  of  the  Realm.  This 
I  have  forbidden  ;  he  is  only  to  help  privately  as  much  as  possible, 
in  a  prudent  and  discreet  manner."* 

Dudik  showsf  that  the  Jesuit  Lamormaini,  the  con- 
fessor of  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  II.,  was  the  originator 
of  the  Decree  of  Restitution  of  March  6th,  1629.  Still 
more  interesting  is  his  proof,  that  the  election  of  Ferdinand 
II.'s  son  as  king,  in  August  7th,  1636,  at  Ratisbon,  can 
be  traced  back  to  the  Jesuit  Lamormaini.  The  Senate  of 
Hamburg  wished  to  reward  the  merits  of  the  Jesuit  in 
this  indubitably  political  affair  by  a  present  of  1,000  thalers. 
Lamormaini  wisely  declined  for  himself,  but  induced  the 
Senate  to  turn  over  the  sum  to  the  Jesuit  Heinrich 
Schachtin,  who  was  secretly  at  work  in  Hamburg. 

As  principal  adviser  of  the  Emperor  Lamormaini  had 
also  a  considerable  share  in  Wallenstein's  fate.  Under  the 
presidency  of  the  Emperor  a  "  secret  council "  was  held 
on  January  24th,  1634,  in  Prince  von  Eggenberg's  house, 
when  the  Duke  of  Friedland's  fate  was  decided.  As 
the  Jesuit  Lamormaini  could  not  be  present  the  Emperor 
sent  Bishop  Anton  Wolfrath  to  him,  in  order  to  inform 
him  of  the  resolutions  and  to  get  his  opinion.  "  The 
Vienna  Bishop,"  writes  the  Emperor  to  the  Jesuit,  "  will 
communicate  to  your  Reverence  a  matter  of  the  greatest 
importance  and  that  under  the  strictest  seal  of  conscience 
or  confession. "J 

This  is  in  agreement  with  Gindely's  report  about  the 
meeting  of  the  College  at  Ratisbon,  in  July- August,  1630, 
at  which  Wallenstein's  first  deposition  was  discussed : 

*  Duhr,  Die  Jesuiten  an  den  deutschen  Fiirstenhofen,  p.  25. 
t  P.  243  et  seq.  %  Dudik,  p.  244. 


180  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

"  It  now  depended  only  on  the  opinion  of  two  persons  [for  the 
Electors  had  already  decided  against  Wallenstein]  who  had  the 
greatest  weight  with  the  Emperor  [Ferdinand  II.]  and  whom  he 
considered  almost  more  than  Eggenberg,  namely  the  Empress  and 
[the  Jesuit]  Lamormaini.  .  .  .  Lamormaini  threw  the  whole  weight 
of  his  prestige  into  the  balance  against  Waldstein.*  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  he  did  this,  not  on  his  own  initiative,  but  by  the 
instructions  of  the  General  of  the  Jesuits,  who  in  his  turn  was  only 
carrying  out  the  directions  of  the  Pope.  The  Spanish  Cabinet  held 
the  opinion  that  the  Confessor  alone  had  clinched  the  matter  and 
that  without  him  the  Emperor  would  have  retained  his  general. 
Three  years  later  and,  moreover,  several  months  before  the  murder 
at  Eger,  when  Lamormaini  warned  against  Waldstein's  plots  and 
requested  the  Spanish  Ambassador  at  Vienna,  the  Marquis  of 
Castaneda,  to  call  the  Emperor's  attention  to  the  danger  threatening 
him,  Philip  IV.  forbade  his  ambassador  to  interfere  in  any  way. 
'  Lamormaini,'  says  the  letter  of  the  Spanish  King  to  Castaneda, 
'  is  the  cause  of  the  present  dangerous  situation  ;  he  advised  and 
brought  about  the  dismissal  of  the  Duke  of  Mecklenburg  [Wallen- 
stein], and  if  he  speaks  to  you  again,  you  are  to  tell  him  that  he 
himself  is  the  cause  of  all  the  trouble.'  "f 

A  very  telling  document  in  proof  of  the  Jesuit  Lamor- 
maini's  political  activity  is  the  report  written  with  his  own 
hand,  on  September  18th,  1630,  to  Ferdinand  II.  on  the 
proposals  which  the  Elector  of  Bavaria  had  made  to  him 
(Lamormaini)  on  his  attitude  to  the  Winter-King.  "  This 
matter  also  concerns  conscience  and  religion  "  :  these  words 
conclude  Lamormaini's  expositions.  Besides  this  the 
report  deals  with  stationing  of  troops  in  Pomerania  and 
Silesia,  and  filling  the  posts  in  the  highest  law-courts  in 
Speyer  and  Vienna,  which  are  reproached  with  dilatoriness.  J 
Even  the  Catholic  historian,  Steinberger,  who  is  strongly 

*  The  older  and  more  correct  spelling. 

f  Gindely,  Waldstein  wdhrend  seines  ersten  Generalats  (Leipzig,  1886),  2,  291 
et  seq.  For  the  letter  of  the  Spanish  King  Gindely  quotes  the  Archive  of  Simancas, 
Philip  IV.  to  Castaneda,  dated  19th  September,  1633. 

%  For  wording  of  the  report,  see  Dudik,  p.  337  et  seq. 


Court  Confessors  181 

in  favour  of  the   Jesuits,   says  of  Lamormaini  and   his 
relation  to  politics  : 

"  At  the  Imperial  Castle  at  Vienna,  the  well-known  Father 
William  Germain  Lamormaini  exercised  a  pretty  extensive  influence 
on  his  Imperial  penitent  (filius  spiritualis),  Ferdinand  II.  The 
Emperor  followed  the  advice  and  judgment  of  his  Father  Confessor, 
as  the  sheep  follows  the  shepherd,  and  in  order  to  safeguard  his 
conscience  in  every  direction  he  initiated  him  into  everything,  even 
the  most  insignificant  trifles.  As  regards  Father  Lamormaini's 
political  views,  his  position  concerning  the  Mantuan  succession  and 
in  the  discussions  preceding  the  Treaty  of  Prague,  added  to  his 
semi-French  descent  [Lamormaini  came  from  Luxemburg],  seem  to 
justify  the  supposition  of  the  Spanish  statesman  that  he  favoured 
France."* 

It  was  universally  said  that  Lamormaini  had  caused 
the  so-called  Mantuan  War  of  Succession.  A  very  tortuous 
letter  from  Lamormaini,  addressed  to  the  King  of  Spain 
with  the  object  of  diverting  the  suspicion,  failed  in  its 
endeavour,  f 

Forty-one  confidential  letters  from  the  Emperor  to 
the  Jesuits  Becanus  and  Lamormaini,  published  by  Dudik,  J 
show  in  how  many  directions  the  confessors  were  occupied, 
and  within  what  vast  limits  matters  were  considered 
"  questions  of  conscience."  Even  on  the  appointment 
of  court-marshals  and  on  lawsuits  their  opinion  was 
taken.  But  mostly  it  is  questions  of  high  politics  which 
the  Emperor  places  before  them :  the  state  of  affairs  in 
Hungary,  Bohemia  and  Silesia,  the  influence  on  certain 
Electors.  There  are  frequent  cautions  from  the  Emperor 
to  treat  the  documents  sent  for  perusal  as  strictly  con- 
fidential. For  Tilly  also  the  Jesuit  received  imperial 
commissions.     For    the     Emperor's    brother,     Archduke 

*  Die  Jesuiten  und  die  Friedensfrage  in  der  Zeit  vom  Prager  Frieden  bis  zum 
Bamberger  Friedensexekulionshauptrezess,  1635-1650  (Freiburg,  1906),  p.  15  et  seq. 
t  Dudik,  pp.  245-248.  %  Pp.  256-278. 


182  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Leopold,  the  Imperial  Confessors  undertook  considerable 
money  transactions,  etc.,  etc. 

A  truly  servile  dependence  on  the  Jesuits  in  private 
and  public  affairs  is  revealed  by  these  letters  from  the 
Emperor  and  the  Archduke. 

Gindely  describes  this  dependence  in  detail.  In  one 
instance,  however,  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits  failed, 
although  it  was  brought  to  bear  at  high  pressure.  This 
was  creditable  to  the  Emperor  and  a  disgrace  to  the 
Jesuit  politicians. 

"  At  that  time  [1635]  it  might  have  been  possible  for  the 
Emperor  to  prevent  France  from  taking  any  further  part  in  the 
German  disputes,  by  purchasing  this  favour  with  the  surrender  of 
Alsace.  If  he  decided  on  this  sacrifice  he  would  have  no  need  to 
treat  with  Saxony  or  to  surrender  Lusatia  to  that  Power.  In  Rome 
it  was  desired  that  the  Emperor  should  satisfy  the  French  claims  ; 
Pope  Urban  VIII.  wanted  in  this  way  to  make  France  more  power- 
ful, and  to  snatch  Lusatia  from  the  hands  of  the  Protestants.  At 
that  time  Lamormaini  received  an  Instruction  from  Rome  to 
influence  the  Emperor  in  this  sense,  and  to  represent  to  him  the 
recovery  and  reconversion  to  Catholicism  of  Lusatia  as  a  work 
pleasing  to  God,  for  which  Alsace  might  be  sacrificed.  But,  how- 
ever much  Lamormaini  might  try,  this  time  all  his  exhortations 
availed  him  nothing."* 

To  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  the  Jesuit's  advice  was  so 
indispensable  that  when  Lamormaini  was  ill,  he  sent  the 
Prince  of  Eggenberg  to  him  and  begged  for  his  opinion. 
Thus  Khevenhiller's  Annals  proclaim  the  truth  in  saying 
that : 

"  Lamormaini  tyrannised  over  the  Emperor  and  the 
Princes,  and  the  Emperor  was  so  completely  in  his  power 
that  not  the  Emperor  but  the  Jesuits  reigned  supreme. nf 

Through  Lamormaini' s  influence,  foreign  Jesuits  were 
also  set  to  work  for  the  Emperor. 

*  Gindely,  Oeschichte  des  dreissigjahrigen  Kricges,  p.  14  ei  seq.  f  II.,  595. 


Court  Confessors  183 

In  December,  1619,  Ferdinand  II.  sent  Count  Wratislaw 
von  Fiirstenberg  to  Louis  XIII.  in  Paris  in  order  to  induce 
the  King  to  help.  At  first  all  attempts  were  in  vain. 
Finally  he  [Count  Fiirstenberg]  succeeded  in  winning  over 
the  Royal  Confessor,  the  Jesuit  Arnoux ;  the  latter  had 
probably  received  directions  from  Rome  to  act  in  Ferdi- 
nand's interest;  in  any  case  he  undertook  the  task.  At 
Christmas  he  put  it  to  the  King  as  a  duty  to  assist  the 
Emperor,  who  was  oppressed  for  the  sake  of  religion  .  .  . 
In  the  evening  of  the  same  day  the  Royal  Private  Secretary 
repaired  to  Fiirstenberg's  house  and  brought  him  word 
that  not  only  the  King  but  also  the  Ministers  had  been 
won  over  to  active  support  of  the  Emperor.* 

This  explains  the  remark  of  Gustavus  Adolphus : 
"  There  are  three  '  L's  '  I  should  like  to  see  hanged  :  the 
Jesuit  Lamormaini,  the  Jesuit  Laymann,  and  the  Jesuit 
Laurentius  Forer."f 

On  the  part  of  mediator  between  Spain  and  France 
played  by  the  Jesuit  Coton,  Father  Confessor  to  Henry  IV. 
of  France,  Coton's  fellow-Jesuit  Prat  writes  : 

"  Persuade  qu'une  alliance  entre  la  France  et  VEspagne 
aurait  de  grands  avantages  four  VEglise,  et  qu'elle  imposerait 
aux  puissances  heretiques  de  VEurope,  il  avait  toujours  eu 
soin  de  menager  un  rapprochement  entre  ces  deux  couronnes, 
si  longtemps  ennemies.  .  .  .  Le  projet  du  P.  Coton  .  .  . 
abouti  enfln  .  .  .  au  mariage  de  Louis  XIII.  avec  Anne 
d>Autriche."% 

In  a  letter  to  Louis  XIV.  Fenelon  attacks  the  Jesuit 
La  Chaise,  the  all-powerful  confessor  of  the  King  : 

"...  Your  Father  Confessor  is  not  vicious,  but  he  shuns 
sterling  virtue  and  only  loves  worldly  and  licentious  people.  He  is 
jealous  of  his  prestige,  which  you  have  raised  to  an  unlimited  height. 

*  Gindely,  III.,  6,  quotes  an  original  report  of  Fiirstenberg's  to  the  Emperor 
dated  Dec.  24th,  1619. 

|  Dudik,  p.  248.  %  Recherches,  etc.  (Lyons,  1876),  III.,  199,  200. 


1 84  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Never  before  did  a  King's  Father  Confessor  alone  appoint  bishops 
and  decide  all  questions  of  conscience.  You,  Sire,  are  the  only 
person  in  France  who  does  not  know  that  he  [La  Chaise]  is  ignorant, 
that  his  mind  is  narrow  and  uncultured.  The  Jesuits,  too,  despise 
him  and  are  indignant  at  his  giving  in  to  the  ambitions  of  his 
family.  You  have  turned  a  member  of  an  Order  into  a  Minister  of 
State  ;  he  knows  neither  people  nor  things,  and  falls  a  ready  victim 
to  any  who  flatter  him  and  give  him  presents."* 

Especially  interesting  are  the  remarks  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  scattered  in  numerous  letters,  on  this  Father 
Confessor  of  her  Royal  lover.  They  do  not  throw  a  par- 
ticularly favourable  light  on  his  character,  or  that  of  the 
Jesuits  in  general.  Yet  no  one  could  dispute  that  Madame 
de  Maintenon  had  undeniable  powers  of  observation,  and 
an  interest  in  the   Jesuits  in  general   and  La  Chaise  in 

*  Gregoire,  Histoire  des  Confesseurs  (Paris,  1824),  p.  363  ;  Lavallee,  Corre- 
spondance  generate  de  Mme.  de  Maintenon  (Paris,  1866),  4,  45  et  seq.  As  regards 
Gregoire,  the  tactics  of  the  Jesuits  are  very  clear.  Wherever  Gregoire  reports 
something  in  favour  of  a  Jesuit  princely  confessor  he  is  quoted  in  full ;  if  he  reports 
anything  unfavourable  it  is  suppressed,  or  Gregoire  is  called  "  Gregoire  the  undis- 
cerning."  Of  course,  the  Jesuit  Duhr  is  particularly  great  at  this  double-faced 
use  of  Gregoire.  For  instance  (in  the  Jesuitenfabeln  (4),  p.  69),  Duhr  quotes  a 
few  words  of  praise  by  Gregoire  on  the  Jesuit  Arnoux,  Confessor  of  Louis  XIII. 
of  France,  but  suppresses  the  following  intervening  phrases  :  "  In  the  year  1621 
Father  Arnoux  was  dismissed  from  his  office  as  confessor  to  the  King.  ...  At 
first  he  looked  and  spoke  with  resignation,  but  instead  of  congratulating  himself 
on  being  exempt  from  an  office  which  must  always  be  a  burden  in  the  eyes  of 
piety,  he  appeared  to  take  his  dismissal  as  a  disgrace.  Details  told  by  Gramond 
prove  that  the  confessor's  bitter  grief  was  to  be  seen  in  his  behaviour,  and  that 
he  still  strove  ambitiously  to  recover  his  lost  position.  So  hard  is  it  (as  a  historian 
says)  for  monks  who  have  been  employed  at  court  to  shake  off  its  chains.  In 
order  to  return  to  his  position,  Arnoux  engaged  in  intrigues  in  which  the  true 
spirit  of  the  Society  [of  Jesus]  was  revealed,  as  on  their  own  confession  they  are 
like  a  lion  to  those  who  fear  them,  like  a  hare  to  the  courageous  "  (pp.  332-334). 
Duhr  is  careful  also  not  to  tell  his  readers  the  general  opinion  expressed  by 
Gregoire  on  Jesuit  confessors.  "  The  Jesuit  confessor  at  court  was  in  a  sense 
the  Agent  of  the  Order,  so  as  to  work  in  its  interest,  to  slander  and  ruin  those  who 
thwarted  or  appeared  to  thwart  its  ambition.  .  .  .  Among  the  Jesuit  con- 
fessors of  princes  some  are  justly  to  be  praised.  But  the  virtue  of  the  individual 
does  not  represent  the  spirit  of  the  community  into  whose  secrets  the  confessors 
were  initiated,  and  who  in  several  countries,  especially  in  France,  Spain,  and  par- 
ticularly in  Portugal,  brought  the  sovereigns  under  their  rule,  and  thus  governed 
the  people  for  the  benefit  of  their  Society."     (Gregoire,  pp.  336,  426  et  seq.) 


Court   Confessors  185 

particular.  The  letters  are  addressed  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Paris,  and  belong  to  the  period  of  1695-1700.  Here 
are  some  specimens  : 

"  Do  not  attempt  to  cure  Pere  La  Chaise,  or  to  teach  him  moder- 
ation on  the  principle  that  the  pious  are  of  no  use  .  .  .  this 
principle  of  the  good  Father's  [Madame  de  Maintenon  frequently 
speaks  sarcastically  of  La  Chaise  as  "  bon  pere "]  is  universally 
known,  you  may  openly  discuss  it  with  him.  Do  not  feel  in  honour 
bound  to  tell  him  that  he  in  particular  ought  to  be  the  protector 
of  piety,  instead  of  saying  that  we  are  all  of  no  use,  just  because 
I  love  good  people  and  he  cannot  bear  them.  .  .  .  Father  de  la 
Chaise  has  been  to  see  me  ...  he  was  gay  and  free  in  his  manner, 
and  his  visit  was  more  like  an  insult  than  an  act  of  civility. 
(Sa  visite  avail  plus  Pair  (Tune  insulte  que  (Tune  honnetete.)  The 
Jesuits  make  war  on  us  openly  on  all  sides,  and  those  who  wish 
for  peace  are  to  be  pitied.  ...  It  is  your  place  to  defend  the 
cause  of  the  Church  and  the  Bishop  of  Meaux  [Bossuet],  which 
Father  La  Chaise  attacked  in  speaking  to  the  King.  By  the  way  in 
which  the  King  spoke  to  me  this  evening,  I  doubt  less  than  ever 
that  you  should  speak  to  Father  La  Chaise  about  Confessors.  .  .  . 
I  want  you  to  make  the  Jesuits  feel  that  you  have  given  them  up, 
and  that  your  consideration  for  them  is  forced.  Perhaps  you  will 
spare  them,  they  will  grow  still  more  bitter  against  you  .  .  . 
although  my  head  is  in  a  sad  state  to-day,  I  cannot  help  relieving 
my  feelings  to  you  about  all  the  mischief  that  the  good  Father 
[La  Chaise]  has  achieved  with  the  King.  .  .  .  Father  La  Chaise 
wants  to  set  right  the  harm  he  has  done  in  the  matter  of  Father 
Poisson,  but  he  has  more  talent  for  evil  than  for  good,  and  the 
reason  is  that  his  intentions  are  not  honest.  He  complains  greatly 
to  the  King  of  not  being  included  among  the  [newly  to  be  appointed] 
bishops.  Such  speeches  remove  the  impression  of  kindness  ;  and 
I  was  malicious  enough  to  tell  him  straight  out  that  he  need  not 
be  the  enemy  of  the  bishops,  because  he  was  not  of  their  number. 
.  .  .  On  Sunday  I  saw  Father  Bourdaloue  [a  Jesuit  and  cele- 
brated preacher  in  Paris],  who  expressed  to  me  the  sorrow  of  the 
Society  [of  Jesus]  at  my  appearing  not  to  love  them,  on  account 
of  the  estrangement  between  me  and  Father  La  Chaise.    I  answered 


186  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

that  it  was  not  my  fault,  and  that  I  was  ready  to  meet  any  advance 
on  their  part."* 

I  have  dwelt  so  long  on  Madame  de  Maintenon  and  her 
relations  to  the  Jesuit  La  Chaise,  because  the  Jesuits  try 
to  make  the  public  believe  that  her  unfavourable  opinion 
of  him  was  mainly  based  on  "  forgeries  "  by  the  Calvinist 
La  Beaumelle.  The  testimony  of  the  genuine  letters  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon  is  suppressed  by  the  Jesuits. f 

The  Jesuit  La  Chaise  was  followed  by  the  Jesuit  Tellier 
(or  Letellier)  in  the  post  of  Confessor  to  Louis  XIV.  His 
influence  on  the  King  and  his  policy  was  so  great  that 
even  Cretineau-Joly  admits  that  "  Letellier  dominated 
(dominate)  Louis  XIV. "J 

Saint-Simon,  who  was  personally  acquainted  with  the 
Jesuit  Tellier,  draws  a  vivid  picture  of  him  : 

"  Till  then  Father  Tellier  was  quite  unknown  to  the  King.  He 
only  knew  his  name,  which,  with  five  or  six  other  Jesuit  names, 
was  on  a  list  drawn  up  by  Father  La  Chaise  of  those  who  would 
be  suited  to  succeed  him.  Tellier  had  passed  through  every  grade 
of  the  Society,  having  been  Professor,  Theologian,  Hector  and 
Provincial  Scriptor.  He  had  been  commissioned  [during  the  dispute 
about  the  Chinese  rites]  to  defend  the  creed  of  Confucius.   .    .    . 

*  Lavallee,  Correspondance  generale  de  Madame  de  Maintenon  (Paris,  1866),  4, 
52,  89,  151,  154,  161,  179  et  seq.,  310.  The  statement  about  the  Jesuit  Bourdaloue 
is  also  worthy  of  note.  In  the  pulpit  he  played  the  part  of  the  stern  penitential 
preacher  who  attacks  the  loose  morals  of  the  court ;  in  the  boudoir  of  the  former 
mistress  and  future  wife  of  Louis  XIV.  he  sued  for  her  favour  towards  his  Order. 

t  The  Jesuit  Duhr  deals  in  truly  Jesuitical  fashion  with  the  doings  of  his 
fellow-Jesuit  La  Chaise  ( Jesuitenfabeln  (4),  pp.  674-681  ).  The  seven  pages  he 
devotes  to  him  are  filled  with  timid  elusion  of  the  subject,  an  attempt  to  discredit 
sources  that  are  unfavourable  to  La  Chaise.  But  Duhr  evades  the  real  task  which 
he  should  have  attempted,  to  justify  La  Chaise's  conduct  as  the  confessor  of 
a  king  who  was  mastered  by  his  passions.  He  says  :  "  We  cannot  here  discuss 
the  question  whether  any  reproaches  can  be  brought  against  this  Jesuit  and  of 
what  nature  ;  our  only  object  is  to  clear  away  some  of  the  fabulous  deposit  (sic) 
which  has  accumulated  about  this  confessor  in  such  masses  that  his  person  has 
become  almost  mythical  "  (p.  674).  We  should  imagine  it  was  just  these  reproaches 
which  were  in  question. 

J  Cretineau-Joly,  4,  451. 


Court  Confessors  187 

He  was  a  zealous  partisan  of  Molinism  [system  of  the  Jesuit  doctrine 
of  grace  which  derived  its  name  from  the  Jesuit  Molina],  and  desired 
to  erect  the  new  dogmas  of  his  Order  on  the  ruins  of  the  antago- 
nistic opinions.  Educated  in  such  principles  and  initiated  into  all 
the  secrets  of  the  Order,  because  of  the  genius  which  the  Order 
discovered  in  him,  he  had,  ever  since  entering  it,  lived  only  for 
the  realisation  of  the  principles  of  the  Order,  believing  that  for  the 
attainment  of  this  end  everything  was  permissible.  Of  severe 
intellect,  always  on  the  alert,  a  foe  to  all  frivolity  and  social  pleasures. 
.  .  .  All  moderation  was  hateful  to  him,  he  only  tolerated  it 
under  compulsion,  or  with  the  prospect  of  thus  more  surely  attaining 
his  goal.  .  .  .  His  life  was  a  hard  one  from  inclination  and  habit. 
.  .  .  Formed  by  the  principles  and  policy  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
...  he  was  thoroughly  false,  deceitful  and  malicious,  concealing 
himself  by  a  thousand  folds  and  windings  .  .  .  scoffing  at  the 
most  formal  agreements  if  it  no  longer  suited  him  to  abide  by  them, 
and  passionately  pursuing  those  with  whom  they  had  been  made. 
He  was  a  terrible  man,  aiming  at  revolution  both  openly  and 
secretly.  .  .  .  His  outward  appearance  promised  nothing  else, 
and  it  kept  its  promises.  If  met  in  a  forest,  he  would  have  inspired 
terror ;  his  face  was  sombre  and  false  ;  his  eyes  were  wicked, 
penetrating  and  crooked.  That  such  a  man,  who  had  dedicated  his 
body  ana  soul  to  the  Order,  who  knew  no  other  nourishment  than 
its  deepest  secrets,  and  no  other  God  but  the  Society  .  .  .  was 
in  all  other  respects  coarse,  ignorant  and  insolent,  knowing  neither 
courtesy  nor  moderation,  is  not  surprising.  He  had  completed 
his  training  in  the  principles  of  the  Order  at  Rome,  and  the  Order 
had  been  compelled  to  send  him  back  to  France  on  account  of  the 
sensation  caused  by  his  book  [on  the  Chinese  rites]  which  had  been 
placed  on  the  Index.  When  he  visited  the  King  in  his  cabinet 
for  the  first  time  after  his  introduction,  Bloin  and  Fagon  were 
present.  Fagon,  leaning  on  his  stick,  closely  watched  his  expression 
and  movements.  The  King  asked  him  whether  he  were  related 
to  the  Le  Telliers  (a  family  of  the  old  nobility).  The  Father  bowed. 
'  I,  Sire,  related  to  the  lords  of  Le  Tellier  ?  Far  from  it.  I  am  a 
poor  peasant's  son,  from  Normandy,  where  my  father  was  a  farmer.' 
Fagon,  whom  nothing  escaped,  turned  to  Blois  and  said,  pointing 
to  the  Jesuit :  '  What  a  villain  ! '  (Quel  sacre  !).    Nor  was  he  mis- 


i88  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

taken  in  this  strange  judgment  on  a  confessor.  This  Tellier  had 
put  on  the  manners  and  gestures  of  a  man  who  was  afraid  of  his 
position,  and  only  accepted  it  out  of  obedience  to  his  Order.  I  have 
dwelt  in  such  detail  on  this  new  confessor,  because  he  was  the 
originator  of  those  amazing  storms  under  which  even  to  this  day- 
State  and  Church,  education  and  doctrine,  and  so  many  good 
people  are  suffering,  and  because  I  have  a  more  immediate  and 
exact  knowledge  of  this  terrible  personality  than  anyone  else  at 
court."* 

Saint- Simon  also  tells  us  with  what  perseverance 
Tellier  sought  his  society,  because  he  knew  of  the  great 
influence  which  Saint- Simon  possessed  with  the  King  and 
the  Dukes  of  Berry  and  Orleans.")*  He  concludes  his 
account  of  Tellier  with  the  words  : 

"  He  (Tellier)  saw  the  King  an  old  man  and  a  Dauphin  in  his 
first  childhood.  His  task  with  the  King  was  an  easy  one  .  .  . 
for  he  doubtless  remembered  the  legacy  of  Father  La  Chaise,  I  mean 
the  strange  counsel  which  he  gave  him.  He  preferred  to  leave 
everything  to  the  Jesuits  rather  than  irritate  them  and  expose 
himself  to  the  chance  of  a  dagger.":}: 

Saint-Simon  also  gives  a  character  sketch  of  the  Jesuit 
Bermudez,  Confessor  at  the  Court  of  Madrid,  in  connection 
with  which  we  may  note  that  Saint-Simon,  during  his 
stay  at  Madrid  as  French  ambassador,  had  a  good  deal 
of  intercourse  with  Bermudez. 

"  Bermudez,  a  Spaniard  to  the  core,  hated  France  and  the 
French,  and  was  secretly  devoted  to  the  House  of  Austria  and 
connected  with  the  whole  Italian  cabal."  § 

The  predecessor  of  Bermudez  in  the  office  of  Confessor 
to  the  King  was  his  fellow-Jesuit  d'Aubanton,  who  played 
the  same  important  political  part  in  Spain  as  his  co- Jesuits, 
Caussin,  Co  ton,  La  Chaise,  Tellier,  etc.,  in  France,  and 

*  Memoir -es,  p.  240.  t  Pp-  240  and  9,  231. 

%  Pp.  9,  431.  §  Pp.  19,  133. 


Court   Confessors  189 

Becan,  Lamormaini,  etc.,  at  Vienna.  D'Aubanton, 
formerly  Assistant  to  the  General  in  Rome  and,  as  Saint- 
Simon  asserts,  the  author  of  the  bull  unigenitus  directed 
against  the  Jansenists,  which  caused  so  much  trouble  and 
disturbance,  had  succeeded  the  Jesuit  Robinet  as  the 
King's  Confessor.* 

"  Ce    changement    de    confesseur"    says    Saint-Simon, 
"  fut  un  grand  et  long  malheur  pour  les  deux  couronnes ' 
(France  and  Spain). 

The  importance  which  d'Aubanton  attached  to  himself 
and  his  position  as  the  King's  Confessor,  and  the  value 
set  by  the  Order  on  the  appointment  of  one  of  its  members, 
may  be  gathered  from  an  interesting  communication  of 
d'Alembert's.f 

D'Aubanton  had  induced  Louis  XIV.  to  arrange  that 
Philip  V.  of  Spain  should  take  a  Jesuit  confessor,  in  the 
first  instance  d'Aubanton  himself.  And  the  regular 
appointment  of  a  Jesuit  as  the  King's  confessor  in  Madrid 
was  laid  down,  owing  to  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  as 
an  essential  condition  of  a  good  understanding  between 
France  and  Spain,  in  a  secret  article  in  the  Treaty  of 
Peace  of  1720.J 

One  of  the  most  adroit  political  agents  of  his  day  was 
the  Jesuit  Monod,  Confessor  of  the  Duchess  Christine  of 
Savoy,  daughter  of  Henry  IV.  of  France.  Her  husband, 
Victor  Amadeo  I.  of  Savoy,  often  made  use  of  Monod  for 
diplomatic  missions.  His  biographer,  Raimond,  says  of 
him  in  the  Biographic  universelle  : 

"  Monod  ruled  over  Paris,  Madrid,  Home  and  Turin.  Cardinal 
Richelieu  recognised  the  danger  of  Monod,  who  had  combined  with 
his  fellow- Jesuit  Caussin,  the  Confessor  of  Louis  XIII.,  and  succeeded 
in  bringing  about  the  banishment  of  both  Jesuits  from  court." 

*  Memoires,  11,  110.  f  D'Alembert,  CEuvres  (Paris,  1S05),  10,  57. 

%  Cf.  Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  102. 

§  Gregoire,  Histoire  des  Confesseurs,  pp.  193,  194. 


i9°  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Very  discreditable  was  the  part  played  by  the  confessor 
of  Duke  Charles  IV.  of  Lorraine,  the  Jesuit  Cheminet. 

"  He  supported  the  Duke  in  his  desire  for  a  separation  from 
his  wife,  to  whom  he  had  been  married  for  twelve  years,  in  order 
to  marry  a  Mademoiselle  de  Cantecroix.  And  this  though  he  was 
also  confessor  to  the  Duchess  !  Rome  decided  in  1664  against  the 
amorous  Duke  and  the  accommodating  Jesuit."* 

A  marked  hostility  to  Germany  characterises  the  polit- 
ical activity  of  the  Jesuit  Vervaux,  under  Maximilian  I. 
of  Bavaria. 

Vervaux  was  Maximilian's  confessor  and,  as  Stein- 
berger  admits,  "  may  be  regarded  as  the  type  of  an  accom- 
modating court  theologian."  In  the  spring  of  1645  he 
was  sent,  with  the  cognisance  and  approval  of  his  Superiors 
(as  is  shown  by  a  letter  addressed  by  the  Provincial  of  the 
Upper  German  Province,  Nicasius  Widmanns,  to  the  Head 
of  the  Jesuit  Professed-House  in  Paris),  by  Maximilian 
to  Paris  to  pave  the  way  for  an  understanding  between 
France  and  Bavaria.  Vervaux  set  out  on  this  distinctly 
political  embassy  under  the  alias  and  with  the  outward 
appearance  of  Chevalier  Baptiste  de  Clorans,  on  March  3rd, 
1845.  On  April  5th  and  11th  Clorans- Vervaux  had  inter- 
views with  Mazarin  which,  however,  led  to  no  result,  and 
the  Chevalier  Jesuit  returned  to  Munich  on  May  22nd, 
without  having  accomplished  his  purpose. f 

Two  years  later  Vervaux  composed  a  report  for  his 
penitent  Maximilian  I.,  in  which  he  once  more  advocated 
an  alliance  with  Bavaria  and  France,  on  the  ground  that 
it  was  lawful,  honourable,  and  necessary.  The  document 
ends  with  the  words  : 

"  If   the   matter  turns   out   well,   the   Austrians   and 

*  Gregoire,  Histoire  des  Confesseurs,  p.  181. 

f  For  details  and  documentary  proofs,  see  Steinberger,  Die  Jesuiten  und  die 
Friedensfrage,  pp.  41-75. 


Court  Confessors  191 

Spaniards  will  show  honour  to  those  whom  they  used  to 
despise,  and  take  up  a  more  suitable  attitude." 

This  clearly  shows  that  it  was  not  with  a  view  to 
conquering  the  Protestant  Powers  that  the  Jesuit  Vervaux 
desired  the  alliance  between  France  and  Bavaria,  and  that 
this  was  not  a  question  of  religious  denominationalism, 
which  would  have  made  the  opinion  of  a  confessor  seem 
natural.  No,  this  Jesuit  was  intervening  in  actual  politics  ; 
and  the  Jesuit  proposal  was  even  directed  against  Spain 
and  Austria,  Catholic  Powers.* 

That  the  princes  did  not  always  select  Jesuit  confessors 
of  their  own  free  will,  but  were  often  driven  by  threats 
to  surrender  these  influential  posts  to  this  powerful  Order, 
is  evident  from  a  communication  made  by  Marechal, 
physician-in-ordinary  to  Louis  XIV.  of  France. 

Marechal  informed  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Saint- 
Simon  that  the  King  had  told  him  the  following :  The 
Jesuit  La  Chaise,  for  so  many  years  his  confessor,  had  urged 
upon  him  (the  King)  shortly  before  his  death  to  choose 
his  next  confessor  also  from  the  Jesuit  Order.  He  was 
influenced,  he  said,  in  making  this  request  only  by  his 
desire  for  the  King's  interests.  He  (La  Chaise)  knew  his 
Order  well,  and  although  the  many  slanders  spread  abroad 
about  it  were  untrue,  yet  he  could  only  repeat  that  "  he 
knew  his  Order  well,  and  on  that  account  implored  the 
King  to  accede  to  his  request ;  the  Society  was  very 
widely  disseminated  and  composed  of  the  most  various 
persons,  for  whom  it  was  not  possible  always  to  be  respon- 
sible ;  he  besought  the  King  not  to  drive  the  Society  of 
Jesus  to  extremities,  for  it  was  easy  to  play  him  a  nasty 
trick  (un  mauvais  coup)."  Saint-Simon  adds :  "  It  was 
the  consideration  of  this  power  of  the  Order  which  induced 
Henri  IV.  to  favour  the  Jesuits.  .  .  .  Louis  was  not 
superior  to  Henri  IV. ;    he  was  careful  to  bear  in  mind 

*  Steiaberger,  Die  Jesuiten  und  die  Friedensfrage,  p.  97  ct  seq. 


192  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

the  revelations  of  Father  La  Chaise,  and  avoided  exposing 
himself  to  the  revenge  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  by  choosing 
his  confessors  from  outside  their  ranks.  He  wished  to 
live  and  to  live  in  security.  He  therefore  commissioned 
the  Dukes  of  Chevreuse  and  Beauvillier  to  inquire  with 
all  due  precautions  which  of  the  Jesuits  he  had  better 
take  as  his  confessor."* 

Not  infrequently  the  Order  encountered  difficulties,  in 
instituting  the  appointment  of  princely  confessors,  from 
the  bishops,  who  were  not  always  in  agreement  with  the 
morale  aisee  of  the  Jesuit  directors.  But  the  Jesuits 
managed  skilfully  to  set  aside  the  difficulties.  A  par- 
ticularly striking  instance  of  this  occurred  in  the  case  of 
one  of  the  numerous  Jesuit  confessors  of  Louis  XV.  of 
France,  who,  doubtless,  was  in  special  need  of  a  legitimised 
morale  aisee.  The  Archbishop  of  Paris,  Cardinal  de 
Noailles,  refused  the  jurisdiction  of  the  King  to  the 
Jesuit  de  Lignieres,  so  that  Lignieres  would  not  have  been 
able  to  absolve  the  King.f  What  action  was  taken  by 
advice  of  the  Jesuit  ? 

"  Le  roi  se  rendit  a  Saint-Cyr,  qui  dependoit  du  diocese 
de  Chartres,  ou  il  jut  confesse  far  le  pere  de  Lignieres,  et, 
pour  soustraire  celui-ci  a  la  jurisdiction  du  Cardinal  de 
Noailles,  on  Venvoya  a  Pontoise,  qui  etait  alors  du  diocese 
de  Rouen.  On  obtint  ensuite  un  href  du  Pape  qui  permettoit 
au  roi  de  choisir  pour  confesseur  tel  ecclesiastique  qu'il 
voudroit,  pourvu  quHl  fut  approuve  par  V  ordinaire,  en 
declarant  que  le  roi  ne  devoit  etre  repute  dJaucun  diocese 
particulier."% 

*  Memoires,  6,  238  et  seq. 

-j-  In  order  that  a  priest,  even  if  a  member  of  an  Order,  may  hear  confessions 
he  must  be  "approved  "  by  his  diocesan  bishop  and  equipped  with  jurisdiction. 
The  priestly  consecration  alone  (potestas  ordinis)  does  not  entitle  him  to  hear 
confessions  ;  to  it  must  be  added  the  potestas  jurisdictions  of  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities. 

%  Memoires  de  la  Regence  (La  Haye,  1737),  3,  153.     Gregoire,  p.  119. 


Court  Confessors  193 

If  we  assume  that  Jesus  Christ  did  really  institute 
confession,  what  would  He  have  said  to  such  confession 
and  absolution  on  the  part  of  His  Society  ? 

And  now  a  word  as  to  the  material  position  of  the 
Jesuits  who  acted  as  princely  confessors. 

The  Jesuit  confessor  of  the  King  of  France  received 
an  annual  salary  of  6,854  livres,  of  which  300  went  in  the 
upkeep  of  a  carriage.  Whenever  the  confessor  dined  at 
court  a  banquet  of  six  courses  had  to  be  served  him.* 
Louis  XIV.  had  presented  to  his  confessor,  the  Jesuit  La 
Chaise,  a  beautiful  country-house  as  a  place  of  retirement. 
It  stood  on  the  spot  where  is  now  the  celebrated  cemetery, 
which  takes  its  name,  Pere  La  Chaise,  from  the  Royal 
Confessor.  The  Jesuit  d'Aubanton,  Royal  Confessor  at 
Madrid,  drew  a  salary  of  4,000  livres.f 

I  may  conclude  this  section  with  a  few  quotations, 
partly  from  Jesuits  themselves,  partly  from  other  persons, 
regarding  Jesuit  politics  and  the  confessors  of  princes. 

A  very  interesting  insight  into  the  views  of  the  Order 
as  to  the  spiritual  direction  of  princes  is  afforded  by  a 
secret  report  of  the  Visitator  of  the  Upper  German  Province 
of  the  year  1596,  the  Jesuit  Paul  Hoffaus  : 

''  The  present  Pope  too  [Clement  VIII.],  speaking,  as  is  piously 
believed,  in  the  words  of  God,  whose  Vicar  he  is  on  earth,  has 
publicly  reproached  us  with  interfering  in  the  affairs  of  princes 
and  states,  and  trying  in  a  measure  to  rule  the  world  according  to 
our  views.  That  is  why  the  last  General  Congregation  [the  fifth, 
1593-94]  has  bidden  us  by  the  strictest  decrees  %  to  keep  aloof  from 
such  matters.  And  if  we  do  not  at  last  become  wise,  frightened  by 
so  many  evil  consequences,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  we  may  some 
day  feel  the  avenging  hand  of  God,  to  our  far  greater  injury.  True, 
it  is  said  that  our  confessors,  who  are  the  spiritual  counsellors  of 
princes,  should  be  more  leniently  judged  in  this  respect.    Yet  they 


• 


Journal  historique  de  Trevoux  (Verdun,  April,  1709),  p.  247. 
t  Saint-Simon,  Memoires,  16,  205.  J  Decret.  47,  79  ;   ef.  p.  133,  134. 

N 


194  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

ought  to  know  that  it  is  a  question  here  of  a  prohibition  in  the 
Constitutions  and  in  the  decrees  of  the  above-mentioned  Congre- 
gations, and  also  consider  that  the  permission  is  only  accorded  to 
them  by  a  dispensation,  assuming  that  both  parties  receive  the 
dispensation  and  not  one  only.    But  such  a  dispensation  must  only 
be  moderately  and  prudently  used,  so  that  no  evil  consequences 
may  ensue  for  the  Society  and,  which  is  of  most  importance,  that 
greater  spiritual  benefits,  which  should  be  undertaken  to  the  honour 
of  God  and  the  salvation  of  our  neighbour,  may  not  be  hindered. 
Would  that  the  confessors  might  carefully  observe  the  words  of  the 
dispensation,  which  perhaps  refers  only  to  doubtful  cases,  where 
it  is  not  sufficiently  certain  whether  the  matter  touches  the  con- 
science but  little  or  not  at  all,  while  it  is  possible  that  the  wish 
of  our  General  [Acquaviva]  is  that  our  people  should  take  no  part 
at  all  in  purely  political  matters,  or  only  in  cases  when  a  prince 
is  in  grievous  sorrow,  or  would  be  greatly  distressed  or  offended 
if   his   confessor  were  to  refuse  his  services  in  a  particular    case. 
Further,  as  intervention  in  worldly  affairs  is  so  much  opposed  to 
our  Institute  that  we  cannot  but  fear  that  God  will  refuse  His  aid 
to   our  deliberations  on  these    matters,   and  our  counsel  might 
therefore  direct  the  prince  to  the  wrong  road,  it  seems  advisable 
that  the  confessors,  as  far  as  is  possible,  should  refrain  from  lightly 
iirging  the  prince  to  this  or  that  course  without  the  advice  of  the 
Superior  of  the  Order,  and  that  they  should  rather  urge  him  first 
to  seek  advice  from  his  own  counsellors  before  he  invites  our  members 
to  give  their  advice.    Else  the  prince's  counsellors  might  be  justified 
in  imagining  that  politics  were  conducted  according  to  the  views 
of  the  Jesuits,  and  that  they  were  only  consulted  pro  forma  without 
any  result,  which  would  be  wounding  to  them  and  also  injurious 
to  us.    I  do  not  say  this  in  order  to  entangle  the  confessors  and  lay 
snares  for  them,  but  rather  to  warn  them  not  to  enter  too  securely 
and  freely  into  temporal  discussions,  but  with  a  certain  wholesome 
fear  and  moderation,  and  rather  avoid  such  matters,  as  far  as  this 
can  be  done  in  seemly  fashion  and  without  giving  offence."* 

*  From  Reusch,  Beitrage  zur  Geschichte  des  Jesuitenordens  :  Zeitschrift  fur 
Kirchengeschichte  (1894),  p.  265  et  seq.  Reusch  rests  his  statements  on  unpublished 
documents  in  the  State  Archives  at  Munich,  to  which  he  had  access  in  the 
original. 


Court  Confessors  195 

The  Jesuit  Viller  also  speaks  some  plain  words,  which 
throw  a  strong  light  on  the  attitude  of  the  Jesuit  Order 
towards  the  office  of  princely  confessor. 

Viller,  Father  Confessor  of  Archduke  Charles  of  Styria, 
was  one  of  the  most  influential  Jesuits  of  Austria  ;  for 
many  years  he  filled  the  most  important  posts  in  the 
Order — those  of  Rector  and  Provincial.  Because  of  the 
great  favour  he  enjoyed  at  court,  he  had  many  envious 
enemies,  who  denounced  him  secretly  to  the  General.  He 
defended  himself  in  several  long  and  outspoken  letters. 
On  June  8th,  1598,  he  wrote  to  the  Jesuit  Duras,  German 
Assistant  to  General  Acquaviva  : 

"  In  the  early  days  of  our  Society  we  all  rejoiced  if  one  of  us 
found  favour  with  a  prince,  and  our  efforts  were  directed  towards 
the  end  of  winning  the  favour  of  princes.  Now  there  are  some  who 
are  angry  and  envious  if  any  one  is  in  favour  and  labours  with 
good  result.  Under  the  pretence  of  virtue  they  show  aeal  for 
the  discipline  of  the  Society  and  are  filled  with  envy."* 

In  a  letter  addressed  by  the  Jesuit  Francisco  Antonio, 
Confessor  to  the  Empress  Maria,  wife  of  Maximilian  II., 
to  the  General  Mercurian,  on  April  30th,  1576,  we  read  : 

"  There  is  not  a  bishop,  ambassador,  or  lord  who  would  not 
desire  to  have  some  Jesuits  in  attendance  ;  the  door  [to  the  princely 
courts]  which  is  closed  by  the  vows  after  profession,  appears  in  a 
fashion  to  be  reopened  in  this  way.  For  there  is  no  lack  of  those 
who  seek  after  such  posts  with  princes,  and  this  leads  to  many- 
abuses.  In  the  first  place  they  grow  accustomed  to  a  certain  liberty, 
which  is  little  in  harmony  with  our  rules.  .  .  .  Finally,  there  is 
little  spiritual  advantage  to  be  gained  by  it :  it  leads  to  ill  reports 
about  the  Society,  as  people  notice  that  our  members  tolerate  con- 
siderable abuses  at  the  courts  or  else  refuse  to  see  them,  only 
because  they  desire  to  enjoy  this  liberty  and  honour." f 

*  Duhr,  p.  45. 

f  Duhr,  who  gives  an  extract  from  this  letter  (in  die  Jesuiten  an  den  deutschen 
Furstenhofen  des  l&en  Jahrhunderts,  Freiburg,  1901,  p.  16),  describes  it  as  a 
'  somewhat   one-sided   exposition."     Its   contents   would   probably  appear   even 


196  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

In  a  letter  to  Leschasser,  of  March  27th,  1612,  Paolo 
Sarpi  reports  : 

"  Many  as  were  the  intrigues  which  they  [the  Jesuits]  stirred 
up  against  us  [i.e.  Venice,  from  which  territory  the  Jesuits  had 
been  expelled],  they  cannot  be  compared  with  those  which  they 
have  set  on  foot  in  Constantinople.  For  there  they  are  doing  all 
in  their  power  to  stir  up  the  Turks  against  us."* 

A  manuscript  report  by  Leibnitz,  of  August  28th,  1682, 
contains  this  passage : 

"  Dans  quelques  jours  nous  reprendrons  cette  matiere, 
oil  nous  verrons  combien  il  est  feu  a  propos  que  les  Eccle- 
siastiques  se  melent  des  affaires  d'Estat,  et  principalment 
les  Jesuites,  qui  sont  aujourdliuy  si  puissans,  qu'il  leur 
est  forte  aise  de  pancher  la  balance  du  coste,  quHls  croyent 
le  plus  a  leur  bienseance,  et  ce  coste  est  apparamment  celuy 
de  la  France,  a  laquelle  il  est  evident  que  ces  bons  peres 
veuillent  sacrifler  le  trone  imperial,  en  quoy  peutestre  Us 
reussiront,  si  on  continue  a  les  consulter  et  a  les  croire  a 
la  cour  de  Vienne.""f 

The  following  is  from  an  Italian  manuscript  preserved 
in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  in  Paris  :  J  "  Instruction 
to  princes  as  to  the  manner  in  which  the  Jesuits  rule  "  : 

"  As  among  the  reports  which  the  Provincials  send  in  there 
are  also  some  which  deal  with  the  character,  inclinations  and 
intentions  of  the  various  princes,  the  General  and  his  Assistants 
in  Rome  are  placed  in  a  position  to  survey  and  judge  of  the  political 

more  one-sided  ;  i.e.  they  would  throw  an  even  stronger  light  on  the  Jesuit 
pursuit  of  the  office  of  confessor  at  princely  courts,  forbidden  by  the  Constitutions, 
if  Duhr  had  published  the  letter  in  full,  and  not  in  an  extract,  which  doubtless 
was  garbled. 

*  Le  Bret,  Magazin  (Frankfort,  1773),  3,  542.  •'  The  Magazine  for  the  use 
of  political  and  ecclesiastical  history  as  well  as  of  ecclesiastical  law  of  Catholic 
princes  in  respect  of  their  clergy,"  by  Johann  Friedrich  Le  Bret  (Frankfort  and 
Leipzig,  1773-78),  10  vols.,  contains  a  number  of  valuable  and  rare  documents 
on  the  history  of  the  Jesuit  Order. 

f  Onno  Klopp,  Die  werke  von  Leibniz  (Hanover,  1866),  V.  169  et  eeq. 

J  Fonds   itcdiens,  No.  986.  , 


Court  Confessors  197 

state  of  the  world  and  to  regulate  the  attitude  of  the  Order  in 
accordance  with  its  own  interests.  In  particular,  the  confessions, 
which  a  great  many  of  the  Catholic  nobility  and  many  Catholic 
princes  make  to  the  Jesuits,  are  a  means  of  procuring  for  the  Order 
a  knowledge  of  important  matters,  an  object  for  which  princes 
have  to  pay  large  sums  to  ambassadors  and  spies,  but  which  now 
only  costs  the  Jesuits  the  money  for  postage.  In  the  same  manner 
they  also  learn  the  disposition  of  the  subjects  and  know  which 
of  them  are  well-disposed  to  the  princes  and  which  are  not.  .  .  . 
In  Rome  the  Jesuits  constantly  swarm  around  the  cardinals, 
ambassadors  and  prelates,  and  inquire  about  everything  that 
occurs  or  is  about  to  occur,  and  try  to  turn  it  to  their  own 
advantage,  so  that  events  of  importance  often  have  an  entirely 
different  issue  from  that  which  the  princes  desire.  The  greater 
part  of  the  business  of  Christendom  passes  through  their  hands. 
They  prevailed  on  Gregory  XIII.  to  order  all  legates  and  nuncios 
to  take  Jesuits  as  their  companions  and  confidants.  .  .  .  Jesuits 
who  are  taken  into  the  confidence  of  a  prince  seek  advice  imme- 
diately of  the  General  about  matters  of  importance  and  follow  his 
directions."* 

Macaulay  sums  up  his  judgment  in  these  words  : 

"  They  glided  from  one  Protestant  country  to  another,  under 
innumerable  disguises,  as  gay  Cavaliers,  as  simple  rustics,  as  Puritan 
preachers."! 

Cretineau-Joly,  who  writes  in  the  pay  of  the  Order, 
takes  up  a  peculiar  position.  He  cannot  deny  the  enormous 
influence  of  the  Jesuit  Order  on  the  political  conditions 
of  Europe.     But  he  discovers  a  theory  of  justification. 

"  In  the  intention  of  Loyola  politics  were  certainly  excluded 
from  his  institution  ;  but  in  the  sixteenth  century  all  matters  of 
the  court  and  diplomacy,  and  even  the  wars,  had  a  religious  basis. 
.  .  .  The  Jesuits  were,  therefore,  compelled  to  intervene  in 
political  and  social  movements."  J 

*  From  Huber,  Geschichte  des  Jesuitenordens  (Munich,  1873),  p.  101  et  seq. 
f  Macaulay's  History,  Chap.  VI.  £  Cretineau-Joly,  2,  175. 


198  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

And  feeling  that  he  has  thus  cleared  the  way,  he 
boldly  bears  testimony  to  the  gigantic  political  power  of 
the  Order. 

"  Colbert,  Louvois,  Seignelai,  Pontchartrain,  and  Croissy,  the 
Ministers  of  Louis  XIV.,  were  encompassed  by  the  counsels  of 
Father  Antoine  Verjus  [a  Jesuit] ;  the  Marshal  of  Luxemburg  and 
Villars  sought  his  opinion  in  affairs  of  importance  ;  the  Count  of 
Crecy,  the  French  ambassador  at  the  German  Eeichstag,  did  not 
wish  to  be  the  only  one  deprived  of  the  illumination  of  the  Jesuits 
[lumieres].  He  besought  Louis  XIV.  to  obtain  for  him  this  diplo- 
matic helper  (cet  auxiliaire  diplomatique)  from  the  Superiors  of  the 
Order,  and  accordingly  Father  Verjus  was  instructed  [by  his 
Superiors]  to  repair  to  Germany.  There  the  breadth  of  his  intellect 
and  the  moderation  of  his  character  soon  won  for  him  the  regard 
of  Catholic  and  even  Protestant  princes.  Baron  von  Schwerin, 
ambassador  of  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  Grote,  the  Hanoverian 
ambassador,  both  zealous  Lutherans,  were  among  his  best  friends. 
.  .  .  The  most  celebrated  parliamentarians  [of  France]  followed 
the  pious  counsels  of  [the  Jesuit]  Jean  Crasset."  * 

*  Ibid.,  4,  468  et  seq. 


CHAPTER   XX 

SCHOLASTIC     YEARS    AT    WYNANDSRADE,     BLYENBECK    AND 

DITTON   HALL 

I  passed  my  time  as  a  scholastic  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
(a  name,  as  I  have  shown,  but  little  suited  to  the 
Jesuit  Order)  in  the  colleges  at  Wynandsrade,  Blyenbeck 
(in  Holland),  and  at  Ditton  Hall,  in  England.  I  will 
deal  shortly  with  this  period  of  seven  years,  1880-87. 

Notwithstanding  the  variety  of  times  and  places,  there 
is  nothing  but  uniformity  to  record  about  the  external 
part  of  the  life.  I  was  surrounded  everywhere  by  the 
same  daily  routine  and  customs.  Life  in  the  Jesuit  Order, 
especially  during  the  training  (i.e.  the  scholastic  period), 
goes  on  like  absolutely  regular  and  even  clockwork.  To 
the  scholastic  the  days  from  four  in  the  morning  to  nine  at 
night  are  identical — religious  exercises,  studies,  recreation  ; 
recreation,  studies  and  religious  exercises  always  follow 
each  other  at  exactly  the  same  intervals. 

I  do  not  wish  to  find  fault  with  this ;  rather  the  con- 
trary. Uniformity  and  regularity  are  desirable  during 
the  training  of  members  of  every  profession,  if  they  are 
to  be  qualified  for  prominent  positions.  Still  no  other 
calling,  not  even  that  of  a  soldier,  is  as  regular  and  unevent- 
ful as  that  of  the  Jesuits.  In  all  other  professions  some 
time  and  space  are  available  for  individual  activity  and 
for  freedom,  since  no  other  calling  aims  at  destroying  the 
personality  of  the  individual.  But  the  Jesuit  Order  is 
determined  to  transform  the  whole  man  into  the  whole 

199 


200 


Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 


Jesuit ;  hence  the  suppression  of  all  freedom,  even  in 
external  matters.  Even  recreation,  which  would  seem  to 
be  necessarily  connected  with  liberty  and  individuality, 
is  used  for  compulsion  and  restraint.  For  the  Superior 
arranges  exactly  with  whom  every  one  is  to  associate  either 
during  the  two  daily  recreation  hours  after  dinner  and 
supper,  or  the  two  weekly  walks.  The  scholastics  are 
not  allowed  any  freedom  in  choosing  their  companions. 
Here  also  the  system  of  turmae  prevails.  They  are  also 
strictly  forbidden  to  abstain  from  recreation,  although  real 
recreation  might  frequently  be  found  in  doing  so. 

This  inflexible  uniformity  of  the  external  life,  which 
knows  hardly  any  exception,  and  which  divides  the 
scholastic's  year  365  times  into  mathematically  equal 
parts  and  particles,  is  a  means,  gentle  yet  irresistible,  of 
killing  personal  individuality.  The  polishing  and  planing 
of  the  personality  which  is  set  up  in  the  novitiate  with 
intensive  force,  transforming  human  beings  into  easily  and 
noiselessly  rolling  balls,  is  also  active  in  the  scholasticate. 
For,  since  the  balls  are  living,  it  is  possible  that  angles 
may  grow  out  again.  Anything  of  the  kind  must  be 
prevented.  Hence  the  perpetual  motion  of  the  evenly 
working  machine  of  exterior  Jesuit  life. 

Another  result  of  this  system  which  is  advantageous  to 
the  Order  must  be  mentioned.  The  continual  occupation 
under  constant  and  strict  supervision,  the  absolute  lack 
of  really  free  time  in  which  individuality  may  realise  and 
assert  itself,  essentially  restrict  free  thought.  There  is  no 
time  for  pondering  over  doubts  and  difficulties  which  the 
life  of  the  Order  may  suggest.  Consequently  opposition 
to  the  Jesuit  system  cannot  develop.  Minutely  regulated 
activity  overrides  obscurity,  doubt  and  opposition. 

The  studies  which  I  had  to  pursue  also  belong  to  the 
exterior  life  of  this  period.  They  were  the  Humanities 
and  Rhetoric  at  Wynandsrade   (1880-81),  Philosophy  at 


Scholastic  Years  201 

Blyenbeck  (1881-83),  and  Theology  at  Ditton  Hall 
(1883-87).     I  shall  deal  with  them  separately. 

My  inner  life  within  this  rigid  frame  was  stirring 
enough.  In  spite  of  everything,  I  had  not  become  a  "  ball ': 
during  my  novitiate.  I  had  retained  my  individuality ; 
it  had  maintained  its  ground  against  all  the  levelling 
discipline.  But,  just  because  of  its  strength,  it  exposed 
me  to  the  severest  pain,  though  in  the  end  it  led  to  the 
joy  of  freedom  after  long  and  hard  years  of  struggle. 

My  Rector  at  Wynandsrade  was  the  Jesuit  Hermann 
Nix,  the  same  who  played  so  ugly  a  part  behind  the  scenes 
in  the  Hartmann-Ebenhoch  trial. 

In  reality,  it  is  not  the  duty  of  a  Jesuit  Rector  to 
be  the  regular  spiritual  guide  of  his  subordinates ;  the 
spiritual  father  (who  at  Wynandsrade  was  the  Jesuit 
Eberschweiler)  was  there  for  that  purpose,  but  Nix  took 
upon  himself  this  function,  at  least  so  far  as  we  scholastics 
— and  especially  I  myself — were  concerned. 

I  laid  bare  my  soul  to  him  and  unreservedly  submitted 
myself  to  his  guidance.  And  it  is  due  to  the  Jesuit  Nix 
that  I  did  not  even  then  leave  the  Order,  but  rather  pursued 
the  thorny  path  with  greater  firmness.  Again  and  again, 
by  day  and  by  night — for  the  struggle  continued  even  at 
night,  with  unflinching  constancy  and  untiring  patience — 
this  I  willingly  grant — he  strove  to  bring  my  self-asserting 
ego  under  the  yoke  of  a  delusive  belief  in  Church  and  Order. 
Again  and  again  he  pointed  out  the  great  and  shining 
goal — the  glory  of  God — when  I  wished  to  forsake  the 
holy  calling,  and  from  my  own  religious  idealism  he  forged 
the  chains  to  fetter  me  to  the  Jesuit  idol.  How  I  hate 
him,  this  typical  Jesuit — warm-hearted  and  cold,  idealistic 
and  prosaic,  gentle  and  harsh,  pious  and  godless,  con- 
scientious and  utterly  unscrupulous,  passionate  and  coldly 
calculating.  He,  who  was  neither  a  Master  of  the  Novices 
nor  even  a  spiritual  Father,  fastened  the  burden  of  the 


202  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Jesuit  life  so  firmly  upon  me  that  the  knot  held  for  fourteen 
years.     Nevertheless,  I  must  thank  him  on  two  scores. 

All  the  energy  latent  within  me  was  awakened  and 
guided  by  him  to  definite  action.  To  his  teaching  I  owe 
the  skill  and  strength,  which  I  have  been  obliged  to  draw 
upon  so  frequently  up  to  the  present  day,  to  overcome 
apparently  insurmountable  difficulties.  And — most  impor- 
tant of  all — should  I  have  been  capable  of  fighting  against 
Ultramontane  Rome  and  Jesuitism  with  thorough  know- 
ledge, and  thereby  performing  a  work  of  enlightenment  for 
mankind,  if  I  had  left  the  Order  at  Wynandsrade  after 
a  novitiate  of  two  years  ?  Never  !  I  should  again  have 
become  what  I  was  previously,  and  what  millions  are 
to-day — a  Catholic  who  devoutly,  although  perhaps  not 
without  inner  difficulties,  jogs  along  on  the  appointed  path. 
Above  all,  this  book,  which  throws  light  and  truth  on 
the  Jesuit  Order,  would  have  remained  unwritten  had  it 
not  been  for  the  Jesuit  Nix.  Consequently  I  thank  him, 
notwithstanding  my  hatred. 

When  I  passed  in  July,  1880,  from  the  novitiate  at 
Exaeten  into  the  scholasticate  at  Wynandsrade,  there 
was  indeed  considerable  uneasiness  within  me,  but  on  the 
whole  I  stood  with  firm  feet  on  the  trodden  path  of  the 
Order.  This  was  soon,  almost  suddenly,  changed  at 
Wynandsrade. 

A  profound  change  took  place  on  November  13th, 
1880,  almost  in  one  night,  with  the  taking  of  the  vow.  It 
was  not  that  I  objected  to  the  wording  of  the  vow.  Far 
from  it !  I  wished  to  be  poor,  chaste  and  obedient.  But 
the  uneasy  feeling  which  had  already  frequently  troubled 
me,  that  the  Jesuit  Order  was  not  what  it  appeared  to  be, 
and  that  there  were  dark  abysses  under  my  feet,  took 
possession  of  me  with  a  power  previously  unknown.  Two 
forces  now  began  a  hard  conflict  within  me. 

The  Ultramontane   Jesuit   point   of   view  which   had 


Scholastic  Years  203 

been  fostered  in  me  by  inheritance  and  training  gave 
its  verdict,  which  was  powerfully  strengthened  by 
family  tradition  and  religious  beliefs,  in  favour  of  the 
Order.  Nature  rose  in  opposition  to  it.  I  wanted  to 
believe  in  the  goodness  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  and  to  maintain 
undisturbed  the  ideal  picture  formed  of  it  from  the  first 
years  of  my  childhood,  but  I  could  not.  The  voices 
sounding  from  Church  and  family,  belief  and  tradition, 
raised  no  living  echo  in  my  innermost  soul.  Doubt  and 
oppression  lived  there  because  they  were  natural.  Such 
tormenting  conditions  arose  for  soul  and  body  that  words 
may  not  even  suggest  them.  The  life  of  the  spirit  and  the 
nervous  system  suffered  severely.  Not  that  I  became 
confused  in  thought  or  neurasthenic.  But,  in  spite  of 
clearness  of  thought,  strength  of  will  and  outward  peace, 
there  arose  in  me  an  agonising  tumult  which  caused  every 
chord  of  my  soul  and  every  fibre  of  my  body  to  tremble. 
For  weeks — for  months,  indeed — I  did  not  sleep.  My  bed 
became  a  rack  of  indescribable  misery.  The  hours  from 
nine  at  night  to  four  or  five  in  the  morning,  in  which  I 
was  defencelessly  exposed  to  the  inner  conflict  without 
possibility  of  outer  diversion — for  I  was  strictly  forbidden 
to  seek  relief  by  getting  up  and  occupying  myself  with 
other  things — were  hours  of  torture  in  the  worst  sense  of 
the  word.  And  then  the  long  day  lasted  from  four  in  the 
morning  to  nine  at  night,  and  all  the  time  I  was  obliged 
to  fulfil  my  duties  under  constraint.  Nobody  must  notice 
anything  of  my  inner  suffering ;  I  had  to  be  equable, 
even  cheerful.  The  cries  and  the  bitter  weeping  of  my 
tortured  soul  had  to  be  suppressed.  Certainly  I  found 
some  help  in  the  prescribed  occupations.  But  of  what 
kind  were  they  ?  I,  a  man  of  twenty-eight,  having  passed 
my  matriculation  and  law  examinations  and  done  some 
practical  legal  work,  sat  on  the  form  with  boys  of  eighteen, 
did  Latin  and  Greek  exercises,  wrote  compositions,  and 


204  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

learnt  grammatical  rules  and  poems  like  a  pupil  of  the 
second  class. 

And  this  was  not  all,  not  even  the  worst. 

Along  with  my  doubts  about  the  Order  arose  doubts 
in  connection  with  my  religion  and  my  Church.  That 
which  years  before  had  vaguely  troubled  me,  and  years 
later  was  the  real  cause  of  my  leaving  the  Order,  then 
appeared  for  the  first  time  in  clear  form. 

For  if  my  belief  in  certain  dogmas  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  and  thus  in  the  Church  itself,  had  not 
given  way  previously,  I  should  never  have  left  the  Jesuit 
Order,  but  should  have  sought  and  found  strength,  through 
belief  in  the  Church  and  the  support  of  her  judgment 
that  the  Order  was  good,  to  sacrifice  my  judgment  and 
my  desires,  and  by  trampling  my  individuality  under 
foot,  have  followed  in  the  path  of  the  Order  to  the  end. 
But  when  the  rock  of  the  Church  crumbled  under  my 
feet,  naturally  the  Jesuit  erection  founded  on  it  also 
collapsed. 

I  have  mentioned  in  the  first  part  of  this  book  the 
difficulties  and  terror  which  the  dogma  of  the  Real  Pres- 
ence of  Christ  in  the  Sacrament  had  caused  me  even  in 
childhood,  and  how,  later,  my  belief  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  Church  regarding  the  Virgin  Mary  and  her  adoration 
also  received  a  rude  shock.  These  two  dark  clouds  again 
appeared  on  my  religious  horizon  at  Wynandsrade  simul- 
taneously with  the  doubts  about  the  Order. 

Only  those  who  know  from  personal  and  practical 
experience  the  intimate  connection  of  these  particular 
doctrines  concerning  Christ  and  the  Virgin  Mary  with 
Catholic  feeling,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  form  the 
pivot  of  the  Catholic  faith,  can  estimate  the  awfulness 
for  a  Catholic  heart  when  they  begin  to  totter  and  fall. 
It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  sun  seems  to  be 
extinguished  when  these  religious  stars  begin  to  fade. 


Scholastic  Years  205 

I  shall  deal  with  the  difficulties  concerning  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  altar  when  speaking  of  my  stay  at  the  Ditton 
Hall  Theological  College,  because  they  are  closely  con- 
nected with  formal  theology,  but  I  will  say  at  once 
what  is  necessary  about  the  Virgin  Mary  and  her  adoration. 
For,  although  the  Virgin  Mary  and  her  adoration  are  also 
connected  with  dogma,  and  are  consequently  also  concep- 
tions of  formal  theology,  scholarly  theology  has  abandoned 
them  more  completely  than  other  religious  doctrines. 
They  have  really  passed  over  into  the  popular  conscious- 
ness, into  everyday  Catholic  sentiment,  so  to  speak. 

In  the  Catholic  Church  the  adoration  of  the  Virgin 
has  assumed  forms  which  not  only  directly  and  manifestly 
contradict  the  position  occupied  by  Mary  in  the  Scriptures, 
but  have  also  become  so  unlovely  in  themselves  and 
so  unreligious  that  their  continuance — indeed,  their  con- 
tinually increasing  grotesque  developments — can  only  be 
explained  by  the  general  suppression  of  intellect  and 
judgment  which  broods  like  darkness  over  the  high  and 
low  Ultramontane  Catholic  world. 

Now  this  adoration  of  the  Virgin  and  the  work  of  its 
further  development  lie  in  the  peculiar  domain  of  the 
Jesuit  Order.  In  the  course  of  time  it  has  led  to  a  fearful 
development  of  a  pseudo-religious  and  pseudo -mystical 
nature.  And  even  to  the  present  day  the  Jesuit  litera- 
ture dealing  with  the  Virgin  is  a  collection  of  the  most 
extravagant  doctrines  and  assertions,  and,  above  all,  of 
the  wildest  devotional  practices  and  miraculous  stories.  I 
have  already,  in  previous  chapters,  cited  examples  of  the 
ascetic  practices  of  the  Marian  Congregations  in  honour  of 
the  Virgin. 

The  following  dates  from  the  time  when  the  Order  was 
in  its  prime,  shortly  before  its  suppression  : 

In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  Jesuits 
held  a  service  at  Munich  in  honour  of  the  Virgin  Mary's 


206  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

comb.     A  poem  and  a  portion  from  a  sermon  regarding 
the  Virgin's  hair  will  illustrate  the  service  : — 

Gott  der  alle  Haarlein  zahlet, 
Hat  ihm  diese  auserwahlet, 
Mir  seynd  diese  wenig  Haarlein 
Werther  drum  als  alle  Perlein. 

Absolons  goldgelbe  LocJcen, 
Schatz  ich  mehr  nicht,  als  die  Flocken, 
Er  selbst  gilt  bei  mir  sehr  weing. 
1st  ja  nur  ein  Eichelkonig. 

Dock  Maria  deine  LocJcen, 
Mich  zu  deiner  Lieb  anlocken, 
Schonste  Jungjrau,  deine  Strehnen 
Pfleg  ich  allzeit  anzuflehnen. 

Wie  im  Hohenlied  zu  lesen, 
Seynd  der  Brauthaar  Pfeil  gewesen, 
Ich  befiehl  mich  deinen  Haaren, 
Die  dem  Gespons  so  angenehm  waren. 

Steh  uns  bei  in  alien  Gefahren, 
Deck  uns  zu  mit  deinen  Haaren, 
Fuhre  uns  an  deinen  Lochen 
In  die  Stadt,  wo  alle  frohlochen. 

From  the  sermon  :  "A  janizary,  living  in  Constantinople, 
had  such  thick  hair  that  no  bullet  was  able  to  injure  him. 
The  hair  of  our  dear  Lady  resembles  this  janizary's  hair. 
Come,  therefore,  dear  Christian,  if  thou  wilt  be  bullet- 
proof, here  into  the  Hair  Chapel  of  our  dear  Lady.  Hide 
behind  the  miraculous  hair  of  the  Mother  of  God  and  the 
bullets  of  thine  enemies  will  not  harm  thee.     Thou  wilt 


Scholastic  Years  207 

stand  in  the  middle  of  the  storm  of  bullets,  as  though 
encased  in  a  woollen  bag,  if  thou  art  a  servant  of  Mary's 
hair,  for  Mary's  hair  shields  her  janizaries."* 

The  Jesuit  Pemble  published  a  booklet  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  "  Pietas  quotidiana  erga  S.  D.  Matrem  Mariam"  in 
which,  amongst  other  things,  he  recommends  the  following 
devotional  exercises  in  her  honour  : 

"  We  should  say  at  all  hours  :  '  Holy  Mary,  make  us 
gentle  and  chaste '  ;  scourge  ourselves  or  box  our  ears 
and  offer  the  blows  to  God  through  Mary's  hands ;  always 
carry  a  picture  of  the  Mother  of  God  on  our  breast ; 
write  or  grave  Mary's  holy  name  on  the  breast  with  our 
fingers,  if  not  with  a  knife ;  kiss  Mary's  name  whenever 
it  occurs  in  reading ;  cover  ourselves  over  modestly  at 
night  so  that  Mary's  chaste  eyes  may  not  be  offended ; 
lie  between  Christ's  wounds  and  Mary's  breast  and  draw 
thence  as  much  grace  as  possible  ;  desire  rather  to  be  out 
of  the  world  or  in  hell  if  Mary  had  not  lived ;  keep  our 
eyes  so  in  check  as  not  even  to  see  a  bare  calf  or  toe  on 
lying  down  or  getting  up  ;  beat  the  breast  eleven  times — 
eleven  thousand  would  be  more  devout — possibly  with  a 
stone  in  the  hand,  in  remembrance  of  the  eleven  thousand 
virgins,  worshippers  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  who  followed  in 
the  train  of  St.  Ursula  [which  eleven  thousand  virgins  are 
still  honoured  in  Cologne] ;  hang  a  rope  round  the  neck 
and  recognise  ourselves  as  vassals  of  the  blessed  Virgin ; 
eat  no  apples,  because  Mary  remained  free  from  the  sin 
of  eating  an  apple  [in  Paradise] ;  pray  to  Mary  that  she 
may  give  us  a  pleasant  dream  of  herself."  f 

Such  "  religious "  aberrations,  which  are  even  now 
expressed  in  hundreds  and  thousands  of  "  pious  "  Jesuit 
monstrosities,  had  always  been  difficult  for  me  to  digest, 
notwithstanding  my  Catholic  belief  in  the  Virgin  Mary.     In 

*  From  the  collected  works  of  A.  v.  Bucher,  I.,  87,  88. 
f  Ibid.,  I.,  144  et  seq. 


208  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

the  Jesuit  Order  this  food  was  set  before  me  again  in 
various  shapes. 

The  Jesuit  Hermann  Nix  had  a  special  reverence  for 
the  Virgin  Mary.  He  frequently  said  that  this  was  de- 
rived from  his  patron  saint,  the  blessed  Hermann  Joseph, 
a  monk  of  Cologne,  who  lived  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
had  become  distinguished  through  a  specially  intimate 
relation  with  Mary.  Wynandsrade  was  extremely  rich  in 
pictures  and  statues  of  Mary,  sickly  sweet  productions 
of  no  artistic  value.  Our  thoughts  and  senses  were 
directed  to  Mary  in  every  possible  way.  Orations  were 
made  in  her  honour,  poems  had  also  to  be  composed,  even 
by  such  as,  for  example  myself,  had  no  trace  of  a 
poetic  gift.  This  superfluity  of  cant  regarding  the  Virgin 
re-awakened  my  old  contradictory  spirit.  The  pictures 
of  distorted  and  turbulent  piety  which  I  had  observed  at 
such  places  of  pilgrimage  as  Kevelaer,  Lourdes,  Einsiedeln, 
again  arose  before  me.  They  all  appeared  to  me  impious 
and  unwholesome.  But  since  the  Jesuit  Order — indeed, 
the  Church  herself — defended  these  things,  I  appeared 
to  myself  wrong-headed  and  wicked  on  account  of  my 
contrary  feelings,  and  severe  conflicts  ensued. 

What  attitude  did  my  spiritual  guide,  the  Jesuit  Nix, 
take  towards  these  inward  conflicts  ?  I  have  already 
said  that  he  helped  me  over  these  difficulties.     But  how  ? 

Firstly,  the  ancient  and  simple  pacifying  method, 
which  has  been  resurrected  and  developed  by  the  Jesuits, 
was  employed  with  masterly  skill  by  this  man,  who  was 
ready  for  any  emergency :  "All  these  things  are  tempta- 
tions of  the  devil ;  he  grudges  you  your  happiness  and  the 
certainty  of  Heaven,  which  he  himself  has  lost." 

Consequently  Satan  was  conjured  up.  Difficulties 
and  misgivings  concerning  Faith  and  the  Jesuit  Order, 
which  originate  in  the  creed  and  organisation  of  the  Order, 
do  not  exist  and  may  not  exist.     The  wickedness  of  our 


Scholastic  Years  209 

own  nature  and  the  promptings  of  a  personal  devil  are 
the  sole  sources  of  all  religious  revolt.  I  repeat  what  I 
have  already  said :  What  do  not  the  Eoman  Church  and 
its  Orders  owe  to  the  devil,  that  great  ultramontane  sheep- 
dog ?  The  keeping  alive  of  the  belief  in  the  Prince  of 
Darkness  is  literally  a  vital  matter  for  ultramontane 
Rome.  Hence  the  enormous,  yearly  increasing,  ultra- 
montane Catholic  devil-literature,  with  all  its  absurd 
superstitions. 

Naturally  the  fear  of  the  devil  also  took  effect  in  my 
case,  the  more  so  as  Nix  deepened  it  by  all  kinds  of 
hints  and  tales  of  his  own  activity  and  that  of  other 
Jesuits  in  succouring  souls  obviously  attacked  by  the 
evil  one. 

Nix,  who  was  so  clever  in  religious  and  psychological 
matters,  combined  two  other  influences  with  the  infernal 
one  :  the  appeal  to  my  idealistic  nature,  which  was  made 
by  indicating  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  goading  on  of 
ascetic  pride  under  the  disguise  of  religion,  which  ensued 
through  dwelling  on  the  thought  that  only  those  chosen 
for  high  and  great  purposes  are  exposed  to  such  attacks  : 
the  gold  of  holiness  must  be  extracted  in  the  crucible  of 
suffering. 

In  my  state  of  mind  at  that  time  no  more  was  required. 
I  issued  so  triumphantly  (really,  so  overcome)  from  the 
battle  that  my  nature,  like  a  well-trained  dog,  obeyed  for 
years.  A  single  effort  of  the  will  sufficed  to  quell  my 
strongest  resistance.  I  marched  forward  over  a  field 
strewn  with  the  corpses  of  natural  feelings  and  judgments. 

Nix  must  have  informed  the  General  of  the  Order  of 
my  victory,  for  towards  the  end  of  my  stay  at  Wynandsrade 
I  received  a  letter  from  the  General,  old  Father  Beckx, 
in  which  he  expressed  himself  as  greatly  pleased  with  my 
"  progress  in  virtue." 

The  year  at  Wynandsrade  was  given  over  to  ascetic 
o 


210  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

practices  owing  to  the  struggle  just  described.  I  could  not 
do  enough  in  the  way  of  self-conquest,  denial  of  personal 
inclinations  and  humiliations. 

A  lay  brother  suffered  from  consumption,  combined 
with  a  tormenting  cough,  and  he  had  not  the  strength  to 
expectorate  the  mucus.  I  asked  permission  to  be  with 
him  a  good  deal,  and  frequently  removed  with  my  finger 
the  clogging  mucous  masses  from  the  patient's  mouth 
and  pharyngeal  cavity.  The  school  routine,  with  its 
tasks,  etc.,  was  an  abomination  to  me.  But  no  real 
pupil  of  the  second  or  first  class  carried  out  his  schoolboy 
tasks  more  zealously  than  I,  although  I  was  twenty-eight 
years  old.  I  begged  frequently  for  permission  to  perform 
kitchen-service,  which  was  particularly  exhausting  because 
it  shortened  considerably  the  already  scanty  recreation 
time.  The  ancestral  seat  of  my  family,  Hoensbroech 
Castle,  is  situated  quite  close  to  Wynandsrade.  Strangely 
enough,  I  had  never  been  there.  I  had  an  ardent  desire 
to  see  the  fine  structure,  the  cradle  of  my  race.  I  inten- 
tionally avoided  going  even  into  its  vicinity  during  our 
walks  until  the  Jesuit  Nix,  having  heard  of  this,  commanded 
me  to  go  there.  A  sacrifice  of  my  life  which  I  attempted 
at  Wynandsrade  also  deserves  to  be  mentioned.  The 
Jesuit  asceticism  (in  common  with  the  general  ultramontane 
asceticism)  recognises  and  commends  the  sacrificing  of 
the  individual's  life  for  that  of  another  in  peril  when  it  is 
more  precious  than  his  own ;  i.e.  God,  "  the  Lord  of  life 
and  death,"  is  begged  to  take  the  offered  life  and  permit 
the  other  to  continue.  The  conditions  for  this  heroic  act 
are  that  the  sacrifice  takes  place  with  the  spiritual  guide's 
permission,  and  that  the  victim  is  then  in  a  condition  of 
grace,  i.e.  not  burdened  with  grievous  sins.  Now,  during 
my  stay  at  Wynandsrade,  a  literary  light  of  the  German 
province,  the  Jesuit  Kreiten,  was  seriously  and,  as  it  was 
said,  hopelessly  ill.     My  fearful  spiritual  troubles  caused 


Scholastic  Years  211 

me  to  think  of  death  as  a  deliverance.  I  consequently 
begged  the  Jesuit  Nix  for  permission  to  offer  myself  as  a 
sacrifice  for  the  patient,  as  I  had  learnt  during  the  novitiate 
period  might  be  done.  I  received  the  necessary  per- 
mission and  an  injunction  to  offer  my  life  to  God  at  the 
next  Benediction  (an  evening  service  at  which  the  mon- 
strance with  the  consecrated  host  is  exposed).  Words 
2annot  express  the  ardour  with  which  I  offered  myself, 
and  the  earnestness  with  which  I  begged  God,  Who  was 
present  (as  I  believed)  in  the  host,  to  take  my  poor  life, 
spare  me  superhuman  struggles,  and  permit  me  (as  I 
thought)  to  enter  into  the  certainty  of  eternal  life.  But 
I  am  still  alive.  I  will  return  to  this  event  when  dis- 
cussing my  present  relation  to  belief  in  God  and  His 
providence. 

I  underwent  bodily  discipline  also  ;  I  scourged  myself 
and,  with  the  permission  of  my  spiritual  guide,  Nix,  wore  a 
penitential  girdle  more  often  during  my  time  at  Wynands- 
rade  than  at  any  other  period  of  my  Jesuit  life,  although 
my  body  endured  enough  mortification  owing  to  the 
continual  sleeplessness  arising  from  inner  struggles. 

The  most  severe  discipline  I  underwent  was  due  to 
the  prohibition  to  give  any  outward  hint  of  my  inner 
suffering.  Letters  to  my  mother  and  others  had  to  speak 
of  happiness  and  contentment  with  my  calling,  whilst 
the  feeling  of  despair  inwardly  tormented  me.  During 
visits  which  I  received  a  few  times,  owing  to  the  nearness 
of  some  relations — my  mother  also  visited  me  there — I 
had  to  hide  the  tumult  of  my  soul  and  its  torment  under  a 
cheerful  aspect  and  calm  manner.  When  such  an  attitude 
seemed  to  me  insincere,  Nix's  stereotyped  reply  was, 
"  All  that  you  are  experiencing  of  despair  and  disgust 
is  not  due  to  yourself.  The  sensations  are  due  to  the 
devil.  Your  better  self  recognises  its  happiness  and 
rejoices  in  it."     Even  to-day  I  shudder  with  horror  when 


212  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

I  think  of  the  "  happiness  "  and  the  "  joy  "  which  I  then 
felt. 

On  account  of  its  ascetic  and  religious  aspect,  I  must 
here  briefly  touch  on  an  event,  the  already-mentioned 
pilgrimage  to  the  relics  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  which  occurred 
during  my  stay  at  Wynandsrade. 

I  passed  a  dreadful  night  before  the  day  on  which  the 
pilgrimage  was  made  ;  my  body  and  soul  were  almost 
in  a  state  of  collapse.  I  supplicated  the  Jesuit  Nix  to 
allow  me  to  remain  at  home.  "  No,  certainly  not ;  the 
relics  will  help  you."  I  knelt,  stood,  and  sat  for  hours 
with  the  other  scholastics  in  the  burning  sun  amongst 
thousands  of  pilgrims  gazing,  with  prayer  and  song,  up 
at  the  gallery  of  the  Cathedral  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  where 
the  relics  were  shown  by  turns — Christ's  swaddling  clothes, 
a  vest  belonging  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  etc.  Verily  "  out  of 
the  depths  "  in  the  fear  and  distress  of  my  soul  have  I 
cried  to  the  Master  and  His  saints.  I  shed  tears  of  the 
bitterest  misery  in  face  of  the  relics.  Fool  that  I  was  ! 
My  remedies  did  not  lie  in  the  legendary  rags,  called  the 
sacred  relics  of  Aix.  My  remedy  would  have  lain  in  the 
determination  to  free  myself  from  the  yoke  which  inherited 
and  cultivated  superstition  had  placed  upon  me.  But 
how  could  I  make  such  a  resolution  at  that  time  when 
my  understanding  was  still  in  bondage  ?  The  Jesuit  Nix 
praised  me  after  my  return ;  the  pilgrimage  would  draw 
down  God's  most  bountiful  blessing  upon  me  ! 

I  am  not  carrying  on  any  religious  controversy  in  this 
book.  But  for  that  very  reason  I  propose  to  write  a 
word  about  the  irreligion  of  the  system  of  pilgrimages  and 
relics.  Such  disorder  and  deception  should  be  whipped 
with  lashes  and  scorpions  out  of  every  society  calling  itself 
Christian.  What  Rome  teaches  her  believers  in  this 
respect  is  no  better  than  what  draws  the  Tibetans  to  their 
Dalai-Lama  and  Taschi-Lama.     Loretto,   Rome,   Treves, 


Scholastic  Years  213 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  Lourdes,  etc.,  with  their  relics  and  mira- 
culous pictures,  are  on  the  same  level  of  human  aberration 
and  religious  degradation  as  Lhasa,  Taschi-Lumpo,  and 
the  Buddhist  temples  of  the  Indo-Chinese. 

Christ  once  said,  "  But  the  hour  cometh  when  the  true 
worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  God  is  a  spirit :  and  they  that  worship  Him  must 
worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  When  will  this 
time  come  which  was  foretold  two  thousand  years  ago  ? 

The  Jesuit  Nix  gave  the  annual  eight  days'  Exercises 
just  before  I  and  the  remaining  scholastics  of  my  year 
left  Wynandsrade.  An  instruction  connected  with  them 
may  be  mentioned,  which  strongly  exposes  the  arrogant 
and  egotistical  Moloch  spirit  of  the  Order. 

Nix  wished  to  show  what  thankfulness  and,  conse- 
quently, what  self-sacrifice  we  owed  the  Order.  It  fed, 
clothed,  supported  and  taught  us.  It  invested  us  with 
respect,  threw  open  to  us  the  doors  of  the  highest  circles 
of  society,  for  a  Jesuit  was  held  in  honour  everywhere ; 
in  short,  we  owed  what  we  were  and,  still  more,  what  we 
should  be  to  the  Order ;  consequently  it  was  our  duty, 
etc.  The  theory  seemed  to  me  very  disputable.  For, 
apart  from  the  fact  that  I — the  consideration  was  not 
inspired  by  pride — should  have  been  respected  in  the 
world  without  the  Jesuit  Order,  it  occurred  to  me  that, 
in  return  for  the  nourishment,  clothing  and  lodging  which 
the  Order  gave  us,  I  and  the  others  sacrificed  our  body 
and  soul,  indeed  our  whole  being — will,  understanding 
and  feelings — unreservedly,  and  that  what  the  Order  gave 
us  was  amply  counterbalanced  by  this  sacrifice.  I  expressed 
my  thoughts  to  Nix,  and  received  the  answer,  "  Dear 
brother,  you  forget  one  thing :  God,  Who  has  called  you 
and  the  others  for  all  eternity  to  the  Jesuit  Order,  has 
only  given  you  body  and  soul,  understanding  and  will, 
that  you  may  employ  these  gifts  in  the  service  of  the 


214  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Order.  Through  God's  predestination,  your  body  and 
soul  are,  therefore,  not  so  much  your  property  as  that 
of  the  Order."  My  mind  was  satisfied  with  this  answer. 
This  is  a  striking  proof  of  my  spiritual  narrow-mindedness 
at  that  time. 

In  the  summer  of  1881  I  went  to  Blyenbeck,  which  my 
father  had  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  Jesuit  Order 
after  its  banishment  from  Germany.  I  was  to  study 
philosophy  there  for  two  years. 

It  was  with  a  strange  sensation  that  I  crossed  the 
threshold  and  court  of  the  ancient  castle  where  in  my 
childhood  and  youth  I  had  stayed  so  frequently,  and 
whence  I  had  gone  for  happy  rides  and  taken  part  in  many 
delightful  hunting  parties.  I  was  to  live  there  no  longer 
as  the  son  of  the  house,  in  the  best  rooms,  but  as  a  brother 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  one  amongst  thirty  or  forty,  high 
up  under  the  roof,  exposed  to  summer  heat  and  winter 
cold,  as  at  Exaeten,  and  with  five,  six,  and  even  more  to 
share  rooms  which,  even  through  their  outer  decorations, 
stucco  ceilings  and  baroque  chimney-pieces,  reminded  me  of 
other  things  than  the  life  of  the  Order  and  of  a  scholastic. 

I  did  not  find  it  easy  to  accustom  myself  to  so  com- 
pletely altered  a  situation  and  to  live  as  a  member  of  the 
Order,  who  had  renounced  the  world,  in  the  same  place 
where  I  had  previously  ruled  as  the  son  of  the  house  and 
given  myself  up  to  pleasure.  Every  walk  in  the  vicinity, 
which  abounded  in  woods  and  heaths,  was  full  of  memories 
for  me  :  here  I  had  amused  myself  with  my  brothers  and 
sisters  on  horse  and  foot,  had  played  "  robbers  and  police  " 
with  them ;  there  I  had  shot  foxes,  here  snipe,  there 
rabbits,  and  here  roebuck.  It  required  considerable  deter- 
mination to  banish  the  pictures  which  arose  and  to  let 
bygones  be  bygones.  But  this  was  done.  And  I  can  also 
testify  to  the  fact  that,  in  the  face  of  these  difficult  relations, 
I  consistently  and  resolutely  showed  the  earnest  desire, 


Scholastic  Years  215 

combined  with  self-sacrifice  to  follow  the  ideal  which  I 
still  perceived  in  the  life  of  the  Order  and  the  Society  of 
Jesus.  At  Blyenbeck  my  Superior,  the  Jesuit  Miller, 
also  informed  me  that  he  had  told  the  General,  in  the 
secret  "  second  catalogue,"  "  that  I  had  made  good 
progress  in  virtue  and  was  a  homo  spiritualis,  a  man 
aiming  at  spirituality." 

During  the  second  year  of  my  stay  at  Blyenbeck  I 
had  to  make  the  abdicatio  bonorum,  renunciation  of 
property. 

According  to  the  statutes  of  the  Order,*  the  renuncia- 
tion of  property  should  really  be  made  during  the  second 
year  of  the  novitiate,  and  only  custom,  at  least  in  the 
German  Province  of  the  Order,  had  made  it  usual  for  this 
act  to  be  performed  in  the  fourth  year. 

I  renounced  my  fortune  for  religious  poverty  with 
complete  resignation.  Fortunately,  only  resignation  of 
the  right  of  enjoying  and  disposing  of  property  is 
connected  with  this  first  act  of  renunciation ;  complete 
renunciation  of  property  is  only  connected  with  the  taking 
of  the  last  vows.  I  was  consequently  able,  after  leaving 
the  Order,  to  receive  back  at  least  a  portion  of  my  property 
from  my  eldest  brother,  in  whose  possession  it  had 
remained. 

I  also  took  my  first  step  on  the  way  to  the  priesthood 
at  Blyenbeck,  as  I  received,  from  an  Indian  bishop  staying 
there  on  a  visit,  with  the  remaining  scholastics  of  my 
year,  the  so-called  four  minor  ordinations  (ordines  minores). 
Since  the  "  minores  "  are  only  a  first  step  to  the  sacrament 
of  priestly  consecration,  and  impose  no  obligations  on  the 
consecrated  person,  I  can  pass  over  the  consecration 
ceremony.  I  did  not  even  receive  the  outer  sign  of  the 
four  ordinations,  the  tonsure  on  the  back  of  the  head,  for 
I  had  already  had  a  natural  tonsure  there  for  years. 

*  Exam,  gen.,  JV-,  2  ;     Constit.  III.,  1,   §  7,  25. 


216  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

I  finished  my  philosophical  studies  at  Blyenbeck  in 
July,  1883,  and  was  sent  to  Ditton  Hall,  in  England,  to 
study  scholastic  theology  for  four  years. 

Wynandsrade  and  Ditton  Hall,  the  beginning  and  end 
of  my  scholastic  period,  were  of  decisive  importance  for 
my  inner  life.  At  Wynandsrade  false  asceticism  succeeded 
in  strengthening  me  in  my  wavering  religious  views ;  at 
Ditton  Hall  the  old  difficulties,  increased  by  new  ones, 
arose  with  greater  violence.  I  there  fought  the  dreadful 
fight  which  inflicted  lasting  wounds  (in  the  Jesuit  ultra- 
montane sense)  on  my  soul.  Through  these  the  heart-blood 
of  my  inherited  and  acquired  Catholic  life  gradually  flowed 
until  there  was  no  longer  any  left,  and  I  had  to  search  out 
the  way  to  new  life. 

I  have  only  unhappy  recollections  of  Ditton  Hall.  It 
was  internally  and  externally  a  hell  to  me. 

The  ugly  house  is  situated  in  a  hideous  neighbourhood, 
surrounded  by  large  chemical  factories  (Widnes,  St.  Helens, 
etc.),  which  destroy  all  vegetation  for  miles  around  with 
their  poisonous  fumes.  In  summer  and  winter  the  dead 
trees  stretch  out  their  withered  branches  like  ghosts  into 
the  murky  air  which,  black  and  dirty  through  smoke  and 
thick  vapour,  is  but  rarely  illuminated  and  warmed  by 
the  sun.  When  the  west  wind  was  blowing  from  the  fac- 
tories (as  was  usually  the  case),  the  house  was  filled  with 
an  unwholesome  odour  mingled  with  soot.  On  our  walks 
we  saw  hardly  anything  but  factory  squalor,  and  the 
paths  we  trod  were  black  with  slag  and  coal.  By  way  of 
comfort  for  the  prevailing  depression  and  repulsiveness, 
we  were  informed  that  infectious  diseases  and  harmful 
bacilli  and  bacteria  could  not  get  a  hold  there.  Head- 
aches and  throat  troubles  occurred  frequently,  however. 
I  suffered  from  almost  chronic  hoarseness. 

The  outer  hell  might  have  been  endurable.  But  the 
inner  one  ! 


Scholastic  Years  217 

In  the  first  place,  I  must  recall  my  Superior  at  that 
time,  for  he  made  the  hell  as  hot  as  possible  for  me. 

A  change  of  Rectors  occurred  a  few  weeks  after  my 
arrival  at  Ditton  Hall.  The  former  Rector,  the  Jesuit 
Hovel,  was  chosen  as  assistant  to  the  General  of  the 
Order  in  1883  at  the  General  Congregation  sitting  at 
Rome,  and  the  Jesuit  Wiedemann  took  his  place  as 
Rector  of  Ditton  Hall.  Gossiping,  mean,  revengeful, 
suspicious,  vain,  crafty  and  thoroughly  false,  he  had 
every  characteristic  which  enables  a  Head  to  render 
life  miserable  to  his  subordinates.  The  antipathy  was 
mutual ;  but  whilst  I  endeavoured  honestly  to  recognise 
and  respect  in  this  person,  repugnant  to  me  from  the  very 
bottom  of  my  soul,  the  "  Superior  placed  over  me  by 
God,"  he  gave  free  rein  to  his  aversion.  One  must  know 
the  absolute  dependence  of  the  Jesuit  subordinates  upon 
the  Jesuit  Superior  to  estimate  what  a  jealous  Superior, 
furnished  in  addition  with  all  the  idiosyncrasies  just  men- 
tioned, means  to  his  subordinates  —  what  it  means,  for 
example,  to  be  obliged  to  make  a  Statement  of  Conscience 
to  such  a  man.  I  met  with  nothing  but  disparaging  words 
of  contempt  from  this  Jesuit  when  I  conscientiously 
opened  my  soul  to  him,  and  spoke  of  the  waters  of  afflic- 
tion and  despair  which  had  crept  up  and  threatened  to 
engulf  my  reason  and  my  will,  and  when  I  laid  bare  the 
almost  indescribable  pain  within  me.  I  was  conscious 
of  his  mistrust  everywhere.  I  had  always  pursued  my 
studies  with  indefatigable  application,  and  continued  to 
do  so  at  Ditton  Hall.  Wiedemann  accused  me  of  idle- 
ness, and  tried  to  make  others  share  his  opinion  of  me. 
I  hate  the  Jesuit  Nix ;  the  Jesuit  Wiedemann  does  not 
deserve  as  much.  With  his  miserable  paltriness  and 
hollo wness,  he  deserves  contempt.  I  do  not  believe,  indeed, 
that  my  course  of  development  would  have  been  retarded 
lastingly  through  any  influence  whatever,  and  that  any- 


218  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

thing  would  have  prevented  me  from  standing  where 
I  stand  to-day ;  but  if  a  better  man  than  the  Jesuit 
Wiedemann  had  had  the  guidance  of  my  soul  during  the 
four  years  of  my  theological  training,  the  severance  effected 
later  from  the  Order  and  Church  would  perhaps  have 
taken  place  more  quietly  and  with  less  bitterness. 

In  spite  of  his  aversion  to  myself,  the  Jesuit  Wiede- 
mann exploited  me  and  my  worldly  connections  when 
Jesuit  interests   came   into   question. 

One  of  my  fellow-scholastics,  Brother  Cecil  Longridge, 
had  been  an  English  artillery  officer  in  India  before  he 
entered  the  Order.  He  retained  a  liking  for  artillery 
problems,  such  as  the  science  of  projectiles,  and,  in  spite 
of  dogmatics  and  moral  theology,  he  was  particularly 
interested  in  the  construction  of  a  new  cannon  on  the 
wire  system.  Wiedemann  sent  for  me  one  day  and 
charged  me  to  write  to  my  cousin,  General  von  Loe,  who 
was  then  the  General  in  command  of  the  8th  Army  Corps 
at  Coblence,  send  him  Brother  Longridge's  constructional 
drawings,  and  beg  him  to  have  them  tested  by  experts. 
Perhaps,  Wiedemann  said,  there  might  be  something  in 
the  idea,  which  would  be  very  advantageous  to  the  Order. 
I  was  to  write  the  letter  quite  on  my  own  initiative,  so 
that  there  should  be  no  suspicion  that  the  Order  as  such 
had  any  interest  in  the  invention  of  the  cannon.  Some 
months  later  I  received  a  friendly  answer  from  Walter 
Loe  saying  that  he  had  had  the  matter  looked  into,  but 
it  did  not  seem  to  be  practical.  Possibly  further  details 
regarding  the  Jesuit  cannon  are  to  be  found  in  the  records 
of  the  office  of  the  commanding  General  at  Coblence. 
Unless  I  am  mistaken,  the  cannon  was  then  offered  to 
the  English  War  Office  with  the  same  negative  results. 

My  theology  course  brought  the  priesthood  within 
appreciable  distance,  and  with  my  theological  studies 
came  the  duty  of  allowing  myself  to  be  submerged  in  the 


Scholastic   Years  219 

dogmas  of  the  Church.  Then,  on  a  sudden,  there  gaped 
beneath  my  feet  the  abyss,  into  the  sinister  darkness 
of  which  my  eyes  had  already  glanced  fugitively,  though 
kept  back  hitherto  from  closer  observation  by  my 
well-disciplined  will. 

The  essence  of  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood,  its 
mystically  religious  climax,  lies  in  the  power  of  trans- 
forming bread  and  wine  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Through  this  power  the  priest  is  the  originator 
of  "  the  true,  actual,  and  real  presence  of  Christ  in  the 
altar  sacrament." 

The  belief  in  the  lasting  presence  of  Christ  in  the 
consecrated  host  preserved  in  the  tabernacles  of  Catholic 
churches  is  one  of  the  most  potent  sources  of  Catholic 
piety ;  millions  derive  from  it  daily  vital  energy  and 
strength  in  bodily  and  spiritual  troubles.  And,  indeed, 
for  the  individual  who  believes  that  he  may  have  inter- 
course and  conversation  with  the  all-good  and  all-powerful 
God  as  with  a  friend  present  in  the  body,  the  sorrow  of 
life  loses  much  of  its  weight.  It  is  not,  however,  this 
belief — which  rests  like  a  transfiguring  gleam  over  the 
life  of  the  Catholic  Christian,  and  can  give  no  why  or 
wherefore  concerning  the  presence  of  Christ  in  the  host, 
but  takes  the  presence  for  granted  without  making  diffi- 
culties— of  which  I  speak  here.  The  dogma  which  terrified 
me  was  that  which  sought  a  foundation  in  theological 
scholarship  for  the  belief  in  the  real  presence  of  Christ. 

The  dogmatic  teaching  of  the  Church,  which  is,  how- 
ever, unknown  in  its  details  to  the  mass  of  believers,  is 
as  follows  : — 

1.  After  the  priest's  words,  which  he  pronounces  in 
the  name  and,  as  it  were,  the  person  of  Christ  over  bread 
and  wine  (generally  only  during  Mass),  "  This  is  My 
body  "  and  "  This  is  the  cup  of  My  blood,"  the  nature 
and   substance   of   bread   and   wine   disappear,    and   the 


220  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

nature  and  substance  of  Christ's  flesh  and  blood  take 
their  place  (transubstantiation).  The  "  accidents  "  of  the 
bread  and  wine  (form,  colour,  smell,  taste,  and  weight) 
remain,  however,  so  that  the  human  senses  can  perceive 
no  change.  The  senses  only  perceive  bread  and  wine  as 
before,  although  in  reality  there  is  no  more  bread  and 
wine  present. 

2.  The  entire  body  of  Christ  (skin,  hair,  nails,  bones, 
all  the  limbs  and  also  the  genitals)  is  present  in  the  con- 
secrated host,  and  consequently  (per  concomitantiam) 
also  the  blood ;  and  the  whole  amount  of  Christ's  blood 
is  present  in  the  consecrated  wine,  and  consequently  (per 
concomitantiam)  also  the  whole  body  of  Christ. 

3.  The  whole  body  and  all  the  blood  of  Christ  are 
not  only  in  the  entire  host  and  the  whole  amount  of 
wine,  but  also  in  each  separate  part  of  the  bread  and 
wine,  so  that  when  consecrated  bread  and  consecrated 
wine  are  divided  into  thousands  of  particles  and  small 
drops,  the  whole  body  and  all  the  blood  of  Christ  are 
present  in  every  particle  and  every  little  drop,  and  that 
without  fresh  words  of  consecration,  but  only  through 
the  physical  process  of  division. 

4.  Mastication  of  Christ's  body  in  the  mouth  of  the 
receiver  is  consequently  also  impossible,  because  a  fresh 
body  of  Christ  occurs  simultaneously  at  every  division, 
whether  it  occurs  through  the  teeth  or  by  other  means. 

5.  Although  a  natural  decomposition  of  the  con- 
secrated bread  and  the  consecrated  wine  is  impossible, 
since  the  substances  of  bread  and  wine  are  no  longer 
present,  the  consecrated  host  and  consecrated  wine  are 
nevertheless  also  subject,  like  other  food,  to  the  natural 
laws  of  decomposition,  so  that,  in  the  recipient's  stomach, 
for  example,  the  decomposition  of  the  swallowed  host 
and  the  swallowed  wine  takes  place  in  exactly  the  same 
manner.     The  substance  of  the  flesh  and  blood  of  Christ 


Scholastic  Years  221 

disappears  at  the  commencement  of  the  decomposition 
and  the  substances  of  bread  and  wine  again  take  its 
place. 

6.  Consecrated  bread  and  consecrated  wine  have  the 
same  action  as  ordinary  bread  and  wine,  although  the 
substances  of  bread  and  wine  are  no  longer  present,  so 
that  we  may  satisfy  our  hunger  with  consecrated 
bread,  i.e.  with  Christ's  flesh,  and  become  intoxicated 
with  consecrated  wine,  i.e.  with  Christ's  blood,  as  with 
other  bread  and  wine. 

7.  The  priest  retains  the  power  of  consecration  per- 
manently, and  it  cannot  be  alienated  from  him.  No  sin, 
not  even  apostasy,  can  take  it  away,  so  that  I  still  retain 
this  miraculous  power.  In  addition,  the  priest  is  not 
fettered  by  time  and  place  in  exercising  his  extraordinary 
power ;  it  is  also  at  his  command  when  desired  outside 
Mass.  Every  priest  can  consequently  transform  all  the 
supply  of  bread  in  every  baker's  shop,  and  all  the  supply 
of  wine  in  every  wine-store,  into  Christ's  flesh  and  blood, 
provided  that  the  bread-shops  and  wine-stores  contain 
natural  bread  and  natural  wine,  and  that  the  words  of 
consecration  be  spoken  in  or  immediately  outside  the 
shop  or  store,  consequently  not  at  any  considerable  dis- 
tance from  either. 

This  miraculous  sacerdotal  power  is  also  illustrated 
by  "  facts."  I  will  only  relate  two  stories,  which  were 
current  during  my  theological  term  of  study.  During  the 
French  Revolution  a  priest  apostasised,  but  was  beheaded 
in  spite  of  this.  In  his  rage,  and  with  blasphemous  design, 
he  changed  the  bread  of  all  the  bakers'  shops  which  he 
passed  in  the  Parisian  streets  on  his  way  to  the  scaffold  into 
the  body  of  Christ.  A  priest  addicted  to  wine,  who  could 
not  forgo  his  early  morning  drink,  transformed  an  entire 
cask  in  his  wine-cellar  into  the  blood  of  Christ,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  drink  out  of  it  before  Mass  without  breaking 


222  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

the  strict  rule  not  to  partake  of  anything  before  Mass. 
For  the  consecrated  wine,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  is 
no  longer  wine  but  Christ's  blood,  does  not  belong  to 
the  things  which  may  not  be  taken  before  Mass  or  Com- 
munion. 

This  is  the  essential  purport  of  the  dogma  of  the 
"  real  presence  of  Christ  in  the  altar  sacrament."  "  This 
is  an  hard  saying ;  who  can  hear  it  ?  "  has  seemed  to 
me  to  apply  to  this  doctrine  ever  since  I  came  to  know  it. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  seven  points  named  above  to 
make  it  clear  why  fear — indeed,  horror — seized  me  as  to 
their  contents,  and  that  finally  unbelief  supplanted  fear 
and  horror.  Is  this  supposed  to  be  the  meaning  of  that 
sweet  memorial  feast,  which  Christ  instituted  at  the  last 
meal  He  took  with  His  disciples  ?  Was  that  breaking  of 
bread  and  proffering  of  the  wine  cup  supposed  to  have 
such  a  brutal  meaning  ? 

The  nearer  the  day  approached  on  which  I  was  to  be 
equipped  with  this  priestly  power,  the  more  violent  be- 
came my  opposition  and  the  more  dreadful  my  spiritual 
anguish.  When  the  Bishop  of  Liverpool  really  conse- 
crated me  and  twelve  fellow-scholastics  to  the  priesthood 
in  July,  1886,  in  the  Ditton  Hall  church,  scepticism  had 
already  seized  the  best  part  of  my  soul,  and  I  allowed  the 
ceremonies  of  the  consecration  to  be  enacted  over  me 
whilst  in  a  condition  impossible  to  describe.  In  vain  I 
told  the  trouble  of  my  soul  to  my  spiritual  guide.  It  was 
always  the  same  :  "  It  is  the  devil  who  is  tempting  you  ; 
you  must  disregard  all  this." 

How  I  suffered  when,  a  few  days  after  my  ordination, 
I  read  my  first  Mass  in  the  old  castle  of  my  ancestors, 
Blyenbeck,  whither  my  superiors  had  sent  me,  before  the 
whole  of  my  family  (mother,  brothers,  sisters,  and  other 
relations)  !  I  had  even  hastened  to  old  Father  Oswald, 
who  happened  to  be   at  Blyenbeck,   and  whom  I  then 


Scholastic  Years  223 

trusted,  on  the  previous  evening  and  in  the  morning  just 
before  the  commencement  of  Mass,  and  described  my 
anguish  of  conscience  with  bitter  tears — truly  tragic 
tears.  He  also  could  only  lay  the  blame  on  the  devil. 
So,  in  reality,  I  approached  the  altar  driven  by  the 
"  devil,"  and  "  transformed "  bread  and  wine  into  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ. 

For  six  whole  years  I  bore  the  burden  of  this  priest- 
hood with  continually  increasing  anguish.  Nevertheless, 
I  tried  to  carry  out  even  the  hardest  duties  of  a  priest 
connected  with  the  dogma  of  Christ's  real  presence.  I 
will  only  give  one  very  striking  example. 

According  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  priest  to  swallow  the  consecrated  host  when  he 
observes  that  it  is  getting  decomposed — possibly  owing 
to  dampness  in  the  tabernacles,  or  for  other  reasons — if 
he  is  not  positive  that  it  is  already  quite  decomposed, 
and  consequently  that  Christ  is  no  longer  present  in  it. 
When  I  was  hearing  confessions  before  reading  Mass  one 
morning  in  a  parish  where  I  was  assisting  in  the  priestly 
duties,  as  I  so  often  did,  a  woman  confessed  she  had 
not  swallowed  the  host  on  receiving  the  Communion  just 
before,  because  the  thought  of  also  swallowing  Christ's 
genitals  had  been  too  dreadful ;  she  had  spat  the  host 
into  her  prayer-book ;  it  was  still  there.  After  I  had 
tried  in  vain  to  persuade  her  to  swallow  it,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  I  could  do  nothing  else  but  swallow  the  expector- 
ated host  myself.  I  told  the  half-distracted  woman  to 
leave  the  prayer-book  with  the  host  behind  when  she 
went  from  the  confessional.  I  then  took  the  host,  satur- 
ated as  it  was  with  saliva,  and  pressed  into  a  pulpy  mass, 
from  the  prayer-book  and  swallowed  it,  together  with 
that  which  I  consecrated  at  the  Mass  I  read  directly  after. 

This  incident  also  illustrates  the  troubles  caused 
amongst  believers  when  the  pious  but  vague  belief  in  the 


224  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

presence  of  Christ  in  the  host  begins  to  be  supplanted 
by  a  knowledge  of  dogma. 

Two  other  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Eoman 
Catholic  belief  troubled  me  during  my  theological  course 
— the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Trinity  and  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  an  absurdity  tinged 
with  Buddhism  and  Hellenism,  and  the  dogma  of 
original  sin  caused  by  the  fall  of  Adam  and  Eve  is  also 
an  absurdity  combined  with  anthropomorphic  and  crude 
conceptions. 

It  was  a  long  time  before  I  attained  to  such  recognition. 
But  once  I  had  done  so,  it  became,  and  is  still,  incompre- 
hensible to  me  why  every  clear  and  religiously  disposed 
person  does  not  discard  both  these  doctrines.* 

It  is  outside  the  scope  of  this  book  to  go  into  these 
"  thoroughly  Christian "  dogmas  and  expose  their 
absurdity.  It  is  sufficient  for  me  to  affirm  that  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Trinity  and  original  sin  became  the  outlets 
through  which  I  passed  from  ultramontane  Jesuit  night 
and  bondage  to  light  and  liberty. 

There  is  still  one  peculiarity  of  the  scholasticate  in 
particular,  and  of  the  whole  Jesuit  existence  in  general, 
to  be  mentioned. 

The  Jesuit  scholastic  is  kept  in  complete  ignorance 
regarding  the  history  and  mission  of  his  Order.  He  does 
not  know,  and  must  not  know,  that  great  abuses  have 
occurred  within  the  Jesuit  Order.  He  only  hears  praise 
and  glorification ;    only  light,   and  no   shade,   is  shown 

*  I  have  been  obliged  to  write  this  word  of  renunciation  of  Catholic  dogma 
so  as  to  explain  the  breaking  down  of  my  belief.  I  do  not  intend  to  discuss  religious 
polemics.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  explain  that  I  condemn 
wrangling  of  the  kind  when  it  occurs  in  an  unlovely  and  wounding  form,  as  it 
does  only  too  frequently.  Every  religion  and  every  Christian  belief  has  cause 
to  utter  a  mca  maxima  culpa  in  face  of  reason  and  humanity,  owing  to  the  wilder- 
ness of  absurdities  surrounding  their  dogmas  and  customs  ;  the  Catholic  religion 
is  by  no  means  the  only  culprit  in  this  respect. 


Scholastic   Years  225 

him.  He  lives  in  complete  ignorance  of  facts.  He  has 
entered  with  the  firm  belief  in  the  supermundane  char- 
acter of  the  Order  and  in  the  almost  divine  nature  of  its 
foundation ;  and  this  delusion  is  kept  alive  in  him.  We 
may  excuse  the  fact  that  attacks  by  adversaries  are  not 
given  him  to  read,  although  such  concealment  does 
not  point  to  honourable  dealing  and  confidence.  But 
even  admonishing  and  warning  voices  from  within  the 
Order  itself,  which  we  have  found  and  shall  still  find 
making  themselves  audible  at  every  period,  must  not 
reach  his  ear.  He  hears  only  the  bombastic,  vainglorious, 
official  stories  of  the  Order,  which  are  stories  but  not 
history.  I  am  positive  that  even  the  suppression  of  the 
Order  by  Clement  XIV.  would  be  concealed  if  it  were 
possible.  As  it  is  impossible,  it  is  put  down  as  an  aberra- 
tion on  the  Pope's  part. 

I  can  give  a  striking  example  from  my  own  experience 
of  wilful  exclusion  of  historical  truth  in  regard  to  the 
Suppression : — 

Once,  when  performing  the  duty  of  reader  in  the 
refectory,  the  Rector,  the  Jesuit  Miller,  gave  me  the 
third  volume  of  Dollinger's  Beitrage  just  published, 
in  which  the  Memoirs  of  the  Jesuit  Cordara  were 
contained,  with  the  observation  that  the  Memoirs 
were  to  be  read  at  dinner,  and  I  was  consequently  to 
study  them,  i.e.  familiarise  myself  with  the  contents. 
Scarcely  half  an  hour  later,  before  I  had  found  time  to 
glance  at  the  book,  I  was  called  to  the  Provincial's  Socius,. 
the  Jesuit  Kurte,  who  informed  me,  by  order  of  the  Pro- 
vincial, that  Cordara's  Memoirs  were  not  to  be  read, 
and  I  was  to  return  Dollinger's  book  to  the  Eector.  The 
Rector  received  me  with  visible  embarrassment,  mur- 
mured something  about  a  "mistake"  having  occurred, 
and  took  back  the  ill-omened  book.  Cordara  had,  as 
we  know,  written  with  great  love  for  his  Order,  but  can- 
p 


226  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

didly  on  the  causes  of  its  suppression.  We  scholastics 
must  remain  in  ignorance  of  the  frank  recognition  of 
abuses  by  such  a  prominent  Jesuit  as  Cordara. 

The  same  thing  happens  with  Jesuits  as  with  most 
ultramontane  Catholics.  As  they  hear  nothing  of  the 
infamous  actions  and  grave  offences  against  religious, 
political,  social  and  intellectual  life  of  the  Papal  system,* 
so  in  like  manner  the  Jesuits  do  not  hear  of  the  great 
faults  and  deficiencies  of  their  Order.  And  as  hundreds, 
indeed  thousands,  of  books  and  writings  radiate  the 
undimmed  glory  of  "  godliness "  over  and  around  the 
Papacy,  so  do  innumerable  Jesuits  spread  the  same  glory 
around  their  Order.  Fawning  flattery,  as  far  removed 
from  truth  as  the  poles  from  one  another,  forms  the  daily 
food  of  Loyola's  disciples. 

So  long  as  the  Jesuit  looks  upon  this  artificial  light  as 
the  real  light  of  history,  he  considers  himself  wicked  and 
corrupt  if  he  doubts  the  excellence  of  his  Order,  and  he 
applies  to  himself  pitilessly  and  effectually  the  theory  of 
the  temptation  of  the  devil,  which  has  become  incor- 
porated into  his  body  and  blood,  as  soon  as  his  own  reason 
and  natural  understanding  raise  their  voices.  It  is 
generally  only  an  accident  that  opens  his  eyes  a  little  and 
lets  him  see  facts  in  their  true  light.  I  must  speak  later 
of  the  accidents  which  tore  the  veil  from  my  own  eyes. 

At  the  present  time  it  seems  incomprehensible  to  me 
that  I  could  have  lived  for  years  in  such  implicit  faith. 
At  that  time  implicit  faith  and  blind  and  naive  belief 
constituted  the  very  air  which  I  and  my  fellow-scholastics 
breathed. 

One  of  the  worst  of  the  many  crimes  committed  by 
the  Order  against  its  members  is  that  it  not  only  conceals 
the  truth  regarding  its  own  history,  but  deceives  them 
with  "  historical  "  untruths. 

*  Cf.  my  work,  Das  Papsttum,  etc. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

THE   SCHOLASTIC   STUDIES 

The  scholasticate,  as  its  name  indicates,  is  the  young 
Jesuit's  period  of  study,  divided  under  the  headings  of 
the  Humanities,  Philosophy,  and  Philology. 

All  studies  are  based  on  the  official  Ratio  atque  Insti- 
tutio  studiorum  Societatis  Jesu.* 

One  criticism  of  this  Scheme  of  Study  has  already  been 
given  in  Chapters  IV.  and  V.  There  I  showed  how  back- 
ward and  unmindful  of  the  requirements  of  the  times 
are  the  school  instruction  and  education  of  the  Jesuit 
Order,  based  on  a  Scheme  of  Study  which  has  continued 
unaltered  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  nineteenth  century 
(1832).  I  have  also  shown  that  the  "  improvements " 
introduced  in  1832  cannot  be  described  as  a  real  advance 
or  suitable  adaptation  to  the  requirements  of  modern 
times.  How  can  a  Scheme  of  Study  dating  from  1599, 
which  still  holds  good  in  1910,  and  was  for  the  first  time 
after  two  hundred  and  thirty-three  years  subjected  to  a 
few  additional  and  trivial  alterations,  pretend  to  the  very 
slightest  value  ? 

We  must  not,  however,  forget  that  its  value  is  by  no 
means  to  be  appraised  according  to  its  effect  on  the  out- 
side world  or  in  the  sphere  of  knowledge.  The  Jesuit 
Order  has  only  one  criterion  for  its  institutions :  the 
interests  of  the  Order.  This  "  gauge  "  is  also  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Scheme  of  Study,  and,  judged  by  this,  its  value 

*  Inst.  S.J.  (Romae,  1870),  II,  460-549. 
227 


228  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

is  inestimable.  For  in  its  Scheme  of  Study  the  Jesuit 
Order  possesses  a  powerful  implement  with  which  to 
guard  its  members  from  enlightenment,  and  contrives 
that  it  shall  reach  them  only  in  such  measure  as  is 
necessary  and  useful  for  the  purposes  of  the  Order. 


I. — THE    HUMANISTIC    STUDIES 

My  personal  experiences  in  the  college  at  Wynandsrade 
and  at  the  Jesuit  educational  institution  at  Feldkirch 
show  the  methods  adopted  in  the  humanistic  studies  of 
the  Order,  and  how  the  pupils  are  allowed,  after  an  abso- 
lutely inadequate  training,  to  be  appointed  at  their  insti- 
tutions to  teach  the  young  pupils  entrusted  to  the  care 
of  the  Order.  Attention  was  also  called  to  the  important 
fact  characterising  the  "  humanism  "  of  the  Jesuits,  that 
the  Order  does  not  of  its  own  initiative  give  a  thorough 
professional  training  in  scholarship  to  the  pupils  intended 
to  teach  humanistic  subjects,  but  only  when  compelled 
by  external  circumstances  (i.e.  the  imperative  decree  of 
the  State  that  teachers  shall  have  undergone  a  professional 
training  in  philology  and  passed  examinations  in  it)  to 
comply  with  this  most  primary  requirement  of  humanistic 
training.  This  demand  became  a  matter  of  life  or  death 
to  the  Order.  They  made  a  virtue  of  necessity,  swallowed 
the  hateful  command  under  compulsion,  and  sent  their 
scholastics  to  university  lectures  on  philology.  But  for 
State  interference  the  Order  would  have  continued  to 
adhere  to  its  own  "  philological  "  methods. 

I  have  also  dwelt  briefly  on  the  fruits  of  Jesuit  scholar- 
ship, but  it  still  remains  to  answer  the  general  question  : 
What  has  the  Jesuit  Order  accomplished  in  scholarship 
since  its  beginning  ?  The  result  is  an  absolute  blank, 
and  only  the  untruthful  Jesuit  boastfulness  could  speak 
of  "  achievements,"  and  even  brag  of  them.     Is  it,  indeed, 


The   Scholastic   Studies  229 

an  achievement  if  here  and  there  a  Jesuit  succeeds  in 
writing  a  serviceable  book  on  philology,  if  a  Greek  or 
Latin  classic  is  edited  by  a  Jesuit  with  not  unserviceable 
annotations  ? 

The  Jesuit  Order  has  existed  for  nearly  four  hundred 
years ;  for  nearly  four  hundred  years  it  has  frequently 
had  excellent  human  material  to  mould  by  its  curriculum, 
which  lays  special  stress  on  the  humanities.  What, 
then,  is  the  result  of  this  four  hundred  years'  activity  ? 
The  list  of  those  Jesuits  and  their  works  worthy  of  men- 
tion in  the  history  of  scholarship  would  not  fill  more  than 
half  an  octavo  page.  No  great  men,  no  pioneers,  no 
reformers  are  to  be  found  among  them ;  they  are  but 
average  scholars,  such  as  may  be  met  with  by  the  hundred 
at  universities  and  colleges,  with  this  difference  only, 
that  universities  and  colleges  produce  many  eminent  as 
well  as  average  scholars. 

Involuntarily  the  Jesuits  emphasise  this  discreditable 
fact  by  their  ceaseless  boasting,  if  at  any  time  or  place  any 
Jesuit  does  achieve  something  in  the  domain  of  scholar- 
ship. The  Jesuit  Balde  with  his  Latin  Odes,  the  Jesuit 
Fox  with  his  Commentary  on  Demosthenes'  de  Corona, 
and  a  few  others,  are  the  stock  pieces  continually  produced 
from  the  "  philological '  Jesuit  storehouses  which  have 
been  four  hundred  years  in  filling.  Does  not  this  throw  a 
strong  light  on  the  miserable  poverty  of  these  storehouses  ? 

The  primary  cause  of  the  whole  worthlessness  of  Jesuit 
scholarship  is  revealed  by  the  fact  that  the  Constitutions 
of  the  Order  expressly  define  humanistic  studies  as  mere 
auxiliaries  to  theology,  not  as  independent  pursuits : 
"  Because  theoretical  and  practical  theology  requires  a 
knowledge  of  the  Humanities,  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew, 
the  requisite  number  of  competent  professors  in  these 
subjects  are  to  be  appointed."  * 

*  Const.  IV.,  12,  2. 


230  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

These  few  remarks,  with  the  criticisms  in  Part  I.,  will 
suffice  to  place  in  their  true  light  the  methods  and  results 
of  the  philological  studies  of  the  Jesuit  Order. 

But  "  Rhetoric  "  too  is  included  among  the  humanistic 
studies  of  the  Jesuits.  This  name  is  given  to  the  highest 
of  the  classes  for  the  humanistic  training  of  the  schol- 
astics. On  this  I  must  make  a  few  comments,  not  because 
theoretical  and  practical  training  in  eloquence  offers  any 
peculiar  features,  since  it  corresponds  to  that  principal 
branch  of  Jesuit  activity,  its  preaching  labours,  but  because 
in  the  "  Rhetoric ,:  class  classics  too  are  read,  and  the 
attitude  of  the  Order  towards  the  vernacular  classics  there 
finds  expression.  That  is  why  I  must  once  more  discuss 
this  point,  so  characteristic  of  the  Jesuit  spirit  and  of  its 
influence  on  its  young  pupils.  In  consequence  of  its  inter- 
national character  the  Jesuit  Order  holds  aloof  from  all 
national  literature.  This  fact  is  quite  obvious  from  the 
wording  of  the  Ratio  and  from  all  Jesuit  writings  on 
education.  But  the  aversion  of  "  German "  Jesuits  to 
German  classics  is  especially  keen,  and  amounts  to  blind 
hatred,  displayed  in  brutal  fashion. 

In  illustration  I  quote  the  utterances  of  two  "  German  " 
Jesuits,  both  of  whom,  though  for  different  reasons,  en- 
joy considerable  reputation  in  German  Catholic  circles, 
and  who  exercise  a  profound  influence  on  those  many 
millions. 

The  Jesuit  Baron  Ludwig  von  Hammerstein,  one  of 
the  most  prolific  and  widely  read  popular  authors  of 
Catholic  Germany,  says,  in  his  work  Das  Preussische 
Schulmonopol  mit  besonderer  Riicksicht  auf  die  Gymna- 
sien  : — 

"  In  modern  schools,  as  has  been  said  before,  enthusiasm  is 
naturally  centred  on  the  German  classics  and  on  the  intellectual 
sphere  in  which  they  move.  Goethe  claims  the  first  place  among 
them.     And  what  is  the  ideal  that  is  held  up  to  the  youth  of 


The   Scholastic   Studies  231 

Germany  in  Goethe  ?    Goethe  himself  shows  it  us  in  the  description 
which  he  gives  of  himself  and  his  doings  in  the  character  of  Faust : 

Ich  bin  nur  durch  die  Welt  gerannt, 
Ein  jed'Gelust  er griff  ich  bei  den  Haaren  ; 
Was  nicht  genilgte  liess  ich  jahren, 
Was  mir  entwischte  liess  ich  ziehen* 

"  So  this  is  Goethe  !  How  he  '  seized  every  pleasure '  may  be 
seen  by  the  catalogue  of  his  wanton  loves,  which  he  pursued  as  a 
boy,  as  a  youth,  after  his  marriage,  and  as  an  old  man  of  over 
eighty  years,  with  married  and  unmarried  women,  choosing  his 
victims  among  factory  girls,  barmaids,  actresses,  pastors'  daughters, 
noble  spinsters,  etc.    In  this  sense  he  wrote  in  his  Zahme  Xenien  : 

Ich  wunsche  mir  eine  hiibsche  Frau, 
Die  nicht  alles  ndhme  gar  zu  genau, 
Doch  aber  zugleich  am  besten  verstdnde, 
Wie  ich  mich  selbst  am  besten  bejdnde. 

"  Such  is  Goethe  !  Such  is  the  ideal  brought  before  our  school- 
boys nowadays.  .  .  .  The  best  known  only  of  his  love  adventures 
supply  a  whole  catalogue.  Gretchen,  Friederike,  Lotte,  Charlotte 
von  Stein,  Corona  Schroter,  Christiane  Vulpius,  Minna  Herzlieb,  etc. 
Such,  then,  is  Goethe,  the  man  who  occupies  the  post  of  honour 
among  the  heroes  of  our  literature,  this  the  hero  whom  the  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction,  von  Gossler,  holds  up  to  the  reverent  admira- 
tion of  the  young,  this  the  poet  whose  most  valuable  poems  'it 
should  be  a  national  duty  for  every  man  of  culture  to  retain  in  his 
memory  as  an  imperishable  treasure,'  a  duty  which  lies  on  the 
schools  to  accomplish.  This  is  the  man  whom  Dr.  Falk,  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction,  recommends,  not  only  as  a  model  of  language 
and  style,  but  as  a  teacher  of  '  true  Christian,  national  and  humane 
education.'  This,  then,  is  the  man  who  is  to  inspire  the  hearts 
of  the  young  Prussian  scholars  with  enthusiasm.  No  wonder,  then, 
that  unbelief  and  immorality  prevail  at  those  schools.  Of  course, 
nothing  is  further  from  my  mind  than  to  depreciate  the  excellence 
of  some  of  Goethe's  poems.  On  the  contrary,  I  prize  this  excellence, 
but  I  maintain  that  what  is  beautiful  and  fascinating  in  Goethe 

*  Faust,  II.,  Act  V. 


232  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

makes  Mm  more  dangerous  and  pernicious  as  an  ideal  for  youth. 
No  one  will  drink  poison  offered  in  a  basin  filled  with  dish-water 
or  soap-suds,  but  poison  in  a  beaker  of  wine  of  Cyprus  or  Muscatel 
is  dangerous,  and  all  the  more  so  if  the  wine  is  offered  by  a  com- 
petent judge  as  an  ideal  potion,  the  partaking  of  which  is  supposed 
to  be  the  '  national  duty  of  every  person  of  culture.'  This  is  the 
case  with  Goethe,  the  principal  ideal  of  the  modern  school. 

"  I  will  also  devote  a  few  short  remarks  to  his  colleagues  Schiller 
and  Lessing.  Schiller  is  at  any  rate  a  less  unsuitable  ideal  to  set 
before  the  young  than  Goethe  ;  still,  I  cannot  regard  even  him 
as  suitable.  His  Rduber  and  his  Fiesco  will,  to  say  the  least,  not 
instil  conservative  principles  into  the  youthful  mind,  nor  yet  Tell, 
with  its  glorification  of  tyrannicide.  It  is  well  known  that  Schiller 
also  passed  through  a  phase  of  laxity  in  regard  to  the  seventh 
commandment.  Youth  will  hardly  be  fired  with  enthusiasm  for 
Christianity  and  pure  morals  by  hearing  Schiller  exclaim  in  his 
Gotter  Griechenlands  : — 

Da  ihr  noch  die  scheme  Welt  regieret, 
An  der  Freude  leichtem  Gdngelband, 

Selige  Geschlechter  noch  gefuhret, 
Schone  Wesen  aus  dem  Fabelland  ! 

Ach,  da  euer  Wonnedienst  noch  gldnzte, 

Wie  ganz  anders,  anders  war  es  da  !  etc. 

"  This,  indeed,  sounds  rather  more  alluring  than  the  precepts 
of  the  Cross  and  the  Crucified.  .  .  .  Thus  Schiller  viewed  the 
Christian  moral  law  and  Christian  monotheism  !  Those  who  are 
versed  in  German  literature  know  well  enough  that  such  utterances 
are  not  isolated.  Certainly  Schiller  could  strike  other  chords  in 
the  human  heart,  but  he  is  on  that  account  no  less  dangerous  an 
ideal  to  set  before  the  young.  The  man  who  won  their  hearts 
by  the  '  Song  of  the  Bell,'  or  '  Wallenstein,'  will  seduce  them 
all  too  easily  from  the  paths  of  faith  and  Christian  morality 
by  his  Rduber,  Kabale  und  Liebe,  Gotter  Griechenlands,  and 
such  like. 

"  With  regard  to  Lessing,  I  observe  that  Emilia  Galotti,  with 
its  atmosphere  of  libertinage,  and  Minna  von  Barnhelm,  with  its 
love  dalliance,  are  more  suited  for  the  training  of  novel-heroes, 


The   Scholastic   Studies  233 

blase  worldlings  and  idlers,  than  serious  and  high-principled  youths. 
Nor  is  Lessing's  passion  for  gambling  exactly  a  qualification  for 
an  ideal.  .  .  .  How  utterly  opposed  to  such  ideals  appear  those 
of  the  old  school !  Whilst  Lessing  hungers  after  gold  to  gratify 
his  gambling  propensity,  a  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  elects  extreme 
poverty.  Whilst  Lessing  endeavours  by  his  writings  to  undermine 
Christianity,  a  St.  Francis  Xavier,  by  his  apostolic  preaching,  wins 
whole  kingdoms  for  Christ  and  Christian  morality.  Whilst  Goethe 
welds  his  life  into  a  chain  of  excesses,  a  St.  Benedict  throws  himself 
among  thorns,  to  overcome  the  temptations  of  the  flesh  by  self- 
inflicted  suffering.  Which  of  these  two  ideals  was  chosen  with 
truer  pedagogic  discrimination,  that  of  the  ancient  schools  of  the 
Church,  or  that  of  the  modern  secularising  schools  of  the  State  ? 
Schiller  and  Goethe  are  valuable  supporters  of  Lessing  in  his  active 
attempts  to  undermine  all  Christianity,  all  faith.  Schiller  says  : 
'  What  religion  I  follow  ?  Not  one  of  those  that  you  name.  And  why 
none  ?  From  love  of  religion.'*  Schiller  thus  renounces  all  existing 
objective  religions,  Christianity  in  particular,  of  whatever  denomina- 
tion. Before  he  had  reached  the  age  of  thirty,  he  was  completely 
estranged  from  Christianity,  and  had  familiarised  himself  with  the 
pantheistic  doctrines  of  the  Jew,  Baruch  Spinoza.  Religion  fur- 
nished him  with  neither  results  nor  convictions  concerning  super- 
sensual  matters,  and  even  in  relation  to  morality  he  held  it  to  be 
a  mere  substitute  for  general  virtue,  and  valued  it  in  proportion 
to  its  effect  and  not  for  its  intrinsic  worth.  .  .  .  And  Goethe  ? 
Goethe  is  anything  we  please  as  occasion  arises — or,  rather,  as  his 
epicurean  humour  suggests — i.e.  he  is  really  devoid  of  all  religious 
convictions  whatever.  If  any  special  obloquy  is  to  be  heaped  on 
Catholicism,  Schiller  can  supply  it  with  his  Don  Carlos,  his  History 
of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  So  too  Lessing,  who  in  his  Nathan,  in 
the  famous  dialogue  between  the  Patriarch  and  the  Templar,  sets 
a  flattering  portrait  of  the  Catholic  priesthood  and  Catholic  morality 
before  the  Catholic,  Protestant  and  Jewish  pupils  of  a  German 
gymnasium. 

'  Thus  Goethe,  Schiller  and  Lessing  are    the  three  most  bril- 
liant stars  in  the  modern  German  classical  firmament — stars  held  up 

*  ' '  Welche  Religion   ich  bekenne  ?    Keine  von  alien, 

Die  du  mir  nennst.     Und  warum  lceine?     Aus  Religion!" 


234  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

to  the  grateful  veneration  of  the  pupils.    The  heroes  of  the  second 
class  mostly  resemble  them."  * 

To  the  same  category  as  the  Jesuit  Hammerstein  belongs 
the  Jesuit  Baumgartner.  Baumgartner,  a  Swiss,  is  con- 
sidered the  great  literary  authority  of  the  Order :  poet, 
essayist,  critic,  especially  appointed  by  the  Order  to  carry 
on  classical  research.  If  the  Jesuit  Hammerstein  is  a 
popular  writer  who  shouts  his  tirades  against  the  German 
classics  into  the  ears  of  the  masses,  the  Jesuit  Baum- 
gartner (according  to  the  Jesuits  and  German  Catholics) 
is  the  "  aestheticising,  subtle  critic  who  lays  before  the 
reader  the  clarified  results  of  his  researches  in  his  mono- 
graphs on  Lessing,  Schiller,  and  Goethe."  Thus  his  opinion 
on  the  classics  marks  with  special  significance  the  attitude 
of  the  Jesuit  Order  towards  the  heroes  of  our  literature. 

I  quote  specimens  of  Baumgartner's  criticisms  from 
two  of  his  works,  Goethe  und  Schiller.  Weimars  Glanz- 
feriode,  and  Der  Alte  von  Weimar.  Both  appeared  as 
so-called  "  supplementary  pamphlets "  to  the  Jesuit 
periodical,  Stimmen  aus  Maria-Laach.  Thus  the  Jesuit 
Order,  which  publishes  the  periodical,  has  identified 
itself  closely  with  these  writings  : — 

'  .  .  .To  whomsoever  the  Odes  on  Laura  may  have  been 
addressed,  whether  to  the  widow  of  Captain  Vischer,  in  whose 
house  Schiller  lived,  or  to  some  other  similar  muse,  such  poetry, 
combined  with  other  circumstances,  presupposes  a  fairly  wild  and 
dissolute  life.  In  Mannheim,  Schiller  drifted  into  the  immoral  life 
of  the  actors  there,  so  that  subsequently  the  experiences  of  stage 
life  in  Goethe's  Wilhdm  Meister  were  no  novelty  to  him,  but  rather 
came  home  to  him  as  personal  reminiscences.  At  the  same  time 
he  fell  in  love  with  Margaretha,  daughter  of  the  bookseller  Schwan, 
and  entered  into  such  passionate  relations  with  Charlotte  von  Kalb 
that  finally  he  even  urged  her  to  a  divorce.     In  Bauerbach  he 

*  Das  Preussische  Schulmonopol,  pp.  56-59,  73-81. 


The   Scholastic  Studies  235 

wooed  with  foolish,  passion  another  Charlotte,  the  daughter  of  his 
benefactress,  von  Wolzogen  ;  in  Dresden  a  Fraulein  Arnim  cap- 
tivated him.  In  Weimar  he  openly  renewed  his  liaison  with  Frau 
von  Kalb,  whilst  simultaneously  he  thought  of  marrying  a  daughter 
of  Wieland,  and  his  double  love  for  the  sisters  Lengenfeld  was  not 
exactly  straightforward,  until  at  last  he  won  Lotte  for  his  wife. 
Certainly  this  was  a  sufficient  number  of  adventures  for  a  space 
of  ten  years. 

"  One  of  these  attachments  Schiller  himself  later  called  '  a 
wretched  passion,'  and  thereby  stigmatised  the  character  of  his 
youth  as  a  succession  of  errors.  Not  much  weight  is  to  be  given  to 
the  virtuous  tirades  in  his  early  dramas  when,  while  still  a  student 
at  the  Karlsschule,  he  repeatedly  extolled  the  Duke's  mistress, 
Franziska  von  Hohenheim,  in  the  most  extravagant  manner,  as 
the  '  ideal  of  virtue,'  though  the  young  man  knew  who  that  Fran- 
ziska was.  Whilst  young  Goethe  was  inclined  towards  softness 
and  effeminacy,  young  Schiller  appears  wilder,  more  passionate 
and  impetuous.  Still,  he  did  not  squander  so  much  time  in  endless 
sentimental  correspondence  with  women,  and  never  lavished  such 
boundless  thoughts  and  energy  on  the  female  sex  as  the  spoilt 
darling  of  Frau  Aja.  .  .  .No  more  than  Goethe,  did  Schiller 
possess  any  deep  religious  and  philosophical  culture.  .  .  .  He  had 
never  thoroughly  studied  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  and  Plato, 
not  to  mention  that  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  Descartes,  Bacon,  or 
Leibnitz.  The  religious  impressions  and  the  pious  faith  of  his  child- 
hood were  almost  entirely  lost  in  the  whirl  of  his  stage  life.  He 
was  a  freethinker.  The  Catholic  Church  was  yet  more  of  an  unknown 
country  to  him  than  Spinoza.-  His  literary  store  of  ideas  dated  no 
further  back  than  the  shallow  literature  of  the  illuminati  of  those 
days  :  the  periodicals,  novels,  plays  of  a  literature  which  was  still 
entirely  under  the  influence  of  Rousseau,  Voltaire,  Diderot  and  the 
rest  of  the  '  philosophers.'  Schiller  certainly  studied  history  in  an 
eclectic  spirit,  just  as  he  happened  to  require  matter  for  his  dramatic 
projects  or  for  essays  on  other  subjects.  At  Bauerbach  he  had  to 
make  the  best  of  the  books  which  the  librarian,  his  brother-in-law, 
Reinhold,  procured  for  him  ;  in  Mannheim  his  theatrical  worries 
entirely  absorbed  his  necessary  leisure.  Not  until  he  was  in  Dresden 
and  Leipzig  did  his  studies  somewhat  gain  in  breadth  and  depth. 


236  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

Then  he  began  to  read  Kant  seriously,  and  investigated  more 
detailed  works  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War  and  the  revolt  of  the 
Netherlands.  But  even  there  his  studies  were  not  those  of  a 
scholar,  calmly  investigating  truth,  but  rather  of  a  literary  hack, 
who  rummages  about  for  spicy  historical  matter  in  order  to  fill 
his  '  review '  and  earn  his  fee."  * 

"  However  much  Goethe's  real  merits  demand  acknowledgment, 
they  must  not  be  exaggerated,  as  is  only  too  often  done.  His 
brilliant  intellectual  gifts,  his  physical  strength  and  his  length  of 
life,  his  favourable  surroundings — all  these  were  gifts  not  of  his 
own  bestowal.  He  had  for  years  allowed  them  practically  or 
almost  entirely  to  lie  fallow,  or  else  squandered  them  on  unimportant 
matters.  The  establishment  and  moulding  of  modern  classical 
literature  is  not  his  work.  The  arduous,  difficult  pioneering  was 
accomplished  by  others,  in  the  first  instance  by  Klopstock  and  his 
disciples,  Wieland,  Lessing  and  Herder.  Goethe  himself  received 
his  most  fruitful  and  momentous  impulses  from  Herder.  Even 
talents  of  a  lower  order,  like  Lavater  and  Merck,  influenced  him 
powerfully.  Lenz,  Klinger,  and  the  other  poets  of  the  Storm  and 
Stress  gave  him  considerable  impetus.  Wieland  and  Knebel  had 
a  stimulating  influence  on  his  work  up  to  the  last.  When, 
absorbed  in  Court  and  State  affairs  at  Weimar,  he  had 
almost  entirely  devoted  himself  to  the  writing  of  prose,  it  was 
Schiller  who  recalled  him  to  the  realm  of  poetry,  and  to  a  great 
extent  he  owes  his  second  prime  to  this  stimulating  intercourse. 

'  In  reality  Goethe  produced  but  few  really  classical  prose 
works  ;  these  are  the  four  novels  :  W either' s  Leiden,  Wilhelm 
Meister's  Lehrjahre,  Die  WaMverwandschaften  and  Wilhelm  Meister's 
Wanderjahre.     .     .     . 

''  Even  if  a  torso,  a  fragment,  may  betray  the  hand  of  a  master, 
yet  the  full  productive  power,  the  genius  and  industry  of  the  artist, 
can  only  be  manifested  in  the  perfected,  finished  masterpiece. 
In  the  case  of  Calderon  and  Shakespeare,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
collect  fragments  :  their  rounded  and  perfected  works  of  art  occupy 
many  volumes.  Not  so  with  Goethe.  With  him  the  small  and 
fragmentary  occupies  as  much  space,  at  times  even  more,  as  the 
great  and  important. 

*  OoetJie  und  Schiller.      Weimars  Glanzperiode,  pp.  36-38. 


The   Scholastic   Studies  237 

"  Nor  are  Stella  and  Clavigo  works  of  genius.  Egmont  is 
a  historical  tragedy  swamped  by  a  love  story ;  Gotz,  in  spite 
of  the  far-reaching  influence  which  it  exercised  on  the  history 
of  literature,  is  an  unsuccessful  imitation  of  Shakespeare;  Even 
the  three  versions  of  the  latter  show  the  intrinsic  weakness  of 
the  tragedy.  Mahomet  and  Tancred  are  Voltaire's  property, 
not  Goethe's.  During  the  eighty-two  years  of  his  life,  despite 
his  great  genius,  Goethe  produced  only  three  genuine,  superb, 
intellectually  great,  artistically  perfect  dramatic  works :  Iphigenie, 
Tasso,  Faust. 

"  Of  the  longer  epics,  one  only  is  perfect :   Hermann  und  Doro- 
thea.    Reinecke  Fuchs  is  a   mere  compilation  ;    Achilleis   a  feeble 
fragment.    There  still  remain  the  elegies,  epigrams  and  aphorisms, 
the  W estdstlicher  Divan,  the  ballads  and  lyrics.    Of  these  last  more 
than  a  third  are  occasional  poems,  far  more  than  a  third  love  poems. 
The   Divan  again    is  more  than  half  love  poetry.     If  on  the  one 
hand  we  set  aside  the  didactic  poems,  on  the  other  hand  the  erotic, 
not  much  remains  :  God,  the  World,  the  Fatherland,  Art,  History — 
in  fact,  all  that  is  ideal — receive  but  scant  treatment.    ;  :    :   The 
prevailing  fundamental  principle  of  this  poet,  with  all  his  brilliant 
gifts,  is  not  inspiration  emanating  from  above,  nor  aspiring  thither  ; 
not  the  Christian  ideal,  but  the  mighty  Eros  of  pagan  antiquity, 
a  love  of  life,  a  lust  for  enjoyment,  that  takes  no  thought  of  God 
and  eternity ;    a  sensual  love,  portrayed  in  its  full  vernal   magic 
and    youthful  charm,  as  well  as  in  the  gloomy  storm,  the  dreary 
disillusionment  it  leaves  in  the  human  heart  after  a  brief  delight. 
"  There  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  about  this  in  respect  to  Goethe's 
lyrical  work.     Apart   from   a  small  fraction,  it  is  one  continuous 
love  song,  chanting  the  bliss  and  rose  of  love  in  all  its  phases,  in 
every  harmony  and  melody,  key    and    modulation.     The    elegies 
carry  the  theme  to  the  boundary-line,  where  realism  ceases  to  be 
attractive  ;   his  diary  and  the  Walpurgisnacht  go  far  beyond:    The 
four  novels  deal  with  the  same  theme  in  a  wider  frame;    Ardent 
love  yearnings,  joys,  woes — '  the  atmosphere  of  a  woman's  man,' 
to  quote  Fr:  Vischer — pervades  the  whole  with  sultry  oppressive- 
ness.    Faust  is  heavily  charged  with  the  same  atmosphere,  for  it 
is  on  Gretchen  and  Helen  only  that  all  Faust's  thoughts  and  desires 
are  concentrated.    Tasso  is  a  love  dreamer  like  Faust  and  Werther. 


238  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Even  Hermann  und  Dorothea  is  not  exempt  from  that  erotic 
atmosphere.  In  Goethe's  hands,  Gotz  finally  becomes  a  drama 
of  adultery,  Egmont  a  love  tragedy ;  Achilles  himself  is  a  love-sick 
enthusiast.  In  the  Grosskophta  seduction,  and  in  Stella  bigamy,  are 
presented  in  detail  ;  in  Pandora  the  foolish  ecstasy  of  an  old  man 
in  love  is  extolled.  In  his  youthful  carnival's  jests  the  poet's 
passion  finds  vent  in  coarse  ribaldry,  in  his  musical  plays  it  undu- 
lates gracefully  in  charming  duets,  in  his  Marienbad  elegy  and 
at  the  end  of  Faust  it  even  endeavours  yearningly  to  dally  its  way 
into  heaven.-  .  .  .  If  he  happens  to  be  reading  Rousseau,  he  raves 
about  nature  ;  if  it  is  Voltaire,  of  civilisation  ;  if  he  reads  Spinoza, 
he  obtains  an  intuition  of  God  which  enables  him  to  see  in  each 
separate  existence  the  universal  whole  ;  if  he  hears  of  Leibnitz,  he 
sees  Monads  everywhere  ;  and  if  it  is  Aristotle,  the  Monads  become 
Entelechies.-  But  nowhere  do  we  meet  with  a  clear,  matter-of-fact 
definition  of  Nature,  knowledge  and  God,  intuitive  apprehension 
of  God  and  the  real  meaning  of  Monads  and  Entelechies.  Goethe 
made  just  as  much  fun  of  Kant's  Categorical  Imperative  as  of 
Fichte's  Ego  and  Non-Ego  ;  and  Schilling's  little  book  on  the  Kabirs 
was  more  interesting  to  him  than  his  natural  philosophy.  He  was 
no  more  a  consistent  follower  of  Spinoza  than  of  Schelling  or  Hegel. 
He  abhorred  not  only  all  philosophical  idealism,  but  any  system 
whatever.  .  .  .  His  poetry,  seen  in  the  light  reflected  upon  it  by 
his  life,  appears  a  mere  glorifying  of  the  most  commonplace 
material  existence,  petty  vanity,  foolish  stage  adventures  and  love 
affairs,  egotistic  self-admiration  and  sensual  love  of  enjoyment ; 
it  shows  no  comprehension  of  the  life  of  nations,  of  the  sublimity 
of  divine  revelation  and  of  the  Church,  no  trace  of  fear  or  love  of 
God,  such  as  inspired  the  minstrels  of  the  Middle  Ages.  This 
egotistical  demigod  no  longer  stands  before  us  alone,  but  surrounded 
by  a  whole  swarm  of  adoring  followers,  who  have  long  ago  rent 
asunder  all  the  diplomatic  cobwebs  of  mystery  in  which  the  old 
man  draped  himself,  who  deify  his  sensual  love  songs  as  the 
highest  and  truest  poetry,  his  realism  as  the  loftiest  outlook  on 
life,  his  paganism  as  purified  '  Christianity,'  his  unpardonable 
moral  aberrations  as  ideals  of  life,  who  recommend  the  very  essence 
of  his  errors  as  the  highest  development  of  our  national  culture  to 
be  studied  and  copied  by  all. 


The   Scholastic   Studies  239 

"...  Surely  the  danger  to  religion  and  morals  lurking 
therein  needs  no  further  exposition.  Goethe's  poetry  and  life 
speak  for  themselves.  Even  if  conscientious  teachers  expound  but 
a  very  limited  selection  of  his  works,  this  offers  but  slight  pro- 
tection, as  his  works  are  in  universal  circulation,  are  obtainable 
everywhere  in  cheap  classical  and  popular  editions,  in  elegant 
drawing-room  volumes  elaborately  bound,  in  the  most  splendid 
editions  de  luxe.  His  songs  are  sung,  his  dramas  acted,  his  heroes 
and  heroines,  he  himself  and  the  whole  galaxy  of  his  loves  are 
to  be  met  with  in  every  shop-window.  It  is  not  necessary  to  learn  a 
new  or  an  old  language  in  order  to  understand  his  poems.  His 
ideas  and  ideals  seldom  go  beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  most 
commonplace  public,  and  should  this  be  the  case,  there  are  numerous 
commentaries  at  hand  which  enlarge  upon  his  love  affairs  under 
pretence  of  philological  erudition.  Invested  with  the  authority  of 
the  greatest  classical  poet,  and  regarded  as  the  benefactor  and 
glory  of  the  nation,  he  makes  his  way  into  all  circles  ;  with  his 
bewitching  charm,  like  the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  he  draws  all  hearts 
to  him,  especially  those  of  women  and  youth.  He  never  preaches 
unbelief  and  immorality  as  boldly,  as  audaciously  as  Voltaire, 
Wieland  or  the  modern  French  realists,  but  always  veiled,  gently, 
insinuatingly,  alluringly,  in  an  apparently  innocent  form,  always 
with  an  admixture  of  what  is  good  and  true,  what  is  partly  good, 
partly  true.  He  undermines  the  faith  and  morality  of  the  young 
without  their  realising  the  seduction.  If  the  venom  of  his  pagan 
principles  is  not  to  penetrate  further  and  further,  it  is  indeed  time 
that  all  those  who  have  any  influence  on  the  education  of  the 
young  should  take  this  danger  seriously  to  heart,  and  unite  their 
forces  to  check  it. 

"  Above  all,  it  is  evident  that  the  reading  and  study  of  Goethe 
must  again  be  restricted  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  truly 
Christian  pedagogics,  which  lays  more  stress  on  religious  and 
moral  training  than  on  beauty  of  form,  style  and  language.  The 
school  cannot  and  must  not  take  part  in  the  modern  hero-worship 
of  Goethe,  if  it  is  to  retain  its  Christianity.  It  must,  on  the  contrary, 
rectify  the  erroneous  ideas  which  are  necessarily  engendered  by 
that  cult.  All  precautions,  all  anthologies,  all  expurgated  school- 
editions  are  of  no   avail  if  the  author  of  Iphigenie,  etc.,  is  over- 


240  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

whelmed  with  praise  from  a  misunderstood  patriotism  or  aesthetic 
over- estimation  ;  if  instead  of  a  better  authority  Eckermann's 
Gesprache  and  lines  from  Goethe  are  everlastingly  quoted,  even 
for  the  most  commonplace  occasions  ;  if  all  aesthetic  and  all  poetic 
theory  is  to  be  based  on  Goethe  ;  if  he  is  continually  compared 
with  Dante,  Shakespeare,  Calderon,  and  the  young  are  solemnly 
given  to  understand  that  as  a  poet  he  has  left  all  the  former  poets 
far  behind  him  ;  that  '  our  Goethe  '  is  the  greatest  poet,  the  man 
of  most  universal  knowledge,  the  zenith  of  all  civilisation.  And 
yet  Goethe  did  not  know  enough  scholastic  theology  and  philosophy 
for  the  mere  comprehension  of  Dante's  Divine  Comedy ;  he  has 
not  written  a  single  tragedy  which  as  a  stage  play  can  stand 
comparison  with  the  masterpieces  of  Shakespeare  and  Calderon. 
.  .  .  Instead  of  incessant  eulogy,  let  us  tell  the  young  plainly  how 
low  Goethe  stands  as  a  man,  how  hollow  and  superficial  was  his 
outlook  on  life,  how  immoral  and  pernicious  were  his  principles, 
how  small  his  importance  as  a  naturalist  or  art  critic.  Let  us  tell 
the  young  how,  after  thirty  years  of  foolish  wanderings,  he  turned 
to  Aristotle's  Poetics,  and  as  a  man  of  fifty,  to  the  greatest  benefit 
of  his  poetic  development,  at  last  studied  those  rules  on  art 
which  have  for  centuries  constituted  the  basis  of  Poetics  at  all 
Catholic  educational  establishments.  Let  us  lay  before  the  young 
the  restless,  fragmentary  labours  of  young  Goethe,  the  enormous 
harm  done  to  him  by  the  frittering  away  of  his  energies.  Let 
us  show  them  the  weaknesses  and  defects  of  Goethe's  poetry, 
as  contrasted  with  that  of  the  ancients,  of  Shakespeare  and 
Calderon.  There  is  hardly  a  quotation  from  Goethe  that  could 
not  be  replaced  by  one  from  the  ancient  classics  or  from  the 
best  Catholic  writers.* 

"  Why  always  Goethe,  Goethe — nothing  but  Goethe  ?  After 
all,  what  does  it  profit  the  Seven  Sacraments  if  this  Privy  Councillor 
of  Weimar,  consort  of  a  dance-loving  Christiane  Vulpius,  considered 
them  beautiful,  without  believing  in  them  ? 

"  What  avail  his  sketches  of  the  Flight  into  Egypt  if  they  only 
serve  to  introduce  our  youth  into  the  unclean  society  of  Wilhelm 
Meister  ?  What  good  sayings  has  he  ever  uttered  about  the  ancients, 
about  the  Bible,  about  religion,  art,  literature  and  life  that  cannot 

*  Probably  from  the  Poets  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.     See  Chapter  V. 


The  Scholastic  Studies  241 

be  found  more  correctly,  purely,  very  often  better  and  more  beauti- 
fully stated  by  Catholic  thinkers,  poets,  artists  and  writers  ?  Why 
do  we  refuse  credence  to  the  most  conscientious  Catholic  scholars 
and  scientific  inquirers  till  Goethe  and  Eckermann  have  given 
their  blessing  ?  .  .  .  The  Church  has  never  proceeded  against 
works  of  polite  literature  with  that  severity  which  she  is  wont  to 
exercise  against  strictly  theological  and  philosophical  works  of 
erroneous  and  hurtful  tendency.  Goethe's  works  have  never  been 
placed  expressly  and  distinctly  on  the  Roman  Index.  They  were 
left  to  its  general  regulations,  as  the  Popes  of  the  Renaissance  once 
left  the  works  of  Boccaccio,  Valla,  Beccadelli  and  Poggio,  to  the 
conscience  of  the  individual.  This,  however,  does  not  amount  to 
a  free  passport  for  Goethe's  works.  Apart  from  numerous  passages 
which  sin  grievously  against  the  requirements  of  Christian  discipline 
and  morals,  they  are  thoroughly  leavened  with  the  most  dangerous 
errors  by  which  our  modern  times  are  affected,  and  which  the 
Vatican  Council  has  expressly  repudiated  in  its  binding  decrees. 
That  rationalism,  pantheism  and  religious  indifference  in  which  all 
Goethe's  poetry  has  its  roots,  and  which  is  clearly  enough  displayed 
in  his  prose  writings,  has  been  eternally  branded  by  the  Church 
herself.  But  few  of  his  works  are  untouched,  or  nearly  so,  by  these 
errors,  though  they  appear  but  rarely  in  outspoken  form ;  the 
great  majority  of  his  writings  are  steeped  in  them  in  a  most  attrac- 
tive and  alluring  fashion,  and  are  thus  fully  calculated  to  trivialise 
and  obscure  religious  ideas,  and  to  weaken  and  undermine  Christian 
faith.  The  clear  vision,  faith  and  steadfastness  of  every  individual 
will  modify  this  influence  in  very  different  ways.  ...  It  will  be 
a  great  gain  for  real  Christian  education  when  we  revert  from  an 
almost  idolatrous  cult  of  the  great  poet  to  a  sober,  sensible  and  just 
appreciation  of  his  life  and  works,  when  we  know  him  as  he  actually 
was,  and  do  not  esteem  him  beyond  his  deserts." 

"...  Youths  and  men  will  no  longer  accept  a  Werther,  a  Wilhelm 
Meister,  a  Faust  as  types  of  the  true  German  spirit,  but  as  the 
poetical  forms  of  a  morally  decadent  period.  They  will  then 
compare  the  spurious  universality  of  Goethe  with  the  real  univer- 
sality of  Catholic  learning,  and  will  be  easily  convinced  that  an 
Angelo  Secchi  [a  Jesuit]  understood  more  of  the  property  of  light 
and  of  the  unity  of  natural  forces,  a  Raphael  Garruci  and  a  de  Rossi 
Q 


242  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

more  of  Christian  art,  a  Reichsperger  and  Pugin  more  of  the  laws 
of  Gothic  architecture,  a  Jannsen*  more  of  German  character, 
history  and  national  spirit,  and  a  Peter  Cornelius  and  Eduard  von 
Steinle  more  about  Raphael  and  Italian  painting,  a  Joseph  von 
Gorres  more  about  Mysticismf  and  German  folklore,  a  Friedrich 
von  Schlegel  more  about  universal  literature,  a  Lorinser  more  about 
Calderon,  a  Cardinal  Wiseman  more  about  Shakespeare  than 
Johann  Wolfgang  Goethe,  Heinrich  Meyer,  Wilhelm  Riemer,  Peter 
Eckermann  and  all  the  rest,  together  with  the  comet-like  tail  of 
philologists  and  critics. 

"  When  this  glittering  Goethe  meteor  is  no  longer  considered 
a  universal  lodestar  of  real  world-philosophy,  wisdom  and  know- 
ledge, we  shall  once  more  be  able  to  recognise  and  show  honour 
to  other  constellations  in  the  firmament  of  German  literature."  $ 

It  is  hard  to  know  whether  to  marvel  most  at  the 
inferior  understanding  revealed  in  these  Jesuit  appre- 
ciations of  Lessing,  Schiller,  and  Goethe,  or  at  the  hatred 
which  casts  forth  poison  against  great  minds  because 
they  illumine  humanity  with  their  light,  and  thus  remove 
it  from  Jesuit  influence. 

Whenever  we  open  Baumgartner's  bulky  Goethe- 
monograph,  the  same  passion  for  disparagement,  the 
same  calumniating  malice,  are  manifested.  I  quote  a  few 
examples : — 

"It  is  most  characteristic  of  Goethe  that  in  this  play  [Shakes- 
peare's King  John]  he  was  but  little  interested  in  its  great  political, 
ecclesiastic  and  patriotic  motives,  nor  in  the  passionate  and  powerful 
male  characters,  nor  in  the  pathetic  characters  of  Queen  Eleanor 
and  Constance,  but  especially  in  the  two  affecting  scenes  with 
Prince  Arthur ;  not  in  the  light  of  a  harmless,  unfortunate  prince, 
as  conceived  by  Shakespeare,  but  as  a  girl  in  boy's  clothes — 
Christiane  Neumann.     '  The  whole  play  now  hung  upon  her.     She 

*  The  notorious  Ultramontane  fabricator  of  history. 

t  Gorres  wrote  a  half-crazy  book  on   Mysticism.    Cf.  my  work,  Das  Papettvm 
in  seiner  eozialkttlturellen   Wirktamkeii,  I.  235-245. 
%  Der  Alte  von  Weimar,  pp.  271-278,  281-284. 


The  Scholastic  Studies  243 

acted  well.  But  when  Hubert  approached  with  the  tongs  to  put 
out  the  prince's  eyes,  she  did  not  show  enough  terror.  On  this,  the 
manager,  Goethe,  tore  the  tongs  from  Hubert's  hands,  rushed 
at  Christiane,  and  made  such  terrible  eyes  at  her  that  she  fainted. 
Now,  Goethe  himself  was  frightened,  knelt  down  before  her,  and 
when  she  recovered  consciousness  gave  her  a  kiss.'  This  is  the 
chief  scene  during  nearly  forty  years  of  stage  management  described 
in  a  glorified  light  in  all  books  on  Goethe,  even  in  histories  of 
literature.  It  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  profound  contrast  between 
the  virile  and  universal  genius  of  a  true  dramatist  like  William 
Shakespeare  and  the  lyrical  adorer  of  maidens,  Wolfgang  Goethe, 
who  was  more  interested  in  the  caress  than  in  Bang  John  and  all 
the  Kings  of  England,  Ireland  and  Scotland  put  together." 

Of  Goethe's  attitude  towards  the  French  Revolution, 
the  Jesuit  says  : — 

"  And  Goethe  ?  Goethe  felt  embarrassed.  As  a  true  disciple  of 
Rousseau  and  Voltaire,  as  a  decided  non-Christian  and  pagan,  he 
could  not  in  common  consistency  but  approve  of  the  thorough 
and  complete  abolition  of  the  old  order  of  things,  the  guillotining 
of  kings,  the  old  nobility,  the  priests,  the  abolition  of  honour  and 
the  other  remnants  of  the  Seven  Sacraments,  the  secularisation  of 
the  whole  of  life,  with  a  view  to  the  speedy  occupation  of  Europe 
with  Greek  republics,  with  the  greatest  possible  number  of  gods, 
hetaerae,  philosophers  and  poets,  painters,  sculptors,  intellectual 
enjoyment  and  artistic  delights.  This  was  his  religion  and  the 
view  he  took  of  life.  But,  as  an  ordinary  Frankfort  citizen,  he 
wanted  at  the  same  time  to  eat  and  sleep  in  peace ;  as  a  Weimar 
Privy  Councillor  he  desired  an  increase  rather  than  a  decrease 
of  salary  ;  as  the  friend  of  a  Duke,  he  preferred  seeing  him  crowned 
to  seeing  him  decapitated.  The  French  Republic  was  not  organised 
on  the  model  of  Periclean  Athens,  but  according  to  the  uncomfort- 
able military  rule  of  Roman  agitators,  triumvirs  and  tyrannicides. 
Not  poems,  but  proscription  lists,  were  issued.  Olympic  games 
were  not  held,  but  heads  were  cut  off.  The  freethinkers  in  Paris 
were  not  content  with  taking  an  unwedded  Vulpius  into  their 
houses,  and  having  her  little  boys  christened  by  a  gentleman  who 


244  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

scarcely  believed  in  Christ  himself,  simply  to  throw  dust  in  people's 
eyes ;  they  preferred  to  guillotine  people  who  objected  to  such 
things,  to  pocket  their  money,  and  to  remodel  the  world.  That 
would  not  do  at  Weimar.  All  violence  was  odious  to  the  Privy 
Councillor.  Who  would  read  his  Tasso,  if  there  were  no  more 
duchesses  and  Court  ladies  ?  Who  would  shed  tears  over  his 
Werther,  if  the  world  became  so  callous  and  unfeeling  ?  " 

Even  Goethe's  affecting  lines  to  Schiller's  memory 
serve  Baumgartner  to  asperse  the  object  of  his  hatred : — 

"  The  contrast  which  Schiller  offered  to  the  prevailing  tendency 
in  Weimar  was  certainly  indicated  in  a  subsequent  verse,  but  it 
was  amiably  neutralised  by  the  reflection  j  '  He  was  ours  ' — it  was 
a  cunning  stroke  of  policy.  For  thus  Schiller  was  for  ever  bound 
to  the  triumphal  car  of  his  former  rival."* 

I  must,  however,  say  a  word  in  defence  of  the  Jesuit 
Baumgartner  against  himself,  i.e.  his  publications  in  dis- 
paragement of  Goethe  and  the  other  classics.  These  ugly 
judgments  are  not  altogether  his  innermost  convictions. 
Baumgartner's  undeniable  poetical  talent  had  led  him 
to  a  considerably  higher  estimate  of  the  "  Old  Man  of 
Weimar,"  and  he  had  put  this  conception  into  writing, 
but  was  compelled  to  publish  a  different  version,  the  one 
prescribed  by  the  censorship  of  the  Order. 

In  1887,  after  the  conclusion  of  my  theological  studies 
at  Ditton  Hall,  I  was  transferred,  in  the  capacity  of 
scriptor,  to  Exaeten,  where  the  editorial  staff  of  the 
Stimmen  aus  Maria-Laach  was  quartered  at  the  time. 
The  Jesuit  Joseph  Fah  was  editor-in-chief  and  also  Vice- 
Rector  of  the  whole  establishment.  Fah  told  me  one 
day  that,  according  to  the  censor's  verdict,  Baumgartner 
had  concluded  his  monograph  on  Goethe  with  a  too 
favourable  general  estimate  ;  that  the  manuscript  had  been 
returned  to  him  (Baumgartner  was  at  the  time  at  the 

*  Goethe  und  Schiller,  pp.  82-83,  118-119. 


The   Scholastic  Studies  245 

college  of  Blyenbeck)  with  the  intimation  that  the 
criticism  on  Goethe  must  be  considerably  altered  in 
an  unfavourable  direction.  I  asked,  in  surprise,  "  But 
will  Baumgartner  do  it  ?  "  Fah  answered,  "  Of  course 
he  will."     And  he  did.* 

This  occurrence  shows  two  things :  the  hatred  of  the 
Jesuits  for  Goethe  and  the  power  of  Jesuit  censorship 
and  Jesuit  obedience.  Not  in  vain  do  the  Constitutions 
of  the  Order  prescribe  blind  obedience. 

*  I  know  Baumgartner  well.  I  was  with  him  at  Exaeten  for  a  long  time. 
He  is  the  typical  example  of  the  transformation  Jesuit  training  can  effect  in  a 
man  of  real  ability.  When  quite  young,  on  leaving  the  Jesuit  College  of  Feldkirch, 
he  entered  the  novitiate  of  the  Order.  He  would  have  distinguished  himself,  had 
he  been  able  to  develop  freely  in  accordance  with  his  individuality.  But  the 
Jesuit  machine  trimmed  him,  castrated  him  in  mind,  will  and  disposition.  Thus 
his  mental  powers  were  broken,  and  worse  :  he  became  a  zealot,  a  man  who  directed 
his  rancour  against  all  that  is  beautiful  and  true  in  nature  and  humanity,  while 
inwardly  yearning  after  it,  in  spite  of  his  invectives.    Poor  fellow  ! 


CHAPTER   XXII 

THE   PHILOSOPHICAL   AND   THEOLOGICAL   STUDIES    OF  THE 

SCHOLASTICATE 

Philosophy  and  theology,  rightly  understood,  are  sepa- 
rate, independent  branches  of  knowledge  (Wissenschaften). 
But  philosophy,  in  the  Jesuit  sense,  is  altogether  dependent 
on  theology,  is  even  its  "  handmaid  "  and  "  servant "  :  "  The 
professors  of  philosophy  [says  the  eighth  canon  of  the 
third  General  Congregation]  are  to  teach  philosophy  in 
such  a  manner  that  it  becomes  the  handmaid  and  servant 
of  true  scholastic  theology,  which  is  commended  to  us  by 
our  Constitutions :  '  Ut  verae  theologiae  scholasticae,  quam 
nobis  commendant  Constitutiones,  ancillari  et  subservire 
facianC  "*  Therefore  I  shall  treat  in  the  same  section  of 
Jesuit  philosophy  and  theology. 

First,  a  few  words  as  to  the  outward  form  of  these 
studies. 

The  philosophy  course  generally  lasts  for  three  years, 
though  there  are  some  exceptions.  Every  year  there  is 
an  examination  of  half  an  hour,  and  at  the  end  of  the  third 
year  a  final  examination  of  an  hour's  duration  on  the 
whole  of  philosophy.  Only  those  who  "  surpass  medi- 
ocrity "  in  this  examination  (mediocritatem  swperaverint) 
enter  on  the  four  years'  course  of  "  scholastic  theology  " 
known  as  the  "  Major  Dogma."  Those  who  do  not  pass 
the  final  examination  must  content  themselves  with  the 
three  years'  course,  known  as  the  "  Minor  Dogma."     Every 

*  Inst.   S.J.,  L,  477. 

46 


Studies   of  the   Scholasticate        247 

year  of  theological  study  also  ends  with  an  examination. 
The  examination  of  the  fourth  year  (examen  rigorosum) 
lasts  two  hours.  This  examination  decides  whether  those 
who  possess  "  virtue  surpassing  mediocrity  "  are  afterwards 
to  take  the  degree  of  "  professed  "  or  only  that  of  "  spiritual 
coadjutor."  If  the  candidate  is  to  become  a  "  professed  " 
the  examination  must  show  that  he  has  attained  "  that 
degree  of  thorough  philosophical  and  theological  know- 
ledge which  will  qualify  him  to  teach  both  subjects 
satisfactorily."* 

All  examinations  are  oral ;  they  are  conducted  by 
four  examiners  under  the  presidency  of  the  Rector  or  the 
Provincial,  who  must  swear  to  fulfil  their  duty  con- 
scientiously and  to  disclose  their  verdict  only  to  the 
General  of  the  Order  and  the  Provincial,*)*  for  entrance 
into  the  books  designated  for  the  purpose. 

If  anyone  possesses  "  conspicuous  gifts  for  ruling  or 
preaching "  (illustria  gubernandi  concionandive  talenta) 
the  "  insufficient  knowledge '  (doctrina  impar)  shown  in 
the  examination  may  be  overlooked.  This  decision  is 
exclusively  in  the  hands  of  the  General  of  the  Order. 
Also  "  excellent  knowledge  of  classical  and  Indian  lan- 
guages "  may,  if  the  General  consider  it  advisable,  atone 
for  the  deficiencies  in  philosophy  and  theological  know- 
ledge. J 

In  the  philosophy  year,  logic  and  ontology  (the  science 
of  being)  are  studied.  The  second  year's  course  includes 
natural  philosophy  (i.e.  a  medley  of  miscellaneous  matter 
belonging  to  the  domain  of  natural  science,  decked  out 
with  philosophy  and  styled  cosmology,  including  miracles 
with  their  criteria),  and  psychology  (simplicity,  spiritu- 
ality, immortality  of  the  soul,  its  connection  with  the 

*  Rules  17  and  19  for  the  Provincial. 

f  Rule  19,  12  for  the  Provincial ;    Congreg.  12,  Decret.  22. 

X  Rule  19,  10  for  the  Provincial ;    Congreg.  6,  Decret.  15. 


248  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

body,  its  difference  from  the  animal  soul).  The  third 
year's  course  comprises  ethics  (natural  morality)  and 
natural  theology  (theodicy).  In  the  last  two  years  there 
are  also  a  few  lessons  on  chemistry,  physics,  botany,  and 
astronomy.  Instruction  and  achievement  in  these  branches 
of  science  hardly  correspond  to  the  work  done  in  the  middle 
and  higher  forms  of  a  gymnasium.  When  I  studied  philo- 
sophy at  Blyenbeck,  "  lectures  "  delivered  by  the  Jesuit 
Epping  on  astronomy  were  anything  rather  than  scientific. 
We  laughed  a  good  deal,  slept  not  a  little  (the  lessons 
were  early  in  the  afternoon),  and  profited  accordingly. 

In  the  case  of  theological  studies  the  system  is  not 
quite  so  hard  and  fast.  The  two  professors  of  theology 
— generally  there  are  no  more — arrange  among  them- 
selves, with  the  permission  of  the  Principal  and  the  Prefect 
of  Studies,  how  the  theological  subject  matter  shall  be 
distributed  over  four  or,  as  the  case  may  be,  three  years. 

Together  with  the  scholastic — i.e.  speculative — the- 
ology a  two-years'  course  on  moral  theology  (casus  con- 
scientiae)  is  given.  This  is  an  extremely  important — I 
might  almost  say  all-important — branch  of  Jesuit  study, 
by  which  the  young  Jesuit  is  trained  for  practical  life, 
and  especially  for  his  work  in  the  confessional. 

The  pupils  receive  the  summary  of  the  lectures  in  the 
form  of  hectographed  "  codices."  No  notes  are  taken 
during  lectures.  Neither  are  text-books  used  except  for 
moral  theology,  where  the  Theologia  moralis  of  the  Jesuit 
Lehmkuhl  is  the  text-book  in  use. 

What  has  been  imparted  in  the  lectures  is  elaborated 
and  impressed  upon  the  mind  by  regular  disputations. 
Great  importance  is  attached  to  these.  The  ordinary 
disputation,  of  one  hour's  duration,  held  several  times  a 
week,  is  called  a  "  Circle  "  (Circulus).  Every  Saturday 
a  more  important  debate,  "  Sabbatina " — short  for 
disputatio   sabbatina — is   held.     The    "  disputationes   men- 


Studies  of  the   Scholasticate        249 

struae"  held  five  or  six  times  a  year,  are  attended  with 
special  solemnities.  The  Rector  of  the  House  appears  at 
the  head  of  the  other  Fathers,  and  so  does  the  Provincial, 
if  he  happens  to  be  in  residence.  Whereas  in  the  "  Circle  " 
and  "  Sabbatina  "  the  defenders  and  opposers  are  chosen 
in  advance,  and  only  a  few  theses  (mostly  those  gone 
through  immediately  before)  are  selected  for  debate,  in 
the  "  Menstruae  "  the  proposers  are  only  nominated  by 
the  Prefect  of  Studies  at  the  outset  of  the  debate  (everyone 
is  expected  to  be  prepared),  and  the  theses  to  be  defended 
extend  over  a  wider  field. 

The  form  of  all  disputations  is  the  same.     The  defender 
announces  the  thesis,   defines    the  status  questionis — i.e. 
explains  what  the  thesis  asserts  and  what  it  does  not  assert 
— and  states  the  arguments  for  its  correctness  in  syllogistic 
form.    In  theological  theses  the  proofs  are  generally  of  three 
kinds.     1.  From   the    Holy   Scriptures    (ex   s.    scriptura). 
2.  From  reason  (ex  ratione).      3.  From  pronouncements  of 
the  Fathers  of  the  Church  (ex  s.  s.  Patribus).      Thesis, 
status  questionis,  and  arguments  are  committed  to  memory 
as  literally  as  possible  from  the  "  Codices."     When  the 
defender  has  concluded  his  final  argument,  the  opposer 
attacks  the  thesis.     And  now  begins  a  verbal  dispute  in 
strictly  scholastic-syllogistic  form  between  defender  and 
opposer,  until  the  defender  either  succeeds  in  solving  the 
difficulties  or  breaks  down  in  the  attempt.      If  he  fails, 
he  is,  as  the  scholastic  slang  has  it,  "  in  the  sack  "  (in 
sacco),   and    the   professor   presiding   at   the   disputation 
intervenes    to     save    the    threatened     thesis.      At     the 
"  Menstruae "    the    invited    Fathers    also    take   part   in 
the  debate. 

Sometimes,  though  rarely,  "  public  performances " 
(actus  publici)  are  organised,  i.e.  one  person  supports  a 
number  of  theological  and  philosophical  theses  against 
opposers  from  among  the  secular  clergy  or  the  priests  of 


250  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

the  Order.  No  such  ceremony  took  place  during  my 
period  of  study. 

Some,  whom  the  Order  wishes  to  train  more  fully 
for  some  special  service,  pass  through  a  biennium  in 
theology,  philosophy,  or  one  of  the  kindred  branches  of 
knowledge  (Exegesis,  Church  Law,  Church  History),  after 
the  four  years'  course. 

In  all  lectures  and  disputations  the  use  of  Latin  is 
compulsory. 

And  now  as  to  the  spirit  of  the  studies. 

As  regards  philosophy,  let  me  first  refer  to  what  I  have 
already  quoted  from  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order,  from 
the  Scheme  of  Studies,  and  from  decrees  of  the  General 
Congregation  as  to  the  fundamental  standpoint  adopted 
by  the  Jesuit  Order  in  philosophy.  Unswerving  adherence 
to  the  peripatetic  system  of  Aristotle  (who  died  322  B.C.) 
— again  solemnly  declared  in  1883  ! — with  partial  appli- 
cation of  this  system  even  to  questions  of  natural  science, 
and  a  re-endorsement  of  resolutions  passed  by  the  General 
Congregations  of  the  Order  in  the  eighteenth  century 
(1706  and  1751)  in  favour  of  the  Aristotelian  system. 

The  argument  for  this  adherence  to  Aristotle  is  very 
characteristic : 

"  That  philosophy  must  be  followed  because  it  is  more 
useful  to  theology."* 

From  this  Aristotelian  standpoint,  it  is  self-evident 
that  the  whole  of  modern  philosophy  must  be  sorely 
neglected.  Minds  like  Descartes,  Leibnitz,  Spinoza,  Kant, 
Hegel,  Fichte,  Schelling,  Schopenhauer,  E.  von  Hartmann, 
etc.,  are  disposed  of  by  inadequate  theses.  A  few  syllo- 
gisms, and  a  Kant,  a  Descartes,  etc.,  fall  to  the  ground. 

Here  once  again  I  keenly  regret  that  when  I  left  the 
Order  I  left  behind  all  my  manuscript  notes.  From  the 
"  Codices "   of  my  period  of   Jesuit  study  a   clear   and 

*  Congreg.  23  of  the  year  1883;    Decret.  15. 


Studies   of  the  Scholasticate        251 

instructive  description  might  have  been  given  of  the 
treatment  allotted  to  the  study  of  modern  philosophy  by 
the  "  modern  "  Jesuit. 

The  works  of  modern  philosophers  were  not  placed  in 
our  hands.  The  few  details  concerning  them  in  our 
"  Codices "  represented  for  us  the  sum  total  of  their 
publications.  The  reference  libraries  at  our  disposal  con- 
tained exclusively  the  works  of  Jesuit  writers.  It  is  the 
same  here  as  with  the  piety  and  asceticism  of  the  Order : 
Jesuits,  Jesuits,  Jesuits,  and  nothing  but  Jesuits ! 

I  feel  ashamed  and  indignant  when  I  remember  that 
when  I  was  thirty  years  old  I  used  to  be  content  with 
the  ill-concocted  dilution  which  the  Order  served  up  to  me 
as  the  quintessence  of  the  labours  of  these  great  thinkers. 
Kant  especially  was  treated  with  a  superficiality  that 
surpassed  everything.  I  only  made  this  great  man's 
acquaintance  when  I  was  staying  in  Berlin  in  1888,  on  a 
mission  for  the  Jesuit  Order.  There,  free  from  police 
supervision,  I  plunged  deeply  into  the  study  of  his  works. 
He  became  my  chief  liberator,  who  enlarged  my  innermost 
thoughts,  and  opened  a  new  and  unknown  horizon  to  my 
ideas.  How  I  apologised  to  him  for  having  thought  so 
poorly  of  him  when  I  was  a  Jesuit- Scholastic  !  But  the 
fault  was  not  mine  ! 

Peter  Beckx,  General  of  the  Order,  in  his  official  letter 
of  July  15th,  1854,  to  Count  Leo  Thun,  Austrian  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction,  draws  a  picture,  both  pertinent  and 
vested  with  supreme  authority,  of  the  Jesuit  attitude 
towards  any  development  of  philosophy  later  than  that 
of  the  ancients  or  the  Middle  Ages :  * 

"  How  can  we  place  reliance  in  philosophy  as  it  has  shown 
itself  in  our  days,  how  can  we  with  any  confidence  expect  to  gain 
from  it  knowledge  and  a  basis  for  truth,  when  its  four  great  schools, 
which  under  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling  and  Hegel  by  turns  subjugated 
the  whole  of  Germany,  finally  melted  away  into  pure  (sic)  atheism, 


252  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

and  were  abandoned  one  after  the  other,  and  at  the  same  time — 
to  say  nothing  of  religious  and  political  degeneration — have  left 
behind  them  a  state  of  doubt,  uncertainty  and  almost  universal 
confusion,  in  which  men  continue  their  contention,  but  without 
appearing  to  understand  one  another's  meaning  ? 

"  What  has  caused  this  state  of  things  ?  Simply  this  :  The 
ground  which  was  wrested  from  true  philosophy  by  the  afore- 
mentioned four  schools  has  not  been  recovered,  and  men,  either  not 
understanding  the  real  cause  of  the  evil  or  not  wishing  to  admit 
it,  seek  it  ever  along  fresh  paths,  thus  falling  from  one  error  into 
another.  The  truly  Catholic  Universities  were  always  agreed  and 
clear  as  to  the  basis  of  philosophy  [the  Aristotelian  system]."* 

And  twenty  years  later  the  Jesuit  Ebner  characterises 
in  an  official  controversial  treatise  against  Job.  Kelle, 
Professor  at  the  University  of  Prague,  the  whole  of  modern 
philosophy  by  the  scornful  words  : 

"  Futile  vagaries,  confused  ideas,  foolish  arrogance  and  charla- 
tanism clothed  in  boastful,  empty  phrases  in  a  repulsive,  unintel- 
ligible jargon  ;  systems  as  hostile  to  sound  sense  as  to  God  and 
Christianity,  all  of  which  really  tend  towards  materialism  and 
pantheism,  and  which  perhaps  have  recently  reached  their  climax 
and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  their  conclusion,  in  the  absurdities  and 
blasphemies  of  that  monstrous  abortion,  the  '  Philosophy  of  the 
Unconscious'"  (Philosophie  des  Unbewussten).f 

The  following  facts,  too,  speak  for  themselves  :  Piccolo  - 
mini,  General  of  the  Order,  issued  a  decree  in  1661,  for 
"  the  higher  studies,"  which  to  this  day  is  found  unaltered 
in  the  official  edition  of  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order. 
In  it  is  stated  : 

"  The  Prefect  of  Studies  is  to  see  to  it  that  the  Aristotelian 
definitions  of  origins,  causes,  nature,  the  motion,  and  the  continuum, 
the  infinite,  are  accurately  explained,  and  that  natural  philosophy 

*  Monatsblatt  fur  Kathol.  Vnterrichis-  u.  Erziehungs-wesen.  12Jahrg.  Miinster. 
P.  294. 

\  Bdeuchtung  der  Schrift  des  Herrn  Dr.  Johann  Kelle  :  Die  Jesvitengymnasien 
in  Oesterreich.    Linz,  1874.    Pp.  595-596. 


Studies  of  the   Scholasticate        253 

is  thoroughly  discussed  according  to  the  Aristotelian  arrangement: 
In  Aristotle's  de  Caelo,  the  nature,  properties  and  influence  of 
the  heavens  on  the  sublunary  bodies,  are  not  to  be  omitted.  In 
the  first  book  on  generation,  the  Aristotelian  doctrine  on  genera- 
tion and  corruption  is  to  be  thoroughly  studied." 

To  an  inquiry  sent  by  the  Province  of  the  Upper 
Rhine,  Gonzalez,  General  of  the  Order,  under  threats  of  a 
heavy  penalty,  pronounced  against  the  introduction  of 
"  new  philosophical  ideas  "  into  the  schools  of  the  Order.* 

His  successor,  Tamburini,  prohibited  thirty  propositions 
from  the  works  of  Descartes  and  Leibnitz. f  Up  to  the 
year  1832  Aristotle  was  the  text-book  used  for  the  entire 
three  years'  course  in  philosophy.  J 

What  spirit,  then,  prevails  in  theology  ?  That  of  the 
medieval  scholastics,  in  particular  the  spirit  of  Thomas 
Aquinas,  prince  of  scholastics,  who  died  in  1274. 

The  Second  Rule  for  the  Teacher  in  Theology,  as  stated 
in  the  Ratio  Studiorum,  is  : 

"  In  Scholastic  Theology  our  people  are  to  follow 
strictly  {omnino  sequantur)  the  teaching  of  St.  Thomas ; 
they  are  to  regard  him  as  their  own  teacher  (eumque  ut 
doctor  em  proprium  habeant),  and  do  their  utmost  to  inspire 
the  students  with  enthusiasm  for  his  teaching." 

This  order,  dating  from  the  year  1599,  is  even  surpassed 
by  the  15th  Decree,  issued  in  1883,  by  the  twenty- third 
General  Congregation  of  the  Order : 

;'  Our  most  holy  master,  Leo  XIII.,  having  a  few  years  ago 
commanded  through  an  encyclical  Aetemi  Patris  how  the  studies 
of  Christian  schools  under  the  guidance  of  the  Angelic  Doctor 
[Doctor  Angelicus  is  the  official  designation  of  Thomas  Aquinas] 
are  to  be  brought  back  to  the  wisdom  of  ancient  times,  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  for  the  first  time  since  the  issue  of  the  encyclical  assem- 
bled at  a  General  Congregation,  considers  it  advisable  to  give  an 

*  Monum.  Germ,  paed.,  9,  122. 
f  Ibid.  +  Ibid.,  16,  464. 


254  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

unequivocal  token  of  its  filial  obedience  and  consent  by  a  public 
and  solemn  declaration.  In  the  conviction,  therefore,  that  it  could 
do  nothing  more  agreeable  or  more  conducive  to  the  fulfilment  of 
the  wishes  of  his  Holiness  than  to  establish  anew  what  has  long 
ago  been  confirmed  to  the  same  effect  by  our  ancestors,  the  Con- 
gregation decides  by  the  motion  of  the  Very  Venerable  General 
that :  what  was  ordered  by  our  holy  Father  Ignatius  in  his  Con- 
stitutions (IV.,  14,  n.  1),  and  by  the  fifth  General  Congregation 
in  the  41st  and  56th  Decrees,  is  to  remain  in  full  force — namely, 
our  people  are  to  regard  St.  Thomas  in  all  respects  as  their  own 
teacher  and  are  to  be  bound  in  duty  (teneantur)  to  follow  him  in 
Scholastic  Theology."* 

One  point  here  is  specially  noteworthy : 

Whilst  the  Ratio  of  the  year  1599,  in  the  same  rulef 
which  sets  up  Thomas  Aquinas  as  a  prominent  authority, 
makes  this  reservation  :  "  It  is  not  to  be  understood  from 
this  that  we  may  never  deviate  from  him  in  any  single 
point " ;  the  decree  of  the  Congregation  of  the  year  1883 
drops  this  reservation,  and  changes  the  more  lenient 
expression  of  the  Ratio  into  a  binding  law : 

"  They  [the  Jesuits]  are  to  be  bound  to  follow  him 
[Thomas  Aquinas]  in  Scholastic  Theology "  :  eurnque  in 
scholastica  iheologia  sequi  teneantur. 

One  word  about  the  encyclical  on  which  the  decree  of 
the  Congregation  is  based.  It  is  that  of  August  4th,  1879, 
in  which  Leo  XIII.  commands  the  revival  of  philosophy 
and  theology  in  the  spirit  of  the  Scholastic  School,  and 
designates  Thomas  Aquinas  as  the  leader  they  are  to 
follow : 

"  Among  scholastic  teachers,  Thomas  Aquinas,  prince  and 
master  of  all,  is  by  far  the  greatest.  .  .  .  There  is  no  department 
of  philosophy  which  he  has  not  treated  with  perspicuity  and 
thoroughness.   .    .    .  He   was   successful   both   in   overcoming   all 

*  Monum.  Germ.  paed.  2,  118. 

|  Rule  2  for^the  Professor  of  Theology. 


Studies   of  the   Scholasticate        255 

errors  in  the  past,  and  in  providing  victorious  weapons  against  all 
errors  that  may  arise  in  ages  to  come." 

After  quoting  the  eulogies  of  Thomas  Aquinas  by 
earlier  Popes,  he  continues  thus  : 

"  A  crowning  glory  which  no  other  Catholic  theologian  shares 
with  him  was  conferred  on  him,  when  the  Fathers  of  the  Council 
of  Trent,  in  the  very  hall  where  they  were  assembled,  commanded 
that,  together  with  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  Papal  decrees,  the 
Summa  [St.  Thomas's  principal  work,  entitled  Summa  theological 
should  be  laid  on  the  altar,  so  that  counsel,  proofs  and  solutions 
might  be  drawn  therefrom.  .  .  .  Civil  society  also  would  gain 
much  in  peace  and  security  if  a  healthier  doctrine,  more  in  harmony 
with  the  orthodox  faith  as  set  forth  in  the  works  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  were  taught  at  their  academies  and  schools.  We  earnestly 
exhort  you  all,  reverend  brethren,  for  the  promotion  of  all  know- 
ledge, to  reintroduce  the  golden  wisdom  of  St.  Thomas,  and  to 
propagate  it  as  far  as  possible.   .    .    .  " 

This  declaration,  as  we  have  seen,  gave  the  Jesuits  a 
pretext  for  promulgating  anew,  in  more  stringent  form, 
the  old  decree  of  the  Order  concerning  the  preservation  of 
St.  Thomas's  spirit  in  philosophy  and  theology.  But  there 
is  yet  more  !  Papal  encyclicals  and  decrees  of  the  Con- 
gregations of  the  Order  are  identical ;  they  have  one  and 
the  same  origin — the  Society  of  Jesus.  For  the  "  German  T 
Jesuit,  Joseph  Kleutgen,  is  the  author  of  the  encyclical 
Aeterni  Patris.  This  I  was  told  by  the  Jesuit  Meschler 
when  he  was  Provincial  of  the  German  Province.  This 
is  a  significant  proof,  not  only  of  the  fact  that  Jesuit 
theology  is  firmly  rooted  in  the  Summa  of  the  Monk 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  also  of  the  unobtrusive  but  mighty 
power  which  the  Jesuit  Order  exercises  on  the  Papacy. 
It  writes  to  all  the  "  Patriarchs,  Primates,  Archbishops 
and  Bishops  of  the  Catholic  world  who  live  in  grace  and 
unison  with  the  Apostolic  Chair  "  [invariable  heading  of 
all   Papal   Encyclicals] ;    it   points   out  the   path   to   be 


256  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

followed  by  Catholic  theological  studies  in  all  countries ; 
thus  the  Order  is  the  greatest  obstacle  to  modern  evolution 
of  Catholic  thought.  And  doubtless  the  encyclical  con- 
cerning the  revival  of  philosophy  and  theology  according 
to  the  principles  and  precepts  of  Thomas  Aquinas  is  not 
the  only  one  signed  by  the  Pope  which  was  composed  by 
the  Society  of  Jesus. 

If  I  blame  the  Order  for  their  rigid  adherence  to 
Aristotelian  philosophy  and  Thomistic  theology*  I  would 
in  no  way  underrate  the  great  intellects  of  Aristotle  and 
Thomas  Aquinas. 

Both  are  conspicuously  eminent — the  heathen  Greek 
even  more  than  the  Christian  Monk — among  the  intel- 
lectual heroes  of  all  ages.  Both  were  creative  geniuses, 
who  stimulated  and  deepened  the  human  mind.  And 
however  narrow  was  the  field  for  which  Aquinas  worked, 
he  was  an  Ultramontane  Catholic  in  the  narrowest  sense,  f 
In  this  field  he  has  dug  shafts  and  piled  up  heights  which, 
considered  from  the  standpoint  of  metaphysical-ultra- 
montane  speculation,    are   admirable.     But   we   are   not 

*  In  order  to  guard  against  quibbling,  I  observe  that  the  expression 
"  Thomistic  "  is  not  used  here  in  the  sense  of  "  Thomism,"  but  as  the  definition 
of  a  form  of  theology  which,  like  the  Jesuit  theology,  acknowledges  Thomas 
Aquinas  as  its  leader  and  chief  teacher.  By  "  Thomism  "  is  understood  the  inter- 
pretation put  upon  the  words  of  Thomas  Aquinas  by  his  commentators  (Cajetan, 
Soto,  Melchior  Canus,  etc.).  To  "  Thomism "  in  its  narrowest  sense,  i.e.  the 
"  Doctrine  of  Grace,"  attributed  to  Thomas  by  his  interpreters,  the  Jesuits  have 
opposed  Molinism  (so  called  after  the  Jesuit  Molina),  which  also  refers  its  "  Con- 
ception of  Grace  "  to  Thomas  Aquinas.  Both  doctrines  are  unworthy  of  an  ideal 
conception  of  God. 

f  The  ignorance  prevailing  even  in  highly  cultured  non-Catholic  circles  with 
regard  to  Thomas  Aquinas  as  a  narrow,  Ultramontane  theologian  is  shown  by  a 
speech  of  the  well-known  Dr.  Friedrich  Naumann  at  the  Protestant  Congress 
at  Bremen  in  September,  1909.  Naumann,  speaking  on  liberalism  in  religion 
and  politics,  represented  Thomas  Aquinas  as  a  theologian  of  liberal  opinions, 
whom,  however,  the  Roman  Church  of  to-day,  with  diplomatic  cunning,  honoured 
as  her  own,  and  thus  kept  up  the  appearance  of  large-mindedness,  while  the 
Protestant  Church  repudiated  many  evangelical  liberal  theologians  with  hurtful 
shortsightedness.  From  this  estimate  of  Thomas  (I  heard  it  myself)  it  seems  to 
be  impossible  that  Dr.  Naumann  can  ever  have  looked  into  a  single  one  of  the 
Dominican's  works. 


Studies   of  the   Scholasticate        257 

concerned  with  the  individual  greatness  of  the  Stagirite 
and  Aquinas,  but  with  the  circumstance  that  an  organisa* 
tion  with  pretensions  to  intellectual  and  scholarly  vitality, 
the  Jesuit  Order,  continues  to  draw  its  supplies  of  know- 
ledge and  learning  from  sources  which  flowed  hundreds, 
nay  thousands,  of  years  ago,  and  that  by  this  retrograde 
direction  of  mind  it  shows  itself  hostile  to  progress  and 
uncompromisingly  refuses  to  tread  new  paths. 

Certainly  the  Order  has  one  good  excuse :  it  is  ultra- 
montane, therefore  progress  in  knowledge  is  impossible 
for  it,  as  for  the  whole  ultramontanised  Catholic  Church  of 
which  it  forms  a  part.  But,  if  est  ut  est  aut  non  est  explains 
and  excuses  everything  from  the  Jesuit's  point  of  view, 
the  world  which  is  neither  Jesuit  nor  Ultramontane  cannot 
accept  this  excuse  in  passing  an  objective  judgment  on 
the  Order ;  it  is  compelled  to  say :  Your  principles  are 
indeed  necessary  to  yourself  and  your  own  existence,  but 
in  themselves  they  are  retrograde  and  contain  the  negation 
of  living  scholarship. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  the  great  importance 
attached  by  the  Order  in  its  theological  and  philosophical 
school  work  to  the  scholastic-syllogistic  method.  And 
rightly !  For  this  form  is  more  than  a  form,  it  is  the  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  the  spirit  prevailing  in  Jesuit  studies. 

The  13th  Kule  for  the  Teacher  of  Philosophy  in  the 
Ratio,  even  the  "  new  "  one  of  1832,  runs  thus  : 

"  At  the  very  outset  of  their  studies  in  logic,  the 
young  people  [scholastics]  must  be  trained  to  feel  that 
nothing  is  more  disgraceful  in  the  disputations  than  any 
deviation  from  the  syllogistic  form,  and  the  teacher  must 
insist  with  special  force  on  the  strict  observance  of  the 
laws  of  the  disputation  and  the  prescribed  alternation  of 
attack  and  defence." 

From  the  Manual  on  Logic  for  the  Use  of  Schools*  by 

*  Logica  in  usum  Scholarum  (Freiburg,  1893),  p.  96. 
2? 


258  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

the  Jesuit  Frick,  I  quote  a  specimen  of  a  disputation,  in 
Latin  however,  for  this  sort  of  thing  cannot  be  translated 
without  almost  destroying  its  effect.  First,  the  "  Defendens  " 
proposes  the  thesis,  stating  the  arguments  in  favour  : 

Defendens :  "  Scepticismus  universalis,  ut  doctrina 
repugnat.  Probatur :  1.  ex  ipsa  assertione  scepticismi ; 
2.  ex  principio  contradictionis. 

The  "  Defendens "  having  explained  the  arguments, 
the  "  Objiciens  "  begins  his  work  : 

Objiciens  :  "  Scepticismus  universalis,  ut  doctrina  non 
repugnat.  Probatur :  Qui  saepe  fallitur,  nullam  fidem 
meretur.  Atqui  ratio  saepe  fallitur.  Ergo  nullam  fidem 
meretur." 

The  "  Defendens "  repeats  the  Syllogism  of  the 
"  Objiciens,''''  and  follows  it  up  with  his  "  distinctions," 
and  thus  the  disputation  is  set  going  : 

Qui  saepe  fallitur  nullam  fidem  meretur :  distinguo 
major  em  :  qui  fallitur  per  se  :  concedo  majorem ;  qui 
fallitur  per  accidens  :  subdistinguo  majorem  :  non  meretur 
fidem,  nisi  quando  error  ille  accidentalis  excludatur  :  concedo 
majorem :    quando  exclusus  est :    nego  majorem. 

Atqui :  ratio  saepe  fallitur :  contradistinguo  minorem  : 
ratio  fallitur  per  se  et  in  evidentibus :  nego  minorem :  per 
accidens  et  in  non  evidentibus  :  transeat  minor. 

Ergo  :  nullam  fidem  meretur  :  distinguo  consequens : 
non  meretur  fidem  in  evidentibus  :  nego  consequens  ;  in  non 
evidentibus :  subdistinguo  consequens :  nisi  constet  de 
ratiocinii  legitimitate :  transeat  consequens :  si  constet : 
nego  consequens. 

Objiciens :  "  Atqui  ratio  fallitur  per  se  :  ergo  nulla 
distinction 

The  "  Defendens "  repeats  the  subsumptio  of  the 
"  Objiciens  "  : 

Defendens  :  "  Atqui  ratio  fallitur  per  se :  nego  minorem 
subsumptam." 


Studies   of  the   Scholasticate        259 

Objiciens :  "  Probo  minorem  subsceptam :  ratio 
humana  essentialiter  est  fallibilis ;  atqui  quod  rationi 
essentiale  est,  Mi  per  se  et  semper  convenit ;  ergo  ratio  est 
per  se  et  semper  fallibilis ." 

After  again  repeating  the  words  of  the  "  Objiciens" 
the  "  Defendens  "  continues  : 

"  Ratio  humana  essentialiter  est  fallibilis  :  distinguo 
majorem  :  ex  essentia  rationis  est,  ut  possitfalli  per  accidens, 
sel  ex  defectu  evidentiae  alicujus  objecti,  concedo  majorem ; 
ex  essentia  rationis  est,  ut  possit  etiam  falli  per  se,  i.e.  sub 
conditione  requisita  evidentiae  :  nego  majorem  ;  atqui  quod 
rationi  essentiale  est,  Mi  per  se  et  semper  convenit :  concedo 
minorem  ;  ergo  ratio  est  per  se  et  semper  fallibilis  :  distinguo 
consequens  :  per  se  et  semper  convenit  rationi  ut  actu  errare 
possit :  nego  consequens ;  per  se  et  semper  convenit  rationi,  ut 
sit  talis,  quae  per  accidens  errare  possit :  concedo  consequens." 

The  syllogistic -formalistic  characteristics  of  the  dis- 
putation, conspicuous  in  the  terms  atqui,  distinguo,  sub- 
distinguo,  transeat,  concedo  and  the  like,  I  have  marked 
by  different  type.  If  we  realise  that  this  formalism  holds 
sway  in  the  Jesuit  schools  evening  after  evening,  year  after 
year,  we  shall  understand  how  these  mechanical  ossified 
forms  gradually  produce  a  similar  rigidity  of  the  intellect. 
The  apparent  gain  in  clearness  and  certainty  from  the 
numerous  short  distinctions  is  acquired  at  the  cost  of  a 
deeper  and  more  living  comprehension  of  the  questions 
debated.  With  the  aid  of  three,  four,  or  even  five  or  six 
'  distinctions,"  the  number  does  not  matter,  a  Jesuit 
pupil  is  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  dispose  of  the  most 
difficult  problems.  In  order  not  to  seem  unjust,  I  have 
purposely  given  an  instance  of  a  disputation  in  which  the 
distinctions  and  the  syllogistic  form  really  lead  to  a  clear 
and  correct  result,  which  could,  however,  have  been 
attained  just  as  quickly  and  clearly  without  the  scholastic 
paraphernalia,  i.e.  the  inconsistency  of  absolute  scepticism. 


260  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

But  if  we  now  imagine  this  method  applied  to  dark  and 
abstruse  questions  of  philosophy  and  theology,  in  which 
scholasticism  abounds,  the  result,  instead  of  enlarging  our 
comprehension,  is  mere  wordy  warfare  and  dreary  verbosity. 
The  combatant  who  disposes  of  the  best  equipped  arsenal 
of  distinctions — and  in  this  respect  the  wealth  of  scholas- 
ticism is  amazing — comes  off  victorious  ;  he  "  resolves  " 
the  difficulties,  and  "  defends  "  the  thesis.  But  neither 
the  solution  nor  the  defence  advances  our  comprehension 
by  a  single  hair.  Formaliter,  materialiter,  essentialiter, 
accidentaliter,  potentialiter,  actualiter,  dbstracte,  concrete, 
entitative,  terminative,  reduplicative,  simpliciter,  absolute, 
relative,  virtualiter,  secundum  quid  :  these  are  but  a  few  of 
the  literally  endless  terms  on  the  disputation  list,  which 
professors  and  students  have  at  their  disposal,  and  on 
the  skilful  choice  of  which  depend  a  successful  solution 
and  defence.  Such  expressions  as  potentialiter  nego, 
actualiter  concedo,  entitative  transeat,  terminative  concedo, 
virtualiter  subdistinguo,  or  other  similar  distinctions,  suffice 
to  solve  every  problem  of  theoretical  knowledge  of  theology 
in  heaven  and  earth,  and  to  refute  all  the  works  of  Spinoza, 
Kant,  Schopenhauer,  Nietzsche,  and  the  rest. 

This  barrenness  and  lack  of  progressive  spirit  which 
have  characterised  scholasticism  from  its  first  origin  to 
the  present  day  are  due  not  so  much  to  the  rigidity  of 
ecclesiastical  dogma — since  the  dogmas  that  have  been 
defined  during  the  last  thousand  years  might  be  counted 
on  the  fingers  of  one  hand — as  in  the  rigid,  formalistic, 
syllogistic  treatment  which  ecclesiastical  philosophy  and 
theology  have  received  in  the  scholastic  schools.  In  this 
form,  hermetically  sealed  and  reeking  with  the  musty 
smell  of  centuries,  the  first  conditions  of  life — air  and 
light — are  lacking. 

Is  it  not  a  remarkable  circumstance,  alone  sufficing  to 
condemn  this  formalism,  that  all  further  development  in 


Studies   of  the   Scholasticate        261 

philosophical  and  theological  thought  was  and  is  accom- 
plished outside  the  syllogistic  form  ?  Within  this  brazen 
tower  of  scholasticism  revolve,  mechanically  set  in  motion 
by  syllogisms,  the  ancient,  petrified  distinctions  on  the 
pointed  axis  of  a  concedo,  transeat,  nego,  subdistinguo.  The 
stream  of  life  flows  past  this  structure. 

Perhaps  we  might  apply  the  words  of  Mephistopheles 
to  the  scholastic  syllogistic  disputations  : 

"  For  just  when  the  ideas  are  lacking 
A  word  may  prove  most  opportune."* 

Then  there  is  another  point :  the  use  of  the  Latin 
language  for  all  lectures  and  disputations. 

However  much  and  rightly  we  may  value  the  strictly 
logical  structure  of  the  Latin  language,  and  however 
justly  we  may  find  in  it  a  suitable  aid  for  scholarly  inter- 
national intercourse,  still  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the 
exclusive  use  of  Latin  for  philosophical  and  theological 
speculation  must  have  the  effect  of  hindering  and  benumb- 
ing the  spirit  of  research.  Free,  living  and  fructifying 
thought  is  only  possible  in  the  mother  tongue,  i.e.  in  a  form 
that  is  most  easily  and  naturally  handled,  and  the  same 
applies  to  the  expression  of  the  thought.  Those  who  use 
a  dead  language  to  express  their  innermost  and  deepest 
cognition,  must  at  once  renounce  the  possibility  of  any 
true  and  complete  development.  They  castrate  it  at 
birth.  The  free  development  of  cognition  requires  a  living 
pliant  form  capable  of  development.  Scholastic  philosophy 
and  theology  make  use  of  a  dead  language  because  they 
themselves  are  dead,  i.e.  incapable  of  development,  because 
they  abide  motionless  by  the  standpoint  of  hundreds, 
even  thousands,  of  years  ago  (I  refer  to  Aristotle  and 
Thomas  Aquinas) ;  and  they  abide  by  it  because,  among 
other  reasons,   they  make  use  of  a  dead  language.     It 

*  Goethe.    Faust,  I. 


262  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

is  impossible  to  express  philosophical  and  theological  life 
in  Latin.  To  translate  Kant  or  Fichte,  Schleiermacher  or 
Biedermann,  to  say  nothing  of  the  moderns,  into  Latin 
is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Only  where  nothing  can  be 
added  or  taken  from  the  doctrine,  only  where  the  stream 
of  time  has  not  forced  the  Middle  Ages  aside,  is  Latin  a 
suitable  mode  of  expression,  as  is  the  case  in  the  language 
of  inscriptions  on  monumental  tombstones. 

Besides  these  fundamental  limitations  to  philosophical 
and  theological  research  and  systematic  checks  on  the 
mobility  of  the  intellect,  the  Jesuit  Order  has  a  considerable 
number  of  Special  Kegulations,  all  with  the  same  aim : 
to  fetter  intellectual  freedom,  and  cultivate  exactly  the 
same  knowledge  in  all  members  of  the  Order.  The  pro- 
duction of  "  silently  revolving  and  smoothly  rounded 
balls  "  is  also  the  main  aim  of  Jesuit  scholarship. 

The  most  important  of  the  regulations  are  these  : 

"  In  accordance  with  the  teaching  of  the  Apostle,  we  should 
be  of  one  mind,  and,  so  far  as  is  possible,  also  use  the  same  utterance. 
Differences  of  doctrine  are  not  to  be  allowed  either  in  word,  in 
public  pleadings,  or  in  written  works.  .  .  .  Yes,  even  difference 
of  opinion  in  practical  matters,  which  is  apt  to  prove  the  mother 
of  discord  and  foe  to  the  union  of  will,  is  to  be  avoided,  as  far  as 
possible.  But  union  and  mutual  conformity  are  to  be  most  sedu- 
lously cultivated,  and  nothing  opposed  to  these  must  be  tolerated."* 

"  Without  consulting  the  Superiors  no  new  questions  (in 
philosophy)  are  to  be  proposed,  nor  yet  any  opinion  which  is  not 
at  any  rate  based  on  some  good  authority ;  nor  should  anything 
be  defended  which  is  contrary  to  the  traditional  philosophical 
principles  and  the  general  opinion  of  the  schools.  Those  who  are 
disposed  to  innovation  or  to  free  thought  must  be  removed  from 
the  teaching  office  without  hesitation."! 

"  Since  novelty  or  difference  of  opinion  may  not  only  hinder 
the  very  aim  which  the  Society  has  set  before  itself  to  the  greater 

*  Sumni.  Const,  n.  42.    Const.  III.,  1,  18. 
t  Cong.  5.     Decret.  51.     Inst.  S.J.,  I.,  253. 


Studies   of  the  Scholasticate        263 

glory  of  God,  but  also  cause  the  very  existence  of  the  Society  to 
totter,  it  is  necessary  to  check  by  definite  legislation  in  all  possible 
ways  intellectual  licence  (licentiam  ingeniorum)  in  the  introduction 
and  pursuit  of  such  opinions."* 

"  Even  in  the  case  of  opinions  about  which  Catholic  Doctors 
(Professors)  are  not  agreed  among  themselves  [where  there  is 
freedom  of  opinion]  care  must  be  taken  that  there  should  be  con- 
formity [lack  of  freedom]  in  the  Society  itself."f 

"  No  one  should  teach  anything  which  is  not  in  conformity 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Church  and  tradition,  or  which  could  in  any 
way  lessen  the  faith  and  zeal  of  true  piety.  .  .  .  No  one  should 
defend  an  opinion  which  the  majority  of  the  learned  judge  to  be 
contrary  to  the  accepted  doctrines  of  the  philosophers  or  theo- 
logians or  the  general  opinion  of  the  schools.  ...  In  the  case 
of  questions  which  have  already  been  treated  by  others,  no  one 
should  follow  new  opinions,  nor  yet  should  new  questions  be 
introduced  concerning  matters  in  any  way  connected  with  religion 
or  of  any  great  importance,  without  first  taking  counsel  with  the 
Prefect  of  Studies  or  the  Superiors.  Care  should  be  taken  that  the 
philosophy  professors  take  to  heart  the  directions  in  the  eighth 
canon  of  the  third  General  Congregation  4  For  the  attainment  of 
this  end  it  will  be  of  great  assistance  if  by  means  of  careful  selection 
only  those  are  admitted  to  teach  philosophy  and  theology  .  .  . 
whose  obedience  and  submissiveness  are  evident,  and  that  all  who 
are  not  so  disposed  ...  be  removed  from  the  teaching  office 
and  utilised  in  other  occupations." § 

"  Since  it  is  not  infrequently  doubtful  whether  or  not  any  doctrine 
is  new  [and  therefore  must  not  be  taught],  and  whether  anything 
differs  from  the  usual  school  interpretation,  which  might  lead  to 
difficulties  between  the  Prefect  of  Studies  [who  has  the  chief 
direction  of  the  studies]  and  the  Professors,  this  rule  is  laid  down  : 
If  the  Prefect  of  Studies  opposes  a  doctrine  .  .  .  the  Professor 
must  follow  the  view  of  the  Prefect  and  may  neither  teach  nor 
defend  the  doctrine  in  question,  until  the  Superiors,  to  whom  the 
matter   must  be  submitted,   have   given  their  decision.      If  the 

*  Rule  54  for  the  Provincial :    Inst.  S.J.,  I.,  43. 
f  Const.  III.,  1.    Declar.  O.    Inst.  S.J.,  I.,  43. 

%  P.  246. 

§  Instruction  of  General  Acquaviva  :    Monum.  Germ,  paed.,  4,  12  et  teq. 


264  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Professor  abides  by  his  opinion  the  Rector  should  secretly  take  the 
opinion  of  three  or  four  learned  fathers  ;  if  these,  or  the  majority, 
decide  that  the  Prefect  is  in  the  right,  the  Rector  is  to  see  to  it 
that  the  Professor  submits  absolutely  (omnino),  and  similarly  in 
the  opposite  case.  But  that  no  suspicion  may  rest  on  the  decision 
of  the  fathers,  only  such  fathers  are  to  be  chosen  for  this  purpose 
who  are  in  no  way  addicted  to  new  doctrine,  and  who  are  equally 
well  disposed  to  the  Prefect  and  the  Professor.  If  the  Rector  has 
no  such  fathers  at  his  disposition,  he  should  apply  to  the  Provincial 
Superior,  so  that  he  may  in  the  manner  described  ask  counsel  of 
some  such  fathers.  If  even  this  is  of  no  avail,  and  if  the  differences 
of  opinion  [in  a  matter  of  scholarship  !]  cannot  be  reconciled,  it  rests 
with  the  Superior  to  punish  those  who  are  at  fault  in  the  matter."* 

Finally,  the  panacea  for  preventing  any  individuality 
in  scholarship,  any  step  on  a  new  path,  is  the  strict  and 
comprehensive  literary  censorship  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Order. 

"  The  eleventh  General  Congregation  in  its  18th  decree  already 
laid  down  the  severest  penalties  (deprivation  of  office,  forfeiture  of 
the  right  to  vote  and  stand  for  election)  for  those  who  published 
books  without  permission.  Under  the  heading  of  '  books '  are 
included  pamphlets,  single  sheets  and  anything  (quidquid)  which 
attains  publicity  in  print."f 

For  works  on  dogma  four  censors  are  requisite  ;  for 
exegesis,  church  history  and  philosophy,  three ;  for  all 
other  books,  pamphlets,  or  articles,  two.  Not  only  the  text, 
but  also  the  preface  and  title  of  a  work  must  be  submitted 
to  the  censor.  Besides  the  general  censors  in  Rome,  special 
censors  are  appointed  for  every  Province ;  they  are  to 
realise  to  the  full  the  great  importance  of  their  office.  J 

Finally,  General  Peter  Beckx,  on  May  11th,  1862, 
issued  a  comprehensive  Instruction,  which  presents  the 
present  theory  and  practice  of  the  Jesuit  literary  censor- 

*  Ordinance  as  to  the  Higher  Studies :    Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  557. 

t  Inst.  S.J.,  I.,  350  ;    cf.  Const.  VII.,  4,  11. 

J  Eegidae  Bevisorum  gen.  reg.,  1,  2,  15.    Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  71  et  seq. 


Studies   of  the   Scholasticate        265 

ship,  without,  however,  modifying  the  above-quoted  rules. 
The  most  important  points  in  this  Ordinatio  are  : 

1.  Everyone  who  desires  to  publish  anything  must  first 
submit  it  to  the  Provincial  that  he  may  judge  whether  its 
publication  would  be  advantageous.  2.  The  Provincial 
is  to  report  to  the  General  about  it.  3.  If  the  Provincial 
approves  it  he  is  to  hand  it  on  to  the  censors.  4.  The 
censors  are  to  be  appointed  by  the  Provincial ;  they  are 
to  be  anonymous  to  the  author  of  the  work  and  he  to 
them.  5.  The  censors  must  carefully  observe  the  rules 
of  the  Roman  general  revisionists.  6.  Books  on  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  its  rights  and  privileges, 
as  well  as  those  which  the  General  may  reserve  for  his  own 
censorship,  may  only  be  published  after  being  approved 
by  special  censors  appointed  by  the  General.  7.  If  the 
censors  are  unanimous  in  their  opinion  that  a  work  may 
be  published,  "  because  in  their  opinion  it  surpasses 
mediocrity  appreciably  in  its  own  particular  kind  "  {quod 
mediocritatem  in  suo  genere  non  mediocriter  swperare  censeant), 
the  Provincial  must  at  once  give  his  consent  to  the  publi- 
cation. If  the  censors  fail  to  agree,  the  Provincial  is  to 
refer  the  matter  to  the  General.  8.  The  censors  are  to 
report   their    decisions    to    the    General   and    Provincial. 

9.  The  censors  should  note  anything  which,  in  their  opinion, 
should  be  altered,  and  should  emphasise  what  in  their 
opinion   are   essential   and   what   unessential   alterations. 

10.  The  comments  of  the  censors  may  be  communicated 
to  the  author  (without  giving  their  names).  11.  Anything 
which  any  member  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  writes,  whether 
anonymously  or  under  his  own  name,  whether  a  thesis, 
preface,  letter  or  dedicatory  epistle,  title,  superscription, 
must  be  submitted  to  the  censorship.  12.  Similarly  with 
articles  in  newspapers  or  periodicals.  13.  If  a  grievous 
calumny  is  circulated  against  the  Society  of  Jesus  the 
local  Superior  may,  if  the  Provincial  cannot  be  consulted, 


266  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

give  permission  for  its  refutation,  but  this  must  first  be 
read  through  by  two  suitable  fathers.  14.  The  Provincial 
may  entrust  to  the  Local  Superiors  the  examination  of  the 
announcements,  etc.,  published  by  schools.  15.  New 
editions  and  also  translations  must  be  submitted  to  the 
censorship.  16.  No  publishing  contract  may  be  concluded 
until  the  whole  work  has  been  submitted  to  the  censor.* 

Nearly  all  books  published  by  Jesuits  bear  the 
imprimatur  of  the  Order  in  the  form  of  a  special  permit 
signed  by  the  Provincial.  For  special  reasons  this  may 
be  omitted.  The  wording  of  the  Jesuit  imprimatur,  at 
any  rate  in  the  German  Province,  is  invariable,  e.g.  : 

"  Since  the  work  with  the  title  Biology  and  Theory  of  Evolution, 
third  edition,  composed  by  Erich  Wasmann,  Priest  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  has  been  examined  by  some  revisers  of  the  same  Society, 
commissioned  for  the  purpose,  who  approved  its  publication,  we 
accordingly  give  our  permission  that,  provided  it  seem  good  to 
the  persons  concerned,  it  should  be  printed.  For  purposes  of 
authentication  this  document,  signed  by  us  and  provided  with 
our  official  seal,  may  serve.  Exaeten,  July  29th,  1906.  Father  Karl 
Schaffer,  S.J.,  President  of  the  German  Province  of  the  Order." 

My  reason  for  reproducing  the  imprimatur  of  this 
particular  work  is  that  it  is  not  theological  but  scientific, 
and  that  its  author,  the  Jesuit  Erich  Wasmann,  on  the 
strength  of  this  work  claims  a  place  in  the  ranks  of 
scientists  who  pursue  free  research.  But  the  very  first 
page  of  his  book  shows  plainly  the  extent  of  his  "  free  " 
research  ;  it  is  the  censors  and  the  Provincial  of  the  Order, 
i.e.  theologians,  who  have  to  decide  whether  the  biological 
investigations  are  to  be  published  or  not. 

As  with  this  book  so  with  all  others,  no  matter  whether 
they  treat  of  history,  art,  mathematics,  astronomy,  botany, 
zoology,  physics,  or  any  other  subject.  Before  they  can 
appear,  the  red  or  blue  pencil  of  the  theological  censor 

*  Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  253  et  seq. 


Studies   of  the   Scholasticate        267 

does  its  work,  and  the  Provincial,  who  usually  knows  next 
to  nothing  of  secular  learning,  decides  whether  the  manu- 
script is  to  be  published  or  not.  Indeed,  my  own  Pro- 
vincial Superiors,  the  Jesuits  Hovel,  Meschler,  Lohmann, 
Ratgeb,  had  only  received  the  philosophical  and  theo- 
logical training  of  the  Order. 

In  answer  to  the  objection  that  the  Society  is  bound 
to  act  thus  in  order  to  maintain  its  internal  solidarity, 
since  liberty  of  thought  and  teaching  would  be  centrifugal 
forces  tending  to  its  destruction,  I  say :  True,  but  unity 
and  uniformity  in  thought  and  teaching  brought  about  by 
law  and  the  threat  of  punishment  combined  with  a  strict 
censorship,  are  the  grave  of  all  true  striving  after  know- 
ledge, and  admit  of  no  free,  continuous  development  of 
human  cognition.  Where  learning  is  made  to  serve 
purposes  which  lie  outside  its  scope,  its  exercise  cannot 
produce  true  knowledge.  But  in  the  Jesuit  Order  every- 
thing is  made  to  subserve  the  ends  of  the  Order,  above  all 
the  learning  which,  regarded  from  without,  seems  to  be 
cultivated  with  such  zeal.  And  one  of  the  chief  ends  is 
the  strengthening  of  its  own  inner  life,  the  extension  of 
its  power,  the  deepening  of  its  influence  over  men,  and 
eventually  the  strengthening  of  the  Roman  Church,  with 
all  its  claims  to  temporal  and  political  dominion.  But 
crudely  biased  learning  is  not  learning  at  all,  even  if  (as 
I  must  show  later)  individual  achievements  of  individual 
Jesuits  may  and  do  have  scholarly  value.  But  these  are 
exceptions  to  the  rule  ;  their  scholarship  is  good,  not 
because,  but  in  spite  of  their  being  Jesuits;  they  are  but 
accidents  in  the  domain  of  learning. 

But  the  Order  knows  no  mercy  when  the  scholarly 
achievements  of  members  do  not  fit  into  its  own  frame- 
work of  learning.  Then  the  censorship  and  punishment 
do  their  worst. 

In  the  years  1890  and  1891  I  was  myself  book-censor 


268  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

(censor  librorum)  for  the  German  Province,  a  position 
which  may  testify  to  my  reputation  for  learning  in  the 
Order.  I  am  therefore  exactly  informed  of  the  methods 
of  Jesuit  censorship.  When  the  interest  of  the  Order  is 
opposed,  not  the  smallest  regard  is  paid  to  personal 
freedom,  nor  to  the  established  results  of  scientific  investi- 
gation or  individual  ability.  The  censorship  deletes  and 
the  author  submits  ;  the  punitive  authority  punishes  and 
the  culprit  remains  dumb. 

In  the  last  year  of  my  theological  studies  one  of  my 
fellow-scholastics,  a  man  of  superior  gifts,  who  was  specially 
interested  in  natural  science,  the  Jesuit  Breitung,  wrote 
an  article  for  the  Jesuit  organ,  Zeitschrijt  filr  Katholische 
Theologie  (published  at  Innsbruck)  about  the  Deluge. 
Breitung  maintained  the  ethnographic  universality  of  the 
flood,  i.e.  that  all  persons  then  in  the  world  perished 
except  Noah  and  his  family,  but  in  accordance  with  the 
results  of  geological  and  palaeontological  research,  he 
abandoned  its  geographic  universality,  i.e.  he  admitted 
that  not  the  whole  earth  but  only  the  whole  of  the  inhabited 
earth  was  flooded.  The  article  had  passed  the  Provincial 
censorship,  but  found  no  favour  at  Home  with  the  head 
censor  of  the  Order ;  it  was  a  "  new  doctrine  subversive 
of  the  Scriptures."  (Galileo's  teaching  was  also  "  new 
and  subversive  of  the  Scriptures.")  The  General  Ander- 
ledy  issued  a  decree  which  condemned  the  theory  of  the 
geographical  limitation  of  the  Deluge.  When  Breitung 
had  ended  his  studies  he  was  not  allowed  to  devote  himself 
to  natural  science,  as  had  been  universally  expected  on 
account  of  his  special  gifts  and  preliminary  studies,  but 
was  appointed  teacher  in  the  lowest  classes  in  the  College 
of  Ordrupshoj,  in  Denmark.  There  he  was  "  harmless." 
What  scientific  work  he  now  carries  on  I  do  not  know. 

A  few  years  later  the  Belgian  Jesuit  Hahn,  Professor 
of  Natural  Science  at  the  College  at  Arlon,  had  published 


Studies   of  the   Scholasticate        269 

a  book  on  the  Spanish  Saint  Teresa  a  Jesu,  and  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  some  remarkable  phenomena  in  the 
life  of  this  nun,  which  had  hitherto  been  regarded  as 
miraculous  and  tokens  of  divine  grace,  were  of  a  hysterical 
character.  His  book  had  actually  been  "  crowned  "  by 
a  Spanish  Catholic  academy.  But  Rome  here  again 
thought  differently.  The  book  was  censored,  and  the 
Order  removed  its  author  from  his  scientific  professorship. 

One  of  the  most  celebrated  theologians  of  the  Order 
at  the  present  day  is  the  Jesuit  Domenico  Palmieri.  He 
too  came  into  conflict  with  the  censorship  in  his  theological 
researches — I  forget  what  was  the  point  in  question, 
certainly  not  one  which  was  established  dogmatically, 
i.e.  "  infallibly "  by  the  highest  ecclesiastical  teaching 
authority — and  in  consequence  he  had  to  resign  his  chair. 

And  now  a  word  as  to  my  own  studies  which  were 
crowned  with  success.  All  my  examinations  in  philo- 
sophy and  theology  were  passed  satisfactorily,  even  the 
last  examen  rigorosum  of  two  hours'  duration.  In  theory 
we  were  not  supposed  to  know  anything  about  the  results 
of  examinations,  but  usually  something  leaks  out,  and 
besides,  the  Provincial  Superior,  Jacob  Ratgeb,  informed 
me  that  I  had  passed  the  last  examination,  accordingly 
all  the  previous  ones  also,  "  very  well,"  and  that  I  was 
in  via  ad  Professionem,  on  the  road  to  the  grade  of  pro- 
fessed. I  had  therefore  "  attained  that  degree  of  philo- 
sophical and  theological  culture  which  suffices  for  teaching 
both  subjects  satisfactorily." 

I  allude  to  my  scholarly  qualification  within  the  Order 
because,  very  soon  after  I  left  it,  doubts  on  the  subject  were 
publicly  strewn  about,  originating  in  Ultramontane  Jesuit 
sources,  which,  of  course,  found  the  readiest  credence. 
For  what  tales  are  not  told  and  believed  of  an  "  apostate  "  ? 
The  Kolnische  Volkszeitung,  doubtless  inspired  by  Jesuits, 
even  went  so  far  as  to  hint  at  insanity.     Ecrasez  Vinjame  ! 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

THE   ATTITUDE   OF  THE   ORDER  TO  LEARNING 

This  attitude  has  really  been  sufficiently  characterised  in 
the  previous  section.  But  as  the  Jesuit  Order  makes 
special  claims  to  learning,  and  as  even  in  the  non-Ultra- 
montane world  this  view  is  widely  spread,  a  further  con- 
sideration of  the  subject  from  other,  more  general  points 
of  view  seems  justified. 

Of  course  the  principles  which  the  Roman  Church  sets 
up  in  regard  to  its  conception  of  knowledge  and  freedom 
of  research  are  also  the  principles  of  the  Jesuit  Order. 

These  principles  are  expressed  in  innumerable  official 
Papal  utterances,  of  which  I  shall  only  quote  a  few  of  the 
more  modern  ones. 

1.  Provincial  Council  of  Cologne  (tit.  1,  c.  6)  (especially 
confirmed  by  the  Pope).  2.  A  letter  of  Pius  IX.  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Munich  of  December  21st,  1863.  3.  Sylla- 
bus of  Pius  IX.,  of  December  8th,  1864.  4.  Vatican 
Council  of  the  year  1870.  5.  Constitution  of  Leo  XIII., 
Offlciorum  ac  munerum  of  January  25th,  1897.  6.  Motu 
proprio  of  Pius  X.  of  December  18th,  1903.  7.  Syllabus  of 
Pius  X.  (against  Modernism)  of  September  8th,  1907.* 

All  these  manifestoes  are  included,  so  far  as  their 
contents  are  concerned,  in  the  "  infallible "  pronounce- 
ment of  the  Vatican  Council : 

*  For  the  wording,  see  my  book,  Die  Katholisch-theologischen  Fakultaten  im 
Organismus  der  preussischen  Staatsuniversitaten  (Leipzig,  Breitkopf  u.  Hartel), 
pp.  22-38. 

270 


The   Order  and   Learning  271 

"  If  anyone  asserts  that  human  knowledge  should 
develop  so  freely  that  its  assertions,  even  when  they  are 
opposed  to  revealed  doctrine,  are  to  be  regarded  as  true 
and  cannot  be  condemned  by  the  Church,  he  shall  be 
excommunicated. ' '  * 

These  Roman  principles  as  to  learning  find  their 
practical  application  in  the  Index,  the  rules  of  which  were 
remodelled  in  1900  by  Leo  XIII.  and  suspended  as  a 
Damocles'  sword  over  the  whole  output  of  Catholic  learning. 

To  this  must  be  added  Rome's  final  right  of  decision  in 
so-called  dogmatic  facts  (facta  dogmatica)  and  dogmatic 
texts  (textus  dogmatici),  by  which  vast  domains  of  historical 
knowledge  are  withdrawn  from  free  research,  f 

But  even  the  silent  recognition  of  the  bondage  of  all 
knowledge  assumed  by  the  authoritative  Roman  doctrine 
did  not  suffice  the  Jesuit  Order.  It  therefore  declared,  in 
the  12th  decree  of  the  23rd  General  Congregation  of  1883  : 

:'  Since  in  such  a  mass  of  errors,  which  steal  in  everywhere  and 
in  our  own  day  have  frequently  been  condemned  by  the  Roman 
See,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  some  of  our  own  members,  too,  may  be 
attacked  by  this  plague,  the  General  Congregation  declares  that 
our  Society  is  to  abide  by  the  doctrine  contained  in  the  encyclical 
Quanta  cura  of  December  8th,  1864,  of  Pius  IX.,  and  reject,  as 
it  always  has  rejected,  all  errors  rejected  by  the  Syllabus  of  this 
same  Pope.  But  since  some  Provinces  [of  the  Order]  have  demanded 
the  particular  condemnation  of  so-called  Liberal  Catholicism,  the 
General  Congregation  gladly  accedes  to  this  request,  and  earnestly 
entreats  the  Venerable  Father  General  to  have  a  care  that  this 
plague  is  by  all  means  averted  from  our  Society."^: 

Thus  the  Order  solemnly  gave  its  consent  to  the 
destruction,  initiated  by  Rome,  of  teaching  and  learning. 
Thus  from  its  very  inception  Modernism  (under  the  name 

*  Sess.  3,  c.  4,  de  fid.  et.  rat.  can.  2. 

f  Cf.    my   work  Die  Katholisch-theologischen  Fakultaten  im  Organismus  der 
freussischen  Staatsuniversitaten,  pp.  39-46. 
J  Monum.  Germ,  paed.,  2,  117. 


272  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

of  Liberal  Catholicism)  was  outlawed,  and  how  this  sentence 
of  outlawry  was  carried  out  has  been  seen  in  our  own 
day  by  the  tragic  fate  of  the  Jesuits  Tyrrell  and  Bartoli. 

The  attitude  of  the  Order  to  learning  furnishes  the 
contents  of  a  book,  published  at  Innsbruck  with  the 
imprimatur  of  the  Order  and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
by  the  Jesuit  Dr.  Josef  Donat,  Royal  and  Imperial  Pro- 
fessor at  the  University  of  Innsbruck,  in  the  year  1910, 
Die  Freiheit  der  Wissenschaft,  ein  Gang  durch  das  moderne 
Geistesleben.  There  is  nothing  of  any  novelty  in  the 
book,  nor  is  it  singular  of  its  kind,  but  it  contains  the  old 
opposition  to  free  research,  the  old  submission  to  the 
Roman  censorship  in  the  newest  forms  : 

"  Those  who  acknowledge  the  Christian  [i.e.  Catholic]  con- 
ception of  the  world,  cannot  accept  this  freedom  of  thought  and 
knowledge  [just  characterised  as  freedom  from  the  Syllabus  and 
Index].  Here  [in  opposition  to  the  Church]  is  the  true  reason  why 
thousands,  in  whom  Kant's  autonomy  in  thought  has  become  the 
veritable  sinew  of  their  intellectual  life,  will  not  hear  of  any  guidance 
by  revelation  and  the  Church.  They  can  no  longer  endure  the 
idea  of  letting  their  reason  unhesitatingly  accept  the  truth  from 
an  external  authority  [the  Papacy].  ...  It  is  not  knowledge 
which  the  Church  attacks,  but  error  ;  not  truth,  but  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  human  intellect  from  submission  to  the  authority  of 
God;  which  comes  forward  under  the  disguise  of  scientific  truth. 
.  .  .  If  it  is  an  infallible  dogma,  which  is  opposed  [to  a  scientific 
result],  the  believer  soon  finds  the  conflict  springing  from  his 
investigations  at  an  end.  For  he  knows  then  the  value  of  his 
hypothesis,  that  it  is  no  true  progress,  but  error.  .  .  .  Thus  the 
philosophical  errors  of  the  present  day  are  almost  invariably  opposed 
to  infallible  dogmas,  for  the  most  part  fundamental  doctrines  of 
the  Christian  religion.  These  are  the  title  deeds,  on  the  strength  of 
which  revelation  and  the  Church  impress  on  the  investigator  the  duty 
not  to  set  his  own  opinions  in  opposition  to  religious  doctrines, 
because  no  opposition  can  continue  between  faith  and  reason.  .  .  . 
If  the  Catholic  investigator  finds  his  scientific  opinion  in  opposition 


The  Order  and   Learning  273 

to  a  not  infallible  declaration  [e.g.  the  decision  of  a  Roman  Cardinals' 
Congregation,  as  in  the  case  of  Galileo]  he  will  maintain  an  impartial 
attitude  and  once  more  test  his  views  in  the  sight  of  God.  If  he 
is  compelled  to  admit  calmly  to  himself  that  his  views  are  not  so 
convincing  as  to  hold  their  own  in  face  of  so  high  an  authority, 
directed  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  he  will  humbly  renounce  the  natural 
satisfaction  at  being  allowed  to  retain  his  opinion,  remembering 
that  true  wisdom  is  convinced  of  the  fallibility  of  human  reason 
and  is  ready  and  willing  to  accept  instruction  from  a  God-directed 
authority.  .  .  .  Everything  that  is  good  and  profitable  in  modern 
knowledge  remains  untouched  by  the  Syllabus  ;  it  only  attacks 
what  is  anti-Christian  in  our  time  and  our  leading  ideas.  It  is  not 
the  freedom  of  knowledge  which  is  condemned,  but  that  liberal 
freedom  which  shakes  off  the  yoke  of  belief.  The  ecclesiastical 
book-legislation  [the  Index]  consists  mainly  of  two  factors  :  firstly, 
the  preventive  censorship  ;  certain  books  must  be  subjected  to 
examination  before  publication  :  secondly,  the  prohibition  of  books 
that  have  already  appeared.  .  .  .  Catholic  scholars  who  have 
any  knowledge  of  the  supernatural  mission  of  their  Church  will 
surrender  themselves  with  humble  confidence  to  its  direction  [in 
matters  of  knowledge].  .  .  .  Those  who  are  convinced  that  even 
in  our  generation  the  Christian  faith  is  the  noblest  inheritance 
handed  down  from  the  past,  and  one  which  it  is  essential  to  main- 
tain, will  raise  no  objection  if  the  Church  does  not  withdraw  even 
before  men  like  Kant,  Spinoza,  Schopenhauer,  Strauss  [in  the 
application  of  the  power  of  the  Index].  .  .  .  Ranke's  History  of 
the  Popes  has  been  placed  on  the  Index,  because  it  disparages  the 
constitution  and  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  Church,  not  because  it 
speaks  the  truth  about  the  Popes."* 

This  exposition  is  prefaced  by  the  Jesuit  author,  in 
unconscious  irony  and  absolute  failure  to  grasp  its  meaning, 
by  Goethe's  saying — and  after  all,  why  should  not  Goethe 
be  quoted  on  behalf  of  Syllabus  and  Index  ? — 

*  Donat.  Die  Freiheit  der  Wissenschaft,  ein  Gang  dutch  das  moderne  Geistes- 
leben  (Innsbruck),  pp.  63,  88  et  seq,  123,  128  et  seq.,  193,  207,  209,  213.  In  this 
last  passage,  then,  the  Church  claims  dominion  even  over  history. 

5 


274  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

"  Vergebens  werden  ungebundene   Geister 
Nach  der  Vollendung  reiner  Hohe  streben  : 
Wer  Grosses  will,  muss  sich  zusammenraffen, 
In  der  Beschrdnkung  zeigt  sich  erst  der  Meister 
Und  das  Gesetz  erst  kann  uns  Freiheit  geben."* 

A  pendant  to  the  teaching  of  the  Austrian  Jesuit  is 
supplied  by  the  German  Jesuit  Hilgers,  who  in  an  extensive 
work,  638  pages,  large  octavo,  published  in  1904,  on  The 
Index  of  Forbidden  Books,  sets  forth  the  necessity  and  utility 
of  this  Roman  censorship  and  its  supervision  of  learning, 
especially  in  our  own  day.  On  the  compelling  power  of 
the  Index,  Hilgers  writes : 

"  By  the  republication  of  the  Index  in  the  year  1900  the  Church 
has  not  only  opportunely  adapted  its  legislation  to  the  needs  of 
the  age,  but  also,  in  the  consciousness  of  its  right  and  duty,  pro- 
claimed it  to  the  whole  world,  and  impressed  it  afresh  on  Catholics 
of  every  nation.  All  Catholics  of  all  lands  will  feel  in  conscience 
bound  faithfully  to  observe  these  laws,  as  the  tenor  of  this 
constitution  distinctly  requires,  and  a  further  decree  of  the  Con- 
gregation of  the  Index  still  more  expressly  commands.  .  .  . 
The  justification  and  utility  of  the  preventive  censorship  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  divine  teaching  and  pastoral  office  of  the  Church, 
like  that  of  the  prohibitive  censorship.  This  ecclesiastical  measure 
manifests  itself  not  only  as  the  love  of  a  mother  for  the  faithful, 
but  also  as  paternal  precaution  in  face  of  authors  and  writers,  who 
are  by  it  prevented  from  sowing  tares.  .  .  .  It  is  forbidden  under 
the  severest  penalties  even  to  offer  dynamite  for  sale.  Is  it  excessive 
severity  if  the  laws  of  the  Church  admonish  booksellers  that  all 
forbidden  books  may  only  be  offered  for  sale  after  seeking  the  easily 
granted  ecclesiastical  permission,  and  may  only  be  sold  to  those 
persons  of  whom  the  sellers  may  reasonably  assume  that  they 
demand  them  for  a  lawful  purpose  ?  .  .  .  We  may,  therefore, 
surely  assert  that  men  of  learning  such  as  professors  of  theology 
and  history  [philologists  have  already  been  mentioned]  are  as  much 

*  From  one  of  Goethe's  sonnets. 


The  Order  and   Learning  275 

bound  as  others  to  seek  a  dispensation  from  the  prohibition  of 
books  from  the  ecclesiastical  authority."* 

As  already  shown  there  is  nothing  either  new  or 
remarkable  in  the  utterances  of  these  two  Jesuits.  On 
the  contrary,  it  would  be  new  and  remarkable  if  Jesuits 
did  not  speak  thus,  for  these  are  the  views  demanded  by 
the  Ultramontane  clerical  point  of  view.  But  no  further 
proof  is  needed  to  show  that  they  are  incompatible  with 
free  research ;  and  it  was  for  this  reason  that  I  quoted 
the  utterances  of  Donat  and  Hilgers. 

But  is  not  all  this  in  opposition  to  the  great  activity 
the  Jesuit  Order  actually  displays  in  the  domain  of 
knowledge  ?  There  is  no  other  Order  of  the  Konian 
Church  which  effects  so  much  in  the  sphere  of  learning, 
and  many  Jesuits  have  achieved  notable  success  in  various 
subjects.  Jesuit  theory  may  therefore  be  directed  against 
knowledge,  but  Jesuit  practice  is  on  her  side. 

The  answer  to  this  objection  brings  out  in  even  sharper 
light  the  innate  constitutional  ignorance  of  the  Order. 

Where  among  the  innumerable  Jesuit  writers  (the 
Jesuit  Sommervogel  fills  several  quarto  volumes  with  their 
names  and  works)  is  one  to  be  found  who  in  that  domain 
of  knowledge,  which  more  than  any  other  is  the  test  of 
free,  creative  thought,  philosophy,  has  produced  a  single 
new  idea  or  even  opened  out  a  single  fresh  vista  ?  In  spite 
of  whole  libraries  of  folio  volumes  on  philosophy  written 
by  Jesuits,  we  find  here  a  vacuum,  which  speaks  more 
eloquently  than  any  arguments.  No  Jesuit  has  ever  gone 
beyond  scholasticism  and  Thomas  Aquinas.  The  bulky 
works  of  a  Suarez,  Sanchez,  Becanus,  Molina,  de  Lugo 
and,  to  mention  the  most  recent,  a  Tongiorgi,  Palmieri, 
Liberatore,  Kleutgen,  Pesch,  Frick,  Lehmen,  are  nothing 
but  endless  repetitions  and  variations  on  the  philosophical 

*  Hilgers,  Index  der  verbotenen  Buchcr  (Freiburg),  pp.  25,  42,  43,  51. 


276  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

ideas  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  which  in 
their  turn  are  the  outcome  of  Aristotelean  thought.  Whether 
the  Jesuit  work  on  philosophy  has  appeared  at  Rome  or 
Madrid,  Paris  or  Lisbon,  in  Germany,  Belgium,  or  England, 
whether  it  dates  from  the  sixteenth,  nineteenth,  or  twentieth 
century,  the  contents,  in  spite  of  all  differences  of  form 
and  language,  are  everywhere  the  same.  This  sterility, 
this  complete  lack  of  creative  intellectual  power,  is  enforced 
with  iron  necessity,  by  the  position  which  the  Order  in 
its  Constitutions  assigns  to  philosophy.  As  we  have 
already  seen,  it  is  the  handmaid,  the  servant  of  theology ; 
and  Jesuit-Ultramontane  theology  is  essentially  stationary 
and  incapable  of  development.  For  how  should  or  could 
the  handmaid  rise  above  the  mistress ;  how  could  she  go 
along  a  road  of  her  own,  when  she  is  bound  by  blind 
obedience  and  innumerable  directions  to  the  girdle  of  her 
employer  ?  I  repeat :  For  the  learning  of  an  organisa- 
tion its  attitude  to  philosophy  (if  it  is  at  all  concerned 
with  it)  is  the  test,  since  it  is  the  branch  of  knowledge 
which  depends  most  on  the  original  activity  of  the  intellect. 
Tried  by  this  test,  Jesuit  learning  does  not  approve  itself 
true  metal,  at  any  rate  not  of  its  own  prospecting.  It 
is  "  ancient "  wisdom  (as  the  twenty-third  General  Con- 
gregation expressed  it),  in  the  best  case  in  a  new  dress, 
usually  without  even  this. 

For  theology  matters  are  even  simpler.  It  goes  along 
"  fixed  highroads  "  towards  goals  unchangeably  set  up  at 
the  beginning.  Here  certainly  neither  freedom  nor  learn- 
ing is  to  be  found. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  all  branches  of  knowledge, 
which,  either  actually  or  by  the  fiat  of  Rome,  "  are  con- 
nected with  philosophy  and  theology  "  :  ethics,  sociology, 
economics.  There  too  we  may  see  books  of  enormous 
size  but  the  smallest  actual  achievement.  There  too  the 
Jesuit  revolves  in  a  circle,  the  centre  of  which  is  the 


The   Order  and   Learning  277 

authority,  and  its  circumference  the  thought  of  past 
ages.  True,  he  understands  how  to  draw  modern  cir- 
cumstances and  things  into  this  circle,  above  all  by  wide 
reading  and  a  genius  for  quotation  to  give  his  works  an 
appearance  of  scholarly  research  and  genuine  learning 
(and  here  the  German  Jesuits  Cathrein  and  the  brothers 
Tilmann  and  Heinrich  Pesch  have  been  particularly 
successful),  but  closer  examination  shows  that  the 
"  modern "  writers  on  ethics,  economics  and  sociology 
move  along  in  ancient  grooves  and  have  only  given  a 
modern  equipment  to  the  vehicle  of  their  learning. 

Now  for  the  other  branches  of  learning  and  the  liberal 
arts.  There  is  none  which  the  Jesuit  Order  has  not 
approached,  and  there  are  several  which  it  has  helped  to 
advance.  They  are  at  work  in  astronomy,  mathematics, 
geology,  palaeontology,  Assyriology,  zoology,  botany, 
biology,  physics,  optics,  acoustics,  chemistry,  philology, 
literature,  history,  language,  art  in  all  its  forms,  archae- 
ology, and  a  twentieth- century  Jesuit,  Balthasar  Wilhelm, 
S.J.,  has  even  written  on  aeronautics.*  On  many  of 
these  domains  they  move  with  apparent  freedom,  examine 
and  bring  to  light  new  results,  and  thus  work  apparently 
in  a  scholarly  manner. 

The  cause  of  this  apparent  intellectual  freedom  lies,  in 
the  first  place,  in  the  subjects  themselves,  which  are  for 
the  most  part  (e.g.  astronomy,  mathematics,  botany,  art, 
archaeology,  optics,  acoustics,  physics,  chemistry)  not  at 
all  or  not  so  much  dependent  on  philosophy  and  theology  ; 
the  "  ancient  wisdom,"  to  which  everything  must  be 
referred  back,  hardly  exists  here,  and  accordingly  a  Jesuit 
is  comparatively  free  in  his  researches  and  able  to  bring 
to  light  new  and  good  results.  Even  in  the  domain  of 
secular  and  ecclesiastical  history  Jesuit  principles  leave 
some  scope  for   detailed   research.       And  therefore  here 

*  Die  Anfdnge  der  Liiftschiflahrt. 


278  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

too  we  meet  with  conspicuous  Jesuit  achievements.  I 
recall  a  large  number  of  smaller  biographies,  articles  in 
learned  reviews,  and  above  all  great  collective  works, 
e.g.  The  Acta  Sanctorum,  the  Collection  of  Councils  by  the 
Jesuit  Labbe,  the  Collectio  Lacensis,  etc.  But  in  estimating 
the  scholarly  value  of  such  achievements,  we  must  never 
forget  (1)  that  they  are  all  writings  with  a  special  aim, 
and  have  not  originated  in  independent,  unprejudiced 
research,  but  with  the  object  of  serving  the  Church  and 
the  Order  and  defending  "  Catholic  truth  "  ;  and  (2)  that 
every  one  of  them,  single  articles  as  well  as  folio  volumes, 
must  pass  the  censorship  of  the  Order  before  it  can  be 
published. 

There  is  a  very  general  opinion,  widely  spread  but 
incorrect,  that  the  Jesuit  Order  has  achieved  great  things 
in  the  domain  of  knowledge.  If  we  realise  how  long  the 
Order  has  existed  and  the  many  thousand  members  it 
has  had  in  the  course  of  centuries,  drawn  from  the  best 
classes  of  the  population  and,  therefore,  with  natural 
abilities,  and  the  privacy  in  which  they  work,  and  compare 
the  result  achieved  in  these  conditions,  so  propitious  for 
learning  and  study,  they  appear  but  meagre,  in  spite  of 
some  signal  achievements. 

The  Order  has  never  at  any  time  been  a  real  promoter 
of  learning,  still  less  has  it  helped  to  open  up  new  paths. 
The  very  opposite  is  the  case  ;  for,  taken  as  a  whole,  it 
has  always  served  as  a  drag  on  the  advancement  of 
knowledge.  On  this  point  the  testimony  of  history 
coincides  with  that  of  scholars.  Thus  Kink,  the  his- 
torian of  the  University  of  Vienna,  who  is  anything  but 
anti-Jesuit,  admits  : 

"  Another  mistake  they  made  in  their  methods  of  instruction 
was  their  dependence  on  scholasticism,  to  which  they  gave  the 
reins  more  and  more.  ...  In  the  professorial  chairs  this  was 
particularly  remarkable  ;   especially  after  the  Society  had   gained 


The  Order  and   Learning  279 

undisputed  hegemony  over  the  other  orders  and  the  secular  clergy, 
the  comfortable  security  of  exclusive  possession  and  the  removal 
of  all  control,  if  only  from  psychological  reasons,  were  an  induce- 
ment to  effeminacy  and  a  hindrance  to  further  advance,  when  the 
impulse  from  without  was  lacking.  And  as  they  had  admitted 
scholasticism  into  their  midst,  the  abuses,  which  are  as  it  were 
inborn  in  this  method,  made  way,  at  first  imperceptibly,  then 
gradually  more  clearly  and  markedly.  Among  these  was  an 
unfaithful  dialectic,  which  delighted  in  setting  up  and  opposing 
abstruse  theories  and  with  dogmatic  stubbornness  rejected  every 
simple  reconciliation,  and  sometimes  appealing  to  the  party  spirit 
of  the  whole  community,  adhered  to  the  pronouncement  once 
made,  or  even  in  some  cases  by  skilful  tacking  sought  to  avoid 
submission  to  the  higher  authority.  ...  At  last  they  were  even 
reproached  with  relaxation  in  their  system  of  ethics  and  conduct 
of  discipline ;  so  that  authoritative  voices  were  raised,  which 
though  not  hostile  in  principle  asserted  that,  so  far  as  their  edu- 
cational work  was  concerned,  they  had  not  been  able  to  resist 
degeneracy."* 

In  a  memorial  of  November  5th,  1757,  to  the  Empress 
Maria  Theresa,  van  Swieten  says  : 

"  Facts  have  shown  that  the  studies  at  the  University  [of 
Vienna]  were  in  an  unsatisfactory  condition,  since  the  Society  had 
been  incorporated  with  it.  ...  It  is  consequently  clear  that  it 
has  not  attained  the  goal  which  the  two  Emperors  [Ferdinand  I. 
and  II.]  had  set  before  them.  On  the  contrary,  all  the  Universities 
which  came  under  Jesuit  rule  have  fallen  into  decay.  Graz,  Olmutz, 
Tyrnau  are  striking  instances.  It  would  certainly  have  been  far 
better  if  the  University  had  never  been  united  with  the  Jesuit 
Order."f 

Maria  Theresa  herself  had  no  very  high  opinion  of 
Jesuit  learning.  When  the  Court  Commission  of  Studies, 
in  1775,  proposed  to  her  the  foundation  of  an  Academy  of 

*  Kink,  GeschicMe  der  kaiserlichen  Universitat  Wien  (Vienna,  1854),  I.,  414-420. 
f  Ibid.,  I.,  490. 


280  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Science,  suggesting  that  a  beginning  should  be  made  with 
three  Jesuit  teachers,  Hell  for  Astronomy,  Scharfer  for 
Physics,  Mako  for  Mathematics,  along  with  Professor 
Jacquin,  she  said : 

;'  I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  to  begin  an  academie  des  sciences 
with  three  ex-Jesuits  and  a  professor  of  Chemistry,  however  ex- 
cellent. We  should  make  ourselves  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  the 
world.  ...  I  do  not  consider  the  Abbe  Hell  strong  enough  ; 
and  it  would  repay  neither  the  time  nor  the  trouble  to  found  some- 
thing even  worse  than  the  existing  academies."* 

A  vivid  picture  of  the  inferior  scholarship  of  the  Jesuit 
Order  at  the  University  of  Freiburg  i.  Br.  is  afforded 
by  Schreiber.  He  quotes  from  the  records  subjects 
chosen  for  disputation  by  the  Jesuits  in  the  course  of  a 
good  many  years : 

On  September  17th,  1621  :  How  was  it  possible  for 
the  head  of  Symmachus,  unjustly  put  to  death  by  him, 
to  appear  to  the  Arian  King  Theodoric  in  the  head  of  a 
boiled  fish  ?  Through  what  power  or  grace  was  Boethius 
able  to  carry,  in  his  hands  and  actually  speaking,  to  the 
nearest  church  the  head  which  the  King  had  struck  off  ? 
What  was  the  nature  of  those  cauldrons  into  which  this 
Theodoric  was  cast  after  his  death  by  Pope  John  and 
Symmachus  ?  and  how  was  their  heat  maintained  ?  On 
April  26th,  1623  :  Was  the  corpse  of  the  Emperor  Julian 
thrown  out  of  the  earth  by  natural  forces  ?  On  June  12th, 
1623,  thirty-six  magistrands  disputed  on  the  questions  : 
Whether  there  was  a  place  of  descent  to  Hades,  and  where 
it  was  situated  ?  Whether  the  worms  that  gnaw  the  bodies 
of  the  damned  can  live  in  fire  through  natural  power  ? 
Whether  it  was  probable  that  springs  were  heated  and 
metals  melted  by  hell  fire?  On  September  7th,  1629: 
Whether  this  was  a  probable  deduction :    He  devotes  no 

*  From  the  Archives  of  the  Royal  Imperial  Commission  on  Studies,  quoted  by 
Kink,  L,  510. 


The   Order  and   Learning  281 

care  to  his  clothes,  therefore  he  is  a  genius.  On  July  23rd, 
1658  :  Who  was  the  Promo  tor  who  conferred  the  degree 
of  magister  on  the  Virgin  Mary  ?  Is  the  cloak  with  which 
Mary  covers  those  whom  she  protects  the  mantle  of  philo- 
sophy ?  Was  the  lightning  which  consumed  the  wheel 
on  which  St.  Catherine  was  to  be  torn  a  natural  phenom- 
enon ?  On  July  13th,  1711 :  Is  the  philosopher  or  the 
poet  in  greater  danger  of  lying  ?  On  January  29th,  1729  : 
Does  the  divining-rod  discover  treasure  by  natural  means  ? 
Does  the  ointment  of  arms  (unguentum  armarium)  heal 
the  wounds  of  the  absent  by  natural  sympathy  ?  Why 
does  the  blood  of  a  murdered  man  boil  when  the  murderer 
approaches  him  ?  On  August  17th,  1743 :  Were  the 
conditions  of  the  present  day  foreseen  by  Aristotle  and 
proclaimed  by  the  comet  of  the  previous  year  ?  * 

However  much  allowance  we  may  make  for  the  taste 
of  the  age  and  the  "  red  tape "  which  enwrapped  all 
learning,  we  cannot  but  condemn  the  bad  taste  and  ignor- 
ance of  such  disputation  themes.  While  the  Jesuits  were 
regaling  themselves  and  their  pupils  with  such  fare,  the 
rest  of  the  world,  in  which  Kepler,  Galileo,  Newton, 
Leibnitz,  Descartes,  etc.,  were  living  and  working,  had 
long  ago  left  behind  these  monstrous  absurdities.  Even 
some  of  the  students  revolted  against  such  "  knowledge  "  ; 
for  the  minutes  report  that  on  July  4th,  1743,  Frehner,  an 
aspirant  for  the  doctorate,  "  threw  St.  Barbara  with  her 
questions  at  the  feet  of  his  examiner  [the  Jesuit  Ebner], 
with  an  expression  of  contempt. "f 

A  personal  experience  may  serve  to  show  the  spirit 
that  prevails  even  in  the  most  learned  circles  of  the  Jesuit 
Order.  Once,  at  Exaeten,  during  the  mid-day  recreation, 
we  were  discussing  the  story  of  the  Creation.  I  expressed 
the  opinion  that  geology  and  palaeontology  clearly  proved 

*  Geschichte  der  Albert  Ludwiqe    Universitat  zu  Freiburg  (Freiburg,  1868),  2, 
421  et  seq.  t  Schreiber,  2,  425. 


282  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

that  the  world  with  its  flora  and  fauna  had  taken  not  a 
few  days,  but  periods  of  considerable  length,  to  come  into 
being.  I  was  indignantly  contradicted  by  the  Jesuit 
Lehmkuhl,  the  moral-theological  celebrity  of  the  Order  ;  in 
his  view  the  strata,  petrifactions,  etc.,  were  no  disproof 
of  the  six  days'  creation,  for  God  could  have  introduced 
all  these,  without  their  having  had  any  previous  existence, 
into  the  interior  of  the  earth.  And  when  I  asked  whether 
he  would  also  include  coprolites  among  the  works  of  God's 
creation  he  gave  a  decided  affirmative.  Moreover,  he 
denounced  me  to  the  Eector  for  "  liberal  opinions." 

There  is  one  peculiarity  of  Jesuit  learning  as  to  which 
I  desire  to  say  a  few  words.  Knowledge  without  objective 
truth  (if,  indeed,  there  be  such  a  thing)  and  without  sub- 
jective truthfulness  is  impossible.  The  investigator  must 
reproduce  as  he  finds  them  the  results  of  his  investigations 
which  he  recognises  as  true,  whether  they  prove  agreeable 
to  him  or  the  opposite.  If  he  alters  or  adapts  them  to 
fit  in  with  definite  aims  or  his  own  religious  or  political 
attitude,  he  is  guilty  of  falsification. 

But  Jesuit  knowledge,  in  every  domain  where  the  in- 
terests of  the  Order  and  the  Roman  Church  are  concerned, 
is  an  unscrupulous  and  skilful  falsification.  A  weighty 
accusation,  but  in  view  of  the  facts  completely  justified. 

In  proof  I  will  bring  forward  only  one  instance,  which, 
in  view  of  its  importance,  may  count  as  a  test  case — the 
work  of  the  German  Jesuit  Duhr.  This  single  instance  will 
suffice,  because  Duhr  is  the  officially  appointed  histori- 
ographer of  the  German  Province.  The  archives  of  the 
Order  are  at  his  disposal,  and  his  numerous  historical 
works  on  the  Order  have  been  approved  by  its  censorship. 
His  work  may  therefore  be  regarded  not  as  that  of  an 
individual  but  of  the  Order,  representing  the  history  of 
the  Order  as  written  and  circulated  by  the  Order  itself. 

Again  and  again,  both  in  this  book  and  in  my  work 


The  Order  and   Learning         283 

on  the  Papacy,*  have  I  convicted  Duhr  of  untruthfulness 
and  falsification. 

The  Munich  historian,  Sigmund  Riezler,  deals  very 
severely  with  Duhr,  again  and  again  convicting  him  of 
misrepresentation  and  untruthfulness. f 

The  Jesuitenfabeln,  so  frequently  quoted  in  this  book, 
supply  particularly  abundant  material  for  estimating  Duhr's 
love  of  truth.     I  will  give  a  few  instances  : — 

In  order  to  disprove  the  genuineness  of  the  Monita 
Secreta,  Duhr  J  emphasises  the  opposition  between  Chap.  IV. 
of  the  Monita,  on  the  political  activity  of  Jesuits  and  the 
official  Instruction  of  General  Acquaviva  to  the  confessors 
of  princes,  which  apparently  prohibits  political  activity. 
Duhr  does  not  mention  that  besides  this  "  official  Instruc- 
tion "  there  is  also  a  secret  one,  which  contains  very  differ- 
ent directions.  This  silence  is  the  more  significant  as 
Duhr  refers  to  Dudik  for  Acquaviva's  official  Instruction, 
while  it  is  just  Dudik  who  made  public  the  secret  Instruc- 
tions. 

Duhr  has  a  special  preference  for  quoting  the  Austrian 
historian  Gindely  ;  but  he  suppresses  everything  unfavour- 
able that  Gindely  says  of  the  Jesuits.  A  particularly 
striking  instance  is  the  false  impression  created  by  this 
means  as  to  Gindely's  opinion  of  the  position  and  influence 
of  the  Jesuit  Lamormaini  in  his  character  of  confessor  to 
the  Emperor  Ferdinand  II.  By  means  of  a  long  quotation 
from  Gindely,  Duhr  "  proves  "  the  beneficent  and  purely 
religious  character  of  Lamormaini's  influence  on  the 
Emperor.  But  he  omits  Gindely's  verdict  on  Lamor- 
maini's share  in  the  first  deposition  of  Wallenstein,  as  also 
Dudik's  revelation  from  sources  in  the  archives  as  to 
Lamormaini's  decisive  influence  on  his  second  deposition^ 

*  Das  Papsttum  in  seiner  sozial-kvlturdlen   Wirhshamkeit. 
f  Historische  Zeitschrijt.    New  Series.     Vol.  48,  pp.  245-256. 
%  Jesuitenfabeln,  p.  100.  §  Ibid.,  845  et  seq. 


284  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

In  dealing  with  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  planned  with 
the  complicity  of  the  Jesuits,  Duhr  does  not  even  mention 
Jardine's  standard  work,  A  Narrative  of  the  Gunpowder 
Plot.  Probably  because,  as  shown  in  a  previous  chapter, 
Jardine  quotes  from  the  records  much  that  is  unfavour- 
able to  the  Jesuit  Garnet,  Provincial  of  the  English 
Province.* 

In  the  chapter  "  Ignatius  Loyola  founded  the  Jesuit 
Order  for  the  extirpation  of  Protestantism,"  Duhr  adduces 
all  manner  of  proofs  to  show  that  the  Jesuit  Order  was  not 
founded  against  Protestantism,  but  omits  the  very  signi- 
ficant passage  from  the  bull  of  Pope  Urban  VIII.  (1623), 
which  decrees  the  canonisation  of  Ignatius  Loyola.  This 
omission  is  the  more  noteworthy,  since  a  bull  of  canonisation 
is  one  of  the  most  important  Papal  documents.  But  that 
is  the  very  reason  for  omitting  it.  This  sort  of  thing  must 
be  kept  from  Duhr's  circle  of  readers,  f 

In  order  to  set  the  charitable  disposition  of  the  Jesuit 
Order  in  as  favourable  a  light  as  possible,  Duhr  falsifies 
the  original  text  of  an  ordinance  for  the  professed  house 
at  Vienna  in  1635.  While  the  words  of  the  Ordinance  J 
are  "  concerning  the  remains  of  the  food  to  be  dis- 
tributed at  the  door  of  the  professed-house  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  at  Vienna  to  poor  students  "  (de  reliquis  ciborum, 
etc.),  Duhr  gives  as  a  literal  quotation  in  quotation  marks  : 
"  Concerning  the  distribution  of  food,  etc."  The  word 
"  remains "  would  have  weakened  the  impression  of 
benevolence.  § 

*  Jesuitenfabeln,  1-33.  f  Ibid.,  295.  J  Mon.  Germ,  paed,  16-245. 

§  Duhr,  380.  Falsifications  of  the  text  are  a  very  common  Jesuit  means  of 
embellishment.  The  English  Jesuit  Foley  was  commissioned  by  the  Order  to 
publish  eight  large  volumes  of  Records,  •which  furnish  a  collection  of  documents 
concerning  the  Jesuits  in  England.  The  Catholic  historian,  Taunton,  says  of 
this  work  in  the  preface  to  his  History  of  the  Jesuits  in  England,  p.  viii. :  "  Foley's 
value  consists  almost  as  much  in  his  omissions  as  in  his  admissions.  And  I  am 
bound  to  remark  that  I  have  found  him  at  a  critical  point  quietly  leaving  out, 
without  any  signs  of  omission,  an  essential  part  of  a  document  which  was  adverse 


The   Order  and   Learning  285 

This  anthology,  incomplete  as  it  is,  illustrative  of  the 
love  of  truth  evinced  in  the  writings  of  Duhr,  will  be  most 
suitably  concluded  by  a  quotation  from  Duhr  himself : 

"  Falsification  remains  falsification,  and  is  always  reprehensible, 
even  when  it  is  intended  to  attain  or  sanctify  the  most  sacred 
ends."* 

"If  we  find  an  author  untrustworthy  in  one  particular,  we  are 
bound  in  the  first  instance  to  regard  as  correspondingly  untrust- 
worthy all  his  statements  that  fall  under  this  heading."f 

The  Jesuit  Duhr  is  a  type.  As  is  he,  so  are  they  all. 
No  dependence  is  to  be  placed  on  works  or  documents 
published  by  Jesuits.  The  Jesuit  axiom,  "  The  end 
sanctifies  the  means,"  is  the  first  principle  of  Jesuit 
authorship.  The  end,  the  [defence  of  the  Order  and  its 
glorification,  sanctifies  every  falsification. 

to  his  case."  And  Taunton  supplies  the  proof  for  his  weighty  accusation  on  p.  313, 
where  he  gives  in  full  the  account  of  the  conversation  between  the  Jesuit  Oldcorne, 
imprisoned  in  the  Tower  on  a  charge  of  high  treason,  and  Garnet,  restoring 
Garnet's  admission  of  avowal  of  treason  "  quietly  omitted  by  Foley,  who,  though 
professing  to  quote  Gerard,  gives  no  signs  of  omission." 

*  Geschichle  der  Jesuiten  in  den  Landern  deutscher   Zunge  (Freiburg,   1907), 
Preface,  p.  v. 

|  Jesuitenfabeln.    4th  ed.,  p.  785. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

JESUIT  MORALITY 

Are  we  really  justified  in  speaking  of  "  Jesuit  morality  "  ? 
Is  not  that  to  which  we  apply  the  term  the  very  same 
as  the  official  morality  of  the  Ultramontane  Roman 
Catholic  Church  ?  Both  questions  may  be  answered  in 
the  affirmative,  and  it  is  this  very  affirmation  of  two 
seemingly  contradictory  statements  that  accentuates  most 
markedly  the  reality,  danger  and  power  of  the  conception 
designated  as  Jesuit  morality. 

There  is  no  other  domain  in  which  Jesuitism  has 
succeeded  so  completely  in  forcing  its  domination  on 
Catholicism  as  that  of  Moral  Theology.  The  develop- 
ment which  the  practice  of  the  confessional,  i.e.  the 
domination  of  the  private  and  public  life  of  Catholics 
by  means  of  the  confessional,  has  attained  since  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century  within  the  Church  of  Rome — 
and  it  is  the  practice  of  the  confessional  which  is  concealed 
under  the  term  Moral  Theology — has  been  mainly  brought 
about  by  the  moral  theologians  of  the  Jesuit  Order.  The 
present-day  Catholic  morality  is  penetrated  throughout 
with  Jesuit  morality. 

This  important  fact  is  most  strikingly  expressed  by 
the  circumstance  that  the  greatest  authority  on  Moral 
Theology  in  the  Romish  Church,  Alfonso  Maria  di  Liguori 
(died  1787),  whom  Gregory  XVI.  canonised  in  1839,  and 
Pius  IX.,  in  1871,  honoured  with  the  rank  and  dignity 
of  a  doctor  of  the  Church,  was  merely  the  commentator 

286 


Jesuit  Morality  287 

of  the  moral  theologians  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  especially 
the  two  most  influential,  Busenbaum  and  Lacroix.* 

"  Liguori's  teaching,"  says  the  official  historian  of  the 
Order,  Cretineau-Joly,  "  is  identical  with  the  teaching  of 
the  theologians  of  the  Society  [of  Jesus].  .  .  .  His 
canonisation  was,  therefore,  the  justification  of  the  casuists 
of  the  Society,  and  especially  of  Busenbaum.  "f  And  the 
Jesuit  Montezon  triumphantly  asserts  :  "  The  teaching  of 
the  Jesuits  was  solemnly  declared  by  the  Church  to  be 
secured  against  all  censure  by  the  verdict  passed  on  the 
moral  theology  of  Liguori  at  his  beatification.  For  even 
if  the  Jesuits  were  not  expressly  named  in  the  proceedings 
the  verdict  is  directly  concerned  with  their  theology, 
which  the  venerable  Bishop  [Liguori]  had  adopted  as  his 
own.  .  .  .  Nihil  censura  dignum  (Nothing  deserving  of 
censure  or  offending  against  faith  and  morals  is  to  be 
found  in  the  moral-theology  of  Liguori),  thus  says  the 
decree  [of  the  Congregation  of  Rites,  of  May  14,  1803], 
and  afterwards  another  Roman  tribunal  [the  holy 
poenitentiarie  of  July  5,  1831]  declared  that  every  con- 
fessor might  without  further  examination  abide  by  all 
the^decisions  of  Liguori.  That  is  a  complete  and  solemn 
apology  for  Jesuit  doctrine."{ 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  assertion  constantly  repeated 
and  put  forward  as  a  screen,  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  Jesuit  morality,  and  that  the  morality  of  the  Order  is 
that  of  the  Catholic  Church,  is  but  apparently  true.  The 
real  truth  is  that  the  morality  of  the  Jesuit  Order  has 
become  the  morality  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

Just  as  Ultramontanism  for  a  clear  thousand  years 
(since  the  days  of  Gregory  VII.)  has  dominated  Cathol- 

*  For  further  details  about  Liguori  and  his  dependence  on  Jesuit  morality, 
see  my  book  Das  Papsttum,  etc.,  II.,  pp.  70-157. 

f  Cretineau-Joly,  6,  231. 

J  Sainte-Beuve,  Port  Royal,  I.,  526 :  Dollinger-Keusch,  MoralstreitiglceitenJ- 1.,, 
356. 


288  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

icism  in  the  domains  of  dogma,  ecclesiastical  polity  and 
general  culture,  so  Jesuitism,  which  is  Ultramontanism 
raised  to  a  higher  power,  has  for  four  centuries  dominated 
the  morality  of  Catholicism. 

A  specially  convincing  proof  of  this  domination  has 
been  afforded  by  a  declaration,  made  by  the  professors 
of  the  priestly  seminary  at  Mayence  in  the  year  1868,  in 
favour  of  the  moral  theology  of  the  Jesuit  Gury,  which 
says  : 

"  We  will  only  record  the  circumstance  that  this  text- 
book is  in  use  at  numerous  educational  establishments 
in  Germany,  Italy,  France,  Belgium,  England  and  North 
America."* 

How  this  domination  began,  gained  a  firm  footing  and 
maintained  it  to  the  present  day,  cannot  be  set  forth  here. 
At  any  rate  it  exists,  and  the  stages  on  its  triumphal 
progress  are  the  moral  theological  works  of  the  Jesuits 
(quoted  in  alphabetical,  not  chronological,  order) :  Amicus, 
Azor,  Ballerini,  Burghaber,  Busenbaum,  Cardenas,  Castra- 
palao,  Coninck,  Escobar,  Filliuci,  Gobat,  Gury,  Haunold, 
Hurtado,  Lacroix,  Laymann,  Lehmkuhl,  Lessius,  Lugo, 
Mazotta,  Moya,  Palmieri,  Reuter,  Sabetti,  Sanchez, 
Scaramelli,  Schmalzgrueber,  Stoz,  Tamburini,  Valen- 
tia,  Vasquez,  Vogler,  Voit,  Zaccaria,  and  many 
others. 

I  must  content  myself  with  extracts  from  works  on 
Jesuit  morality.  For  a  more  detailed  account,  especially 
as  regards  Probabilism,  Casuistry  and  Confession,  I  must 
refer  my  readers  to  the  second  volume  of  my  book  on  the 
Papacy.  The  quotations  are,  of  course,  selected  with  a 
view  to  a  characterisation  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.e.  I  shall 
set  forth  those  moral-theological  dogmas  of  the  Order 
which  will  assist  the  recognition  of  its  fundamental  con- 
ceptions of  morals  and  ethics,  and  in  order  as  far  as  possible 

*  Darmstadfer  Allgemein.  Kirchenzeitung  (1868),  No.  41. 


Jesuit   Morality  289 

to  comprise  everything  in  one  chapter,  I  use  the  words 
Morals  and  Ethics  in  their  widest  acceptation. 

I  intend  here  to  give  no  extracts  or  disquisitions 
relating  to  the  seventh  commandment  and  marriage. 
This  unpleasant  subject,  so  rendered  by  Jesuit  moral 
theology,  has  been  treated  in  detail  in  the  work  above 
quoted.* 

Love  and  marriage,  the  most  glorious  sources  of 
human  happiness  and  human  perfection,  have  been 
overspread  with  slime  and  filth  by  the  spiritual  direction 
and  moral  theology  of  the  Jesuits.  The  natural  human 
and,  on  that  account,  noble  sexual  life  has  been  degraded 
by  their  moral  theological  examinations,  and  because  this 
was  and  is  done  under  the  shelter  of  Christianity,  Chris- 
tianity too  was  degraded.  A  man  who  by  his  own 
confession  was  versed  in  sexual  perversion,  Ludovico 
Sergardi,  afterwards  Roman  Cardinal  and  the  friend  of 
Alexander  VII.,  bears  testimony  thus : 

"  Moral  theology  has  attained  to  such  a  pitch  that  it  is  necessary 
to  warn  uncorrupted  youths  against  having  anything  to  do  with 
it,  lest  they  entangle  themselves  in  shameful  snares  and  become 
victims  of  unchastity.  For  what  abominations  do  not  the  moral 
theologians  set  before  the  public  !  Among  all  the  brothels  of  the 
Suburra,  there  is  none  which  might  not  be  called  chaste  compared 
with  the  contents  of  these  books.  I  myself,  who  was  a  leader  of 
immoral  youths  and  often  desecrated  my  years  by  unchastity, 
confess  that  on  reading  Sanchez  [one  of  the  leading  moral  theo- 
logians of  the  Jesuit  Order,  whose  chief  work  on  Marriage  is  to  this 
day  a  classic  in  the  Order]  I  found  myself  blushing  on  more  than 
one  occasion,  and  that  his  writings  have  taught  me  more  abomina- 
tions than  I  could  have  learnt  from  the  most  brazen  of  prostitutes. 
Ovid,  the  past-master  in  the  Art  of  Love,  Horace  the  daring,  and 
Tibullus  the  libertine,  if  compared  with  Sanchez,  seem  fitted  to 
preside  over  an  educational  establishment  for  young  ladies.     For 

*  Das  Papsttum,  etc.,  II.,  229-410. 

7 


290  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

in  their  case  the  witty  expression,  at  any  rate,  conceals  the  wicked- 
ness, but  in  Sanchez  unadulterated  libertinism  and  uncovered  lust 
range  at  will."* 

I  shall  preface  my  extracts  from  Jesuit  treatises  on 
fundamental  questions  of  morals  and  ethics  by  criticisms 
of  Jesuit  morality  uttered  by  men  whose  knowledge  of 
the  subject  and  good  Catholic  sentiments  are  beyond 
suspicion.  The  only  non-Catholic  among  the  number  is 
Leibnitz.  His  importance  as  a  personality,  a  connoisseur 
and  not  unfriendly  critic  of  the  Jesuit  Order  justify  his 
admission  here. 

I  shall  also  quote  Jesuit  critics  on  the  morality  of  their 
Order,  since  their  opinion  on  this  matter  is  obviously  of 
special  value. 

From  Abbe  de  Ranee,  founder  of  the  Trappist  Order, 
and  an  intimate  friend  of  Bossuet : 

"  The  morality  of  most  Molinists  [Jesuits,  so  called  after  the 
Jesuit  Molina]  is  so  corrupt,  their  principles  are  so  opposed  to  the 
sanctity  of  the  Gospels  and  all  the  rules  and  exhortations  which 
Jesus  Christ  has  given  us  by  His  words  and  through  His  saints, 
that  nothing  is  more  painful  to  me  than  to  see  how  my  name  is 
used  to  give  authority  to  opinions  which  I  detest  with  my  whole 
heart.  .  .  .  What  surprises  as  well  as  grieves  me  is  that  in  regard 
to  this  matter  the  whole  world  is  dumb,  and  that  even  those  who 
regard  themselves  as  zealous  and  pious,  observe  the  deepest  silence, 
as  though  anything  in  the  Church  were  more  important  than  to 
maintain  purity  of  faith  in  the  guidance  of  souls  and  the  direction 
of  morals.  .  .  .  Unless  God  takes  pity  on  the  world  and  subverts 
the  zeal  which  is  applied  to  destroying  right  principles  and  replacing 
them  by  wrongful  ones,  the  evil  will  continue  to  increase  and  we 
shall  soon  see  an  almost  universal  devastation."t 

Ranee  also  relates  how  the  Jesuits  revenged  them- 

*  Ludov.  Sergardii,  Orationes  (Lucca,  1783),  p.  205.     D.-R.,  I.,  117. 
f  Lettrcs  de  A.  J.  Le  Bouthillier  de  Ranee,  published  by  B.  Gonod  (Paris,  1864), 
pp.  358-365,  from  Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  113  et  seq. 


Jesuit  Morality  291 

selves  for  his  judgment  on  their  morality,  and  thus  supplies 
a  fresh  condemnation  of  Jesuit  morality : 

"  Every  day  brings  me  fresh  experience  of  the  injustice  and 
violence  of  those  persons  known  as  Molinists.  They  shrink  from 
no  calumny  which  may  serve  to  destroy  my  reputation.  .  .  . 
Their  false  moral  principles  allow  them  to  utter  against  me  all  the 
calumnies  inspired  by  envy  and  passion."* 

The  Papal  Nuncio  at  Vienna,  Francesco  Buonvisi 
(afterwards  Cardinal),  wrote  on  May  6,  1688,  to  the  Abbot 
Sfondrati : 

"  I  do  not  like  to  see  him  [the  Emperor  Leopold  I.]  surrounded 
by  these  little  foxes  [the  Jesuits],  who  ruin  everything  by  prob- 
abilism,  saying  that  in  certain  cases  it  is  permitted  to  follow  the 
less  probable  view,  reserving  to  themselves  the  right  to  advise 
the  prince  to  follow  this  on  the  pretence  that  the  weal  of  the  State 
requires  it,  in  order  to  prevent  greater  evils."f 

The  Augustinian  monk,  Giovanni  Berti,  says : 

"  They  [the  Jesuits]  play  various  parts ;  one  in  the  pulpit, 
another  in  the  confessional,  one  in  the  professor's  chair,  another 
in  China.  In  the  pulpit  they  are  disciples  of  Poemi,  in  the  con- 
fessional of  Guimenius  [the  pseudonym  of  the  ultra-lax  Jesuit 
Moya],  in  the  professorial  chair  of  Molina,  at  court  of  Varroda, 
in  Europe  of  Mascarenhas,  in  China  of  Le  Tellier,  not  to  say  of 
Confucius.  As  occasion  requires  they  are  now  zealous  priests,  now 
lax  moralists,  now  quarrelsome  scholastics,  now  followers  of  Machia- 
velli,  now  apparent  Christians,  now  open  idolaters.":}: 

Cardinal  Aguirre,   in  a  letter  dated  April  26,    1693, 
writes  to  the  King  of  Spain  : 

'  .    .    .  It  is  a  question  of  the  boundless  liberty  with  which 
many  modern  writers,  especially  Jesuits,  allow  very  lax  opinions 

*  Lettres  de  A.  J.  Le  Bouthillier  de  Ranci,  p.  355. 

f  Memorie  per  servire  alia  storia  politico  del  Card.     Fr.  Buonvisi  (Lucca,  1818), 
2,238.  Ibid.  L,  105. 

}  Lettera  di  Fra  Guidone  Zoccolante  (1753),  p.  51.     Ibid.  I.,  106. 


292  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

to  be  printed  and  also  teach  and  apply  them  practically.     Alex- 
ander VII.  condemned  forty-five  of  these  opinions,  Innocent  XL- 
pronounced    sixty-five    dangerous    and    scandalous,    and    finally 
Alexander  VIII.  condemned  two,  one    as   heretical,  the  other  as 
erroneous  and  subversive  of  morality.     The  General  [of  the  Jesuits, 
Thyrsus  Gonzalez],  in  order  to  counteract  this  evil,  has  ordered 
a  book  to  be  printed  in  Germany,  which  Innocent  XI.  has  frequently 
called   upon   him  to   publish.     But  his  subordinates,   instead   of 
showing  gratitude  and  trying  to  amend,  have  taken  up  arms  against 
him.     Some  of  them  declare  that  he  is  a  Jannsenist — a  shameful 
calumny,  since  he  has  no  dealings  whatever  with  the  condemned 
principles  of  Jannsen,  and  has  indeed  combated  them  in  his  book 
most  emphatically.   .    .    .  It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge 
that  many  Jesuits  have  also  applied  the  epithet  '  Jannsenist,'  to 
Pope  Innocent  XL,  who  condemned  so  many  of  their  lax  opinions. 
They  apply  the  same  epithet  to  all  the  many  learned  and  pious 
prelates,  doctors  and  writers  who  have  written   against  their  lax 
morality."* 

The  Dominican  Concina,  whom  even  the  Jesuit  Cordara 
calls  a  righteous  man,  says  : 

"  For  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  Christian  morality  has 
had  to  endure  the   onset   of  bad  doctrines.   .    .    .  This  method 
permeates  the  whole  of  casuistic  theology,  and  inflicts  fatal  wounds 
on  almost  every  part  of  its  body.     Not  content  with  perverting 
written  law,  it  has  almost  wiped  out  all  trace  of  that  inscribed  by 
nature  in  the  heart  of  man.   .    .    .  There  is  nothing  too  lax,  unjust, 
or  shameful,  not  to  say  godless,  for  them  to  represent  through  the 
medium  of  unlimited  probabilism  as  pious,  decent  and  holy.     That 
is  the  worst  of  all  evils,  the  pestilential  source  which  brings  ruin 
to  souls.   .    .    .  They  have  found  a  middle  road,  not  quite  a  broad 
way,  so  as  not  to  call  forth  any  involuntary  alarm,  nor  yet  straight 
and  narrow,  thus  pandering  to  the  evil  inclinations  of  men,  recon- 
ciling the  world  and  the  Gospel  and  transforming  rough  roads  into 

*  For  the  Spanish  original,  see  Patuzzi,  Lettere  6,  LXXXII.     For  an  Italian 
translation,  Dollinger-Reusch,  II.,  115  et  seq. 


Jesuit   Morality  293 

smooth  ones.     This  middle  road  has  probably  carried  more  souls 
to  hell  than  the  broad  way."* 

Johann  Adam  Mohler,  Professor  at  the  University  of 
Tubingen,  and  unquestionably  the  greatest  Catholic  theo- 
logian of  the  nineteenth  century,  author  of  the  rightly 
renowned  Symbolik,  writes : 

"  Moral  theology  has  sustained  a  specially  deleterious  influence 
through  them  [the  Jesuits].  The  reason  whose  very  essence  it  was  to 
distinguish,  to  resolve  the  infinite  into  a  number  of  finite  magnitudes, 
could  not  truthfully  and  with  clear,  decisive  vision  face  the  infinitely 
holy  principles  of  Christian  morality.  It  split  up  everything  into 
individual  cases  and,  therefore,  treated  morality  as  mere  casuistry  ; 
and  as  the  infinite  power  of  moral  and  religious  inspiration  was  not 
sufficiently  regarded,  everything  was  gradually  transformed  into 
cunning  calculation  as  to  the  manner  of  acting  in  individual  cases, 
which  often  really  meant  the  best  method  of  disguising  our  own 
egotism  from  ourselves.  Probabilism  took  an  important  place  in 
Jesuit  morality,  i.e.  the  maxim  that  of  two  possible  courses  in  a 
particular  case,  the  one  based  on  the  weaker  arguments  may  be 
chosen,  instead  of  teaching  how  to  follow  the  holy  sense,  the  inward 
Christian  impulse  in  a  free  and  cheerful  spirit  ....  casuistry  is 
atomism  of  Christian  morality.  .  .  .  This  method  of  treating  Chris- 
tian morality  often  had  a  poisonous  effect  on  the  innermost  being  of 
Christian  life.  Religious  depth,  stern  and  holy  morality  and  strict 
Church  discipline  were  undermined  by  it.  And  as  it  was  charac- 
teristic of  them  to  transform  the  inner  being  into  mere  externals 
the  Jesuits  also  conceived  of  the  Church  as  primarily  a  state  .  .  . 
they  threatened  to  excavate,  as  it  were,  the  whole  Church,  to  rob 
it  of  all  power  and  inward  life.  .  .  .  The  tendency  of  Jesuitism 
was  also  unquestionably  very  dangerous  for  the  Church,  and 
it  was  necessary  to  put  a  check  on  its  efforts.  .  .  .  Although 
the  suppression  of  the  Jesuit  Order  was  a  work  of  violence  and 
accompanied  by  the  most  crying  injustice,  it  need  not  be  regretted 
on  historic  grounds.     The  Order  belonged  to  a  past  age,  and  in 

*  Theologia  Christiana  dogmatico-moralis  (Romae,  1749-51),  dedication  to  Pope 
Benedict  XIV. 


294  Fourteen   Years  a   Jesuit 

spite  of  the  change  of  circumstances  continued  its  activity  according 
to  the  old  fashion.  It  was,  therefore,  impossible  for  it  to  intervene 
beneficially  in  the  newer  age."* 

Reinhold  Ban m stark,  for  many  years  leader  of  the 
Baden  Catholics  in  the  Second  Chamber  at  Carlsruhe 
(who  died  in  1900),  wTote  of  the  influence  of  Jesuit  morality 
on  the  confessional : 

"  Jesuitism,  has  transformed  the  confessor  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
i.e.  the  priest,  to  whom  every  Catholic  must  confess  his  sins  at  least 
once  a  year  before  receiving  the  Easter  communion,  into  the 
spiritual  director,  i.e.  that  priest  who,  in  the  confessional  and 
outside  it,  directs  and  governs  the  whole  conduct  of  the  individual 
not  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  what  is  permissible  or  sinful, 
but  also  from  that  of  expediency,  prudence  and  results.  .  .  . 
His  whole  life  is  gradually  surrounded  and  dominated  by  it  [the 
intercourse  with  the  confessor  introduced  by  the  Jesuits]  ;  outward 
obedience  to  law,  irreproachable  conduct  and  piety  are  strongly 
in  evidence,  but  that  which  constitutes  the  chief,  indeed  sole  worth, 
of  a  man — his  free  self-direction,  inward  piety  and  real  moral 
personality — is  destroyed  in  this  fashion."f 

Leibnitz    characterises    Jesuit    moralitv    in    the    first 

w§ 

place  as  :  "  Ceite  morale  ridicule  de  la  probabilite  et  ces 
subtilites  frivoles  inconnues  a  Vancienne  Eglise,  et  meme 
rejettees  par  les  payens."     Then  he  continues : 

"  On  voit  en  Europe  qu'U  y  a  en  a  souvent  entre  eux 
qui  sent  pleins  de  petites  finesses,  qui  ne  seraient  pas 
approuvees  far  my  les  honnestes  gens  du  grand  monde. 
Je  croy  que  leurs  enseiqnments  d'ecole  et  leurs  limes  de 
morale  contribuent  beauooup  a  gaster  Fesprit  des  novices  et 
de  leurs  jeunes  gens."\ 

*  From  a  lecture  dictated  by  Mohler  in  1831,  at  Tubingen,  communicated  by 
the  Lucerne  Canon  and  Theological  Professor,  J.  B.  Leu,  in  Betirag  zur  Wurdigung 
de*  Jesuiteruyrden*  (Lucerne,  1S40),  pp.  23-29. 

t  Schicksale  cine?  deutschen  Katholiien  (Strassburg,  1885),  2nd  edition,  pp.  85 
et  seq,  147,  148. 

I  Rommel,  Leibniz  und  LorAqraj  Ernst  ton  Eessen-Bheinfels,  UngedrucJ.-k.r 
Briefwected  (FranMort-a-iL,  1847),  L,  279,  280. 


Jesuit   Morality  295 

Among  the  testimonies  against  Jesuit  nioralitv  from 
within  the  Order,  the  first  place  is  due  to  the  General 
Thyrsus  Gonzalez. 

Gonzalez,  the  thirteenth  General  of  the  Order  (1687- 
1705),  for  many  years  waged  a  heroic  war  against  the 
bad  morality  of  his  Order  as  incorporated  in  probabilism 
and  its  excrescences.  The  most  influential  of  his  subordi- 
nates organised  revolt  upon  revolt  against  him,  and  strove 
by  open  and  secret  attacks,  calumniation  and  intrigues, 
to  maie  his  life  and  position  unbearable,  until  at  last 
they  drove  him  out  of  his  mind.* 

The  story  of  Thyrsus  Gonzalez  forms  one  of  the  by 
no  means  uncommon  sections  of  the  history  of  the  Jesuit 
Order,  in  which,  instead  of  the  much- vaunted  "  sacred  " 
and  "  blind "  obedience  to  the  Superiors,  brutal  dis- 
obedience prevails,  and  the  disaffection  stirred  up 
by  the  Order's  egotism  and  greed  for  rule  gives 
way  neither  to  General  nor  Pope ;  for  Gonzalez,  too, 
acted  in  agreement  with  Pope  Innocent  XL  and  under 
his  orders. 

Here,  as  everywhere,  when  the  dark  sides  of  the 
Order's  history  are  concerned,  the  official  historians  of 
the  Order  try  to  distort  and  hush  up  the  matter.  Thus, 
e.g.  the  Jesuit  de  Ravignan,  who  wrote  his  book  Be 
V Existence  et  de  VInstitut  des  Jesuites  (Paris,  1855)  by 
command  of  the  Order,  in  dealing  with  the  struggle  of  the 
Order  with  the  General  and  Pope,  which  was  waged  with 
the  utmost  virulence,  only  says  : 

•  The  Jesuit  Bonueci  bears  testimony  to  the  fact  that  Gonzalez  was  driven 
out  of  his  mind  by  his  subordinates.  In  a  confidential  letter  of  September  9, 
1719,  published  by  Pietro  Bigazzi  as  an  interesting  contemporary  document 
{MisaMania  storica  e  htteraria,  Firenze,  1S47).  Bonucci  writes  referring  to  the 
great  annoyances  to  which  the  successor  of  Gonzalez,  Tamburini,  had  also  been 
exposed  by  his  Jesuit  subordinates,  says  :  "  He  will  be  the  second  General  in  our 
time  to  be  driven  out  of  his  mind  (e  questo  sara  U  stcondo  Ginerale  che  a  giorn 
nostri  avevero  fatto  impazzire  (c/.  Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  265).  The  "  first  "  Genera 
driven  out  of  his  mind  "  in  our  time  "  can  only  refer  to  Gonzalez. 


296  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

"  Many  of  the  Order's  theologians  have  attacked  probabilism  ; 
the  strongest  condemnation  of  the  kind  known  to  me  is  that  written 
by  one  of  our  Generals,  Thyrsus  Gonzalez.  Many  other  of  our 
members  have  approved  of  probabilism."* 

It  is  only  when  we  begin  to  study  the  historical  material 
relating  to  probabilismf  that  we  come  to  realise  bow 
untruthful  are  such  utterances  in  consciously  suppressing 
the  truth. 

Gonzalez  relates  that  Innocent  XI.  said  to  him  en  the 
occasion  of  his  first  audience  that  his  (the  General's)  task 
must  be  to  divert  the  Society  of  Jesus  from  the  precipice 
(a  praecipitio  avertere)  into  which  it  seemed  about  to  fall, 
by  trying  to  adopt  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Order  the  laxer 
view  as  to  the  use  of  probable  opinions.  "  The  Pope  also 
commissioned  him  to  summon  a  prominent  Spanish  Jesuit 
to  Rome  as  Professor  at  the  Collegium  Romanum,  to 
teach  the  stricter  morality  approved  by  Gonzalez;  him- 
self. "J  And  this  statement  was  repeated  on  oath  by 
Gonzalez  as  a  witness  at  the  Beatification  of  Innocent  XI.  § 

As  Gonzalez  clearly  expresses  his  assent  to  Innocent's 
declaration,  and  as,  moreover,  his  whole  life  and  work 
were  devoted  to  extirpating  the  lax  morality  of  his  Order, 
his  testimony  bears  the  crushing  weight  of  the  voices  of 
a  "  beatified  "  Pope  and  a  General  of  the  Order,  whose 
office  of  itself  enabled  him  to  know  the  condition  of  the 
moral  teachings  of  his  Order. 

The  Jesuits,  too,  must  necessarily  feel  the  weight  of 
their  General's  words.     On  this  account  they  not  only 

*  P.  152. 

t  Dollingef*  and   Reusch,  in   their    Moralstreitigkeiten,  so  frequently  quoted 
supply  almost  complete  material. 

J  Concina.  Difesa,  1,  28  ;    Sac.  Rituum  Congregatione  Em.  et  Rev.  D.  Card. 
Ferrario,  Roman.    Beatificationis  et  Canonizationia  Ven.  Servi  Dei  Innocentii  Papas 
undecimi.     Positio  super  dubio  an  sit  signanda  commissio  introductions  causae  in 
casu  (Romae,  1713),  p.  180,?printed  by  Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  132  (2). 
Ibid. 


Jesuit  Morality  297 

keep  them  as  secret  as  possible,  but  they  do  not  even 
shrink  from  representing  as  false  the  statements  made  on 
oath  by  their  General. 

"  They  assert  that  it  is  certain  that  the  Pope  maintained  a 
purely  passive  attitude  in  this  matter ;  the  words  placed  in  his 
mouth  by  Gonzalez  could  never  have  been  spoken  by  him."* 

The  real  reason  for  the  resistance  of  the  Jesuit  Order 
to  a  reform  of  its  morality  and  its  obstinate  adherence, 
in  spite  of  Pope  and  General,  to  its  lax  probabilism,  is 
worth  noting.  It  is  the  lust  of  dominion  which,  like  a 
red  thread,  runs  through  the  whole  of  Jesuitism  and  its 
history,  which  here,  too,  allowed  the  end  to  "  sanctify 
the  means." 

H.  Noris,  Consultor  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, and  afterwards  Cardinal,  in  a  letter  addressed  to 
the  Grand  Duke  Cosimo  III.  of  Florence,  in  1692,  gives 
as  the  view  of  the  Jesuits : 

"  The  doctrine  of  their  General  [Thyrsus  Gonzalez]  was  dangerous 
to  the  efficacy  of  the  Society ;  for  as  they  [the  Jesuits]  were  con- 
fessors to  so  many  great  princes  in  Europe,  so  many  princely 
prelates  in  Germany,  and  so  many  courtiers  of  high  rank,  they  must 
not  be  so  severe  as  their  General  desired,  because  if  they  wished 
to  follow  his  teaching  they  would  lose  their  posts  as  confessors 
at  all  the  courts."f 

It  would  be  impossible  to  exceed  the  severity  of  the 
judgment  passed  by  the  Jesuit,  Michael  de  Elizalde.  He 
was  a  friend  of  the  Jesuit  Cardinal  Pallavicini,  who  calls 
him  one  of  the  greatest  theologians  of  the  Order,  |  and 
was    Professor    of    Theology    at    Valladolid,    Salamanca, 

*  Ibid.,  L,  135,  and  IL,  163. 

f  The  interesting  letter  is  printed  by  Concina,  Difesa  2,  and  Patuzzi,  Lettere  6. 
Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  176. 

%  Lettere  del  Card.  Sforza  PaUavicini  (Rome,  1848),  2,  35  ;    3,  229. 


298  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Rome  and  Naples.  He  composed  a  work  on  Probabilism 
approved  by  Pallavicini,  which,  however,  failed  to  attain 
the  Imprimatur  of  the  Superiors,  and  he  was  actually 
threatened  with  the  severest  penalties  by  General  Paul 
Oliva.  His  work  appeared  first  in  a  mutilated  edition, 
but  six  years  later,  after  his  death,  was  republished  in 
extenso  with  the  title,  De  recta  doctrina  morum  (Friburgi, 
1684).  Elizalde's  polemics  are  directed  against  the  theo- 
logians Diane  and  Caramuel,  but  chiefly  against  his  fellow- 
Jesuits  Escobar,  Tamburini  and  Moya.  He  summarises 
his  views  on  Jesuit  morality  thus : 

"  Recently  I  looked  through  a  summary  of  morals  in  severa 
volumes.  I  sought  for  Christ,  but  found  Him  not.  I  sought  for 
the  love  of  God  and  our  neighbour,  but  found  them  not.  I  sought 
for  the  Gospel,  but  found  it  not.  I  sought  for  humility,  but  found 
it  not.  But  if  we  read  in  St.  Paul  or  any  other  apostle  or  saint, 
we  find  the  very  opposite  ;  everywhere  Christ,  love,  humility, 
holiness  abound.  These  two  doctrines,  therefore,  are  in  no  way 
connected,  and  stand  in  no  relation  to  one  another.  .  .  .  The 
Gospel  is  simple  and  opposed  to  all  equivocation ;  it  knows  only 
yea,  yea  ;  nay,  nay.  Modern  morality  is  not  simple,  but  makes 
use  of  that  equivocating  probabilism,  using  yea  and  nay  simul- 
taneously, since  its  rule  is  the  probability  of  mutually  contradictory 
statements."* 

In  a  memorial  sent  to  Clement  XL,  in  October,  1706, 
the  Jesuit  Camargo  tells  of  the  experiences  which  he  and 
others  had  of  Jesuit  morality  when  conducting  popular 
missions  in  Spain : 

"  How  many  contradictions,  dangers  and  difficulties  I  and  all 
the  others  experienced  who,  in  the  direction  of  conscience,  reject 
the  common  rule  of  probabilism  so  universally  diffused  throughout 
Spain,  God  alone  knows,  and  it  sounds  incredible.  Morals  have 
grown  so  lax  that  in  practice    scarcely  anything  is  regarded  as 

*  De  recta  doctrina  morum,  1,  8  qu  7,  §  2  :  Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  150. 


Jesuit   Morality  299 

not  permitted.  .  .  .  Not  only  among  the  people,  but  also  among 
confessors,  preachers  and  professors  does  the  opinion  prevail,  that 
we  commit  no  sin,  if  we  believe  while  acting  that  we  are  acting 
rightly,  or  do  not  think  that  we  are  acting  wrongly,  or  are  in  doubt 
about  the  matter.  ...  I  know  not  through  what  mysterious  or, 
at  any  rate,  terrible  decree  of  God  it  has  come  about  that  this 
moral  doctrine,  which  is  so  hateful  to  the  Apostolic  See  and  so 
contrary  to  Christian  morality,  has  found  such  favour  among  the 
Jesuits,  that  they  still  defend  it,  while  elsewhere  it  is  scarcely 
tolerated,  and  that  not  a  few  Jesuits  believe  themselves  bound 
to  defend  it  as  one  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Order.  .  .  .  It  is  regret- 
table that  the  enemies  of  the  Society  can,  without  untruth,  reproach 
it  as  being  the  only  apologist  for  probabilism,  which  is  the  source 
of  all  laxity  and  corruption  of  morals,  and  has  been  condemned 
almost  expressly  by  the  Apostolic  See,  and  even  promote  and 
spread  it  with  aeal."* 

That  the  Jesuits  Elizalde  and  Camargo  were  per- 
secuted and  grievously  calumniated  by  their  fellow-Jesuits 
for  their  candour,f  is  a  matter  of  course  to  those  who 
know  Jesuit  ways.  Cardinal  Manning  and  Abbe  de 
Ranee  also  had  experience  of  this  peculiarity  of  the 
"  Society  of  Jesus,"  which  is  doubtless  based  on  the 
command  of  Jesus,  "  Love  your  enemies  ...  do  good 
to  them  that  hate  you,"  as  have  countless  others  before 
and  after  them. 

The  Jesuit  Andre  complains  in  a  letter: 

"  Every  day  I  hear  the  casuists  of  our  Order  maintain  that  a 
king  is  not  bound  to  abide  by  a  treaty  which  he  has  only  concluded 
in  order  to  bring  to  an  end  a  war  which  has  turned  out  to  his  dis- 
advantage. I  hold  the  opposite  opinion.  I  stand  almost  alone 
among  a  crowd  of  persons  who  pretend  to  be  religious.  Neither 
law  nor  gospel  is  binding  in  matters  of  State — an  abominable 
doctrine  !  "£ 

*  Printed  in  Concina,  Difesa,  2,  60  :   Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  265-266. 

t  Ibid.,  L,  56. 

I  Ckarma,  Le  Pere  Andre,  2,  358;    Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  104,  105. 


300  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

The  Jesuit  La  Quintinye,  to  whose  piety  and  purity 
of  morals  his  General,  Paul  Oliva,  bears  testimony,  after 
vainly  directing  protests  to  his  superiors,  addressed  himself 
on  January  8,  1679,  to  Innocent  XI. 

He   says   that   during  the  last   fifteen  years   he   had 
repeatedly  written  to  former  Popes  about  the  sad  con- 
ditions that  prevailed  in  the  Society  of  Jesus,  to  which 
he  had  belonged  for  more  than  thirty  years ;    but  he  did 
not  know  whether  his  letters  had  ever  reached  the  persons 
to  whom   they   were    addressed.      His   complaints   dealt 
with — 1.  The   moral   doctrines   prevailing  in  the  Society 
of   Jesus,  which  had  already  been  condemned  by  many 
bishops   and   popes.     2.  The   practice   of  the   Jesuits   in 
the   direction   of  souls   based  on   this   doctrine.     3.  The 
means   adopted   by  the   Jesuit  superiors   to   compel  the 
subordinates    to    adopt    their    moral    doctrines.     4.  The 
cumiing  which  the  Jesuit  superiors  employed  to  prevent 
the  Papal  decrees  against  the  lax  Jesuit  morality  from 
being  made  known  to  the  subordinates.     They  assured 
the  Pope  of  their  intention  to  obey,  and  the  Jesuit  General 
publicly    called    upon    his    subordinates    to    prove    their 
obedience ;     but    secretly    and    in    private    letters    they 
admonished  them  to  abide  by  the  lax  moral  doctrines 
condemned  by  the  Popes.* 

Two  Jesuit  voices  raised  on  behalf  of  Jesuit  morality 
really  bear  testimony  against  it ;  but  for  that  very  reason 
and  on  account  of  their  boastful  tone,  they  furnish  proofs 
of  special  strength. 

The  Jesuit  Le  Roux  says : 

"  Ivenin  [an  opponent  of  the  Jesuits]  thinks  it  may  be  deduced 
from  their  teaching  that  a  man  who,  for  forty  years,  has  led  a 
godless  life  and  then  received  the  sacramental  absolution  by  mere 
attrition  [penitence  from  fear  of  punishment],  and  immediately 
after  loses  his  reason  through  a  fatal  illness,  has  a  right  to  ever- 
*  Dollinger-Keusch,  L,  57-61  and  II.,  1-19,  where  the  documents  are  printed. 


Jesuit   Morality  301 

lasting  bliss,  although  he  never,  not  even  at  the  end  of  his  life, 
loved  God.     That  we  unhesitatingly  admit."* 

And  in  the  Imago  primi  Saecvli  it  is  stated  in  praise 
of  Jesuit  morality  that : 

"  Now  [in  consequence  of  the  activity  of  the  Jesuits]  sins  are 
atoned  more  speedily  and  eagerly  than  they  were  formerly  com- 
mitted ;  nothing  is  more  common  than  monthly  or  even  weekly 
confession  ;  most  people  have  scarcely  committed  a  sin  before 
they  confess  it."f 

Everything  which  can  be  said  against  Jesuit  morality 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  fact  that  several  Popes, 
especially  Alexander  VII.,  Innocent  XL,  and  Alexander 
VIII. ,  found  themselves  compelled  to  condemn  in  solemn 
manifestoes  a  number  of  really  monstrous  maxims  of  this 
morality,  which  were  actually  taken  from  the  works  of 
some  of  the  leaders  in  moral  theology. 

Truly  the  bodyguard  of  the  Pope  took  little  notice 
of  the  condemnation,  but  "  proved,"  also  through  its 
leaders,  that  most  of  the  condemned  maxims  were  not 
understood  by  their  Jesuit  authors  in  the  sense  on  which 
the  Papal  condemnation  was  based ;  therefore  they  might 
calmly  go  on  teaching  them. 

For  a  detailed  account  of  this  masterpiece  of  Jesuit 
obedience  and  Jesuit  power  of  exposition  I  must  refer 
to  my  work  on  the  Papacy.  J 


FUNDAMENTAL     PRINCIPLES     OF     JESUIT     ETHICS     AND 

MORALITY 

1.  Untruthfulness. — I  have  repeatedly  emphasised  the 
fact  that  part  of  the  essence  of  Jesuitism  is  an  all-pervading 
untruthfulness.     It  is  a  subtle  poison,  which  exercises  its 

*  Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  80.  f  Imago,  p.  372.  %  II.,  444  el  seq. 


302  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

power  to  kill  truthfulness,  faith  and  loyalty  throughout 
the  whole  organism  of  the  Order. 

The  Order's  system  of  government,  built  up  on  mutual 
supervision,  secret  reports,  espionage,  denunciation,  is  op- 
posed to  all  human  and  Christian  simplicity  and  candour, 
and  necessarily  begets  mistrust,  suspicion,  and  at  last 
conscious  and  unconscious  untruthfulness. 

Thus  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order  prepare  the  ground, 
on  which  the  moral  theological  doctrines  as  to  the  per- 
missibility of  mental  restriction,  of  every  kind  of  equivo- 
cation, of  half  and  three-quarter  truths,  easily  take  root 
and  shoot  luxuriantly  upward.  These  doctrines  are  the 
flesh  and  blood  of  the  Jesuit  body,  and  are  more 
or  less  the  ethical  and  moral  base  of  the  individual 
Jesuits. 

To  what  an  extent  Jesuitism  has  lost  all  sense  of 
truth,  is  shown  in  startling  fashion  just  where  it  appears 
to  come  forward  against  untruth  and  lies.  Thus  the 
Jesuit  Delrio,  Professor  of  Theology  at  the  Universities 
of  Salamanca  and  Graz,  writes : 

'*  It  is  an  article  of  faith  that  a  lie  (which  deserves  the  name) 
is  in  itself  something  morally  bad;  Yet  consider  :  it  is  one  thing 
to  say  something  false  and  another  to  hide  something  true,  by 
making  use  not  of  a  lie  but  an  equivocation.  The  utterance  of  a 
judge  at  Liege  was  both  cunning  and  permissible,  who  said  to  a 
stiff-necked  witch,  who  denied  all  accusations,  that  if  she  spoke 
the  truth  sufficiently  he  would,  as  long  as  she  lived,  provide  from 
his  own  or  public  means  food  and  drink  for  her  every  day  and  see  to 
it  that  a  new  house  was  built  for  her,  understanding  by  '  house  '  the 
wooden  [scaffolding]  with  the  bundles  and  straw  on  which  she  would 
be  burnt.  Other  [permissible  equivocations]  are  cited  by  Sprenger 
[a  Dominican]  :  They  should  treat  the  guilty  person  with  greater 
honour  than  is  customary,  and  admit  respected  persons,  whom  he 
would  not  suspect,  to  intercourse  with  him.  These  may  discourse 
about  various  alien  matters,  and  finally  advise  him  with  confidence 


Jesuit  Morality  303 

to  confess  the  truth,  promising  that  the  judge  would  show  him 
mercy  and  they  would  act  as  intermediaries.  The  judge  should 
then  come  and  promise  to  let  mercy  prevail,  understanding  by  this, 
— for  himself  or  the  State,  for  the  preservation  of  which  everything 
that  is  done  is  an  act  of  mercy.  The  judge  might  also  say  to  the 
accused  that  he  was  giving  him  good  counsel,  and  a  confession 
would  be  of  great  advantage  to  him,  even  in  saving  his  life.  For 
this  is  most  true,  if  understood  of  eternal  life,  which  is  the  true 
life."* 

And  this  encouragement  of  infamous  lying  in  trials 
when  life  is  hanging  in  the  balance  is  passed  unhesita- 
tingly by  the  censor  of  the  Order,  who,  moreover,  in  the 
case  of  Delrio's  work,  was  one  of  the  most  famous  Jesuits 
of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  Oliverius 
Manaraus,  who  justifies  his  imprimatur  "  by  the  judgment 
of  weighty  and  learned  theologians  of  the  Order."  And, 
what  is  more,  a  Jesuit  of  the  twentieth  century,  Duhr, 
who  has  become  sufficiently  well-known  to  us,  praises 
his  fellow-member  of  the  Order,  Delrio — 

"  Because  he  severely  attacks  the  judges,  who  wish 
to  make  the  witches  confess  by  means  of  false  repre- 
sentations and  lies."f 

Consequently,  even  to  the  present  day,  Jesuitism — 
for  Duhr's  work,  too,  passed  the  Order's  censorship — 
does  not  find  any  falsehood  or  inaccuracy  in  the  disgraceful 
craftiness  and  lies  of  the  judge  at  Liege,  and  in  the  counsel 
of  the  Jesuit  Delrio. 

With  such  a  conception  of  "  lying,"  it  is  no  wonder 
that  we  find  the  most  prominent  moral  theologians  of 
the  Jesuit  Order  putting  forward  preposterous  doctrines 
with  regard  to  equivocation. 

*  Disquisitionum  magicarum  libri  sex  (Coloniae,  1679),  p.  768. 

f  Die  Stellung  der  Jesuiten  in  den  deutschen  Hexenprozessen.  Vereinsschrift  der 
"  Gorresgesellschaft^  zur  Pflege  der  Wissenschaft  im  Jcatfwlischen  DeutsMand " 
(Cologne,  1900),  p.  44. 


304  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

The  Jesuit  Cardenas  says  : 

"  Sanchez  [a  Jesuit]  mentions  two  kinds  of  ambiguities  which 
he  declares  to  be  perfectly  admissible.  In  the  first  place,  if  I  make 
use  of  words  which  are  in  themselves  ambiguous  and  apply  them 
in  one  sense  whilst  the  listener  believes  I  am  applying  them  in 
another  sense.  If  there  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  concealing  the 
truth,  the  use  of  such  ambiguity  is  unlawful,  but  not  untruthful. 
Thus,  for  example,  if  some  one  has  killed  a  Frenchman  (hominem 
natione  gallum),  he  can  say,  without  lying,  that  he  has  not  killed 
a  '  gallum,''  if  he  takes  this  word  in  the  sense  of  '  cock.'  To  this 
class  must  also  be  referred  the  ambiguity  in  the  case  non  est  hie, 
i.e.  according  to  the  way  it  is  understood  :  he  is  not  here,  and  he 
is  not  eating  here.  That  Innocent  XI.  did  not  condemn  this  use 
of  ambiguity  is  certain.  For  he  only  condemns  ambiguity  con- 
nected with  mental  reservation,  which  means  that  something  is 
added  mentally.  But  in  the  cases  of  ambiguity  quoted  above 
nothing  is  added  mentally,  because  the  different  significations 
(gallus,  est)  lie  in  the  words  themselves.  The  second  kind  of  per- 
missible ambiguity  arises  when  the  words  in  themselves  are  not 
ambiguous,  but  assume  another  meaning  owing  to  the  conditions  of 
place,  time  and  persons.  Thus  it  is  related  of  St.  Francis  that  when 
on  one  occasion  robbers,  who  had  passed  him,  were  pursued  by  the 
officers  of  the  law,  he  replied  to  their  questions  as  to  whether  the 
former  had  gone  that  way  by  saying  '  They  have  not  come  here,' 
at  the  same  time  putting  his  hands  into  his  sleeves.  And  this 
reply  was  perfectly  truthful,  for  the  robbers  had  not  passed  through 
his  sleeves.  He  could  also  have  put  his  foot  on  a  stone  and  said, 
'  They  have  not  gone  through  here,'  because  they  had  not  gone 
through  the  stone.  There  is  no  mental  reservation  in  this  case, 
because,  through  his  placing  his  foot  on  the  stone,  the  words  in 
question  ('come  through,'  'gone  through')  related  to  the  stone. 
In  this  class  are  also  included  those  words  which  have  only  one 
meaning  in  themselves,  but  are  ambiguous,  without  mental  reser- 
vation, according  to  the  different  way  in  which  they  are  used. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  word  '  know,'  which  really  signifies  certain 
knowledge,  is  also  frequently  used  for  defective  knowledge.  On 
the    other  hand,   '  ignorance '  means   lack  of   certain   knowledge, 


Jesuit   Morality  305 

but  is  frequently  used  for  the  lack  of  any  knowledge.  Consequently, 
if  someone  has  heard  from  another  person  that  Peter  committed 
a  theft,  and  replies  on  being  asked,  '  I  do  not  know,'  i.e.  '  I  have  no 
infallible  knowledge  of  it,'  he  is  not  lying.  Suare  and  Lugo  [the 
chief  theologians  of  the  Jesuit  Order]  also  give  the  following 
example  :  '  A  man  who  has  only  a  loaf,  which  is  necessary  for  his 
subsistence,  answers  the  person  who  asks  for  one  truthfully  when 
he  states,  '  I  have  none,'  for  he  really  has  none  which  he  can  give, 
and  he  is  asked  in  this  sense.  By  these  different  ways  of  making 
use  of  ambiguity  which  we  have  quoted  as  permissible,  all  pangs 
of  conscience  and  doubt  are  removed.  Thus,  an  adulterous  woman, 
when  questioned  by  her  husband  regarding  the  adultery  and 
threatened  with  death,  may  reply  without  falsehood  and  without 
mental  reservation,  '  I  have  not  wounded  your  honour,'  for 
'  wounded '  means  a  material  wounding,  which  cannot  be  applied 
to  honour.  She  may  also  deny  her  adultery  by  taking  this  word 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  frequently  used  in  the  Scriptures,  namely, 
as  idolatry.  Any  one  who  is  questioned  by  the  police  concerning  the 
whereabouts  of  a  criminal,  can  give  St.  Francis's  reply,  which  we 
have  already  cited.  Whoever  is  asked  by  the  judge  on  oath  how 
much  he  has  of  a  certain  commodity,  which  is  unjustly  taxed  at 
too  high  a  rate,  may  swear  that  he  has  a  considerably  smaller 
quantity  of  it  than  he  really  has,  and  it  can  be  shown  in  many 
ways  that  this  is  no  perjury.  In  the  first  place,  when  he  swears 
that  he  has,  for  example,  twenty  pitchers  of  oil,  he  does  not  deny 
that  he  has  more,  but  speaks  the  truth,  saying  that  he  has  twenty 
pitchers.  Secondly,  he  may  swear  that  he  has  not  more  than 
twenty,  because  he  speaks  the  truth  so  far  as  the  judge,  who  only 
asks  as  to  the  amount  of  oil  which  ought  to  be  taxed,  is  concerned. 
As,  according  to  the  hypothesis,  the  tax  is  unjustly  high,  it  is  quite 
true  to  say  that  the  person  does  not  possess  more,  adding  [mentally] 
than  must  be  taxed."* 

The  Jesuit  Laymann : 

"  Ambiguities  are  not  lies.     Ambiguities  are  modes  of  expression 
with  a  double  meaning,  one  of  which,  that  conveying  the  truth, 

*  Crisis  theologica.  Venetiis  (1710),  IV.,  120  et  seq. 
U 


306  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

the  speaker  has  in  view,  and  hence  does  not  lie,  even  when  the 
person  addressed  interprets  the  words  in  the  other  sense,  which 
is  incorrect,  and  is  thus  deceived.  For  the  speaker  does  not  practise 
the  deceit  on  the  person  addressed,  but  only  permits  it.  .  .  . 
Although  it  is  a  probable  view  that  every  promissory  perjury  is  a 
deadly  sin,  the  opposite  view  is  more  probable.  .  .  .  Although 
an  ambiguous  oath  is  no  perjury  when  there  is  just  cause  for 
concealing  the  truth,  and  is  even  exempt  from  all  moral  wrong, 
it  is  to  some  extent  a  false  oath  and  not  permissible  when  there  is 
not  just  cause.  Three  assertions  are  implied  by  this  thesis  : — 
1.  An  ambiguous  oath  is  no  perjury,  because  one  sense  of  the 
ambiguous  expression  is  correct,  according  to  the  hypothesis ; 
consequently,  whoever  confirms  this  sense  with  an  oath  does  not 
commit  perjury.  Indeed,  when  an  expression  is  really  not  ambiguous, 
but  when  it  has  in  itself  or  in  the  circumstances  only  one  meaning 
and  that  the  false  one,  no  perjury  is  committed  when  the  person 
under  oath  does  not  intend  to  emphasise  this  false  sense,  but 
another,  which  does  not  correspond  with  the  words  sworn  by  him. 
An  oath  is  only  false  when  God  is  called  upon  as  a  witness  for  some- 
thing false ;  but  he  who  swears  in  the  above-mentioned  manner 
does  not  call  upon  God  on  behalf  of  the  false  sense  which  he  refers 
to  outwardly,  but  on  behalf  of  the  truth  which  he  retains  inwardly." 

Laymann  admits,  it  is  true,  that  he  who  swears  thus 
utters  a  lie  and  usually  commits  a  grievous  sin.  He  then 
continues : 

M  2.  That  an  ambiguous  oath  is  no  sin,  can  be  proved  in  the 
same  way.  For  one  interpretation  of  the  ambiguous  expression  is 
true,  and  it  can  consequently,  if  necessary,  be  confirmed  with  an 
oath.  ...  It  follows  from  clause  2  that  he  who  has  returned  a 
loan  may  swear  before  a  court  of  justice,  if  he  has  no  other  proof, 
that  he  has  never  entered  into  any  agreement  for  a  loan,  adding  to 
himself,  such  that  he  should  have  to  return  the  loan  twice.  Covar- 
ruvias,  Azor  and  Suarea  declare  this  view  as  probable.  He  who 
has  been  induced  under  severe  threats,  or  without  the  inner  wish, 
to  bind  himself,  and  has  said  to  a  woman,  '  I  will  marry  you,'  may, 
when  asked  by  the  judge  about  the  matter,  deny  on  oath  that  he 


Jesuit  Morality  307 

has  spoken  such  words,  understanding  the  oath  to  mean  that  he 
has  voluntarily  agreed  to  marry  her.  He  who  is  asked  under  oath 
if  he  has  come  from  a  place  which  is  falsely  supposed  to  be  infected 
with  the  plague,  may  swear  that  he  has  not  come  thence,  saying 
to  himself,  '  from  the  plague-infected  place.'  "* 

The  Jesuits  Ballerini  and  Palmieri: — 

"  The  general  teaching  of  the  theologians  is  that  for  a  just 
cause  ambiguity  and  equivocation  are  permissible  even  when  under 
oath.  And,  in  fact,  when  ambiguity  is  used,  that  which  is  mani- 
fested outwardly  corresponds  with  the  inner  meaning  of  the  person 
under  oath,  and  hence  the  truth  necessary  for  the  oath  is  present. 
The  listener  is  deceived,  it  is  true,  but  we  only  admit  that  he  mis- 
leads himself.  A  person  is  permitted  to  swear  falsely  aloud  when 
an  addition  is  spoken  softly,  provided  that  it  is  evident  that  an 
addition  has  been  made,  although  the  meaning  of  the  addition  is 
not  understood."! 

The  Jesuit  Lehmkuhl,  whose  Moral  Theology  is  taken 
as  the  basis  of  instruction  for  the  confessors  designate 
in  numerous  seminaries  for  Roman  Catholic  priests  in 
Germany,  France,  Italy,  Holland,  and  elsewhere,  says : 

"  Lying  is  always  sinful.  .  .  .  But  mental  reservation  is 
frequently  free  from  falsehood  ;  consequently  [sic  /]  it  is  occasionally 
permissible  and  necessary  and  occasionally  not  permissible  to  make 
use  of  it.  Under  mental  reservation  is  understood  the  keeping 
back  of  the  sense  of  the  words  or  its  mental  definition.  This  may 
occur  in  different  ways  : — 1.  If  the  words  themselves  have  different 
meanings  according  to  their  interpretation,  so  that  the  speaker 
must  give  them  a  particular  meaning.  2.  If  the  words  have  not 
a  double  meaning  in  themselves,  but  may  be  taken  in  a  sense  different 
from  the  obvious  one  through  conditions  of  place,  person  and  time. 
For  example,  the  expression,  '  I  do  not  know,'  may  admit  the 

*  Theologia    moralis.     Liber    quartus,  trad.    3,   cp.    14.     Edit.  Monach.,  1625, 
H.,  165,  174,  176,  177. 

t  Opus  theolog.  morale,  Prati,  1892,  IL,  415,  418. 


308  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

meaning  in  certain  circumstances,  '  I  do  not  know  so  that  I  can 
communicate  it.'  2.  If  the  words  can  neither  have  such  a  meaning 
in  themselves  nor  through  special  conditions,  but  can  only  have 
another  signification  through  mental  addition ;  for  example,  if 
anybody,  on  being  asked  whether  he  has  been  in  Cologne,  replies, 
1 1  was  there,'  and  says  to  himself,  '  in  spirit.'  The  last  manner  of 
speaking,  which  only  consists  of  mental  reservation,  is  never  per- 
missible, but  is  untruthful.  The  two  other  ways  are  permissible 
in  suitable  circumstances,  for  in  whatever  way  the  words  are  spoken 
— and  they  must  be  considered  along  with  the  circumstances — they 
express  the  real  meaning  which  the  speaker  mentally  intended, 
even  though  not  clearly  and  definitely.  The  speaker  intends, 
however,  that  the  full  meaning  shall  not  be  understood  by  the 
person  addressed,  and  herein  he  is  justified,  and  it  is  admitted  that 
they  may  perhaps  even  be  wrongly  understood.  Consequently,  a 
part  of  the  truth  is  concealed,  which,  for  just  reasons,  may  and 
must  frequently  occur.  ...  As  often  as  I  use  in  permissible 
fashion  any  reservation  not  exclusively  mental,  I  may,  according 
to  the  importance  of  the  occasion,  swear  even  with  this  reserva- 
tion."* 

LehmkuhFs  instructive  remarks  regarding  calumnia- 
tion also  belong  here.  On  the  authority  of  Liguori  and 
the  Jesuit  Busenbaum,  he  declares  that  it  is  a  deadly 
sin — 

"  To  call  a  priest  or  a  pious  member  of  an  Order  a  liar,  whilst 
it  is  a  pardonable  sin  to  accuse  a  soldier,  who  lives  a  freer  life,  of 
philandering  or  vendetta.  Nor  is  it  very  sinful  to  relate  similar  or 
analogous  offences  of  one  who  is  already  notorious  in  other  respects  ; 
for  example,  to  Bay  of  one  who  is  known  as  a  drunkard  that  he 
quarrels  with  his  wife,  or  of  a  robber  that  he  has  committed  perjury. 
.  .  .  Who  would  consider  it  a  serious  calumny  to  say  that  an 
atheist  is  considered  capable  of  secretly  committing  any  crime 
(quaelibei  crimina)  ?  "f 

*  Thedogia  moralis.  Edit.  6.  1890,  I.,  n.,  772,  773. 
f  Ibid.,  n.  1178,  1179. 


Jesuit  Morality  309 

The  Jesuit  Gury : 

"  Anna  had  committed  adultery ;  she  replied  first  of  all  to  her 
husband,  who  was  suspicious  and  questioned  her,  that  she  had  not 
broken  the  marriage  bond ;  the  second  time,  she  replied,  after  she 
had  been  absolved  from  the  sin,  *  I  am  not  guilty  of  such  a  crime  ' ; 
finally,  the  third  time,  because  her  husband  pressed  her  still  further, 
she  flatly  denied  the  adultery,  and  said,  '  I  have  not  committed 
it,'  because  she  understood  by  this,  '  such  adultery  as  I  should  be 
obliged  to  reveal,'  or  '  I  have  not  committed  adultery  which  is  to 
be  revealed  to  you.'  Is  Anna  to  be  condemned  ?  Anna  can  be 
justified  from  falsehood  in  the  threefold  case  which  has  been  men- 
tioned. For,  in  the  first  case,  she  could  say  that  she  had  not  broken 
the  marriage  bond,  because  it  was  still  in  existence.  In  the  second 
case,  she  could  say  that  she  was  innocent  of  adultery,  since  her 
conscience  was  no  longer  burdened  with  it  after  confession  and 
the  receiving  of  absolution,  because  she  had  the  moral  certainty 
that  this  had  been  forgiven.-  Indeed,  she  could  make  this  assertion 
on  oath,  according  to  the  general  opinion  and  that  of  Liguori, 
Lessius,  the  Salmanticenses,  and  Suarea.  In  the  third  case,  she 
could,  in  the  probable  view,  still  deny  having  committed  adultery 
in  the  sense  that  she  was  obliged  to  reveal  it  to  the  husband."* 

Such  theories  have  been  practically  utilised  in  the 
Jesuit  Order  from  early  times.  Some  historical  occur- 
rences which  have  become  famous  will  serve  as 
examples. 

The  Jesuit  Garnet,  Provincial  of  the  English 
Province  of  the  Order,  made  use  of  equivocation,  as  he 
himself  writes  in  a  letter  "  to  the  Fathers  and  Brethren 
of  the  Society,"  so  as  not  to  be  convicted  of  participa- 
tion in  the  Gunpowder  Plot  in  the  examination  before 
the  Commissioners."!"  Garnet  says,  in  a  letter  dated 
March  20th,  1606 : 

*  Casus  conscientiae,  I.,  182  ei  seq.     (Parisiis,  1892),  8th  edit  on. 
■j-  Text  of  the  letter  in  Jardine  :   A  Narrative  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot  (London 
1857),  p.  203  (1). 


310  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

"  In  cases  where  it  becomes  necessary  to  an  individual  for  his 
defence,  or  for  avoiding  any  injury  or  loss,  or  for  obtaining  any 
important  advantage,  without  danger  or  mischief  to  any  other 
person,  there  equivocation  is  lawful.  Let  us  suppose  that  I  have 
lately  left  London,  where  the  plague  is  raging,  and  on  arriving  at 
Coventry,  I  am  asked  before  I  can  be  admitted  into  the  town 
whether  I  come  from  London,  and  am  perhaps  required  to  swear 
that  I  do  not  I  it  would  be  lawful  for  me  (being  assured  that  I 
bring  no  infection)  to  swear  in  such  a  case  that  I  did  not  come 
from  London ;  for  I  put  the  case  that  it  would  be  very  important 
for  me  to  go  into  Coventry,  and  that  from  my  admittance  no  loss 
or  damage  could  arise  to  the  inhabitants."* 

Garnet  acknowledged  in  a  letter  to  his  accomplice,  the 
Jesuit  Greenway,  that  he  knew  of  the  Gunpowder  Con- 
spiracy from  the  conspirator  Catesby's  confession,  and 
that  he  was  obliged  to  impart  his  information  (he  made 
this  confession  to  the  court  of  justice  in  a  "  declaration  " 
written  in  his  own  hand).  The  letter  was  intercepted, 
and  the  Commissioners  questioned  him  as  to  the  existence 
and  contents  of  the  letter.  Garnet  replied,  "  upon  his 
priesthood  that  he  did  never  write  any  letter  or  letters, 
nor  send  any  message  to  Greenway  since  he  was  at 
Coughton ;  and  this  he  protested  to  be  spoken  without 
equivocation."  A  few  days  afterwards,  on  being  shown 
his  letter  to  Greenway,  and  asked  how  he  could  justify 
his  falsehood,  he  boldly  replied,  "  that  he  had  done  nothing 
but  that  he  might  lawfully  do,  and  that  it  was  evil  done 
of  the  Lords  to  ask  that  question  of  him,  and  to  urge 
him  upon  his  priesthood  when  they  had  his  letters  which 
he  had  written,  for  he  never  would  have  denied  them  if 
he  had  seen  them ;  but  supposing  the  Lords  had  not  his 
letters,  he  did  deny  in  such  sort  as  he  did  the  writing  of 
any  letter,  which  he  might  lawfully  do."f 

Jardine,    the    keen-witted    investigator    of   these    cir- 

*  Jardine,  Ibid.,  p.  233  et  seq.  |  Jardine,  Ibid.,  p.  244  et  seq. 


Jesuit   Morality  311 

cumstances,  criticises,  on  the  strength  of  the  still  extant 
minutes,  the  Jesuit  Garnet's  attitude  before  the  tribunal : 

"  He  had  denied  all  knowledge  of  the  Plot  until  betrayed  by 
the  conferences  with  [the  Jesuit]  Hall,  and  he  denied  those  con- 
ferences until  he  plainly  perceived  that  he  only  injured  himself 
by  so  doing ;  and  when  afterwards  abashed  and  confounded  at 
the  clear  discovery  of  his  falsehood,  he  admitted  to  the  Lords  that 
'  he  had  sinned  unless  equivocation  could  save  him '  !  From  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  inquiry,  he  had  acted  in  strict  con- 
sistency with  the  principles  he  now  acknowledged,  never  confessing 
any  fact  until  it  was  proved  against  him,  and  never  hesitating 
to  declare  palpable  falsehoods  respecting  matters  which  tended 
to  inculpate  himself  and  affirm  them  by  the  most  solemn  oaths 
and  protestations."* 

And  this  is  the  man  of  whom  Professor  Buchberger, 
the  editor  of  the  Kirchliches  Handlexikon,^  which  was 
episcopally  approved,  writes :  "  Garnet  was  a  man 
incomparable  in  knowledge  and  saintliness.',  This  is 
another  proof  of  the  great  extent  to  which  the  official 
Roman  Church  adapted  itself  to  the  morals  of  the  Jesuits. 

The  Jesuit  Gerard  relates  : 

"  They  [the  Commissioners]  asked  me  then  whether  I  acknow- 
ledged the  Queen  [Elizabeth]  as  the  true  governor  and  Queen  of 
England.  I  answered,  '  I  do  acknowledge  her  as  such.'  '  What !  ' 
said  Topcliffe,  *  in  spite  of  Pius  V.'s  excommunication  ?  '  I 
answered,  '  I  acknowledge  her  as  our  Queen,  notwithstanding  I 
know  there  is  such  an  excommunication.'  The  fact  was  [the 
Jesuit  continues]  '  I  knew  that  the  operation  of  that  excommuni- 
cation had  been  suspended  in  all  England  by  a  declaration  of  the 
Pontiff  till  such  time  as  its  execution  became  possible."! 

The  Catholic  theologian,  Taunton,  rightly  remarks  on 

*  Jardine,  Ibid.,  p.  237.  t  Munich,  1907,  I.,  1594. 

{  The  Life  of  Fr.  John  Gerard  (London,  1882),  p.  225. 


3i2  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

this  cynical  and  naive  utterance  :  "  It  shows  what  reliance 
can  be  put  upon  some  of  the  protestations  of  allegiance."* 

The  shameless  inaccuracy  of  the  Jesuit's  reply  reflects, 
of  course,  more  on  the  Papacy  than  on  Jesuit  morality. 
For  Gregory  XIII.,  a  special  friend  of  the  Jesuits,  had 
indeed  authentically  interpreted  the  Bull  of  deposition 
of  his  predecessor,  Pius  V.,  in  the  manner  indicated  by 
Gerard,  and  had  entrusted  the  "  interpretation  "  in  an 
audience  of  April  14th,  1580,  to  the  Jesuits  Parsons  and 
Campian,  who  were  journeying  to  England,  f 

The  Jesuit,  Robert  Southwell,  directed  the  daughter  of 
his  host,  in  whose  house  he  lay  concealed  from  the  sheriff's 
officers  of  Queen  Elizabeth  of  England,  that  she  should 
reply  "  No,"  to  the  question  as  to  whether  Robert  South- 
well were  in  her  father's  house,  and  confirm  the  reply 
with  an  oath.  In  order  to  make  the  "  No  "  correct,  she 
was  to  think,  "  He  is  not  in  my  father's  house  so  that 
I  am  bound  to  tell  them."J 

The  attitude  of  the  Parisian  Jesuits  with  regard  to  a 
book  by  their  fellow- Jesuit,  Santarelli,  Tractatus  de  haeresi, 
etc.,  affords  a  specially  striking  example  of  the  ability  of 
the  Jesuits  to  say  "Yes"  and  "No"  about  the  same 
circumstance.  This  book,  which  was  published  in  1625, 
with  the  approval  of  the  General,  Vitelleschi,  taught  the 
usual  doctrine  of  the  Order  regarding  the  Pope's  supremacy 
over  kings  and  princes,  and  defended  the  view  that  the 
Bull,  Unam  sanctam,  which  dogmatically  established  this 
doctrine,  was  not  suspended  by  Clement  V.'s  Brief,  Meruit, 
published  in  favour  of  France.  The  Parisian  Sorbonne 
condemned  the  book.  On  March  14th,  1626,  the  French 
Parliament  cited  the  Provincial  of  the  Jesuits  at  Paris 

*  The  Jesuits  in  England,  p.  165. 

t  The  Jesuits'   Memorial,  p.   XXVI.,  and  Harleian  Miscellany,  4th  edition, 
II.,  130. 

X  Taunton,  p.  168. 


Jesuit  Morality  313 

and  six  other  Fathers  to  appear  before  the  bar  so  as  to 
question  them  about  the  book.  I  quote  from  the  minutes 
of  the  case : 

"  *  Do  you  approve  of  Santarelli's  bad  book  ?  '  'On  the  con- 
trary, we  are  ready  to  write  against  it  and  contest  all  that  he  says.' 
'  Do  you  not  know  that  this  wicked  doctrine  has  been  approved 
by  your  General  in  Rome  ?  '  '  Yes,  but  we  here  cannot  help  this 
indiscretion,  and  we  blame  it  most  emphatically.'  '  Do  you  believe 
that  the  Pope  may  excommunicate  and  depose  the  King,  and  release 
his  subjects  from  their  oath  of  allegiance  ? '  '  How  should  the 
Pope  excommunicate  the  King,  the  eldest  son  of  the  Church,  who 
would  certainly  do  nothing  which  would  render  it  necessary  ?  ' 
'  But  your  General,  who  has  approved  the  book,  considers  that  its 
contents  are  correct ;  do  you  differ  in  opinion  ?  '  '  The  General, 
who  lives  in  Rome,  can  do  nothing  but  approve  that  which  the 
Roman  Curia  has  sanctioned.'  '  And  your  own  conviction  ? ' 
'  Is  quite  different.'  '  And  what  would  you  do  if  you  were  in 
Rome  ? '  '  We  should  act  in  the  same  manner  as  those  who  are 
there.'  "* 

Louis  XIV. 's  confessor,  the  Jesuit  La  Chaise,  writes 
to  the  Jesuit  Petre,  the  political  favourite  of  James  II. 
of  England,  in  a  letter  dated  March  7th,  1688 : 

"  One  of  your  Assisting  Fathers  of  that  Kingdom  (which  was 
Father  Parsons)  having  written  a  book  against  the  succession  of 
the  King  of  Scots,  to  the  Realm  of  England,  Father  Creighton,  who 
was  also  of  our  Society,  and  upheld  by  many  of  our  Party,  defended 
the  Cause  of  that  King,  in  a  Book  intituled,  The  Reasons  of  the 
King  of  Scots,  against  the  Book  of  Father  Parsons ;  and  tho'  they 
seemed  divided,  yet  they  understood  one  another  very  well,  thus 
being  practised  by  Order  of  our  General,  to  the  End,  that  if  the 
House  of  Scotland  were  excluded,  they  might  shew  him,  who  had 
the  Government,  the  book  of  Father  Parsons  ;  and  on  the  other 
Hand,  if  the  King  happened  to  be  restored  to  the  Throne,  they 

*  Reusch,  Der  Index,  II.,  351,  352. 


3*4  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

might  obtain  his  Good  Will,  by  shewing  him  the  Works  of  Father 
Creighton :  So  that  which  Way  soever  the  Medal  turn'd,  it  still 
prov'd  to  the  Advantage  of  our  Society."* 

Whether  the  letter  is  genuine  in  this  form  is  uncertain. 
But  we  are  certain  of  the  existence  of  the  two  mutually 
contradictory  works  by  the  Jesuits  Parsons  and  Creighton 
mentioned  in  it,|  and  in  this  fact  lies  the  proof  of  the 
equivocation  of  the  Order  which  is  expressed  in  a  typical 
manner  in  this  letter.  And  this  is  the  point.  The  letter — 
in  case  it  is  not  genuine — would  then  be,  like  the  Monita 
secreta,  a  sharply  pointed,  satirical  exposure  of  Jesuit 
double  dealing. 

On  December  24th,  1613,  the  Jesuit  Adam  Contzen, 
Professor  of  Theology  at  Mayence,  suggested  in  a  letter 
to  the  Jesuit  Cardinal,  Bellarmin,  that  a  Supplicatio  to 
the  King  of  England,  or  to  the  Dutch  States-General, 
should  be  written  in  the  name  of  a  Protestant  preacher, 
showing  the  necessity  for  a  Calvinistic  council,  in  order 
to  divert  attention  from  a  letter  directed  against  Pope 
Paul  V.  (demonstrating  that  the  choice  of  the  Pope  was 
simoniacal,  consequently  invalid).;!; 

The  Jesuit,  Hugo  Roth,  also  pretended  that  he  was  a 
Dutch  Calvinist  in  his  anonymous  work,  Cavea  turturi 
structa,  published  in  1631,  against  the  Dominican  Jacob 
Gravina.  In  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Jesuit  Forer  he 
says  it  would  not  be  well  that  he  (Roth)  should  be  known 
to  be  the  author,  because  it  would  lead  to  a  popular  scandal 
if  it  were  known  that  members  of  the  Orders  attacked 
one  another.  § 

*  Collection  of  Papers  Relating  to  the  Present  Juncture  of  Affairs  in  England. 
Third  Collection,  p.  27.     London,  1689. 

f  Sommervogel,  S.J.,  Bibliotheque  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus  (Bruxellea -Paris, 
1895-1900),  6,  303  ;    9  (Supplement),  148. 

X  Dollinger-Reusch,  Moralstreitigkeiten,  I.,  550,  and  II.,  262. 

§  Ibid.,  I.,  584 ;   II.,  309. 


Jesuit   Morality  315 

Specially  characteristic  of  the  Jesuits  was  their  attempt, 
towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  known  as  "  The 
Douai  Knavery  "  (la  fourberie  de  Douai),  to  destroy  the 
Catholic  Theological  University  at  Douai,  which  dis- 
pleased them  because  it  had  a  tendency  towards  Jansenism. 

A  professor  at  Douai,  P.  de  Ligny,  became  implicated 
in  a  secret  correspondence.  The  writer  of  the  letters, 
who  pretended  to  be  the  Jansenist  leader,  Antoine  Arnauld 
(he  always  signed  himself  as  Antoine  A.  and  had  the 
answers  sent  to  Brussels,  which  was  then  Arnauld's  place 
of  residence),  severely  attacked  the  Jesuits,  and  warmly 
took  up  the  cause  of  the  Jansenists.  The  aim  of  the 
correspondence  was  to  unmask  Ligny  and  the  other  pro- 
fessors as  Jansenists.  The  object  desired  was  achieved 
and  Louis  XIV.  deprived  the  Professors  Laleu,  Rivette, 
Ligny  and  Malpaix  of  their  office,  and  banished  them  to 
different  parts  of  France.  The  cunning  correspondent, 
"  who  had  rendered  such  a  signal  service  to  religion,"  was 
not,  however,  Antoine  Arnauld,  but  a  Jesuit,  probably 
the  Jesuit  Lallemand  who,  as  Sainte-Beuve*  reports, 
when  an  old  man,  still  boasted  "  avec  jubilation,  qu\l 
avait  imagine,  file  et  conduit  a  la  fin,  qyCil  se  proposait, 
la  fameuse  fourberie  de  Douai." 

The  "  Fourberie  de  Douai "  created  great  commotion. 
All  respectable  people  were  unanimous  in  its  condemnation. 
Leibnitz  pronounced  upon  it,  saying : 

"  The  deceit  in  the  Douai  case  is  very  wicked  and  a  very  bad 
example.  In  legal  parlance  it  may  be  designated  as  stellionatus 
(artful  deception).  But,  in  spite  of  everything,  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  Jesuits  will  gain  much  by  it ;  for  if,  as  seems  probable, 
the  matter  is  taken  up  further  in  the  courts  of  law,  the  handwritings 
will  be  compared,  and  it  will  easily  be  seen  that  the  handwriting 
is  not  that  of  Arnauld,  and  the  Jesuits  of  Douai  will  be  forced  to 
say  how  they  obtained  the  documents.     Besides,  the  intrigue  bears 

*  Port  Royal,  5,  464.  , 


316  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

several  marks  of  falsehood,  so  that  I  cannot  see  the  use  of  such  a 
cunningly  contrived  piece  of  roguery,  except  to  cause  alarm  among 
the  ignorant.  .  .  .  I  do  not  believe  that  these  controversies  [the 
affair  at  Douai]  can  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion ;  the  failings  of  human  nature  are  only  too  well  known, 
and  the  Jesuits  have  given  too  many  proofs  of  their  vindictive 
character  to  be  considered  exempt  from  human  passions.  Doubtless 
their  general  superiors  ought  to  express  their  strong  disapproval 
of  those  who  have  carried  out  the  affair  at  Douai,  which  was  a  very 
dishonourable  business  (chose  forte  mcdhonneste)  .  .  .  But  it  seems 
that  two  considerations  restrain  the  Superiors  (although  they  must 
be  exceedingly  displeased,  as  I  readily  believe).  In  the  first  place; 
they  think  that  their  punishment  would  damage  the  reputation 
of  the  Society  [of  Jesus] ;  secondly,  they  have  such  a  bad  opinion 
of  the  so-called  Jansenists  that  they  rejoice  over  the  matter  as  a 
service  rendered  to  the  Church,  although  they  do  not  approve  of 
all  the  circumstances.  [Leibnitz  thus  clearly  reproaches  the  Jesuits 
with  their  observance  of  the  principle  '  The  end  sanctifies  the 
means.']  If  I  were  in  place  of  these  Superiors,  I  would  make 
amends  to  Arnauld."* 

The  Jesuits  themselves,  however,  thought  very  differ- 
ently on  the  subject  of  "  making  amends,"  as  the  above- 
mentioned  remark  of  the  chief  culprit,  the  Jesuit  Lalle- 
mand,  shows. 

Arnauld  himself  tried  to  obtain  the  "  amends  "  by 
publishing  several  "  complaints  "  against  the  Jesuits.  It 
is  stated  in  one  of  these  : 

"  I  appeal  to  you,  my  right  reverend  Fathers.  ...  It  only 
remains  for  me  to  cite  you  before  the  tribunal  of  all  honest  people 
in  the  world,  who  are  already  so  indignant  about  the  rascality  of 
the  false  Arnauld,  so  that  if  nothing  else  can  avail  to  shame  you 
the  fear  of  public  infamy  may,  at  any  rate,  compel  you  to  change 

*  Letters,  dated  September  12th  and  October  9th,  1691,  to  Landgraf  Ernst 
von  Hessen-Eheinfels  :  Rommel,  Leibniz  und  Landgraf  Ernst  von  Eessen-Bheinfels 
(Frankfort,  1847),  II.,  pp.  306  and  326. 


Jesuit  Morality  317 

your  attitude;  .  .  .  There  is  only  one  way  for  you  to  save  the 
honour  of  your  Society,  show  honour  to  God,  and  acknowledge 
that  all  those  of  your  Society  who  have  taken  part  in  this  wretched 
intrigue  have  acted  very  badly."* 

The  Jesuits  also  tried  by  a  cunning  trick  to  disarm 
the  Dominican  Concina,  one  of  the  keenest  opponents  of 
their  moral  teachings.  Such  a  trustworthy  witness  as 
the  Jesuit  Cordara  gives  an  account  of  this : 

"  Whilst  the  struggle  against  the  Jesuits  raged  thus  [chiefly 
stirred  up  by  Concina],  a  violent  work  suddenly  appeared  from  a 
secret  place  of  publication  with  the  title  Conduct's  Recantation,  in 
which  Concina,  repenting  of  his  misdeeds,  withdrew  his  accusations 
against  the  Jesuits,  accused  himself  of  wicked  malignity,  and 
unmercifully  reproached  himself  with  many  infamous  actions. 
Nobody  doubted  but  that  a  Jesuit  was  the  author  of  the  pamphlet, 
which  was  immediately  circulated  through  the  whole  city  [Rome] 
and  was  eagerly  read  on  account  of  its  satirical  wit."f 

Is  it  surprising  that  this  false  and  treacherous  spirit 
which  pervades  the  manuals  of  moral  theology  and  the 
"  glorious "  history  of  the  Order  should  also  make  its 
way  into  the  daily  life  of  the  Jesuit  ?  Ever  since  my 
suspicions  were  aroused,  in  the  second  year  of  my  novitiate, 
regarding  the  Order's  secrecy,  concealment  and  avoidance  of 
the  light,  they  never  ceased  to  disturb  me  ;  and  numerous 
experiences  proved  to  me  that,  in  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
Christ's  saying,  "  Let  your  communication  be  Yea,  yea  ; 
Nay,  nay,"  is  not  observed,  but  that  the  words  of  the 
genuine  Jesuit  are  full  of  secondary  meanings  and  reser- 
vations. My  mistrust  of  the  uprightness  of  their  words 
and  deeds  became  insurmountably  strong  as  time  passed, 

*  Seconde  Plainte  de  M.  Arnavld  aux  R.  E.  P.  P.  JesuUes,  from  Arnauld, 
31,  453  et  seq. ;  for  the  evidence  concerning  the  "  false  Arnauld  "  cf.  Beusoh, 
Beitrdge  zur  Geschichte  des  Jesuitenordens  (Munich,  1894),  pp.  169-195. 

f  Denkvriirdigkeiten,  Dollinger,  Beitragc,  3,  10. 


3*8  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

especially  in  the  case  of  five  influential  Jesuits  who 
were  my  Superiors  —  Meschler,  Nix,  Ratgeb,  Hovel 
and   Piitz. 

»  Words  cannot  express  what  a  subordinate,  especially 
one  who  is  so  absolutely  dependent  as  a  subordinate  in 
the  Jesuit  Order,  suffers  in  an  atmosphere  of  falsehood, 
which  surrounds  him  and  emanates  from  his  superiors. 
And  this  suffering  was  not  felt  by  myself  alone.  Others, 
too,  were  oppressed  by  its  weight.  Only  very  rarely, 
and  then  but  casually,  did  one  of  us  dare  to  speak 
to  another  of  his  feelings.  For  both  alike  have  the  right 
and  the  duty  to  report  everything  they  hear  to  the  Superior. 
In  the  Jesuit  Order,  there  are  no  friends  to  whom  we  can 
confide  cares  and  mental  anguish  without  fear  of  betrayal. 
The  Constitutions  of  the  Order  have  made  breach  of 
confidence  a  law.  And  yet  I  once  heard  a  complaint  of 
the  untruthfulness  which  pervaded  the  Order  made  in  a 
most  affecting  manner  by  a  fellow-Jesuit,  a  dying  one, 
it  is  true,  who  had  nothing  more  to  hope  for  and  nothing 
to  lose. 

In  1889  or  1890,  the  Jesuit  Niemoller  died  at  Exaeten 
of  consumption.  I  frequently  visited  him,  and  he  spoke 
to  me  confidentially.  Once  he  said  to  me  in  a  hoarse, 
rattling  voice  :  "Do  you  know  what  has  been  the  hardest 
thing  in  the  Order,  what  has  caused  me  the  severest 
spiritual  tortures  ?  The  feeling  of  being  surrounded  by 
a  system  which  is  full  of  reservation.  But  we  must 
believe  that  our  judgment  is  mistaken,"  he  added  hastily, 
"  for  the  Church  has  certainly  approved  the  Jesuit  Order 
with  its  theory  and  practice."  I  did  not  reply  to  the 
poor  man,  because  the  authority  of  the  Church,  to  which 
he  could  still  cling,  had  already  begun  to  totter  in  my 
estimation.  For  years  this  "  authority "  had  also  pre- 
vented my  condemnation  of  Jesuit  untruthfulness. 

One  afternoon — it  must  have  been  in  1887  or  1888 — 


Jesuit   Morality  319 

I  was  in  the  library  at  Exaeten.  A  report  had  spread 
amongst  us  that  the  neighbouring  estate  of  Oosen,  which 
is  situated  on  the  Maas,  had  been  bought  by  the  German 
Province  of  the  Order  as  a  place  for  recreation.  Whilst 
I  was  there,  the  Socius  of  the  Provincial  Superior, 
the  Jesuit  Putz,  entered.  No  one  could  give  more  positive 
information,  so  I  asked  him  if  this  report  was  founded 
on  truth,  i.e.  whether  the  estate  had  been  bought,  or 
would  be  bought.  He  replied  without  hesitation,  "  No, 
what  are  you  thinking  of  ?  '  On  the  following  day,  it 
was  announced  that  Oosen  had  been  bought,  and  the 
purchase  was  actually  legally  concluded  in  the  morning 
of  the  day,  on  the  afternoon  of  which  the  Jesuit  Piitz, 
who  knew  exactly  the  fact  of  the  purchase,  had  so  definitely 
denied  it. 

I  have  already  mentioned  the  mental  reservation  which 
the  Jesuit,  Cardinal  Franzelin,  advised  me  to  employ  on 
taking  the  official  oath  when  I  entered  the  Prussian  State 
service,  and  how  deceitfully  the  Jesuit  Superior  at  Blyen- 
beck  (unfortunately  I  also  had  a  share  in  this)  kept  a 
"  magister  meal "  secret  from  my  uncle,  Baron  Felix 
von  Loe. 

All  these  are  small  passages  from  daily  life — I  could 
easily  multiply  them — which,  owing  to  their  insignificance 
and  frequency,  show  especially  clearly  the  extent  to 
which  untruthfulness  has  become  incorporated  in  the  flesh 
and  blood  of  the  Jesuit.  He  no  longer  feels  that  re- 
strictions, reservations,  and  the  like  are  dishonourable, 
and  that  they  offend  against  faith  and  honesty.  The 
"  classic  moral  theologians  "  of  his  Order  teach  that  they 
are  permissible  ;  members  of  the  Order,  to  whose  "  virtue  " 
and  "  saintliness  "  the  history  of  the  Order  calls  special 
attention,  practise  "  knaveries  "  and  make  use  of  mental 
reservations ;  why  then  should  such  teachings  and 
examples  not  be  followed  in  daily  life  ? 


320  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

2.  The     End    Sanctifies    the    Means. — I    may    be 

mistaken,  but  in  my  view  it  is  here  we  find  the  deepest 
shadows  over  Jesuit  morality. 

The  oft-quoted  maxim,  "  The  end  sanctifies  the  means," 
does  not  occur  in  this  abrupt  form  in  the  moral  and 
theological  manuals  of  the  Order.  But  its  signification, 
i.e.  that  means  in  themselves  bad  and  blameable  are 
"  sanctified,"  i.e.  are  permissible  on  account  of  the  good 
ends  which  it  is  hoped  to  attain  through  them,  is  one  of 
the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Jesuit  morals  and  ethics. 

It  is  well  known  that  many  violent  disputes  have  raged 
about  this  maxim.  The  Jesuit  Roh  offered  a  reward  oi 
1,000  florins  to  anyone  who  could  point  it  out  in  the 
moral  and  theological  writings  of  the  Order.  The  matter 
was  not  decided.  In  April,  1903,  the  Centre  deputy, 
Chaplain  Dasbach,  repeated  Ron's  challenge  at  a  public 
meeting  at  Rixdorf,  increasing  the  sum  to  2,000  florins. 
I  took  Herr  Dasbach  at  his  word,  published  the  proofs 
from  Jesuit  writings,  which  appeared  to  me  convinc- 
ing, in  the  magazine  Deutschland*  edited  by  myself,  and 
called  on  the  challenger,  Herr  Dasbach,  to  pay  the  2,000 
florins.  He  refused.  I  sued  him  for  payment  at  the 
County  Court  at  Treves  (Dasbach's  place  of  residence). 
The  court  pronounced  that  the  matter  was  a  betting 
transaction,  and  that  the  money  could  not  be  recovered 
at  law.  On  appealing  against  this  to  the  High  Court  of 
Appeal  at  Cologne,  my  case  was  dismissed  on  March  30th, 
1905,  on  the  ground  that  the  passages  brought  forward 
from  Jesuit  authors  did  not  contain  the  sentence,  "  The 
end  sanctifies  the  means,"  either  formally  or  materially. 
My  counsel  advised  against  applying  for  a  revision  at  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  Empire,  as  the  facts  of  the  case 
would  not  be  discussed  there,  only  technical  errors  in  the 
previous  judgments. 

*  July,  1903. 


Jesuit  Morality  321 

I  have  given  the  main  points  of  the  Cologne  judgment 
in  the  Zeitschrift  fur  Kirchengeschichte,*  with  my  comments, 
and  there  also  expressed  the  well-founded  supposition 
that  in  essential  points  it  was  composed  with  the  assistance 
of  Jesuit  theologians.  But  even  this  judgment  contains 
the  sentence,  "  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  morality 
manifested  in  these  cases,"  etc. 

All  the  proceedings,  with  the  quotations  (Latin  and 
German)  from  the  writings  of  the  leading  moral  theo- 
logians of  the  Jesuit  Order,  have  been  given  in  detail 
in  my  work,  Der  Zweck  heiligt  die  Mittel,  an  ethical  his- 
torical examination,  together  with  an  Epilogus  galeatus,\ 
to  which  I  refer  the  reader. 

I  will  only  submit  a  few  passages  here  : — 

The  Jesuit  Becanus  says : 

"Is  it  an  offence  if  a  person  advises  another  to  do  the  lesser 
evil  so  that  he  may  abstain  from  the  greater  ?  Or,  as  others  put 
the  question,  is  it  permissible  to  advise  the  lesser  evil  so  as  to 
prevent  the  greater  ?  In  particular,  may  I  advise  Peter,  who  wishes 
to  commit  adultery,  to  commit  a  simple  sin  of  unchastity,  so  that 
the  adultery  may  be  prevented  ?  Likewise,  may  I  advise  a  man 
who  wishes  to  steal  the  whole  treasure  to  be  satisfied  with  a  part  ? 
Some  believe  that  it  is  not  permissible,  for  we  must  not  do  evil 
that  good  may  come,  as  the  Apostle  says  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  iii.  8,  or,  which  is  the  same,  '  It  is  not  permissible  to  make 
use  of  a  bad  means  so  as  to  attain  a  good  end '  ;  thus  it  is  not 
permissible  to  steal  money  so  as  to  give  alms  from  it ;  it  is  not 
permissible  to  lie  so  as  to  convert  some  one  to  the  Catholic  Faith. 
Others  are  of  the  opposite  opinion,  as  Dominicus  Soto,  Sylvester 
(Prierias),  Navarrus,  Adrianus,  and  Johannes  Medina  en  Vasquez 
...  To  this  is  added  a  proof  based  on  reason  :  It  is  permissible 
to  advise  Peter,  who  is  determined  to  sin,  to  commit  a  more  trivial 
sin  without  designating  the  object  of  the  lesser  sin.  And  yet  the 
result  of  this  advice  is  that,  while  he  was  previously  determined 

*  Vol.  27,  p.  339  et  seq. 

f  Third  Edition  (Berlin,  1904),  C.  A.  Schwetschke  und  Sohn. 

I 


322  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

to  commit  adultery,  he  is  now  advised  rather  to  commit  a  simple 
act  of  unchastity.  This  latter  point  of  view  must  be  thus  under- 
stood :  If  I  saw  Peter  disposed  and  absolutely  determined  to 
commit  adultery  so  as  to  satisfy  his  desires,  and  I  was  not  able 
to  dissuade  him  from  his  design  in  any  other  way  than  by  advising 
him  to  commit  a  simple  act  of  unchastity  in  place  of  the  adultery, 
it  would  be  permissible  to  advise  the  latter,  not  inasmuch  as  it  is 
a  sin,  but  inasmuch  as  it  prevents  the  crime  of  adultery,  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  committed.  Augustinus  also  speaks  in 
this  sense  when  he  says  that  both  murder  and  adultery  are  sins, 
but,  for  all  that,  if  a  man  be  determined  to  commit  one  of  the 
two,  he  should  rather  choose  adultery  than  murder.  I  say  the 
same  of  the  thief  or  robber,  who  is  determined  to  steal  from  Peter 
his  whole  stock  of  gold  articles.  For,  if  I  cannot  prevail  on  him 
in  any  other  way  than  by  the  advice  to  be  satisfied  with  half, 
it  is  permissible  to  advise  him  to  commit  the  lesser  theft  so  that  he 
may  abandon  the  greater.  The  reason  is  that  he  who  advises 
thus  does  not  injure  Peter,  but  rather  renders  him  a  benefit ;  he 
contrives  so  that  Peter  retains  half  his  possessions,  which  he  would 
otherwise  have  lost  entirely."* 

The  Jesuit  Castropalao  says : 

"  Does  a  man  commit  a  sinful  offence  if  he  offers  another  an 
occasion  for  sin  or  does  not  remove  the  occasion  offered  although 
he  could  do  so  ?  If  you  do  not  remove  the  opportunity  for  sin, 
with  the  intention  that  the  other  should  sin,  it  is  clear  that  you 
yourself  sin  on  account  of  the  evil  intention.  It  remains  doubtful 
whether  you  are  excused  from  the  sin,  if  you  were  prompted  by 
some  good  purpose.  The  motive  may  be  either  that  the  person 
in  question  may  be  caught  committing  the  sin  and  punished,  or  that 
he  may  be  reformed,  or  that  you  secure  yourself  from  harm.  If 
you  act  from  any  of  the  above  reasons,  you  do  not  apparently 
approve  the  sin  of  the  other  person,  but  permit  it.  But  as  to  this 
we  must  say  that  if  you  merely  permit  the  sin  of  the  other  so  that 
he  may  be  detected  and  punished,  then  you  yourself  sin,  for  there 
does  not  seem  sufficient  reason  to  justify  such  a  permission.     The 

*  Opera  omnia.  Moguni.    1649,  Partis  secundae  tract,  1,  o.  27,  qu.  4,  p.  396  ct  eeg. 


Jesuit   Morality  323 

punishment  is  not  a  worthy  aim  in  itself,  because  it  can  only  be 
imposed  when  the  sin  has  been  committed  ;  indeed,  if  you,  before 
the  sin  has  been  committed,  desire  the  punishment  for  the  sin, 
it  implies  a  silent  consent  to  the  sin  itself.  This  is  the  opinion 
expressed  by  Medina  .  .  .  Sanchez  .  .  .  and  Bonacina.  They 
say,  for  instance,  that  guards  by  concealing  themselves  so  as  to 
extort  a  very  heavy  fine  from  travellers  who  have  unlawfully  passed 
the  frontier  are  guilty  of  a  deadly  sin,  which  is  very  hard.  But  if 
you  permit  another  to  sin  so  that  he  may  be  detected  and  reformed, 
it  is  allowable,  and  it  follows  from  what  we  have  said  when  treating 
of  admonition  on  the  sixth  point ;  for  the  reform  of  the  sinner, 
which  is  confidently  expected,  seems  to  be  sufficient  reason  for 
permitting  the  commission  of  the  sin.  Besides  the  above-named 
theologians,  this  doctrine  is  held  by  Navarrus  .  .  .,Navarra  .  .  ., 
Valentia  .  .  .,  and  Sanchez,  who  again  cites  Bonacina  .  .  ., 
Molina  .  .  .  and  Joh.  Sanchez.  .  .  .  But  the  prospect  of  reform 
must  be  almost  certain,  for  only  then  can  the  hope  of  permanent 
and  radical  improvement  make  up  for  the  permission  of  the  pro- 
spective sin.  In  the  second  place,  I  say  that  you  may  permit  a 
sin  so  as  to  make  your  position  secure.  For  these  reasons,  a  married 
man,  when  he  suspects  his  wife  of  adultery,  or  is  secretly  aware 
of  it,  may  take  witnesses  with  him  so  that  he  may  prove  the  adultery 
and  may  bring  about  the  divorce.  As  the  husband  suffers  the 
greatest  injury  through  the  wife's  adultery  when  he  is  forced  to 
live  with  her,  he  may,  to  avert  this  wrong,  and  as  no  other  practic- 
able way  of  doing  so  is  presented,  except  permitting  the  sin  and 
confirming  it  by  witnesses,  permit  it  and  call  in  witnesses.  Navarra, 
Sanchez,  Bonacina  and  Molina  hold  this  view.  The  difficulty 
arises,  is  it  permissible,  for  the  purpose  named,  to  offer  the  sinners 
the  opportunity  for  the  sin  ?  A  common  opinion  negatives  the 
permissibility,  for  this  does  not  only  entail  permitting  a  sin,  but 
co-operating  in  its  perpetration,  and  Emmanuel  Sa.  .  .,  Sanchez 
.  .  .  and  Bonacina  hold  this  view.  Hence,  as  Bonacina  and 
Sanchez  reason,  the  husband  is  not  allowed  to  come  to  terms  with 
his  wife  that  she  may  make  an  appointment  with  her  lover,  who 
seeks  to  violate  her  chastity,  fixing  time  and  place,  not  in  order 
that  the  adultery  may  be  committed,  but  in  order  that  the  latter 
may  be  caught  in  his  wicked  design.     For  such  an  agreement  is 


324         Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

a  tacit,  indeed,  an  express  consent  to  the  proposed  adultery,  which 
is  not  permissible.  Peter  Navarra  considers  it  permissible,  however, 
though  only  in  rare  cases,  to  offer  sinners  an  occasion  for  sin.  It  may 
be  said  as  a  proof  of  this  :  In  the  first  place,  an  occasion  for  sin 
may  be  presented  by  a  passive  medium.  This,  for  example,  is  the 
case  when  the  father,  who  wishes  to  catch  the  son  who  is  stealing, 
leaves  the  key  in  the  money  chest  as  if  through  forgetfulness,  or 
places  coins  in  a  place  where  the  son  can  easily  take  them  and 
then  be  convicted  of  the  theft ;  then,  I  say,  the  father  performs 
an  indifferent  action.  Sanchez  and  others  hold  the  same  opinion 
in  this  case.  In  the  same  way  a  woman  does  not  seem  to  sin  when 
she,  in  presence  of  a  seducer  from  whose  importunity  she  cannot 
defend  herself,  uses  an  ambiguous  expression  which  the  seducer 
takes  as  consent,  but  which  is  in  reality  no  consent  on  her  part. 
When  she  says,  for  instance,  to  the  seducer  :  '  I  agree,  if  you  come 
at  this  time  and  hour,  the  door  will  be  open,'  the  expressions  are 
indifferent,  and  although  they  are  considered  by  the  seducer  as 
a  consent  to  the  adultery,  this  is  not  the  case.  Consequently,  it 
is  allowable  for  her  to  express  herself  in  this  way,  because  she  has 
a  sufficient  reason  for  the  equivocation.  Granted,  moreover,  that 
the  expression  might  appear  to  the  seducer  as  a  consent  to  the 
adultery  under  given  circumstances,  yet  it  is  no  consent  when  the 
matter  is  well  considered ;  for  such  an  expression  is  frequently 
used,  not  in  order  that  the  adultery  may  be  committed,  but  so 
that  he  who  secretly  designs  it  may  be  punished.  The  woman 
does  not  say,  '  I  agree  to  your  carrying  out  your  wicked  design,' 
but  only,  '  I  agree  to  your  coming  to-night.'  These  words  may  not 
only  denote  that  he  should  come  for  adultery,  but  just  as  well  that 
he  should  only  come  to  receive  his  punishment,  so  that  she  may 
rid  herself  of  his  attentions  and  defend  her  honour.  .  .  .  Does 
a  man  commit  a  sinful  offence  who  advises  a  person  about  to  commit 
a  serious  sin  to  commit  a  less  serious  one  ?  .  .  .  It  is  certainly 
permissible  to  suggest  a  smaller  offence  to  some  one  who  is  quite 
determined  to  perpetrate  a  serious  one,  so  that  he  may  be  prevented 
from  committing  the  greater.  For  example,  you  may  urge  one 
who  wishes  to  commit  sodomy  to  commit  a  simple  unchaste  act ; 
and  you  may  point  out  to  one  who  wishes  to  commit  a  murder  and 
then  to  steal,  how  to  obtain  money  through  usury  ;    for  by  this 


Jesuit  Morality  325 

indication  you  do  not  directly  tempt  the  person  either  to  unchastity 
or  to  usury,  you  only  point  out  the  way  in  which  the  greater  sin  may 
be  avoided,  and  although  the  way  is  morally  wrong,  you  do  not 
induce  the  other  to  follow  it,  but  you  only  say  that  this  is  the  way 
to  avoid  the  greater  sin,  which  is  true.     This  is  the  view  of  Covar- 
ruvias,  Cajetan,  Valentia,  Sanchez,  Lessius  and  other  theologians 
to  be  mentioned  later.     The  difficulty,  therefore,  begins  when  the 
question  is  whether  it  is  permissible   expressly  to  advise   anyone 
who  is  determined  to  commit  a  grievous  sin  and  persuade  him 
to  commit  the  lesser  sin,  when  he  cannot  be  restrained  in  any  other 
manner.     The  first  opinion  teaches  that  it  is  permissible  in  this 
case,  for  you  do  not  persuade  the  other  absolutely  to  commit  the 
lesser  sin,  but  only  on  the  hypothesis  that  he  wishes  to  commit  the 
more  serious  sin.     In  case  he  wishes  to  commit  the  more  serious 
sin,  however,  it  is  right  to  persuade  him  to  be  satisfied  with  com- 
mitting the  lesser  sin,  for  by  this  his  own  cause  and  God's  are  fitly 
protected.     Consequently  you  do  not  sin.     This  is  what  is  taught 
by  Sanchez,  who  cites  others  besides,  Lessius  .    .    . ,  Rebellus  .    .    . , 
Molina  .    .    .,   Bonacina  .    .    .,   and   Vasquez.   .    .    .   The  second 
view  teaches  that  it  is  in  no  case  permissible  to  recommend  the 
lesser  sin  to  him  who  wishes  to  commit  the  greater.     For  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  lesser  sin  is  still  a  counsel  to  sin  :   a  comparative 
presupposes  a  positive.     But  to  advise  something  which  is  unlawful 
is  not  permissible.     Moreover,  free  choice  of  the  lesser  sin  is  never 
permissible,  even  when  it  is  made  by  one  who  is  ever  so  determined 
to  commit  the  greater  sin.     Consequently  the  advice  to  do  this  is 
never  permissible.     Advice  to  do  something  which  is  in  itself  not 
allowable  can  never  be  permitted.     This  is  the  view  of  the  theo- 
logians Cajetan,  Covarruvias,  Sylvester,  Emanuel  Sa,  Valentia  and 
Conrad  Summenhart.     In  this  matter,  I  believe  that  the  first  point 
of  view  is  correct  if  he  who  is  advised  to  commit  the  lesser  sin  and 
persuaded  to  do  so  is  already  prepared  not  only  to  commit  the 
greater  sin,  but  also  the  lesser.     For  then  we  do  not  advise  the 
commission  of  the  lesser  evil,  but  the  omission  of  the  greater ; 
also,  we  do  not  determine  the  sinner  to  commit  the  lesser  sin,  but 
rather  deter  him  from  the  perpetration  of  the  greater.     This  is 
clear  from  the  following  example  :    Peter  is  determined  to  kill 
Francis  in  order  to  rob  him ;  he  wishes  to  commit  the  murder, 


326  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

and  you  persuade  him  to  be  satisfied  with  wounding.  In  giving 
this  advice  you  wrong  no  one  :  you  do  not  injure  Peter,  because 
you  take  care  that  his  soul  is  not  stained  with  so  many  crimes  ; 
nor  yet  Francis,  because  you  manage  his  business  advantageously. 
It  follows  from  this  that  you  are  allowed  not  only  to  advise  Peter 
in  this  case  to  commit  the  theft,  but  also  to  help  materially  in  the 
act,  because  you  do  not  help  in  an  act  which  is  not  permissible  in 
itself  and  wicked,  but  which  is  rather  good  and  honest  so  far  as 
you  are  concerned,  being  committed  with  the  tacit  and  assumed 
consent  of  the  owner  of  the  property  who,  it  is  supposed,  in  order 
to  escape  death,  has  given  you  permission  to  aid  in  the  theft,  so 
that  his  death  is  prevented  by  this  assistance.  This  is  the  view 
of  Sanchez,  Bonacina  and  Vasquez."* 

f  The  Jesuit  Voit  says': 

'  In  regard  to  the  knotty  question  whether  it  is  a  sinful  offence 
to  recommend  a  lesser  sin  to  one  who  would  otherwise  certainly 
commit  a  greater,  Valentia  and  Sa  reply  that  it  is  not  permissible, 
for  even  the  smaller  sin  remains  a  sin,  consequently  to  advise  it 
always  remains  something  bad  in  itself ;  Laymann,  Dicastillo  and 
others  reply  with  a  distinction.  If  the  lesser  evil  is  comprised  in 
the  greater,  and  the  greater  evil  cannot  be  prevented  otherwise, 
it  is  permissible  to  advise  the  lesser  evil,  because  then  the  lesser 
sin  is  not  advised  and  suggested,  but  it  is  only  intended  that  he 
who  is  determined  to  commit  the  greater  sin  shall  abstain  from 
committing  a  part  of  it.  It  is  not  permissible,  however,  to  advise 
the  lesser  evil  when  it  is  by  no  means  contained  in  the  greater  evil — 
for  example,  to  advise  one  who  is  determined  to  commit  a  murder 
to  get  drunk — for  that  means  to  cause  him  to  commit  a  sin  which  he 
had  by  no  means  intended  to  commit.  In  the  former  case,  that 
evil  is  not  directly  advised,  but  it  is  chosen  as  a  means  for  pre- 
venting the  greater  evil.  Sanchez  and  other  weighty  theologians 
declare  it  to  be  permissible  to  recommend  the  lesser  evil,  although 
it  is  not  contained  in  the  greater,  because  then  also  the  evil  is  not 
recommended  as  such,  but  only  as  a  means  of  hindering  the  greater 
evil.  ...  He  who  does  not  remove  the  occasion  for  sin  [though 

*  Operis  m&ralia  pars  prima,  torn.  1,  pp.  476-478.     Ed.  Lugd,,  1669. 


Jesuit  Morality  327 

it  is  in  his  power]  to  the  end  that  the  person  should  be  detected, 
amend  and  repent,  does  not  sin,  because  this  action  is  not  designed 
to  lead  into  sin,  but  to  permit  a  sin  as  a  means  for  the  prevention 
of  many  sins."  * 

It  follows  from  these  passages  : 

1.  That  the  recommending  of  a  lesser  sin,  the 
presenting  of  an  opportunity  and  the  inducement 
to  commit  it,  is  morally  permissible  if  it  is  done 
in  order  to  prevent  a  greater  sin.  2.  That  the  preven- 
tion of  the  greater  sin  is  clearly  and  distinctly  desig- 
nated as  a  "  good  end."  3.  That  as  the  recommendation 
to  sin,  no  matter  how  small  it  may  be,  is  in  itself 
bad,  Jesuit  morality  sets  up  the  principle  that  a 
"  means  "  in  itself  bad  (advising,  presenting  of  an  oppor- 
tunity for  the  lesser  sin)  is  morally  permissible,  and  is 
"  sanctified "  by  the  "  good  end "  (prevention  of  the 
greater  sin). 

That  this  is  the  substance  of  the  above  moral  and 
theological  principles  cannot  be  contraverted  by  any 
subtleties.  On  the  contrary,  the  subtleties  which  the 
Jesuit  Becanus,  etc.,  employ  to  veil  this  result,  make  it 
even  clearer  to  every  person  endowed  with  healthy 
judgment.  And  it  is  just  these  subtleties  which 
show  in  an  unparalleled  way  the  unhealthiness  of 
Jesuit  moral  feeling,  and  justify  my  assertion  that 
the  darkest  shadows  in  Jesuit  morality  are  here  to  be 
found. 

3.  Tyrannicide. — Juan  Mariana,  a  celebrated  Jesuit 
and  an  "  ornament "  of  his  Order,  has  defined  with  un- 
precedented candour  and  minuteness  of  detail  the  doctrine 
of  the  lawfulness  of  the  murder  of  princes  (not  only  tyrants) 
in  his  book  Concerning  the  King  and  his  Education  (Be  rege 
et  regis  institutione),  published  in   1599  at  Toledo.    The 

*  Thtdoq,  moral.     Edit.  Lugdun,  1850,  L,  402,  406. 


328  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

book  bears  the  imprimatur  of  the  Order,  dated  "  Madrid, 
December  2nd,  1598  "  : 

"  I,  Stephan  Hojeda,  Visitator  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
for  the  Province  of  Toledo,  give,  under  the  power  of  special 
authority  from  our  General,  Claudius  Acquaviva,  per- 
mission that  the  three  books,  Concerning  the  King  and  his 
Education,  written  by  Father  John  Mariana,  of  the  same 
Society,  may  be  published,  because  they  have  been 
previously  sanctioned  by  learned  and  distinguished  men 
of  our  Order."* 

The  sixth  chapter  of  the  first  book  says  : 

"  A  noble  monument  has  been  recently  erected  in  France  which 
shows  how  important  it  is  that  the  people  should  be  pacified.  .  .  . 
Henry  III.,  King  of  France,  lies  there  murdered  by  the  hand  of  a 
monk,  and  the  charm  of  the  knife  has  been  thrust  into  his  entrails. 
This  is  an  ugly  but  memorable  spectacle  calculated  to  teach  princes 
['  frinci'pes?  not  '  tyrannos ']  that  godless,  hazardous  enterprises 
do  not  remain  unpunished.  .  .  .  Jacques  Clement  .  .  .  studied 
theology  at  the  college  of  his  Order,  the  Dominican.  When  he, 
in  answer  to  his  question,  had  been  told  by  the  theologians  that  a 
tyrant  could  justly  be  killed  ...  he  went  into  the  camp  on 
July  31st,  1589.  ...  On  August  1st,  which  is  dedicated  to  the 
chains  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  after  reading  Mass  (sacris  operatus), 
he  obeyed  the  summons  of  the  King,  who  was  out  of  bed  but  not 

*  The  approval  of  Mariana's  doctrine  by  the  censorship  of  the  Order  has  caused 
so  much  annoyance  to  the  Jesuits  that  they  keep  it  as  secret  as  possible.  Thus, 
for  example,  the  Jesuit  Cathrein,  a  learned  luminary  of  the  German  Province, 
specially  emphasises  the  official  approval  of  Mariana's  book,  but  suppresses  its 
approval  by  the  Jesuit  Order  (Moralphilosophie,  II.  (4),  671  (Freiburg,  1904) ). 
Here  is  a  still  more  significant  circumstance.  When  I  wrote  the  work  Warum 
sollen  die  Jesuiten  nicht  nach  DeutscMand  zuriick?  in  1891,  under  compulsion 
of  obedience  to  the  Order  (as  I  shall  presently  show),  I  mentioned  the  imprimatur 
of  the  Order  in  discussing  Mariana's  book.  The  Jesuit  Ratgeb,  at  that  time 
Provincial,  requested  me  to  omit  this  passage :  "  Why  should  we,"  was  the  gist 
of  his  comment,  "  put  weapons  into  our  enemies'  hands  ?  "  Reusch  charged  me 
with  the  sin  of  omission  in  the  Deutscher  Merlcur,  and  only  then  did  the  Jesuit 
Ratgeb  consent  to  the  reinsertion  of  the  passage — i.e.  the  mention  of  the 
Order's  imprimatur — in  the  second  edition  of  my  work,  on  the  ground  that  the 
fact  had  now  been  made  known  and  it  would  no  longer  be  advantageous  to 
suppress  it. 


Jesuit   Morality  329 

completely  dressed.     During  a  conversation,   he  drew  nearer  to 
the  King,  apparently  to  present  a  letter,  and  inflicted  a  deep  wound 
in  the  vicinity  of  the  bladder  with  a  knife  hidden  under  medicinal 
herbs.     What    magnificent    presence    of    mind !    what   a  glorious 
action  !   .    .    .  The  courtiers  who  rushed  in  covered  him  [the  monk] 
with   wounds.   ...  He   [the   monk]   bought   the   liberty  of  his 
country  and  nation  with  his  blood  ;  he  rejoiced  exceedingly  in  spite 
of  blows  and  wounds.     He  won  a  great  name  through  the  murder 
of  the  King.   .    .    .  Thus  died  Clement,  France's  everlasting  glory, 
as  most  people  believe.  .    .    .  Opinions  differ  as  to  the  monk's 
act.    Whilst  many  praise  him  and  consider  him  worthy  of  eternal 
renown,  others,  distinguished   by  discretion   and   learning,  blame 
him :    It  is  not  permissible,  they  say,  for  any  man  on  his  own 
authority   ...  to  kill  a  king  deposed  by  the  nation.  .    .    .  And 
they  confirm  this  with  many  proofs  and  examples.   .    .    .  This  is 
what  those  teach  who  espouse  the  cause  of  the  tyrant.    But  those 
who  espouse  the  people's  cause  can  bring  forward  as  many  and  as 
weighty  proofs.     It  is  certain  that  a  king  may,  if  the  circumstances 
require  it,  be  cited  before  their  tribunal  by  the  community  from 
which  he  derives  his  kingly  authority,  and,  if  he  scornfully  rejects 
the  remedy,  may  be  divested  of  his  princely  rank.   .    .    .  We  also 
see  that,  from  ancient  times,  those  who  have  murdered  tyrants 
are  held  in  honour.   ...  I  observe  that  philosophers  and  theo- 
logians agree  as  to  the  fact  that  a  prince  who  has  taken  possession 
of  a  state  by  arms  and  violence,  without  right  and  without  the 
consent  of  the  nation,  may  be  deprived  of  life  and  power  by  any- 
body (a  quocunque).     As  he  is  an  open  enemy  and  wrongfully 
oppresses  the  country  and  has  the  nature  and  name  of  a  tyrant 
in  truth  and  reality,  he  may  be  removed  by  any  means  (amoveatur 
quacunque  ratione)  and  be  deprived  of  the  power  of  which  he  has 
forcibly  possessed  himself.   .    .    .  When  a  prince  enjoys  his  power 
by  consent  of  the  people,  or  by  inheritance,  his  oppressions  and 
whims  must  be  borne  as  long  as  he  chooses  to  infringe  those  laws 
of  honour  and  morality  to  which  he  is  bound  as  a  person.     For 
princes  must  not  be  changed  lightly.   .    .    .  But  if  he  brings  ruin 
on  the  state   .    .    .  this  must  not  be  overlooked  in  silence.     But 
first  the  method  of  deposing  such  a  prince  must  be  carefully  con- 
sidered.  .    .    .  The  most  practicable  and  safest  method  seems  to 


330  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

be  to  authorise  the  public  assembly  to  determine  in  general  con- 
ference what  is  to  be  done.  ...  If  the  prince  then  amends,  I 
consider  that  he  must  again  be  reinstated  and  stronger  measures 
need  not  be  adopted.  If  he  refuses  the  remedy,  however  .  .  . 
it  is  permissible  to  deprive  him  of  his  power  after  judgment  has 
been  passed  upon  him.  .  .  .  And  if  the  state  cannot  defend 
itself  in  any  other  way,  it  is  permissible,  according  to  the  law  of 
self-defence  and  on  a  man's  own  authority,  to  kill  the  prince,  who 
has  been  declared  an  open  enemy,  with  the  sword  (ferro  perimere); 
And  this  authority  is  possessed  by  every  private  individual  who 
seeks  to  aid  the  state,  abandoning  all  hope  of  impunity,  at  the 
risk  of  his  own  salvation.  You  ask  what  is  to  be  done  when  the 
authority  of  the  public  assembly  [of  the  Estates]  has  been  suspended, 
as  may  frequently  occur.  In  my  opinion,  the  matter  remains  the 
same  .  .  .  and  he  who,  in  accordance  with  public  wishes,  tries 
to  kill  the  prince  has,  in  my  opinion,  not  acted  wrongly.  This  is 
adequately  confirmed  by  the  evidence  which  I  have  already  brought 
forward  against  the  tyrants.  Consequently  it  is  only  the  question 
of  fact  (questio  facti)  which  is  disputable,  i.e.  who  should  be  regarded 
as  a  tyrant ;  the  question  of  justice  (questio  juris)  is  clear  that  a 
tyrant  may  be  killed.  .  .  .  It  is  well  for  princes  to  consider  that, 
if  they  oppress  the  State  and  become  unbearable  through  their 
vices  and  moral  infamies,  their  life  hangs  in  the  balance,  and  that 
it  is  not  only  lawful  to  kill  them,  but  even  honourable  and  glorious: 
...  If  all  hope  [of  the  prince's  reformation]  has  disappeared, 
and  if  the  State  and  the  sacredness  of  religion  are  in  danger,  who 
is  so  devoid  of  wisdom  that  he  cannot  acknowledge  that  it  is  right 
to  shake  off  tyranny  by  means  of  the  law  and  by  weapons  ?  .  .  . 
This  is  my  opinion  founded  on  sincere  conviction,  and  since,  being 
human,  I  may  be  mistaken,  I  shall  be  thankful  if  anyone  can 
advance  anything  better.  I  close  the  discussion  with  the  words 
of  the  tribune,  Flavius,  who,  convicted  of  participation  in  the 
conspiracy  against  Nero,  and  asked  why  he  had  forgotten  his  oath, 
replied,  '  No  soldier  was  more  faithful  than  I  at  the  time  when  you 
deserved  to  be  loved.  I  began  to  hate  you  when  you  became  a 
matricide,  wife-murderer,  racer  and  incendiary.'  A  soldierly  and 
brave  spirit !  "* 

*  De  rege  et  regis  institutione,  pp.  65-80. 


Jesuit   Morality  331 

In  Chapter  7  Mariana  asks  the  question,  "Is  it  per- 
missible to  kill  a  tyrant  by  poison  ?  "     He  writes  : 

"  It  is  a  glorious  thing  to  exterminate  the  whole  of  this  pesti- 
lential and  pernicious  race  [of  tyrants]  from  the  community  of 
mankind.  Limbs,  too,  are  cut  off  when  they  are  corrupt,  that 
they  may  not  infect  the  remainder  of  the  body ;  and  likewise  this 
bestial  cruelty  in  human  shape  must  be  separated  from  the  State 
and  cut  off  by  the  sword.  .  .  .  The  question  is  only  whether  a 
public  enemy  and  tyrant  may  also  be  killed  by  poison  and  deadly 
plants.  This  question  was  addressed  to  me  a  few  years  ago  by  a 
prince  in  Sicily  when  I  was  teaching  theology  there.  ...  In  my 
opinion,  it  is  not  permissible  to  mix  either  an  injurious  medium 
or  poison  in  food  or  drink.  But  there  is  one  reservation  [killing 
by  means  of  poison  is  permissible] :  if  the  person  to  be  killed  is 
not  obliged  to  drink  the  poison,  but  the  poison  is  applied  from 
outside  without  the  co-operation  of  [the  person  to  be  killed].  Thus, 
for  example,  if  the  poison  is  so  virulent  that  a  chair  or  dress 
besmeared  with  it  has  the  power  to  kill."* 

Consequently  Mariana  has  not  only  "  tyrants,  usurpers  " 
in  his  mind,  as  is  asserted  by  Jesuits,  but  also  legitimate 
princes  (principes)  who  rule  "  tyrannically." 

The  attitude  of  the  Order  towards  Mariana's  teaching 
is  extremely  instructive. 

The  approval  of  his  doctrine  by  the  censorship  of  the 
Order,  based  on  an  examination  by  "  learned  and  impor- 
tant "  theologians,  has  already  been  mentioned.  Only 
seven  years  after  the  publication  of  the  book  does  General 
Acquaviva  seem  to  have  found  fault  with  the  contents 
in  a  letter  to  the  French  Province  of  the  Order.  But  the 
censure  is  made  in  such  a  general  manner  and  without 
mentioning  any  name,  that  it  cannot  positively  be  shown 
to  be  directed  against  Mariana. 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  81-85.  The  Jesuit  Cathrein  had  the  audacity  to  write  opposite 
these  plain  words  of  Mariana's,  "  But  only  by  open  violence  [may  a  tyrant  be 
killed,  according  to  Mariana],  not  by  poisoning,  as  Mariana  emphatically  adds 
later"  (Moralphilosophie,  II.  (4),  672  (1)). 


332  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Again  and  again  I  must  repeat  that  the  Jesuits  rely 
on  the  blind  credulity  of  their  readers.  And,  indeed, 
how  easy  it  would  have  been  for  the  General  of  the  Order, 
if  he  had  really  wished  to  condemn  and  censure  Mariana's 
teaching,  to  have  expressed  his  condemnation  and  censure 
in  an  effective  manner,  and  checked  the  further  circulation 
of  the  book. 

Instead  of  this,  a  reprint  of  Mariana's  book  was  issued 
at  Mayence  (typis  Balthasaris  Lipii,  impensis  haeredum 
Andreae  Wechelii)  in  1605.  And  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
this  was  published  with  at  least  the  tacit  consent  of  the 
Jesuits,  who  were  then  almost  omnipotent  at  Mayence. 
Indeed,  the  omission  of  Mariana's  most  disgraceful  words 
regarding  the  murderer  of  Henry  III.  ("  France's  eternal 
glory"),  an  omission  which,  as  Reusch  pertinently  indicates, 
"  would  scarcely  have  been  suggested  by  the  Protestant 
publisher,"*  renders  the  conclusion  as  to  the  co-operation 
of  the  Jesuits  in  the  new  edition  almost  inevitable.  Even 
the  Jesuit  Duhr  admits  that  it  may  be  "  possible  that 
the  changes  in  the  Mayence  edition  are  due  to  a 
Jesuit,  "f 

Consequently  the  words  of  Isaac  Casaubon,  addressed 
as  far  back  as  1611  to  the  Jesuit  Fronton  Le  Due,  remain 
unanswered  and  unanswerable  : 


"...  Wechel's  Successors  are  merchants,  and  do  not  pretend 
to  any  literary  knowledge.  They  were  informed  by  a  Jesuit  of 
high  standing  that  Mariana's  book,  printed  at  Toledo  and  approved, 
was  to  be  issued  in  a  complete  edition  for  the  public  weal.  They 
were  not  expected  to  do  anything  except  defray  the  cost  of  printing  ; 
they  were  not  to  trouble  about  anything  else,  because  the  book 
was  to  be  published  at  Mayence  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus.     They    did    as    they    were    bidden.    Wechel's    Successors 

*  Beitragc  zur  Geschichte  des  J  esuitenordens  (Munich,  1894),  p.  7. 
i   Jesuitenfabeln  (4),  p.  739. J 


Jesuit  Morality  333 

supplied  the  money,  as  requested,  and  the  Jesuits  managed  every- 
thing else."* 

The  murder  of  Henry  IV.  by  Ravaillac  followed  on 
May  14th,  1610.  A  storm  of  indignation  arose  in  France 
against  Mariana's  doctrine,  the  Parisian  Sorbonne  had  his 
book  burnt  by  the  public  executioner,  and  only  then  did 
the  Order,  in  the  person  of  its  General,  Acquaviva,  oppose 
the  doctrine.  But  even  this  opposition  which,  as 
circumstances  show,  was  due  solely  to  opportune  reasons, 
presents  so  much  that  is  characteristic  of  the  Jesuits 
that  we  are  justified  in  doubting  whether  it  was  meant 
seriously. 

In  the  first  place,  Acquaviva  issued  a  letter  on  July  6th, 
1610,  which  threatened  with  the  most  severe  punishment 
all  those  belonging  to  the  Order  who  defended  the  per- 
missibility of  tyrannicide.  (Here,  too,  Mariana  is  not 
named.)  It  is  a  striking  fact  that  this  threat  was  not 
sent  to  Spain,  where  naturally  the  greatest  impression  had 
been  made  for  the  previous  twelve  years  by  Mariana's 
book,  nor  yet  to  the  remaining  Provinces  of  the  Order, 
but  only  to  France,  obviously  to  appease  the  bitter  anger 
which  prevailed  there  against  the  Order  owing  to  the 
murder  of  the  King.  On  August  14th,  1610,  Acquaviva 
wrote  to  the  remaining  Provinces  of  the  Order  in  a  different 
key  and  without  the  threat  of  punishment,  f 

Meanwhile,  the  indignation  against  the  Jesuits  caused 
by  Mariana's  teaching  continued  to  increase,  and  troubles 
of  every  kind  came  upon  the  Order  from  every  side. 
Finally,  Acquaviva  caused  a  third  letter,  dated  August  1st, 
1614,  four  years  after  his  first  letter,  to  be  sent  to  all  the 
Provinces,  repeating  the  threat  of  punishment  contained 
in  the  first  letter,  which  had  only  been  sent  to  Paris,  t 

*  Casauboni  Epistdae,  Edit.  2  (Magdeburg,  1666),  p.  728  et  sea. 
f  Monumenta  Germ,  paed.,  9,  48  (3). 
t  Ibid.,  9,  47. 


334  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

This  threat  was  then  also  inserted  in  the  Constitutions  of 
the  Order :  * 


"  In  virtue  of  holy  obedience,  under  pain  of  excommunication, 
ineligibility  to  hold  any  office,  privation  of  ecclesiastical  office  and 
other  punishments  at  the  will  of  the  General,  it  is  commanded  that 
no  person  belonging  to  our  Society  shall  presume  to  assert  publicly 
or  privately,  in  lectures  or  in  counsels,  and  still  less  in  books, 
that  any  person  (cuique  personae)  is  permitted  under  any  pretext 
of  tyranny  (quocunque  praetextu  tyrannidis)  to  kill  kings  or  princes, 
or  to  contrive  their  death  :  praecipitur  .  .  . ,  ne  quis  .  .  .  affirmare 
praesumat,  licitum  esse  cuique  personae,  quocunque  praetextu  tyran- 
nidis, Reges  aut  Principes  occidere,  seu  mortem  eis  machinari" 

But  this  "  severe  "  decree  is  probably  the  most  cunning 
piece  of  deception  which  has  ever  been  published  officially 
concerning  an  important  matter.  For  under  the  prohibi- 
tion accompanied  by  the  heaviest  punishments,  "that  it  is 
not  permitted  to  any  person  under  any  pretext  of  tyranny 
to  kill  kings  or  princes,"  is  concealed  the  permission  that 
certain  persons,  under  certain  pretexts  of  tyranny  or  in 
face  of  "  real "  tyranny,  are  allowed  to  do  so.  In 
addition  the  perfect  tense  licitum  esse,  instead  of  the 
present  licere,  should  perhaps  be  rendered  "  has  been 
permitted,"  in  which  case  it  is  possible  that  the  whole 
decree,  together  with  its  punishments,  only  refers  to  the 
past,  so  that  a  prohibition  of  the  doctrine  of  tyrannicide 
for  the  present  and  future  is  not  contained  in  the  decree. 

Thus  the  opposition  of  the  Order  to  Mariana  closed 
with  a  piece  of  real  Jesuitical  equivocation.  Where 
clearness  and  exactitude  of  expression  were  necessary  and 
easy,  after  fifteen  years  of  vacillation,  words  were  chosen 
which  do   not    absolutely  exclude  the   permissibility  of 

*  Inst.  S.J.  Censnrae  el  praecepla  hominibus  Societatis  imposila  (Edit.  Romse, 
1870),  II.,  51. 


Jesuit   Morality  335 

tyrannicide  in  certain  circumstances  (e.g.  in  cases  of 
"  real  "  tyranny)  for  the  present  and  future.* 

The  following  facts  also  throw  a  curious  light  on  the 
subject  of  Jesuits  and  tyrannicide. 

When,  after  the  attempt  by  John  Chatel,  a  pupil  of 
the  Jesuits  at  Clermont,  to  murder  Henry  IV.  of  France, 
on  December  27th,  1594,  a  domiciliary  visit  was  made 
to  the  Jesuit  college  of  that  place,  such  incriminating 
documents  were  found  in  the  possession  of  the  Jesuit 
Guignard  that  he  was  put  on  his  trial  and  was  hanged 
on  January  7th,  1595.  The  Jesuit  Prat,  the  historio- 
grapher of  the  Order  for  the  period  between  1564-1626, 
can  find  nothing  to  bring  forward  in  defence  of  his  fellow- 
member  *j*  but :  "  Les  auteurs  du  temps  s'accordent  si  feu 
sur  la  nature  de  ces  pieces  qu'il  n'est  pas  possible  de  la 
conclure  de  leurs  recits."  He  was  obliged  to  admit,  how- 
ever :  "  II  est  cependant  probable  que  le  P.  Guignard,  en 
qualite  de  bibliothecaire  (/),  avait  la  collection  des  ecrits  de 
loute  sorte  qui  avaient  ete  publies  sur  le  meurtre  de  Guise, 
sur  le  crime  de  Jacques  Clement  [the  murderer  of  Henry  III. 
extolled  by  the  Jesuit  Mariana]." 

*  The  Jesuits  try  to  reason  away  the  offensive  wording  of  the  threat.  The 
means  adopted  for  this  purpose  are  not  very  skilful.  They  assert  that  (see  Duhr, 
S.J.,  Jesuitenfabeln  (4),  p.  741  (3)  )  not  cuique  personae,  but  cuicunque  personae 
stood  in  the  original  text  of  the  decree,  and  that  cuique  is  a  "  printer's  error." 
But  this  "  printer's  error  "  is  to  be  found  in  two  editions  of  the  Constitutions 
officially  published  by  the  Jesuits  themselves  and  declared  to  be  "  authentic," 
namely,  the  Prague  edition  (1757,  II.,  5)  and  the  Roman  (1870,  II.,  51).  Accord- 
ing to  Duhr,  it  is  true,  the  word  used  in  the  newest  edition  of  the  Constitutions  of 
1893  is  cuicunque.  The  Order  refused  to  let  me  look  at  this  edition,  which  cannot 
be  obtained  through  booksellers.  But  even  if  the  statement  about  the  remarkable 
"  printer's  error  "  is  correct,  this  does  not  alter  the  sense  of  the  passage  in  question. 
Whether  we  should  read  cuique  or  cuicunque  personae,  in  both  cases  the  translation 
is,  "  Any  person  has  been  permitted,"  etc.  The  ambiguity  consequently  remains. 
The  Jesuits  Prat,  Schneemann,  Duhr  and  Reichmann  do  their  best  to  place  the 
attitude  of  the  Order  towards  Mariana  in  a  better  light  by  means  of  all  kinds  of 
"  historical  data."  Reusch  puts  aside  these  efforts  with  the  remark,  "  The  data 
here  collected  may  be  shown  as  partly  false,  partly  inaccurate,  and  partly  undemons- 
trable  "  (Beitrage,  p.  9),  and  proves  his  verdict. 

f  Recherche*,  etc.  (Lyons,  1876),  I.,  1888, 


336  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

Paolo  Sarpi  states*  that,  after  the  murder  of  Henry  IV., 
a  Jesuit  had  extolled  this  deed  as  meritorious  from  a 
pulpit  in  Prague.  And  Sarpi  adds  the  characteristic 
words :  "  Even  if  the  French  Jesuits  deny  that  they 
approve  of  the  doctrine  [Mariana's],  I  do  not  believe 
them,  even  if  they  swear  it ;  they  try  to  deceive 
God  by  some  equivocation,  mental  subterfuge,  or  silent 
reservation." 

A  "  memorandum,"  dated  April  1st,  1606,  signed  by 
the  Governor  of  the  Tower,  Sir  William  Waad,  and  by 
two  other  witnesses  (W.  Lane  and  J.  Locherson),  reports 
concerning  the  Jesuit  Garnet,  who  was  confined  in  the 
Tower  owing  to  his  participation  in  the  Gunpowder  Plot : 
"  Garnet  doth  affirm,  that  if  any  man  hath  or  should 
undertake  to  kill  His  Majesty,  that  he  is  not  bound  to 
confess  it,  though  he  be  brought  and  examined  before  a 
lawful  magistrate,  unless  there  is  proof  to  convince 
him."  f 

It  is  certain  from  the  testimony  of  the  Duke  of  Aveiro 
and  the  Counts  of  Atougouia  and  Tavora  (all  three  of 
whom  were  executed  as  accomplices)  that  the  Jesuits, 
especially  the  Jesuit  Malagrida,  by  instigation  and  advice, 
had  a  share  in  the  attempted  murder  of  King  Joseph  of 
Portugal  (September  3rd,  1758).  Amongst  the  papers 
belonging  to  the  Jesuit  Malagrida,  one  was  found  addressed 
to  the  Lady-in-Waiting,  Anna  de  Loreiia,  and  sent  back 
by  her  to  the  writer,  in  which,  months  before  the  per- 
petration of  the  act,  reference  is  made  to  it.  J 

Nor  was  Mariana's  doctrine  without  influence  on  the 
Jesuit  education  of  the  young.  In  1760,  the  Jesuit 
Longbois  made  his  pupils  compose  an  essay  which  bore 

*  Letter  dated  June  22nd,  1610,  to  Leschasser,  Le  Bret,  Magazin,  2,  318. 
f  Jardine,  A  Narrative  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot  (London,  1857),  p.  238  (1). 
X  Heeren  und  Ukert,  Geschichte  der  europaischen  Staaten  :  Schafer,  Oeschichte 
von  Portugal  (Gottia,  1854),  V.,  281  et  seq. 


Jesuit  Morality  337 

the  heading,  "  Brutus  encourages  himself  to  murder 
Caesar,"  in  which  the  sentence  occurred,  "  Shall  I  kill 
Caesar  ?  He  is  the  Emperor  .  .  .  yet  a  tyrant :  Brutus 
ad  caedem  Caesaris  se  hortatur.  Caesarem  inter  ficiam  ?  Est 
imperator  .    .    .  sed  tyr annus."* 

*  Reusch,  Beitrdge,  p.  57. 


W 


CHAPTER    XXV 

JESUIT   MORALITY   AND   THE   STATE 

The  Jesuits,  though  not  the  authors,  are  the  most 
energetic  champions  and  propagators  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  indirect  supremacy  of  the  Church  (Papacy)  over  the 
State. 

Since  the  two  greatest  theologians  of  the  Jesuit  Order, 
Bellarmin  and  Suarez,  reduced  this  doctrine,  inclusive  of 
the  right  of  the  Pope  to  depose  princes,  to  a  properly 
articulated  system,  it  has  been  a  rocher  de  bronze  of 
Ultramontane  Catholic  dogmatics  and  canon  law,  until 
at  length  the  Syllabus  of  December  8th,  1864,  and  the 
Encyclicals  of  Leo  XIII.  and  Pius  X.  raised  it  from 
the  sphere  of  theological  opinions  to  the  height  of  a  dog- 
matically established  doctrine.*  And  this  promotion  is 
the  work  of  the  Jesuit  Order. 

No  matter  what  dogmatic,  canonical  or  moral-theo- 
logical books  by  Jesuits  we  open,  we  encounter  in  all 
the  indirect  power  of  the  Church  over  the  State.  The 
subject  is  so  important  that  I  will  cite  numerous  proofs. 
I  will  begin  with  the  present  General  of  the  Jesuit  Order, 
Francis  Xavier  Wernz,  a  German  from  Wiirtemberg  :f 

"  The  State  is  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Church,  in 
virtue  of  which  the  civil  authority  is  really  subordinate  to  the  eccle- 
siastical and  bound  to  obedience.     This  subordination  is  indirect, 

*  Cf.  my  book,  Rom  und  das  Zentrum  (Leipzig,  Breitkopf  und  Hartel),  p.  16 
et  seq. 

t  Jus  Decretalium  (Romae),  1898-1901. 

338 


Jesuit   Morality  and  the   State     339 

but  not  merely  negative,  since  the  civil  power  cannot  do  anything 
even  within  its  own  sphere  which,  according  to  the  opinion  of  the 
Church,  would  damage  the  latter,  but  rather  positive,  so  that,  at 
the  command  of  the  Church,  the  State  must  contribute  towards 
the  advantage  and  benefit  of  the  Church."* 

"  Boniface  VIII.  pointed  out  for  all  time  the  correct  relation 
between  Church  and  State  in  his  Constitution  Unctm  sanctam,  of 
November  18th,  1302,  the  last  sentence  of  which  [that  every  person 
must  be  subject  to  the  Roman  Pope]  contains  a  dogmatic  definition 
[a  dogmaj.f  The  legislative  power  of  the  Church  extends  to 
everything  that  is  necessary  for  the  suitable  attainment  of  the 
Church's  aims.  A  dispute  which  may  arise  as  to  the  extent  of 
the  ecclesiastical  legislative  authority  is  not  settled  only  by  a 
mutual  agreement  between  Church  and  State,  but  by  the  infallible 
declaration  or  command  of  the  highest  ecclesiastical  authority. "J 

"  From  what  has  been  said  [namely,  that  the  Pope  may  only 
make  temporal  laws  in  the  Papal  States],  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  the  Roman  Pope  cannot  declare  civil  laws,  which  are  contrary 
to  Divine  and  canonical  right,  to  be  null  and  void.§  The  theory, 
which  calls  the  Concordats  Papal  privileges,  whilst  denying  the 
co-ordination  of  State  and  Church,  assumes  the  certain  and 
undoubted  doctrine  that  the  State  is  indirectly  subject  to  the 
Church.  This  opinion  is  based  on  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the 
Pope's  irrevocable  omnipotence,  in  virtue  of  Divine  right,  the 
valid  application  of  which  cannot  be  confined  or  restricted  by  any 
kind  of  compact."  || 

"As  it  not  infrequently  occurs  that,  in  spite  of  attempted 
friendly  settlement,  the  dispute  [between  Church  and  State]  con- 
tinues, it  is  the  duty  of  the  Church  authentically  to  explain  the 
point  of  dispute.     The  State  must  submit  to  this  judgment."^ 

'  The  most  celebrated  pronouncements  of  Pius  IX.  are  the 
encyclical  Quanta  cura  and  the  Syllabus  of  December  8th,  1864. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  encyclical  Quanta  cura  is  an  ex  cathedra 
pronouncement  of  the  Pope,  and  is  thus  infallible.  But  the  Syllabus 
can  also  rightly  be  named  a  definition  ex  cathedra,  although  the 
certainty  as  to  this  is  less  clear  than  in  the  case  of  the  encyclical 

*  Jus  Decretalium,  15  et  seq.  f  Ibid.,  29.  J  Ibid.,  105. 

§  Ibid.,  147.  ||  Ibid.,  216.  IT  Ibid.,  223. 


340  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Quanta  aura.  Since,  however,  both  documents  have  received  the 
assent  of  the  bishops,  they  have  both  become  the  certain  and 
infallible  rule  of  conduct."* 

The   central   organ  of  the   Jesuit   Order,   the   Civilta 
cattolica,  published  for  more  than  fifty  years  at  Rome,f 

says  : 

"  The  aim  of  the  civil  community  or  of  the  State  is  exclusively 
temporal  happiness.  But  this  is  subordinate,  in  the  human  being 
who  has  an  immortal  soul,  to  eternal  happiness,  to  which  the  Church 
and  the  Church  alone  can  lead.  In  the  case  of  a  human  being 
who  is  both  a  Christian  and  a  citizen  of  the  State,  the  duty  to  obey 
the  Church  stands  higher  than  the  duty  to  obey  the  State,  for  God 
must  be  obeyed  rather  than  man.  Consequently  the  authority 
of  the  State  is  subordinate  to  the  authority  of  the  Church.  But 
the  subordination  of  the  State  to  the  Church  is  not  only  com- 
manded by  reason.  This  is  also  the  general  teaching  of  the  Fathers 
and  Doctors  of  the  Church  [the  consensus  iheologorum].  .  .  . 
Finally,  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  expressly  teaches  in  his  dogmatic 
bull  Unam  sdnctam,  in  which  he  compares  the  two  powers  with 
the  two  swords  mentioned  in  the  Gospel,  that  the  temporal  power 
must  be  subordinated  to  the  ecclesiastical.  .  .  .  That  which 
apparently  belongs  to  the  domain  of  the  State,  such  as  purely 
civil  and  political  affairs,  is  completely  assured  against  all  danger 
of  encroachment  on  the  part  of  the  ecclesiastical  authority.  It  is 
true  that  the  line  of  demarcation  cannot  always  be  clearly  discerned 
at  the  points  of  contact.     But  even  here  a  dispute  between  State 

*  Jus  Decretalium,  354  et  seq.  It  is  very  remarkable  that  the  leading  Centre 
organ,  the  Kolnische  Volkszeitung  (Literarische  Beilage,  1901,  No.  52,  p.  399  et 
seq.),  bestows  great  praise  on  the  work  of  Wernz,  calling  "  its  programmatic 
statements  [and  the  statements  given  as  illustrations  are  doubtless  '  program- 
matic ']  modern  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word." 

f  The  Civilta  cattolica  is  the  recognised  mouthpiece  of  the  Vatican.  Pius  IX. 
gave  it  this  character  in  a  brief  of  February  12th,  1866,  so  that  the  Civilta  cattolica 
could  write  of  itself,  "  We  are  not,  it  is  true,  the  originators  of  Papal  thoughts, 
and  it  is  not  according  to  our  inspirations  that  Pius  IX.  speaks  and  acts,  but  we 
certainly  are  the  faithful  echo  of  the  Roman  See  "  (Supplement  to  the  Allgemeine 
Zeitung  for  November  19th  and  20th,  1869).  Leo  XIII.  and  Pius  X.  stood  and 
stand  in  closest  relation  to  the  Civilta  cattolica. 


Jesuit   Morality  and   the   State      341 

and  Church  is  not  permissible.     For,  since  the  former  is  subordinate 
to  the  latter,  the  Church  must  always  settle  the  dispute  which 
has  arisen  after  courteous  remonstrances  and  reasonable  discussions, 
and  the  State  has  no  more  right  to  oppose  its  decision  than  a  lower 
court  of  justice  to  resist  the  decision  of  a  higher.     .     .     .     The 
Christian  principles  as  regards  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the 
State  are  contained  in  the  saying  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  '  The  temporal 
power  is  subjected  to  the  spiritual  as  is  the  body  to  the  soul ;   and 
consequently  it  is  no  usurpation  when  a  spiritual  superior  interferes 
in  temporal  affairs.     A  distinction  must  be  made  here  between 
three  kinds  of  concerns.     In  the  first  place,  the  purely  spiritual, 
such  as  public  worship,  the  administration  of  the  Sacraments  and 
the  preaching  of  the  Word  of  God  ;  these,  of  course,  stand  exclusively 
under  ecclesiastical  authority.     Secondly,  the  mixed  concerns,  as, 
for  example,  marriage,  burial  and  charitable  institutions ;    these 
stand    under  the  power  of   both,  but  so  that   the   ecclesiastical 
authority  occupies  the   higher   place   and  intervenes  directly  in 
order  to  amend  and  annul  anything  which  the  civil   laws   may 
have  ordained  in  these  matters  in  opposition  to  the  Divine  or 
canonical  laws.     Finally,  the  purely  temporal  concerns,  such  as 
the  army,  taxes  and  the  civil  laws.     Although  these  stand  directly 
only  under  the  civil  power,  they  may  indirectly  [ratione  peccati] 
also  fall  under  the  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  if,  for  instance,  the 
laws  connected  with  them  promote  immorality,  or  are  in  any  way 
injurious  to  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  nation.     In  this  case,  the 
laws  issued  by  the  civil  power  may  and  must  be  revised  by  eccle- 
siastical authority,  and  rendered  void.     For  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
ecclesiastical  authority  to  prevent  public  sins  and  to  remove  the 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  eternal  salvation.   .    .    .  Catholicism  asserts 
the  necessity  of  that  harmony  which  follows  from  the  subjection 
of  the  State  to  the  Church.   ...  No  distinction  must  be  drawn 
between  individuals  and  the  State  ;    both  have  the  same  duty  ; 
the  ruler  does  not  live  for  himself,  but  for  those  whom  he  rules. 
Consequently,  he  must  so  arrange  his  business  that  it  is  in  accord- 
ance with  the  necessities  and  the  prosperity  of  his  subjects,  and 
does  not  hinder  but  promote  the  fulfilment  of  their  duties  and  the 
attainment  of  the  aim  which  they  have  as  human  beings.     If, 
then,  their  needs  and  welfare  and  the  voice    of   duty  necessitate 


342  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

submission  and  obedience  to  the  Church,  the  ruler  cannot  overlook 
this  in  the  arrangement  and  guidance  of  the  social  life  of  his  subjects. 
Obviously  this  holds  good  in  every  State,  even  though  the  ruler 
should  be  heterodox  ;   how  much  more  so  where  he  is  a  Catholic  ! 

"  '  The  Church  is  a  real  kingdom,  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth, 
of  which  Christ  is  the  invisible  and  the  Pope  the  visible  monarch. 
.  .  .  It  is  the  duty  of  every  person  to  be  a  subject  of  this  king- 
dom. .  .  .  Every  person  baptised  is,  consequently,  more  subject 
to  the  Pope  than  to  any  earthly  ruler.   .    .    . 

"  '  The  Church  is  not  subordinate  to  the  State,  but  the  State  is 
subordinate  to  the  Church.  .  .  .  Hence  it  may  amend  and  annul 
the  civil  laws  and  the  temporal  decisions  of  the  courts  if  they  are 
contrary  to  spiritual  welfare  ;  it  may  check  the  abuse  of  the  executive 
power  and  of  armed  force,  or  command  the  use  of  the  same  when 
it  is  necessary  for  the  defence  of  Christian  religion.  The  tribunal 
of  the  Church  is  higher  than  the  civil ;  the  higher  tribunal  may 
revise  the  affairs  of  the  lower,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  lower 
cannot  in  any  way  revise  the  affairs  of  the  higher.'  "* 

The  doctrines  of  the  "  German  "  Jesuits  of  the  present 
time  are  of  special  interest.  Those  of  the  German  General 
of  the  Order  have  been  given  already,  and  I  will  add  the 
opinions  of  others  to  his. 

The  Jesuit  von  Hammerstein  writes  :  ")* 

"  Some  superiority  of  the  Church  over  the  State  is  consequently 
indisputable  ;  on  the  other  hand,  any  supremacy  of  the  State 
over  the  Church  is  but  an  illegal  usurpation.  But  of  what  nature 
is  that  hegemony  of  the  Church  ?  How  far  does  it  extend  ?  By 
what  standard  is  it  measured  ?  We  reply :  The  Church  has  the 
right,  even  where  statesmen  are  concerned,  '  to  bind  and  to  loose 
all  things,'  as  far  as  the  mission  of  the  Church  regards  such  a 
'  binding  and  loosing '  as  desirable  after  judicious  consideration 
of  the  circumstances ;  i.e.  all  spiritual  affairs  of  States  are  directly 
subordinate  to  the  Church,  and  all  temporal  indirectly  so  far  as 

*  Ser.  7,  Vol.  5,  pp.  139,  148,  276,  280,  647  ;    Vol.  6,  p.  19 ;   Ser.   6,  Vol.  7, 
p.  27  ;   Ser.  7,  Vol.  6,  pp.  291,  301. 

t  Kirche  and  Staat,  Freiburg,  1883. 


Jesuit   Morality  and  the  State      343 

they  are  affected  by  the  direct  mission  of  the  Church.*  .  .  . 
The  system  which  we  acknowledge  touching  the  fundamental  con- 
ception of  the  Christian  and  social  structure  is  consequently  that 
of  the  indirect  power  of  the  Church  in  temporal  matters.  We  not 
only  maintain  that  this  is  the  more  correct  view,  but  simply  the 
correct  and  only  true  one.f  .  .  .  The  Church  need  not  concern  itself 
with  temporal  matters,  but  with  the  incorporation  of  the  temporal 
(as  of  the  subordinate  and  individual)  into  the  spiritual.  For  incor- 
poration is  necessary,  and  no  other  kind  than  this  is  valid  .J  .  •  • 
We  may  thus  sum  up  the  entire  dominion  of  the  Church  (the  outer 
as  well  as  the  inner) :  The  Church  stands  above  the  State,  directly 
in  spiritual,  indirectly  in  temporal  or,  more  accurately,  in  mixed 
affairs,  i.e.  in  such  as,  besides  their  temporal  character,  have  also  a 
sufficient  spiritual  bearing  as  far  as  this  extends. §  ...  In  virtue  of 
its  teaching  office  the  Church  possesses  the  power  in  case  of  necessity 
to  define  the  boundaries  between  Church  and  State,  for  it  lies 
directly  within  its  province  to  establish  the  plenary  power  specially 
conferred  on  it  by  revelation  and  to  instruct  the  nations  on  the 
subject.  By  this  means,  however,  the  task  is  also  indirectly 
imposed  of  denning  the  limits  of  the  political  jurisdiction.  Not  only 
the  relation  between  Church  and  State,  but  also  the  relations  of 
States  to  one  another  and  to  their  dependents  are  subject  to  the 
doctrinal  judgment  of  the  Church. ||  ...  If  a  State  thinks  it  ought 
to  wage  war  against  its  neighbour,  it  is  a  peremptory  demand  of  the 
conscience  that  it  should  previously  remove  any  doubt  as  to  the 
legitimacy  and  permissibility  of  the  war  in  some  way  or  other, 
and  if  the  subjects  desire  or  are  compelled  to  take  part  in  the  war 
they  must  likewise  be  clear  as  to  the  permissibility  of  their  course 
of  action.  If  they  cannot  themselves  remove  the  doubt,  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  parties  concerned  to  apply  for  enlightenment  to  that 
authority  [the  Papacy]  which  Christ  has  established  for  the  reli- 
gious instruction  of  nations.^  .  .  .  The  priests  are  bound  to  observe 
the  civil  laws  so  far  as  they  do  not  contradict  the  holy  canons  or 
are  not  incompatible  with  the  sanctity  of  their  spiritual  status. 
But  they  are  not  subject  to  the  civil  laws  quoad  vim  coactivam, 
because  they  cannot  be  cited  before  the  temporal  but  only  before 
the  ecclesiastical  tribunal  for  the  violation  of  these  laws.  Priests  can 
*  P.  117.      f  P.  120.       %  P-  123.       §  P.  125.      ||  P.  133       f  P.  134. 


344  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

only  be  punished  by  a  temporal  judge  if  the  Church  hands  them 
over  to  the  temporal  arm  for  some  just  cause."* 

The  Jesuit  Laurentius  writes  : 

"  The  rights  of  the  Church  with  regard  to  the  State,  as  at  present 
claimed  by  the  Church,  are  contained  in  the  scheme  of  the  Vatican 
Council  concerning  the  Church.  .  .  .  What  was  proposed  there 
corresponds  well  with  the  teaching  of  the  indirect  authority  (cum 
doctrina  de  fotestate  indirectct  bene  conveniunt).  After  rejecting 
the  false  doctrine  concerning  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  civil 
authority,  the  scheme  sets  up  the  Catholic  doctrine  concerning  the 
civil  authority.  It  teaches  that  .  .  .  the  judgment  concerning 
the  rule  of  conduct  in  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  determine  questions 
of  morality,  permissibility  or  unlawfulness,  belongs,  even  as  regards 
the  State  and  public  affairs,  to  the  highest  teaching  office  of  the 
Church."t 

The  next  quotation  is  from  the  Jesuit  Lehmkuhl.  I 
have  already  spoken  of  Lehmkuhl's  importance  as  a  moral- 
theological  authority.  Lehmkuhl  and  his  teachings  have, 
however,  also  a  political  significance.  For  it  is  an  in- 
teresting fact  that,  in  discussing  and  voting  on  the  civil 
code,  the  Centre  Party  was  guided  by  the  directions  of 
the  Jesuit  Lehmkuhl ;  and  there  seems  no  reason  why 
it  should  not  again  apply  to  Lehmkuhl  as  its  adviser  in 
other  cases  also.} 

*  P.  141. 

f  Institut.  juris  ecdesiastici  (Freiburg,  1903),  p.  643,  644. 

%  Hermann  Oncken  published  in  his  book,  Rudolf  von  Bennigsen  (Munich,  1909), 
a  letter  by  the  leader  of  the  Centre  party,  Karl  Bachem,  addressed  to  Bennigsen 
on  July  6th,  1896,  in  whch  Bachem  states  that  in  the  "  Compromise  "  which  the 
Centre  had  arranged  with  the  other  parties  with  reference  to  the  civil  code,  the 
collaboration  "  of  the  German  Jesuits,  especially  of  their  most  prominent  authority, 
P.  Lehmkuhl,  was  of  the  first  importance.  In  the  other  discussions,  too,  con- 
cerning the  marriage  law,"  Bachem  relates  further,  "  we  have  always  enjoyed  the 
disinterested  advice  of  the  Jesuits,  and  if  we  have  succeeded  in  finding  a  way 
enabling  the  Centre  in  the  final  vote  to  approve  the  great  national  work  .  .  . 
the  Jesuits  have  done  outstanding  service  to  our  side."  Bachem  demands 
as  compensation,  because  "  the  Jesuits,  in  an  extremely  important  matter,  have 


Jesuit  Morality  and  the   State      345 

In  a  commentary  on  the  civil  code,*  Lehmkuhl  minutely 
criticises  Germany's  most  important  code  of  laws  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  Divine  and  ecclesiastical  law,  and 
declares  there  are  many  things  in  it  which,  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  Church's  supremacy  over  the  State, 
must  be  rejected. 

"  Because  civil  law  and  the  natural  and  ecclesiastical  law  clash 
on  several  points,  the  Catholic  cannot  conscientiously  avail  himself 
of  all  the  rights  which  the  civil  code  confers  on  the  citizens  of  the 
State  ;  the  spiritual  director  and  confessor  must  in  certain  cir- 
cumstances impose  a  duty  which  the  civil  code  does  not  set  up."f 

This  mobilisation  of  the  forces  of  the  spiritual  directors 
and  Catholic  lawyers  (for  we  must  not  forget  the  Union  of 
Catholic  lawyers)  against  the  civil  code  has  spread  far 
and  wide,  for  even  in  1900  Lehmkuhl's  Commentary  had 
reached  its  fifth  edition.  J 

Lehmkuhl  writes  in  his  Moral  Theology  : 

"It  is  evident  that  an  oath  taken  in  accordance  with  the  civil 
law  and  constitution  can  never  be  binding  with  reference  to  laws 
which  are  contrary  to  the  Divine  or  ecclesiastical  law.  Indeed, 
if  there  is  a  controversy  between  the  State  and  Church  at  the  time 
when  the  oath  is  required  and  civil  laws  are  issued  or  emphasised 
which  are  directed  against  God  and  the  Church,  it  is  not  permissible 
to  swear  except  with  reservation  and  the  omission  of  these  laws. 
But  if  these  [anti-ecclesiastical]  laws  are,  as  it  were,  buried  in  the 
codes,  although  they  have  not  been  expressly  pronounced  invalid 

again  so  brilliantly  proved  their  patriotic  attitude,"  Bennigsen's  assistance  in  the 
matter  of  the  suspension  of  the  entire  Jesuit  law,  which  Bennigsen  refused. 
Germany  consequently  owes  its  civil  code  "  in  the  first  instance  "  to  the  Jesuits, 
and  especially  to  the  Jesuit  Lehmkuhl. 

*  Das  Biirgerliche   Gesetzbuch  des  Deutschen  Reichs  nebst   Einfuhrungsgeseit, 
Freiburg,  1900. 

f  Ibid.,  V  or  wort,  p.  vh. 

%  Further  information  as  to  Lehmkuhl's  verdict  is  to  be  found  in  my  book, 
Moderner  Stoat  und  Romische  Kirche  (Berlin  :  C.  A.  Schwetschke  und  Sohn,  1906) 
pp.  80-88. 


346  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

by  the  State,  it  is  not  then  necessary  to  add  such  a  protest  expressly, 
as  the  person  who  takes  the  oath  must  reasonably  so  understand 
the  sense  of  the  oath  that  it  only  applies  to  valid  laws.  Kenrick 
and  Sabetti  [Jesuits]  teach  the  same  for  America.  The  same  may 
be  said  about  every  oath  of  allegiance  and  the  military  oath  ;  they 
must  also  be  understood  in  like  manner  in  ordinary  circumstances. 
Consequently,  if  a  soldier  is  commanded  to  do  something  which 
is  so  obviously  wrong  as  to  require  him  to  refuse  obedience,  or  if 
he,  through  his  officer's  fault,  is  exposed  to  spiritual  dangers,  it 
would  be  better  to  desert  from  military  service  than  be  exposed 
to  such  immediate  occasion  for  sin  ;  the  obligation  of  his  oath 
need  not  prevent  him  from  being  permitted  or,  under  some  cir- 
cumstances, even  compelled  to  leave  the  colours.  Indeed,  if 
anyone  is  forced  to  become  a  soldier  [e.g.  in  all  States  where  con- 
scription prevails],  it  must  be  considered  whether  the  compulsion 
were  just,  or  whether  the  oath  be  invalid  owing  to  unjust  com- 
pulsion, or  whether  it  involved  an  important  reason  for  mental 
restriction  or  dissimulation  in  swearing.-  .  .  .  The  obligation  of 
the  oath  [i.e.  of  any  oath]  can  be  directly  removed  by  the  eccle- 
siastical authority,  namely,  by  the  power  of  the  Pope  and  the 
bishops,  or  by  others  legally  delegated  in  accordance  with  the 
will  of  the  Pope."* 

But  the  strongest  incitement  to  the  disregarding  of 
civil  laws  is  afforded  by  the  Jesuit  Lehmkuhl  in  his  Con- 
science  Cases :  f 

"  The  priest  Remigius,  who  had  been  banished  from  his  native 
land  by  laws  relating  to  ecclesiastical  policy,  nevertheless  frequently 
returns  in  disguise,  even  for  pleasure,  exercises  spiritual  functions 
and  rejoices  over  the  fact  that  he  breaks  the  laws  with  impunity. 
When  the  functionary  Paul,  a  pious  Catholic,  hears  this,  he  takes 
no  action,  but  he  is  scandalised  at  the  fact  that  Remigius  does  not 
observe  the  laws  issued  by  the  legitimate  power,  and  begs  him, 

*  Theologia  moralis,  I.,  n.  411,  421,  423,  6  Edit,  Friburgi,  1890. 

t  Moral  theology  calls  imaginary  occurrences,  which  it  uses  as  foundations 
for  the  instruction  of  confessors,  "  conscience  cases  "  (casus  conscientiae).  The 
"  Conscience  Cases  "  of  the  Jesuits  Gury  and  Lehmkuhl  are  best  known  and  most 
widely  circulated. 


Jesuit   Morality  and  the  State      347 

through  a  friend,  to  discontinue  such  proceedings  in  future  in  order 
that  he  may  not  be  obliged,  should  Remigius  be  denounced  to 
him,  to  punish  him  according  to  his  office  and  conscience.  Remigius 
sends  him  a  jesting  reply  to  the  effect  that  he  fears  neither  laws 
nor  fines  ;  if  a  fine  should  be  imposed  upon  him,  he  has  a  key  at 
his  disposal  with  which  he  could  open  Paul's  money  chest  so  as 
to  take  from  him  the  money  to  pay  it ;  if  he  should  be  con- 
demned to  imprisonment,  he  has  arms  and  weapons  with  which 
he  could  defend  himself.  The  questions  are  :  1.  How  must  these 
laws  and  penalties  be  judged  ?  2.  Did  Remigius  act  rightly,  or 
was  Paul  right  to  take  offence  ?  3.  May  Remigius  carry  out  in 
earnest  what  he  has  threatened  in  jest  ? 

"  I  reply  to  the  first  question  that  it  does  not  follow  that  because 
such  laws  have  been  issued  by  the  legislative  power  they  are  proper 
laws.  Else  we  must  also  call  the  edicts  issued  by  Diocletian  against 
the  Christians  proper  laws.  It  has  been  stated  above  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  doctrine  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  it  is  essential  to  the 
existence  and  comprehension  of  a  law  that  it  should  be  a  reasonable 
regulation,  issued  by  those  who  are  devoted  to  the  care  of  the 
community,  and  that  it  must  be  promulgated.  If  only  one  of  these 
conditions  is  lacking,  it  is  no  law  ;  in  case  of  uncertainty  the  pre- 
sumption is  in  favour  of  the  legitimate  legislator.  Now  in  the  case 
of  these  laws,  most  of  these  conditions,  not  one  alone,  are  lacking. 
They  are  in  truth  and  reality  not  reasonable  regulations  because, 
for  numerous  reasons,  they  are  not  just,  because  they  violate  the 
superior  right  of  the  Church,  the  right  of  the  priest  and  the  right 
of  the  Catholic  nation  ;  indeed,  they  may  perhaps  even  attempt 
to  urge  the  priest  to  commit  a  dishonourable  and  forbidden  action. 
They  do  not  proceed  from  a  person  who  is  devoted  to  the  care  of 
the  community,  consequently  not  from  the  legitimate  authority. 
For  care  for  religious  matters  and  for  the  religious  community  is 
not  incumbent  on  the  State.  Consequently  the  authority  has 
even  less  legitimacy  than  if  the  French  Government  wished  to 
make  laws  for  the  German  Empire.  If  the  laws  are  invalid  as 
prohibitory  laws,  then  the  penalty  inflicted  by  them  is  not  legally 
imposed,  but  is  unjust,  i.e.  these  laws  are  null  and  void  as  penal 
laws. 

"  To  the  second  question  I  reply :    Remigius  is  not  guilty  of 


348  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

any  transgression  of  the  law ;  for  an  invalid  law  is  no  law.  Con- 
sequently, whether  he  returned  to  his  native  land  for  the  sake 
of  recreation  or  to  bring  spiritual  help  to  others,  he  did  not  transgress 
the  law.  Therefore  his  pleasure  in  the  non-payment  of  the  fine 
is  completely  free  from  objection  ;  the  rather  that  the  joy  at 
violating  this  law,  which  is  in  itself  invalid,  is  not  morally  blame- 
worthy. Paul's  vexation  is  consequently  unfounded.  Generally 
also  such  a  manner  of  dealing  [as  that  of  Remigius]  should  not  be 
a  cause  of  offence  to  Catholics,  but  rather  of  edification.  If  Paul, 
owing  to  his  faulty  education,  does  not  understand  that  which 
even  uneducated  people  understand,  he  must  be  taught  better. 
Paul  unjustly  threatens  to  inflict  fines.  He  has  acted  rightly  up 
to  now  by  overlooking  the  matter,  because  it  is  not  only  no  duty, 
but  even  unpermissible,  to  carry  an  unjust  law  into  effect.  But 
he  may  admonish  Remigius  and  beg  him  to  give  up  coming  back 
in  this  way  if  possible,  or  to  act  carefully,  so  that  he  (Paul)  may  not 
be  involved  in  any  difficulties. 

"  To  the  third  question  I  reply :  This  question  may  take  the 
following  form.  Is  not  Paul,  if  he  imposes  the  fine  upon  Remigius, 
obliged  to  refund  it,  as  a  violation  of  justice  has  taken  place  ?  May 
not  Remigius  oppose  an  attempt  at  arrest  ?  The  first  question 
must  be  answered  in  the  affirmative  if  Paul's  treatment  is  objec- 
tively unjust,  has  produced  a  result  and  is  theologically  very  sinful. 
Now  Paul's  deed  is  objectively  unjust ;  it  produces  an  actual 
effect  as  soon  as  Remigius  is  obliged  to  pay,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  as  to  the  theological  sin.  Paul,  however,  may  be  excused 
owing  to  subjective  ignorance.  In  such  a  case,  it  is  true,  he  would 
not  himself  be  obliged  to  refund  ;  but  Remigius,  in  demanding 
to  be  refunded,  need  not  assume  this  good  faith  on  Paul's  part. 
Although  it  would  be  better  for  Remigius  to  fall  back  upon  the 
chief  offenders,  namely,  upon  the  originators  of  the  unjust  law, 
for  repayment,  he  may  yet  betake  himself  to  any  person  imme- 
diately concerned  in  the  wrong,  especially  if  the  other  persons 
can  only  be  reached  with  difficulty.  A  distinction  must  be  drawn 
in  the  second  question.  As  the  cause  for  which  Remigius  is  punished 
is  evidently  unjust,  and  this  is  clear  to  every  reasonable  person, 
his  defiance,  if  conducted  without  bodily  injury  to  the  officials, 
is  not  blameworthy,  if  it  is  successful.     If  its  failure  could  be  anti- 


Jesuit  Morality  and  the  State      349 

cipated,  or  if  it  would  give  rise  to  offence,  it  would  be  better  to 
abstain  from  it.  Armed  defence,  or  bodily  injury  to  officials  would; 
as  a  rule,  not  be  permissible,  mainly  because  it  would  occasion 
greater  evil  and  popular  disturbances.  If,  therefore,  Remigius 
were  to  make  use  of  arms  and  weapons,  not  to  inflict  wounds, 
but  only  as  a  threat,  he  might  easily  be  acquitted  of  all  guilt."* 

Lehmkuhl  was  attacked  by  a  Catholic  critic  on  account 
of  this  "  case."  In  the  preface  to  the  second  edition  of 
his  "  Conscience  Cases  "  he  replies  thus  : 

"  I  am  blamed  because  I  have  permitted  a  priest,  who  is  expelled 
by  laws  which  are  in  themselves  invalid  because  they  have  no 
power  over  spiritual  affairs,  to  disregard  these  laws  even  without 
an  imperative  reason.  But  this  blame  has  only  strengthened  me 
in  my  opinion,  because  I  see  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
expel  that  most  pernicious  opinion  from  the  people,  that  even 
unjust  and  godless  laws  must  be  obeyed  so  long  as  their  neglect 
is  not  enforced  by  a  higher  law.  This  opinion  lessens  the  authority 
of  the  Church  and  strengthens  tyranny.  It  must  be  maintained 
absolutely  that  such  laws,  issued  by  a  usurping  power,  possess 
neither  of  nor  in  themselves  any  binding  power  ;  but  that,  if  they 
were  ever  to  be  binding,  this  is  only  by  chance  so  that  greater 
evil  may  not  arise.  Therefore,  those  who  violate  such  laws,  when 
there  is  no  danger  that  greater  evil  will  ensue  and,  as  in  our  '  case,' 
seek  to  return  to  their  country  for  pleasure,  are  morally  right  if 
they  do  it  in  an  honourable  and  temperate  manner ;  if  they  act 
in  an  intemperate  manner,  they  are  guilty  of  intemperance,  but 
not  of  law-breaking." -j- 


TOLEKATION,    EELIGIOUS    EQUALITY    AND    DENOMINATIONAL 

PEACE 

The  hatred  expressed  in  the  Imago  frimi  Saeculi,  in 
the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  of  all  those  who 

*  Casus  conscientiae,  I.,  casus  22,  2.    Edit.  Freiburg,  1903. 
t  Ibid.,  Preface,  p.  vii. 


350  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

hold  heterodox  views,  has  remained  the  key-note  of  the 
entire  pastoral  activity  of  the  Jesuit  Order. 

"  Peace  is  out  of  the  question.  The  seed  of  hate  is 
innate  within  us ;  Ignatius  is  for  us  what  Hamilcar  was 
for  Hannibal.  At  his  command  we  have  sworn  eternal 
war  [against  the  heretical  wolves]  at  the  altars."* 

An  enormous  mass  of  books  and  pamphlets  against 
"  heretics "  and  "  heresy "  has  been  published  in  the 
course  of  time  by  the  Jesuit  Order.  Most  of  them  are 
tuned  to  a  note  in  which  rage  and  vulgarity  are 
mingled. 

Time  and  custom  have  tempered  many  things.  But 
tolerance,  religious  equality  and  denominational  peace 
have  never  found  acceptance  among  Jesuits.  The  Jesuit 
Order  regards  these  foundations  of  the  modern  civilised 
State  as  symptoms  of  decay  in  the  structure  of  the  Christian 
social  order.  And  even  at  the  present  day  wherever  the 
opportunity  offers,  especially  under  the  favourite  cloak 
of  anonymity,  it  still  spits  out  poison  and  gall  against 
all  who  are  not  Ultramontane  Catholics. 

The  present  General  of  the  Order,  Francis  Xavier 
Wernz,  says  :f 

"  The  Catholic  Church  undoubtedly  considers  all  religious 
communities  of  unbelievers  and  all  Christian  [non- Catholic]  sects 
absolutely  illegitimate  and  destitute  of  every  claim  to  existence. 
Duly  baptised  members  of  non-Catholic  Christian  sects  are  formal 
rebels  against  the  Church  if  they  obstinately  persist  in  their  errors. 
For  through  baptism  they  are  subject  to  the  absolute  and  eternal 
control  of  the  Church.  It  is,  therefore,  a  grave  error  to  believe 
that  the  different  Christian  sects — for  example,  the  Anglicans, 
Lutherans,  members  of  the  Russian  Orthodox  Church,  etc. — are 
legitimate  parts  of  some  universal  Church,  and  are,  as  it  were, 
joined  to  the  Catholic  Church  as  sister- churches.   .    .    .  The  Catholic 

*  Imago  primi  Saeculi,  p.  843. 

t  Jus  Decretalium  (Romae  1898),  I.,  13,  52,  113. 


Jesuit  Morality  and  the  State      351 

Church  alone  possesses  a  real  ecclesiastical  law  objectively  and 
subjectively ;  what  is  sometimes  so  designated  in  the  case  of  other 
religious  communities,  whether  of  unbelievers,  Jews,  heretics  or 
schismatics,  is  only  an  apparent  ecclesiastical  law  (jus  putativum) ; 
it  is  therefore  not  permissible  to  deal  in  one  and  the  same  book 
with  the  ecclesiastical  law  of  Catholics,  schismatics  and  Protestants. 
.  .  .  According  to  Divine  right,  all  duly  baptised  Catholics, 
schismatics  and  heretics,  are  subject  to  ecclesiastical  law,  even 
against  their  wish  or  without  their  consent." 

The  Jesuit  Lehmkuhl  writes  :* 

"  The  Catholic  Church  insists,  and  has  pronounced  in  recent 
times  through  several  Popes  by  solemn  decrees,f  that  it  is  an 
erroneous,  perverse  and  absurd  assertion,  springing  from  the  muddy 
sources  of  indifferentism,  that  liberty  of  conscience  is  the  individual 
right  of  every  person.  .  .  .  Freedom  of  cult  can  at  best  be  regarded 
as  a  lesser,  perhaps  even  a  necessary  evil,  so  as  to  avoid  greater 
ones.  .  .  .  Inasmuch  as  by  the  word  '  cult '  or  denomination,  an 
organised  society  with  definite  religious  aims,  which  is  not  in 
harmony  with  the  [Catholic]  Church,  is  understood,  the  principle 
naturally  holds  good  that  the  denominations  separated  from  the 
Church  have  no  justified  existence  ;  they  have  no  social  rights. 
...  If  denominations  separated  from  the  Church  are  to  be  regarded 
as  legitimate  subjects,  it  is  only  in  so  far  as  their  general  aim  is  to 
worship  God  in  some  way,  but  not  in  so  far  as  they  are  especially 
Wesleyans,  etc.  In  their  concrete  form  they  are  characterised  by 
an  aim  which  is  godless  and  false,  and  consequently  falsifies  human 
nature  and  its  claims.  In  this  respect,  therefore,  they  can  never 
attain  a  jot  of  true  right  and  true  legitimation,  even  should  all 
kingdoms  of  the  world  unite  in  their  favour.  ...  It  is  useless 
to  object  that  the  various  sects  separated  from  the  Church  do  not 
pursue  such  unnatural  aims  as  heathen  superstitions  with  their 
many-headed  monstrosity.     This  may  be  so.   .    .    .  But  even  if  the 

*  Gewissens  und  Kvltusfreilieit :  Stimmen  aus  Maria-Loach,  1876,  pp.  195,  255, 
257,  258,  266,  406,  534,  536. 

t  Gregory  XVI.,  Mirari  vos  of  August  15th,  1832,  and  Pius  IX.,  Quanta 
Cura  of  December  8th,  1864. 


352  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

error,  to  which  they  adhere  in  good  faith,  promotes  the  general 
aim  of  the  worship  of  God,  good  faith  and  even  unmerited  error 
in  no  way  remove  from  the  specific  character  of  the  separate  sects 
as  such  the  taint  of  objective  illusion  and  consequent  objective 
illegitimacy.  If  good  faith  sufficed  for  the  creation  of  an  objective 
and  real  right,  all  manner  of  things  might  be  justified.  We  are  far 
from  instituting  a  comparison  here ;  but  good  faith  may  possibly 
exist  even  in  the  thieves'  caste  in  Madura.  .  .  .  It  is  the  duty  of 
the  State  to  be  Catholic.  A  Catholic  State  and  a  Catholic  prince 
must  always  regard  the  denomination  deviating  [from  the  Catholic 
Church]  as  an  evil." 

The  Jesuit  von  Hammerstein  says : 

"  The  State,  unless  it  desires  to  rebel  against  that  power  to 
which  it  owes  its  entire  authority,  must  be  Catholic,  or,  if  it  is  not, 
must  become  so.  We  consider  it  a  misfortune  that  in  the  delirium 
for  freedom  of  1848  and  the  following  years  complete  civil  rights 
were  bestowed  upon  the  Jews."  "  We  regard  as  a  regular  and 
healthy  condition  that  in  which  the  entire  population  without 
religious  schism  acknowledges  the  [Catholic]  Church  founded  by 
Christ.  ...  On  the  other  hand,  we  regard  as  an  abnormal  con- 
dition that  in  which  a  large  portion  of  the  inhabitants  are  not 
Catholics.  .  .  .  The  emancipation  of  all  cults — liberty  of  worship 
— should  never  go  beyond  the  requirements  of  the  individual  case. 
...  In  case  of  doubt  [as  to  the  granting  of  liberty  of  worship], 
enlightenment  must  be  sought  from  those  to  whom  Christ  said, 
'  He  that  heareth  you  heareth  Me.'  A  monarch,  even  a  constitu- 
tional one,  must,  before  he  signs  a  law,  regarding  the  admissibility 
of  which  he  is  not  absolutely  certain,  seek  instruction,  not  only 
from  a  theologian  present  at  court,  but  conformably  to  the  import- 
ance of  the  matter  [the  granting  of  liberty  of  worship],  from  the 
highest  doctrinal  authority  on  earth,  whose  duty  it  is  to  decide 
in  matters  of  religion  and  morals,  the  Vicar  of  Christ.  .  .  . 
Religious  equality  is  a  morbid  condition  which  may  be  required  by 
circumstances."* 

*  Kirche  und  Staat  (Freiburg,   1883),  pp.  81,  83,  180-182. 


Jesuit  Morality  and  the   State      353 

The  Jesuit  Cathrein  says  : 

"  Objectively  amongst  all  Churches  the  Catholic  Church  alone 
has  the  right  to  existence,  because  it  alone  is  the  true  one.  Con- 
sequently a  Catholic  government  in  an  entirely  Catholic  land  must 
not  permit  the  public  exercise  of  other  religious  creeds,  otherwise 
it  violates  the  right  of  the  Church.  It  is  not  as  though  a  govern- 
ment had  to  decide  what  is  true  or  false,  revealed  or  not  revealed, 
but  because  it  has  the  guarantee  of  the  infallible  ecclesiastical 
authority.  And  as,  according  to  God's  purpose,  all  governments 
and  peoples  should  be  Catholic,  there  ought  to  be  only  one  religious 
cult  on  earth,  namely,  the  Catholic,  so  that  all  humanity  should 
form  one  great  religious  family  under  the  Roman  Pope,  the  Vicar 
of  Christ.  .  .  .  But  this  is  an  ideal  aim  which  is  far  from  being 
realised.  Actually  at  the  present  day  in  almost  all  countries 
different  religions  are  found  side  by  side  in  peaceful  possession. 
What,  then,  should  be  the  attitude  of  a  Catholic  government  in  a 
land  with  an  entirely  mixed  population  towards  the  different 
religious  creeds  ?  We  say  a  Catholic  government  advisedly.  For  a 
government  founded  on  principles  of  religious  equality  must  afford 
the  same  civil  protection  to  all  publicly  acknowledged  creeds.  But 
a  Protestant  government  must,  from  its  own  religious  point  of  view 
— that  of  freedom  in  individual  judgment — let  its  subjects  decide 
which  of  the  Christian  religions  they  wish  to  embrace.  If,  never- 
theless, Protestant  governments  frequently  persecuted  those  whose 
faith  was  different,  this  only  proved  that  they  were  not  in  earnest  in 
regard  to  freedom  of  judgment.  Stress  was  only  laid  on  freedom 
of  individual  judgment  so  long  as  it  could  be  used  against  the 
existing  ecclesiastical  authority.  Besides,  a  government  can  only 
tolerate  one  particular  religious  creed  and  exclude  others,  if  it  is 
absolutely  certain  of  the  correctness  of  the  one  and  the  falseness 
of  the  others.  But,  apart  from  the  evident  truths  founded  on 
reason  as  to  the  existence  of  God,  the  reward  of  good  and  evil  in 
the  next  world,  etc.,  and  some  of  the  fundamental  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity, a  government  cannot  attain  this  conviction  of  itself,  but 
only  through  the  medium  of  an  infallible,  supernatural  doctrinal 
authority.  A  Catholic  government  can  count  upon  this,  but  not  a 
Protestant.     Is  it  then  permissible  for  a  Catholic  government  to 

x 


354  Fourteen   Years   a  Jesuit 

accord  complete  freedom  of  public  worship  to  the  different  Christian 
or  even  heathen  (Mohammedan  and  Jewish)  creeds  if  so  many  and 
such  different  denominations  come  within  its  sphere  of  power  ? 
Our  answer  is  Yes,  as  soon  as  these  can  no  longer  be  prevented 
from  existing  without  occasioning  great  evil.  True,  the  non- 
Catholic  creeds  have  no  right  to  existence  in  themselves  ;  and 
unity  in  the  true  religion  is  so  great  a  benefit  for  the  State  itself 
that  all  efforts  should  be  made  to  maintain  it.  This,  however, 
becomes  morally  impossible  when  once  several  religious  com- 
munities have  gained  a  firm  footing  in  a  land  and  cannot  be  opposed 
without  occasioning  greater  evil.  And,  what  is  more,  the  Catholic 
government  may  even,  for  very  pressing  reasons,  permit  the 
adherents  of  other  creeds  to  worship  publicly  and  protect  them  in 
this  as  in  their  other  civil  rights.  This  is  civil  toleration  which 
must  be  distinguished  from  religious  toleration.  A  Catholic  of 
profound  conviction  and  religious  education,  be  he  king,  minister, 
mayor  or  rural  policeman,  can  afford  religious  tolerance  to  no 
adherent  of  other  religions  ;  but  the  Catholic  government  may  and 
must  afford  and  practise  civil  toleration  where  it  has  become  a 
necessity."* 

The  extreme  limit  of  toleration,  the  killing  of  heretics, 
also  finds  a  place  in  the  armoury  of  Jesuit  morals  and 
ethics. 

I  will  pass  over  the  teachings  of  the  most  prominent 
Jesuits  of  the  seventeenth  century  (Bellarmin,  Tanner, 
Laymann,  Escobar,  Castropalao,  etc.)f  and  will  here  only 
put  together  a  few  of  the  remarks  of  "  modern  "  Jesuits. 

The  Jesuit  J.  L.  Wenig,  Royal  and  Imperial  Professor, 
and  in  1866  Rector  at  the  University  at  Innsbruck,  says  : 

"  The  passing  of  the  sentence  of  death  upon  heretics  was  at 
any  rate  not  unjust,  as  the  crime  of  heresy  can  only  be  meetly 
atoned  for  and  entirely  prevented  from  injuring  the  ecclesiastical 

*  Moralphilosophie,  II.  (4),  pp.  563  et  seq. 

t  They  are  to  be  found  in  my  book,   Moderner  Staat  und  rotnische  Kirche 
Berlin  :    0.  A.  Schwetachke  und  Sohn,  1906),  pp.  141  et  seq. 


Jesuit   Morality  and  the  State      355 

and  civil  community  by  capital  punishment.  .  .  .  We  have  seen 
that  the  ecclesiastical  Inquisition  cannot  agree,  with  the  modern 
ideas  as  to  toleration,  enlightenment  and  humanity,  but,  for  all 
that,  I  cry,  '  Long  live  the  ecclesiastical  Inquisition  ! '  For  these 
ideas  are  not  only  unchristian,  but  also  unreasonable,  while  the 
mission  of  the  Church  whicn,  through  the  Inquisition,  watches 
over  the  purity  of  dogmatic  theology  and  ethics,  is  divine  and 
consequently  independent  of  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  of  circum- 
stances."* 

The  Jesuit  de  Luca  says  : 

''  First  of  all  the  Church  merely  excommunicated,  then  imposed 
fines,  then  banished,  and  finally,  though  only  under  compulsion, 
proceeded  to  capital  punishment.  For,  since  heretics  scorn  excom- 
munication and  fines,  and  if  sent  to  prison  or  exile,  infect  others, 
the  only  effectual  remedy  is  to  send  them  prematurely  to  their  own 
proper  place.  .  .  .  Theologians  are  so  certain  that  the  Church 
has  the  right  '  at  least  indirectly '  [through  the  State  as  bailiff]  to 
pass  sentence  of  death  that  some  most  severely  blame  those  who 
dispute  the  right  of  the  Church  to  inflict  capital  punishment.  Suarez 
[the  chief  theologian  of  the  Jesuit  Order]  says  it  is  a  Catholic 
doctrine  that  the  Church  may  punish  heretics  with  death."f  •  •  • 
'It  is  the  duty  of  the  State  to  punish  the  heretic  with  death  at 
the  direction  and  by  the  order  of  the  Church ;  it  cannot  deliver 
the  heretic  handed  over  to  it  by  the  Church  from  this  punishment. 
Capital  punishment  is  not  only  incurred  by  those  who  have 
apostasised  as  adults,  but  also  by  all  who  obstinately  adhere  to 
the  heresy  imbibed  with  their  mother's  milk.  Where  this  punish- 
ment exists,  it  is  incurred  by  all  apostates  to  heresy,  even  if  they 
wish  to  become  reconverted,  as  well  as  by  all  who  remain  obstinate 
when  reproved  for  heresy."^  ..."  Heretics  and  apostates  who 
previously  belonged  to  the  Church  may  be  forced  by  the  Church, 
through  bodily  punishment  and  even  capital  punishment,  to  return 

*   Uber  die  kirchliche  und  politische  Inquisition,  1875,  pp.  65,  72,  74. 
f  Institut.  juris  eccles.  publici.  Bomae,  1901,  I.,  143,  145. 
J  Ibid.,  I.,  143,  145,  146,  261  et  seq. 


356  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

to  the  true  faith.     This  is  what  all  theologians  to-day  teach  in 
accordance  with  St.  Thomas  Aquinas."* 

In  the  KirchenlexiJcon,  the  Jesuit  Granderath  undis- 
guisedly  defends  the  justice  of  capital  punishment. f 

He  declares  that  the  punishments  for  heresy — banish- 
ment, confiscation  of  property  and  death — appear  heavy 
at  the  present  time,  "  partly  owing  to  the  sentimental 
objection  to  severe  requital  of  crime,  peculiar  to  our  age, 
and  partly  to  an  incorrect  estimate  of  the  crime  of  heresy." 

And  the  Jesuit  Laurentius  writes  in  another  part  of 
the  KirchenlexiJcon : 

"  If  the  Church  excludes  all  those  who  have  taken  part  in 
executing  a  death  sentence  from  service  at  the  altar,  it  does  not 
follow  that  this  punishment  cannot  also  be  inflicted  by  it.  That 
the  Church  has  really  the  power,  in  her  own  right,  to  pass  sentence 
of  death  for  severe  offences  against  religious  law,  has  frequently 
been  asserted,  but  the  necessity  for  such  a  power  cannot  be  proved, 
and  this  authorisation  does  not  clearly  follow  from  Revelation. 
The  Church  has  contented  herself  with  handing  over  the  culprit  to 
the  temporal  arm  with  a  request  to  spare  the  life  of  the  condemned."  J 

The  Jesuit  Order  also  gives,  as  officially  as  possible,  a 
very  significant  emphasis  to  its  consent  to  the  capital 
punishment  of  heretics,  which  would  scarcely  be  credited 
were  we  not  in  possession  of  the  authoritative  proofs.  In 
its  Ratio  Studiorum,  the  Jesuit  Order  permits  boys  entrusted 
to  it  for  instruction  and  education  to  attend  "  executions 
of  heretics  " : 

"  They  [the  pupils]  must  not  go  to  public  exhibitions, 
comedies,  or  plays,  nor  to  executions  of  criminals,  except 
those  of  heretics."  Q 

*  Institut.  juris  eccles.  publici.  Eomae.  I.,  270.  f  V.  (2),  1445  et  seq. 

%  XI.  (2),  1827.  I  have  already  shown  in  detail  in  my  book,  Das  Papsttum, 
etc.,  I.  (5),  180-201,  that  this  "request"  was  a  preposterous  piece  of  malice 
practised  for  centuries  by  the  Papacy. 

||  Inst.  S.J.,  II.,  541. 


Jesuit   Morality  and  the  State      357 

It  was  not  till  the  year  1832  that  this  sentence,  clearly 
designating  the  execution  of  heretics  as  an  edifying 
spectacle  for  scholars,  was  removed  from  the  Ratio 
Studiorum,  not  because  the  Order  condemned  the  prac- 
tice, but  "  because  these  words  might  give  offence  in 
various  places :  expunguntur  haec  verba,  quia  offenderent 
in  variis  regionibus."* 

These  are  the  rigid  fundamental  principles  of  Jesuit 
intolerance,  leading  at  last  to  bloodshed.  A  few  examples 
of  sectarian  persecution  will  enable  readers  to  complete 
the  picture. 

Here  also  I  refrain  from  quoting  Jesuit  literature  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  It  presents 
vulgarity  and  filthiness  to  the  full.  But  neither  did  people 
speak  nicely  on  the  opposite  side,  and  the  polemic  bitter- 
ness of  Jesuitism  may  be  explained  and  excused  by  this. 
I  shall  quote  from  Jesuits  of  the  present  time. 

The  Jesuit  Tilmann  Pesch,  who  died  in  1899,  was  one  of 
the  great  literary  writers  of  the  German  Province.  The 
Jesuit  review,  Stimmen  aus  Maria-Laach,"\  to  which  he 
was  a  very  zealous  contributor,  and  the  Jesuit  Reichmann 
extol  him  in  fulsome  fashion  as  scholar,  writer,  Jesuit 
and  preacher : 

"  This  is  not  the  place  to  estimate  his  full  importance 
and  greatness,  and  perhaps  the  time  has  not  yet  arrived 
for  this."{ 

The  book,  Christ  oder  Antichrist,  Briefe  aus  Hamburg,  \\ 
is  Pesch's  sectarian  and  polemic  masterpiece.  It  appeared, 
according  to  the  favourite  Jesuit  custom,  under  the 
pseudonym  Gottlieb.  The  bulky  volume  (955  pages)  is 
one  long  vulgar  defamation  of  Protestantism  and  the 
personality  of  the  Reformers,  especially  Luther : 

*  Monum.  Germ,  paed.,  16,  503.  f  1889,  Part  10. 

|  Beichmann,  S.J.,  Briefe  aus  Hamburg  (Berlin,  1905),  5th  edit.,  preface. 
I!  Berlin,  1905,  5th  edition,  Verlag  der  Germania. 


358  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

"  A  historical  description  of  Luther  must  include  an  illustration 
— a  summary  one,  it  is  true — of  the  fact  that  the  reforming  prin- 
ciples of  the  great  man  imply  not  only  the  overthrow  of  political 
order  and  of  Christian  family  life,  but  also  the  collapse  of  the  entire 
moral  order.  Fortunately,  the  nations  which  embraced  Lutheranism 
had  retained  enough  conservatism  from  the  pre-Reformation  period 
to  preserve  them  from  experiencing  all  the  consequences  of  Lutheran 
teaching.  Here,  too,  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  give  all  the  data 
from  Luther's  words  and  works  which  would  demonstrate  this 
characteristic  of  the  Lutheran  work  of  reformation.  I  will  content 
myself  with  a  little,  but  this  little  is  quite  sufficient  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  facts.  I  say  therefore — and  I  am  not  afraid  that  my 
assertion  will  meet  with  opposition  from  any  thinking  person — 
that  he  who,  in  the  most  unequivocal  manner,  declares  all  good 
works  to  be  sins,  who  repeatedly  clearly  and  distinctly  invites 
people  to  sin,  i.e.  to  every  violation  of  the  Divine  command  and 
injury  to  the  conscience,  who  denies  the  freedom  of  the  human 
will,  who  blusters  at  every  opportunity  against  the  value  of  human 
reason,  who  not  only  fails  to  oppose  superstition  (to  which,  indeed, 
many  uneducated  classes  of  the  people  are  often  unfortunately 
only  too  much  inclined),  but  promotes  and  adopts  it,  who  teaches 
and  practises  the  principle  that  the  end  can  sanctify  bad  means,  I 
say  that  he  who  teaches  thus  and  brings  forward  such  teachings 
consciously  and  prodigally  may  be  rightly  designated  as  a  rebel 
against  the  entire  moral  order.  Now,  according  to  the  most  con- 
scientious and  learned  criticism,  all  this  is  to  be  found  in  Luther's 
writings.  And  up  to  the  present  time  no  one  has  been  able  to 
disprove  this  result  of  learning.  Only  one  thing  is  certain,  that 
Luther  also  sometimes  wrote  the  very  opposite.*  Whoever  reads 
Luther's  writings  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  frequently  and 
decisively  the  Reformer  brings  into  prominence  the  indomitable - 
ness  of  brutal  desire  in  human  beings  ;  men  must  succumb  helplessly 
to  every  attack  of  sensuality.  Neither  vows  nor  marriage  bonds 
are  to  be  respected.  .  .  .  The  case  appears  in  another  form  when 
the  Reformer  continually  repeats  that  all  human  beings  without 
exception  have  succumbed  to  the  sin  of  unchastity  and  always  and 
everywhere  used  every  opportunity  to  give  free  rein  to  all  promptings 
*  Christ  oder  Antichrist,  p.  25  et  seq. 


Jesuit   Morality  and  the  State      359 

of  sensuality.  ...  I  am  convinced  that  to  all  who  move  in  circles 
animated  by  Christian  life  and  thought  such  assertions  appear  like 
declarations  from  another  world,  a  world  of  morass  and  misery. 
And  the  question  intrudes  itself :  What  prompted  a  man  who 
professed  to  be  a  Reformer  of  the  Christian  Church,  the  chosen 
tool  of  the  thrice  holy  God,  to  a  view  so  low  and  so  degrading 
to  mankind  ?  The  question  provokes  a  reply  which  absolutely 
annihilates  the  Reformer,  if  we  note  the  numerous  passages  in 
Luther's  writings  in  which  he  declares  in  plain  words  that  it  is 
absolutely  impossible  to  overcome  the  brutal  passions.  ...  In 
Luther's  opinion,  man's  vocation  does  not  lie  in  the  sphere  of  reason 
— indeed,  reason  is  in  his  eyes  a  '  fool '  and  the  '  devil's  mistress  ' — 
but  in  that  of  animal  nature.  Man's  merit,  like  that  of  every  tree 
and  every  animal,  lies  in  being  exceedingly  fruitful.* 

"  In  the  first  place,  it  is  acknowledged  to  be  a  fundamental 
dogma  of  the  entire  Lutheran  system  that  it  is  impossible  for  man 
to  observe  any  Divine  law.  .  .  .  It  is  a  necessity,  according  to 
Luther's  teaching,  that  every  person  should  sin.  In  the  second 
place,  Luther  declares  that  a  Christian  may  disregard  all  the  Ten 
Commandments.  .  .  .  Like  Calvin,  Luther  also  teaches  that  God 
has  condemned  some  who  did  not  deserve  it,  and  destined  many  to 
condemnation  before  they  were  born ;  he  thus  incites  people  to 
sin,  and  calls  forth  all  their  vices  ;  whatever  we  do  is  not  done  of 
our  own  free  will,  but  through  necessity.  .  .  .  Finally,  in  the 
third  place,  the  warning  against  good  works  follows  quite  logically, 
and  the  repeated  invitation  to  break  the  commandments  and 
commit  sins,  particularly  to  sin  in  order  to  annoy  the  devil."}" 

"  I  have  just  mentioned  the  temptations  to  suicide  to  which 
Luther,  as  he  himself  testifies,  was  exposed.  This  reminds  me  of  a 
few  remonstrances  which  Pastor  Walther  addressed  to  me  in  his 
missive  with  reference  to  my  account  of  the  last  hours  of  the  Reformer 
of  Wittenberg.  I  purposely  abstained  from  a  more  minute  exposi- 
tion for  the  simple  reason  that,  according  to  my  conviction,  from 
the  data  which  are  available  up  to  the  present  time  nothing  more 
can  be  said  about  it.  Concerning  the  last  moments  of  his  life 
(referring  to  the  writing,  Wider  das  Papsttum  zu  Rom  vom  Tevfel 
gestifiet),  I  said  that  even  Luther's  prayer  consisted  of  curses; 
*  Christ  oder  Antichrist,  p.  243  et  seq.  f  Hid.,  p.  245  et  seq. 


360  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

Regarding  Luther's  death,  it  only  states  that  his  soul  was  demanded 
of  him  on  that  night.  .  .  .  And,  again  returning  to  Luther's 
death,  Pastor  Walther  gives  at  the  close  of  his  missive  a  peaceful 
and  extremely  edifying  picture  of  the  dying  Reformer  as  furnished 
by  Luther's  partisans,  Jonas  and  Coelius.  For  my  part,  I  wish 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  that  the  poor  man  had  ended  a  life 
racked  by  awful  remorse  with  sincere  repentance  and  had  died  a 
holy  and  godly  death.  But  if  Walther  expects  me  to  accept  the 
information  given  by  Jonas  and  Coelius,  without  further  con- 
sideration, as  the  statement  of  a  true  event,  and  see  in  the  impenitent 
Reformer  a  dying  saint,  I  think  this  is,  to  put  it  mildly,  asking 
rather  too  much.  I,  for  my  part,  also  possess  an  account  of  Luther's 
decease,  and  one  which  is  essentially  different.  According  to  this 
narrative,  Luther — to  put  it  shortly — had  spent  the  evening  at  a 
cheerful  drinking-party,  and  then  feeling  sick,  was  conducted  to  his 
room  by  Count  Mansfield's  servants  ;  next  morning  he  was  found 
hanging  to  the  bedpost  and  dead.  The  true  details  were  kept 
secret  from  Luther's  friends  for  obvious  reasons,  and  the  rumour 
was  circulated  that  the  great  man  died  a  godly  and  edifying  death. 
For  my  own  part,  I  attach  no  importance  to  this  narrative.  But 
what  would  Pastor  Walther  say  if  I  expected  him  to  accept  this 
report  as  the  only  one  corresponding  with  the  truth  ?  Not  only 
he,  but  his  liberal  colleagues  also,  would  reject  such  a  demand  with 
righteous  indignation.  And  yet,  if  Luther,  in  an  evil  moment 
through  weariness  of  life,  had  given  way  to  the  promptings  of  suicide 
which  he  had  himself  admitted,  this  would,  from  the  liberal  Pro- 
testant point  of  view,  by  no  means  be  regarded  as  so  terrible. 
Suicide  is  quite  compatible  with  the  modern  ideal  of  life."* 

*  P.  357  et  seq.  The  Jesuit  Peichmann,  who  has  re-edited  Pesch's  violent  book, 
remarks  at  this  point  that  the  untenability  of  the  account  of  Luther's  suicide  has 
been  proved  "  meanwhile."  But  he  quietly  permits  the  infamous  calumny  to  remain 
in  the  text.  For  it  has  the  desired  effect  on  the  readers  in  spite  of  the  proof, 
and  this  is  the  more  certain  as  none  of  the  proofs  are  given.  It  is  evident  from 
the  following  that  Pesch  wished  to  implant  the  belief  in  Luther's  suicide  in  the 
historical  consciousness  of  the  Catholic  people :  Once  when  the  Sub-Agent  of 
the  Cologne  priestly  seminary,  Dr.  Pingsniann,  paid  me  a  visit  at  Blyenbeck, 
I  was  walking  in  the  garden  with  him  and  Peseh.  The  latter  told  us  that  he  had 
proofs  of  Luther's  suicide ;  though  not  absolutely  decisive,  that  did  not  matter  ; 
if  rightly  presented,  the  effect  on  the  people  would  still  be  to  make  them  believe 
the  fact.     Some  years  later,  as  we  observe,  he  did  "  present  them  rightly." 


Jesuit  Morality  and  the  State      361 

This  huge  volume,  full  of  slander  and  provocation, 
which  on  account  of  its  high  price  could  not  attain 
to  a  wide  circulation,  did  not  suffice  Pesch  and  the 
German  Province,  of  which  Pesch  was,  of  course,  the 
instrument.  The  poison  of  sectarian  strife  must  pene- 
trate to  the  masses.  Accordingly  the  Jesuit  Pesch  and 
the  German  Province  of  the  Order  originated  an  under- 
taking, existing  to  this  day,  which  is  systematically 
occupied  in  poisoning  the  wells  and  stirring  up  denomina- 
tional hatred  at  a  low  price — the  Flugschriften  zur  Wehr 
und  Lehr,  published  at  Berlin  by  the  Ger mania. 

Ever  since  the  appearance  in  the  year  1890  of  the  first 
of  these  pamphlets  with  the  title  Luther  and  Marriage, 
by  Gottlieb  (pseudonym  for  the  Jesuit  Pesch),  thousands 
of  these  little  "  green  leaflets  "  have  appeared  year  after 
year,  at  12  pfennigs  (l|d.)  a  piece,  and  been  scattered 
broadcast  among  the  Catholics  of  Germany.  Almost  all 
are  attuned  to  a  note  of  violent  and  spiteful  attack  on 
Protestantism.     The  style  is  coarse.     Here  is  an  instance  : 

'  When  the  chieftain  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  goes  on  the 
warpath  it  is  in  the  eyes  of  his  peoples  an  event  which  resounds 
throughout  Europe  ;  the  Ultramontanes  are  seized  with  panic, 
and  they  feel  just  exactly  as  in  the  past  the  American  backswoods- 
men  must  have  felt  at  the  news  that  the  Indian  chieftain  Two- 
Strikes  or  Sitting  Bull  was  dancing  the  war-dance  and  sharpening 
his  scalping-knife.  .  .  .  Doubtless  these  tactics  have  advantages 
which  must  not  be  underrated.  In  the  first  place  all  the  geese  in 
the  Evangelical  Alliance  will  stretch  out  their  necks  and  break 
out  in  a  cackle  of  admiration  ;  what  a  hero  is  our  Willibald  (Pro- 
fessor Dr.  Beyschlag)  !  His  rest  and  recreation  after  the  labours 
of  the  term  and  the  festivities  in  honour  of  his  seventieth  birthday 
consist  in  the  moral  annihilation  of  a  Roman  Bishop  and  as  an 
interlude  breaking  the  bones  of  the  whole  Catholic  Church.  And 
how  gracefully  he  does  it !  He  plays  with  poor  Dr.  Korum  like  a 
cat  with  a  mouse  !  "* 

*  Die  Segnungen  der  Reformation,  p.  66. 


362  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

And  the  coarse  style  is  matched  by  the  contents : 

"  Every  moral  licence,  every  lapse  of  morality,  in  Catholicism 
signifies  a  perversion,  a  falling  away  from  Catholic  principles.  But 
if  once  we  accept  the  Protestant  principle  of  '  evangelical  freedom  ' 
it  is  only  thanks  to  a  most  lucky  lack  of  logic  if  the  most  serious 
consequences  do  not  result  in  the  social  and  moral  domain.  In  the 
French  Revolution  French  excitability  with  iron  consistency 
deduced  the  consequences  from  the  principles  of  the  Reformation. 
Alas !  for  us,  if  German  thoroughness  should  enter  on  such  paths  ! 
But  what  did  the  Protestants  do  ?  They  annihilated  the  three 
Gospel  counsels.  ...  To  the  husband  they  said  :  '  The  claims 
of  passion  are  no  more  bound  to  give  way  before  the  sanctity  of 
the  marriage  vow  than  before  the  vow  of  chastity.'  They  whispered 
into  the  ears  of  all  men  :  '  The  animal  instinct  is  untamable  and 
unlimited,  and  justified  in  all  its  claims.'  ...  All  moral  excesses, 
which  according  to  the  reports  of  the  societies  for  promoting  morals 
in  all  our  large  Protestant  towns  are  threatening  the  ruin  of  the 
German  nation,  are  absolutely  permissible  according  to  the  prin- 
ciple, the  immediate  consequences  of  which  were  described  by 
Luther.* 

"  There  is  perhaps  no  other  dogma  to  which  Luther  remained 
so  faithful  during  the  long  period  of  his  reforming  activity  as  this  : 
To  have  two  or  more  wives  is  good,  but  it  is  better  and  more  advisable 
to  be  content  with  one  ;  this  was  his  philosophy  of  life  in  youth 
and  age,  which  he  preached  by  word  of  mouth  and  in  writing,  at 
table  and  in  the  lecture  hall,  only  not  from  the  pulpit,  and  to  which 
he  never  proved  unfaithful  even  in  evil  days  in  spite  of  all  attacks. 
.  .  .  The  only  logical  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  secret 
Gospel  of  Luther,  Bucer,  Melanchthon  and  other  Fathers  of  Pro- 
testantism is  that  every  Protestant  is  to  have  as  many  wives  as 
he  pleases,  either  by  dispensation  of  his  consistory  or  confessor. 
If  we  also  consider  that  according  to  the  common  Christian  and 
Protestant  doctrine  men  and  women  have  the  same  rights  and  duties 
it  follows  that  a  Protestant  woman  too  has  the  right  to  have  as 
many  husbands  as  she  pleases.     This  would  be  logical,  but  at  the 

*  Leaflet  No.  80,  Professor  Beyschlag's  Anklagen  gegen  den  Bischof  von  Trier, 
pp.  1,  27. 


Jesuit   Morality  and   the   State      363 

same  time  a  very  bad  thing.  The  fact  cannot  be  altered  even 
by  Luther's  maxim  :  '  Sin  boldly  and  believe  even  more  boldly.' 
Another  logical  consequence  of  the  dogma  of  universal  priesthood 
and  Luther's  clear  pronouncements  is  that  every  Protestant  can 
supply  his  own  dispensations  and  spiritual  counsel,  so  long  as  he 
can  excuse  it  before  his  own  conscience  and  the  Bible.  Thus  we 
should  by  perfectly  logical  means  have  reached  the  standpoint  of 
the  Berlin  roues  and  prostitutes.  Now  let  some  one  say  that  these 
are  not  bad  Protestants  !  Is  not  every  logical  Protestant  necessarily 
a  bad  Protestant  ?  "* 

The  spiteful  spirit  which  pervades  the  whole  of  these 
Flugschriflen  is  very  clearly  expressed  in  the  confession 
openly  set  down  in  leaflet  51-52 : 

"  It  is  useless  to  say  that  we  must  not  offend  the  convictions 
of  those  who  hold  a  different  faith.  In  our  view  this  is  only  a 
trick  of  the  devil's,  mere  ill-applied  courtesy  and  consideration. 
Such  reserve  neither  serves  the  cause  of  truth  nor  the  true  welfare 
of  our  Protestant  brethren. "f 


PRACTICAL  APPLICATION  OF  JESUIT  MORALITY 

The  many  thousand  Jesuit  confessionals  and  the 
many  millions  of  penitents  who  confide  their  souls  to 
Jesuit  guidance,  are  the  field  where  Jesuit  morality  is 
practically  developed.  It  is  a  domain  of  which,  although 
I  know  it  intimately,  since  I  was  myself  at  work  on  it, 
I  can  obviously  not  speak.  I  will  however  quote  some 
historical  instances. 

Le  Bret,  in  his  Magazin,  gives  an  extract  from  a  book 

*  Katholische  und  Protestantische  SitUichkeil,  pp.  27  et  seq. 

t  P.  86.  Besides  the  Jesuit  Tillmann  Pesch,  the  originator  of  the  whole 
undertaking,  the  Jesuits  chiefly  occupied  in  the  composition  of  leaflets  were,  as 
long  as  I  remained  in  the  Order,  Reichmann  and  von  Hammerstein.  As  a  rule 
they,  like  Pesch,  wrote  anonymously  or  pseudonymously.  Further  details  about 
the  Flugschriflen  may  be  found  in  my  pamphlet  Die  deutscJten  Jesuiten  der  Gegen- 
wart  und  der  konfessionelli  Friede  (Berlin  :    A.  Haack). 


364  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

entitled    Difesa    del    giudizio  formato    dalla    Santa    Sede 
Apostolica  : 

"  When  in  the  year  1624  the  Venetian  fleet  conquered  Scio, 
the  victorious  General,   Antonio  Zeno,  gave  orders  that  all  the 
Turks  should  be  driven  out  of  the  island.     About  three  hundred 
renegades,  whom  everyone  knew  to  be  Mohammedans,  because  they 
had  openly  professed   this   religion,  took  refuge  in  a  mosque  and 
begged  for  mercy  on  the  ground  that  they  were  Christians.     The 
General,  surprised,  sent  Father  Carlini,  a  Dominican,  at  that  time 
Vicar-General  in  the  Levant,  but  now  Archbishop  of  Napoli  di 
Romania,  to  question  them  about  their  religion.     They  cried  aloud 
that  they  were  really  Christians.     They  were  for  the  most  part 
women,  who  in  order  to  be  able  to  marry  Turks,  had  openly  adopted 
the  Mohammedan  religion.     But  having  repented  their  fault  they 
solemnly  recanted  before  the  Jesuits,  and  were  permitted  by  them 
to  continue  openly  to  profess  the  Mohammedan  religion,  go  to  the 
mosques,  and  take  part  in  Mohammedan  observances,  while  the 
Jesuits  administered  the  sacraments  to  them  in  secret.     When 
this  was  reported  to  the  General,  he  caused  the  women  to  be  con- 
fronted by  the  Jesuits  to  whom  they  had  referred,  especially  Father 
Lumaca,  who  had  taken  the  chief  part  in  instructing  them.     And, 
in  fact,  the  Jesuits  did  recognise  the  greater  part  of  the  women 
as  their  penitents.     These  simple  people  were  accordingly  pardoned . 
But  a  severe  reproof  was  administered  to  their  instructors  for  not 
remembering   Christ's  saying,    '  He   who   denies  Me   before   men, 
him  shall  I  also  deny  before  My  heavenly  Father.'      I  do  not  appeal 
to  dead  witnesses  :  the  worthy  prelate  of  Napoli  di  Romania,  who 
transacted  this  matter  by  public  command,  is  still  alive,  and  can 
testify  of  it  to  any  one  who  desires.     Other  witnesses,  too,  are  the 
Archbishop   of   Corinth,   Bernardino   Cordenos,   the   Archbishop's 
secretary,    Antonin    Gavazzi,    Prior    of    the    Monastery    of    SS. 
Giovanni   e  Paolo   at   Venice,  the    Dominican   Maria   Ferro   and 
Angelus   Bevilacqua  at  Venice,  who    all  testify  on  oath  to   the 
truth  of  these  events. 

"  When  in  1606  Paul  V.  was  at  war  with  Venice,  and  the  Jesuits, 
on  account  of  their  advocacy  of  the  Pope,  were  driven  out  of  Venice, 
they  tried  by  every  possible  means  to  injure  the  '  heretical '  Republic- 


Jesuit  Morality  and  the  State     365 

They  stole  disguised  into  Venetian  territory,  and  advised  the 
women  to  refuse  to  perform  their  conjugal  duties,  and  the  sons 
to  deny  obedience  to  their  fathers  until  the  Republic  had  given 
way.  At  Constantinople  they  stirred  up  the  Turks  to  war  against 
Venice."* 

Louis  Sotelo,  a  Franciscan  and  Bishop,  who  was  burnt 
at  Foco  in  Japan,  in  August,  1624,  on  account  of  his 
faith,  wrote  in  January  of  the  same  year  from  his  prison 
at  Omura  a  letter  to  Pope  Urban  VIII.,  which  contains 
the  bitterest  reproaches  against  the  Jesuits : 

"  Although  he  had  been  sent  from  Rome  to  Japan  as  Bishop, 
they  had  tried  to  hinder  his  mission  ;  owing  to  their  fault  the 
Church  in  Japan  was  in  a  deplorable  condition,  because  they  would 
allow  no  other  priests  or  members  of  orders  but  themselves  to  work 
there,  though  the  thirty  Jesuits  could  not  suffice  for  the  whole 
of  the  large  territory.  They  circulated  slanders  about  other  mis- 
sionaries, and  forbade  the  believers  to  admit  them  into  their  homes, 
although  this  was  a  season  of  persecution.  The  Jesuits  did  all  in 
their  power  to  destroy  the  effect  of  such  testimony.  It  seemed 
to  them  best  to  deny  the  truth  and  genuineness  of  the  letter,  and 
they  quoted  the  statement  of  a  certain  John  Cervicos  as  to  the 
inaccuracy  of  the  facts  there  stated,  as  well  as  of  Fra  Peter  Baptista, 
who  maintains  that  the  signature  was  forged  and  that  not  only 
was  it  not  the  hand  of  his  colleague,  Fra  Louis  Sotelo,  but  did  not 
even  resemble  it.  Unfortunately,  however,  Dr.  Cervicos  and  Fra 
Peter  Baptista  were  still  alive,  and  both  protested  against  this 
statement  attributed  to  them  by  the  Jesuits.  One  of  them  proved 
n  writing  and  swore  before  a  notary  and  witnesses  on  October  10, 
1628,  that  the  words  put  in  his  mouth  by  the  Society  [of  Jesus] 
were  shameful  lies,  and  the  other  revoked  the  doubts  which  he 
had  at  first  expressed  as  to  the  signature  of  Fra  Louis,  and  insisted 
that,  after  a  more  careful  examination,  he  believed  it  to  be  genuine, 
and  also  believed  that  of  the  holy  martyr  to  be  authentic  and 
worthy  of  the  writer."f 

*  From  letters  of  Paolo  Sarpi  in  Le  Bret,  Magazin,  L,  427  et  eeq.,  and  III.,  542. 
t  Gioberti,  II  Gesulia  Moderno. 


366  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

In  1759  the  Jesuit  Mamachi  set  the  boys  in  one  of  the 
classes  of  the  Jesuit  College  at  Toulouse  a  composition 
on  this  subject : 

"  Heroes  at  times  commit  crimes  which  are  favoured 
by  fortune.  A  fortunate  crime  ceases  to  be  a  crime.  A 
man  whom  France  now  designates  by  the  shameful  name 
of  robber  will  be  styled  an  Alexander  if  he  is  favoured  by 
fortune."* 

Anselm  Feuerbach,  quoting  from  the  documents, 
reports  the  confession  of  a  Catholic  priest,  Franz  Riem- 
bauer,  who  on  November  2,  1807,  at  Ober-Lauterbach,  in 
Bavaria,  murdered  his  former  cook  in  the  most  cruel 
manner.  She  had  borne  him  a  child,  and  was  threatening 
to  denounce  him : 


"  When  I  met  the  Eichstadt  woman  at  Ratisbon  [so 
Riembauer  confessed  in  November,  1817,  to  the  examining 
judge  at  Landshut]  she  declared  her  intention  of  never  leaving 
me.  .  .  .  My  honour,  my  position,  my  public  credit,  everything 
that  was  of  necessity  dear  and  sacred  to  me,  was  threatened  by  the 
woman's  arrival  at  Ober-Lauterbach.  I  thought  to  myself  :  What 
shall  I  do  if  she  comes  after  all  ?  Then  I  remembered  the  principle 
laid  down  by  Father  Benedict  Stattler  [a  Jesuit]  in  his  Eihica 
Christiana,  which  permits  the  taking  of  another's  life  if  there  is 
no  other  way  of  saving  our  own  honour  and  good  name  ;  for  honour 
is  a  greater  good  than  life,  and  we  have  the  same  right  of  defence 
against  a  person  who  threatens  our  honour  as  against  a  robber. 
On  considering  this  principle,  which  Professor  Stattler  had  also 
formerly  expounded  to  us  young  theologians  in  the  course  of  his 
instruction,  I  decided  that  it  applied  to  my  case  and  accepted  it 
as  a  dictamen  practicum.f    I  said  to  myself :    My  honour  will  be 

*  From  Reusch,  Beitrage,  pp.  56,  57. 

t  The  principle  laid  down  by  the  Jesuit  Stattler,  which  fortified  the  Pastor 
Riembauer  in  committing  the  murder,  runs  thus  :  "  It  is  permissible  to  avert  a 
grievous  disgrace  by  killing  the  unjust  adversary,  if  no  other  means  are  available  ; 
if  the  disgrace  has  already  been  incurred,  it  is  not  permissible  to  avenge  it  by 
murder,  unless  there  is   do  other  way  of  making  him  amend,  while  there  is  great 


Jesuit   Morality  and  the   State      367 

ruined  by  this  wicked  person  if  she  comes  to  Lauterbach  and  carries 
out  her  threats  ;  I  shall  be  removed  by  the  Consistory,  shall  forfeit 
my  property,  and  gain  an  ill  name  throughout  the  diocese.  Although 
even  at  that  time  I  meditated  on  Stattler's  principle  and  thought 
it  applicable  to  my  case,  it  was  then  no  more  than  an  idea  and  I 
had  not  yet  considered  the  mode  of  execution."* 

Such  are  the  ethics  and  morals,  the  toleration, 
religious  equality  and  denominational  amity  taught,  both 
theoretically  and  practically,  in  the  course  of  Moral 
Theology,  which  the  young  Jesuit  must  attend  for  two 
years. 

My  professors  of  Moral  Theology  were  the  Jesuits 
Frins  (afterwards  counsellor  to  the  Centre  leader  Windt- 
horst)  and  Stentrup.  Frins  gave  expression  to  his  opinion 
of  Protestant  morality  by  emphatically  declaring  his 
conviction  that  every  young  Protestant  girl  was  morally 
ruined  by  the  age  of  fifteen.  Another  of  his  utterances 
was  that  he  could  not  understand  how  a  married  couple 
could  look  each  other  in  the  face  without  blushing. 
Stentrup  taught  Moral  Theology  in  the  narrowest  sense 
of  past  ages.  Progress,  civilisation,  and  the  modern 
state  were  an  abomination  to  him. 

The  discussion  of  Conscience  Cases  which  takes  place 
in  all  the  Houses  of  the  Order  once  a  fortnight,  in  the 
presence  of  all  the  Fathers  and  also  the  Superiors,  gives 
an  actuality  to  Moral  Theology  during  the  whole  of  a 
Jesuit's  life ;  and  it  is  intended  to  supply  a  standard  for 
his  duties  as  spiritual  director.  At  Exaeten,  the  only 
house  in  which  I  was  stationed  for  any  length  of  time 

danger  that  he  will  renew  the  accusation.  ...  A  grievous  calumny  may  not 
as  such  be  averted  by  the  previous  murder  of  the  calumniator,  unless  it  is  clearly 
oreseen  that  the  unjust  calumniator  will  find  credence  for  his  calumny,  and  there 
is  also  no  other  means  of  warding  off  the  calumny  and  re-establishing  his  injured 
honour  "  (Ethica  Christiana  communis,  III.  (3),  1889-1893). 

*  Aktenmdssige  Darstdlung  merkwurdiger   Verbrechen  (Giessen,   1829),  II.,  86 
et  seq. 


368  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

after  the  end  of  my  scholastic  studies,  the  Conscience 
Cases  were  under  the  direction  of  Lehmkuhl,  some  of 
whose  principles  I  have  already  quoted.  Lehmkuhl,  the 
classic  authority  in  the  domain  of  Moral  Theology,  is  one 
of  the  most  distinctive  types  of  Jesuitism  in  the  bad  sense 
of  the  word  that  I  have  ever  met.  Not  in  the  sense  of 
being  himself  bad ;  on  the  contrary,  he  took  the  greatest 
pains  to  lead  a  pious  and  virtuous  life  in  the  Jesuit 
acceptation  of  these  terms.  But  for  that  very  reason 
the  Jesuit  system  had  taken  complete  possession  of  him  ; 
the  revaluation  of  moral  and  ethical  conceptions  which  it 
contains  was  incorporated  in  him. 

Another  characteristic  of  Jesuit  Moral  Theology 
deserves  emphasis.  Lehmkuhl,  the  great  authority  on 
Moral  Theology,  who  had  a  hundred  solutions  at  hand 
for  every  case,  and  in  the  two  volumes  of  his  work  on 
Moral  Theology  dissects  virtue,  sin  and  temptation  anato- 
mically into  their  final  components,  was  in  his  own  person 
helpless  in  face  of  sin  and  temptation.  He  was  literally 
devoured  by  scruples,  and  afraid  at  every  step  of  offending 
God ;  he  confessed,  sometimes  more  than  once,  every 
day.  At  the  same  time  he  defended,  with  a  perfectly 
calm  mind,  all  the  enormities  which  have  been  discussed 
in  the  domain  of  mental  restriction. 

Nowhere  is  the  saying  of  straining  at  a  gnat  and 
swallowing  a  camel  more  applicable  than  in  the  case  of 
Jesuit  morality. 


CHAPTER    XXVI 

EXAETEN* 

The  Examen  rigorosum  concluded  my  scholastic  training. 
Usually  this  is  immediately  followed  by  the  Tertiate,  the 
third  year  of  probation  (tertius  annus  probationis),  which 
forms  the  outward  conclusion  of  the  ascetic  training. 
I  was  not,  however,  sent  direct  to  the  Tertiate,  but  first 
to  Exaeten  as  a  Scriptor. 

Nine  years  had  gone  by  since  I  entered  Exaeten  as  a 
postulant,  seven  since  I  had  left  it  to  begin  my  scholas- 
ticate. 

During  this  time  the  house  had  undergone  a  complete 
transformation.  The  novitiate  had  been  transferred  from 
there  to  Blyenbeck,  and  the  philosophate  from  Blyen- 
beck  to  Exaeten.  The  German  Province  had  also  col- 
lected most  of  its  writers  there,  and  finally  Exaeten  had 
become  the  headquarters  for  the  publication  of  the  two 
periodicals  so  widely  read  in  Germany,  Stimmen  aus  Maria- 
Laach  and  Die  Katholischen  Missionen. 

These  thoroughgoing  internal  changes  had  resulted 
in  considerable  external  alterations :  A  stately  college, 
with  roomy  corridors,  libraries,  and  a  large  and  splendid 

*  On  two  occasions,  apart  from  my  novitiate,  I  was  stationed  at  Exaeten  : 
immediately  after  the  conclusion  of  my  studies,  1887-8,  and  after  my  Tertiate, 
1889-92.  I  shall  condense  the  most  important  events  of  these  two  sojourns  in 
one  chapter,  if  only  because  in  my  lack  of  written  notes  I  am  unable,  after  the 
lapse  of  twenty-three  years,  to  state  exactly  from  memory  which  belonged  to  Ihe 
first  and  which  to  the  second  sojourn. 

y  369 


37°  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

chapel,  had  been  added  to  the  old,  confined  Novitiate 
House  (Domus  Probationis). 

If  Exaeten  appeared  to  me  new  and  strange,  I,  too, 
entered  it  as  a  newcomer  and  a  stranger.  Indeed,  the 
transformation  which  the  birthplace  of  my  Jesuit  life  had 
undergone  was  but  a  weak  reflection  of  the  change  that 
had  taken  place  in  me. 

Full  of  belief  in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  therefore  full 
of  confidence  in  the  Jesuit  Order  on  which  she  set  so  great  a 
value,  I  had  crossed  the  threshold  of  Exaeten  nine  years 
before.  Not  with  youthful  lightheartedness — it  was  only 
with  violent  and  heavy  struggles  that  I  attained  the  reso- 
lution to  leave  the  world  and  to  serve  God  in  poverty, 
chastity  and  obedience  as  a  disciple  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus.  But  a  firm  belief  in  the  truth  of  that  which  had 
been  brought  to  maturity  in  me  through  the  atmosphere 
of  my  home  and  the  powerful  example  of  an  honoured 
father  and  a  beloved  mother,  had  induced  me,  not  to  silence 
my  nature  and  my  deepest  individual  feelings — that  would 
have  been  impossible — but  at  any  rate  to  trample  them 
down,  and  with  the  sword  of  religious  idealism  in  one 
hand,  I  had  won  my  way  to  the  entrance  of  the  Order, 
hoping,  with  the  trowel  of  prayer  and  mortification  in  the 
other,  to  erect  the  tower  of  Christian  perfection  which  from 
my  earliest  childhood  had  been  set  before  me,  through 
centuries  of  traditional  vision,  as  a  shining  sanctuary. 

But  how  had  the  glory  of  this  tower  faded  away  !  Its 
very  foundations  were  shaken  when,  after  the  completion 
of  almost  a  decade  in  the  Order,  I  again  entered  the  place 
where  with  eager,  never-resting  effort  I  had  first  put  in 
my  spade  in  the  endeavour  to  build  it. 

The  will  of  the  Superior  had  designated  me  as  a  writer 
{scriptor).  In  the  first  place,  I  was  to  assist  with  the 
editing  of  the  papers  Stimmen  am  Maria-Laach  and  Die 
Kaiholischen  Missionen.     The  chief  editor  of  these  periodi- 


Exaeten 


371 


cals  was  the  Jesuit  Fah,  a  Swiss,  who  also  presided  over 
the  whole  college  as  Vice-Rector,  representing  the  Rector, 
Hermes,  who  had  fallen  ill,  and  soon  afterwards  died. 

That  Fah  became  my  superior  in  a  twofold  capacity 
was  both  fortunate  and  unfortunate  for  me.  Fortunate, 
because  in  him  I  found  a  man  who,  in  spite  of  two  decades 
of  Jesuit  training — for  Fah  had  entered  the  Order  very 
young,  straight  from  the  Jesuit  School  at  Feldkirch — had 
preserved  his  humanity,  who  himself  could  speak  a  candid 
word,  and  understand  one  when  spoken  by  others  ;  unfor- 
tunate, because  this  very  characteristic  of  his  postponed 
the  process  of  development  which  was  driving  me  to  burst 
the  bonds  of  the  Order,  and  so  hindered  my  taking  the 
final  step.  Fah  also  boasted  in  a  strong  degree  what  I 
was  already  beginning  to  lack :  belief  in  the  Church  and 
its  authority  as  directing  the  Jesuit  Order.  True,  he  once 
said  to  me  in  an  hour  of  sadness,  when  in  distress  at  being 
suddenly  transferred  from  Berlin  to  Brazil : 

"HI  did  not  believe  in  the  divinity  of  the  Church  which 
has  given  its  sanction  to  the  Jesuit  Order,  I  should  long 
ago  have  left  it,  and  should  not  submit  to  such  harsh 
commands." 

This  remark  set  me  thinking.  It  served  me  as  a 
support  when  the  divinity  of  the  Church  fell  in  ruins  before 
me,  long  after  I  had  recognised  that  the  excellence  of  the 
Order  was  a  mere  delusion. 

Among  Jesuits  who  have  attained  a  literary  reputation, 
my  more  immediate  comrades  (Socii)*  at  Exaeten  were 
Langhorst,  Baumgartner,  Lehmkuhl,  Beissel,  Spillman, 
Frick,  Tillmann  Pesch,  Cathrein,  Epping,  Dressel,  Dreves,f 
Pachtler,  and  Pfiilf. 

*  Socialism  may  boast  that  it  has  given  its  members  the  same  official  designa- 
tion :    comrades,  Socii,  as  the  Jesuits  have  used  for  several  centuries. 

f  Guido  Maria  Dreves,  the  celebrated  hymnologist,  was  the  son  of  the  poet 
Lebrecht  Dreves,  a  convert  to  Catholicism.  Dreves,  my  fellow-pupil  at  Feldkirch, 
was  an  original  man  of  singular  gifts.     In  the  autumn  of  1909  I  accidentally  read 


372  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

With  none  of  these  did  I  enter  into  any  close  relation. 
Indeed,  the  rule  of  the  Order  does  not  tolerate  such  inti- 
macy, but  I  had  a  good  deal  of  intercourse  with  all  of  them 
during  our  daily  recreation  and  our  walks.  None  of  them, 
with  the  exception  of  Baumgartner,  was  gifted  beyond  the 
average  ;  all,  even  Baumgartner,  had  completely  lost  their 
individuality  in  the  sense  of  intellectual  originality.  The 
knowledge  of  some  of  them  was  varied,  but  even  this 
variety  was  levelled  away  by  the  formal  uniformity  of 
training  and  purpose. 

During  my  residence  at  Exaeten  I  was  drawn  towards 
the  Provincial  of  the  German  Province,  the  Jesuit  Ratgeb — 
or  rather  he  was  drawn  towards  me.  Evidently  he  desired 
to  train  me  to  higher  things. 

The  Jesuit  Order  knows  exceedingly  well  how  to  ex- 
ploit advantages  of  birth,  family  relations,  and  the  like  ; 
its  contempt  for  such  worldly  things  is  a  mere  pretence.  It 
knows  very  well  how  great  a  value  such  things  have  for 
its  work  among  mankind.  This  work,  and  nothing  else, 
is  concealed  under  the  motto  of  the  Order  Omnia  ad 
majorem  Dei  gloriam. 

When  such  outward  advantages  are  combined  in  any 
individual  with  "  virtue  which  exceeds  mediocrity "  and 
"knowledge  sufficient  for  teaching  philosophy  and  theo- 
logy satisfactorily,"  this  individual  is  specially  adapted  to 
render  great  services  to  the  Society  of  Jesus.  And  such 
an  individual  was  I  for  a  long  time  in  the  eyes  of  my 
Superior.  For  many  years,  during  the  many  "  State- 
ments of  Conscience  "  which  I  had  to  make  to  my  Superior, 
I  was  told  that  I  was  making  good  progress  and  should 
become  a  very  useful  tool  for  the  service  of  God.     When 

in  a  South  German  paper  that  he  had  died  as  a  secular  priest  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Munich — he  must,  therefore,  have  left  the  Jesuit  Order.  With  his  strong 
individuality  he  never  really  belonged  there.  His  bigoted  mother,  who  was  body 
and  soul  under  Jesuit  dominion,  and  lived  at  Feldkirch  as  a  widow  till  her  death, 
induced  him  to  enter  the  Order — her  fortune  probably  went  the  same  way. 


Exaeten  373 

my  scholastic  training  was  concluded,  and  a  year  after- 
wards my  ascetic  training  also,  this  general  and  theoretic 
recognition  of  my  utility  took  a  distinct  and  particular 
direction,  and  it  was  the  Jesuit  Ratgeb  who  gave  it  this 
form,  through  special  marks  of  confidence.  One  of  these, 
my  mission  to  Berlin,  will  be  treated  in  the  next  chapter. 
Others  may  be  mentioned  here. 

In  regular  long  conversations  Ratgeb  instructed  me 
in  the  method  of  government  of  the  Jesuit  Order.  Some- 
times he  came  to  my  room  for  this  purpose,  on  other 
occasions  he  let  me  come  to  him.  They  were  informal 
discussions  in  which  many  subjects  were  treated  which, 
however,  all  clearly  had  the  aim  of  initiating  me  in  the 
true  nature  of  Jesuitism.  For  a  long  time — before  the 
final  collapse  of  my  Catholic  religious  edifice — I  had  been 
a  docile  pupil,  i.e.  I  followed  the  expositions  of  my  Pro- 
vincial with  zeal  and  interest ;  but  then  I  became  so 
indocile  that  the  confidential  conversations  ended  some- 
what abruptly,  and  with  a  sharp  discord.  From  that 
time  the  Jesuit  Eatgeb  disliked  me  as  much  as  he  had 
formerly  favoured  me.  Two  of  these  notes  of  discord 
may  be  emphasised : 

Our  conversation  had  turned  on  the  relation  of  the  Jesuit 
Order  to  the  Papacy  since  the  restoration  of  the  Order  by 
Pius  VII.  in  the  year  1814.  With  one  exception,  Eatgeb 
pronounced  a  favourable  judgment  on  the  successors  of  Pius 
VII.,  Leo  XII.,  Pius  VIII.,  Gregory  XVI.,  Pius  IX.,  and 
Leo  XIII.,  i.e.  he  regarded  them  as  friends  to  the  Order — 
for  a  true  Jesuit  has  no  other  standard  of  judging  matters 
of  ecclesiastical  or  secular  history  and  personalities  than 
that  of  friendship  or  opposition  to  the  Order.  The 
exception  was  Leo  XII.  Why  this  Pope  was  supposed 
not  to  have  been  well  disposed  to  the  Jesuits  I  could  not 
clearly  understand  from  Ratgeb's  utterances,  but  two 
things  were  startlingly  clear :    the  hatred  with  which  the 


374  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

influential  Jesuit  judged  the  anti- Jesuit  Pope,  and  the 
calm  determination  with  which  he  expressed  the  necessity 
of  getting  rid  of  such  opponents.  Ratgeb's  words,  which 
were  indelibly  impressed  on  my  memory,  were  these : 
"  Do  you  think  that  it  is  impossible  to  get  rid  of  Popes 
who  oppose  the  interests  of  the  Order  ?  " 

I  could  only  understand  his  words  in  one  sense,  and 
my  terror  at  their  meaning  must  have  been  expressed  in 
my  face,  for  after  a  penetrating  look  into  my  eyes,  Ratgeb 
suddenly  passed  on  to  a  different  subject.*  I  am  thoroughly 
aware  of  what  I  am  writing  here ;  but  the  words  I  heard, 
and  the  impression  they  made  upon  me,  are  facts. 

Here  is  a  second  note  of  discord :  Ratgeb  had  been 
enlarging  on  the  influence  of  the  Order  at  royal  courts 
and  on  prominent  persons ;  he  let  drop  the  names  of  the 
Jesuits  Lamormaini,  Vervaux,  La  Chaise,  and  others. 
There  was  something  peculiarly  observant  in  his  glance  as 
he  said  to  me  : 

"  Will  you  accept  the  post  of  tutor  to  the  sons  of  the 
Austrian  Ambassador  in  Paris  ?  "f 

Abruptly  I  answered,  "  No,"  and  abruptly  I  was 
dismissed  by  the  Provincial.  That  was  the  end  of  our 
intimate  conversations.  I  had  a  feeling  that  the  offer  of 
this  post  was  a  test.  Ratgeb,  who  was  no  longer  quite 
sure  of  me,  wanted  to  know  whether  I  was  suited  for 
higher  things.  How  matters  really  stood  with  me  at 
that  time — that  the  Jesuit  system  had  become  a  horror 
to  me,  and  the  Catholic  Church  a  mere  ruin,  that  my 
gaze  and  will  were  fixed  on  a  separation  from  both — of 
course  he  could  not  guess. 

In  my  place  another  Jesuit  received  the  post  of  tutor 

*  Leo  XII.,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  died  suddenly  after  only  three  days'  illness,  on 
February  10th,  1829.    Cf.  Wiseman,  Recollections  of  the  Last  Four  Popes. 

f  The  Austrian  Ambassador  in  Paris  was  Count  Hoyos  Sprinzenstein,  whose 
three  sons  at  that  time  were  between  eleven  and  fourteen  years  of  age ;  one  of 
them  is  now  Secretary  to  the  Legation  at  the  Austrian  Embassy  in  Berlin. 


Exaeten  375 

refused  by  me,  which,  of  course,  was  made  to  serve  the 
political  influence  of  the  Order. 

Here  is  another  proof  of  confidence.  In  the  summer 
of  1889  the  Provincial  Ratgeb  sent  me  with  the  Jesuit 
Tilmann  Pesch  to  Mayence,  to  take  part  in  a  political 
conference  to  be  held  there  in  the  house  of  a  Bishop,  Dr. 
HafTner. 

There  were  present :  Windthorst,  Prince  Lowenstein 
(now  a  Dominican),  the  Bishops  of  Mayence  and  Treves  (Dr. 
Korum),  the  chief  editor  of  the  Germania,  Dr.  Marcour,  the 
deputies  Lieber  and  Racke  (who  was  murdered  at  Christmas, 
1908,  by  his  own  son) ;  my  uncle,  Baron  Felix  von  Loe  ; 
and  three  Jesuits,  I,  Tilmann  Pesch  and  Frins  (the  future 
legal  adviser  of  Windthorst  in  Berlin).  A  great  social- 
political  and  "  apologetic  "  undertaking  was  to  be  founded. 
The  exchange  of  opinions  was  very  lively.  Windthorst, 
a  cunning  politician,  and  legal  assistant  to  the  Protestant 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  represented  the  milder  tendency 
towards  persons  of  a  different  faith.  Bishop  Korum  of 
Treves  and  the  Jesuit  Pesch  were  in  favour  of  sharp  and 
extreme  measures,  and  let  fall  characteristic  remarks. 
Thus,  for  instance,  when  Professor  Dr.  Beyschlag  of  Halle 
and  his  activity  against  the  Roman  Church  were  under 
discussion,  Pesch  asked  :  "Is  there  no  means  of  attacking 
him  in  his  private  life  ?  "  Very  typical  of  ultramontane 
Jesuit  fighting  methods  !  The  discussion,  which  led  to  no 
definite  result,  lasted  many  hours.  But  for  all  that,  there 
in  Mayence  the  idea  of  a  fighting  denominational  organi- 
sation which  should  help  to  win  members  for  the  Centre 
Party  took  shape,  and  was  finally  realised  in  the  "  National 
Union  for  Catholic  Germany."  And  the  Jesuit  Pesch  who, 
in  spite  of  the  great  assistance  of  Korum,  Bishop  of  Treves, 
had  not  succeeded,  owing  to  the  opposition  of  Windthorst 
in  calling  into  being  an  "  apologetic  "  Union  of  Agitation, 
soon  afterwards  began  on  his  own  account  to   stir  up 


376  Fourteen   Years   a  Jesuit 

denominational  hatred  in  his  FlugscJirijten  zur  Wehr  und 
Lehr.  In  this  he  was  most  willingly  supported  by  the 
Berlin  paper  Germania,  which  undertook  the  publication 
of  the  venomous  review,  and  carries  it  on  to  the  present 
day.  The  then  business  manager  of  the  Germania, 
who  called  himself  "  Director,"  a  certain  Max  Muschik, 
who,  unless  I  am  mistaken,  soon  afterwards  had  to  make 
himself  scarce  on  account  of  his  "  directorial ''  activity, 
also  took  part  in  the  Conference. 

As  yet  I  have  said  nothing  about  the  vita  communis 
in  the  Order — the  manner  of  our  daily  common  life.  I 
do  not  refer  to  the  external  arrangements,  which  found 
expression  in  the  daily  routine,  but  rather  to  its  inner 
character,  the  tone  of  the  intercourse,  the  relation  of  the 
individuals  to  one  another,  and  so  forth. 

Since  a  Jesuit's  day  contains  only  two  periods  of 
recreation,  an  hour  after  dinner  and  another  after  supper, 
and  as  with  few  exceptions  walks  take  place  only  twice 
a  week,  while  at  other  times  the  rule  prescribes  silence 
for  the  whole  of  the  day,  and  visits  in  different  rooms 
are  only  allowed  by  special  permission  of  the  Superior, 
there  is  but  little  opportunity  for  personal  social  inter- 
course and  for  the  exercise  of  the  virtues — natural  and 
"  supernatural  " — which  it  calls  forth. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  the  tone  in  these  common 
recreations  was  good  and  cheerful.  Serious  disagreements, 
and  marked  unpleasantness  and  enmities,  were  exceptional. 
All  tried  to  accommodate  themselves  to  one  another. 
Still,  the  virtues  which  manifest  themselves  in  the  common 
life  of  the  Jesuits  are  in  no  respect  greater  than  those 
manifested  in  any  good  family  life.  On  the  contrary, 
they  are  far  less,  for  the  Jesuit  has  only  twice  a  day, 
for  a  short  time,  the  opportunity  of  exercising  these 
virtues  —  amiability,  pleasantness,  adaptability,  self  - 
sacrifice  and  unselfishness — while  in  a  well-ordered  family 


Exaeten  377 

they  have  to  be  exercised  all  day  long,  from  morning  till 
night.  But  in  one  respect  the  life  in  the  Jesuit  and  other 
Orders  is  exactly  on  a  par  with  the  secular  life  so  greatly 
despised  by  the  members  of  the  Order.  Human  weak- 
nesses, such  as  envy,  dislike  and  friction,  are  to  be  found 
here  as  there. 

During  my  membership  of  the  Order  I  only  witnessed 
one  case  of  excess,  or  rather  its  consequences,  during  the 
recreation  hours.  A  Jesuit  returned  from  one  of  his 
frequent  excursions  in  a  state  of  considerable  intoxication, 
and  as  the  evening  recreation  happened  to  be  in  progress, 
he  shared  in  it  in  a  more  than  "  animated  "  condition.  It 
was  a  most  unpleasant  scene,  the  more  unpleasant  since 
the  person  in  question,  even  when  sober,  was  a  noisy 
chatterbox.  I  never  heard  that  this  serious  excess  on 
his  part  was  reprimanded  by  the  Superior,  as  should 
certainly  have  been  done.  I  have  not  mentioned  this 
circumstance  in  order  to  throw  stones  at  the  Order  or 
the  particular  Jesuit,  but  only  to  prove  the  evident  fact 
that  the  sanctity  of  the  life  in  the  Order  does  not  exclude 
considerable  excesses.  This  Jesuit  was  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  writers  of  the  German  Province. 

What  does  not  the  ordinary  Catholic  layman  behold 
in  the  Jesuit  Order — and  indeed  in  all  Orders  !  And  how 
very  different  is  the  reality  within  their  walls  ! 

They — by  "  they  "  I  mean  Catholic  circles  who  see  in 
the  Order  "  the  highest  state  of  Christian  perfection  " — 
form  most  exaggerated  conceptions  of  the  perfection  of 
its  members.  In  reality  they  are,  and  remain,  human 
beings.  Only  the  strict  seclusion  which  they  have  erected 
as  a  wall  between  themselves  and  the  rest  of  the  world, 
enables  them  to  produce  the  impression  of  something 
superhuman  and  specially  holy.  The  virtue  of  the  members 
of  an  Order  which  is  surrounded  and  guarded  by  hundreds 
of  rules  and  fences,  which  knows  itself  watched  at  every 


378  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

step  by  Argus  eyes,  and  thus  has  scarcely  an  opportunity 
for  stumbling  and  falling,  is  on  that  very  account  far  less 
genuine  and  robust  than  the  virtue  of  the  man  of  the 
world  who,  in  the  midstream  of  life  and  its  temptations, 
has  to  preserve  it  by  fighting. 

The  life  of  men  and  women  in  Orders  is  easy  and 
pleasant  when  once  the  first  conflict  caused  by  the  parting 
from  family  and  home  is  passed,  and  for  many  this  parting 
does  not  even  occasion  a  conflict. 

While  the  Christian  of  "  lower  grade,"  the  "  man  of 
the  world,"  as  he  is  contemptuously  called  by  the  members 
of  the  Order,  is  consumed  with  anxiety  as  to  the  sustenance 
of  himself  and  his  family,  the  men  and  women  in  Orders 
live  a  life  of  ease ;  everywhere  their  house  is  built,  their 
table  spread,  their  bed  prepared*  ;  and  the  quaint  irony  of 
the  circumstances  consists  in  this — that  their  house,  table, 
and  bed  are  prepared  for  them  by  the  charitable  offerings 
of  the  men  of  the  world  who  "  stand  far  below  them  in 
perfection,"  and  are  troubled  by  all  the  cares  of  life. 

If  only  the  laity  knew  the  real  state  of  things  as  regards 
the  convents  and  their  inmates,  then  no  reform  by  the 
spiritual  authority,  nor  restrictive  legislation  by  the 
temporal,  would  be  needed  to  call  forth  a  truly  Christian 
evangelical  perfection  in  the  numerous  settlements  of  the 
Order,  or  to  bring  the  parasitical  existence  of  so  many 
hundreds  of  them  to  a  well-deserved  end. 

But  there  is  one  really  dark  side  to  the  Jesuit  common 
life. 

The  system  of  supervision  and  espionage  which  per- 
meates the  Order,  the  mutual  denunciation  declared  to  be 
a  rule  and  duty,  make  innocent  intercourse  and  comrade- 
ship   and    friendship    absolutely    impossible.     This    last, 

*  From  this  freedom  from  care  and  anxiety  I  must  exempt  the  nursing  orders. 
They  impose  severe  duties  in  hospitals  and  asylums  on  their  members,  and  often 
demand  heroic  sacrifices  from  them.  But  here  too  we  may  say  that  countless 
secular  male  and  female  nurses  do  the  same. 


Exaeten  379 

indeed,  is  expressly  forbidden.  One  Jesuit  does  not  show 
himself  to  his  fellow- Jesuit  as  he  is,  but  rather  as  he  would 
like  to  appear.  He  has  no  friend  to  whom  he  may  freely 
open  his  heart.  Thus  members  of  the  Jesuit  Order  never 
approach  one  another  closely,  and  therefore  Jesuit  common 
life  knows  nothing  of  intimacy,  in  which  consist  the  savour 
and  sweetness,  the  refreshment  and  strength,  of  human 
intercourse. 

Discipline  prevails  in  the  Jesuit  Order,  in  spite  of  all 
human  failings  and  the  very  comfortable  life  led  there. 
This  discipline  is  above  all  manifest  in  the  promptitude 
with  which  a  Jesuit  lets  himself  be  sent  hither  and  thither 
— literally  from  one  end  of  the  earth  to  another,  sometimes 
from  one  day  to  another.  Here  readiness  for  sacrifice 
and  self-denial  are  displayed  in  an  amazing  fashion  ;  every 
difficulty  is  overcome,  health  and  life  are  sacrificed  without 
the  slightest  demur.  Still,  even  here  there  is  a  "  but "  ; 
I  do  not  wish  in  any  way  to  minimise  the  undeniable 
heroism  of  the  Jesuits,  but  has  not  every  profession  its 
self-sacrificing  and  courageous  heroes  ?  Are  there  not 
"  martyrs  of  science  "  as  there  are  martyrs  of  faith,  and 
have  not  hundreds  and  thousands  of  soldiers  spilt  their 
heart's  blood  as  readily  for  the  flag  as  a  missionary  for 
the  Cross  ?  If  all  those  are  to  be  canonised  and  beatified 
who  have  held  high  their  ideals  in  a  life  of  renunciation 
and  sacrifice,  or  who  have  sealed  with  their  blood  their 
endeavours  and  convictions,  there  would  not  be  room 
in  the  world  for  the  necessary  altars,  on  which  would 
stand  the  images  of  men  and  women  of  all  professions, 
among  them  hundreds  and  thousands  of  such  as  were  not 
Christians  at  all,  who  believed  neither  in  God  nor  a  future 
life.  Therefore,  with  all  due  recognition  of  the  heroism 
shown  by  Jesuits,  and  other  religious  orders  too,  the  rest 
of  the  world,  believers  and  unbelievers  alike,  may  say  to 
them,  "  We  too  have  our  heroes." 


380  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

It  is  owing  to  the  narrow  education  of  Catholics  that 
they  know  scarcely  any  martyrs  and  saints  except  their 
own ;  indeed,  they  object  to  the  expression  "  martyrs 
of  science."  This  was  my  case  too  for  several  decades  ; 
but  when,  in  later  years,  I  saw  before  me  the  heroism  of 
humanity,  independent  of  religion  and  creed,  in  heroic 
men  and  women,  when  I  observed  the  numbers  of  those 
who  had  sacrificed  themselves  for  purely  human  objects 
and  aims,  then  the  haloes  around  the  ecclesiastical  saints 
and  martyrs  began  to  pale,  and  from  thence  forward  I 
saw  in  them  only  men  who,  like  many  thousands  of  others, 
had  sacrificed  themselves  for  their  ideals.  The  com- 
prehension of  this  truth  helped  me  greatly  in  my  separation 
from  the  Church  and  the  Order. 

Let  us,  then,  allow  the  Jesuit  Order  its  heroism,  but 
let  us  give  it  the  place  that  it  deserves,  side  by  side  with 
the  millions  of  heroic  men  and  women  of  all  professions, 
all  nations,  all  religions,  and  even  of  no  religion. 

Besides  my  literary  labours,  of  which  I  shall  have  to 
speak  later,  I  also  undertook  pastoral  work  at  Exaeten — 
or,  rather,  from  this  place  as  a  centre.  In  this  respect, 
too,  I  enjoyed  the  special  confidence  of  my  Superiors. 
Confession,  preaching,  giving  Exercises,  missions,  con- 
ferences (learned  and  religious  discourse),  in  short,  the 
whole  domain  of  Jesuit  spiritual  direction  was  open  to 
me. 

I  will  give  some  details.  Missions  (popular  missions) 
are  exercises  for  the  masses.  Their  momentary  but  very 
transitory  effect  on  the  people  is  immense,  and  in  par- 
ticular the  confessionals  are  besieged.  I  took  part  in 
an  unusually  large  mission  at  Gelsenkirchen  in  1889  or 
1890.  Fourteen  Jesuits  were  literally  occupied  day  and 
night;  from  early  morning — four  o'clock — till  eleven  or 
twelve  at  night,  they  heard  confessions.     The  whole  town 


Exaeten  381 

was  in  a  state  of  feverish  excitement.  This  religious  fever 
and  nervous  excitement  are  special  characteristics  of  a 
mission.  That  they  also  have  good  effects  cannot  be 
denied,  but  the  manner  in  which  these  are  produced  is 
absolutely  opposed  to  the  simple  religious  spirit  of  the 
Gospel.  Everything  is  suggestion — there  is  no  inward 
and  personal  contemplation.     Externals  prevail. 

A  typical  example  of  the  external  character  of  the 
spiritual  direction  peculiar  to  Jesuits  is  related  quite 
ingenuously  by  the  Jesuit  Bist.* 

In  a  report  to  his  Superiors  the  Jesuit  Sarrazin  there 
relates  how,  when  at  Erfurt  in  the  winter  of  1870-71,  he 
prepared  a  French  prisoner  for  death: 

"  All  admonitions  had  been  in  vain.  At  last  the 
Jesuit  sent  word  to  the  sick  man,  through  the  Sisters  of 
Mercy,  that  by  acting  thus  he  was  providing  for  himself 
a  funeral  without  the  attendance  of  a  priest. 

"  '  What !     A  priest  would  not  then  follow  my  corpse  ?  ' 

"  '  Certainly  not ;  none  would  be  allowed  to  accom- 
pany you.' 

" '  Well,  then,  you  may  go  quickly  and  fetch  the 
priest.' 

"  On  the  very  same  evening  he  received  the  Last 
Sacraments,  and  was  thus  prepared  for  death,  which 
followed  a  few  days  afterwards." 

Such  conversions,  through  purely  external  means  such 
as  the  absence  of  a  priest  at  a  funeral,  are  in  complete 
accord  with  Jesuit  moral  teaching,  as  expounded,  for 
instance,  by  the  Jesuits  Le  Roux  and  Slaughter : 

"  Ivenin  thinks  that  it  results  from  our  teaching  that 
a  man  who  has  lived  a  godless  life  for  forty  years  can, 
by  mere  '  attrition '  (penitence  through  fear  of  eternal 
punishment)    receive    the    sacramental    absolution,    and 

*  Die  deutschen  Jesuiten  auf  den  ScMachtf elder  n  und  in  den  Lazarettcn,  1866 
und  1870-71. 


382  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

immediately  afterwards  lose  his  reason  through  a  fatal 
illness,  and  yet  have  a  right  to  everlasting  salvation,  even 
though  he  never  loved  God,  not  even  at  the  end  of  his 
life.     To  this  we  unconditionally  assent."* 

"  It  may  happen  that  a  man  attains  salvation  who 
has  often  transgressed  all  God's  commands,  and  has  never 
fulfilled  his  first  command  of  love — that  is,  if  he  receives 
the  Sacrament  with  mere  attrition,  and  dies  immediately 
afterwards,  "f 

The  contrast  between  Christianity  and  Jesuitism  can 
scarcely  be  more  clearly  demonstrated.  But  it  is  com- 
prehensible that  such  practice  and  theory  produce  great 
spiritual  results,  the  duration  of  which  is,  however,  in 
proportion  to  the  crumbling  nature  of  its  foundation. 

Thus,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Exercises,  sermons  on 
death,  the  judgment  and  hell  are  the  real  centres  of  gravity 
of  the  missions.  By  these  the  hearers  are  belaboured 
most  effectively,  and  converted  through  fear. 

For  the  spirit  in  which  the  missions  are  often  con- 
ducted, a  passage  from  a  letter  by  the  Jesuit  Johannes 
Gastel,  of  March  25,  1685,  from  the  South  American 
Mission,  is  characteristic  : — 

"  With  a  view  to  avenging  the  death  of  the  above- 
mentioned  Fathers  [three  Jesuits  had  been  murdered  by 
the  Caribs,  near  the  Orinoco],  fifty  Portuguese  soldiers 
and  four  hundred  Indian  bowmen  will  soon  be  sent  out  to 
kill  as  many  of  the  Caribs  as  possible.  There  is  no  better 
method  for  subduing  the  savagery  of  barbaric  nations 
than  to  drive  out  tyranny  with  tyranny,  and  to  inspire 
fear,  so  that  they  may  not  attempt  anything  similar  in 
future."t 

The  Jesuit  Aloysius  Pfeil  also  relates  a  circumstance 

*  Le  Roux,  S.J. 

t  Slaughter,  S.J.     Quoted  by  Dollinger-Reusch,  I.,  80. 

J  From  the  Jesuit  papers  in  the  State  Archives.    Friedrich,  Beitrage,  p.  38. 


Exaeten  383 

which  reveals  a  similar  lack  of  the  religious  and  Christian 
conception  of  the  missionary  vocation. 

"  At  that  time  Portuguese  and  Indian  troops  were  sent 
out  from  San  Luiz  de  Potosi  to  subdue  the  tribe  of  the 
Tramambases,  who  inhabit  the  interior  of  Maragnon,  to 
Christ  and  the  King  of  Portugal,  if  they  did  not  surrender 
of  their  own  free  will.  The  faithful  soldiers  who  marched 
into  battle  were  accompanied  by  Fr.  Peter  Luiz."* 

That  the  Jesuit  missions  were  conducted  in  the  same 
spirit,  as  regards  heretics,  is  a  matter  of  course,  but  it  is 
also  strikingly  demonstrated  by  a  letter  from  the  Jesuit 
Bobadilla,  one  of  the  first  comrades  of  Ignatius  Loyola, 
to  the  Roman  King  Ferdinand : — 

"  But  Bobadilla  had  never  been  so  inwardly  glad  and 
happy  as  when  he  beheld  the  Spanish  and  Italian  cavalry 
who  had  come  to  Germany  for  the  Smalkaldic  war,  for  these 
were  the  true  instructors  to  convert  the  heretics,  "f 

An  interesting  communication  is  made  by  the  Jesuit 
Mundwiler  in  a  treatise  on  the  Jesuit  von  Waldburg-Zeil, 
of  the  noble  house  of  Zeil,  who  had  attained  great  celebrity 
in  Germany  as  a  popular  missioner : — 

"  The  General,  Johannes  Boothaan,  who  had  been 
expelled  from  Borne,  summoned  the  Jesuits  scattered 
throughout  Westphalia  to  a  conference  in  Cologne  in  the 
year  1849,  when  he  was  on  a  journey  from  Treves  to 
Belgium.  There  were  present,  besides  the  General 
Boothaan  and  his  companion,  the  Jesuit  Villefort,  the 
Jesuits  Minoux,  Behrens,  Devis,  Joseph  von  Klinkowstrom, 
Stoppar,  and  Burgstahler.  Count  Joseph  zu  Stolberg- 
Stolberg,  founder  of  the  St.  Boniface  Union,  himself  an 
ex- Jesuit,  also  took  part  in  the  discussions.  They  resulted 
in  the  decision  to  revive  the  Popular  Missions,  and  at  the 
call  of  the  General,  Father  Boothaan,  and  the  Provincial, 

*  From  the  Jesuit  papers  in  the  State  Archives.     Friedrich,  Beitrdge,  p.  38. 
t  The  letter  is  quoted  by  Druffel,  Beitrdge  zur  Reichsgeschichte,  I.  20. 


384  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

Father  Minoux,  the  following  Jesuits  went  as  missioners 
to  Germany :  Ketterer  from  England,  Max  von  Klinkow- 
strom  from  Australia,  Eoh  from  Belgium,  Hasslacher  from 
France,  Anderledy  and  Pottgeisser  from  America. 

"  The  Jesuit  residences  at  Cologne,  Bonn,  Coblence, 
Mayence,  Minister,  Paderborn,  Ratisbon,  Gorheim,  which 
became  centres  of  the  missionary  network  spread  over 
Germany,  also  owe  their  origin  to  the  Cologne  conference 
of  the  year  1849."* 

And  in  spite  of  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuit  Order  from 
Germany  in  1873,  the  Jesuits  continue  to  the  present  day 
in  the  most  various  parts  of  the  Empire  to  carry  on  their 
missions  undisturbed,  and  in  this  way  to  perform  one  of 
the  most  effective  pieces  of  work  conducted  by  the  Order. 
I  gave  Exercises  to  schoolboys,  students,  gentlemen, 
ladies,  girls,  nuns,  in  private  houses  and  educational 
establishments  ;  and  in  spite  of  my  youth  in  the  Order,  I 
was  even  designated  to  give  Exercises  in  the  priestly 
seminaries.  The  insight  I  thus  obtained  into  all  the 
circumstances  of  ultramontane  Catholic  life,  even  on  its 
political  side,  was  extremely  instructive.  But,  on  account 
of  their  religious  and  confidential  character,  they  cannot 
be  reproduced. 

One  circumstance  in  connection  with  the  Exercises 
(though  not  given  by  me)  I  can  communicate,  as  it  was 
long  ago  made  known  to  the  public.  It  shows  how  the 
essentially  religious  Exercises  may  also  be  utilised  for 
political  purposes.  It  also  contains  a  characteristic 
picture  of  Jesuit  sentiment. 

The  Federal  Deputy  and  President  of  the  Senate, 
Dr.  Petri,  wrote,  on  March  17,  1895,  to  the  publisher  of 
the  Deutscher  Merkur :  "  Shortlv  before  the  Convents 
Debate  in  the  Prussian  Lower  House  I  received  a  letter 
from  the  Chief  District  Judge,  F.  Beck,xdated  from  Heidel- 

*  Georg  von  Waldburg-Zeil,  S.J.  (Freiburg,  1906),  p.  77  e.t  scq. 


Exaeten  385 

berg,    May   4,    1875,    of   which   the   original   is   at   your 
service,  which  contains  the  following  passage  : — 

' '  The  Jesuit  Roh,  in  1851,  when  directing  Exercises 
at  St.  Peter's  (in  Freiburg),  said :  "  Our  ultimate  aim  is 
to  overthrow  the  Hohenzollerns — keep  that  before  your 
eyes.  And  if  you  betray  it,  it  will  be  denied.  The 
convents  and  ecclesiastical  associations  will  know  how  to 
solve  this  problem."  '  " 

This  was  told  me  by  Pastor  Napper,  who  had  heard 
it  himself,  and  pledged  his  word  of  honour  to  its  truth. 

The  only  disproof  of  this  credible  and  well-testified 
utteranoe  of  the  Jesuit  Roh  consists  in  a  statement  made 
by  the  Episcopal  Chancellery  in  Freiburg,  which,  however, 
does  not  bear  on  the  matter  :— 

'  In  the  minutes  (!)  nothing  is  to  be  found  about  this 
expression ;  in  view  of  §  15  of  the  Prussian  Constitution, 
and  the  disposition  of  Frederick  William  IV.,  there  was 
not  the  shadow  of  an  excuse  for  any  expression  to  the 
effect  communicated ;  there  was  no  such  person  as  a 
Dr.  Napper,  only  one  called  Nopper,  who  had,  however, 
on  one  occasion  expressed  himself  as  unfriendly  to  popular 
missioners,  and,  therefore,  there  could  scarcely  be  a  less 
dependable  witness  for  the  Chief  District  Judge  Beck 
than  this  man." 

Everywhere  and  always  I  tried  to  give  my  best  to  the 
people  who  turned  to  me  in  their  religious  difficulties — 
little  as  that  may  have  been.  But  even  when  my  belief 
was  no  longer  Catholic  I  endeavoured  to  maintain  the 
faith  of  others.  As  long  as  I  outwardly  bore  the  character 
of  a  Jesuit  and  priest,  I  had  to  give  those  who  turned 
to  me,  trusting  in  this  character,  that  which  was  due  to 
my  seeming,  and  to  what  they  saw  in  me.  That  I  regarded 
as  my  duty. 

Only  twice  in  the  very  last  period  of  my  outward 
adhesion  to  the  Order  and  the  Church  did  I  act  differently. 


386  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

On  those  occasions  I  allowed  the  man  in  me,  and  not  the 
scholastic  theologian  and  Jesuit,  to  find  utterance — in 
relation  to  a  woman  who  had  murdered  her  child,  and  a 
student. 

The  murderess,  who  had  many  years  previously,  out 
of  shame  and  despair,  killed  an  illegitimate,  prematurely 
born  child,  incapable  of  life,  directly  after  its  birth,  and 
whose  action  had  remained  undiscovered  and  without 
consequences  to  others,  desired,  being  urged  to  it  by  her 
confessor,  to  give  herself  up  to  justice.  Meantime  she 
had  contracted  a  happy  marriage,  and  her  denunciation 
of  herself  would  have  brought  great  suffering  and  trouble 
on  her  own  and  her  husband's  highly  respected  families. 
I  brought  her  to  see  that  the  destruction  of  this  premature 
birth,  which  was  incapable  of  life,  was  no  great  sin,  and 
that  the  self-denunciation  required  by  her  confessor 
would  have  been  an  absolute  crime.* 

I  freed  the  student  of  his  belief  in  an  everlasting  hell, 
which  was  torturing  him  into  despair.  Farther  on  I  shall 
return  to  this  inhuman  and  irreligious  "  dogma." 

Many  a  confession  have  I  heard  in  Germany,  Holland, 
Belgium,  England.  Obviously  I  cannot  give  details  here, 
but  a  general  remark  may  not  be  out  of  place. 

Ultramontanism  under  Jesuit  direction  has  collected 
for  itself  out  of  the  religious  conception  of  confession  a 
powerful  means  for  subduing  to  its  own  service  Catholics 
of  all  classes  in  every  relation  of  life — private  and  public — 

*  Many  persons  may  perhaps  disapprove  of  my  decision  that  the  murder  of 
this  illegitimate  child,  incapable  of  life,  was  no  great  crime  on  the  mother's  part. 
I  could  give  very  good  reasons  for  my  opinion,  but  I  avoid  doing  so,  as  I  have 
not  mentioned  this  case  as  a  specimen  of  my  ethical  and  moral  views,  but  only 
to  show  that  in  the  last  period  of  my  priestly  and  Jesuit  labours  the  human  being 
who  thought  freely,  if  perhaps  mistakenly,  was  beginning  to  oust  the  dogmatically 
trained,  unfree  Jesuit.  The  demand  of  the  confessor  for  self-denunciation  is, 
however,  not  to  be  set  to  the  account  of  ultramontane  Catholic  moral  teaching, 
but  rather  to  the  individual  fanaticism  and  folly  of  the  priest  in  question  ;  still 
it  shows  what  harm  the  influence  of  an  uncritical,  inexperienced,  and  fanatical 
confessor  may  bring  about. 


Exaeten  387 

for  its  own  secular  and  political  aspirations  after  dominion. 
That  piety  also  is  developed  in  confession  and  spiritual 
consolation  supplied  is  a  matter  of  course,  else  indeed 
the  confessionals  would  soon  stand  empty.  But  the 
religious  effect  of  confession  has  become  a  secondary 
matter,  although  the  confessing  masses  are  not  aware  of 
it.  Its  main  end  is  the  influencing  of  men — citizens, 
politicians,  and  others. 

Reinhold  Baumstark  has  given  an  effective  description 
of  the  disastrous  influence  of  the  Jesuit  Order  in  this 
respect.* 

And  yet,  non-religious  as  confession  has  become  through 
the  methods  by  which  it  is  carried  on,  though  it  actually 
has  become  the  centre  of  a  state  within  a  state,  it  yet 
remains  and  must  remain  a  noli  me  tangere.  The  Jesuit 
Order  knows  this,  and  on  this  knowledge  rest  the  exploit- 
ation of  confession  and  spiritual  direction  for  its  own 
governing  ends.  The  final  aim  of  all  its  missions,  exercises, 
conferences,  and  prayers,  is  confession.  In  this  it  possesses 
a  lever  with  which  it  can  move  the  world,  in  the  first  in- 
stance the  ultramontane  Catholic  world,  along  its  own  lines. 

This  Jesuit  exploitation  of  confession  is  as  old  as  the 
Jesuit  Order  itself.  For  this  we  have  the  very  competent 
testimony  of  Pope  Clement  VIII.  (1592-1605) : 

"  I  should  like  to  know  what  they  [the  Jesuits]  do  every 
day  for  three  or  four  hours  in  the  confessional,  with  persons 
who  confess  every  day.  I  cannot  help  inferring  from 
their  proceedings  the  truth  of  the  reproach  brought  against 
them,  that  they  use  confession  as  a  means  for  obtaining 
knowledge  of  events  taking  place  in  the  world."f 

To  my  great  joy,  still  vivid  within  me,  I  may  say  that 
I  myself,  in  spite  of  the  Jesuit  ultramontane  training, 
never  became  a  Jesuitical  ultramontane  confessor.     I  also 

*  Cf.  my  work,  Das  Papsttum,  etc.,  II.,  512  et  seq. 
f  From  J.  Friedrich,  Beitrage,  p.  49. 


388  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

confined  confession,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the  actual  state- 
ment of  sins ;  I  never  tried  to  use  it  for  penetrating  into 
family  and  private  affairs.  All  such  revelations  on  the 
part  of  penitents  were  stopped  by  me  with  the  remark : 
"  The  object  of  confession  is  the  statement  of  sins." 

In  other  respects  too  I  was  an  un-Jesuitical  confessor. 
The  frequency  of  confession,  carried  by  Jesuitism  beyond 
all  bounds,  was  energetically  combated  by  me. 

Weekly,  even  daily  confessions,  have  transformed 
Jesuit  piety,  and  even  more  the  desire  of  the  Order  to 
obtain  the  rule  over  men,  into  a  far-spread  abuse.  The 
commands  of  the  Church  only  lay  down  the  duty  of  con- 
fessing once  in  the  year,  and  are  far  from  advising  daily 
confession.  Even  though  I  did  not  advocate  a  single 
annual  confession,  I  did  my  best  to  stop  too  frequent 
confessions.  They  are  injurious :  they  make  men  terribly 
dependent  on  their  confessors  for  their  religious  life,  and 
they  foster  the  whole  race  of  scruple-mongers  and  bigots 
who  do  so  much  harm  to  themselves  and  others.* 

I  was  also  employed  in  spiritual  direction  within  the 
Order.  For  a  long  time  I  had  the  office  of  "  giving  "  to 
the  lay  brothers  the  points  for  their  daily  morning  medita- 
tion. This  means  that  I  set  the  subject  of  meditation 
before  them,  and  expounded  it.  I  enjoyed  my  intercourse 
with  these  simple  people,  and  I  believe  that  my  manner, 
too,  was  congenial  to  them. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  characteristic  traits  of  the  Jesuit 
Order  that  it  deliberately  tries  to  maintain  its  lay  brothers 
in  a  state  of  "  simplicity  " — that  is,  in  as  great  a  state  of 
ignorance  as  possible.  The  Constitutions  lay  down,  in 
two  places  : 

"  The  lay  brother  [coadjutor  temporalis]  is  not  to  learn 
more  than  he  already  knew  before  he  entered  the  Order,  "f 

*  Cf.  my  remarks  on  children's  confessions  in  Chapter  II. 
t  Exam,  gen.,   VI.  6. 


Exaeten  389 


u 


None  of  those  who  are  admitted  for  the  purpose  of 
domestic  offices  are  to  learn  reading  or  writing,  or,  if  they 
have  learned  already,  to  continue  their  studies."* 

It  is  evident  that  the  Order  does  not  wish  to  expose 
those  on  whose  regular  and  daily  work  the  security  and 
regularity  of  its  outward  life  depend  to  the  "  dangers  " 
of  education,  which  might  perhaps  introduce  unrest  into 
the  ranks  of  these  useful  serfs. 

Another  not  unimportant  spiritual  office  which  was 
allotted  to  me  was  that  of  confessor  at  the  renewal  of 
vows. 

Every  Jesuit,  until  he  takes  his  last  vows,  whether  as 
formed  coadjutor  or  as  professed,  must  twice  a  year 
(usually  in  February  and  June)  renew  his  vows.  The 
renewal  (renovatio  votorum)  is  preceded  by  a  Triduum  with 
special  spiritual  exercises  and  a  general  confession  covering 
the  period  since  the  last  renewal. 

For  this  half-yearly  office,  special  extraordinary  con- 
fessors are  appointed,  so  that  at  any  rate  twice  in  the 
year  there  is  a  possibility  of  unburdening  the  conscience  to 
another  than  the  regularly  appointed  confessor.  Of  course, 
the  extraordinary  confessor  is  bound  to  seek  from  the 
Superior  the  right  of  absolution  for  "  reservation  cases  " 
which  may  be  confessed  to  him,  or  else  to  direct  the 
penitent  to  seek  absolution  for  his  reserved  sin  from  the 
Superior.  Thus  the  Order  here  too,  in  spite  of  apparent 
slackening  of  the  reins,  maintains  control  at  any  rate  over 
the  more  serious  lapses  of  its  members. 

But  my  proper  office  at  Exaeten  was,  as  I  have  already 
said,  that  of  Scriptor. 

I  served  my  apprenticeship  from  the  lowest  stage.  I 
had  to  correct  proofs,  and  write  trial  articles,  which 
underwent  correction,  and  so  on.  For  this  good 
training  I    am    sincerely    grateful    tp    the    Order.     But 

*  Reg.  comm.  14 


39°  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

that  I  was  a  good  pupil  may  give  the  Order  less 
cause  for  gratitude. 

Very  soon  I  was  set  to  independent  and  scholarly  work. 
Church  history,  especially  that  of  the  Popes,  was  to  be 
my  special  subject,  and  it  corresponded  in  every  way  to 
my  inclinations. 

With  what  a  high  conception  of  the  purity,  even 
divinity,  of  this  history  did  I  approach  my  task  !  I  never 
suspected  at  that  time  that  this  study  would  have  such 
terrible  consequences  for  me :  the  collapse  of  my  faith, 
its  abandonment,  separation  from  Church,  Order  and  the 
whole  of  my  past  life.  I  call  these  consequences  terrible. 
For  although  I  recognise  the  great  value  that  they  were 
in  my  life,  and  though  I  appreciate  the  light  that  they 
kindled  within  me,  yet  the  conflict  I  had  to  endure  and 
the  sufferings  I  had  to  bear  were  terrible,  and  the  remem- 
brance of  things  past,  irretrievably  lost,  is,  in  spite  of  all 
that  I  have  gained,  a  lasting  and  ever-painful  open  wound. 

It  is  impossible  to  forsake  sanctuaries,  honoured  for 
decades  out  of  the  depths  of  a  believing  soul,  to  burst 
through  bonds  which  from  the  home  of  childhood  upwards 
have  been  twined  round  youth  and  manhood,  without  the 
bitterest  suffering.  And  yet  I  thank  the  fate,  though  it 
seems  to  have  been  a  blind  one,  that  led  me,  by  the  hand 
of  the  Jesuit  Order,  to  the  road  which  at  last  brought  me 
freedom. 

Two  stages  on  this  road  to  freedom  were  of  special 
importance — Brussels  and  Berlin. 

The  Jesuit  Fah,  my  two-fold  Superior,  sent  me  to 
Brussels  in  order  that  I  might  there,  with  the  assistance 
of  the  Bollandist  Library,*  carry  on  more  exact  studies 
in  the  history  of  the  Papacy  than  the  literary  resources 

*  The  Bollandiste  are,  in  a  sense,  a  literary  republic  within  the  Belgian  Province 
of  the  Jesuit  Order,  with  their  own  library  and  their  own  establishment ;  but, 
of  course,  they  are  subject  to  the  general  Constitutions,  rules,  and  Superiors  of 
the  Order,  like  all  other  Jesuits. 


Exaeten  391 

at  Exaeten  would  have  rendered  possible.  I  also  received 
permission  to  use  the  public  libraries  of  the  Belgian  capital. 

In  the  Jesuit  de  Smet,  at  that  time  Superior  of  the 
Bollandists,  I  found  an  amiable  and  ever-ready  guide 
in  my  studies.  That  he,  as  I  firmly  believed,  was  a 
sceptic  in  no  way  detracted  from  his  human  excellence. 

My  time  at  Brussels  was  but  short,  but  I  made  good 
use  of  it,  and  the  study  of  historical  works,  which  were 
not  written  from  the  ultramontane  Catholic  standpoint, 
but  dealt  with  Church  and  Papacy  in  a  free  spirit,  from 
a  purely  scholarly  point  of  view,  was  a  revelation  to  me. 
At  the  age  of  thirty-eight  I  read  such  works  for  the  first 
time !  Such  things  then  existed  ?  The  Papacy  and 
Church  could  be  approached  from  another  side  ?  Their 
history  consisted  not  only  of  light,  but  even  of  darkest 
shadow  ? 

Such  questions  and  thoughts  stormed  in  upon  me  like 
a  flood,  and  caused  walls  to  totter  which  had  hitherto 
blocked  out  every  view  of  the  *  other  side "  of  the 
"  Divine  "  Church  and  the  "  Divine  "  Papacy. 

On  my  return  to  Exaeten,  I  hinted  to  the  Jesuit  Fan 
some  of  the  impressions  I  had  received.  The  serious 
character  of  the  impressions  made  on  me  at  Brussels 
cannot  have  been  quite  clear  to  him — perhaps  on  account 
of  my  very  guarded  report — for  he  only  made  a  few  casual 
remarks  about  "  temptation  "  and  "  struggle."  But  very 
soon  temptation  and  struggle  came  my  way  through  his 
agency,  though  in  a  very  different  manner  from  that 
meant  by  Fah. 

One  day  he  said  to  me :  "  Windthorst  wishes  the 
question  of  the  Papal  States  to  be  brought  forward  again  ; 
in  the  first  place,  the  Laacher  Stimmen  are  to  publish 
articles  on  the  subject,  showing  the  necessity  of  the  Papal 
States  for  the  freedom  of  the  Pope.  Afterwards  the 
articles  are  to  appear  as  a  pamphlet ;  set  to  work  at  once, 


392  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

and  write  the  articles.     Unlimited  space  will  be  at  your 
disposal  in  the  Laacher  Stimmen." 

When  I  received  this  order — for  an  order  it  was — 
a  tumult  had  already  broken  out  within  me,  for  my  reason 
and  will  were  fighting  on  this  very  subject  of  the  Papacy. 
Even  the  dogmatic  religious  difficulties  to  which  I  have 
before  alluded  had  fallen  into  the  background  before  the 
questions :  Is  the  Pope  the  Vicar  of  Christ  ?  Is  the 
Papacy  of  divine  origin  ?  Is  it  an  infallible  guide  in 
religion  and  morals  ?  Whether  Christ  is  actually  and 
really  present  in  the  consecrated  host  is  a  matter  of 
enormous  importance  for  the  religious  life  of  the  Catholic 
Christian,  and  especially  of  the  priest ;  but,  after  all, 
it  is  a  question  of  faith.  But  whether  the  Papacy  has 
played  that  particular  part  in  the  world,  whether  in 
religion  and  morals  in  the  course  of  centuries  that  blessing 
has  proceeded  from  it  which  its  divine  origin  and  its 
divine  mission  would  of  necessity  demand — these  are 
questions  of  history  to  be  solved  by  historic  means. 

And  I  had  already  looked  too  deeply  into  ecclesiastical 
and  Papal  history  in  the  Brussels  libraries  to  be  able  to 
give  a  cheerful  and  unhesitating  assent  to  these  questions. 

Therefore  the  order  to  defend  the  Papacy,  and  defend 
it  as  a  divine  institution,  which  would  suffer  wrong  if 
it  did  not  also  receive  the  position  of  a  temporal  sovereign 
with  territorial  possessions,  was  a  hard  one  for  me.  I 
tried  to  evade  the  task  by  pointing  to  others  of  better 
ability  and  more  learning.  Fah,  who  could  be  very  curt 
on  occasion,  would  listen  to  no  excuse,  and  said  :  "Do 
you  write  the  articles,  and  say  no  more  about  it." 

I  lacked  the  courage  to  reveal  my  inner  thoughts — 
it  was  fortunate  that  I  did,  else  I  should  not  stand  to-day 
where  I  do  stand — and  I  wrote  the  articles.  But  how  ? 
I  could  say  nothing  from  my  own  convictions.  I  therefore 
took  what  others  had  written  on  the  subject.     It  is  only 


Exaeten  393 

the  arrangement  that  is  my  own.  These  articles,  and  the 
pamphlet  afterwards,  received  a  great  deal  of  praise. 
Windthorst,  the  intellectual  author  of  my  production, 
frequently  expressed  to  me  at  Berlin  his  especial  appre- 
ciation, and  the  leader  of  the  Centre  Party,  Dr.  Porsch, 
told  me  one  day  at  the  dinner  table  of  the  Berlin  Catholic 
Provost,  Jahnel,  that  at  the  General  Assembly  of  Catholics 
at  Buchum,  the  lecturer  on  the  Papacy,  Baron  von  Wendt- 
Gevelinghausen,  had  spoken  about  my  Church  and  State 
pamphlet. 

Even  more  distressing  to  me  was  a  second  literary 
task. 

My  Provincial,  the  Jesuit  Ratgeb,  commissioned  me 
to  write  a  pamphlet  in  defence  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  with 
the  title,  Why  should  the  Jesuits  not  return  to  Germany  ? 
This  was  after  my  stay  in  Berlin.  The  collapse  of  my 
religion  had  already  taken  place,  and  the  necessity  of 
leaving  the  Order  and  the  Church  was  pressing  upon  me. 
In  this  mood  I  was  to  become  the  official  apologist  of  the 
Order  !  I  did  what  I  could  to  escape  from  this  truly 
terrible  command.  Ratgeb  had  told  me  how  effective 
it  would  be,  if  a  member  of  the  German  nobility  belonging 
to  the  Jesuit  Order  were  to  write  this  pamphlet.  I, 
therefore,  begged  him  to  pass  me  over,  and  entrust  the 
work  to  one  of  the  Jesuits,  Prince  Radziwill,  Count  Stolberg- 
Stolberg,  Baron  von  Hammerstein,  or  Baron  von  Geyer- 
Schweppenburg,  who  had  been  much  longer  in  the  Order 
than  myself.  In  vain — I  was  said  to  be  the  best  fitted. 
Here,  again,  I  dared  not  reveal  myself.  I  should  never 
have  attained  to  liberty,  as  I  shall  explain  later.  So  I 
accepted,  an  unwilling  slave  to  obedience,  and  a  hypocrite 
in  my  own  eyes.  And  yet  I  did  not  want  to  be  a  thorough 
hypocrite.  I  transported  myself  back  to  the  years  of  the 
novitiate,  when  I  still  believed  in  the  excellence  of  the 
Order.     And  I  wrote  from  my  heart  the  faith  that  I  then 


394  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

had,  the  ideal  of  the  Order  which  at  that  time  I  had  seen 
before  me.  I  brought  about  their  resurrection,  and 
described  them  in  words.  Thus  the  pamphlet  became  a 
confession  cC  outre  tombe ;  a  gruesome  grave,  in  which  my 
faith  and  youthful  ideals  were  mouldering,  lay  like  a  dark 
abyss  between  the  writer  and  that  of  which  he  wrote. 

And  yet  the  pamphlet  was  a  piece  of  hypocrisy.  The 
compulsion  in  which  I  was  placed  explains,  but  cannot 
fully  justify,  my  self-deception.  I  had  to  choose  between 
writing  and  retaining  the  possibility  of  freedom,  or  not 
writing  and  continuing  to  lead  perhaps  a  long  life  in 
servitude  and  the  most  painful  captivity. 

Before  anyone  throws  a  stone  at  me,  he  should  first 
find  himself  in  a  similar  situation,  and  then  cast  it,  if  he 
still  can. 

A  third  and  longer  pamphlet  written  by  me  was  called 
Christ  or  Anti-Christ.  It  was  a  result  of  my  stay  in  Berlin. 
It  was  this  sojourn  that  brought  me  freedom,  but  it  was 
only  long  afterwards  that  I  cast  off  my  deep-rooted,  because 
inherited,  dogmatic  opinions — for  instance,  the  dogma  of 
the  metaphysical  divine  humanity  of  Christ  (the  doctrine 
of  the  two  natures,  God  and  Man).  At  that  time  I  did 
not  realise  that  the  most  prominent  Protestant  theologians 
denied  this  "  fundamental  dogma  of  Christianity,"  and  I 
thought  this  denial  anti-Christian.  And,  therefore,  in  this 
pamphlet,  the  composition  of  which  was  specially  advocated 
by  the  Superiors  of  the  Order,  I  collected  passages  from 
all  the  Protestant  theological  works  in  which  the  divinity 
of  Christ  was  denied,  and  opposed  to  them  the  traditional 
proofs  of  Christ's  divinity. 

One  piece  of  literary  work  which  I  was  specially  urged 
to  undertake  I  did  refuse,  and  I  am  still  glad  I  did  so. 

The  Jesuit  Tilmann  Pesch  desired  that  the  Provincial 
should  make  me  his  collaborator  in  his  Flugschriften  zur 
Wehr  und  Lehr. 


Exaeten  395 

The  personality  of  Pesch,  and  still  more  the  harshness 
of  his  denominational  polemics,  were  so  repugnant  to  me 
that,  even  at  the  risk  of  having  a  black  mark  set  against 
my  name,  I  declined  outright,  and  even  acquainted  the 
Provincial  Ratgeb  with  the  reason  for  my  refusal.*  He 
made  no  answer,  but  Pesch  never  forgave  me  for  refusing 
him. 

As  long  as  I  remained  a  Jesuit,  my  literary  labours 
were  highly  appreciated,  both  in  the  Order  and  outside. 
Scarcely  had  I  left  the  Order  than  they  were  depreciated 
by  the  same  persons  who  had  hitherto  praised  them. 
This,  of  course,  is  the  Jesuit  ultramontane  fashion ;  there 
is  but  a  short  interval  between  "  Hosanna  !  "  and  "  Crucify 
him  !  "  as  indeed  is  the  case  everywhere. 

However,  I  am  quite  ready  to  join  myself  in  the 
depreciation.  The  writings  of  my  Jesuit  period  are  poor, 
both  in  matter  and  form.  Indeed,  they  could  not  be 
otherwise.  For  they  were  composed  at  a  time  when  all 
religious  enthusiasm  was  quenched  in  me,  when  doubts 
were  gnawing  at  my  religious  convictions,  and  they  were 
written  in  part  against  my  own  conviction,  under  the 
influence  of  Jesuit  obedience  and  distressing  outward 
circumstances.  What  good  thing  can  flow  from  such  a 
source  ? 

Soon  after  I  left  the  Order  I  publicly  repudiated  my 
Jesuit  writings,  in  particular  those  about  the  Papal  States 
and  in  defence  of  the  Order.  And  I  had  a  right  to  repudiate 
them,  for  I  was  not  morally  free  when  I  wrote  them. 

I  must  say  another  not  unessential  word  about  my 
pamphlet,  Why  should  the  Jesuits  not  return  to  Germany  ? 

So  far  as  the  facts  and  historical  aspect  are  concerned, 
it  is  very  superficial,  and  full  of  objective  untruths.  Still, 

*  Instead  of  me,  Pesch  appointed  another  amanuensis,  the  Jesuit  Reichmann. 
who  is  still  carrying  on  his  denominational  and  quarrelsome  activity — anony- 
mously and  pseudonymously. 


396  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

the  fault  was  not  mine,  but  the  Order's,  which,  as  I  have 
already  shown,  most  carefully  conceals  the  truth  about 
itself  and  its  history  from  its  members  and  adherents. 
All  that  I  quote  there  in  defence  of  the  Order  is  taken 
from  Jesuit  writers,  and  at  that  time  I  did  not  myself 
know  how  they  falsify  the  truth.  I  only  came  to  know 
the  real  history  of  the  Order  after  I  left  it.  Had  I  known 
it  before  composing  my  pamphlet  in  its  defence  nothing 
— not  even  the  prospect  of  the  most  serious  consequences 
— would  have  kept  me  from  refusing  the  commission  to 
write  it.  True,  even  at  that  time  I  had  already  broken 
with  the  Jesuit  Order,  but  on  account  of  my  own  experience, 
and  because  the  religious  Catholic  belief  in  me  had  begun  to 
weaken,  not  because  I  knew  its  history.  Among  a  thousand 
Jesuits  there  are  not  two  who  know  it. 

To  the  interesting  experiences  of  my  Jesuit  period  of 
literary  activity  belongs  the  following : 

In  the  year  1889  appeared  the  work,  History  of  the 
Moral  -  Theological  Disputes  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
since  the  Sixteenth  Century,  with  Contributions  to  the  History 
and  Characterisation  of  the  Jesuit  Order  based  on  UnpublisJied 
Documents,  and  published  by  Ignatius  von  Dollinger  and 
Fr.  Heinrich  Keusch,*  which  supplies  a  whole  arsenal  of 
pointed  weapons  against  the  Jesuits.  It  caused  great 
excitement  in  the  Order.  It  was  feared  that  disastrous 
consequences  would  ensue.  The  Jesuits,  Tilmann  Pesch 
and  Pachtler,  wanted  to  write  a  refutation.  They  said 
such  attacks  could  not  remain  unanswered.  The  facts 
revealed  must  be  "  set  back  into  their  right  light."  In  a 
conversation  between  these  two  Jesuits  and  the  Provincial 
Ratgeb,  at  which  I  was  present,  the  matter  was  discussed 
in  detail.     Ratgeb  gave  the  wise  counsel :  "Do  not  answer 

*  GeschicMe  der  Moralstreitigkeiten  in  der  romisch-kalholischen  Kirche  seit  dem 
NSten  Jahrhundert,  mil  Beitragen  zur  Geschichte  und  Charakteristik  des  Jesuitenordens 
avf  Grund  ungedruckter  Aktenstiicke  bearbeitet  und  herausgegeben  von  Ignaz  von 
Dollinger  und  Fr.  Heinrich  Reusch. 


Exaeten  397 

it ;  a  refutation  would  give  the  book  importance  and  a 
wider  circulation,  and  would  draw  the  attention  of  the 
Catholics  to  it.  The  arrangement  and  style  of  the  book 
are  so  cumbersomely  dreary  [very  unfortunately  Ratgeb 
was  right]  that  it  will  lead  a  neglected  existence  in  libraries, 
and  do  us  no  injury."  Ratgeb  prophesied  truly,  and  I 
must  make  the  shameful  confession  that  I  only  studied 
the  book  and  recognised  its  value  after  I  had  left  the 
Order. 

In  Exaeten  too  I  had  a  second  proof  of  the  ridiculous 
prudery  which  everywhere  scents  immorality  and  tempta- 
tions to  break  the  seventh  commandment  (in  spite  of  the 
official  moral-theological  studies  of  sexual  things). 

A  Catholic  artist  had  been  commissioned  to  paint  a 
picture  of  the  patroness  of  Christian  philosophy,  St. 
Catherine  of  Alexandria,  which  was  to  hang  in  the  chief 
study  of  the  young  philosophers  of  the  Order.  The 
picture  arrived,  and  the  Provincial,  the  Jesuit  Lohmann, 
invited  some  of  the  Fathers,  among  whom  I  was  one,  to 
a  preliminary  view.  It  was  painted  in  a  very  "  pious ' 
style — in  the  style  of  Deger's  Madonnas.  The  face  was 
young  and  pretty,  but  expressionless.  The  Provincial 
was  greatly  dissatisfied.  He  said  that  she  was  too  pretty 
and  too  young.  The  sight  might  prove  a  temptation  to 
the  young  scholastics  ;  and  so  St.  Catherine  had  to  put 
up  with  a  few  additional  strokes  of  the  brush,  which  made 
her  appear  older  and  not  quite  so  pretty. 

A  horrible  experience,  which  also  throws  a  strong 
light  on  the  Christian  love  of  humanity  and  our  neighbours 
evinced  by  the  Jesuits  shall  conclude  my  reminiscences^of 
Exaeten.  During  my  theological  studies  at  Ditton  Hall, 
one  of  my  co -scholastics,  Joseph  Kreutzer,  was  dismissed 
from  the  Order.  His  dismissal  caused  a  great  sensation. 
Brother  Kreutzer,  with  whom  I  had  studied  philosophy, 
had  always  appeared  to  me  a  good  and  zealous  member. 


398  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

We  never  heard  any  details  about  the  cause  of  his  dis- 
missal, only  general  unfavourable  comments  were  spread 
about  him.  Then  suddenly  Kreutzer  appeared  in  the 
parish  of  Exaeten,  at  Baexem,  and  from  there  often  came 
to  the  Consulting  Room  at  Exaeten,  to  consult  with 
various  Jesuits.  He  had  particular  confidence  in  me, 
though  why  I  do  not  know.  He  acquainted  me  with  the 
history  of  his  troubles.  He  had  been  wrongfully  dismissed 
— he  had  done  no  wrong.  The  Superiors,  in  particular 
the  Provincial,  at  that  time  the  Jesuit  Lohmann,  and 
his  Socius,  the  Jesuit  Piitz,  had  treated  him  with  great 
harshness.  He  was  now  alone  in  the  world,  without  any 
means,  and  on  the  brink  of  despair. 

As  the  Jesuit  Piitz  was  also  at  Exaeten  as  Socius  of 
Lohmann's  successor,  the  Provincial  Ratgeb,  I  went  to 
him  and  informed  him  of  Kreutzer's  circumstances,  and 
begged  his  assistance.  Piitz  would  not  hear  of  it.  He 
said  Kreutzer  had  brought  his  sad  fate  upon  himself. 
The  Order  had  acted  very  generously  towards  him ; 
nothing  more  could  be  done  for  him.  When  I  informed 
Kreutzer  of  this,  in  another  and  last  conversation,  the  poor 
fellow  was  overwhelmed  by  a  storm  of  despair  and  dis- 
couragement. A  few  days  later  he  cut  his  throat  with  a 
razor,  and  bled  to  death,  in  a  room  in  the  poor  village 
inn  where  he  was  staying.  He  was  put  away  in  the 
churchyard  at  Baexem  as  a  suicide.  A  few  weeks  later 
I  was  passing  the  churchyard  with  the  Jesuit  Piitz,  and  I 
begged  him  to  go  to  the  neglected  grave  and  say  a  prayer 
over  the  unfortunate  departed.  His  answer  was  a  curt 
negative. 


CHAPTER    XXVII 

BERLIN* 

Prom  the  lonely  Dutch  moorland  to  the  cosmopolitan  stir 
of  the  German  Imperial  capital ! 

When  in  the  beginning  of  May,  1888,  after  a  walk  with 
the  Jesuit  Spillmann  through  the  corridors  at  Exaeten, 
I  was  returning  to  my  own  room,  I  received  an  order  to  go 
at  once  to  my  Provincial,  Father  Ratgeb.  He  communi- 
cated this  astonishing  piece  of  news : 

"  You  and  Father  Fah  are  to  go  at  once  to  Berlin, 
until  further  notice.  Father  Fah  will  live  in  St.  Hedwig's 
Infirmary,  you  with  the  delegate  of  the  Prince  Bishop, 
Provost  Jahnel,  who  has  given  his  consent  to  this.  The 
object  of  your  Berlin  residence  is  to  prepare  the  ground 
for  a  permanent  settlement.  Whether,  and  to  what 
extent,  you  will  at  once  be  able  to  practise  any  spiritual 
care  there,  depends  on  the  goodwill  of  the  Provost  and 
of  the  Prince  Bishop  of  Breslau,  Dr.  Kopp.  You  must, 
therefore,  try  to  be  on  good  terms  with  both  these  per- 
sonages. In  order  that  your  stay  in  Berlin  may  lead  to 
no  annoyance  with  the  police  and  other  authorities,  you 
are  to  be  matriculated  as  a  student  at  the  University. 
What  lectures  you  attend  is  left  to  your  own  decision,  but 
I  desire  that  you  should  occupy  yourself  in  detail  with 
Protestant  theology,  in  order  to  be  able  to  combat  it  in 
your  writings.     You  are  to  place  yourself  entirely  at  the 

*  In  Berlin  too  I  was  twice  stationed  as  Jesuit — 1888  and  1892.  For  the 
reason  for  which  in  the  previous  chapter  I  recorded  the  events  at  Exaeten  under 
one  heading,  I  shall  do  the  same  with  my  Berlin  sojourns. 

399 


400  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

disposal  of  the  leaders  of  the  Centre,  and  especially  Wind- 
thorst,  who  approves  of  our  plan,  but  without  in  any  way 
intruding  upon  them.  There  is  to  be  no  relation  of  Superior 
and  subordinate  between  Father  Fah  and  you — all  impor- 
tant steps  must  be  discussed  by  both  of  you.  You  are 
to  send  me  regular  reports.  I  have  also  another  commis- 
sion for  you  personally,  which  requires  a  good  deal  of 
skill.  I  have  been  informed  by  the  General  that  the 
Prince  Bishop  Kopp  is  annoyed  with  the  Jesuits,  because 
he  believes  that  they  are  opposing  his  appointment  as 
Cardinal.  You  are  to  write  to  the  Prince  Bishop  that  you 
are  commissioned  to  inform  him  that  we  German  Jesuits 
should  be  very  glad  to  see  him  made  Cardinal,  and  that 
you  are  ready  at  any  time  to  bring  him  the  expression  of 
our  respectful  and  friendly  sentiments.  Further  [Ratgeb 
added  this  at  the  end  as  a  mere  detail],  you  are  first  to  go 
to  Schurgast,  in  Upper  Silesia,  to  your  relation,  Baron 
Otto  von  Ketteler,  who  is  dying  and  desires  to  confess 
to  you ;  and  after  that  you  are  to  perform  the  marriage 
ceremony  for  your  brother  Clement.  Meantime,  Father 
Fah  will  precede  you  to  Berlin." 

Such,  not  literally  but  as  to  their  content,  were  my 
instructions  as  a  Jesuit  ambassador  to  Berlin.  I  was 
greatly  agitated  by  the  whole  commission.  It  was  a 
very  striking  and  honourable  mark  of  confidence  on  the 
part  of  the  Order.  Was  I  to  reply  to  it  by  revealing  my 
inner  troubles  ?  After  a  short  deliberation  I  decided 
"  No."  I  had  a  human  right  to  attain  a  clear  decision 
about  the  doubts  that  were  troubling  me,  and  only  the 
freedom  of  study  in  Berlin  could  bring  me  this  clearness. 

I  brought  consolation  to  my  former  fellow-pupil  at 
Mayence,  Otto  von  Ketteler.  I  performed  the  marriage 
ceremony  for  my  younger  brother  Clement  with  the 
Baroness  Kunigunde  Raitz  von  Frenz,  in  the  Chapel  of 
Castle  Kellenberg,  near  Juliers,  before  a  large  assembly 


Berlin  401 

of  relations,  and  then  I  entered  the  ancient  and  ugly 
Provost's  house  in  Berlin  [at  the  present  time  there  is  a 
stately  new  building],  behind  St.  Hedwig's  Church,  where 
an  attic,  into  which  came  wind  and  rain  but  very  little 
light,  was  assigned  me  as  a  dwelling-place. 

Soon  I  was  on  good  terms  with  Provost  Jahnel,  whom 
I  learned  to  value  as  an  intelligent,  energetic  man,  and  an 
organiser  of  the  first  rank.  He  was  not  exactly  well 
disposed  to  the  Jesuits,  but  Fah  and  I  got  on  very  well 
with  him.     He  had  no  objection  to  candid  speech. 

True,  he  afforded  us  little  opportunity  for  our  pastoral 
activity.*  Fah  had  to  minister  in  the  newly  founded 
pastorate  of  the  Sacred  Heart  in  the  Schonhauser  Strasse, 
and  I  in  the  parish  of  Wicksdorf. 

Every  Saturday  evening  I  went  out  there,  heard 
confessions,  celebrated  High  Mass,  preached  and  catechised, 
and  returned  on  Sunday  evening  to  the  Provost's  house. 
We  also  helped  with  confessions  occasionally  in  St.  Hedwig's 
Church.  Besides  that  there  was  a  pastorate  of  nuns, 
which  was  very  uncongenial  to  me,  at  St.  Hedwig's 
Infirmary,  the  Grey  Sisters  of  the  Niederwall  Strasse,  and 
the  Ursuline  nuns,  in  the  Linden  Strasse. 

We  always  kept  in  touch  with  the  Centre  Party. 
Windthorst  was  especially  amiable.  The  deputies,  Baron 
von  Franckenstein,  Dr.  Lieber,  Count  Praschma,  sen., 
Count  Conrad  Prensing,  Count  Galen,  sen.,  frequently 
visited  us,  and  we  were  often  their  guests  at  the  Kaiserhof. 
On  great  occasions  we  always  had  particularly  good  places 
in  the  President's  Tribune  of  the  Imperial  and  Prussian 
Parliaments.  But  apart  from  occasional  discussions  about 
political  matters  and  questions  of  the  day,  we  were  not 

*  Provost  Jahnel  visited  me  again  in  1897 — two  years  after  my  marriage,  in 

my  Berlin  house  at  the  Kurfurstendamm.     He  made  no  attempt  to  convert  me, 

but  only  expressed  bis  regret  at  the  step  I  had  taken.      He  remained  over  an  hour 

in  animated  conversation  with  me.    I  greatly  regretted  hi3  early  and  unexpected 

death. 

2  A 


402  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

employed  in  politics.  We  were,  in  the  first  instance,  only 
to  prepare  the  ground. 

I  had  some  very  interesting  conversations  with  Dr. 
Lieber,  leader  of  the  Centre.  He  had  temporary  quarters 
with  the  Grey  Sisters  in  the  Niederwall  Strasse,  where  I 
also  lived  on  the  occasion  of  my  second  stay  in  Berlin. 
We  often  dined  together  there,  and  we  spent  many  evenings 
in  my  room  or  in  his.  The  insight  which  Lieber  afforded 
me  into  his  methods  of  thought  and  action  was  not  exactly 
edifying.  He  was  an  intriguer  and  a  thoroughly  pushing 
man.  It  was  a  matter  of  annoyance  to  him  that  there 
were  other  leaders  besides  himself  in  the  Centre  Party, 
and  it  was  not  his  fault  that  he  did  not  become  the  sole 
leader.  The  most  important  of  the  numerous  conver- 
sations was  that  in  which  he  described  to  me  his  relations 
to  Windthorst,  and  in  characterising  Windthorst  let  fall 
the  remark  that  the  unscrupulous  Guelph,  after  the 
celebrated  speech  at  Cologne  on  the  6th  February,  1887, 
in  which  he  expressed  his  views  on  the  intervention  of 
Leo  XIII.  in  the  matter  of  the  Septennate,  had  said  : 

"  On  that  occasion  I  lied  myself  out  of  the  difficulty 
with  the  help  of  God." 

The  details,  including  my  own  regret  at  an  indiscretion 
I  had  committed,  and  the  wording  of  a  statement  of 
Lieber's  in  the  Germania  of  February  20th,  1896,  which 
referred  to  it,  are  given  in  my  book,  Rom  und  das  Zentrum. 

At  that  time  Lieber  was  circulating  very  zealously  a 
pamphlet  printed  for  private  circulation,  in  which  he 
attacked  bis  colleague  of  the  Centre,  Racke.  He  handed 
me  several  copies,  with  the  commission  to  send  them  to 
my  Provincial  Superior.* 

*  Lieber,  in  his  declaration,  speaks  of  reminiscences  which  he  had  composed, 
and  which  were  perhaps  to  appear  later.  If  this  were  to  happen,  I  should  find 
myself  compelled  to  publish  some  of  Lieber's  letters  as  a  complement  to  the 
reminiscences.  Some  of  them  are  addressed  to  me,  and  some  to  a  lady,  who  gave 
them  to  me,  unasked,  for  my  free  disposal. 


Berlin 


403 


My  commission  to  the  Bishop  of  Breslau  was  executed 
in  the  following  manner : 

I  wrote  to  him  what  the  Jesuit  Ratgeb  had  said  to 
me,  and  asked  him  whether  I  might  call  on  him  for  further 
explanation.  Kopp  answered  from  his  castle  of  Johannis- 
burg  in  a  very  diplomatic  manner.  The  difficulties  with 
the  Jesuit  Order  had  never  been  as  great,  he  said,  as  my 
Superior  seemed  to  assume.  Everything  was  now  in  order, 
so  that  further  steps  would  be  superfluous.  And  in  fact 
in  the  year  1893  Kopp  attained  the  goal  of  his  ardent  de- 
sires and  energetic  efforts — the  Red  Hat — and  thus  became 
Cardinal  by  the  grace  of  the  Pope  and  the  Jesuit  Order. 

The  main  interest  in  my  Berlin  stay  was  concentrated  in 
the  University  and  Library,  that  is  to  say,  in  my  studies. 

After  matriculating  (Fah,  who  had  not  passed  a  school- 
leaving  examination  could  only  attend  as  a  "  hearer  "*),  I 
entered  my  name  for  Adolf  Harnack's  "  History  of  Dogma  " 
and  Friedrich  Paulsen's  "  History  of  Modern  Philosophy." 
I  refrained  from  entering  for  any  other  theological  and 
philosophical  lectures ;  I  wished  to  acquaint  myself  with 
Protestant  theology  by  means  of  private  stud}^. 

It  has  often  been  asserted  that  Harnack's  lectures 
caused  my  secession  from  Rome.  That  is  incorrect. 
Harnack  and  his  lectures  did  not  make  the  smallest  impres- 
sion on  my  development.  I  admired  his  learning,  but  I 
was  amazed  at  the  ignorance  of  Catholicism  which  he 
frequently  evinced,  as  did  also  many  other  University 
Professors.  Harnack  did  not  supply  me  with  a  single 
thought  or  impulse  which  could  have  hastened  the  separa- 
tion from  my  past,  far  less  suggested  it.  Nor  do  I  think 
that  Harnack  is  a  man  who  will  have  a  permanent  influence. 
For   that — paradoxical   as   it   sounds — he   is   too   clever. 

*  Only  persons  who  have  passed  the  School-leaving  (Abiturienten)  Examina- 
tion of  a  State  High  School  can  be  matriculated  as  members  of  the  University. 
Others  may  attend  as  guests  (hearers).    This  is  known  as  ftospilieren. — Translator. 


4°4  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

He  sees  things  in  too  many  colours,  and  from  too  many 
points  of  view.  His  nature  is  too  conciliatory  and,  there- 
fore, he  delights  in  theses  and  antitheses,  and  in  seeking 
to  combine  contradictions  in  a  "  higher  third."  For  de- 
tailed  research  and  minute  accuracy  Harnack's  method 
furnishes  a  model,  but  it  has  no  influence  in  determining 
the  further  development  of  religious  theology.  In  detailed 
research  Harnack  leads  the  way,  but  he  is  no  pioneer  in 
his  conception  of  life. 

If,  therefore,  I  cannot  include  the  theologian  and 
scholar  Harnack  among  my  liberators — and,  indeed,  was 
often  in  later  life  obliged  to  oppose  him  violently  in  this 
his  double  capacity* — I  remember  with  gratitude  and 
pleasure  the  kindness  of  the  man  Harnack,  which  I  also 
experienced  in  his  hospitable  house. 

Friedrich  Paulsen's  lectures  were  an  aesthetic  pleasure, 
both  in  form  and  matter.  Two  visits,  also,  which  I  paid 
to  Paulsen  in  his  quiet  home  among  the  pine  woods  of 
Steglitz,  brought  me  many  interesting  and  stimulating 
experiences.  But  even  then  I  perceived  what  I  long 
afterwards  expressed  to  Paulsen  himself,  that  he  was 
essentially  a  bookworm,  who  saw  and  judged  the  world 
and  its  events  only  from  the  standpoint  of  his  student's 
existence,  and  not  in  the  light  of  facts.  Paulsen  too  had 
no|direct  or  determining  influence  either  as  a  personality 
or  teacher. 

The  man  who  did  exercise  a  powerful  influence  over 
me  was  Heinrich  von  Treitschke,  and  it  was  just  his  course 
of  lectures  for  which  I  had  not  entered. 

My  Provincial  Ratgeb  had,  it  is  true,  left  me  a  free 
hand  in  the  choice  of  lectures,  but  his  intention  was  that 
I  should  only  attend  theological  and  philosophical  courses. 
Had  I  informed  him  that  I  wished  also  to  hear  Treitschke's 

*  Zeitschrift,  Marz,  1907  ;  2  Februarheft,  pp.    338-349  ;  Adolf  Harnack  iiber 
den  Kaihdizismus. 


Berlin  405 

historical  lectures,  it  would  have  led  to  explanations  which 
I  desired  to  avoid. 

So  I  chose  the  road  of  somewhat  extensive  "  visiting."* 
On  the  very  first  occasion  I  heard  a  diatribe  of  Treitschke's 
on  the  hereditary  hostility  of  Papal  Eome  towards  Ger- 
many. The  eloquence  of  his  language,  though  at  first 
difficult  to  follow,  and  the  passionate  patriotism  of  his 
irresistible  attacks  on  the  foes  of  his  country  and  enlighten- 
ment, carried  me  away.  His  burning  patriotism  kindled 
in  me  the  yet  glowing  fire  of  German  sentiment,  which  for 
the  last  decade  had  been  smothered  under  the  ashes  of 
Jesuitism,  and  now  blazed  forth  once  more  in  a  bright 
flame.  Again  and  again  I  felt  drawn  to  his  lecture  room, 
Ten  or  twelve  times,  at  least,  I  must  have  heard  Treitschke 
without  paying  my  scot. 

It  is  such  men  that  we  need  in  our  University  chairs, 
to  assist  us  against  Rome  and  everything  Romish,  against 
the  foes  of  civilisation  and  Fatherland.  It  is  not  a  clari- 
fied knowledge,  which  is  colourless  and  characterless,  but 
knowledge  of  flesh  and  blood,  knowledge  expressed  with 
individual  and  daring  convictions,  which  can  educate  an 
upright  generation. 

Besides  my  public  lectures  from  Harnack  and  Paulsen, 
and  far  exceeding  them  in  importance  for  me,  were  my 
private  studies  in  my  attic  in  the  Provost's  house,  and  in 
the  reading  room  of  the  Royal  Library.  I  may  say  that 
I  there  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  whole  newer 
Protestant  theology  and  philosophy. 

Among  the  philosophers  Kant  was  my  leader,  whom 
I  now  first  learned  to  know  in  his  true  character.  Through 
Kant  I  attained  to  a  recognition  of  the  autonomy  of 
reason,  and  its  right  to  self-direction.  Kant  confirmed 
me  infallibly  in  the  consciousness,  which  had  been  long, 
but  timidly,  dawning  within  me,  of  the  right  and  duty  of 

*  Hospitiererii 


406  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

conducting  research,  free  and  independent  of  faith  in 
authority,  of  being  not  a  mere  child  in  leading  strings, 
but  a  thinking  human  being,  even  in  face  of  the  things  of 
the  other  world.  What  miserable  superficialities  my  Jesuit 
Philosophy  Professors  had  repeated  to  me  about  Kant's 
"  unemployable  "  because  "  illogical  "  Critique  of  Reason  ! 

If  Kant  was  a  liberator  of  my  reason,  Schleiermacher, 
Rothe  and  Biedermann  became  my  liberators  in  the 
domain  of  religious  theology. 

I  learned  to  understand  the  conception  of  religion,  and 
to  value  it,  apart  from  ecclesiasticism,  and  even  in  oppo- 
sition to  it ;  I  learned  to  know  the  Churches  for  what 
they  are — diseases  incidental  to  religious  development ;  I 
began  to  understand  that  there  are  no  principles  or 
formulas  of  faith,  nor  yet  can  be  ;  that  the  name  of  dogma 
conceals  a  mass  of  fabulous  and  absurd  theories  {e.g. 
original  sin,  the  Trinity) ;  that  "  salvation  "  cannot  be 
accomplished  by  blood,  not  even  by  the  blood  of  a  "  God- 
Man,"  but  by  self -purification ;  I  saw  that  Christianity 
was  not  a  hieratical  organisation,  but  individual  life. 

Two  other  liberators  I  must  also  mention  with  gratitude, 
neither  of  them  theologians,  Ranke  and  Gregorovius ; 
both  showed  me  the  Papacy  in  its  historical,  not  in  its 
pretended  "  Divine  "  aspect ;  both  inspired  me  to  special 
studies  on  the  social  and  civilising  aspect  of  the  Papacy, 
which  caused  me  to  realise  that,  though  the  Papacy  is  a 
prominent  institution  of  historic  importance  and  power,  it 
it  still  thoroughly  human,  and  burdened,  like  every  other 
long-lived  human  institution,  with  an  enormous  mass  of 
religious  and  moral  error  of  the  most  serious  nature,  the 
traces  of  which,  in  the  course  of  centuries  down  to  the 
present  day,  have  caused  not  only  blessing  and  civilisation, 
but  also  ruinous  destruction  and  brutal  ignorance. 

I  also  learned  to  know  the  Ultramontane  Papacy  and 
indeed  Ultramontanism  in  general,  as  a    political    abuse 


Berlin  4°7 

of  the  Catholic  religion.  I  came  to  know  that  the  Vicars 
of  Christ,  in  spite  of  their  religious  vocation,  had  gradually 
become  political  sovereigns,  and  continue  even  to  the 
present  day  to  put  forward  this  claim,  absolutely  contrary 
to  the  doctrine  of  Christ.  Of  course,  all  this  was  not  as 
clear  in  my  mind  at  that  time  as  it  is  when  I  set  it  down 
to-day.  My  Berlin  studies  were  the  beginning,  the  dawn, 
of  my  later  clear  recognition ;  they  set  in  motion  what 
was  not  built  up  into  a  mountain,  but  at  first  produced  a 
huge  abyss  which  swallowed  up  all  the  faith  which  had 
accumulated  in  me  for  forty  years.  But  I  crossed  over 
the  abyss,  and  found  my  way  to  heights  of  world  con- 
ception worthy  of  a  human  being. 

The  consciousness  of  the  entire  sacrifice  of  one 
dogma  was  completed  even  during  my  Berlin  residence, 
and  strangely  enough  it  was  one  of  my  pastoral  experiences 
that  brought  about  this  sacrifice. 

A  student  lamented  to  me  that  the  dogma  of  ever- 
lasting punishment  was  driving  him  to  despair.  This 
confession  of  his  removed  the  last  check  on  a  resolution 
that  had  long  been  seeking  consummation  in  me.  I  told 
him  that  the  belief  in  everlasting  hell  was  blasphemous, 
and  this  one  word  of  deliverance  also  delivered  me  from 
my  belief  in  hell. 

Further  than  this  and  to  the  actual  denial  of  hell  and 
a  personal  devil  I  did  not  attain  at  that  time  ;  at  any 
rate,  I  did  not  express  this  opinion,  and  probably  scarcely 
acknowledged  it  to  myself.  It  was  only  the  formal  breach 
with  the  Church  and  the  Order  which  effected  this  too. 
What  did  I  not  suffer  from  the  dogma  of  eternal 
punishment,  and  what  have  not  many  millions  of  souls 
suffered  from  it !  And  yet  in  the  whole  history  of  religion, 
including  the  pre-  and  non-Christian  religions,  there  is  no 
doctrine  so  brutally  blasphemous  as  this,  just  on  account 
of  its  "  Christian  "  premises. 


408  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

The  "  Christian  "  God  as  the  Catholic-Ultramontane, 
and  in  part  also  the  orthodox  evangelical,  dogmatics  de- 
scribe Him,  becomes  so  odious  a  Being  that  a  reasonable 
man  must  turn  away  with  horror  from  such  a  God.  If 
there  is  such  a  God,  then  the  deepest  pessimism  and 
hatred  of  God  is  the  only  thing  possible  for  us,  His  pitiable 
creatures,  and  I  confess  that  from  such  a  God  I  would  not 
even  wish  to  accept  heaven.  He  would  be  a  hell- God — 
worse  even  than  the  Prince  of  Hell  himself. 

For  let  us  realise  the  Christian  doctrine  of  God  and  His 
hell,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  "  Divine  Grace  "  required  for 
the  avoidance  of  hell : 

(1)  The  All-knowing,  All-good,  and  All-powerful  God, 
although  He  foresaw  that  millions,  even  milliards,  of  people 
would  suffer  the  everlasting  pains  of  hell,  yet  created  the 
human  race,  without  any  compulsion  from  without  or 
within,  and  thus  Himself,  by  His  own  free  act,  inaugurated 
the  population  of  hell. 

(2)  The  All-knowing,  All-good,  and  All-powerful  God 
acts  in  a  Divine  manner  at  the  procreation  of  each 
individual  human  being  by  introducing  the  soul  into  the 
embryo,  although  He  foresees  that  millions  of  people, 
called  into  being  by  Him,  also  of  His  own  free  will,  will 
become  everlastingly  wretched  in  His  hell.  It  is  in  His 
power  to  make  the  individual  act  of  procreation  of  no 
effect  by  not  creating  the  human  soul,  but  He  does  create 
it,  with  the  consciousness  and  the  knowledge :  "  This 
soul,  which  is  completely  innocent  of  its  earthly  existence, 
which  unasked  receives  its  life  from  Me  alone,  will 
become  everlastingly  wretched,  will  suffer  nameless  tortures 
for  ever  in  the  flames  of  Hell,  produced  and  maintained 
by  Me  ;  therefore,  I  create  a  being  for  everlasting  torture." 
But  still  He  creates  it. 

(3)  No  human  exertion,  however  great,  can  deserve  of 
God  the  "  grace  "  to  resist  the  temptations  of  sin,  which 


Berlin  409 

will  cast  him  irretrievably  into  hell.  The  "  effective  grace ': 
[gratia  efficax]  which  alone  enables  him  to  overcome  sin, 
is  an  absolutely  free  gift  of  the  All-wise  and  All-good  God, 
Who  refuses  it,  although,  being  all-knowing,  He  knows  that 
this  refusal  must  signify  everlasting  hell  for  the  man. 

What  judgment  should  we  pass  on  a  man  who  would 
permit  even  one  human  being,  whose  fate  lies  in  his  hand, 
to  be  wretched  in  body  and  soul  throughout  his  whole 
life  ?  All  the  rest  of  mankind  would  trample  such  a 
wretch  to  pieces.  And  yet  the  good  God  holds  the  fate 
of  all  men  so  completely  in  His  hand  that  every  other 
state  of  dependence  is  insignificant  by  comparison.  For 
men  are  His  creation,  called  into  being  by  Him,  unasked, 
and  maintained  in  being. 

Indeed,  a  man  condemned  to  hell  by  this  "  God " 
might  cry  into  His  face  :  "  It  is  You  who  should  be  in  hell, 
not  I,  for  You  called  me  into  life  unasked,  although  You 
foresaw  that  I  should  end  in  hell.  It  was  You  who  refused 
me  Your  grace,  although  this  alone  could  have  saved  me 
from  hell." 

The  dogma  of  hell  is,  more  than  any  other,  a  "  priest's 
dogma  "  ;  that  is,  a  dogma  invented  by  a  priestly  caste, 
who  desired  to  maintain  mankind  in  fear  for  its  own 
dominating  ends. 

Another  pastoral  labour,  the  deliverance  of  a  woman 
from  a  position  of  disgrace,  in  which  several  of  my  relations 
generously  assisted  me  with  large  sums  of  money,  became 
many  years  later,  after  my  breach  with  Rome,  a  source 
of  great  trouble  for  myself  and  my  brave  wife,*  but  unfor- 
tunately the  inviolable  seal  of  confession  keeps  the  whole 
locked  safely  from  the  public  gaze. 

I  shall  be  easily  believed  when  I  say  that  my  whole 
soul  was  in  a  state  of  turmoil  during  my  Berlin  residence. 
My  sleepless  nights  began  again.     I  suffered  so  much  that 

*  Of.  my  pamphlet,  In  eigener  Sache  und  Anderes  (Berlin,  H.  Walther),  pp.  17, 18. 


410  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

when  I  returned  to  Exaeten,  in  September,  my  emaciated 
appearance  and  my  prematurely  grey  hair  attracted  atten- 
tion. But  I  still  struggled  against  taking  the  last  step  and 
separating  myself  from  my  inherited  religion.  The  deeply 
rooted  doctrine,  again  and  again  impressed  upon  me 
during  my  life  in  the  Order,  of  the  diabolical  origin  of 
religious  doubts  had  even  yet  not  quite  perished  within  me. 
Above  all,  the  terrible  thought  of  a  separation,  and  the 
almost  complete  impossibility  of  carrying  it  out,  stood 
before  me  like  a  threatening  spectre,  and  an  impassable 
wall  seemed  erected  before  my  eyes. 

My  family  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  respected  of 
the  Catholic  families  of  Germany,  and  for  centuries  has 
been  one  of  the  mainstays  of  Catholicism.  I  had  an  old 
mother,  and  brothers  and  sisters  who,  with  sincere  fidelity, 
clung  to  their  inherited  religion,  and  to  whom  I  was  bound 
by  strong  and  tender  bonds  of  love.  That  I  was  a  priest  and 
a  Jesuit  was  in  their  eyes  and  those  of  all  my  relations  an 
honour  and  a  blessing.  The  suffering  I  should  cause  them 
by  my  separation  from  the  Church  and  the  Order  gave 
me  a  sensation  of  horror.  Further,  I  was  no  mere  faithful 
layman — I  was  a  priest,  the  member  of  an  Order.  Thus 
chains  were  fastened  about  me  which  could  not  be  unloosed, 
but  only  burst  asunder.  What  scandal  should  I  not 
occasion  to  the  Catholic  world  and  my  family  name  and 
my  former  position,  if  I  fell  away  from  grace  !  The  weight 
of  these  thoughts,  and  their  power  in  checking  my  final 
resolution  can  only  be  understood  by  those  who  have  been 
in  a  similar  position,  who,  with  equal  enthusiasm,  equal 
readiness  for  sacrifice,  have  adhered  to  Catholicism  and 
Jesuitism. 

The  effect  on  me  of  these  internal  struggles  may  be 
shown  by  two  circumstances  : 

A  little  daughter  of  my  elder  brother  Wilhelm  died  of 
diphtheria  in  July,  1888.     When  I  received  the  telegram 


Berlin  411 

with  the  news  of  her  death,  I  prayed,  with  bitter  tears  and 
on  my  knees,  to  the  soul  of  the  child — for  at  that  time  I 
still  believed  that  she  could  hear  me1 — to  obtain  from  God 
that  I  too  might  die,  and  thus  be  saved  from  ruin,  for 
at  that  time  I  regarded  as  ruin  that  which  lay  before  me. 

I  myself  fell  seriously  ill  with  diphtheria,  as  the  result 
of  confessing  an  invalid  suffering  from  this  disease.  I 
thought  that  the  fulfilment  of  my  wish  was  near,  and  I 
prayed  earnestly  to  God  that  my  illness  might  lead  to  death. 

But  I  lived  on,  and  I  submitted  to  the  decree  of  a  God 
whose  "  kind  and  Fatherly  providence  "  was  still  one  of 
my  dogmas.  But  I  wished  to  leave  Berlin,  and  to  adopt 
the  last  means  of  subduing,  if  possible,  the  turmoil  within 
me.  I  therefore  begged  my  Provincial,  Ratgeb,  to  send 
me  to  the  Tertiate.  There,  in  the  quiet  of  a  renewed 
novitiate,  the  decisive  struggle  was  to  be  fought  to  an  end. 
Ratgeb  consented  to  my  wish,  and  in  October,  1888,  I 
began  my  "  Third  Probationary  Year  "  at  Portico,  near 
the  English  manufacturing  town  of  St.  Helens.  It  was  a 
probationary  year  in  a  very  different  sense  from  that 
understood  by  the  Constitutions  of  the  Order.  For  in  it 
I  made  trial  of  my  faith.* 

*  In  my  place,  the  Jesuit  Frins  went  to  Berlin.  He  became  Windthorst's 
theological  and  political  legal  adviser,  and  retained  this  position  until  his  death. 
My  Berlin  companion,  the  Jesuit  Fah,  remained  more  than  a  year  longer  in  the 
capital ;  then  suddenly  very  much  against  his  wish  and  will,  he  was  transferred 
to  Brazil.  What  the  Order  desired  to  attain  when  it  sent  Fah  and  me  to  Berlin 
was  in  fact  achieved,  and  since  then  numerous  Jesuits  have  been  active  in  Berlin. 
Their  headquarters  are  at  St.  Hedwig's  Infirmary,  in  the  Grosse  Hamburger 
Strasse.  From  this  centre  they  carry  on  the  work  of  their  Order  in  a  compre- 
hensive and  truly  Jesuitical,  i.e.  untruthful,  fashion,  in  spite  of  the  Jesuit  Law. 
In  order  to  be  able  to  "  work  "  undisturbed,  they  assume  the  title  of  "  Professor  " 
or  "  Doctor  "  without  having  the  least  right  to  either,  and  in  this  wrongful  assump- 
tion of  false  titles  they  are  strongly  supported  by  the  Central  Organ  of  the  Centre 
Party — the  Berlin  Germania.  It  publishes  innocent  announcements,  such  as  : 
Professor  (or  Doctor)  So-and-So  will  give  an  address  here  or  there,  or  preach  a 
sermon,  or  give  exercises.  But  these  professors  or  doctors  are  Jesuits.  Sometimee 
six  and  more  of  these  professors  and  doctors  are  working  at  the  same  time  in 
Berlin. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 

THE   TERTIATE   AND   THE   END 

The  Constitutions  of  the  Order  make  frequent  mention 
of  the  Tertiate.* 

As  the  novitiate  lays  the  foundation  for  the  structure 
of  Jesuit  asceticism,  so  the  Tertiate  is  to  supply  the  coping- 
stone  of  the  building,  after  the  conclusion  of  the  long  years 
of  study.  The  Tertiate  is  essentially  a  repetition  of  the 
novitiate.  It  is,  therefore,  officially  designated  "  Third 
Probationary  Year "  (Tertius  annus  probationis),  while 
the  novitiate  consists  of  the  first  two  probationary  years. 

All  the  exercises  and  experiments  of  the  novitiate 
are  repeated  in  the  Tertiate.  The  chief  experiment — the 
Exercises  extending  over  four  weeks — are  there  inten- 
sified by  the  midnight  meditation,  omitted  in  the  novitiate 
out  of  consideration  for  the  youth  of  the  novices  and  the 
sleep  they  require. 

The  daily  instructions  given  by  the  Instructor  (the 
official  title  of  the  Director  of  the  Tertiate)  deal  with  the 
Constitutions  and  the  history  of  the  Order. 

In  my  introduction  I  mentioned  that  when  I  left  the 
Order,  I  left  behind  the  valuable  notes  I  had  made  on 
these  instructions.  The  instructions,  however,  were  only 
valuable  in  as  far  as  they  contained  explanations  of  the 
Constitutions,  the  so-called  Institute  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  and  even  there    they  concealed  more  than  they 

*  Exam,  gen.,  I.,  12,  18;    IV.,  16;    V.,  2—1 ;  X.,  7.     Cong.  VIII.,  Decret.  9. 
Cong.  XVI.,  Decret.  34,  etc. 

4i2 


The  Tertiate  and  the   End         413 

revealed.  All  that  they  provided  of  the  history  of  the 
Order  was  one  huge  falsification. 

We  learned  nothing  about  the  inward  conflicts,  nothing 
of  the  abuses  which  originated  in  the  Order,  nothing  of 
its  contradiction  between  words  and  deeds.  The  history 
of  the  Order  was  set  before  us  as  one  great  tale  of  glory, 
free  from  stain  and  reproach. 

The  Instructor,  and  also  Rector,  of  the  House  was  the 
Jesuit  Augustine  Oswald,  whose  truly  Jesuitical  love  of 
gain  I  have  already  characterised. 

As  all  Tertiaries  are  priests,  we  were  utilised  a  great 
deal  for  pastoral  work,  such  as  preaching  and  hearing 
confessions.  Thus  I  obtained  an  instructive  insight  into 
the  religious  and  social  conditions  of  England.  The  con- 
ditions in  the  great  towns  (I  speak  chiefly  of  Liverpool 
and  Manchester)  were,  at  any  rate  at  that  time,  terrible. 
On  the  one  hand,  magnificent  churches,  equipped  with 
excessive  luxury ;  on  the  other,  terrible  misery,  both  social 
and  religious.  Drink  caused  frightful  havoc,  and  not  only 
in  the  lowest  and  lower  classes  of  the  population.  I  was 
curiously  impressed,  too,  by  the  systematic  exploitation 
of  religion  for  financial  objects.  There  were,  for  instance, 
the  charity  sermons,  where  matters  were  arranged  as  in  a 
theatre  or  concert  room.  The  prices  of  the  seats  in  the 
church  varied  according  to  their  position,  from  6d.  to  £1,  or 
even  higher,  if  a  particularly  celebrated  preacher  was  in 
the  pulpit.  The  Jesuit  Bernard  Vaughan,  of  whom  I 
had  seen  more  than  enough  at  Stonyhurst,  was  in  great 
request  for  charity  sermons. 

In  the  residences  of  the  English  Province  (Portico  and 
Ditton  Hall,  though  situated  in  England,  belonged  to 
the  German  Province  of  the  Order)  I  was  also  frequently 
occupied  in  pastoral  work,  and  thus  had  an  opportunity 
of  jconfirming  interesting  observations  no  longer  new  to 
me ;    first,  the  excellent  fare  in  eating  and  drinking  of  the 


414  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

poor  Jesuits,  and,  secondly,  the  completeness  of  Jesuit 
obedience. 

At  that  time  the  Jesuit  Anderledy  was  General  of  the 
Order.  He  often  took  very  strong  measures  against 
abuses.  He  was  particularly  anxious  to  limit  luxurious 
living,  and  to  suppress  independent  action,  which  the 
English  Jesuits,  in  particular,  were  inclined  to  adopt. 
For  both  these  reasons  the  "  German  General,"  as  the 
Swiss  Anderledy  was  called,  was  hated  in  the  English 
Province.  Once  at  dinner  in  the  Jesuit  residence  at  St. 
Helens,  when  port  and  claret  were  circulating,  and  loosen- 
ing men's  tongues,  I  heard  the  most  spiteful  expressions 
used  about  Anderledy— e.g.  "  I  wish  the  man  would  die 
soon,"  which,  indeed,  did  happen. 

Here,  too,  I  encountered  what  appears  so  often  in 
the  history  of  the  Order  :  theoretical  submission,  blind 
obedience  to  the  Superior,  who  represents  God  (Pope 
and  General),  practical  disloyalty  as  soon  as  the  Vicar  of 
God  causes  any  annoyance. 

I  had  entered  the  novitiate  full  of  idealism,  the  strength 
of  which  carried  me  over  opposing  difficulties,  and  my 
idealism  had  drawn  its  strength  from  my  firm  belief  in 
the  divinity  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

I  entered  the  Tertiate  devoid  of  all  idealism,  and 
wounded  to  death  in  my  belief.  But  I  entered  it  with 
the  honestly  taken  resolution  if  possible  there  to  win 
back  my  faith,  and  through  it  my  idealism. 

In  accordance  with  this  resolution  I  worked,  suffered 
and  prayed  in  the  Tertiate.  Yes,  indeed,  I  prayed.  More 
urgent  pleading  is  seldom  sent  upwards  from  the  depths 
of  any  human  soul.  For  the  horrible  alternatives  stood  in 
dreadful  clearness  before  my  eyes  day  and  night.  Either  I 
succeed  in  fighting  down  my  doubts,  i.e.  recognise  them  as 
error  and  temptation,  and  then  I  remain,  not  only  a  Catholic 
and  a  Catholic  priest,  but  also  a  Jesuit,  because  in  that 


The  Tertiate  and  the    End        415 

case  the  favourable  judgment  which  the  Church  pronounces 
on  the  Jesuit  Order  can  and  will  cover  my  own  unfavour- 
able judgment ;  or,  I  do  not  succeed,  i.e.  the  doubts  are 
transformed  from  temptations  into  truths,  into  certain 
recognition ;  and  then  I  must  leave  the  Church  and  the 
Order,  must  put  off  my  faith  and  my  priesthood. 

The  troubles  I  then  experienced  were  dutifully  revealed 
in  the  Confessions  and  Statements  of  Conscience  to  my 
Superior  and  spiritual  Director,  but  even  here  I  did  not 
reveal  their  real  background  and  true  character.  I  did 
not  tell  them  that  the  doubts  were  no  longer  merely  cruel 
and  grievous  temptations  to  me,  but  that  I  had  already 
begun  to  see  in  them  the  truth.  I  did  not  tell,  in  particular, 
that  enthusiasm  for  the  Order  was  completely  extinguished 
within  me,  and  that  my  remaining  or  not  remaining  in 
it  depended  on  the  fate  of  my  doubts.  It  was  insincerity, 
or  rather  a  lack  of  complete  sincerity.  But  even  a  man 
unjustly  imprisoned  does  not  reveal  to  his  jailers  the 
means  of  his  liberation.  Speech  and  openness  would  have 
been  forged  into  locks  and  bolts  which  would  have  made 
my  departure  impossible. 

And  then  ! — this  much  was  clear  to  me,  even  at  that 
time.  The  Jesuit  handling  of  confession  and  Jesuit 
Statement  of  Conscience  are  wrong.  For  confession  exists 
only  for  the  purpose  of  declaring  sins,  and  the  Order  has 
no  right  to  lay  bare  men's  souls  by  the  Statement  of 
Conscience.  My  silence  was  therefore  justified  and  com- 
prehensible, from  a  religious  and  human  standpoint. 

When  in  July,  1890,  my  Tertiate  was  at  an  end,  I  too 
was  almost  at  the  end  of  my  struggle.  Work,  suffering, 
and  prayer  had  produced  no  change  of  disposition.  My 
doubts  had  grown  almost  into  certainty.  I  left  the 
peaceful  house  of  Portico  with  the  consciousness  that 
the  breach  must  and  would  be  accomplished — that  the 
end  was  close  at  hand. 


416  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

THE     END 

For  more  than  two  years  afterwards  I  still  stood  at 
the  edge  of  the  precipice,  wandering  to  and  fro  beside  it, 
and  stumbling,  before  I  could  summon  up  determination 
to  take  the  leap,  not  into  the  gulf  below,  but  right  across 
it  to  the  other  side  where,  separated  by  the  deep  chasm, 
I  could  set  firm  foot  on  new  ground  in  a  new  world. 

I  refrain  from  trying  to  give  a  psychological  explanation 
of  this  long  hesitation.  Perhaps  it  is  altogether  inexplic- 
able, and  one  of  the  unintelligible  things  which  arise  from 
the  lowest  depths  of  the  souk  uncomprehended  even  by 
the  individual  himself. 

The  elements  of  a  possible  solution  of  this  apparently 
insoluble  riddle  are  to  be  found  in  the  forty  years  of  my 
Catholic.  Ultramontane  and  Jesuit  past,  in  the  thought  of 
my  family,  and  the  effect  of  my  exit  on  the  Catholic 
world;  and  finally,  in  my  fear  of  the  step  to  be  under- 
taken, which  at  that  time  appeared  to  me  a  leap  in  the  dark. 
For  the  new  land  of  which  I  have  spoken,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  abyss,  was  at  that  time  scarcely  perceived  by 
me.  True,  I  longed  for  it,  but  I  had  not  yet  a  hopeful 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  reaching  it  and  still  less  any 
clear  comprehension  of  its  nature. 

On  some  sides  I  shall  be  reproached  with  having  so  long 
continued  to  play  the  hypocrite  by  living  outwardly  as  a 
Catholic  and  a  Jesuit  and  priest,  while  inwardly  I  no  longer 
possessed  the  religious  basis  for  these  three  offices. 

In  the  first  place,  I  reply,  special  spiritual  experiences 
are  not  so  simply  disposed  of,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  take 
a  calendar  and  watch  in  one's  hand,  and  determine  the 
day  and  the  hour  when  Catholic  thought  and  sentiment 
were  finally  dismissed,  and  the  opposite  views  adopted  all 
ready-made.  The  road  oi  knowledge  always  winds  in 
curves  and  spirals,  like  the  mountain  roads,  which  cross 


The  Tertiate  and   the   End        417 

steep  passes  and  climb  up  to  mountain  summits.  Many 
years  after  my  breach  with  Rome  had  been  accomplished, 
I  still  discovered  in  myself  Catholic  views,  and  I  found 
it  difficult  to  uproot  them  from  my  mind.  Our  mother's 
milk  remains  long  with  us.  Home  and  education  are 
powerful  forces,  and  fourteen  years'  membership  of  the 
Jesuit  Order  is  an  iron  clamp  which  seizes  on  the  inner- 
most depths  of  the  soul. 

Even  when  the  will  to  loosen  all  bonds  and  hindrances 
has  long  existed,  the  hesitation  as  to  the  time  and  mode 
of  loosening  them  is  not  hypocrisy,  but  lack  of  clearness 
and  explicable  consideration. 

Further,  I  reply,  hypocrisy  is  a  matter  which  I  alone 
have  to  settle  with  my  own  conscience.  It  concerns  no 
one  else  at  all.  For  no  one  has  been  in  anv  wav  wronged 
by  my  action.  My  duty  towards  others  was,  as  I  have 
already  shown,  performed  up  to  the  last,  even  though  I 
was  a  hypocritical  priest  and  a  hypocritical  Jesuit.  For 
others  I  was  to  the  very  last  that  which  I  seemed  to  them 
to  be. 

What  this  long  hesitation  cost  me  I  need  not  say,  nor, 
indeed,  can  I.  The  cry  of  a  despairing  soul,  resounding 
through  thousands  of  years :  "  Out  of  the  depths  have  I 
cried  unto  thee,  0  Lord.  Lord,  hear  my  voice  !'T  was 
constantly  on  my  lips  during  that  last  period.  And  how 
earnestly  I  sent  it  upwards — how  I  cried  and  prayed  ! 
Words  fail  to  describe  the  miserv  in  which  I  lived. 

And  yet  there  was  no  one  to  whom  I  could  tell  my 
sufferings  !  For,  as  I  have  already  explained,  silence  as 
to  my  inner  struggles  was  necessary,  else  the  possibility 
of  freedom  would  have  been  cut  off.  I  am  absolutely 
certain  that,  had  I  spoken,  the  gates  of  a  lunatic  asylum 
would  have  closed  on  me  for  life. 

During    my    connection    with    the    Order,    numerous 

members  of  the  German  Province  disappeared  behind  the 
2  B 


418  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

walls  of  a  lunatic  asylum  in  Belgium,  close  to  the  little 
town  of  Diest,  near  Louvain.  The  institution,  the  name 
of  which  I  have  forgotten,  belonged  to  a  fraternity  of 
"  Brothers  of  Mercy."  There  was  no  State  control  over 
admission,  and  thus  no  difficulty  in  the  way  of  disposing 
of  inconvenient  individuals. 

This  fact  is  not  altered  by  the  circumstance  that  many 
Jesuits  leave  the  Order  without  being  interfered  with. 
My  case  was  a  different  one.  I  was  a  priest ;  and  I  wished 
to  leave,  not  only  the  Order,  but  also  the  Church.  Even 
silent  acquiescence  in  this  twofold  apostasy  would  have 
greatly  injured  the  Order,  especially  on  account  of  the 
name  which  I  bore,  and  the  respect  that  I  had  already 
attained  in  wide  Catholic  circles.  The  Jesuit  Order  has 
never  been  soft-hearted,  and  in  order  to  maintain  its 
reputation,  it  shrinks  from  nothing ;  its  ethical  principles 
would  have  found  no  objection  to  declaring  me  insane  on 
account  of  my  opinions,  and  the  logical  consequences 
would  have  resulted :  that  conveniently  open  Belgian 
lunatic  asylum  would  have  housed  me  for  the  rest  of 
my  life.  Such  prospects  for  the  future  were  bound  to 
close  my  lips. 

It  was,  therefore,  impossible  for  me  to  leave  the  Order 
in  a  so-called  legitimate  fashion ;  that  is,  to  ask  for  dis- 
missal in  the  usual  manner.  Only  the  illegitimate  road 
remained  open. 

For  this  road  I  required  the  means  of  subsistence,  and 
was  obliged  to  have  money.  In  spite  of  the  vow  of  poverty 
and  the  renunciation  of  fortune,  I  was  still,  even  according 
to  canonical  right,  the  owner  of  my  share  of  our  patrimony, 
which  was  managed  by  my  elder  brother.  Legally  I  was 
therefore  entitled  to  a  fortune,  and  I  was  certain  of  its 
actual  possession  for  the  future,  but  for  the  moment  I 
could  not  touch  my  property ;  for  the  day  I  revealed 
myself  to  my  family,  the  Order  would  at  once  have  been 


The  Tertiate  and  the   End        419 

acquainted  with  it.  Besides  this,  as  my  mother  and 
family  were  so  well  disposed  to  Ultramontanism  and  the 
Jesuits,  they  would  have  made  the  greatest  difficulties, 
and  a  long-drawn-out  conflict  would  have  resulted,  to  which 
at  that  time  my  nerves  were  not  equal.  The  explanation 
with  my  family,  as  well  as  the  financial  arrangements, 
could  only  take  place  after  the  decisive  step  had  been 
taken. 

Three  accidents  came  to  my  aid. 

When  the  Jesuit  Fah,  with  whom,  as  far  as  was  possible 
in  the  Order,  a  kind  of  friendly  relation  connected  me, 
was  transferred  to  Brazil,  he  begged  me  to  collect  some 
money  from  relations  and  acquaintances  to  purchase 
books  for  the  Brazilian  Settlement.  Some  hundreds  of 
marks  (between  400  and  500)  had  been  collected  by  me, 
and  I  had  deposited  them,  as  I  was  bound  to  do,  with  the 
Procurator  of  the  German  Province,  the  Jesuit  Caduff. 
This  sum  I  must  now  make  use  of.  As  I  was  certain  that 
I  could  repay  it  afterwards  out  of  my  own  fortune,  I  felt 
myself  entirely  justified  in  using  it  in  my  necessity.  Cer- 
tainly I  did  it  with  a  necessary  lie,  by  telling  the  Jesuit 
Caduff  that  I  was  now  able  to  buy  books  with  that  sum. 
Without  this  lie  I  should  not  have  got  the  money.  But  I 
never  even  came  into  the  position  of  having  to  use  other 
people's  money.  The  second  accident  enabled  me  to  put 
my  hand  on  my  own. 

I  was  ordered  to  Blyenbeck,  in  order  to  hold  a  discourse 
in  the  little  town  of  Goch,  on  the  Lower  Khine,  situated 
quite  close  to  that  place.  It  was  my  last  public  appearance 
in  Catholic  circles,  by  the  side  of  Lieber,  the  leader  of  the 
Centre  Party.  I  found  it  difficult  enough.  But  it  ap- 
peared to  me  a  fortunate  circumstance.  For  Blyenbeck 
was  my  father's  property.  There  was  my  brother's 
exchequer,  where  I  could  draw  money  from  my  own  pro- 
perty   which    was    standing    at   my   brother's    account ; 


420  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

this  could  be  taken  into  consideration  afterwards  when 
we  settled  our  accounts,  and  subtracted  from  the  total 
belonging  to  me ;  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  done. 
But  now  I  already  had  the  money  collected  for  the  Jesuit 
Fah.  I  dared  not  give  it  back  to  the  Procurator. 
My  inner  excitement  and  disturbance  were  so  great  that 
the  slightest  circumstance  and  the  smallest  intervention 
might  lead  to  the  discovery  of  my  condition  and  my 
intentions.  And  it  was  my  freedom  from  life-long  servi- 
tude that  was  at  stake.  So  I  did  not  give  back  the  money 
in  person,  but  placed  it  in  an  envelope,  wrote  upon  it 
"  For  the  Brazilian  Mission,"  and  left  it,  on  my  departure, 
with  all  the  rest  of  my  papers,  in  the  open  drawer  of  my 
writing  table.* 

I  now  had  the  means  for  attaining  freedom.  But  how 
could  I  hasten  on  its  hour  ?  The  third  accident  came 
to  my  aid. 

A  few  days  before  Christmas,  1892,  I  received  a  com- 
mission to  render  assistance  to  the  pastor  of  a  parish  not 
far  from  Miinchen-Gladbach.  This  was  the  desired  oppor- 
tunity for  leaving  Exaeten  openly.  To  escape  secretly  in 
the  night,  perhaps  through  a  window,  was  repugnant  to 
me ;  not  to  mention  that  I  might  easily  have  been  dis- 
covered, and  then  my  fate  would  have  been  sealed.  So 
on  the  16th  December,  1892  (I  think  this  was  the  day, 
but  am  not  quite  certain),  I  stepped  across  the  threshold 

*  Ultramontane  Jesuit  calumny  many  years  ago  spread  the  report  that  I  had 
taken  away  the  money  and  failed  to  return  it.  It  is  possible  this  lie  may  again 
be  revived.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  for  me  to  refute  it,  if  the  Jesuits  assert 
that  after  my  departure  the  money  was  not  found  among  my  papers.  Those  who 
can  believe  me  capable  of  stealing  a  few  hundred  marks  will  not  be  convinced 
by  me.  But  two  facts  may  be  adduced  :  1.  As  soon  as  I  obtained  possession  of 
my  property  I  sent  the  Procurator  of  the  Order,  the  Jesuit  Caduff,  150  marks 
from  Berlin,  as  compensation  for  the  old  clothes  I  was  wearing,  and  obliged  to  take 
away  with  me  from  Exaeten.  2.  In  1896,  three  years  after  I  left  the  Order,  the 
Jesuit  Fah  wrote  me  a  very  friendly  letter  from  Brazil,  in  which  he  thanked  me 
for  collecting  money  for  his  mission,  and  said  that  it  had  been  spent  on  books 
for  him. 


The  Tertiate  and  the   End        421 

of  Exaeten  in  broad  daylight,  apparently  on  a  commission 
for  the  Order — in  reality  trampling  it  and  its  laws  under- 
foot. 

I  went  to  Cologne.  I  revealed  myself  to  a  lawyer 
there.  I  gave  him  letters  to  the  Order,  and  to  my  mother, 
in  which  I  declared  the  irrevocability  of  my  step,  since  I 
had  lost  my  faith  in  the  truth  of  the  Catholic  doctrine ;  bound 
him  over  to  keep  my  address  in  a  foreign  country  secret ; 
and,  after  exchanging  the  garb  of  a  secular  priest  for  a 
suit  of  lay  clothes,  bought  ready-made,  set  out  for  Paris. 
But,  first  of  all,  I  had  to  set  the  mind  of  the  priest,  to 
whom  I  had  been  sent,  at  rest  about  my  non-appearance,  so 
that  he  might  not  perhaps  send  a  telegram  to  Exaeten, 
and  thus  make  known  my  flight  before  I  had  crossed  the 
frontier  and  the  letters  handed  to  the  lawyer  for  delivery 
had  reached  their  destination.  So  I  telegraphed  to  the 
priest  that  the  promised  supply  could  not  come,  and  in 
order  to  arouse  no  suspicion,  I  signed  the  telegram  with 
the  name  of  the  Jesuit  Superior  Fischer,  who  had  promised 
to  send  the  supply. 

The  crime  of  forging  the  telegram  I  gladly  admit,  and 
rejoice,  even  at  this  day,  that  I  boldly  tore  through  a 
little  wire  thread  (the  consideration  of  sending  off  such  a 
telegram  with  a  false  signature),  else  this  thread  might 
easily  have  grown  into  an  iron  fetter. 

I  remained  in  Paris  under  an  alias  taken  from  one  of 
my  father's  estates  until  I  received  the  news  that  my 
family  was  ready  to  arrange  the  money  matters.  The 
provisional  settlement  took  place  at  the  beginning  of 
January,  1893,  in  Cologne,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Bank 
of  Deichmann. 

I  took  up  my  residence  at  first  at  Frankfort-on- 
the-Main.  There  the  final  settlement  of  property  took 
place,  when  I  handed  over  to  my  younger  brother  a 
capital  of  forty  thousand  marks  (£2,000),  which  he  declared 


422  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

he  could  no  longer  do  without.  He  had  owned  it  ever  since 
my  entrance  into  the  Order,  with  my  consent,  on  the 
assumption  that  I  should  remain  permanently  in  the 
Order,  and  regarded  and  treated  it  as  his  own  property. 

The  terrible  excitement  of  this  last  period  brought  on 
a  long  and  serious  illness,  of  which  I  was  only  cured  by  a 
residence  of  some  months  in  Heligoland,  from  May  to 
August,  1893.  Returned  from  Heligoland,  I  took  up  my 
permanent  residence  in  Berlin. 

How  often  have  I  been  reproached,  publicly  and 
privately,  by  Catholic  Ultramontanes,  who  say :  "  You 
broke  your  vows  ;  you  committed  perjury."  Even  evan- 
gelical circles  have  manifested  their  disapproval  of  the 
"  apostate  Jesuit,"  the  "  recreant  priest." 

It  is  surely  more  than  obvious  that  after  fourteen  years 
of  conscientious  life  in  the  Order  and  six  years'  priesthood, 
the  questions  of  apostasy,  recreancy,  and  perjury  should 
have  occurred  seriously  to  myself.  But  I  took  little  time 
to  decide  them,  so  simple  are  they. 

The  vows  of  an  Order,  and  the  state  of  the  priesthood, 
are  adopted  in  the  belief  of  serving  God  and  thus  entering 
into  a  specially  close  relation  to  Him.  When  this  belief 
is  recognised  to  be  erroneous,  in  that  same  moment  the 
vows  of  the  Order  and  the  priesthood  are  cancelled.  They 
were  errors,  just  as  the  foundation  on  which  they  were 
based  was  itself  an  error,  and  a  man  is  fully  entitled  to 
cast  such  errors  away. 

That  evangelical  circles  too  are  often  subject  to  such 
prejudices,  is  due  to  their  contemptible  traditional  depend- 
ence on  the  Catholic  ultramontane  point  of  view.  The 
fact  of  the  apostate  monk  and  recreant  priest,  Luther, 
strangely  enough,  seems  to  make  no  impression  on  such 
evangelicals. 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

GENERAL   VERDICT  ON  THE   JESUIT   ORDER 

An  appreciation  of  the  Jesuit  Order  must  proceed  from 
two  different  standpoints  :  the  Order  as  a  religious  ultra- 
montane institution  must  be  judged  from  the  religious 
point  of  view,  and  the  association  of  men  to  attain 
certain  ends  here  on  earth,  independent  of  religion,  must 
be  judged  from  the  human  point  of  view.  To  distinguish 
sharply  between  the  two  is  not  easy,  but  as  far  as  possible 
it  should  be  done.  Since  the  whole  ultramontane  Catholic 
system  of  orders,  with  its  vows  and  its  special  state  of  an 
order,  must  be  designated  as  a  departure  from  Christianity 
and  a  distortion  of  its  religious  outlines,  this  general 
verdict  applies  also  to  the  Jesuit  Order.  Indeed,  it  ap- 
plies specially  here,  for  the  Jesuit  Order  has  peculiarities 
which  are  reprehensible  even  from  the  Catholic  standpoint. 
Its  blind  obedience,  its  "  Statement  of  Conscience," 
its  system  of  espionage  and  levelling,  its  training  to 
denunciation,  its  misuse  of  confession,  and  many  other 
peculiarities,  are  immoral  institutions  which  Catholic 
Christianity  too  should  repudiate,  and  in  former  times 
would  doubtless  have  repudiated.  That  the  Jesuit  Order, 
which  came  into  being  in  the  sixteenth  century,  was  not 
so  repudiated,  that,  on  the  contrary,  its  Constitutions, 
though  abounding  in  such  immoralities,  were  approved 
by  the  Popes,  is  a  proof  to  what  extent  at  that  time  and, 
indeed,  much  earlier,  the  Papacy  and  Church  were  infected 
and  dominated  by  Ultramontanism. 

423 


424  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

The  monasticism  of  the  Theban  and  Libyan  deserts 
knew  none  of  these  things,  nor  yet  did  Benedict  of  Nursia, 
the  first  founder  of  the  Western  convents.  The  more 
recent  founders  of  orders,  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis, 
did  not  introduce  into  their  foundations  this  intellectual 
and  religious  slavery  and  bondage,  enveloped  in  a  garb 
of  religious  Christianity.  To  make  these  the  basis  of 
Christian  perfection  was  left  to  the  Jesuit  Order.  By  its 
example  and  agency  the  innumerable  later  foundations 
of  male  and,  above  all,  female  orders  were  equipped 
with  these  monstrous  excrescences.  The  plague  of  an 
anti-Christian  dependence,  which  rages  there  in  devastating 
fashion,  and  deprives  many  thousands  of  their  inherited 
and  divinely  appointed  freedom,  the  "  freedom  of  Chris- 
tianity," is  of  Jesuit  origin. 

In  another  essential  point  too  the  Jesuit  Order  differs 
in  religious  matters  unfavourably  from  the  old  Catholic 
Orders,  the  Benedictines,  Augustinians,  Franciscans,  and 
Dominicans. 

While  among  these  the  original  religious  enthusiasm 
mounted  upwards  in  a  brightly  flaming  fire  to  heaven  at 
their  foundation,  while  evangelical  poverty  and  evangeli- 
cal chastity — their  celebrated  triumphs,  which  surpassed 
human  nature  and  violated  Christianity,  but  for  all  that 
were  heroic — were  maintained  for  decades,  almost  cen- 
turies, in  a  state  of  "  first  youth,"  while  their  ecstatic 
zeal  never  grew  cold,  and  the  "  first  fruits  of  the  Spirit,"  even 
though  falsely  understood,  never  ceased  to  mature,  in  the 
Jesuit  Order  from  the  very  beginning  everything  was 
attuned  to  sobriety  and  calculation ;  there  was  no  "  first 
youth,"  no  "  first  fruits  of  the  Spirit." 

The  founder  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  Ignatius  Loyola, 
though  as  a  man  and  a  saint  he  was  a  visionary  and 
hysterical  enthusiast,  was  prudence  personified  as  the 
founder  of  an  order.      The  Constitutions,  written,  at  any 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  425 

rate  for  the  greater  part,  by  him,  are  calculated  from 
beginning  to  end  for  temporal  success,  power,  and  influence 
over  men.  Ecstatic  impetus,  inward  enthusiasm  and 
religious  warmth  are  lacking.  Where  they  appear  to  be 
present,  they  are  merely  external  adornment,  applied  in 
order  to  disguise  the  calculated  sobriety. 

The  Scripture  saying,  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall 
know  them,"  condemns  the  Jesuit  Order  as  a  religious 
institution.  The  blessing  of  God,  which  according  to  the 
faithful  Catholic  conception — the  conception  which  is 
decisive  in  judging  the  religious  side  of  the  Jesuit  Order 
—  must  rest  on  the  work  of  a  divinely  sanctioned 
Order,  does  not  rest  on  the  work  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus. 

I  have  already,  in  the  chapter  on  the  Jesuit  System 
of  Education,  referred  to  the  absence  of  permanent 
results — a  proof,  surely,  of  the  absence  of  God's  blessing — 
in  the  main  activity  of  the  Order,  the  education  of  youth. 
Outward  splendour  and  useless  show  are  the  main  fruits 
of  Jesuit  activity,  but,  like  everything  external,  the 
splendour  and  show  soon  fade  away.  The  words  of 
Piaget's  criticism*  should  be  read,  too,  for  it  shows  clearly 
the  fiasco  of  the  Jesuit  Order. 

Again,  the  words  of  the  Jesuit  Cordara,  already  quoted, 

*  Essai  surf Organisation  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus  (Paris,  1893),  pp.  235  et  seq. 
After  commenting  on  the  failure  of  the  Jesuits  to  achieve  any  lasting  results  in 
their  missions  to  the  heathen,  and  their  efforts  to  check  the  spread  of  Protestantism, 
Piaget  asks  this  question  :  "  What  is  the  cause  of  this  failure  at  the  end  of  so 
much  apparent  success  ?  I  may  he  mistaken,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  Jesuitism 
was  nowhere  a  true  religious  awakening,  a  revival  of  sincere  piety,  which  alone 
could  have  supplied  a  lasting  foundation  for  its  work."  In  regard  to  the  revival 
of  pious  works,  to  be  attributed  to  the  influence  of  Jesuit  confessors,  he  asks : 
"  But  did  the  overwhelming  influence  they  attained  lessen  or  even  check  the 
loose  morality  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  ?  Must  we  not  rather 
say  that  immorality  made  way  in  those  very  classes  of  the  population  which  were 
trained  in  their  schools  ?  Strangely  enough,  it  was  the  very  generation  that  was 
trained  up  by  the  Jesuits  which  rose  against  them  and  procured  their  suppression." 
The  complete  passage  is  quoted  in  the  chapter  on  the  "  Suppression  of  the  Order  " 
in  the  German  edition  of  this  book. 


426  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

on  the  arrogance  of  the  Order  are  a  strong  indictment  of 
the  chief  cause  of  Jesuit  failure. 

Cordara's  criticism  was  written  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  the  Order  had  had  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  work,  including  its  best  period,  and  he 
designated  the  suppression  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  as  a 
Divine  judgment  on  the  pride  which  is  so  hateful  to 
God.  It  would  be  impossible  to  bring  a  more  serious 
indictment  against  the  worth  of  a  religious  order.  And 
from  a  purely  human  standpoint  it  is  natural  that  the 
Jesuits  should  in  part  suppress  and  in  part  falsify  the 
words  of  their  distinguished  fellow-Jesuit.  For  their 
undeniable  failure  they  can  find  other  causes  than  the 
rejection  by  God  as  a  punishment  for  arrogance.  The 
malice  of  men  !  It  is  just  because  the  Jesuit  Order  is  so 
holy,  so  well-pleasing  to  God,  that  it  suffers  in  a  special 
degree  the  fate  of  all  saints,  "  the  hatred  and  persecution 
of  godless  men."  The  Society  of  Jesus  fares  as  did  Jesus 
Himself — how  often  have  I  heard  this  said  ! — "  The  servant 
is  not  greater  than  his  master.  If  they  have  persecuted 
Me,  they  will  also  persecute  you." 

Not  one  single  Mea  Culpa  is  to  be  found  in  the  four 
hundred  years'  history  of  the  Jesuit  Order.  For  that 
uttered  by  Cordara  was  not  official,  nor  meant  for  publicity, 
not  even  for  the  Order  itself.  It  was  recorded  after  the 
suppression  of  the  Order  in  the  secrecy  of  a  document 
intended  only  for  his  brother. 

The  very  fact  that  the  Jesuit  Order  proclaims  its 
absolute  immaculacy  in  so  bombastic  and  boastful  a 
fashion,  transcending  the  bounds  of  the  permissible  (as 
shown,  for  instance,  in  the  work  Imago  primi  saeculi),  as 
though  it  were  enunciating  a  dogma,  is  so  un-Christian, 
so  irreligious,  that  it  alone  would  suffice  to  condemn  the 
Order  as  a  religious  and  Christian  institution.  For  the 
words  placed  by  Christ  in  the  mouth  of  the  Pharisee, 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  427 

"  God,  I  thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  other  men  are, 
or  even  as  this  publican,"  should  express  the  strongest 
contrast  to  the  religious  and  moral  conception  of  Christ. 
Yet  these  very  words  are  the  fundamental  note  of  all  the 
manifestations  of  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

Strong  contrasts  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  are  also  to 
be  found  in  other  important  points,  particularly  in  the 
domain  of  morals.  Some  of  these  I  have  discussed  in  the 
chapter  on  Jesuit  Morality. 

Further,  what  could  be  more  irreligious  and,  therefore, 
unchristian  than  the  Jesuit  piety  of  the  Exercises,  which 
sets  aside  the  individual  and  substitutes  for  it  a 
mechanical  type  ?  This  is  one  of  the  greatest  crimes 
which  the  Jesuit  Order  commits  against  the  human  being, 
as  I  have  already  shown. 

Thus  Jesus  and  the  Society  of  Jesus,  religion  and  the 
Jesuit  Order,  stand  in  sharpest  contrast  to  one  another. 
Only  the  ignorance  of  Catholics,  and  their  bias  in  favour 
of  ultramontane  Jesuit  views,  explain  the  fact  that  the 
strong  contrasts  are  not  recognised.  The  light  which  has 
dawned  on  individual  Catholics  must  dawn  on  all.  But 
the  first  condition  of  this  is  to  subdue  Ultramontanism 
in  the  hierarchy.  For  this  ultramontanised  Papacy  and 
Episcopacy  supply  the  strongest  support  for  Jesuitism, 
because  in  its  turn  Jesuitism  is  also  the  bulwark  of  Ultra- 
montanism and  its  hierarchy;  and  this  brings  us  to  the 
consideration  of  the  Jesuit  Order  as  an  association  of 
human  beings  destined  to  pursue  here  on  earth  purely 
human  aims  which,  however  much  they  may  be  embel- 
lished by  religion  and  Christianity,  are  in  reality  far  removed 
from  both. 

When  the  Jesuit  Order  came  into  being,  a  fatal  hour 
had  struck  for  the  Papacy.  The  movement  originated  by 
Luther,  in  connection  with  other  causes,  had  caused  the 
ship  of  St.  Peter  to  rock  dangerously.     A  world  with  a 


428  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

new  philosophy  of  life  was  coming  into  view,  which  no 
longer  recognised  the  Pope- God  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
sovereign  Lord  of  the  whole  world  in  that  capacity. 
Ultramontanism  which,  since  Gregory  VII.,  had  been  firmly 
established  in  its  seat,  and  was  ruling  the  world,  in  par- 
ticular the  political  world,  from  Rome,  under  religious 
forms,  felt  the  onset  of  the  new  age,  whence  the  cry, 
"  Free  from  Rome,"  was  already  resounding. 

Then  the  threatened  Papacy  found  in  the  Jesuit  Order 
an  ultramontane  auxiliary  regiment  of  extraordinary 
power  and  pertinacity.  The  Papal  dominion  was  to  be 
re-established.  The  ultramontane  system,  with  its  secular 
and  political  kernel  disguised  under  a  garb  of  religion, 
was  concentrated,  as  it  were,  in  the  Constitutions  of  the 
Jesuit  Order,  and  even  more  in  its  well  calculated  labours 
directed  from  central  points.  Words  and  deeds,  teaching 
and  example,  of  the  new  Order,  were  a  single  great  pro- 
paganda for  the  ultramontane  Papacy.  The  doctrine  of 
the  "  direct " — that  is,  the  immediate  dominion  of  the 
Vicar  of  Christ  over  the  whole  world — had  become 
untenable  ;  the  Jesuit  Order  (e.g.  Bellarmin  and  Suarez) 
replaced  it  completely  by  the  doctrine  of  the  "  indirect ' 
power. 

There  is  not  the  least  fraction  of  religion  in  this 
doctrine.  Everything  in  it  is  irreligious  and  anti-Christian, 
but  it  is  quite  specially  calculated  for  religious  display, 
for  it  makes  a  pretence  of  God's  Kingdom,  which  embraces 
this  world  and  the  next,  which  tolerates  only  one  supreme 
ruler — God  and  His  Vicar — and  thus  makes  this  com- 
prehensive political  universal  dominion  an  acceptable, 
even  desirable,  religious  demand  in  the  eyes  of  Catholics. 
The  love  of  dominion  implanted  in  the  Jesuit  Order  finds 
the  greatest  possibility  of  development  in  this  doctrine, 
hence  its  never-resting  zeal  in  trying  to  raise  the  indirect 
power  of  the  Papacy  to  a  fundamental  dogma  of  Church 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  429 

policy.  The  Order,  as  such,  cannot  openly  aspire  to 
universal  dominion  ;  however  powerful  its  equipment  may 
be,  it  must  always  appear  as  a  mere  auxiliary  member,  a 
subordinate  part  of  the  Catholic  whole,  the  Papal  Church  ; 
the  more  it  furthers  the  temporal  political  power  of  Rome 
and  extends  the  religious  belief  in  its  justification  among 
men,  the  more  political  power  will  it  attain  itself ;  the 
Papacy  and  its  indirect  power  serve  but  as  a  screen 
behind  which  are  concealed  the  Jesuit  Order  and  its 
aspirations  for  power.  By  its  zeal  and  skill  it  becomes 
an  indispensable  servant  of  the  Papacy,  and  thus  acquires 
direct  dominion  over  the  wearers  of  the  Papal  crown, 
and  through  them  indirect  dominion  over  the  whole 
world. 

Hence  the  continuous  and  detailed  occupation  with 
politics,  forbidden  by  the*  Constitutions  as  unreligious, 
but  which  became  its  most  comprehensive  sphere  of 
activity  by  the  religious  road  of  confession. 

It  was  this  very  political  activity  of  the  Order  which 
let  loose  the  storm  against  it.  And,  as  I  have  already 
shown,  it  was  in  the  first  instance  the  Catholic  courts, 
at  which  the  Jesuit  confessor  had  carried  on  his  religious 
activity  for  centuries,  which  demanded  more  and  more 
eagerly  the  suppression  of  the  Order,  and  finally  attained 
it  from  Clement  XIV.  They  felt  that  here,  in  the  Jesuit 
Order,  a  power  was  rising  which  would  gain  the  mastery 
over  them.  Claudius  Acquaviva,  the  fifth  General,  gave 
to  this  political  power,  working  in  the  religious  atmosphere 
of  the  confessional,  the  form  still  valid  at  the  present  day, 
by  means  of  a  secret  Instruction,  which,  as  its  discoverer, 
the  Benedictine  Dudik  says,  "  shows  quite  clearly  the 
ultimate  aim  the  Jesuits  tried  to  attain  through  their 
confessors — dominion  over  the  Catholic  Church,  such  as 
Gregory  and  Innocent  and  Boniface  strove  to  attain." 

But  has  the  Jesuit  Order  not  performed  conspicuous 


430  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

services  for  the  Catholic  religion  ?  Are  not  the  successes 
of  the  counter-Reformation  in  the  main  its  work  ?  There, 
surely,  it  was  not  a  question  of  universal  dominion,  but  of 
universal  religion. 

Doubtless  the  counter-Reformation  was  in  the  main  the 
work  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  but  for  that  very  reason  it  also 
bears  the  stamp  of  its  spirit,  and  is  characterised  by 
measures  of  violence,  even  by  blood  and  iron.  The  lost 
Papal  dominion  was  to  be  restored.  Religion  took  a 
second  place,  or  rather  supplied  the  cloak  which  was  to 
conceal  the  craving  for  rule,  and  to  sanctify  the  use  of 
violent  measures.  We  need  only  remember  the  words  of 
the  Jesuit  Bobadilla,*  one  of  the  trusted  comrades  of 
Ignatius  Loyola,  to  understand  the  nature  and  goal  of  the 
counter-Reformation,  as  conducted  by  the  Jesuit  Order. 

The  Jesuit  Order,  therefore,  stands  before  us  as  the 
embodiment  of  a  system  which  aims  at  temporal  political 
dominion  through  temporal  political  means,  embellished 
by  religion,  which  assigns  to  the  head  of  the  Catholic 
religion — the  Roman  Pope — the  role  of  a  temporal  over- 
lord, and  under  shelter  of  the  Pope-King,  and  using  him 
as  an  instrument,  desires  itself  to  attain  the  dominion  over 
the  whole  world. 

That  opinion  is  not  only  mine — that  of  the  renegade, 
the  apostate  Jesuit1 — good  Catholics  too,  who  otherwise 
praise  the  Jesuit  Order,  advocate  it  strongly. 

Thus,  for  instance,  Reinhold  Baumstark  says  :  "  For 
beyond  all  facts  stands  the  decisive  circumstance  that 
Jesuitism  cannot  rise  above  one  point  of  view,  that  of  the 
temporal  political  power  and  external  compulsion."! 

From  these  efforts,  directed  for  its  own  benefit  and 

*  P.  383. 

t  Schicksale  ernes  deutschen  Katholiken  (Strassburg,  1885),  Second  Ed.,  p.  91. 
Baumstark  was  for  many  years  Leader  of  the  Baden  Catholics  in  the  Second 
Chamber  at  Karlsruhe.  He  died  in  1900  as  President  of  the  Provincial  Court  at 
Mannheim. 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  431 

towards  its  own  power,  may  be  explained  the  twofold 
attitude  of  the  Jesuit  Order  towards  the  Papacy ;  loudly 
emphasised  submission  which  even  takes  the  form  of  a 
special  vow,*  and  harsh  insubordination  as  soon  as  the 
Papacy  opposes  the  special  interests  of  the  Order,  above 
all,  its  attempt  at  rule.  Then,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
the  reverence  for  bishops  and  cardinals  also  disappears. 
If  the  Vicar  of  Christ  be  set  on  one  side,  how  should  any 
regard  be  paid  to  the  "  successors  of  the  Apostles  "  ? 

The  Jesuit  greed  for  power  also  explains  another 
phenomenon,  conspicuous  through  the  whole  history  of 
the  Order — its  incessant  quarrels  with  other  religious 
organisations.  Wherever  the  Order  sets  its  foot,  there 
peace  ends  and  the  struggle  for  existence  begins.  Its 
own  churches  are  to  be  full,  its  own  confessionals  besieged, 
its  own  teachings  in  dogma  and  morality  are  to  give  the 
lead — in  short,  it  desires  to  rule  alone.  The  immeasurable 
arrogance,  the  inconsiderate  and  contemptible  attitude 
towards  other  orders,  those  truly  irreligious  peculiarities 
of  the  Order  which  the  Jesuit  Cordara  designated  as  the 
causes  of  its  rejection  by  God,  are  the  natural  consequences 
of  its  unbridled  greed  for  dominion. 

The  Jesuit  Order  has  attained  many  successes  by  its 
temporal  political  efforts.  The  courts  of  Vienna,  Munich, 
Paris,  Madrid,  Lisbon,  and  for  a  time  of  London  too,  to 
say  nothing  of  smaller  ones,  were  for  a  long  time  com- 
pletely subject  to  it.  But  even  these  purely  worldly 
successes  lacked  endurance  and  magnitude.  Through  the 
Jesuit  confessors  of  the  German  Emperor  and  the  French, 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  Kings  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries,  and  their  almost  unlimited  influence, 
the  whole  of  Europe  might  have  been  subjected  for 
generations  to  the  Order.  Instead  of  this,  the  political 
influence  of  the  confessors  is  frittered  away  in  a  variety 

*  In  the  vow  taken  by  the  Professed  of  four  vows. 


432  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

of  intrigues,  in  small  disputes  which,  though  all  directed 
to  the  increase  of  Jesuit  power  and  dominion,  still  univer- 
sally lack  statesmanship  on  a  large  scale  and  effective 
unity.  The  Jesuit  confessors  have  always  been  political 
intriguers,  never  and  nowhere  statesmen.  Therefore,  in 
influential  positions  held  continuously  for  several  centuries, 
they  have  caused  disturbance,  confusion,  and  breaches  of 
peace  ;  they  have  increased  the  outward  splendour  and 
glory  of  their  Order  and  filled  its  coffers,  but  they  cannot 
point  to  a  single  political  action  with  an  effect  on  the 
present  and  the  future,  nor  a  single  far-reaching  successful 
undertaking  in  the  domain  of  universal  politics,  in  the 
centre  of  which  they  carried  on  their  labours.  The  Jesuit 
Order  has  always  fished  in  troubled  waters,  and  harvested 
the  small  gains  connected  with  small  undertakings ;  the 
results  that  can  only  be  attained  in  the  clearness  of  great 
endeavour  are  completely  missing  in  its  political  ledger, 
although  the  most  powerful  rulers  of  their  day  are  entered 
there  as  its  devoted  and  politically  obedient  penitents. 

Whence  comes  this  failure  ?  In  the  first  place,  from 
the  same  cause  which  led  to  its  religious  failures. 

The  politics  of  the  Order  did  not  penetrate  far  enough. 
They  were  directed  too  much  towards  securing  quickly 
attainable  momentary  successes  which  should  shed  fresh 
glory  around  the  external  position  of  the  Order.  Here  too 
it  was  appearance,  and  not  reality.  But  the  deeper  reason 
is  the  following,  which  at  the  same  time  reveals  the  weak- 
ness and  strength  of  the  Order  in  general. 

The  Jesuit  Order  does  not  train  men  to  independent 
thought  and  independent  action.  It  trains  machines, 
which  let  themselves  be  used  without  reason  and  will, 
like  corpses  and  sticks.  The  Jesuit  aim,  in  the  education 
of  the  members  of  its  Order  and  others,  is  the  destruction 
of  the  individual,  the  levelling  away  of  all  originality. 
Its  Exercises,  to  which  it  subjects  men  of  all  classes,  are 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  433 

the  great  planing  machines  through  which  human  beings 
are  enslaved  in  their  minds  and  made  dependent.  The 
sinew  of  individuality  there  receives  a  fatal  blow,  and  that 
not  only  in  religious  respects,  but  in  general. 

I  have  already  described  the  effect  of  the  Jesuit  educa- 
tional system  on  the  Jesuit  himself,  and  shown  how  it 
produces  mechanical  routine  and  easy  mobility,  and  thus 
turns  the  individual  into  a  smoothly  gliding  ball  which 
yields  silently  to  every  impulse.  But  this  deprives  the 
Jesuit  of  the  first  condition  for  successful  and  permanent 
work — the  impetus  of  his  individual  peculiarity.  His 
work  is  all  on  the  surface.  Smoothly  gliding  balls  trace 
no  deep  furrows,  they  leave  only  light,  easily  effaceable 
marks.  The  possibility  of  enormous  activity  in  the  most 
varied  fields,  of  quick  movement  hither  and  thither,  of 
incessant  beginning  and  ceasing,  now  here,  now  there,  is 
supplied  by  the  pliable  routine  of  the  individual  Jesuit. 
And  as  the  history  of  the  Order  shows,  this  possibility 
has,  in  the  most  conspicuous  manner,  become  a  fact. 
No  other  institution  has  given  so  much  cause  for  discussion 
in  so  comparatively  short  a  time,  nor  been  active  in  so 
many  different  directions.  All  Europe,  half  Asia  and 
America,  have  become  the  field  of  its  activity.  In  all 
possible  positions  and  offices  we  see  Jesuits  employed. 
But  nowhere  has  even  a  single  Jesuit  shown  himself  a 
truly  great  man,  with  a  far-seeing  outlook  and  enduring 
activity.  And  for  this  reason — because  every  Jesuit  lacks 
personality — he  is  a  wheel  of  a  machine,  not  a  human 
being  thinking  freely,  acting  freely,  and  creating  values 
of  his  own. 

This  is  true  of  all  ranks  of  the  Order,  of  the  General 
and  the  Superiors  as  well  as  the  lower  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral coadjutors. 

This  complete  lack  of  personality,  the  deliberate  and 
necessary  consequence  of  Jesuit  education,  is  not  balanced 

2C 


434  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

by  the  heroic  devotion  to  definite  tasks,  which  is  certainly 
not  lacking  in  the  Jesuit.  For  Jesuit  devotion  and  self- 
sacrifice  is  and  remains  the  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  of  a 
machine,  which  also  wears  itself  out,  which  does  its  duty 
and  lets  itself  be  used  to  the  very  last  of  its  powers,  but 
which  in  all  this  performs  no  individual,  but  only  a 
mechanical  task.  The  Jesuit  does  not  devote  himself  to 
his  allotted  labours  in  the  first  instance  from  the  interest 
he  feels  in  them — the  ascetic  discipline  of  his  Order  enjoins 
on  him  sacred  indifference  in  regard  to  every  kind  of 
work — no,  he  acts,  and  acts  in  this  particular  way,  because 
he  constitutes  this  particular  wheel  in  the  great  machine 
which  perhaps  in  the  very  next  hour  will  be  changed 
for  another  by  the  hand  of  the  Superior ;  he  works 
zealously,  because  obedience  for  the  moment  has  set 
him  at  this  particular  point  of  the  machine's  activity, 
which  he  will  perhaps  have  to  exchange  to-morrow  for 
another.  "  One  foot  in  the  air,"  as  my  Novice-Master, 
the  Jesuit  Meschler,  used  to  characterise  the  fundamental 
attitude  of  a  Jesuit  at  work,  does  not  assist  us  to  accom- 
plish anything  great  and  permanent  in  any  domain.  For 
this  we  require  permanence  of  place  and  the  possibility 
of  striking  root,  absorption  in  the  occupation  and,  above 
all,  the  consciousness  of  being  set  tasks  for  life,  not  merely 
temporary  experiments  which  at  any  moment  if  it  seem 
good  to  the  Superior,  must  be  exchanged  for  another 
occupation. 

As  a  Jesuit  is  unfitted  even  by  his  education  in  the 
Order  to  become  a  powerful  implement  for  lasting  and 
individual  labours,  the  lack  of  aptitude  is  transferred,  if 
not  in  so  marked  a  degree,  to  all  who  submit  to  his  influence, 
all  whom  he  educates.  They  too  suffer  more  or  less  in 
their  individuality,  lose  a  good  part  of  their  independence 
and  power  of  decision.  The  many  thousands  who,  in  all 
classes  and  professions,  are  attached  to  the  Jesuit  Order, 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  435 

are  pliant  implements  in  its  hand,  but  for  that  very  reason 
lack  the  requisites  for  great  and  enduring  results — initiative 
and  independence. 

It  is  undeniable  that  we  here  meet  with  the  weakness 
of  the  Order,  and  it  appears  conspicuously  in  the  notorious 
lack  of  enduring  success,  in  spite  of  favourable  oppor- 
tunities, in  the  history  of  the  Order. 

But  here  also  lies  the  strength  of  the  Jesuit  Order. 
Its  education  produces  a  similarity  among  its  members, 
a  uniformity  of  activity  which  cannot  be  surpassed,  and 
which  is  a  guarantee  for  those  results  which  can  be  attained 
through  its  mechanical  and  automatic  methods. 

The  ball  can  roll  in  any  direction,  into  any  corner, 
however  small ;  the  Jesuit,  with  no  will  of  his  own,  but 
obeying  blindly,  can  adapt  himself  without  difficulty ;  he 
changes  his  place  again  and  again,  and  brings  to  all  the 
same  trained  and  superficial  skill.  I  have  often  spoken 
of  the  Jesuit  mass ;  here  we  find  it.  Human  beings  with 
their  individual  differences  have  vanished ;  a  light  and 
mobile  army,  battalions  drawn  up  in  rank  and  file,  march 
in  equal  step  in  their  place.  The  persons  who  stand 
outside  the  Order  but  submit  to  its  guidance  belong  also 
to  the  Jesuit  mass — they  are  a  column  that  can  be  directed 
by  a  single  word. 

Thus  the  Jesuit  mass  permeates  the  whole  world, 
young  and  old,  men  and  women,  untold,  innumerable 
'  congregations."  It  is  clear  that  this  is  a  cause  of 
strength,  in  spite  of  the  weakness  which  in  another 
direction  is  combined  with  it.  Indeed  the  strength  is  far 
greater  than  the  weakness.  For  mankind  cannot  tolerate 
continuous  violent  rule  and  violent  impressions  for  ever. 
For  them  the  commonplace  is  the  rule,  controlled  by  the 
smooth  working  of  small  events  and  impressions.  Those 
who  understand  how  to  guide  men  silently  and  quietly, 
to  put  them  in  leading  strings  without  their  noticing  it, 


436  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

become  their  masters  more  certainly  than  the  revolutionary 
warrior  or  statesman. 

That  brings  us  to  the  question :  Is  the  Jesuit  Order 
dangerous,  and  to  what  extent  ? 

Here  is  my  answer :  For  the  individual  human  being, 
for  State  and  Religion  (I  purposely  do  not  say  "  Church," 
for  it  is  not  only  not  harmful  to  the  Church,  but  even 
very  useful),  the  Jesuit  Order  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous 
institutions  which  has  ever  existed.  For  it  destroys  that 
which  is  most  valuable  in  men — moral  and  intellectual 
independence.  After  what  I  have  already  said,  there  is 
no  need  to  explain  this  in  further  detail. 

In  this  system  of  dependence  lies  the  danger  that 
threatens  true  religion  and  genuine  Christianity  from  the 
Jesuit  Order.  The  reproach  that  is  brought  against  the 
Romish  Church  in  general,  that  it  sets  its  official  hier- 
archical personages  and  its  sacraments  and  sacramental 
offices  and  ceremonies  between  God  and  man,  that  it 
has  elevated  religious  tutelage  into  a  dogma — in  short, 
tries  to  check  free  intercourse  between  man  and  God  as 
far  as  possible  :  this  worst  of  all  religious  reproaches  is 
incurred  in  the  strongest  manner  by  the  Jesuit  system. 
The  Jesuit  and  the  man  who  submits  to  Jesuit  direction 
are  in  reality  slaves,  who  approach  the  world  beyond 
and  God — that  is,  may  only  take  part  in  religion — in  the 
way  in  which  the  piety  and  asceticism  of  the  Order  permits. 
They  must  renounce  even  the  last  remnant  of  religious 
freedom.  They  must  be  accessible,  to  the  very  depths  of 
their  soul,  not  to  God,  but  to  the  Superior  of  their  Order, 
and  to  him  alone.  This  too  requires  no  further  proof 
after  the  detailed  expositions  I  have  given  on  the  subject. 

What  about  the  danger  of  the  Jesuit  Order  to  the 
State  ?     It  is  many-sided  and  far-reaching. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  remember  the  fundamen- 
tal constitutional  dogma  of    the  Jesuit   Order — complete 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  437 

dependence  of  the  State  on  the  Church ;  its  obligation 
to  fashion  itself  and  its  life  according  to  the  laws  of  the 
Church.  Numerous  quotations  from  Jesuit  authorities,* 
and  among  them  the  present  General  of  the  Order,  go  to 
prove  that  from  this  fundamental  dogma  may  be  deduced 
the  doctrine  that  it  is  permissible  and  meritorious  to 
disobey  the  laws  of  the  State  which  are  opposed  to  the 
laws  of  the  Church,  and  in  case  of  punishment  for  such 
breaches  of  law  to  be  indemnified  from  the  State  Treasury. 
Even  active  resistance  to  Government  officials  is  per- 
mitted. And  the  most  simple  circumstance  which  throws 
a  strong  light  on  the  danger  to  the  State  of  such  doctrines 
is,  that  they  are  to  be  found  in  books  which  expressly 
serve  as  directions  for  attending  the  confessional.  The 
fact  that  their  chief  advocate  is  the  German  Jesuit  Lehm- 
kuhl,  the  political  theological  councillor  of  the  Centre 
Party,  gives  them  an  increased  importance  for  Germany,  f 

*  Some  of  these  are  given  in  the  chapter  on  Jesuit  Morality. 

f  It  is  right,  however,  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  Lehmkuhl's  theses  are  the 
hereditary  doctrines  of  the  Jesuit  Order  :  the  twentieth  century  in  them  meets  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth.  I  have  already  referred  to  the  Jesuits  Bellarmin  and 
Suarez  as  the  most  celebrated  theoretical  advocates  of  the  indirect  power  of  the 
Church  over  the  State.  Two  other  Jesuits,  also  belonging  to  the  early  days  of 
the  Order,  and  among  the  members  most  actively  concerned  in  politics,  whom 
we  have  already  encountered  in  this  activity — Parsons  and  Garnet — may  also 
be  mentioned,  because  the  teaching  of  one  almost  coincides  with  that  of  Lehmkuhl. 

"  One  necessary  condition  required  in  every  law  is  that  it  be  just  ;  for,  if  this 
condition  be  wanting,  that  the  law  be  unjust,  then  it  is,  ipso  facto,  void  and  of 
no  force,  neither  hath  it  any  power  to  oblige  any.  .  .  .  Hereupon  ensueth  that 
no  power  on  earth  can  forbid  or  punish  any  action,  which  we  are  bound  unto 
by  the  law  of  God,  so  that  the  laws  against  recusants  [the  English  Oath  of  Allegiance 
was  in  question],  against  receiving  of  priests,  against  mass,  and  other  rites  of 
Catholic  religion  are  to  be  esteemed  as  no  laws  by  such  as  steadfastly  believe 
these  to  be  necessary  observances  of  the  true  religion.  .  .  .  Being  asked  what  I 
meant  by  '  true  treason,'  I  answer,  that  is  a  true  treason  which  is  made  treason 
by  any  just  law  ;  and  that  is  no  treason  at  all  which  is  made  treason  by  an  unjust 
law." — Jardine,   p.   235. 

And  the  Jesuit  Parsons,  of  many  names  and  devices,  in  his  book,  Elizabethae 
Angliae  Reginae  haeresim  Calvinianurn  propugnantis  saevissimum  in  Catholicos  sui 
regni  edictum,  says  :  "  The  universal  school  of  Catholic  theologians  and  canonists 
hold  (and  it  is  certain  and  of  faith)  that  any  Christian  prince  who  manifestly 


438  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

But  even  this  attitude  towards  the  authority  and 
sovereignty  of  the  State  does  not  satisfy  them.  The 
Jesuit  Order  is  the  sworn  foe  of  the  modern  State  and  all 
its  educational  functions. 

This  is  surely  and  strikingly  demonstrated  in  the 
12th  decree  of  the  23rd  General  Congregation,  of  the 
year  1883.  Here  the  Order  asserts  that  it  abides  by 
the  Encyclical  of  Pius  IX.,  Quanta  cura,  of  December  8th, 
1864,  and  the  Syllabus  of  the  same  date,  and  emphatically 
designates  as  "  plagues  '  the  "  errors  "  condemned  in 
these  two  documents.  But  this  Encyclical  Quanta  cura 
and  the  Syllabus  are  the  most  comprehensive  declarations 
of  war  against  all  the  foundations  and  achievements  of 
the  modern  State  education  and  civilisation.  Since,  then, 
the  Jesuit  Order  does  not  content  itself  with  giving  its 
silent  assent  to  the  Papal  ultramontane  declaration  of 
war,  "  which  would  be  a  matter  of  course  for  every  ultra- 
montane Catholic,"  but  gives  it  in  the  most  solemn  manner 
through  its  General  Congregation,  it  expresses  its  deadly 
hatred  towards  the  modern  State  in  a  specially  ostentatious 
manner,  within  twenty  years  after  the  publication  of  the 
Encyclical  and  Syllabus.  Like  the  ultramontane  Papacy 
in  the  Syllabus,  the  Jesuit  Order  too  says  :  "I  cannot 
be  reconciled,  nor  agree  with,  progress,  liberalism,  and 
modern  civilisation." 

True,  the  Jesuit  Order  makes  use  of  the  attainments 
of  progress,  liberalism,  and  civilisation.  True,  it  clothes 
itself  in  modern  garb,  and  apparently  takes  part  in  all 
domains  of  civilisation ;    but  under  its  modern  garb  is 

swerves  from  the  Catholic  religion,  and  wishes  to  call  others  from  it,  falls  at  once 
from  all  power  and  dignity,  both  by  divine  right,  and  before  any  sentence  can  be 
passed  against  him  by  the  supreme  pastor  and  judge  (the  Pope) ;  and  his  subjects 
are  free  from  the  obligation  of  any  oath  of  allegiance  which  they  had  taken  to 
him  as  a  legitimate  prince ;  they  may  and  should  (if  they  have  power),  expel 
from  his  sovereignty  over  Christians  such  a  man  as  an  apostate,  a  heretic.  .  .  . 
Now  this,  the  certain,  defined  and  undoubted  opinion  of  the  most  learned  is  clearly 
conformable  and  in  agreement  with  the  apostolic  doctrine." — Taunton,  148,  149. 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  439 

hidden  the  bitter  opponent,  who  hates  with  intensity  that 
progress  the  advantages  of  which  he  utilises  for  his  own 
purposes.  So  deep,  so  universal,  is  the  Jesuit  hatred  for 
our  modern  civilisation  that  we  encounter  it  even  where 
we  should  least  expect  it,  and  sometimes  in  the  most 
grotesque  form.     Here  is  an  instance  : 

The  Jesuit  Meschler,  a  former  Novice-Master,  Rector, 
Provincial,  and  Assistant  to  the  General,  consequently  a 
prominent  Jesuit,  in  the  Stimmen  aus  Maria-Laach,  for 
October,  1909  (page  568),  publishes  an  article  on  St. 
Ludgerus,  first  Bishop  of  Minister,  in  the  eighth 
century.  His  article  ends  with  this  characteristic  senti- 
ment : 

"  The  civilisation  of  St.  Ludger  built  hospitals,  churches, 
and  convents  ;  the  civilisation  of  our  day  builds  barracks, 
lunatic  asylums,  and  prisons.' "  Away  then  with  the 
civilisation  of  the  twentieth  and  let  us  return  to  that  of 
the  eighth  century  ! 

Special  hostility  is  shown  by  the  Jesuit  Order  to  one 
of  the  sources  of  civilisation,  and  one  of  the  most  important 
institutions  of  the  State  as  a  civilising  agent — I  mean  the 
State  school. 

The  Jesuits  Wernz  (the  present  General),  Laurentius, 
Cathrein,  von  Hammerstein,  etc.,  in  their  widely  read 
books  and  articles,  set  up  the  most  unlimited  demands  in 
regard  to  the  suzerainty  of  the  Church  over  the  State 
schools,  and  in  so  doing  pour  the  most  opprobrious  abuse 
on  the  State  and  its  schools.  Thus,  for  instance,  the 
Jesuit  von  Hammerstein  writes  : 

"  The  idea  of  State  and  school,  as  conceived  and  handled  by 
the  modern  State  and  embodied  for  the  last  centuries  in  a  large 
amount  of  legislation,  is  unjust,  and  that  not  only  in  the  most 
general  sense  of  unfairness,  but  unjust  in  the  truest  signification 
of  the  word — that  is,  the  laws  in  question  lack  the  foundation  of 
justice  in  a  great  part  of  their  content.     They  are  null  and  void, 


440  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

just  as  a  Socialistic  decree,  issued  by  a  democratic  State,  abolishing 
all  private  property,  would  be  null  and  void.  Not  only  does  the 
modern  school  idea  deserve  the  designations  '  unpractical '  and 
'  unjust ' — it  also  unquestionably  merits  the  further  reproach  of 
being  un-Christian.  .  .  .  On  closer  examination,  we  are  indeed 
actually  compelled  to  bring  the  reproach  of  immorality  and  dis- 
honesty against  the  modern  school."  "  If  the  State  abides  in 
future  by  its  modern  school  idea,  we  do  not  know  how  we  can 
acquit  it  of  the  reproach  of  inaugurating  a  system  of  hypocrisy  on 
a  large  scale.  Such  a  system  must  in  time  become  the  grave  of 
fidelity,  faith,  and  morality  for  our  youth  and  the  whole  people." 
"  The  apex  of  the  Prussian  school  pyramid  is  the  ministry  and 
minister  of  public  worship  and  instruction  (Kultusminister).  Even 
the  mere  notion  of  a  minister  for  spiritual  affairs  on  the  lines  of 
the  modern  school  idea  is  felt  to  be  a  declaration  of  war  against 
the  Catholic  Church,  and  a  manifesto  in  favour  of  Protestantism."* 

Four  sections  are  devoted  by  Haminerstein  to  the 
question  :  "  Can  Catholics  be  expected  to  entrust  their 
sons  to  Prussian  State  Gymnasia  ?  "  Of  course,  he  answers 
"  No."  t 

Thus  writes  the  same  Jesuit  in  another  book  :  "  We 
should  like  to  set  over  the  gateway  of  every  school  which 
is  not  genuinely  a  Church  school  these  words  as  the  brand 
of  Cain : 

'  Through  me  the  way  is  to  the  city  dolent ; 
Through  me  the  way  is  to  eternal  dole ; 
Through  me  the  way  among  the  people  lost.'  J 
Hate  of  the  Godhead  called  me  into  being." 

Side  by  side  with  this  school  hatred  goes  denomina- 
tional hatred.  § 

The  fundamental  condition  of  civilisation  is  peaceful 
dwelling    together,    and    tolerant    collaboration    among 

*  Das  preussische  Schulmonopol,  pp.  127,  139,  162,  163. 

t  Ibid.,  pp.  165-224. 

J  Longfellow's  translation  of  the  Inferno. 

§  Die  Schvljrage,  p.  125. 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  441 

different  denominations,  which  the  modern  State  has 
admitted  into  its  constitutions  as  toleration  and  religious 
equality ;  *  but  this  is  regarded  by  the  Jesuit  Order  as  an 
"  abuse,"  a  "  disease."  I  have  already  given  many 
proofs  of  this  Jesuit  quarrelsomeness.  They  show  that 
"  the  seeds  of  hatred  are  inborn  "  [in  the  Jesuit  Order 
towards  those  of  other  faith],  as  the  Imago  primi  saeculi 
so  characteristically  expresses  it. 

Then,  finally,  there  is  the  docrine  of  Tyrannicide 
which,  as  is  proved  by  numerous  writings  of  individual 
members  approved  by  the  Order,  has  gained  a  firm  footing 
in  the  Jesuit  Order.  Even  the  very  ambiguous  attitude 
of  General  Acquaviva  towards  these  doctrines  gives  cause 
for  serious  consideration. 

My  assertion  is  therefore  justified  :  The  constitutional 
and  political  educational  doctrines  of  the  Jesuit  Order  are 
the  destruction  of  the  modern  State,  and  its  destruction 
is  intended  by  the  Jesuit  Order. 

Now  the  danger  from  such  teaching  and  intention 
would  in  itself  not  be  so  very  great.  What  dangerous 
theories  and  intentions  has  the  world  not  witnessed,  and 
yet  it  has  continued  to  proceed  on  its  own  course  !  But 
here,  when  the  Jesuit  Order  represents  these  ideas,  mat- 
ters are  entirely  different.  Here  the  danger  is  imminent 
because  it  is  founded  on  the  dangerousness  of  the  Order 
as  such. 

Very  erroneous  ideas  are  held  as  to  this  dangerousness. 
It  has  been  sought  where  it  is  non-existent,  or  in  but  a 
small  degree ;  where  it  is  actually  present  it  has  been 
overlooked. 

The  dangerousness  of  the  Order,  and  its  powerful 
influence,  do  not  consist  in  the  prominent  intelligence  of 
its  members,  not  even  in  that  of  its  leaders,  the  Superiors. 
Fourteen  years'  intimate  acquaintance  with  members  and 

*  Paritdt. 


442  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

leaders  has  taught  me  that  neither  class  exceeds  the 
average.  Indeed,  in  some  of  the  Superiors  (Rectors  and 
Provincials)  I  learned  to  know  men  of  but  moderate 
intelligence  who,  had  they  stood  alone  and  not  been 
supported  and  guided  by  the  traditions  and  ordinances, 
and  by  an  organisation  spread  over  the  whole  world, 
would  of  themselves  have  achieved  nothing  worthy  of 
note. 

I  have  already  characterised  in  detail  the  deliberately 
fostered  dependence  of  the  individual  Jesuit  as  the  main 
weakness  of  the  Order.  But  I  have  shown  that  this 
weakness  also  constitutes  its  strength,  and  this  strength 
is  essentially  increased  by  the  manner  in  which  the  Order 
exercises  its  activity.  This  manner,  combined  with  the 
marvellous  organisation  of  the  Order,  is  the  nucleus  of  its 
power  and  also  of  its  dangerousness. 

In  the  first  instance,  the  Order  utilises  the  same  most 
effective  means  as  Ultramontanism.  "  Religion '  is  the 
fair  wide  cloak  withfwhich  Jesuitism  covers  everything, 
in  which  it  clothes|everything,  and  which  wins  for  it  easy 
admission  into  the  heads  and  hearts  of  Catholics.  By 
means  of  this  illusion,  the  Jesuit  Order  has  reached  an 
unexampled  mastery.  There  is  nothing  so  earthly,  so 
worldly,  so  political,  there  is  no  attack  on  State  and 
civilisation,  which  the  Jesuit  system  does  not  represent, 
plausibly  too,  as  "  religious,"  as  "  lying  within  the 
sphere  of  religion.  "[HBy  means  of  this  untruth  it  replaces 
its  own  weakness,  due  to  its  mechanical  methods,  by  the 
gigantic  force  of  these  religious  passions  of  its  adherents. 
Jesuits  need  then  only  fan  the  flame  which  has  been 
already  kindled.  But  this  can  be  done  even  by  men  of 
inferior  gifts,  who  have  lost  their  individuality,  especially 
if  they  are  assisted  by  a  well-planned  and  far-reaching 
organisation. 

This  is  greatly  assisted  by  the  secrecy  of  Jesuit  activity. 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  443 

It  is  excessively  cunning,  and  by  no  means  confined  to  the 
secrecy  of  the  confessional,  in  which  Ultramontanism  too 
possesses  a  mighty  lever  for  work  in  politics  and  against 
enlightenment,  carried  on  under  the  shelter  of  darkness. 

True,  the  Jesuit  Order  has,  more  than  any  other 
ultramontane  institution,  contrived  to  make  confession 
subserve  its  own  ends ;  it  has  succeeded  in  attaching 
troops  of  the  faithful  to  its  own  confessionals.  But  its 
furtive  activity  extends  far  beyond  the  Church  and  the 
confessional. 

The  Jesuit  has  become  a  popular,  indispensable  spiritual 
director  in  the  families  of  the  upper  classes,  above  all 
with  the  women.  In  this  position  the  most  secret  activity 
becomes  easy  and  safe  for  him.  If  we  asked  the  Catholic 
families  among  the  nobility  of  Germany,  France,  England, 
Austria,  Spain,  Portugal,  Italy,  as  well  as  numerous 
families  of  the  upper  ten  thousand,  which  of  them  has  not 
a  Jesuit  as  a  permanent  or  occasional  spiritual  director, 
we  shall  find  the  number  of  these  to  be  extremely  small. 
Although  from  my  youth  upwards  I  was  accustomed  to 
'  domestic  Jesuits,"  yet  when  I  myself  belonged  to  the 
Order  and  had  an  insight  into  its  activity,  even  I  was 
surprised  at  the  extent  of  this  "  domestic  "  activity  of 
the  Order. 

In  this  must  also  be  included  its  educational  activity, 
although  this  apparently  is  not  carried  on  in  secret,  since 
the  numerous  "  German "  educational  establishments 
(Feldkirch,  Kalksburg,  Freinberg,  Stonyhurst,  Ordrupshoj, 
etc.)  stand  broad  and  clear  in  the  light  of  day,  and  although 
the  Jesuit  boarding-school  presupposes  the  separation 
from  home  and  family,  yet  a  strong  and  secret  influence 
penetrates  thence  into  both  home  and  family.  For  the 
Jesuit  boarding-schools  transform  their  pupils  into  the 
'  Jesuit  mass,"  which  continues  to  work  silently  and 
imperceptibly  in  the  families  themselves.     In  the  Jesuit 


444         Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

boarding-schools  the  pupils  are  planed  and  polished  who, 
when  they  grow  up,  extend  the  Jesuit  spirit  and  thought. 
Here  too  a  circular  letter  to  ultramontane  editors, 
members  of  Parliament,  writers,  officials,  and  so  on, 
would  produce  the  remarkable  result  that  about  80  per 
cent,  among  them  are  old  Jesuit  pupils.  The  same  applies 
to  numerous  landed  proprietors  in  the  Rhinelands,  West- 
phalia, Silesia,  Bavaria,  Baden,  and  Wurtemberg.  Many 
officers,  too,  have  been  educated  in  Jesuit  institutions, 
especially  at  Feldkirch  and  Kalksburg  (both  in  Austria). 

If  we  add  to  these  the  many  thousands  of  Congreganists 
in  all  classes  and  professions,  these  genuinely  and  organic- 
ally co-ordinated  "  affiliates  "  of  the  Order,  we  see  the 
gigantic  nexus  of  circles  spread  over  the  whole  world, 
from  the  centres  of  which  the  Jesuit  Order  pursues  its 
activity  silently,  but  with  certainty  of  success.  And  in 
this  activity,  which  sets  in  motion  a  pliable  mass,  permeated 
with  Jesuit  conceptions,  lies  the  power  of  the  Order. 

This  power  is  the  greater,  because  the  Jesuit  Order 
is  surrounded  by  a  special  halo,  since  it  clothes  itself  in 
an  atmosphere  of  glory  which  raises  it  in  the  estimation 
of  the  Catholic  masses  far  above  all  similar  religious 
institutions.  For  the  Catholic  outside  the  orders  knows 
even  less  than  the  Jesuit  himself  of  the  true  history  of 
the  Order.  He  only  knows  the  bright  immaculate  picture 
which  he  encounters  in  the  innumerable  books  and  writings 
published,  in  majorem  Societatis  Jesu  gloriam.  Therefore 
he  honours  in  the  Jesuit  Order,  and  in  the  individual 
Jesuits,  the  acme  and  the  highest  attainment  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  Jesuit  Order  works  by  fascination — that  is 
the  right  word  to  use.  And  this  gives  it  one  of  the  most 
effective  means  for  the  maintenance  and  increase  of  its 
influence.  Sober  consideration  certainly  deprives  the 
Order  of  the  false  adornments  and  pretended  glory  with 
which  it  has  surrounded  itself.     Unfalsified  history  repre- 


General  Verdict  on  the  Jesuit  Order  445 

sents  it  as  an  organisation  injurious  to  religion,  politics, 
society,  and  civilisation,  which  endeavours  with  incon- 
siderate egotism  to  make  mankind  serviceable  to  its 
selfish  ends,  and  is  directed  towards  their  material  exploita- 
tion and  intellectual  suppression.  But  there  are  great 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  introducing  the  sober  historical 
points  of  view  into  those  circles  where  the  truth  about 
Jesuitism  is  most  needed,  i.e.  the  Catholic  circles ;  and 
the  Jesuit  Order  has  succeeded  in  transforming  these 
difficulties  into  almost  insuperable  obstacles. 

The  method  employed  for  the  purpose  reveals  the 
whole  extent  of  its  unscrupulousness,  its  cunning,  and 
therefore  its  dangerousness. 

The  belief  in  the  almost  immaculate  excellence  of  all 
institutions  of  religious  orders  and  the  like,  sanctioned  by 
the  Church,  is  still  unshaken  among  Catholics.  This 
belief  is  utilised  unscrupulously  by  the  Jesuit  Order  for 
its  own  advantage,  by  systematically  falsifying  history, 
and  also  all  the  products  of  free  thought.  For  it  is  sure  of 
its  public.  In  these  circles  everything  which  the  Jesuit 
Order  sends  into  the  world  marked  with  its  stamp  is 
regarded  as  indubitable  truth — as  good  and  true. 

Thus  the  Order  can  boldly  add  calumny  to  falsification. 
Perhaps  the  only  saying  of  Jesus  which  the  Society  of 
Jesus  realises  is  this  :  "  He  who  is  not  with  Me  is  against 
Me."  It  shrinks  from  no  means  for  making  its  opponents 
harmless.  Falsehood  and  physical  violence,  calumny  and 
cunning,  are  its  weapons,  which  deal  fatal  blows  from  its 
ambush. 

By  depriving  all  kinds  of  critics  and  opponents  of  their 
power  to  injure,  unhindered  by  any  qualms  of  conscience, 
the  Jesuit  Order  in  the  course  of  centuries  has  piled  up  a 
discreditable  account  such  as  could  not  be  rivalled  in  the 
whole  history  of  Christian  civilisation :  it  tramples  under 
foot  truth  and  right ;   it  steps  over  the  lives,  the  happiness 


446  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

and  the  freedom  of  men,  and  goes  on  its  way,  thus  proving 
itself  to  be  one  of  the  most  dangerous  enemies  of  mankind 
in  the  realm  of  truth  and  justice  and  of  civilisation. 

The  Jesuit  Order  is  an  international  organisation 
which  most  profoundly  and  skilfully,  in  hundreds  of 
disguises,  excavates  religion  and  State,  knowledge  and 
civilisation,  in  order  to  fill  the  gap  with  its  own  spirit. 
And  this  spirit  is  a  spirit  of  lust  and  power,  of  lying  and 
deceit,  of  immoderate  self-seeking,  of  greed  for  the  posses- 
sions of  mankind,  and  even  more  for  their  freedom  and 
independence — the  spirit  of  irreligion  and  anti-Christianity. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

FROM   THEN   TILL   NOW 

My  account  of  the  past  is  ended.  But  a  few  lines  must 
still  be  given  to  the  present  and  the  road  by  which  I 
reached  it. 

If  a  tree  uprooted  by  the  storm  could  speak,  it  would 
express  what  I  felt  after  the  breach  with  the  Church  and 
the  Order  was  accomplished.  I  had  been  torn  away  from 
soil  that  had  supplied  the  origin  and  sustenance  of  my 
whole  being,  physical,  moral  and  religious.  In  a  sense 
I  was  face  to  face  with  nothingness,  and  my  blood  seemed 
to  be  flowing  from  a  thousand  open  wounds,  just  as  the 
tangled  roots  of  the  tree  would  also  pour  forth  their  sap. 

What  was  to  become  of  me  ?  I  had  formed  no  definite 
plan  when  I  left  the  old  world  behind.  My  step,  so 
weighty  with  consequences,  had  been  a  leap  in  the  dark, 
for  I  had  burnt  my  ships  behind  me.  Should  I  succeed 
in  reaching  with  new  ships  a  better  shore  that  I  dreamed 
of  rather  than  saw,  enveloped  in  mist  and  clouds  ?  Not 
even  these  thoughts  presented  themselves  to  me  at  that 
time  clearly  and  distinctly.  To  escape  from  bondage, 
from  the  yoke  which  threatened  to  suffocate  my  independ- 
ence and  my  individuality,  to  be  rid  of  fetters  which 
held  my  soul  tightly  compressed — this  was  all  that  I 
then  desired.     All  else  was  but  one  mighty  question. 

The  separation  from  the  Order  could  have  been  endured 
with  comparative  ease.  This  wound,  if  wound  indeed  I 
may  call  it,  was  soon  closed,  for,  in  spite  of  my  fourteen 

447 


44§  Fourteen   Years   a  Jesuit 

years  of  membership,  I  had  never  been  a  true  Jesuit. 
My  mind  never  assimilated  the  Jesuit  spirit. 

But  the  separation  from  my  religion  !  It  was  flesh 
and  blood  to  me ;  I  was  united  to  it  by  the  bonds  of 
centuries ;  every  human  possession  that  had  hitherto 
been  mine  was  included  in  it — father,  mother,  brothers 
and  sisters.  I  could  not  even  imagine  them  except  in 
and  with  my  religion ;  my  thoughts  and  feelings  had  for 
nearly  forty  years  been  permeated  by  Catholicism.  And 
now !  Such  deeply  rooted  conceptions  cannot  be  cast 
aside  like  a  coat.  True,  my  outward  connection  with 
the  Catholic  Church  had  been  sundered  by  a  single  blow, 
for  I  had  recognised  the  erroneousness  of  some  of  the 
fundamental  dogmas  of  the  Catholic  faith.  And  I  had 
deliberately  thrown  aside  the  priestly  cassock  and  the 
Jesuit's  garb  because  I  could  no  longer  regard  the  priest- 
hood and  the  Order  as  Christian  and  religious. 

But  these  violent  steps  did  not  avail  to  set  aside 
and  destroy  the  innumerable  Catholic  feelings,  emotions, 
sentiments  and  opinions  which  in  a  life  of  forty  years  had 
grown  along  with  the  innermost  parts  of  my  being,  with 
my  whole  body  and  soul.  True,  I  felt  that  they  too 
must  go.  But  for  the  present  they  were  still  there, 
torturing,  troubling,  frightening  me.  My  whole  being 
was  in  a  state  of  chaos.  I  no  longer  believed  in  the  God 
of  ultramontane  Catholic  dogma.  That  Church  in  which  I 
had  been  born  and  educated,  in  which  I  had  lived  for  more 
than  a  generation,  had  fallen  to  ruins  in  my  sight,  and 
I  never  even  thought  of  any  other  Church.  My  soul 
resembled  a  vessel  without  mast,  sail  or  rudder,  tossed 
hither  and  thither  by  mountainous  waves,  and  I,  its  pilot, 
had  no  compass,  saw  no  star  shining  overhead. 

Nor  could  I  tell  what  to  do,  or  how  to  find  occupation. 
I  have  now  been  for  several  years  occupied  in  a  definite 
and   systematic   fight   against   the   most   dangerous    and 


From  Then   Till   Now  449 

strongest  of  all  powers — ultramontane  Rome.  To-day  I 
know  what  I  want ;  at  that  time  I  never  thought  of 
taking  up  such  a  position,  and  knew  neither  what  I  wanted 
nor  what  I  ought  to  do,  a  state  of  torture  which  several 
times  suggested  to  me  the  thought  of  suicide. 

Then  a  chance  occurrence  helped  to  disperse  the  clouds. 
I  had  imagined  that  my  secession  from  the  Jesuit 
Order,  and  my  breach  with  the  Church,  had  attracted  no 
attention ;  for  my  part  I  did  nothing  to  make  them 
known.  And  yet  they  were  known.  A  hand  was  extended 
to  me  from  a  side  to  which  I  am  now  almost  as  sharply 
opposed  as  to  Ultramontanism. 

I  received  a  letter  from  the  Court  Chaplain,  Dr.  Adolf 
Stocker,  inviting  me  to  write  something  about — i.e. 
against — the  Jesuit  Order  for  the  Kreuzzeitung  of  his 
friend,  Baron  von  Hammerstein.  I  wrote  a  short  feuilleton 
article,  but  did  not  sign  it,  so  little  did  I  at  that  time 
think  of  publicity  and  attack.  The  little  article  aroused 
interest.  The  editor  of*  the  Preussische  Jahrbucher, 
Professor  Delbriick,  placed  his  review  at  my  disposal. 
And  so,  in  the  spring  of  1893,  I  wrote  for  the  Preussische 
Jahrbucher  my  first  series  of  long  articles  above  my  own 
name.  They  bore  the  title  "  Mein  Austritt  aus  dem 
Jesuitenorden,"  and  were  afterwards  reprinted  as  a 
pamphlet. 

Thus  was  the  road  opened  to  me  which  was  to  lead 
me  to  my  life's  work :  the  enlightening  of  men  on  the 
ultramontane  danger.  My  first  steps  along  this  road 
were  but  timid,  probably  because  I  was  not  yet  fully 
conscious  of  that  work.  Anyone  who  should  compare 
that  first  pamphlet  with  this  book  would  notice  no  incon- 
siderable differences.  In  spite  of  the  condemnation  of 
the  Jesuit  Order  expressed  in  the  pamphlet,  I  was  com- 
paratively mild  in  this  first  work  of  mine.  There  is  some 
uncertainty  about  it ;  it  utters  no  direct  challenge.     With 

2  D 


450  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

each  fresh  book  this  has  gradually  changed  and  improved, 
because  knowledge  has  arisen  or  been  strengthened  in 
me,  bringing  about  a  clarity  and  certainty  of  will  which 
could  only  find  expression  in  blows  of  the  hammer. 

In  Heligoland  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  member 
of  the  Upper  House,  Count  Karl  von  Finckenstein.  I  paid 
frequent  visits  to  his  estate  of  Madlitz.  The  Master  of 
Madlitz  was  a  thoroughly  orthodox  Protestant  and  Con- 
servative. Through  him  I  was  brought  into  touch  with  his 
religious  and  political  circles,  and  this  contact  gradually 
matured  in  me  a  distinct  religious  and  political  attitude, 
though  opposed  to  his. 

My  inborn  inclination  towards  political  liberalism  and 
religious  free  thought,  which  had  been  the  point  of  depar- 
ture for  my  liberation  from  ultramontane  Catholic 
servitude,  revolted  against  the  orthodox  and  conservative 
routine  mould.  Truly  I  had  not  broken  with  Rome  in 
order  to  cast  myself  into  the  arms  of  the  Chief  Consistory 
or  the  Kreuzzeitung.  But  here  too,  I  had  slowly  and 
gradually  to  feel  my  way  towards  my  new  point  of  view, 
for  it  must  be  remembered  that  after  fourteen  years' 
seclusion  from  the  world  I  was  an  absolute  stranger  to 
the  religious  and  political  currents  of  its  life.  I  re-entered 
them  at  the  age  of  forty  with  almost  child-like  inex- 
perience. How  could  I  have  come  quickly  and  easily  to 
a  decision  ? 

There  was  one  person  who  helped  my  views  to  mature, 
but  who  afterwards  took  little  pleasure  in  the  fruits. 

Scarcely  had  I  settled  down  in  Berlin  when  Dr.  Adolf 
Stocker,  who  had  suggested  the  writing  of  my  first  anti- 
Jesuit  article,  tried  to  bring  me  over  to  his  side.  He 
often  visited  me,  and  also  invited  me.  Only  on  one 
occasion  did  I  accept  his  invitation,  in  order  to  avoid  the 
appearance  of  discourtesy ;  and  then  I  met,  among  a 
fairly    large    party,    his    "  friend,"    Baron    Wilhelm    von 


From  Then   Till   Now  451 

Hammerstein.  At  our  very  first  meeting  Stocker  made 
an  unpleasant  impression  on  me.  He  appeared  to  me 
the  type  of  the  domineering  and — with  all  his  gifts — 
narrow-minded  parson.  With  and  for  him :  never  !  Of 
that  I  was  determined  at  the  outset.  There  are  "  Jesuits," 
too,  among  the  "  orthodox  "  Protestants,  and  Stocker  was 
their  General.  What  I  found  particularly  repugnant  in 
Stocker  was  his  hatred  of  Catholicism  (which  was  after- 
wards modified  through  his  greed  for  political  power), 
combined  with  a  boundless  ignorance  of  the  subject.  I 
had  left  the  Catholic  religion,  but  I  did  not  hate  it  then, 
nor  do  I  now.  How,  indeed,  would  it  have  been  possible, 
when  throughout  my  life  I  had  found  in  it  so  much  that 
was  fair  and  good  ?  It  was  absolutely  revolting  to  my 
feelings  to  find  such  hatred,  inflamed  by  ignorance,  poured 
forth  by  a  weighty  representative  of  Christianity. 

Yet   Stocker's   ignorance   of   Catholicism   is   a   funda 
mental  fault  of  all  Protestant  circles,  in  particular  of  the 
"  Orthodox  "  section. 

Once  I  was  visiting  one  of  our  leading  Protestant 
dignitaries.  The  late  Provost  von  der  Goltz  was  also 
present.  The  two  men  discussed  their  experiences  at 
Bonn,  and  the  conversation  turned  on  the  Catholic  Church. 
Their  statements  could  have  been  proved  by  any  Catholic 
schoolboy  in  the  Second  Class  to  be  foolish  distortion  and 
misunderstanding.  At  that  time  I  was  still  very  reserved 
and  shy,  though  happily  I  have  since  thrown  off  my 
shyness,  and  therefore  I  did  not  undertake  to  play  the 
schoolboy's  part,  but  entered  into  an  animated  conver- 
sation with  the  hostess,  a  charming  lady,  whom  death 
unfortunately  claimed  all  too  soon. 

These  people  do  not  know  how  injurious  are  the  effects 
of  ignorance,  how  greatly  it  widens  the  gulf  between  the 
denominations.  Things  are  beginning  to  improve  in  this 
respect  in  Liberal  Protestant  circles.     But  even  they  are 


452  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

still  overshadowed  by  a  dense  cloud  of  ignorance.  And 
the  worst  of  it  is  that  both  Orthodox  Protestants  and 
Liberals  are  as  convinced  of  their  accurate  knowledge  of 
Catholicism  as  the  Pope  of  his  infallibility.  I  have  often 
observed  this  with  sorrow  and  dismay  at  the  central 
committee  meetings  of  the  "  Evangelischer  Bund."  There 
I  saw  leaders  of  the  Liberal  and  Orthodox  theology, 
who  thought  themselves  much  better  informed  about 
Catholicism  than  I,  who  had  belonged  to  the  Roman 
Church  for  forty  years.  The  ignorance  of  Protestantism 
among  Catholics  is  not  nearly  so  great.  The  saying, 
Catholica  non  leguntur,  is  unfortunately  often  true  ;  while, 
on  the  other  side,  Protestantica  are  very  carefully  studied. 

In  February,  1895,  I  joined  the  Protestant  State 
Church.  Dr.  Dryander,  at  that  time  pastor  of  the  Holy 
Trinity  Church,  admitted  me  to  communion.  I  had  also 
attended  his  preparatory  course,  but  found  little  satis- 
faction in  it.  Dryander's  diplomatic  theological  manner, 
which  gives  no  decided  answer  to  any  question,  neither 
was  nor  is  congenial  to  me. 

What  was  it  that  induced  me  to  join  the  Protestant 
community  ?  Certainly  not  my  love  of  the  State  Church. 
After  living  for  forty  years  in  a  Church  community,  I 
was  growing  weary  of  my  religious  wanderings,  which 
had  continued  since  the  end  of  1892,  and  as  the  delusion 
that  Church  and  religion  were  necessarily  connected  was 
not  yet  extinguished  in  me,  I  was  easily  induced,  by  the 
gentle  pressure  brought  by  various  acquaintances,  to 
formal  and  outward  adhesion.  But  I  never  left  Dryander 
in  doubt  as  to  my  want  of  enthusiasm  for  the  step. 

At  this  day  I  should  no  longer  take  the  step,  but  neither 
do  I  retract  it. 

Church  and  religion — Church  and  Christianity — are 
different,  often  antagonistic,  ideas.  This  I  have  learnt 
with  certainty.    All  Churches  are  merely  the  work  of  man ; 


From  Then   Till   Now  453 

in  the  fewest  cases  are  they  the  outcome  of  religious  needs ; 
far  oftener  they  spring  from  a  greed  for  power.  And 
further,  the  Prussian  State  Church  is  a  very  imperfect 
human  institution  which,  both  inwardly  and  outwardly, 
has  lost  much  of  its  religious  Christian  character,  and 
assumed  instead  that  of  bureaucratic  formalism  combined 
with  dependence  on  State  and  Court. 

The  "  religious  "  Head  of  the  State  Church,  its  summus 
episcopus,  is  the  lord  of  the  land,  who  at  the  same  time 
is  Head  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  and  commander  of  such 
and  such  foreign  regiments ;  the  dignitaries  of  the  State 
Church  (the  Head  of  the  Consistory,  the  Consistories, 
General  Superintendents,  Superintendents,  Pastors),  are 
State  officials  in  the  pay  of  the  State.  A  mere  glance  at 
the  Scriptures,  and  the  position  there  occupied  by  the 
Christian  dignitaries,  the  "  episcopi "  and  "  presbyters," 
must  show  that  the  Archbishop  and  the  authorities  of  the 
State  Church  have  not  the  slightest  connection  with 
Christianity.  State  and  religion,  State  and  Christianity, 
are  eccentric  circles ;  they  can  only  be  made  concentric 
through  the  sacrifice  of  religion  and  Christianity. 

But  its  unnatural  relation  to  the  State  is  not  the  only 
thing  in  the  State  Church  which  is  unchristian  and 
unreligious.  Their  dependence  on  the  Court  is  as  much 
to  be  condemned.  The  whole  system  of  Court  chaplains  is 
— to  speak  openly  for  once — a  system  of  Court  flunkeyism, 
far  removed  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Christian  religion. 
Of  course,  I  do  not  speak  of  the  Court  preachers  in  their 
character  as  men.  I  refer  to  Court  chaplains  and  Court 
chaplaincies  as  conceptions  and  State  institutions. 

The  Court  chaplains  are  part  of  the  staff  age  at  Court  cere- 
monies ;  they  bear  courtly  titles  such  as  Your  Excellency ; 
they  have  to  preach  at  the  time  and  place  prescribed  by 
the  wearer  of  the  crown,  and  from  texts  chosen  by  him, 
often  at  festivals,  such  as  the  Conferment  of  Orders,  which 


454  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

are  absolutely  opposed  to  the  essence  of  Christianity — and, 
indeed,  of  religion.*  What  room  is  there  left  for  a  trace 
of  religion  and  Christianity  ? 

State  and  Church,  bureaucracy  and  formalism,  have 
almost  completely  estranged  the  State  Church  from  the 
people,  and  that  is  another  of  its  fundamental  abuses. 
It  is  believed  that  by  elaborate  Church  edifices  "  the 
religion  of  the  people  will  be  maintained,"  that  Christianity 
can  be  supported  and  popularised  by  meaningless  exter- 
nalities (such  as  an  elaborate  consecration  ceremony  of 
the  Cathedral  and  a  ceremonious  expedition  to  Palestine), 
but  the  recognition  seems  lacking  that  such  things  have 
very  little  to  do  with  popularising,  and  nothing  at  all 
with  Christianity  and  religion.  In  the  midst  of  the 
numerous  unchristian  externalities  of  the  State  Church, 
God,  religion  and  Christianity  have  become  a  mere  cover 
to  hide  a  mass  of  vanity  and  self-glorification.  And  it 
is  a  serious  delusion  to  imagine  that  the  "  people  "  are 
not  aware  of  it. 

The  more  a  Church  is  built  up,  both  within  and  without, 
on  sincerity  and  simplicity,  the  closer  it  adheres  to  the 
impressive  simplicity  of  the  model  afforded  by  the  com- 
munity of  Christ  and  the  Apostles  as  depicted  in  the 
Bible,  the  larger  will  be  the  circles  of  the  masses  it  encom- 
passes, the  deeper  its  impression  on  humanity  and  its 
power  to  ennoble  and  raise  them. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  there  is  in  the  State  Church  an 
unevangelical  lack  of  freedom,  which  takes  the  form  of 
compulsory  belief,  trials  for  heresy,  laws  against  heresy, 
and  all  the  other  fine  things  which  call  themselves  Christian, 
and  yet  are  so  human  that  they  must  be  included  among 
the  darker  aspects  of  human  activity,  those  which  owe 

*  The  right  text  for  a  sermon  on  the  occasion  of  conferring  orders  was  once 
suggested  by  the  old  Court  Chaplain  Biichsel  with  delightful  outspokenness  and 
ironical  reflection  on  himself :  "  When  they  saw  the  star,  they  rejoiced  with 
exceeding  great  joy." 


From  Then   Till   Now  455 

their  origin  not  to  religion,  but  to  a  truly  unreligious  lust 
for  power  and  dominion. 

Such  a  Church  cannot  inspire  love,  nor  even  much 
respect.  For  the  good  it  does  in  the  social  or  educa- 
tional domain,  to  balance  its  failure  in  the  domain  of 
religion  and  Christianity,  cannot  be  taken  into  account 
when  estimating  its  value  as  a  Christian  Church  and 
community.  This  is  done  much  better  by  other  non- 
religious  associations. 

And  yet,  as  I  have  said,  I  shall  not  retract  the  step  I 
took  in  February,  1895,  for  by  leaving  a  Church  we 
forfeit  the  right  to  share  in  its  deliberations  and  help  in 
the  work  of  reform. 

Again  and  again  have  I  been  asked,  often  in  most 
indiscreet  fashion,  "  What  is  your  religious  standpoint  ?  " 
The  question  is  quite  unjustifiable,  for  religion  is  an 
absolutely  private  matter  which  concerns  no  one,  least 
of  all  the  general  public  or  the  curious  and  sensation- 
mongers.  "  When  thou  prayest,"  thus  spoke  the  most 
religious  of  all  men,  Jesus  Christ,  "  enter  into  thy  closet," 
i.e.  keep  the  public  out.  And  in  my  view  prayer  is  not 
one  of  the  main  functions  of  religion,  but  the  main 
function. 

The  inquiry  as  to  my  religious  attitude  is,  therefore, 
unjustifiable ;  but  still  in  this,  the  book  of  my  life,  I  will 
say  a  few  words  in  answer. 

The  point  at  which  I  now  stand  has  been  reached  by 
a  process  of  slow  development,  a  road  of  curves  and  spirals. 
The  development  is,  strictly  speaking,  as  old  as  my  power 
of  thinking.  Vague  doubts  dawned  even  in  my  childish 
soul ;  in  later  years  they  often  became  tormenting  tempta- 
tions, until  at  last  Catholic  faith  and  Catholic  Christianity 
collapsed  within  me.  The  result  was  my  secession  from 
the  Church  and  the  Jesuit  Order. 

What  new  edifice  did  I  erect  on  these  gigantic  ruins  of 


456  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

religion  and  Christianity  ?  A  small  one,  for  I  have  learnt 
to  be  modest  in  my  religious  demands. 

First  of  all,  I  do  not  include  in  religion  such  externals 
as  dogmas,  sacraments,  creeds,  symbols,  liturgies,  cere- 
monies. They  may  be  of  less  or  greater  religious  value 
to  individuals,  but  in  themselves  they  are  not  part  of 
religion ;  at  most  and  at  best  they  supply  to  many 
thousands  useful,  perhaps  even  necessary,  outward  mani- 
festations of  their  religious  impulses  and  feelings.  But 
religion  is  the  inward  relation  of  the  individual,  based 
on  subjective  and  individual  recognition  and  the  personal 
conscience,  to  God,  that  Being  beyond  this  world,  Whose 
existence  is  demanded  by  reason  as  the  origin  and  final 
aim  of  the  physical  and  spiritual  world.* 

Now,  what  is  the  character  of  this  relation  of  man  to 
God  ?  This  question  is  answered  by  Christ,  Who  thus 
steps  into  the  foreground  as  the  founder,  even  creator, 
of  a  religion. 

It  is  He  Who  has  set  mankind  in  the  filial  relation  to 
God,  Who  gave  him  God  as  a  Father.  The  age  of  religious 
servitude  which  saw  in  God  and  gods  only  lords,  kings 
and  tyrants,  who  worshipped  God  and  gods  in  fear  and 
trembling,  has  gone  by.  From  henceforth  the  wondrous 
saying  of  Christ  has  become  the  basis  of  religion :  "  Our 
Father,  which  art  in  Heaven." 

The  proclamation  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  by  Christ 
is  not  without  precedent  in  the  history  of  religion.  Buddha 
had  already  set  mankind  on  the  road  of  heartfelt  love  and 
communion  with  God,  but  never  yet  had  the  relation  of 
father  and  child,  between  God  and  man,  been  so  clearly  ex- 
pressed and  so  comprehensively  represented  as  by  Christ. 

This  is  the  characteristic  of  the  whole  of  Christianity ; 

*  The  man  whose  reason  does  not  demand  the  existence  of  such  a  supernatural 
Being  possesses  no  religion,  but  is  not  on  that  account  bad,  if  his  life  is  in  harmony 
with  innate  natural  laws  and  the  ethical  principles  universally  recognised  in 
civilised  countries  ;    and  sooner  or  later  he,  too,  will  attain  to  God. 


From  Then   Till   Now  457 

it  comprises  its  whole  contents  as  a  religion.  Everything 
else  which  the  Scriptures  lay  down  as  the  teaching  of 
Christ  is  either  a  development  of  this  fundamental  idea 
or  an  injunction  for  the  conduct  of  men  towards  one 
another.  Dogmas  and  creeds  (the  divine  humanity  of 
Christ,  the  Trinity,  etc.)  are  the  products  of  a  subtilising 
theology  which  has  lost  the  immediate  characteristic  of 
religious  feeling — are  systems  more  or  less  subtle  which 
satisfy  the  desire  of  men  for  abstract  sophistry,  for  fashion- 
ing according  to  types  and  by  means  of  catalogues,  but 
which  are  entirely  opposed  to  the  notion  of  religion.  It  is 
on  the  recognition  of  this  fact  that  my  Christianity  is  based, 
and  in  this  I  find  the  satisfaction  of  my  religious  needs. 

Not  that  there  are  not  a  number  of  world  riddles  and 
obscure  questions — as,  for  instance,  What  is  the  nature  of 
God  ?  (Even  the  fact  of  His  existence  cannot  be  mathe- 
matically demonstrated.)  What  happens  after  death  ? 
and  many  other  problems. 

But  such  questions  and  riddles  have  nothing  to  do  with 
religion.  Religion  and  its  true  meaning  consist  in  the 
saying :  "  I  am  God's  child  and  God  is  my  Father." 
Those  who  cannot  fashion  their  religion  and  their  religious 
attitude  out  of  this  thought  will  not  be  furthered  in  their 
religion  by  creeds,  symbols,  dogmas,  liturgies,  and  sermons. 

In  the  thought  of  God's  Fatherhood  lies  also  the  impulse 
to  that  religious  activity  which  I  regard  as  the  main  sinew 
of  religion,  without  which  all  religious  apparatus  lacks 
religion,  and  with  which  everything  is  religion,  even 
without  any  apparatus — I  mean,  our  intercourse  with 
God  the  Father  in  prayer. 

The  idea  of  God's  Fatherhood  is  an  endless  source  of 
immeasurable  confidence.  The  Being  Whom  I  call  God, 
the  final  Aim  and  End  of  the  world  and  its  happenings, 
must  be  endlessly  wise,  good,  powerful,  just.  And  this 
unending  Being  is  my  Father.     There  is  neither  weakness 


458  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

nor  sin  nor  error  which  does  not  vanish  into  nothingness 
in  the  face  of  such  unending  nature.  God  my  Father  is 
the  Author  of  my  being ;  He  has  placed  me  in  the  world, 
unasked,  therefore  He  must  also,  some  time — when,  where 
and  how  I  know  not — become  the  Perfecter  of  my  happiness. 
The  saying,  often  frivolously  applied,  Tout  comprendre, 
c'est  tout  pardonner,  has  the  deepest  religious  and  genuine 
God-like  meaning. 

This  religious  meaning  has  been  revealed  to  me  by 
Christ,  and,  therefore,  it  is  the  foundation  and  corner- 
stone of  my  religion.     Therefore  I  am  a  Christian. 

Would  this  recognition  have  been  impossible  without 
Christ  ?  Certainly  not.  Therefore  Christ  is,  to  speak 
theoretically,  not  the  indispensable  founder  of  religion. 
But  because  He  actually  drew  forth  this  recognition  from 
the  existing  religious  confusion,  and  placed  it  before  our 
eyes  in  its  grand  simplicity,  therefore,  in  the  light  of  history, 
He  is  the  greatest  religious  founder. 

Thus  Christianity  is  also  the  world-religion,  for  thus 
it  comprises  all  religions,  and  leads  them,  as  long  as  they 
are  not  opposed  to  natural  laws,  upwards  into  a  higher 
unity.  Divine  Manhood,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Two 
Natures,  transform  Christ  into  an  unnatural  hybrid,  and 
plunge  Him  so  deeply  into  the  heathen  mythology  of  demi- 
gods and  the  offspring  of  gods  as  to  remove  Him  entirely 
from  healthy  human  comprehension,  which  must  be  at 
the  basis  of  every  religious  sentiment. 

And  thus  Christ,  Who  on  the  cross  became  a  martyr 
to  His  religious  ideas,  has  arisen  from  the  grave,  not  in 
the  body,  but  in  the  Spirit ;  He  lives,  not  in  flesh  and  blood, 
but  in  Spirit  and  in  Truth,  in  Power,  and  in  the  effects  of 
His  teachings  and  works. 

The  small  and  limited  literary  activity  described 
above  by  no   means  satisfied  my  desire  for  work.     In 


From  Then   Till   Now  459 

particular,  I  missed  a  regular  fixed  occupation,  which 
was  the  natural  result  of  the  training  I  had  had  ever  since 
my  childhood.  I  hoped  to  find  it  in  the  Government 
service.  Before  I  entered  the  Jesuit  Order  I  had  been 
a  Royal  Prussian  Refer endar,  and,  as  an  irreproachable 
citizen,  I  thought  that  I  had  the  right  to  re-appointment. 
How  greatly  was  I  to  be  undeceived  ! 

What  I  am  about  to  write  here  is  not  stated  from  any 
sensational  motives.  I  register  facts  which  constitute  a 
piece  of  not  uninteresting  contemporary  history,  and  which, 
under  the  stage  direction  of  the  Centre  Party,  were  enacted 
behind  the  scenes. 

Count  Finckenstein-Madlitz,  whom  I  have  already 
mentioned,  had  been  kind  enough,  in  the  summer  of  1894, 
to  go  to  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  Count  Caprivi,  and  ask 
him  to  re-appoint  me  to  the  Prussian  State  service. 
Caprivi,  with  a  movement  of  distinct  alarm,  gave  the 
remarkable  answer :  "  What  would  the  Holy  Father  in 
Rome  and  the  Centre  Party  say,  if  we  were  to  employ 
Count  Hoensbroech  in  the  State  service  ?  "  That  settled 
the  request  of  a  German  and  Prussian  citizen  for  a  State 
appointment,  as  far  as  the  German  Imperial  Chancellor 
and  Prussian  Minister- President  was  concerned.  But 
there  was  a  sequel  to  that  story. 

In  February,  1895,  I  suddenly,  without  any  action  on 
my  part,  received  "  by  Imperial  command  "  an  invitation 
to  a  small  Court  ball.  The  Kaiser  desired  to  make  my 
acquaintance.  For  more  than  half  an  hour  on  the  evening 
of  February  13th,  1895,  William  II.  conversed  with  me 
in  the  White  Hall  of  the  Berlin  Castle,  to  the  great  annoy- 
ance of  the  Centre  leader,  Lieber,  who  was  also  present 
and,  because  the  Kaiser  was  so  long  conversing  with  me, 
missed  the  opportunity  of  being  presented.  To  the 
Kaiser's  question  as  to  what  I  intended  to  do,  I  replied 
that  it  was  my  wish  to^re-enter  the  State  service,  but 


460  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

there  were  great  difficulties  in  the  way  of  its  fulfilment. 
And  I  informed  him  about  the  utterance  of  Caprivi.  The 
Kaiser  took  a  step  back,  put  his  hand  on  his  sword,  and  said 
excitedly  :  "  What !  Did  Caprivi  say  that  to  you  ?  5 
"  Yes,  your  Majesty."  "  Well,  my  dear  Count,  then  I 
assure  you  that  from  this  time  forward  I  shall  take  your 
affairs  into  my  own  hands." 

I  asked  him  for  a  private  audience,  to  enable  me  to 
give  him  further  information,  for  the  long  conversation 
with  the  Kaiser  was  causing  universal  sensation — Miquel 
was  circling  fox-like  round  the  Kaiser  and  me — and  therefore 
it  appeared  to  me  undiplomatic.  The  Kaiser  graciously 
consented,  with  the  remark  that  I  was  to  inform  Lukanus, 
saying :  "  There  he  stands."  Then  he  dismissed  me  with 
a  friendly  and  hearty  handshake.  I  immediately  informed 
Lukanus  of  the  granting  of  the  private  audience,  and  asked 
him  to  assign  a  time  for  it.  Lukanus  received  my  com- 
munication with  an  expression  of  ill-concealed  annoyance, 
but  in  face  of  the  wish  of  his  master  he  could  not  avoid 
assuring  me  that  he  would  "  in  due  time  "  inform  me  of 
the  day  and  hour  of  the  audience. 

For  the  next  few  days  the  leading  organs  of  the  Centre 
Party  (Germania  and  Kblnische  Volhszeitung)  contained 
violent  articles  inspired  by  the  Centre  leader,  Lieber, 
about  the  "  extraordinary  circumstance  "  of  the  Kaiser's 
invitation  to  me,  and  the  distinction  he  conferred  on  me 
by  our  long  interview. 

The  whole  attitude  of  the  Kaiser  had  convinced  me 
that  the  promised  audience  would  soon  be  granted.  Weeks 
and  months  went  by,  but  I  saw  and  heard  nothing.  Several 
questions  addressed  in  letters  to  Lukanus  were  answered 
evasively.  As  the  Kaiser  had  promised  me  a  post  as 
Head  of  a  District  (Landrat),  and  only  a  province  with  a 
preponderance  of  Protestants  could  be  under  consideration, 
the  then  Minister  of  the  Interior,  von  Koller,  had  advised 


From  Then   Till   Now  461 

me  to  take  up  my  residence  in  Kiel,  in  order  to  become 
acquainted  with  the  conditions  there.  Therefore,  in 
October,  1895,  I  migrated  to  Kiel  with  my  wife,  for  I  had 
married  in  August  of  that  year.  But  her  severe  illness, 
which  necessitated  an  operation,  forced  me  to  return  to 
Berlin  in  December. 

During  my  residence  in  Kiel,  I  several  times  visited 
the  General  Field-Marshal,  Count  Waldersee,  with  whom 
I  was  acquainted,  who  at  that  time  was  General  in  com- 
mand of  the  9th  Army  Corps  at  Altona.  On  one  of  these 
occasions  I  informed  Waldersee  of  my  still  unsatisfied 
claim  for  an  audience.  I  had  long  ago  given  up  all  hope 
of  it,  on  account  of  the  information  I  had  in  the  meantime 
received  about  the  influence  of  the  Centre  Party  on  the 
Kaiser ;  but  I  did  not  want  to  be  so  curtly  set  aside.  I 
desired  that  my  right  to  an  audience,  founded  on  the 
Imperial  promise,  should  be  recognised. 

Waldersee  said,  with  a  peculiar  expression  on  his  face, 
'  Yes,  yes ;  that  fox  Lukanus,"  and  proposed  that  I 
should  give  him  a  memorial  to  the  Kaiser,  who  was  expected 
at  Altona  in  the  next  few  days  for  an  inspection  and 
would  be  lunching  with  him.  He  would  choose  a  favourable 
moment  for  presenting  my  memorial  to  the  Kaiser  and 
enforcing  its  claim.  "  Then  we  shall  have  disposed  of 
Lukanus."  I  sat  down  at  Waldersee's  writing-table,  and 
wrote  the  petition,  and  after  a  little  while  I  was  informed 
by  Waldersee :   "  Everything  has  gone  off  satisfactorily ; 

I  hope  you  will  soon  get  your  audience."  Again  weeks 
went  by ;  then,  at  the  end  of  January,  1896,  when  I  lay 
ill  in  bed  with  influenza,  I  received  a  telegram,  signed 
by  the  Chief  Court-Marshal  Eulenberg,  from  the  New 
Palace,  which  invited  me  to  an  audience,  "  to-morrow  at 

II  o'clock."  One  of  the  Imperial  carriages  would  fetch 
me  from  Wildpark. 

My  first  impulse  was  to  telegraph  a  refusal  on  account 


462  Fourteen  Years  a  Jesuit 

of  my  illness,  but  then  I  thought,  "  The  opportunity  may 
never  recur  "  ;  and  so  I  put  in  an  appearance  punctually 
at  the  New  Palace,  in  a  high  state  of  fever,  without  even 
considering  that  I  was  exposing  the  Kaiser  to  the  risk  of 
infection.     Lukanus   conducted   me   to   the   Kaiser,   and 
remained  present  during  the  audience,  which  lasted  for 
more    than    an    hour.     The    Kaiser    received    me    very 
graciously.     After  a  sympathetic  inquiry  about  the  health 
of  my  wife,  who  was  ill  in  a  nursing-home,  he  opened  the 
conversation  with  the  words :    "I  have  asked  you  here 
to  learn  your  opinion  about  the  attitude  of  my  Govern- 
ment to  the  Centre  Party."     Of  course,  I  cannot  repeat 
the  contents  of  our  interview ;  it  gave  me  the  opportunity 
for  an  interesting  insight  into  the   Kaiser's   psychology 
and  into  public  affairs.     But  there  was  not  a  word  about 
personal  matters,  of  a  State  appointment,  nor  of  his  promise 
to  take  my  affairs  into  his  own  hands.     Only,  quite  at  the 
end,   when  he  dismissed  me  in  a  friendly  manner,   the 
Emperor  said  :   "  Everything  else  Lukanus  will  tell  you  "  ; 
but  after  the  audience  I  informed  Lukanus  that  I  set 
little  value  on  "  everything  else  "  which  he  would  have 
to  tell  me ;    that  I  should  only  come  to  him  in  order  to 
carry  out  the  wish  of  the  Kaiser.     In  the  interview  which 
then  took  place  with  Lukanus  I  curtly  rejected  his  pro- 
posals, which    contained    next    to    nothing    tangible :    a 
position  as   Landrat  or   anything   else   of  the   kind  had 
become  "  impossible,"  but  there  was  nothing  to  prevent 
my  returning  to  the  State  service  as  Referendar  at  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Oder  ! 

Soon  afterwards  I  was  told  by  a  well-informed  authority 
that  the  Centre  had  told  the  Minister  of  War  that  if  I 
received  a  State  appointment,  the  Party  would  close  its 
ranks,  and  vote  against  the  next  naval  estimates.  And 
when  the  Minister  reported  this  to  the  Kaiser,  he  let 
fall  the  remark :    "  If  matters  stand  thus,  I  shall  let  the 


From  Then   Till   Now  463 

man  drop."  In  this  way  I  and  my  affairs  slipped  through 
the  fingers  of  his  Majesty  which,  according  to  his  Imperial 
promise,  were  to  hold  and  lead  me  on.  The  pressure  from 
the  Centre  Party  had  compelled  the  Imperial  hand  to  let 
me  go. 

Of  course  it  was  not  the  matter  of  my  own  personality 
which  induced  the  Centre  Party  to  take  up  this  attitude. 
It  was  a  fundamental  principle  for  which  it  was  fighting  : 
the  rebel  against  the  Roman  Church  must  not  make  his 
way  in  Prussia.  And  yet  the  Centre  emphatically  advo- 
cates "  civic  toleration  "  and  "  religious  equality." 

A  good  friend  of  mine  in  the  Ministry  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion, the  late  Count  Andreas  Bernsdorff,  had  suggested  to 
me  the  idea  of  taking  up  an  academic  career,  and  settling 
down  at  the  University  of  Berlin,  or  some  other  Prussian 
University,  as  a  lecturer  (Privatdozent)  on  Church  history. 
He  procured  me  an  interview  with  the  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction,  Dr.  Bosse. 

Bosse  received  me  with  overwhelming  amiability  :  that 
was  an  excellent  idea,  and  quite  in  accordance  with  his 
own  wishes,  etc.,  etc.,  but  the  consideration  which  he  was 
obliged  to  take  for  the  powerful  Centre  Party  unfortunately 
rendered  the  execution  of  this  excellent  plan  impossible. 
5  What  a  storm  the  Centre  would  raise  in  Parliament 
were  I  to  consent  to  your  appointment  as  lecturer,  or 
even  advocate  it !  "  This  panic  -mongering  caused  my 
gall  to  overflow ;  I  rose  and  took  my  leave  with  the 
words  :  "  Your  Excellency,  until  to-day  I  should  not  have 
thought  that  a  Minister  in  a  land  of  religious  equality  like 
Prussia,  would  thus  give  way  before  the  troops  of  Rome."* 

In  Prussia  accordingly  the  doors  of  all  appointments 
were  closed  to  me.     Would  they  stand  open  in  the  Empire  ? 

*  Bosse  was  speechless  at  the  time  ;  it  was  not  till  years  later  that  he  recovered 
his  voice,  when  he  happened  once  to  sit  next  me  at  dinner  after  his  resignation. 
Then  he  said  to  me :  "  At  that  time  you  treated  me  very  badly  "  ;  to  which  I 
replied  :    "  And  you  treated  me  and  yourself  even  worse." 


464  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

A  request  to  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  Prince  Hohenlohe, 
for  admission  to  the  diplomatic  service  met  with  a  polite 
refusal. 

These  are  some  reminiscences  from  the  dark  days  of 
my  rebellion  against  the  Church,  whose  arm  is  long. 
They  belong  to  the  same  time  when  I  was  warned  bv 
the  Foreign  Office  only  to  go  there  after  dark,  and  with 
great  precautions  (I  used  often  to  go  there  to  visit  one  of 
the  Reporting  Councillors),  for  the  Centre  Party  had  set 
detectives  to  watch  mv  £oino;s  to  and  fro.* 

Still.  I  regard  it  as  providential  that  everything  turned 
out  thus.  How  could  I,  as  a  State  official  or  a  diplomat, 
have  carried  on  my  life's  task  :  to  spread  enlightenment 
about  intra montanism,  and  stir  up  a  conflict  against  it  ? 

In  the  fulrilment  of  this  difficult  task  I  have  found  con- 
tentment and  success,  but  also  many  a  disappointment. 

It  is  impossible  in  this  place  to  develop  my  ultra- 
montane programme.  For  this  I  refer  to  my  writings  : 
UUrcunontanism  :  its  Nature  and  how  to  Attack  It ;  f  The 
Modern  State  and  the  Romish  Church  ;  Rome  and  the  Centre.^ 

I  will  say  only  a  few  words  about  my  disappointments, 
because  they  are  characteristic  of  our  internal  politics. 

The  wrongly  conducted  Kulturkampf  of  the  'seventies, 
with  its  unfortunate  issue,  had  greatly  damped  the  desire 
to  attack  Ultramontanism,  and  also  increased  immeasur- 
ably the  political  force  which  Ultramontanism  possesses 
in  the  Centre.     The  Government  parties  and  the  Press, 

*  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  the  violent  personal  attacks  to  which  I  and 
my  family  were  exposed.  My  book,  In  eigcner  Saefn>  und  Aniens,  gives  information 
on  the  subject. 

t  It  afforded  me  great  satisfaction  that  Bismarck  had  read  this  book  with 
considerable  interest.  It  stood  among  other  much-used  books  in  his  reference 
library.  There  I  saw  it,  full  of  book-markers,  when  I  visited  Friedrichsruhe  soon 
after  the  death  of  the  great  man. 

J  Dcr  UttrmmontanisMU8, sein  Wesen  und  seine  Btkiimpfung  (Leipzig,  Breitkopf 
und  Hartel),  Modemer  Slant  und  Bomische  KircJit  (Berlin,  E.  X.  Schwet^chke 
tind   Sohn)i    Bom  und  d.i<  Zentrum  (Leipzig,  Breitkopf  und  Hartel). 


From  Then   Till   Now  465 

unable  to  distinguish  the  wrongful  methods  of  the  old 
struggle  from  its  rightful  aims,  were  powerless  in  face 
of  their  great  antagonist.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Centre  had  offered  its  Parliamentary  collaboration.  The 
Government  parties  and  the  Press  were  overcome  by  the 
desire  for  compromise  ;  they  forgot  that  in  the  Centre  is 
embodied  the  ultramontane  view  of  life,  that  it  is  the  deadly 
enemy  of  the  modern  State  and  the  development  of  its 
civilisation,  and  saw  in  it  only  the  party  whose  numerous 
members  could  give  decisive  votes  for  their  legislation. 
Added  to  this  was  their  fear  of  social  democracy.  "  Better 
black  than  red,"  they  used  to  say  at  that  time  ! 

Each  year  the  Centre  became  a  more  convenient  ally. 
Shallow  opportunism  and  MiquePs  "  collective  policy " 
did  their  part.  No  one  would  hear  of  a  new  and  better 
conducted  Kulturkampf.  The  circles  that  set  the  tone 
regarded  a  Kulturkampf  as  a  struggle  between  denomina- 
tional passions.  The  recognition  that  Ultramontanism  is 
historically  and  actually  separable  from  the  Catholic 
religion,  that  therefore  the  struggle  against  it  must  be, 
not  a  denominational  but  a  political  struggle  on  behalf 
of  civilisation — this  recognition,  which  is  the  alpha  and 
omega  of  a  Kulturkampf  with  any  prospect  of  success, 
had  not  yet  dawned  upon  them.  Therefore  my  rallying 
cry  against  Ultramontanism  fell  on  deaf  ears.  I  was 
included  among  the  stirrers  up  of  denominational  strife.* 

*  Every  association  with  a  distinctly  denominational  tendency  (such  as  the 
"  Evangelischer  Bund,"  the  "  Gustav  Adolf  Verein,"  etc.)  is,  as  far  as  its  tendency 
is  anti-ultramontane,  harmful,  for  it  arouses  denominational  counter-passions, 
and  thus  supplies  Ultramontanism  with  a  weapon  which  makes  it  invincible, 
the  calling  of  religion  into  the  field  for  its  own  purposes.  The  only  right  method 
in  combating  Ultramontanism  is  pursued  by  the  "  Anti-ultramontaner  Reichs- 
verband  "  (President,  Admiral  von  Knorr  ;  Office,  Berlin,  S.W.,  Wilhelmstrasse 
122a).  Here  denominationalism  and  religion  are  excluded  by  the  constitutions. 
It  attacks  its  opponents  on  those  domains  where  alone  it  is  open  to  attack  and 
capable  of  defeat — that  Ls,  politics  and  education.  All  who  recognise  the  threatening 
danger  of  ultramontane  Jesuitism  should  join  this  Association. 
2  £ 


466  Fourteen   Years  a  Jesuit 

In  spite  of  the  greatest  hindrances,  and  often  of  the 
severest  disappointments,  increased  by  ultramontane  at- 
tacks and  accusations,  I  held  out,  in  the  consciousness 
that  I  was  on  the  right  road.  And  my  work  of  enlighten- 
ment, in  spoken  words  and  in  writings,  has  not  been  in 
vain.  Slowly  the  wheel  began  to  swing  round,  and  a 
characteristic  proof  of  this  is  that,  in  great  part  through 
my  labours  on  behalf  of  enlightenment,  the  saying, 
"  Rather  black  than  red "  has  been  changed  for  the 
opposite,  "  Rather  red  than  black."  Still  there  is  an 
immense  deal  yet  to  be  done.  Above  all,  the  highest 
standpoint  is  still  lacking :  '  the  consciousness  that  the 
struggle  with  Ultramontanism  has  a  background  and  a 
significance  in  universal  history ;  that  in  reality  the 
existence  or  non-existence  of  a  modern  state  of  civilisation 
depends  on  the  result  of  this  struggle.  And  only  this 
recognition  can  produce  the  joy  and  determination  for 
combat  which  are  guarantees  of  victory. 

This  book  proves  beyond  refutation  that  at  the  present 
moment  the  driving  force  of  Ultramontanism  is  Jesuitism. 
In  Jesuitism  are  concentrated  all  the  intolerance,  reaction, 
fanaticism,  irreligion,  and  hostility  to  progress  which  in 
the  course  of  centuries  have  sprung  from  ultramontane 
soil.  And  these  forces,  with  their  hostility  to  human  nature, 
have  been  set  in  motion  by  Jesuitism  with  a  cunning  and 
unscrupulous  daring  unexampled  in  the  history  of  the 
Christian  era.  Thus  the  sum  total  of  my  book  may  be 
compressed  into  the  saying  of  the  great  French  statesman 
and  patriot,  Gambetta,  with  an  addition,  "  Le  Clericalisme  " 
— Clericalism  is  Ultramontanism — "  et  le  J  esuitisme,  voild 
Vennemi  !  " 

Yet  my  book  shall  close  with  a  more  peaceful  note 
and  a  happier  outlook. 

Those  who  fight  against  Jesuitism  and  Ultramontanism 
fight  for  the  religious  liberation  of  many,  many  millions 


From  Then   Till   Now  467 

of  Catholics.  But  the  Catholic  religion  conceals,  in  spite 
of  terrible  human  weaknesses — and  in  what  creed  are  these 
lacking  ? — forcible  and  profound  elements  of  edification 
and  civilisation.  They  are  held  down  and  misused  by  the 
violation  of  their  true  nature  through  ultramontane  Jesuit 
tyranny.  What  a  task  for  a  liberator,  after  subduing 
Ultramontanism  and  Jesuitism,  to  allow  these  seeds  to 
germinate  ! 

Wide  horizons  and  possibilities  of  religious  and  educa- 
tional development  open  up  before  us.  We  seem  to  hear 
the  bells  ringing  for  peace,  and  their  sound  proclaims  the 
coming  of  a  better  day. 

For  humanity  needs  religion,  and  will  always  need  it. 
But  men  must  refrain  from  religious  strife  and  denomina- 
tional bitterness. 

Let  us  allow  religions  to  develop  themselves,  only  let 
us  root  out  ignorance  from  them,  and  destroy  it ! 

Concord — and  unity  too — comprehension  and  tolera- 
tion will  result  and  bring  blessing. 

THKOUGH  CONFLICT  TO  PEACE. 


INDEX 


Aac£en,   relics   at  the   Cathedral  of,  i. 
324-5;  author's  pilgrimage  to,  ii.  212 
Aalbeck,  Jesuit  villa  at,  ii.  77 
Abiturienten   at   Berlin    University     ii 

403  (note) 
Absolution,    question    of,    in    reserved 

eases,  i.  363 
Academy,  purpose  of  the  Jesuit,  i,  125; 
exclusion  from,  as  a  means  of  pres- 
sure,  177 
Acolyte,  misuse  of  the  post  of,  in  Jesuit 

schools,  i.  161 
AcQuaviva,    Claudius,    drafts   the   Ratio 
Studiorum,   i.    63;    condemns    Jesuit 
neglect    of    Latin,     101-2;    approves 
Marian  Congregations,  176;  Commis- 
sion   of    Studies   in    Germany    insti- 
tuted by,  190;  on  the  unchastity  of 
the    Order,    204,    ii.    71,    107    (note); 
enjoins  the  reading  of  Loyola's  letter 
on  obedience,  i.  337;  deprecates  the 
reluctance  to  make  a  "  statement  " 
of  conscience,  347;  advises  the  omis- 
sion of  references  to  confession  from 
annual     reports,      366;      concerning 
women     and    the     Exercises,     383-4- 
completes    the    organisation    of    the 
Society  of  Jesus,  407;  advises  reserve 
in   political   matters,   ii.   10;   his   in- 
structions   as    to    the   confessing   of 
women,    124,    125,    126;    enjoins    sur- 
veillance of  priests  and  the  size  of 
confessionals,  127-8;  his  crafty  hint 
to    confessors    of    princes,    137;    his 
Ordinance     on     the     confessing     of 
sovereigns,     169-70;     his     secret     In- 
structions   touching    the    confessing 
of    sovereigns,    172-3,    429;    sanctions 
the   publication   of   Mariana's   book 
approving  tyrannicide,   328;  obliged 
to  condemn  this  doctrine,  333-4 

424lt0r'    dutie8    of'    *•    352>    42°.    422, 

Adultery,  Jesuit  condonation  of,  ii.  305 

309;  on  sinning  to  avoid,  323-5 
Advocatus  Diaboli,  duties  of ,  ii.  86  (note) 
Aehrenthal,  Baron  Luis  von,  i.  244 
^Esthetics,  Jesuit  conception  of,  i    124 
Affiliates  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 'ii.  13- 

21;   Loyola's  recognition  of,   16-17 
Agnus  Dei,  as  used  by  Jesuit  students, 

i.  182;  in  Bavaria,  319 
Agricola,  Father,  records  the  existence 
of  some  curious  relics,  i.  313;  gives 
an  instance  of  demoniac  possession, 

AgT1oSieo  Cardinal.  on  Jesuit  morals,  ii. 

Aix-la-Ohapelle,  great  relics  at,  i.  324-5- 
author's  pilgrimage  to,  ii.  212 

Alexander  III.,  Tsar,  ii.  167 

Alexander    VII..    Pope,    the    Exercitium 
spirituals  of.  used  at  Jesuit  schools 
l,   181;    supports   the   designs  of  the 


Jesuits    in    Hungary,    ii.    145;    con- 
demns  Jesuit   teaching   on    morals, 

Alexander  VIII.,  pope,  condemns  Jesuit 
teaching  on  morals,  ii.  292 

Algiers,  author  visits,  i.  261-2 

Allen,  Cardinal,  ii.  151 

Aloysius   of  Gonzaga,   an  objectionably 

angehc"  boy,  i.  208,  386,  400;     an 

example  to  the  young,  ii.   Ill-   sup- 

Klnt^lS^111  lQ  a  Vi8i0D  °'f  her 
Aloysius    St.,  Congregations  of,  i.  164 
Altona,  Count  Waldersee  at    ii    461 
Alvarez,   Father  Balthasar,  i     370 

of6Zi    7^2anUe1,    "Latin   Grammar" 

Ambiguity    Jesuit   doctrine  of,   ii.  304-7 

rp^a\P7VTillce-  of-  Bi8h°P  Palafox's 
report  of  Jesuit  wealth  in,  ii    87-8 
Anatomia    anatomiae    Societatis    Jesu, 

Anderledy.  General  of  the  Jesuit  Order 
influence  of,  over  the  Marchioness 
of.  Hoensbroech,  i.  33;  admits  the 
Jesuit  control  of  the  Marian  Con 
gregations,  171;  examples  of  his 
f^al   dexterity,    174=    approves   of 

HatP^n?1"  V°induct    durinS    ^vi- 
tiate,   403;     declines     to     stop     the 
ostracism   of   Leo   XIII.,   ii.    67-   his 
diploma  to  the  Marchioness  of  Hoens- 
Cen^T    "9;    attitude    of,    towards 
l»J?t3al*  BouIanger,     165;     lanpopu- 
a„,i    -nty  ?f-   among   Jesuits,   414 
Andre  on  Jesuit  morality,  ii.  299 
An|e  ?c   Doctor    (Aquinas)     ii.    253 
Angehta    Canon   John   Marcell,   on  the 

4n».dieathi?f„Cardinal  Tournon,  ii    54 
Angelus    Bell,    Jesuit    students    and,    i. 

Ang3558   Custos'    the   duties   of,    i.    271, 

Ant46U5lt('no?c)ntaner    Reichsverband,    ii. 

Antonio,  Father  Francisco,  on  the  post 
of  princes'   confessor,  ii     195 

Apparitions,  Catholic  belief  in  en- 
couraged, i.  26  et  seqq.;  instances  of 
pseudo-mystical,  299  et  seqq r  *  °f 

PTa,?,1;^nt0nio'  al.le^s  that  Cardinal 
Tournon  was  poisoned,  ii.  54-5-  per- 
seemed  by   the  Jesuits,  61,  63 

logay;  S    2Ma6'  aUth0rity  of'  in  the°" 
Arcana  Societatis  Jesu,  ii    10 
Aristocracy.    Jesuit   subservience   to,    i. 

f^iSTSKW:  Soihe  JeeDit 

Arm^%'o^  i%h5°liC  Student8,   Union 
^X^namrolrfi.  Sff"   ^™    * 


;og 


470 


Index 


Arnoux,  Father,  Confessor  of  Louis 
XIII.,  intrigues  of,  ii.  183,  184  (note) 

Arrogance  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  ii. 
105-23 

Art,  doctrine  of  the  Catholic  Church 
concerning,  i.  46-7;  Jesuit  teaching 
about,   124-5 

Artaut,  Adrien,  ii.  93 

Asceticism  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  326 
et  seqq.;  as  distinct  from  piety,  295; 
Jesuit  ascetic  discipline  considered, 
326-90;  Jesuit  asceticism  compared 
with  Christian,  326;  its  end  and  the 
means  to  it,  io.;  maintained  by 
blind  obedience,  326-40;  how  it  com- 
pels to  sin,  335-6;  dependence  on 
the  Superior  the  rule  of  practice 
of,  341;  the  Statement  of  Conscience 
as  a  mainstay  of,  342-8;  fostered  by 
denunciation,  espionage  and  uni- 
formity, 348-61 ;  greatly  supported 
by  confession,  361-9;  observances  of 
the  Exercises  complete  the  discipline 
of,  369-84 ;  fruits  of,  384-90 ;  instances 
of  what  has  been  done  as  a  result 
of,  386-90 

Assistancies  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  416 

Assistants  to  the  General  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  i.  422 

Attrition,  doctrine  of,  ii.  300,  381-2 

Auersperg,   Prince,  ii.   146-7 

Austria,  education  in,  shaped  by  the 
Jesuits,  i.  70-2 ;  the  El  Dorado  of  the 
Jesuits,  93;  the  Jesuits  and  the  war 
with  Prussia  in  1866,  210-14,  ii.  37-8; 
wealth  of  the  Jesuits  in,  at  the  date 
of  the  suppression  of  the  Order,  85 

Avaux,  Claude  Mesmes,  Count  d'.  ii. 
160 

"  Ave,  Maria,"  Latin  and  German  texts. 
i.  5 

Aveiro,  Duke  of,  ii.  336 

Bachem,  A.,  on  the  Marian  Congrega- 
tions, i.   170 

Bachem,  Karl,  on  the  German  Centre 
Party's  indebtedness  to  Jesuit  guid- 
ance, ii.  344   (note) 

Baexem,  Suicide's  grave  at.  ii.  398 

Bagshawe,  Christopher,  on  Jesuits  of 
Elizabeth's  reign,  ii.  46 

Balde,  Jacob,  Jesuit  poet,  ii.  160;  held 
up  to  admiration,  229 

Ballerini  on  the  use  of  equivocations, 
ii.  307 

Bamberg,  the  Jesuit  gymnasium  in,  in 
1742,  i.  114 

Barat,  Madeleine,  Mother,  foundress  of 
the  female  Congregation  of  the 
Sacred  Heart,  i.  307 

Bartoli,  Father,  on  the  necessity  of 
blind  obedience,  i.  339 

Baumgartner,  his  criticism  of  Schiller, 
ii.  234-6;  his  tirade  on  Goethe,  236-45- 
his  real  literary  convictions,  244; 
required  to  alter  his  monograph  on 
Goethe,  244-5;  his  character  trans- 
formed, 245  (note),  372 

Baumstark,  Reinhold,  on  Jesuit  mor- 
ality, ii.  294;  on  Jesuit  influence 
through  confession,  387;  his  con- 
demnation of  the  Order,  430;  death 
of,   430   (note) 

Bavaria,  Jesuit  schools  in,  condemned 
by  Government,  i.  193-4;  effects  of 
Jesuit  piety  in,  319;  wealth  of  the 
Jesuit  Order  in,  ii.  83-4 


Bazaine,  Marshal,  i.  232 

Beauty,  perverted  Catholic  ideas  of,  i. 
46-8 

Becanus,  Father,  activity  of,  in  Austrian 
public  affairs,  ii.  181;  on  the  doing 
of  a  lesser  sin  to  avoid  a  greater, 
321 

Beck,  Chief  District  Judge,  and  the 
Jesuit  designs  against  the  Hohen- 
zollerns,  ii.  384-5 

Beck,  Theoderich.  i.  207,  ii.  71 

Beckx,  Peter,  General  of  the  Jesuit 
Order,  maintains  the  reactionary 
system  of  education  in  Austria,  i. 
71;  the  author  visits,  at  Rome,  263; 
his  advice,  264;  approves  of  the 
author's  conduct  during  novitiate, 
403 ;  provides  for  the  supremacy  of 
the  General  Congregation,  423;  a 
confessor  of  princes,  ii.  135  (note); 
pleased  with  the  author's  "  progress 
in  virtue,"  209;  on  modern  philo- 
sophy, 251-2;  instruction  of,  es- 
tablishing literary  censorship. 
264-6 

Bedburg,  the  Catholic  aristocratic  aca- 
demy at,  i.  229 

Behrens,  Provincial  Superior  of  the 
German  Jesuit  province,  character 
of,  i.  33;  his  influence  over  the 
author's  sister  Antonia,  211 ;  mis- 
represents the  facts  of  the  Franco- 
German  war,  233;  his  power  para- 
mount with  the  author's  mother, 
234  and  note;  disciplinary  notions 
of,  389 

Beissel,  Stephan,  and  the  relics  at  Aix- 
la-Chapelle,  i.  324-5;  edits  the  Stim- 
men  aus  Maria-Laach,  345 

Bellarmin,  Cardinal,  saves  Loyola's 
letter  from  condemnation  by  the 
Inquisition,  i.  336;  a  famous  Jesuit 
theologian,  ii.  Ill ;  on  the  supremacy 
of  Church  over  State,  338;  teaches 
the  "  indirect  "  power  of  the  Pope, 
428 

Benedict,  St.,  the  founder  of  monach- 
ism,  ii.  424 

Benedict  XIII.,  Pope,  and  the  Jesuit 
Memorial  touching  the  Chinese  Mis- 
sion, ii.  60-1  (note);  refrains  from 
publishing  Innocent  XI. 's  decree 
against  the  Jesuits,  65 

Benedict.  XIV.,  Pope,  and  the  Marian 
Congregations,  i.  165;  asserts  the 
Jesuit  right  to  control  them,  170 ; 
repealed  the  decree  of  Innocent  X. 
as  to  the  holding  of  General  Con- 
gregations, 424;  reminds  the  Jesuits 
of  the  obedience  they  owe  the  Pope, 
ii.  66 

Benedictines,  Jesuit  opposition  to,  at 
Magdeburg,  ii.  98;  free  from  the 
stains  of  the  Jesuits,  424 

Bennigsen.  Rudolf,  and  the  suspension 
of  the  German  laws  against  the 
Jesuits,  ii.  345  (note) 

Berchmanns,  Johannes.wonders  wrought 
by,  i.  308,  309-10;  canonised  by  Leo 
XIII.,  309;   legends  of,   ii.  111-2 

Berge-Borbeck,  railway  accident  at,  i. 
250 

Berlin,  author  joins  the  First  Dragoon 
Guards  at,  i.  253-4;  author  prepares 
for  the  Jesuit  settlement  at,  ii.  399- 
411 ;  author  attends  university  at, 
403;    result    of   the   author's   studies 


Index 


471 


in,  407;  author  makes  his  residence 
in,  422 

Berling,  Jesuits  convert  the  wealthy 
widow  of,  ii.  166-7 

Berlinyske  Tidende,  ii.  167 

Berinudez,   Father,  character  of,  ii.   188 

Bernard,  St.,  his  contempt  of  the  human 
body,  i.  391-2 

Bernsdorff,  Count  Andreas,  ii.  463 

Berruyer,  Father  Joseph,  the  Pope  con- 
demns the  book  by,  ii.  52 

Berti,  Giovanni,  on  Jesuit  versatility, 
ii.  291 

Bethmann-Hollweg,  Von,  German  Chan- 
cellor, ii.  85  {note) 

Beyschlag,  Professor,  ridiculed  by  the 
Jesuit  Pesch,  ii.  361;  his  private  life 
to  be  investigated,  375 

Bible,  Catholic  neglect  of  the,  i.  14; 
disregarded  in  Jesuit  education,  318; 
neglect  of,  in  the  Exercises,  382 

Bieczynski,  Father  Stanislaus,  i.  140-1 

Biedermann,  influence  of,  on  the  author, 
ii.  406 

Biedermann,  Father  Jacob,  celebrates 
the  pity  and  love  of  Father  Bern, 
i.  311 

Bien  Public,  Le,  i.  6;  supports  Papal 
infallibility.  222 

Billet,  Father  Karl,  tries  to  induce  the 
author  to  enter  the  Jesuit  Order, 
i.  217 

Bishops,   Catholic,  status  of,  i.  272 

Bismarck,  Prince,  as  a  sort  of  Diocle- 
tian, i.  16;  antagonism  of  the 
author's  parents  to.  16-7;  Cohen- 
Blind's  and  Kullmann's  attempts  on 
the  life  of,  212;  "not  wanted  even 
by  the  devil,"  ib.;  his  blunder  over 
the  Kulturkampf,  255-6;  forged  docu- 
ments to  be  used  against,  ii.  167; 
a  student  of  the  author's  book  on 
Ultramontanism,  464  (note) 

Bissel.  Father,  ii.  160-1 

Blasius,  St.,  feast  of,  at  Kevelaer,  i.  32 

Blessed  (Beatus),  a  title  preliminary  to 
Saint   (Sanctus),  i.  310  (note) 

Blyenbeck  Castle,  offered  to  exiled  Ger- 
man Jesuits,  i.  248;  ceremonial 
reception  of  exiles  at,  249;  set  aside 
for  the  students  in  philosophy,  287; 
a  "  magister "  meal  at,  ii.  76;  the 
author's  residence  at,  214-6;  the 
author  reads  his  first  Mass  at,  222; 
becomes  the  seat  of  the  novitiate, 
369 

Blyssem,  Father,  on  Jesuit  political 
activity  at  Graz.  ii.  140 ;  equivoca- 
tion of  his  report  to  General  Ac- 
quaviva,  141-2;  his  use  of  pseudo- 
nyms, 142 

Boarding-house  system  advocated  by  the 
Jesuits,  i.  130 ;  lack  of  supervision 
in,  185 

Bobadilla,  ii.  383 

Bodler,  John,  on  Jesuit  wirepulling  in 
Poland,  ii.   146-8 

Boeselager,  Baron  Karl  von,  urges  the 
author  to  join  the  Jesuits,  i.  248 

Boger,  Dr.,  pronounces  the  author  con- 
sumptive, i.  254 

Bohemia,  Jesuits  support  the  war 
against,  ii.  159-60 

Bollandists.  the  compilers  of  the  Acta 
Sanctorum,  i.  300  (note);  library  of, 
ii.  390;  a  literary  republic,  390  (note) 

Bollandus,  John,  ii.  114 


Bombay,  German  Jesuit  mission  at,  i. 
85 

Bone,  Heinrich,  anthologies  compiled 
by,  favoured  of  the  Jesuits,  i.  108; 
Director  of  the  Mayence  Gymna- 
sium, 220;  teacher  at  the  Catholic 
Academy  at  Bedburg,  229 

Bongart,  Baron  von  dem,  gives  the 
Jesuits  the  use  of  his  estate  of 
Wynandarade,  i.  287 

Boniface  VIII.,  Pope,  on  the  relation 
between  Church  and  State,  ii.  339, 
340 

Bonn  University,  the  author  attends,  i. 
122,  243;  the  Arminia  at,  245;  the 
Union  boycotted  by  German  high- 
class  students,  246 

Bonucci  on  the  persecution  of  Gonzalez, 
ii.  295   (note) 

Borgia,  Francis,  i.  400;  canonised,  ii. 
16.  Ill 

Bosse,  Dr.,  surrenders  to  Rome,  ii.  463 
and  note 

Bossuet  attacked  by  Father  La  Chaise, 
ii.   185 

Boulanger,  General,  supported  by  the 
Jesuits,  ii.  164-5 

Bourdaloue,  Father,  duplicity  of,  ii.  185, 
186   (note) 

Bracamnte  y  Guzman,  Gaspar  de. 
Count  of  Pefiaranda,  Catholic  am- 
bassador at  Miinster,  ii.  160 

Brazil,  German  Jesuit  mission  at,  i.  85; 
Father  Fah  transferred  to,  ii.  411 
(note);  the  author  collects  money 
for,  419 

Breitung,  work  of.  on  the  Deluge  con- 
demned, ii.  268;  is  rusticated  to 
Ordrupshoj,  ib. 

Breisgau,  in  the  Austrian  Borderlands, 
ii.  40 

Brentano,  as  a  German  classic,  i.  103 

Bresciani,  Antonio,  novels  of,  approved 
by  Jesuit  teachers,  i.  153-4 

Brischar,  Father,  Professor  of  History 
at  Wynandsrade,  i.  121 

Britto,  Father,  ii.  64-5 

Bruhl,   Pastor  of  Guelders,   i.   43 

Brussels,  the  De  Buck  lawsuit  at  ii. 
99-100;  the  author's  studies  in,  390-1 

Buchberger,  Professor,  i.  311 

Buchsel,   Court   Chaplain,   ii.   454  (note) 

Buchum,  General  Assembly  of  Catholics 
at,  ii.  393 

Buck,  De,  lawsuit  at  Brussels,  i.  99- 
100 

Buddha  and  his  teaching,  ii.  456 

Buffalo,  German  Jesuit  mission  at.  i. 
85 

Bulls:  Omnipotentis  Dei,  i.  165;  Begi- 
mini  militantis  ecclesiae,  407,  413; 
Exposcit  debitum,  413;  Ascendente 
Domino,  417;  of  Urban  VIII.,  canon- 
ising Ignatius  Loyola,  ii.  21-2;  of 
Clement  XL.  excommunicating  the 
Bishop  of  Macao,  59;  unigenitus, 
189;   Unam  sanctam,  312,  340 

Buonvisi.  Francisco.  Cardinal,  on  Jesuit 
morality,  ii.  291 

Busch,  Father,   i.  121 

Busenbaum,  a  leading  Jesuit  casuist, 
ii.   287;  on  calumniation,  308 

Cabarassi,  Sebastian,  i.  164 
Cabrallius,  Jesuit  ambassador  of  Portu- 
gal to  the  Pope,  ii.  144 
Caduff,  Procurator,  the  author's  lie  to, 


472 


Index 


ii.  419;  the  author  restores  the 
money  to,  420 

Calumniation  from  the  Jesuit  stand- 
point, ii.  308 

Camargo  on  Jesuit  morality,  ii.  298-9 

Campian,  Father  Edmund,  the  English 
Jesuit  preacher,  ii.  Ill ;  and  the 
excommunication  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, 312 

Oampmuller,  Father,  violates  the  con- 
fession of  Maria  Theresa,  ii.  175-6 

Canada,  lay  members  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus  in,  ii.  19 

Canaye,  French  Ambassador  at  Venice, 
on  Jesuits  and  confession,  i.  367 

Candlemas  Day,  why  so  named,  i.  402 
(note) 

Canisius,  Peter,  the  "  Hammer  of 
Heretics,"  ii.   Ill 

Canossa,  the  Kulturkampf  sends  Ger- 
many to,  i.  256 

Canrobert,  Marshal,  i.  232 

Canterbury,  Boulangist  activity  in  the 
Jesuit  College  at,  ii.  164-5 

Caprivi,  Count,  ii.  459 

Capuchins,  Jesuit  opposition  to,  at 
Colmar,  ii.  97 

Caraffa,  Vincent,  enjoins  teaching  on  all 
Jesuit  students,  i.  87-8 ;  intervenes 
on  behalf  of  the  other  Orders  at 
Vienna  University,  ii.  45;  his  crafty 
device  of  the  "  Conscience  "  formula, 
170-1 

Cardenas  on  justifiable  equivocation,  ii. 
304-5 

Carissimue,  the  use  of  this  title  in  a 
Jesuit  society,   i.  271 

Casaubon,  Isaac,  on  the  Mayence  re- 
print of  Mariana's  book,  ii.  332-3 

Castropalao  on  the  justifiable  conniv- 
ance at  sin,  ii.  322-6 

Casuists,  the  chief,  among  the  Jesuits, 
ii.  288 

Catalogues,  the  two  Jesuit,  i.  354;  char- 
acter of  the  second,  354-5 

Catherine  of  Alexandria,  St.,  ii.  397 

Catholic  League  and  the  German  Jesuits, 
ii.  161 

Catholic  Students'  Unions  boycotted  by 
Catholics  of  "  blood,"  i.  246 

Catholicism,  force  of  tradition  in,  i.  4-6; 
grandeur  of  and  superstition  in, 
12-13;  neglect  of  the  Bible  by,  14; 
character  of  the  German  Catholic 
priests,  23;  teaches  faith  in  guardian 
angels,  ghosts  and  devils,  26-7;  re- 
quires early  confession,  and  why, 
34  et  seqq.;  "morality"  of,  39,  40; 
the  three  fundamental  practices  of 
piety  compulsory,  159;  erroneously 
alleged  to  have  been  beaten  at 
Koniggratz  and  Sedan,  233;  affected 
by  the  force  of  Christian  idealism, 
277  et  seqq.;  morality  of,  dominated 
by  Jesuitism,  286-8;  dogma  of, 
dominated  by  Ultramontanism,  287- 
8;  condemned  by  its  toleration  of 
Jesuitism,  423;  the  only  hope  for, 
467 

Oathrein  reflects  on  Leo  XIII.,  ii.  67; 
his  appearance  of  scholarship,  277; 
juggles  with  the  Jesuit  approval  of 
Mariana's  book  on  tyrannicide,  328 
(note),  331  (note);  his  view  of  reli- 
gious toleration,  353-4 ;  his  hostility 
to  State  schools.  439 

Oausein,  Nicholas,  on  Jesuit  influence  in 


politics,  ii.  170;  protests  against 
violation  of  confession  of  sovereigns, 
174 

Celibacy,  the  question  of.  i.  275 

Censorship,  Jesuit,  ii.  264-9 

Oentre  Party  in  German  politics,  a 
strong  ultramontane  force,  i.  246; 
created  by  the  Kulturkampf,  256; 
Jesuit  leaders  of,  ii.  165-6;  under 
Jesuit  guidance,  344  and  note;  in- 
volved in  the  Jesuit  settlement  in 
Berlin,  401,  402;  power  of,  in  Parlia- 
ment, 459;  hostility  of,  to  the  author, 
460,  464;  influence  of,  with  the 
Kaiser,  461-3;  the  predominant  force 
in  German  politics  of  the  day, 
463-4;  "better  black  than  red,"  465; 
"  rather  red  than   black,"  466 

Chanones,  Loyola's  confessor  at  Mont- 
serrat,  i.  371 

Charity,  commercial  aspect  of,  ii.  413 

Chastity,  the  vow  of,  i.  273;  the  counsel 
of  chastity  examined,  275;  violation 
of,  by  the  Jesuits,  ii.  67-71 ;  Jesuit 
boastfulness  of  their,  109 

Chatel,  John,  attempts  to  murder  Henry 
IV.  of  France,  ii.  335 

Cheminet,  Father,  discreditable  conduct 
of,  ii.  190 

China,  wealth  of  the  Jesuits  in,  ii.  88-9 

Chinese  rites  and  missions,  the  struggle 
between  Rome  and  the  Jesuits  about, 
ii.  53-66 

"  Chocolate "  for  the  General  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  ii.   104 

Christ,  the  work  He  accomplished  for 
humanity,  ii.  456-8 

"  Christ,  or  Anti-Christ,"  the  author's 
pamphlet,  ii.  394 

Christianity,  the  real  nature  of,  ii.  406; 
the  root  idea  of,  45t>-8 

Christians,  classification  of,  by  the 
Ultramontane  Catholic  Church,  i. 
272 

Christmas  creche  before  the  High  Altar, 
i.  160-1;  midnight  Mass  on  Christmas 
Eve  at  Feldkirch,  201-2 

Church  and  State  considered,  ii.  452-5; 
a  National  Church  a  branch  of  the 
Civil  Service,  453 

Churches,  Jesuit,  decoration  of,  i.  160; 
music  in,  io.;  theatrical  representa- 
tions in,  ib. 

Cienfuegos,  Cardinal,  relates  how  the 
Virgin  interceded  for  a  dead  Jesuit, 
i.   404-5;   extravagance  of,   ii.   78 

Cilicium,  use  of.  i.  395 

Circulus  (Circle)  disputation,  ii.  248-9 

Cisneros,  Garcia  de,  i.  371 

Cistercians,  Jesuit  opposition  to,  at 
Magdeburg,  ii.  98 

Civilta  cattolica,  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
Vatican,  ii.  340  and  note;  on  the 
subordination  of  the  State  to  the 
Church,  340-2 

Cleanliness  not  always  next  to  godli- 
ness, i.  289;  lack  of,  during  the 
novitiate,  392-3 

Clement  VIII.,  Pope,  and  the  Marian 
Congregations,  i.  165;  on  abuse  of 
confession,  ii.   387 

Clement  IX.,  Pope,  prohibits  the  Orders 
from  carrying  on  commerce,  ii.  99 
and  note 

Clement  XL,  Pope,  Gonzalez  appeals  to, 
ii.  51 ;  flagrantly  scouted  by  the 
Jesuits,  53-65 


Index 


473 


Clement  XIII..  Pope,  confirms  the  con- 
demnation of  Berruyer's  book,  i.  62 

Clement  XIV.,  Pope,  suppresses  the 
Jesuit  Order,  ii.  22,  66 

Clement,  Jacques,  murders  Henry  III. 
of  France,  ii.  328-9 

Clermont,  the  Jesuit  College  authorities 
at,  and  the  attempt  to  murder 
Henry  IV.  of  France,  ii.  335 

Cleves,  the  author  takes  the  State  oath 
at,  i.  265 

Coadjutors.     (See  Formed  Coadjutors) 

Ooblence.  anecdote  of  a  nunnery  at,  i.  8 

Cohen-Blind  attempts  the  life  of  Bis- 
marck, i.  212 

Colleges  of  Jesuits,  i.  78  (note),  79,  £0 

Colmar,  trading  practices  of  the  Jesuits 
of,  ii.  94-8 

Cologne,  the  Jesuits  settle  at,  i.  33; 
Archbishop  Melchers  in  his  cell  at, 
257;  the  author  studies  for  the  law 
at,  261;  ascetic  practices  at,  387;  the 
author  visits,  ii.  421 

Commerce  and  trade,  Jesuit  success  in, 
ii.  91-9 

Communion,  compulsory,  in  Jesuit 
schools,  i.  159;  the  author's  first 
communion,  197-200 

Compositio   loci  in  the  Exercises,   i.   373 

Concertation,  nature  of,  i.  97;  conduct 
of,  143 

Concina,  Daniel,  on  Jesuit  morality,  ii. 
292-3;  Jesuit  plot  against,  317 

Confession,  mischief  of  early,  i.  34  et 
seqq.;  how  it  destroys  the  young 
conscience,  36-9;  the  monstrosity  oi 
early  confession,  43;  frequency  of 
confession  enjoined,  and  why,  44; 
mechanical  and  compulsory,  137, 
159;  detrimental  effect  of  general 
confession  in  Jesuit  schools,  162,  163; 
as  practised  at  Jesuit  schools,  183, 
198-9;  wickedness  of  confession  in 
the  confessor's  bedroom,  202-3;  as  an 
essential  of  ascetic  aiscipline,  361-9; 
freedom  of  confession  denied  to  the 
Jesuit,  361 ;  used  as  a  disciplinary 
scourge,  362;  disregarders  of  Jesuit 
commands  as  to,  may  be  starved, 
362-3;  of  reserved  sins,  363-4;  impro- 
priety of  a  repeated  confession,  364 ; 
seal  of,  violated,  365-7;  aided  by 
the  practice  of  conscience-searching, 
368-9;  the  Particular  Examination, 
ib.;  Jesuit  instructions  on  the  con- 
fession of  women  and  nuns,  ii.  124-5; 
Jesuit  violation  of  the  confession  of 
sovereigns,  174-8;  priestly  qualifica- 
tion to  hear,  192  (note);  how  abused. 
197,  387;  veiled  under  the  term  Moral 
Theology,  286;  Jesuit  exploitation 
of.  386-7;  real  object  of,  388 

"  Confession-Book  for  Children,"  cited, 
i.  36  et  seqq. 

Confessionals,  General  Acquaviva's  in- 
structions as  to  the  position  and 
size  of.  for  women,  ii.   128 

Congregations,  Marian,  i.  163-180;  of  the 
Guardian  Angels.  164  j  of  St.  Aloysius 
(see  Marian  Congregations);  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  423-5  (see  also 
General  Congregation,  Proeura- 
torial  Congregation,  Provincial  Con- 
gregation) ;  Lazarist  Missionary  Con- 
gregation, ii.  55;  M6moires  de  la 
Congregation  de  la  Mission,  55,  56, 
57.  58,  59-65 


Conscience  weakened  and  destroyed  by 
confession,  i.  36  et  seqq.;  what  the 
"  Statement  of  Conscience  "  implies, 
228;  the  sense  of  personal  respon- 
sibility ruined  by  the  "  statement," 
296-7;  the  "statement"  of  first  rate 
importance,  342-8;  how  the  "state- 
ment "  is  effected,  344-5 ;  frequency 
of  the  "statement,"  345;  abuses  of 
the  "statement,"  346-8;  degradation 
of,  by  the  Jesuits  in  their  dealings 
with  sovereigns,  170-1 ;  the  use 
of  "conscience  cases,"  346  (note); 
liberty  of,  an  absurd  doctrine,  351 

Conscience-searching,  ordinary  and  par- 
ticular, i.  368-9 

Consecration,  the  power  of,  221-2 

Constance,  university  at,  established,  ii. 
42 

Constitutions  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
touching  scholars  and  other  such 
matters,  i.  78;  concerning  the  final 
importance  of  obedience, 326  et  seqq.; 
on  the  "  Statement  of  Conscience," 
342-4;  on  denunciation,  348-9;  on  the 
means  of  reporting  (espionage),  352; 
on  compulsory  frequent  confession  to 
specified  confessors,  362;  sanction 
violation  of  confession,  366 ;  on  the 
use  of,  383 ;  experiments  prescribed 
by,  392-3;  on  penances,  395;  author- 
ship of,  407-8;  summary  of  the  ten 
parts  of,  408-11 ;  quintessence  of, 
contained  in  the  Formula  Instituti, 
413;  are  the  Constitutions  complete? 
ii.  1  et  seqq.;  obscurity  respecting, 
intentional,  3;  non-Christian  char- 
acter of,  30-2;  cosmopolitanism  of, 
32;  on  the  vow  of  chastity,  67;  on 
the  scope  of  the  vow  of  poverty, 
71-2;  the  theory  and  practice  of, 
compared  and  contrasted,  105-32;  on 
the  confessing  of  women,  124-5 ;  for- 
bid interference  in  politics  and  State 
affairs,  133-4 ;  prohibit  Jesuits  from 
acting  as  the  confessors  of  states- 
men, 168;  on  the  Humanities,  229; 
on  tyrannicide,  334;  on  keeping  the 
Jesuit  lay  brother  in  ignorance, 
388-9;  approved  by  the  Papacy,  423; 
cold  and  calculating  regulations, 
424-5 

Consultors,  the  duties  of,  i.  352,  353,  424 

Contemplation,  a  great  feature  of  Jesuit 
upbringing,  i.  297 

Contemplations  of  the  Exercises,  i.  373-5; 
effect  of,  on  sensitive  natures,  381 

Contzen,  Professor  Adam,  ii.  314 

Convents,  the  spirit  that  fills,  i.  278; 
difficulties  which  prevent  adherents 
from  leaving,  279 

Cordara,  Julius  Casar,  on  the  Chinese 
and  Indian  Mission,  ii.  58,  65;  on 
the  Jesuit  "  cooking "  of  accounts, 
89 ;  on  the  avarice  imputed  to  Jesuits, 
102;  his  conversation  with  the  King 
of  Sardinia  on  the  boundless  wealth 
of  the  Jesuits,  103;  on  Jesuit  effem- 
inacy, 103-4;  on  the  overweening 
pride  of  the  Jesuit  Society,  106-9, 
426:  on  Jesuit  influence  at  the  Courts 
of  Europe,  168;  his  Memoirs  under 
a  ban  at  Ditton  Hall.  225-6 
Comely.  Father,  and  the  affair  Tournon, 
ii.   56,  57 

Cornova  on  the  compulsory  teaching 
of  Jesuits,  i.  86-7;  on  Jesuit  neglect 


474 


Index 


of  German,  110;  condemns  neglect 
of  poor  scholars,  147;  admits  that 
Jesuits  proselytise  at  their  schools, 
158;  defends  the  Jesuit  system  of 
education,    192 

Corporal  punishment,  futility  of,  i.  45-6; 
how  Jesuits  inflict,  148-50 

Correspondence  of  pupils,  mischievous 
supervision  of,  at  Jesuit  schools,  i. 
141-2;  grossly  abused,  145 

Cosmopolitanism  of  the  Jesuit  Order, 
ii.  32  et  seqq.;  the  heart  of,  38 

Coton,  Father,  ii.  183 

Court   chaplains,   the   status   of,    ii.    453 

Court  confessors,  Jesuit,  ii.  172-93;  tne 
salaries  of,  193 

Crasset,   Jean,  ii.   198 

Creighton,  accomplice  in  the  Jesuit  plot 
against  Queen  Elizabeth,  ii.  I4y; 
confessions  of,  149-50;  his  book  in 
favour  of  the  succession  of  the  King 
of  Scotland,  313-4 

Cr6tineau-Joly  on  the  discovery  of  MSS. 
of  the  Monita  at  Prague  and  Fader- 
horn,  ii.  9  (note);  admits  Jesuit 
hostility  to  heresy,  22;  admits  the 
enormous  wealth  of  the  Jesuits  in 
France  in  1773,  89;  on  the  political 
activity  of  Edward  Petre,  157;  jus- 
tifies Jesuit  activity  in  politics,  197-8 ; 
on  Liguori's  teaching,  287 

Cross  of  Ashes  at  Kevelaer,  ceremony 
of,  i.  32 

Crucifix,  as  used  by  Jesuit  students, 
i.   182 

Cyprian,  Father  Francis,  the  strange 
case  of,  i.  303-4 

Dackazat,  John,  i.  87 
Dasbach,  his  safe  challenge,  ii.  320 
D'Aubanton,  betrayal  of  a  confession  of 
Philip  V.'s  by,  ii.  178;  alleged  author 
of  the  Bull  unigenitus,  189;  his  evil 
influence  at  the  Spanish  Court,  ib.; 
salary  of,  as  confessor  to  the  King, 
193 
Declarations  of  the  Constitutions,  i.  73 

(note),  80 
Decurio,  duties  of,  i.   138-41 
Deger's  "  Madonnas,"  i.   124,  ii.  397 
Delatio,     or     Denunciation,     i.     348     et 

seqq. 
Delbruck,    Professor,    commissions    the 
author  to  write  for  the  Preussische 
Jahrbiicher,  ii.  449 
Delrio,    Professor,   on  permissible  false- 
hood   ii.  302-3 
Deluge,  Jesuit  view  of  the.  ii.  268 
Demoniac  possession,  how  to  exorcise  it, 

i.  320-1 ;  instances  of,  321-3 
Denbigh,  the  Earl  of,  i.  242 
Denmark,  Jesuit   activity  in,  ii.  166-7 
Denunciation    in    the    Jesuit    system   of 
education,    i.    139-41 ;    expounded    by 
the  Constitutions,  348-9;  a  wholesale 
secret  detective   agency,   349-51 ;   un- 
derhand   method    of    securing    the 
consent   of   young  students  to,   350 ; 
training  in,  351-2;  system  of   secret 
reporting  used  in,  352-4  j  misery  en- 
tailed by  the  practice  of,  ii.  378-9 
"  Deo  gratias  "  at  the  Stella  Matutina, 

i.    55 
Deposition  of  Bishops,  i.  257 
Desertion  from  the  Army,  Jesuit  opinion 

of,  ii.  346 
Devil,    Jesuit   belief  in   the,    i.    226;    the 


Devil    at    Babylon,    375;    in    Romish 
dogma,  381,  ii.  203-9 
Devils,    belief    in,    a    feature    of    Jesuit 
piety,    i.    31/9-23 ;    how    to    exorcise 
them,  320-1 ;  instances  of  possession, 
321-3;  names  of  the  chief  possessing 
devils,  322 
Dickens,  Charles,  as  a  classic  at  Stony- 
hurst,  i.  242 
Diel,   Father,  i.   120 
Diest,  the  asylum  at,  ii.  418 
Discipline,    the    Master    of,    at    Jesuit 
schools,    i.    149-50;    thoroughness    of, 
within  the  Jesuit  Order,  ii.  379 
Discretion,  doctrine  of,  i.   34 
Disputation,     importance     of,     in     the 
scheme   of    Jesuit    study,    ii.    248-50; 
various  kinds  of,  248-9;  form  of.  249; 
use    of    Latin    in,    compulsory,    250; 
specimen  of  the  conduct  of  a,  258-60 ; 
examples  of  subjects  chosen  for,  at 
Freiburg,  280-1 
Ditton  Hall,  set  aside  for  Jesuit  students 
of    theology,    i.    287;    an    experience 
of  the  author's  at,  323;  the  "table" 
at,  ii.  75;  mysterious  messages  from, 
101;  the  author's  stay  at,  for  theo- 
logy, 216-22,  413;  the  terrible  environ- 
ment of  the  Hall,  216;  the  author  is 
consecrated    to    the    priesthood    at, 
222 
Dogma,   falseness  of  the  Jesuit  concep- 
tion of,  ii.  406 
Dollinger,     Dr.,     records     instances     of 
grotesque    miracles,    i.    512-13;    dis- 
covers   documents    reproaching    the 
Jesuits  with   their  great  wealth,  ii. 
102;    Vol.    III.    of    his    "Beitrage" 
creates    a    temporary    sensation    at 
Ditton    Hall,    225;    his    "History    of 
the  Moral-Theological   Disputes "  in 
the  Catholic  Church,  396-7 
Domenech,   Abbot,  ii.  16 
Dominic,  St.,  ii.  424 

Dominican  Orders,  i.  164  and  note; 
Jesuit  dealings  with  the  Dominicans 
at  Colmar,  ii.  96;  alleged  tyranny 
of,  103  (note);  arrogance  of  the 
Jesuits  towards,  108-9;  Dominican 
nuns  and  the  Jesuit  Order,  131;  clear 
of  the  flaws  of  the  Jesuits,  424 
Donat,  Professor  Josef,  ii.  272-4 
Donnes,   a  class  of  affiliate  Jesuits,   ii. 

20 
Doss,  von  Adolf,  compositions  of,  pre- 
ferred by  Jesuits  in  Church  service, 
i.  160 ;  Superior  of  the  Jesuit  settle- 
ment at  Mayence,  220 ;  his  appear- 
ance, 225 ;  becomes  the  author's  con- 
fessor, 226;  his  foolish  views  about 
Goethe  and  the  German  classics, 
227-8;  force  of  his  influence,  229; 
terrible  interview  with,  at  Marxheim, 
249-50 
Douai,  Jesuit  plot  against  the  Catholic 

College  at,  ii.  315-16 
Drecker,  Father,  i.   121 
Dreves,   Guido  Maria,  ii.   371   (note) 
Droste-Vischering-Erbdroste,  Count,  and 

Catholic  students'  unions,  i.  246 
Dryander,  Dr.,  receives  the  author  into 
the  Protestant  State  Church,  ii.  452 
Dudik  on  the  confessing  of  sovereigns, 

ii.   172 
Dufrene,  Father  Maximilian,  i.  Ill 
Duhr,  B.,  explains  how  the  Jesuit  system 
of  education   resembles  that  of  the 


Index 


475 


"  Brothers  of  the  Common  Life  "  at 
Liege,  i.  63 ;  misleading  criticism  of, 
anent  Jesuit  scholars  and  externs, 
84;  approves  of  use  of  Latin  lor 
ordinary  conversation,  99;  disin- 
genuous assertions  of,  as  to  free 
education  of  the  Jesuits,  115-17;  tries 
to  minimise  the  effect  of  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Daily  Routine,  183 
(note);  his  "  Studienordnuug  der 
Geselischaft  Jeeu,"  184;  on  witch  per- 
secution by  the  Jesuits,  319  and  note; 
on  the  genuineness  of  the  Monita, 
ii.  8,  9;  qn  the  existence  of  affil- 
iates, 20;  defends  the  Jesuits  in  the 
affair  Tournon,  56,  57;  his  insinua- 
tions against  Bishop  Palafox,  86-7; 
defends  Jesuit  political  activity 
against  the  Protestants  of  Graz 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  142-3;  his 
defence  of  Edward  Petre,  155-7;  on 
the  violation  of  the  confession  of 
Maria  Theresa,  175-6;  instances  of 
his  untrustworthiness,  283-5 
Du  Lac,  supports  Boulanger,  ii.  164-5 
Duplicia  feasts  among  the  Jesuits,  ii. 
75  (note) 

Ebenh3ch,  Karl,  the  tragedy  of,  ii.  100-2 
Elmer,  Ii.,  answers  Kelle's  criticism  of 
the  standard  of  Latin  Grammar  in 
Jesuit  schools,  i.  69  (note);  tries  to 
depreciate  the  Declarations  of  the 
Jesuit  Constitutions,  78;  praises  the 
practice  of  Latin  composition,  98 ; 
his  views  about  German  classics, 
110 ;  ineffective  reply  to  Jesuit  stric- 
tures on  Jesuit  education,  189  {note); 
his  notions  of  modern  philosophy, 
ii.  252;  a  surprise  for,  281 
Education,  Jesuit,  international,  to 
destroy  patriotism  and  nationality, 
i.  50-1 ;  produces  a  "  common  "  type 
of  man  and  woman,  ib.;  crushes 
independence  of  thought  and  keeps 
the  mind  in  bondage,  51-2;  quality 
of  actual  instruction  behind  the 
times,  52;  description  of  the  adminis- 
tration and  routine  at  the  Stella 
Matutina,  Feldkirch,  54-60;  eulogy 
of  Jesuit  teaching  greatly  overdone, 
61;  lacks  the  creative  spirit,  63; 
practically  unchanged  during  three 
centuries,  64;  the  Batio  Studiorum, 
63-111 ;  reactionary  methods  in  Aus- 
tria, 70-2 ;  the  teachers  poorly 
equipped,  72-4;  grudging  concessions 
to  public  opinion,  74;  retrograde 
features  of  the  Scheme  of  Study,  75; 
the  lost  chances  of  Jesuit  education, 
76-7;  egotism  and  selfishness  of  the 
system,  77-84;  Nostri  considered 
always,  the  externs  casually,  77,  79- 
80;  limited  attention  to  externs,  81; 
one  brand  of  teaching  for  all  coun- 
tries, 83;  a  system  to  last  for  cen- 
turies, ib.;  cardinal  defect  in  Jesuit 
conception  of  teaching  as  a  pro- 
fession, 84-6;  the  end  of  teaching, 
85 ;  regulations  as  to  training  of 
teachers  disregarded.  95-6;  special 
favour  shown  to  the  study  of  Latin, 
96-114;  an  educational  farce,  99; 
neglect  of  the  German  tongue,  104; 
disregard  of  the  world's  classics,  107; 
can  show  no  world  classic  in  German 
and    other    tongues,     114;    on    the 


alleged  gratuitous  teaching  of  the 
Jesuits,  115-6;  why  Jesuit  teaching 
fails,  117;  weighed  by  the  author 
and  found  wanting,  126;  its  real 
aim,  129;  number  of  educational 
establishments  in  the  Order  in  1762, 
129  (note);  the  so-called  celebrated 
pupils,  130 ;  represses  family  life, 
130-1;  as  authorised  by  the  Ratio 
Studiorum,  135  et  aeg^.;  police-like 
supervision,  137-42;  espionage  and 
tale-bearing  encouraged,  138-41;  wor- 
ship of  wealth  and  aristocracy,  145-6 ; 
treatment  of  poor  scholars,  147; 
likeness  and  unlikeuess  between 
Jesuit  schools  and  English  public 
schools,  148  (note);  Jesuits  and  cor- 
poral punishment,  148-50;  and  ex- 
pulsion from  school,  151 ;  on  the 
prohibition  of  friendships,  151-2; 
"  good  "  pupils  make  bad  scholars, 
152;  encourages  superstition,  154-5; 
proselytising  at  school,  157-8;  piety 
in  the  school,  158-63;  use  and  in- 
fluence of  Marian  Congregations, 
163-80;  the  daily  routine  at  a  Jesuit 
school,  181-4;  espionage  enjoined, 
183;  Jesuit  strictures  on  the  systems 
of  instruction  and  education,  184-95; 
the  question  of  unchastity,  203-8; 
why  their  education  always  must 
fail    ii.  432-4 

Eichendorf  as  a  German   classic,  i.    108 

Elizabeth.  Queen,  Parsons'  plot  to  mur- 
der, ii.  149-53;  excommunicated  by 
Pius  V.,  311 

Elizalde,  Michael  de,  on  Jesuit  morality, 
ii.  297-8;  his  work  on  Probabilism 
rejected  by  the  Order,  298;  threat- 
ened by  General  Oliva,  ib. 

Encyclicals,  Papal,  the  real  source  of, 
ii.  255 

Encyclopaedists  in  France  overcome 
Jesuitism,   i.   128 

"  End  sanctifies  the  means,  the,"  ii. 
320-7 ;  Jesuit  attitude  to  the  maxim, 
320;  lawsuits  regarding  it,  ib, 

England,  Parsons'  plot  to  depose  Eliza- 
beth from  the  throne  of,  ii.  149-53 

Epping's  lectures  on  astronomy  at 
Blyenbeck.  ii.  248 

Equivocation,  use  of,  ii.  302-3;  Jesuit 
justification  of,  304-5 

Erfurt,  how  the  French  prisoner  at, 
made  his  peace  with  the  Church, 
ii.  381 

Espionage.   (See  Denunciation) 

Esseiva,  Father  Joseph,  illustrates  Gen- 
eral Anderledy's  mental  gymnastics, 
i.  174 

Etiquette   in   the   Jesuit    Order,   i.   356-7 

Eulenberg,  Court  Marshal,  ii.   461 

Evangelical  Alliance  of  Germany,  as 
seen  through  Jesuit  glasses,  ii.  361 ; 
ignorance  of  Catholicism  among  the 
members  of,  452;  mistaken  tactics 
of.  against  TJltramontanism,  465 
(note) 

Exaeten,  the  author  enters  the  novi- 
tiate at,  for  a  few  days,  i.  259; 
enters  again.  270;  reserved  originally 
for  the  novices,  288;  hardship  and 
discomfort  of  life  at,  288-9:  seclu- 
sion of,  292;  devils  at,  323;  read- 
ing aloud  at  meals,  394;  the 
author  leaves,  406;  its  villa  at 
Oosen,  ii.  77;  the  author  appointed 


476 


Index 


Scriptor  at,  244,  270;  becomes  the 
seat  of  the  Philosophate,  369-70; 
headquarters  of  the  Stimmen  aus 
Maria-Laach  and  Die  Katholischen 
Missionen,  369,  370;  the  structural 
improvements  at,  369-70;  the  author 
quits,  for  Portico,  411;  the  author 
leaves,  for  ever,  420 

Examen  generate,  craft  of  the,  i.  351; 
summary  of  the,  411;  E.  rigorosum, 
ii.  369 

Examination,  Particular,  i.  368-9;  pull- 
ing the  "  particular  examination 
chain,"  369 

Exercisee,  spiritual,  effect  of,  on  Jesuit 
pupils,  i.  162-3;  nervous  excitement 
caused  by,  162;  the  end  and  aim  of, 
163;  used  to  win  recruits  for  the 
Jesuit  priesthood,  214-5;  terror  in 
the  young  inspired  by  melodramatic 
addresses  in  the.  227;  the  author- 
ship of,  ascribed  to  the  Virgin 
and  to  God,  370;  duration  of,  o71 ; 
summary  of  the  contents  of,  371-6; 
criticism  of,  377-84  j  actual  object 
of,  378;  two  main  characteristics  of, 
578-82;  make  every  Jesuit  every- 
where of  a  uniform  pattern,  37y; 
Director  of,  and  his  duties.  380 ; 
pseudo-mysticism  of,  380-2;  high  fees 
charged  for  the  Exercises,  etc.,  ii. 
80 ;  value  of  the  Exercises  in  popular 
missions,  382;  utilised  for  political 
purposes,  384-5 

Experiments  during  the  novitiate,  i. 
392-3 

Expulsion  from  school,  how  effected  by 
Jesuits,  i.  151 

Externals,  attention  paid  to,  in  Jesuit 
labours,  ii.   381-2 

Eyre,  Father,   i.   240-1 

Faber,   Frederick   William,  ii.  31 

Fah,  Father  Jacob,  i.  171 ;  consults  with 
Windthorst  in  Berlin,  ii.  165;  editor- 
in-chief  of  the  Stimmen  aus  Maria- 
Laach  and  Vie  Katholischen  Mis- 
sionen,  244,  370 ;  character  of,  371 ; 
sends  the  author  to  Brussels  for 
research  work  in  history,  390;  ig- 
nores the  author's  hints  as  to  the 
effect  of  his  studies,  391;  is  de- 
spatched to  Berlin  to  prepare  for  a 
Jesuit  settlement  there,  399-400;  is 
transferred  to  Brazil,  411   (note) 

Falk,  Dr.,  ii.  231 

Faller,  Father,  General  Prefect  at  Feld- 
kirch,  i.  197;  his  attempts  to  induce 
the  author  to  enter  the  Jesuit  Order, 
217 ;  annoyance  at  tneir  temporary 
failure,  218 

Falsification  of  the  text,  a  Jesuit  method 
of  embellishment,  ii.  284  (note),  285 

Family  life  and  the  Jesuit  system  of 
education,  i.  130-1 

Farnese,  Margaret  Duchess  of,  ii.   129 

Fatherhood  of  God  the  basis  of  true 
religion,  ii.  456-8 

Feldkirch,  the  Jesuit  school  at,  i.  49: 
description  of  the  buildings,  ad- 
ministration, daily  routine,  54-60; 
fees  at,  116;  Government  grants  at, 
io.;  why  the  system  of  education 
at,  was  a  failure,  117-9;  teachers 
at,  in  the  author's  time,  118;  im- 
provement in  teaching  at,  due  to 
State  pressure,  119;  negative  results 


of  the  education  at,  129;  mixed 
nationality  of  the  teaching  staff  at, 
132;  jubilee  of,  133,  148;  how  wealth 
and  rank  were  favoured  at,  146; 
punishment  at,  150;  the  best  scholars 
were  the  day  boys,  152;  the  library 
at,  153;  curious  "atmosphere"  at, 
155-7;  gluttony  tacitly  encouraged, 
156;  sports  at,  ib.;  game  of  "run- 
ning the  gauntlet,"  156-7;  Marian 
observances  at,  161 ;  foolish  rites  in 
honour  of  the  Virgin  at,  179;  mid- 
night Mass  on  Christmas  Eve  at, 
201-2;  the  author's  confessors  and 
teachers  at,  202-10;  atmosphere  of, 
208 

Fenelon  denounces  Father  La  Chaise, 
ii.  183-4 

Ferdinand  I.  and  the  Jesuit  Professors 
of  Theology   at  Vienna,  ii.  32-3 

Ferdinand  II.,  under  the  influence  of 
the  Jesuits,  ii.  40;  and  the  Chan- 
cellorship of  Prague  University,  52-3; 
a  ready  tool  of  the  Jesuits,  159;  an 
instance  in  which  he  withstood  his 
confessor,  182 

Fessler,  Ignatius,  and  the  discovery  of 
the  confessions  of  eminent  persons, 
ii.   177 

Fessler,   Joseph,  i.   200 

Feuerbach,  Anselm,  records  a  priest's 
confession  of  murder,  ii.  366-7 

Fiesole.    Jesuit    headquarters    at,    i.    264 

Filling,  Father  Jacob,  his  fondness  for 
the  author,  i.  205;  his  feats  in  pre- 
varication, 213;  tries  to  persuade 
the  author  to  become  a  Jesuit,  217 

Finckenstein,  Count  Karl  von,  on  the 
author's  recantation,  i.  6;  introduces 
the  author  to  Orthodoxy  and  Con- 
servatism, ii.  450;  applies  for  a  post 
in  the  State  service  for  the  author, 
459 

Flores  mariani,  i.  161 

Flugschriften  zur  Wehr  und  Lehr,  ii. 
361 

Foley,  his  free  and  easy  manner  of 
dealing  with  history,  ii.  284  (note) 

Forer,  repudiation  of  the  Monita  by, 
ii.   9 

Formed  coadjutors  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  i.  415;  simple  vows  of,  417; 
final  vows  of,  418 

Formula  Instituti,  text  of,  i.  413-4;  con- 
tents of,   ii.   3-4 

Formula  scribendi,  i.  352  et  seqq. 

Forsler,  Emerich,  on  Jesuit  political 
activity  at  Graz,  ii.  178 

Fox's  Commentary  on  Demosthenes'  de 
Corona,  a  "  classic "  of  Jesuit 
scholarship,  ii.  229 

France,  favoured  by  the  Jesuits  in  the 
war  of  1870-1.  i.  233-4;  Cardinal 
Eeisach's  prophecy  regarding,  238; 
the  "  patriotism  "  of  German  Jesuits 
as  evidenced  in  the  war  of  1870-1, 
ii.  36-8;  Boulanger's  plot  against, 
supported  by  the  Jesuits,  164-5 

Francis,  St.,  how  he  assisted  justice, 
ii.  304,  305;  a  wiser  man  than  Loyola, 
424 

Franciscan  Orders,  i.  164  and  note; 
Jesuit  hauteur  towards,  ii.  108; 
Franciscan  nuns  and  the  Jesuit 
Order.  131 ;  cannot  be  condemned  as 
can  the  Jesuits,   424 

Franco-German   war   of    1870-1,   i.    232-3; 


Index 


477 


Jesuit  hatred  of  Pruaaia,  ib.;  the 
Prussian  victories,  232;  the  war  mis- 
represented,  232-3 

Frankfort -on-  the-  Main,  the  author's 
residence  at,  ii.  421 

Frankfort -on- the -Oder,  County  Court 
judgeship  at,  oflered  to  the  author, 
ii.  462 

Franzelin,  Cardinal,  oc  mental  reserva- 
tion, i.   264-5 

Frederick,  Cardinal,  of  Hesse,  the  im- 
moral confessor  of,  i.  207 

Frederick  II.,  the  Great,  as  seen  through 
Jesuit  glasses,  i.  122 

Frederick  William  IV.  and  the  author's 
father,  i.  7 

Freemasonry,  denounced  and  misrepre- 
sented by  Jesuits,  i.  154;  attitude 
of  Ultramontauea  to,  224 

Freethinker,  the,  who  is  governed  by 
morals  is  not  far  from  God,  ii.  456 
(note) 

Frehner'a  revolt,  ii.  281 

Freiburg,  Latin  Grammar  in  the  Jesuit 
College  of  St.  Michael  at,  i.  69; 
Jesuit  intrigues  at  the  University 
of,  ii.  40-2;  low  state  of  Jesuit 
learning  at,  280-1 

French  League  supported  by  the  Jesuits, 
ii.   161-2 

Frick's  "  Manual  on  Logic  for  the  use 
of  Schools,"  ii.  257-8 

Friday,  specially  sacred  to  the  Heart 
of  Jesus,  i.  307 

Friedrich,  Professor  J.,  on  the  soul- 
destroying  effect  of  Jesuit  teaching 
on  the  German  students  at  Rome, 
i.  342 ;  and  the  report  of  the  poison- 
ing of  Cardinal  Tournon,  ii.  55 

Friendships  at  school,  Jesuit  objections 
to,  i.  151-2 ;  Father  Link  recognises 
their  value,  210  ;  friendship  forbidden 
within  the  Jesuit  Order,  ii.  378-9 

Frins,  Professor  Victor,  a  constant  ad- 
viser of  Windthorst,  ii.  166,  411 
(note);  his  opinion  about  Protestant 
girls,  367;  succeeds  the  author  in 
Berlin,  411  (note) 

Froment,  Chancellor  of  the  University 
of  Paris,  on  Jesuit  self-aggrandise- 
ment, ii.  47-8 

Furstenberg,  Baron  Klemena  von,  on 
the  German  Jesuits  and  the  war  of 
1870-1,  i.  233 

Furstenberg,  Count  Wratislaw  von,  in- 
trigues of,  ii.   183 

Galen,  Count  Ferdinand  von,  i.  238 

Galen,  Count  Max  von,  i.  227 

Garnet,  Father  Henry,  involved  in  Jesuit 
activity  in  England,  ii.  46,  111; 
friendship  with  Lady  Anne  Vaux,  128: 
concerned  in  Parsons'  plot  against 
Queen  Elizabeth,  152;  freely  employs 
equivocation,  309-11 ;  a  learned  and 
saintly  man,  311 ;  his  views  touching 
the  killing  of  the  king,  336;  on  just 
and  unjust  laws,  437  (note) 

Gastel,  Johannes,  on  effective  Jesuit  ven- 
geance,  ii.   382 

Gauntlet-running  at  Jesuit  schools,  i. 
156-7 

Gelspnkirchen,  scenes  during  the  mis- 
sion at,  ii.  380-1 

Genelli,  opinion  of,  aa  to  Jesuit  chastity, 
ii.  67 

General  Congregation,  the  highest  court 


of  the  Society  of  Jeaus,  i.  422-3;  how 
often  held,  423;  powers  of,  to.,  sum- 
moned by,  jo.,  composition  of,  to.; 
voting  power  of,  to.;  the  Decreea 
of,  carefully  edited  for  publication, 
ii.    5 

General  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  Head 
of  the  Order,  i.  419;  elected  aut  vitarn 
aut  culpam,  419-20;  Qualifications 
for,  ib.;  powers  of,  ib.;  supervision 
over,  420-1;  deposition  of,  421-2; 
activity  of,  422;  subordination  of, 
to  the  General  Congregation,  422-3 

Gerard,  Father  John,  secures  money  for 
the  Order,  ii.  11-2,  90-1;  how  he 
acknowledged  Elizabeth  as  Queen  of 
England,  311 

German  tongue,  Jesuit  neglect  of  the, 
i.  104;  nominally  adopted  aa  a  sub- 
ject of  study,  105;  this  reform 
compulsory,  106;  Jesuit  ordinance 
anent  German  classics,  109;  great 
German  classics  denounced  by  von 
Dosa.  227-8;  by  von  Hammerstein. 
ii.  230-4;  by  Baumgartner,  234-45 

Oermania,  character  of,  ii.  376;  organ 
of  the  Centre  Party,  411  (note), 
attacks  the  author,  460 

Germany,  unity  of,  the  real  object  of 
the  war  of  1870-1,  i.  232-3;  Jesuit 
hatred  of  the  idea,  233-4;  strong 
ultramontane  sentiment  in  the 
Centre  Party,  246-7 ;  sent  to  Canossa 
by  the  Kulturkampf,  256;  Jesuit 
scheme  to  subjugate,  ii.  158-9;  return 
of  the  Jesuits  to,  166;  activity  of 
Jesuits  in,  384;  dominated  by  the 
Centre  Party,  462;  unfortunate  re- 
sults to.  of  the  Kulturkampf,  464-5; 
danger  of  Jesuitism  to,  466 

Gertt.  Beinhold,  condemns  the  secret 
drinking  in  Jesuit  settlements,  i. 
188 

Gfrorer  ascribes  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
to  the  Jesuits,  ii.   158-9 

Ghosts,  Catholic  belief  in,  and  fear  of, 
i.  26-8;  cruelty  of  the  doctrine  to 
the  young,  28;  haunted  houses  at 
Zeil  «,nd  Muflendorf.  27-8 

Gindoly's  account  of  the  Jesuit  pro- 
ceedings against  Wallenstein,  ii. 
179-80 ;  records  an  instance  of 
Ferdinand  II. 's  resistance  to  the 
Jesuit3,  182;  as  garbled  by  Duhr, 
283 

Ginzel,  Canon,  anent  the  violation  of 
the  confession  of  Maria  Theresa,  ii. 
175-6 

Giphanius,  Professor,  on  Jeauit  intrigue 
at  Ingolstadt,  ii.  39 

Goch,  the  author's  momentous  discourse 
at.  ii.  419 

"  God "  as  conceived  by  Catholic  theo- 
logv  and  in  part  also  by  Protestant, 
ii.  408-9;  the  Fatherhood  of  God  the 
basis  of  true  religion,  456-8 

Goethe,  Jesuit  opinion  of,  i.  109;  Jeauit 
ordinance  concerning  German  clas- 
sics issued  in  the  year  of  Goethe's 
death,  to.;  Von  Doss  on  the  over- 
rated renown  of,  227 ;  "  Behold  the 
man  whom  thou  didst  worship !  " 
228;  von  Hammeratein's  apprecia- 
tion of,  ii.  230-2;  Baumgartner'a 
tirade  on,  236-45 

Goldie,  Francia.  records  Alonzo  Rodri- 
guez's aenaele33  literaliam,  i.  329 


478 


Index 


Goltz,  Provost  von  der,  shares  the  too 
common  Protestant  ignorance  of 
things  Catholic,  ii.  451 

Gonzalez,  Thyrsus,  author  of  a  missing 
Decree,  ii.  5 ;  Pope  approves  of  hxa 
work  against  Probabilism,  50-1; 
forbids  the  teaching  of  modern 
philosophy,  253;  condemns  Jesuit 
teaching  on  morals,  292;  Jesuit  per- 
secution of,  295  and  note;  his  state- 
ment of  the  position,  296;  real 
reason  why  Jesuits  attack  him, 
297 

Gossler,  von,  ii.  231 

Gotthein,  wrongs  of,  concerning  Loyola's 
asceticism  and  piety,  i.  299  (note) 

G6ttingen,  author  attends  lectures  at, 
i.  122;  parents'  reluctance  to  allow 
him,  251 ;  complexion  of  his  stay 
there,  252;  studies  for  the  Law  at, 
261 

Gottlieb,  the  pen-name  of  Tilmann 
Pesch,  ii.  357 

Grand  National  at  Liverpool,  Stony- 
hurst   students  at,   i.   241 

Granderath  defends  capital  punishment 
for  heretics,  ii.  356 

Graz,  Jesuit  political  activity  at,  ii. 
140-3,  179 

Greenway,  connection  of.  with  the  Gun- 
powder Plot,  ii.  310 

Gregorovius,  influence  of,  on  the  author, 
ii.  406 

Gregory  XIII.,  Pope,  confirms  the  Marian 
Congregation  at  Rome,  i.  165,  169; 
sanctions  purchases  for  profit  by 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  413;  ordains 
that  the  Jesuit's  simple  vows  con- 
stitute an  impediment  to  marriage, 
417;  concerned  in  Parsons'  plot 
against  Queen  Elizabeth,  ii.  149; 
confirms  the  deposition  of  Elizabeth, 
312 

Gregory  XV.,  Pope,  and  the  Marian  Con- 
gregations, i.  165 

Gregory  XVI.,  Pope,  canonises  Liguori, 
ii.  286 

Gretser  is  instructed  to  refute  the 
Monita,  ii.  7 

Grimm,  Father  Leopold,  on  the  custom 
of  confessing  boys  in  the  confessor's 
bedroom,  i.  203 

Guardian  angels,  Catholic  teaching 
about,  i.  26:  Congregations  of  the, 
164;  use  of  the  guardian  angel 
{angelus  custos)  in  the  novitiate, 
355 

Guignard  hanged  for  complicity  in  the 
attempt  to  murder  Henry  IV.  of 
France,  ii.  335 

Guise,  Duke  of,  involved  in  Parsons' 
plot  against  Queen  Elizabeth,  ii. 
149-51 

Gunpowder  Plot,  Duhr's  tenderness  for 
the,  i.  284;  Garnet's  connection  with 
the,  ii.  309,  310 

Gury,  prevalence  of  his  textbook  of 
Moral  Theology,  ii.  288;  his  teaching 
on  adultery,  ii.  309 

Gustav  Adolf  Verein,  mistaken  tactics 
of.  against  Ultramontanism,  ii.  465 
(note) 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  the  three  "  L's " 
whom  he  wished  to  see  hanged,  ii. 
183 

Gymnasium,  superiority  of  the  educa- 
tion at  the  State,  over  that  of  the 
Jesuits,  i.  118-9,  124 


Haag  Castle,  i.  1 

Habsburg,  inordinate  ambition  of  the 
House  of,  ii.  159 

Hahn-Hahn.  Countess  Ida,  novels  by, 
approved  by  the  Jesuits,  i.  153;  com- 
poses the  "  Cradle  Song  of  a  Polish 
Mother,"  211 

Hahn's  book  on  Saint  Teresa  censored, 
ii.  269 

Haller,  Father,  the  dangers  of  Jesuit 
political  activity  in  Austria,  ii. 
159 

Hammerstein,  Baron  Ludwig  von,  on 
the  German  classics,  ii.  230-4 ;  his 
appreciation  of  Goethe,  230-2;  of 
Schiller,  232 ;  of  Lessing,  232-3;  on  the 
predominance  of  the  Church  over 
the  State,  342-4;  on  the  evil  of  reli- 
gious toleration,  352;  his  hostility 
to  State  schools,  439-40 

Hammerstein,  Baron  Wilhelm  von,  pro- 
prietor of  the  Kreuzzeitung,  ii.  449; 
the  author  meets  him,  450-1 

Harnack,  Adolf,  and  the  genuineness 
of  the  Monita,  ii.  7;  his  lectures  on 
dogma  at  Berlin  University,  403; 
what  his  influence  lacks,  403-4 

Harrach,  Cardinal  von,  struggle  of,  at 
Prague,  against  the  Jesuits,  ii.  52-3 

Hartmann,  Father,  lawsuit  at  Strau- 
bing,  ii.  100-2 

Hatzfeld,  Countess  Sophie,  i.  245 

Hausherr,  Father,  becomes  confessor  of 
the  author's  mother,  i.  234  (note); 
his  influence,  249 

Helfert,  Alexander  von,  reproaches  the 
Jesuits  for  their  addiction  to  a  dead 
language  not  properly  understood. 
i.  104;  condemns  Jesuit  neglect  of 
German  literature,  110;  criticises  the 
abuses  of  the  Jesuit  system  of  edu- 
cation, 192-3 

Heligoland,  the  author's  stay  in,  ii.  422; 
his  acquaintance  with  Count  Karl 
von  Finckenstein  in,  450 

Hell,  Abbe,  as  a  Professor  of  Astro- 
nomy, ii.  280 

Hell,  as  portrayed  in  the  Exercises,  i. 
372-3;  monstrosity  of  the  belief  in, 
ii.  407;  the  hell  dogma  a  priest's 
dogma,  409 

Helten,  Father,  considers  Goethe  a 
heathen,  i.  109;  Professor  of  Greek, 
German  and  ^Esthetics  at  Wynands- 
rade,  121 ;  astonished  at  his  pupils' 
excellent  Greek  exercises,  123-4 

Henry  III.  of  France,  murder  of,  ap- 
proved by  the  Jesuit  Mariana,  ii.  144; 
demands  the  support  of  the  Jesuits, 
161-2;  murder  of,  justified  by  the 
Jesuit  Mariana  and  the  Society, 
328-9 

Heresy,  especially  attacked  by  Jesuits, 
fiict  with  the  Jesuits,  ii.  19i ;  murder 
of,  by  Ravaillac,  333;  public  fury  at 
the  murder,  and  its  effect  on  the 
Jesuit  Society,  ib.;  Chatel's  attempt 
to  murder,  335 

Heresy,  especially  attacked  by  Jesuits, 
ii.  21  et  seqq.;  absolutely  condemned 
by  the  Imago,  350 ;  Jesuit  defence 
of  the  capital  punishment  of  here- 
tics, 354-7;  the  various  punishments 
for,  356 

Heroism  of  the  Jesuits,  ii.  379;  of 
humanity,  380 

Hertling,  Baron  von,  president  of  the 
Gorresgesellschaft.  i.  224 


Index 


479 


Eilgers  on  the  need  for  and  usefulness 
of  the  Index  Expurgatorius,  ii.  274-5 

Hoensbroech  Castle,  i.  2 

Hoensbroech,  Adrian,  Count  of.  the 
author's  brother,  attends  the  Jesuit 
school  at  Feldkirch,  i.  49;  death  cf, 
253 

Hoensbroech,  Antonia  von,  the  author's 
sister,  bitterly  hostile  to  Prussia,  i. 
211;  her  anger  with  the  author 
about  the  German  victories  in  1870, 
i.  233;  marriage  to  Count  Franz 
Xavie'r  Korff  -  Schmising  -  Kerssen- 
brock,  i.  252;  death  of,  ib-;  entirely 
subjugated  by  her  Jesuit  confessors, 
ii.    130 

Hoensbroech,  Clement,  Count  of,  the 
author's  brother,  attends  Feldkirch 
and  the  State  Gymnasium,  i.  118; 
marriage  of,  ii.  400 

Hoensbroech,  Franz  Egon,  Marquis  of, 
the  author's  father,  character  of, 
i.  3;  his  blindness,  ib.;  his  view  of 
religion,  4-5;  his  politics,  6-7;  rela- 
tions to  the  king,  7-8 ;  his  career, 
10 ;  makes  a  pilgrimage  to  La 
Salette,  but  is  not  cured,  28-9;  before 
the  shrine  at  Kevelaer,  31 ;  induced 
to  sanction  Jesuit  influence  in  his 
home.  33;  his  coldness  to  Prussia 
in  the  war  with  Austria,  210;  death 
of,  252 

Hoensbroech,  Lothar,  Count  von,  the 
author's  brother,  death  of,  i.  253 

Hoensbroech,  Luise,  Countess  of,  the 
author's  sister,  takes  the  veil,  i.  48; 
urges  the  author  to  join  the  Jesuit 
Order,  247 

Hoensbroech,  Marie,  Countess  von,  the 
author's  sister,  engagement  of,  to 
Count  Franz  zu  Stolberg-Stolberg, 
i.  242-3;  a  marriage  of  convenance, 
243;  urges  the  author  to  enter  into 
the  Jesuit  Order,  247;  leads  the  first 
German  pilgrimage  to  Lourdes,  253; 
goes  to  Algiers  for  her  health,  261 ; 
birth  of  her  daughter,  Monica,  265; 
death  of,  269 

Hoensbroech,  Matilda,  Marchioness  of, 
the  author's  mother,  i.  3;  nobility  of 
her  character,  10-11 ;  devotion  to  her 
husband,  10 ;  in  religion  a  "  whole  " 
Catholic,  12-14 ;  depth  of  her  credul- 
ity, 13-14;  her  curious  indifference  to 
the  Bible,  14;  her  fervour  and  fana- 
ticism, 15;  her  dislike  of  the  Pro- 
testant dynasty  of  Prussia,  15-17; 
her  hatred  of  Prince  Bismarck, 
16-17;  undertakes  a  pilgrimage  to 
La  Salette,  28;  her  faith  superior  to 
her  disappointment,  29;  her  fre- 
quent devotions  at  the  shrine  at 
Kevelaer,  31 :  comes  wholly  under 
Jesuit  influence,  33.  ii.  129-30;  her 
anti-Prussian  bitterness,  i,  210-2; 
quarrels  with  her  brother  about 
Prince  Bismarck,  212;  her  fanatical 
faith  in  infallibility,  222;  coolness 
with  the  Bishop  of  Mayence,  ib.; 
punishes  the  author  for  defending 
the  Bishop,  ib.;  entirely  under  the 
control  of  Father  Behrens,  her  con- 
fessor, 234;  makes  over  part  of  her 
fortune  to  the  Jesuits,  to.  (note); 
lives  in  widowed  seclusion  at  Rackel- 
witz,  234  (note);  strongly  opposes 
the  author's  delay  to  enter  into  the 


Jesuit  Order,  236;  hands  over  Blyen- 
beck  Castle  in  Holland  as  a  retreat 
for  the  exiled  Jesuits,  248;  is  en- 
dowed with  all  the  graces  and  dis- 
pensations of  the  Order,  ii.  129 
Hoensbroech,  Paul,  Count  of,  the 
author,  birth  of,  i.  3;  parentage  of, 
3-17;  anecdote  about  the  Latin  and 
German  text  of  the  "  Ave,  Maria," 
5 ;  routine  of  home  life,  18-20 ;  re- 
ligion the  dominant  note  of  his 
education.  20-1;  suffered  from  de- 
nominational exclusiveness,  20; 
taught  to  minister  at  Mass,  22; 
plays  the  Mass-game,  22-3;  how  his 
early  piety  was  fostered,  24  et  seqq.; 
steeped  in  sham  mysticism  ana 
asceticism,  25  et  seqq.;  terrified  by 
ghosts,  28 ;  his  frequent  visits  to  the 
shrine  at  Kevelaer,  29  et  seqq.;  de- 
grading effect  of  the  superstition, 
32;  comes  under  Jesuit  influence, 
34;  his  first  confession,  ib.;  real- 
ises the  horrors  of  ultramontane 
"morality,"  36  et  seqq.;  the  general 
run  of  his  education,  45;  doubts  and 
criticism  repelled,  ib.;  is  subjected 
to  corporal  punishment,  45-6;  de- 
fects of  his  education,  46-8;  is  sent 
to  Feldkirch,  49,  53;  account  of  his 
school,  54-60;  describes  the  "O 
Sanctissima,"  57;  nearly  loses  his 
life,  58;  concludes  that  the  Jesuit 
system  of  instruction  is  bad,  61 ;  dis- 
covers the  Jesuit  teachers  were 
poorly  equipped,  73;  learns  how 
Latin  verses  were  composed,  99;  his 
"  guardian  angel,"  100;  on  the  scant 
attention  paid  at  school  to  German, 
ib.;  never  saw  a  Latin  play  at  Feld- 
kirch, 106;  rebuked  for  admiring 
Goethe,  109;  why  his  education  at 
Feldkirch  was  comparatively  a  fail- 
ure, 117-9;  the  entrance  examination 
at  Mayence  Gymnasium,  118;  at- 
tends the  college  at  Wynandsrade, 
119-24;  had  already  practised  law, 
120;  his  course  at  Bonn  and  Gottin- 
gen,  122;  is  reprimanded  for  plain 
speaking.  123;  his  summary  of 
Jesuit  instruction  as  he  found  it, 
126;  is  sent  to  arrange  a  difficulty 
concerning  a  Marian  Congregation 
at  Cologne,  171-2;  his  years  as  a 
member  of  the  Marian  Congregation, 
179;  reminiscences  of  Feldkirch,  196- 
218;  cured  of  home-sickness,  197; 
his  first  Communion,  197.-200;  how 
midnight  Mass  was  celebrated  at 
Feldkirch  on  Christmas  Eve,  201-2; 
his  confessors  at.  202-6,  208-10;  of- 
fends his  family  by  his  sympathies 
with  Prussia,  211-3;  efforts  made  to 
entice  him  into  the  Jesuit  Order, 
216-8;  attends  the  Gymnasium  at 
Mayence,  219-20 ;  defends  the  Bishop 
of  Mayence  and  incurs  his  mother's 
censure,  222;  under  the  strange  spell 
of  Adolf  von  Doss,  226-7;  German 
essay  and  its  fateful  motto,  230;  a 
change  silently  at  work  in  his  mind, 
231;  his  invincible  patriotism.  232-3; 
his  youthful  love  for  his  cousin  and 
its  effect  on  him,  235-6;  postpones 
entering  on  his  novitiate.  236;  inter- 
views Manning,  239;  attends  Stony- 
hurst  College,  240-2;  disgusted  at  the 


480 


Index 


laxity  of  the  students'  morals,  240-1 ; 
the  courses  in  Latin  and  philosophy 
both  poor,  240-2 ;  studies  law  at 
Bonn,  243-4;  some  of  his  fellow- 
students,  244 ;  abets  the  Jesuit  in- 
solence towards  the  Old  Catholics, 
244-5;  joins  the  Oatholic  Students' 
Union,  246;  his  cousin  takes  the  veil, 
250 ;  he  is  haunted  with  the  thought, 
"  End  of  my  love;  entrance  into  the 
Order,"  ib.;  narrow  escape  from 
death  in  a  railway  accident,  ib.;  a 
dilemma  of  Divine  Providence,  250-1 ; 
is  disqualified  purposely  for  the 
army,  253-4;  the  reason  why,  254; 
disastrous  effect  of  the  Kulturkampf . 
256;  he  joins  the  German  pilgrimage 
to  Lourdes,  258-9;  enters  the  novi- 
tiate at  Exaeten,  259;  the  mental 
agony  he  suffered,  260-1 ;  visits  Al- 
giers, 261-2;  visits  Rome,  262-3; 
acquires  some  of  the  Pope's  cast-oil 
garments  as  relics,  263;  as  county 
court  judge  takes  the  oath  at  Oleves 
with  mental  reservation,  265;  be- 
seeches the  intercession  of  Leo  XIII. 
for  his  sister  Marie,  268;  sees  his 
cousin  at  Frankfort  and  his  love 
for  her  is  revived,  269;  enters 
Exaeten  again,  270;  is  examined  as 
a  postulant,  282;  becomes  a  novice, 
235;  gratitude  to  Jesuits  for  teach- 
ing him  self-control,  385;  his  prac- 
tical duties  during  novitjate,  392-3; 
examples  of  his  self-mortification, 
393-4 ;  how  he  acquired  clear  enun- 
ciation, 394;  his  experience  of 
penitential  practices,  394-5;  his  sense 
of  repugnance  to  the  Jesuit  Order, 
395  et  seqq.;  his  simple  faith  in  the 
system,  396-7;  he  is  repelled  by  the 
rule  requiring  separation  from  and 
renunciation  of  parents,  398  et  seqq.; 
how  he  trod  his  mother  underfoot, 
401 ;  his  zealous  effort  to  become  a 
complete  Jesuit,  402;  may  take  the 
devotional  vows,  402-3;  he  receives 
a  belated  letter  before  leaving 
Exaeten,  405;  becomes  a  scholastic, 
406;  extract  from  Austria  to  show 
how  the  Jesuits  crush  patriotism, 
ii.  34-6 ;  his  experience  of  the  effects 
of  poverty,  73-80;  tells  the  painful 
story  of  Karl  Ebenhoch's  deathbed, 
100-2;  is  intended  to  be  the  confessor 
of  aristocratic  women  because  of  his 
social  rank,  130;  is  the  victim  of 
Tilmann  Pesch's  jealousy,  131-2;  dis- 
covers that  the  Jesuits  support 
Boulanger's  designs  on  France,  164-5; 
years  at  Wynandsrade  for  Humanity 
and  Rhetoric,  201-14;  assailed  by 
doubts  about  the  Order  and  the 
Church,  202-9;  his  Parthian  victory, 
209;  ascetic  life  at  Wynandsrade, 
210-11;  sufferings  at  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
212;  goes  to  Blyenbeck  for  Philo- 
sophy, 214-6;  renounces  his  property, 
215;  takeB  the  first  step  to  the 
priesthood,  215 ;  goes  to  Ditton  Hall 
for  Theology,  216-22;  is  consecrated 
to  the  priesthood,  222;  his  mental 
agony  on  the  occasion  of  the  reading 
of  his  first  Mass,  222-3;  his  experi- 
ence of  swallowing  the  host,  223 ; 
is  troubled  by  the  doctrines  of 
th«   Trinity    and  Original   Sin,    224; 


becomes  Scriptor  at  Exaeten.  244, 
270 ;  his  progress  in  Philosophy  and 
Theology  officially  approved,  269; 
his  insanity  hinted  at,  ib.;  his  dis- 
cussion about  the  Creation,  281-2; 
is  shocked  at  the  atmosphere  of 
falsehood  in  which  the  Jesuit  stu- 
dents are  trained,  318-19;  tests  at 
law  the  maxim  "  The  end  sanctifies 
the  means,"  320-1;  his  sentiments 
on  taking  up  residence  at  Exaeten 
as  Scriptor,  370;  assistant  editor  of 
the  Stimmen  aus  Maria-Laach  and 
Die  Katholischen  Missionen,  ib.;  his 
relations  with  Fah,  the  chief  editor, 
371;  his  intimacy  witn  the  Provincial 
of  the  German  Province  and  its 
close,  372-4;  declines  the  post  of 
tutor  to  the  sons  of  the  Austrian 
Ambassador,  374;  assists  at  the 
Mayence  Conference  that  founded 
the  National  Union  for  Catholic 
Germany,  375 ;  undertakes  all  manner 
of  pastoral  work,  380,  384-6;  how  he 
absolved  a  murderess,  386  and  note; 
his  practice  in  the  matter  of  con- 
fession, 388 ;  specialises  in  the  history 
of  the  Church  and  the  Papacy,  390; 
the  consequences  of  his  studies  of 
this  subject,  ib.;  visits  Brussels  for 
research,  390-1 ;  learns  that  there  are 
two  sides  to  the  Papacy,  391;  is 
instructed  to  defend  the  Papacy, 
392;  success  of  his  pamphlet  on 
Church  and  State,  393;  is  commis- 
sioned to  write  in  defence  of  the 
Jesuit  Order,  393;  his  pamphlet 
"  Why  should  the  Jesuits  not  return 
to  Germany?"  393-4;  his  pamphlet 
"Christ,  or  Anti-Christ,"  394;  de- 
clines to  collaborate  with  Tilmann 
Pesch,  394-5;  his  literary  labours 
appreciated  and  depreciated  by  the 
same  people,  395 ;  is  despatched  to 
Berlin  to  prepare  for  a  Jesuit  settle- 
ment, 399;  his  instructions  how  to 
act  as  a  Jesuit  ambassador,  399-400; 
marries  his  brother,  400;  attends 
lectures  in  Berlin  University,  403-4; 
Treitschke's  influence  on,  405;  pa- 
triotism reawakes,  ib.;  the  liberators 
of  the  mind  of,  405-7;  revolts  at  the 
chief  Catholic  dogmas,  407-9;  agony 
of  his  mental  conflict,  409-11;  decides 
to  enter  the  tertiate,  411;  is  ill  with 
diphtheria,  ib.;  experience  as  a  ter- 
tiary, 412-5;  his  mental  sufferings 
as  the  tertiate  closed,  414-5;  takes 
the  final  decision  and  leaves  the 
Order  and  the  Church,  416-22:  the 
accidents  that  enabled  him  to  leave 
the  Order  undetected,  419-22;  the 
question  of  his  temporary  use  of 
the  money  he  collected  for  Brazil, 
419-20,  420  (note);  sojourns  at 
Cologne,  Paris  and  Frankfort-on- 
Main,  421;  falls  ill,  422;  takes  up 
his  permanent  residence  in  Berlin, 
ib.;  the  question  of  apostacy,  ib.; 
the  wrench  from  Catholicism,  448; 
his  first  commissions  for  the  Press, 
449;  discovers  his  life-work  in  ex- 
posing Ultramontanism,  ib.;  gravi- 
tates towards  Liberalism  and  free- 
thought,  450;  joins  the  Protestant 
State  Church,  452;  his  objections  to 
any  connection  between   State   and 


Index 


481 


Church,  452-5;  statement  of  his 
present  religious  position,  455-8; 
unconsciously  alarms  Count  Caprivi, 
459;  his  long  conversation  with 
Wilhelm  II.,  459;  the  Kaiser's  pro- 
mise, 460;  goes  to  Kiel  to  qualify 
for  the  post  of  Landrat,  460-1;  is 
married,  461 ;  his  wife's  severe  ill- 
ness, 461-2;  Count  Waldersee  inter- 
venes on  his  behalf,  461 ;  further 
interview  with  the  Kaiser  and  what 
came  of  it,  462-3;  is  refused  a  lec- 
tureship at  a  University,  463;  and 
also  denied  the  diplomatic  service, 
464 ;  develops  his  future  life-work, 
464;  his  labours  not  in  vain,  466; 
encouraged  by  hope  for  the  future 
of  the  race,  467 

Hoensbroech,  William,  Count  of,  the 
author's  brother,  at  Feldkirch,  i. 
49;  found  the  equipment  imperfect 
compared  with  that  at  the  State 
Gymnasium,  118;  visits  Algiers,  261; 
marriage  of,  266;  how  the  death  of 
a  daughter  of  William's  affects  the 
author,  ii.  410-11 

Hoffaus,  Paul,  on  Jesuit  vice  in  the 
Upper  German  Province,  ii.  69-70 ; 
deplores  the  growing  luxury  of  the 
Order,  81 ;  deplores  Jesuit  interfer- 
ence in  politics,  193-4 

Hohenlohe,  Prince,  refuses  the  author 
admission  into  the  diplomatic  ser- 
vice, ii.  464 

Hohenzollerns,  Jesuit  designs  against, 
ii.  385 

Homonna,  ascetic  practices  at  the 
College  of.  i.  386 

Hompesch.  Count,  i.  8 

Hospitieren  at  Berlin  University,  ii.  403 
(note),  405 

Houses  of  Jesuits,  i.  78  (note) 

Hovel,  Father,  receives  the  author  at 
Exaeten,  i.  259,  270;  approves  of  the 
author's  conduct  as  a  novice,  403; 
Kector  at  Ditton  Hall.  ii.  217 

Humanistic  studies  of  the  scholasticate, 
ii.  228-45 

Humility  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  ii.  105-6 

Hungary,  Jesuit  political  activity  in 
1655  in,  ii.  144-6 

Ibafiez  on  the  Jesuits  in  Paraguay,  ii.  6 

Ignatius  Day.  St.,  i.  291 

Imago  primi  saeculi  Societatis  Jesu  on 
the  authorship  of  the  Constitutions. 
i.  408;  on  the  Jesuits'  undying 
hatred  of  heretics  and  heresy,  ii. 
24-5;  a  centennial  memorial  of  the 
work  of  the  Order,  112,  113;  its 
boastfulness  an  annoyance  to  the 
Order,  ib.;  the  Jesuits'  attempt  to 
ascribe  it  to  "  young  scholastics," 
112-14;  alleged  to  have  been  written 
by  Bollandus,  114;  description  of  the 
pictures  in.  115-18;  summary  of  the 
contents  of  the  six  books,  119-22; 
its  self-glorification  revolting-,  122-3; 
on  Jesuit  morality.  301 ;  explicitly 
condemns  heresy,  350 

"  Immaculate  Conception,  The,"  at 
Lourdes,  i.  258 

Imprimatur,  the  Jesuit,  ii.  266 

Index  of  Forbidden  Books.  Jesuit  plea 
for,  ii.   274-5 

Indies,  East,  Jesuit  trading  in  the,  ii. 
91 

2  F 


Indifferents  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  i. 
416 

Individuality  rigorously  repressed  by 
Jesuit  discipline,  i.  296  et  seqy.; 
effaced  by  asceticism.  326;  the  in- 
struments whereby  Jesuitism  mur- 
ders the  will,  342-84 

Infallibility  of  the  Pope,  i.  221;  the  doc- 
trine the  occasion  of  controversy  in 
the  author's  family,  222;  German 
bishops'  unconditional  acceptance 
of,  223-4 

Informations,  based  on  espionage,  ob- 
tained about  nominees  to  posts  in 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  i.  425-7 

Ingolstadt.  morbid  excesses  of  Jesuit 
scholars  at,  i.  178;  Jesuit  intrigueB 
at  University  of,  ii.  38-40 

Innocent  III.,  Pope,  and  the  apparition 
of  a  virgin,  i.   305 

Innocent  X.,  Pope,  attempts  to  reform 
the  practice  of  appointing  Superiors, 
i.  367;  fixed  the  intervals  of  the 
session  of  the  General  Congregation 
of  the  Jesuit  Society,  424 ;  letter  of, 
touching  reforms  of  the  Order,  ii.  5; 
letter  to,  on  the  wealth  of  the  Order 
in  America,  86-8;  requires  the  Jesuits 
to  refrain  from  political  activity, 
144 

Innocent  XI.,  Pope,  sanctions  Gonzalez's 
work  against  Probabilism,  ii.  51,  295; 
requires  the  Society  of  Jesus  to 
submit  to  the  Pope,  ib.;  severely 
censures  the  Jesuits  for  their  con- 
duct in  the  Indian  and  Chinese 
Mission,  65;  condemns  Jesuit  teach- 
ing on  morals,  292;  sees  the  dangers 
of  Probabilism,  296;  on  the  use  of 
ambiguity,  304 

Innocent  XIII.,  Pope,  receives  a  me- 
morial from  the  Jesuits  touching 
the  Indian  Mission,  ii.  60  (note); 
receives  a  report  from  Tournon 
about  his  persuasion  by  the  Jesuits 
in  China,  63 

Inquisition,  and  Loyola's  letter  on 
obedience,  336-7;  founded  by  Loyola, 
ii.  23 

Insinuation  as  a  means  of  obtaining 
wealth,  ii.  82 

Institute  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  con- 
tents of  the,  i.  142;  Formula  Insti- 
tuti,  413-4;  Substantialia  Instituti, 
414 ;  difficulty  of  procuring  copies 
of  the  Institute,  ii.  1  (note) 

Instruction  as  compared  with  education, 
i.  127.     (See  Education) 

Instructor,  the  official  Director  of  the 
tertiate,  ii.  412 

Intellect,  Jesuit  regulations  to  hamper 
and  stifle  the  working  of,  ii.  262-4 

Internationalism,  the  hall-mark  of  Jesuit 
education,  i.  50-2;  and  of  the  Order 
in  all  its  works,  90;  sedulously  fos- 
tered, 131-3;  the  proper  use  of,  at 
a  proper  age,  133 

Intrigue,  love  of,  the  ruin  of  Jesuit 
power,  ii.  432 

Jahnel,  Catholic  Provost,  the  author's 
host  in  Berlin,  ii.  399;  character  of, 
401;  he  visits  the  author  after  the 
latter's  marriage,  t'b.   (note) 

James  II.  of  England,  alleged  to  be  an 
affiliate  of  the  Jesuit  Society,  ii.  17; 
the  Jesuit  Petre  and,  153 


482 


Index 


Janiszewski,  Dr.,  i.  257 

Janitor  in  Jesuit  schools,  duty  of,  i. 
144 

Jansenism,  Jesuit  plot  against,  ii.  315, 
316 

Japan,  Jesuits'  policy  in,  ii.   365 

Jardine,  D.,  his  "  Narrative  of  the  Gun- 
powder Pot  "  cited,  ii.  123,  284,  309-11 ; 
his  criticism  of  Garnet's  equivoca- 
tion, 310-11 

Jerome,  St.,  on  the  renunciation  of  his 
mother,  i.  401;  on  opposition  to 
heretics,  ii.  25 

Jesuits,  influence  of,  established  at 
Hoensbroech,  i.  33;  expulsion  of, 
from  Germany,  53;  school  manage- 
ment of,  61-2;  value  of  their  teach- 
ing overrated,  61,  63;  their  control 
of  education  in  Austria,  70-2;  their 
lost  chances  in  teaching,  76-7;  ter- 
minology of  Jesuit  dwellings,  78 
(note);  their  belauded  altruism  non- 
existent, 79-82;  how  they  push  the 
use  of  Jesuit  textbooks,  82-3;  sup- 
pression of,  by  Clement  XIV.,  86; 
obedience  the  first  Jesuit  law,  88 ; 
international  in  all  their  activities, 
90;  and  the  study  of  Latin,  96-114; 
untruthfulness  sanctioned  by  the 
Order,  i.  100,  ii.  301-19;  neglect  of  the 
German  language,  i.  104;  German 
classics  contemned,  108;  their  esti- 
mate of  Goethe,  109 ;  have  produced 
no  great  classic,  114;  have  no  system 
of  free  education,  116;  greed  of  the 
Order,  ib.;  in  face  of  attack,  128; 
their  adroit  advertising,  130;  why 
Jesuits  can  never  become  good 
teachers,  134-5;  their  attitude  to 
rank  and  riches,  145-6;  and  to 
poverty,  147-8 ;  corporal  punishment 
among,  148-50;  and  expulsion  from 
school,  151 ;  reasons  why  friendships 
at  school  are  forbidden,  151-2;  and 
freemasonry,  witchcraft  and  magic, 
154-5;  and  proselytism,  157-8;  various 
aspects  of  Jesuit  piety,  158-63 ;  really 
control  the  Marian  Congregations, 
163-80;  allow  of  no  Order  but  one, 
166;  suppression  and  resuscitation  of 
the  Order,  168;  daily  routine  at  a 
Jesuit  school,  181-4;  charged  with 
trying  to  destroy  or  remove  in- 
criminating documents  in  public 
libraries,  189;  alleged  unchastity  of, 
203-8;  their  constant  hatred  of 
heresy,  213;  hoped  for  the  success 
of  France  in  the  war  of  1870-1,  233-4; 
their  singular  notions  of  patriotism. 
ib.;  excellent  haters,  240;  though 
legally  prohibited  in  England  their 
settlements  numerous  and  churches 
fine,  ib.;  lax  supervision  of  the 
students'  morals  at  Stonyhurst, 
240-1;  expelled  from  Germany,  248; 
their  philosophy  of  clothes,  284-5; 
good  preachers,  292;  piety  of  the 
Order,  295  et.  seqq.;  the  grotesque  or 
blasphemous  miracles  recounted  in 
Jesuit  literature,  299-325;  ascetic 
disciple  of  the  Order  considered  in 
full,  326  et  seqq.;  abuse  of  confession, 
361-9;  their  famous  motto,  365;  flout 
the  Pope,  367,  368  (note);  subtly 
supported  by  the  Exercises,  378; 
their  power  of  endurine  physical 
pain,  385;  the  inner  constitution  of 


the  Order,  407-27;  foundation  of  the 
Society.  407;  summary  of  the  Con- 
stitutions, 408-11;  privileges  extended 
to  the  Society,  412-3;  the  Formula 
Instituti,  413;  Substantialia  Insti- 
tute, 414;  degrees  of  the  Society, 
414-6;  distribution  of  the  Order,  416; 
number  of  members  in  1773  and  at 
present,  ib.;  various  kinds  of  vows, 
416-8;  government  of,  418-27;  the 
head  of  the  Order,  418-23;  concealed 
statutes  of,  ii.  5-7;  their  activity  in 
England,  11-2,  17;  how  dismissed 
members  are  treated,  12-3;  affiliates 
of  the  Society,  13-21 ;  bitter  hostility 
of,  to  heresy,  21-30 ;  the  non-Christian 
spirit  of  the  Order,  30  et  seqq.;  cos- 
mopolitanism of,  32-8;  their  intri- 
gues at  various  universities,  40-8; 
their  attitude  to  the  secular  clergy, 
44-8;  nature  of  their  self -sacrifice, 
48;  their  violation  of  the  vow  of 
obedience,  50-67;  their  violation  of 
the  vow  of  chastity,  67-71;  their 
wholesale  breach  of  the  vow  of 
poverty,  71-104;  their  arrogance.  105- 
23;  the  Imago  and  its  contents, 
112-22;  every  Jesuit  goes  to  heaven, 
121 ;  relation  of  the  Order  to  women, 
123-32;  activity  of  Jesuits  in  politics, 
133-98 ;  their  political  ability  vastly 
overrated,  136  and  note;  responsible 
for  the  fall  of  the  Stuarts.  155,  157; 
Thirty  Years'  War  partly  financed 
by  German  Jesuits,  161 ;  support 
Boulanger's  designs  on  France,  164-5; 
Jesuits  only  allowed  to  know  the 
"official"  history  of  their  Order, 
224-6 ;  barrenness  of  Jesuit  scholar- 
ship, 228;  literary  censorship  estab- 
lished by,  264-6;  their  attitude  to 
learning  and  research,  270-85;  their 
inevitable  literary  barrenness,  275-6; 
popular  delusion  regarding  the,  278; 
their  morality,  286-337 ;  the  doctrine 
that  "  the  end  sanctifies  the  means," 
320-7;  their  teaching  as  to  tyranni- 
cide, 327-37;  their  teaching  as  to  the 
subordination  of  the  State  to  the 
Church,  338-68;  on  the  impossibility 
of  religious  equality,  349-54;  on  the 
capital  punishment  of  heretics,  354-7; 
account  of  the  common  daily  life 
within  the  Order,  376-80  j  review  of 
the  success  and  failure  of  the  Order, 
423-46;  price  at  which  the  Order 
saved  the  Papacy,  428-9;  political 
activity  of  the  Order  its  undoing, 
429;  their  counter-reformation,  430; 
their  attitude  to  the  Papacy,  431 ; 
their  lust  of  power,  ib.;  their  suc- 
cesses and  failures,  431-2;  they  make 
machines  not  men,  432-4;  secret  of 
their  strength,  435;  their  danger 
to  religion  and  the  State,  436-41; 
their  hostility  to  State  schools,  439- 
40;  under  the  cloak  of  religion,  442; 
their  subterranean  methods  of  work- 
ing, 443;  their  falsified  history,  444; 
the  fascination  of  the  Order,  ib.; 
essentially  anti-Christian  character 
of  the  Order,  446;  the  driving  force 
of  Ultramontanism,  466 

Jewish  disabilities,  removal  of,  and  the 
Jesuits,  ii.  352 

Joanna  ab  Alexandro  beholds  Jesus  as 
in  a  vision,  i.  340,  ii.  110 


Index 


483 


John  III.   of   Sweden   and  Jesuit  influ- 
ence, ii.  138,  139 
John  IV.  of  Portugal  attains  the  throne 

througn  Jesuit  support,  ii.   162 
Joller,  Father,  the  author's  confessor  at 

Feldkirch,     i.     202;     his     detestable 

character,  202,  204 
Joseph,    King    of    Portugal,    attempted 

murder  of,  at  Jesuit  instigation,  ii. 

336 
Joseph  II..  Emperor,  on  the  Jesuits,  ii. 

85 
Jouvancy,    Father   Joseph    de,    and    the 

study  of  the  mother  tongue,  i.  113 
Julius    III.,    Pope,    issues    the   Bull   Ex- 

poscit  debitum,  i.  413;  confirms  the 

Formula  Jnstituti,  ii.  3-4 
Jungmaun  as  an  authority  on  aesthetics, 

i.  124 

Kant,  Jesuit  boycott  of,  ii.  251;  the 
author's  first  acquaintance  with  the 
real  teaching  of,  405-6 

Katholischer  Missionen,  Die,  head- 
quarters of,  at  Exaeten,  ii.  369,  370 

Kelle,  Professor  Johann,  on  Alvarez's 
"Latin  Grammar,"  i.  69  (note); 
states  there  is  no  great  German 
classic  in  the  Jesuit  College  at 
Prague,  114;  discoveries  of,  in  the 
archives  of  the  Vienna  Library,  184 
et  seqq.;  accuses  the  Jesuits  of  at- 
tempting to  do  away  with  incrimin- 
ating documents  in  public  libraries, 
189;  quotes  Viennese  MS.  as  to  blind 
obedience,  338;  opposed  by  Ebuer, 
ii.  252 

Kempis,  Thomas  a,  his  "  Imitation  of 
Christ  "  must  be  read  by  all  novices, 
i.  313,  318 

Kerr,  Father,  Under-Prefect  at  Stony- 
hurst,   i.  241 

Ketteler,  Baron  Otto  von,  death  of,  ii. 
400 

Ketteler,  Baron  Wilhelm  Emanuel  von, 
advice  of,  to  the  author  on  the 
subject  of  his  entering  the  Jesuit 
Order,  i.  217-8;  his  remarkable  per- 
sonality, 220-5;  leader  of  the  Minority 
party  at  the  Vatican  Council,  220; 
author's  mother's  quarrel  with,  222; 
his  submission  to  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil. 223-4;  his  extraordinary  credu- 
lity, 224;  his  death.  225;  on  the 
question  whether  Jesuits  can  be 
compelled  to  sin,  335-6 

Kevelaer,  the  Madonna's  shrine  at,  i.  5; 
description  of  the  scenes  of  pil- 
grimage, 30 ;  the  exorcism  at  the 
feast  of  St.  Blasius  at,  31-2;  the 
ceremony  of  the  cross  of  ashes  at, 
32 ;  the  author's  fruitless  appeal  to, 
252-3 

Kiel,  the  author  migrates  to,  ii.  461 

Kink  shows  why  Jesuit  teaching  can 
never  be  national,  ii.  32;  his  opinion 
of  van  Swieten,  43;  his  account  of 
Jesuit  arrogance  towards  other 
Orders,  44-5;  expounds  the  evils  of 
scholasticism,  278-9 

Kladderadatsch  on  Jesuit  greed  and 
acquisitiveness,  i.  248 

Kleutgen,  Joseph,  ii.  255 

Kluckhohn,  August,  account  of  the  daily 
routine  at  a  Jesuit  school  by.  i. 
181-4;  on  Jesuit  unchastity,  207, 
ii.  69 


Kneller,  Father,  on  the  death  of  his 
mother  when  he  was  a  novice,  i. 
401 

Knorr,  Admiral  von,  ii.  465  (note) 

Knox,  Thomas  Francis,  his  "  Eecords  of 
English  Catholics,"  ii.  149 

Koller,  von,  advises  the  author  to  reside 
in   Kiel,  ii.  460-1 

Kblnische  Blatter  (now  Volkszeitung), 
i.  6,  ii.  340   (note) 

KSniggriitz,  Jesuit  lies  after  the  battle 
of,  i.  213;  misrepresentation  con- 
cerning, 233 

Kopp,  Cardinal,  on  Marian  Congrega- 
tions, i.  172;  his  goodwill  to  be  con- 
ciliated, ii.  399;  his  alleged  anti- 
Jesuitism,  400;  appointed  Cardinal, 
403 

Korfl  -  Schmising  -  Kerssenbrock,  Count 
Franz  Xavier,  marriage  of,  to  the 
author's  sister  Antonia,  i.  252 

Korum,  Dr.,  Bishop  of  Treves,  ii.  375 

Kostka,  Stanislaus,  an  undesirably 
"angelic"  boy,  i.  208;  festival  ot, 
285;  an  example  to  the  young,  ii. 
Ill 

Kreutzer,  Joseph,  dismissal  of,  ii.  397; 
driven  to  suicide,  398 

Kreuzzeitung,  burning  of  the,  i.  7;  the 
author's  first  articles  in,  ii.  449 

Krones  on  real  aim  of  Jesuit  activity 
in  Hungary  in   1655,   ii.   145-6 

Kropf,  Francis  Xavier.  supports  Latin 
against  German,  i.   112 

Kiibeck,   Baron   von,  i.    17 

Kullmann  attempts  the  life  of  Bismarck, 
i.   212 

Kulturkampf,  incident  in  the,  i.  8;  feel- 
ing aroused  by  the,  16;  outbreak 
of,  244;  the  fundamental  blunder  of, 
255-6;  Leo  XIII.  brings  the,  to  a 
close,  ii.  67;  unfortunate  effects  of, 
464-5 ;  the  only  possible  form  of, 
465 

"  L's,"  three,  that  deserved  hanging, 
ii.  183 

La  Chaise,  Father,  denounced  by  Fene- 
lon,  ii.  183-4 ;  Madame  de  Maintenon 
on,  185-6;  on  the  power  of  the 
Jesuits,  191;  his  country  house,  193; 
the  cemetery  of  Pere  La  Chaise,  ib.; 
shows  how  the  Jesuits  may  run  with 
the  hare  and  hunt  with  the  hounds, 
313-4 

Lacroix,  a  Jesuit  casuist,  ii.  287 

Lallemand,  author  of  the  Douai  for- 
geries, ii.    315,   316 

Lallemant,  Father,  on  lay  members 
of  the  Jesuit  Order  in  Canada,  ii. 
19 

Lamormaini,  Father,  Rector  of  the 
Jesuit  College  at  Graz,  Confessor  to 
Ferdinand  II.,  ii.  159;  procures  the 
election  of  Ferdinand  III.,  179;  his 
share  in  Wallenstein's  fate,  179-80; 
frequent  interference  of,  in  Austrian 
politics,  180-2;  his  tyranny  over 
Ferdinand  II.,  182;  how  to  produce 
an  erroneous  impression  of.  283 

Landrat,  post  of,  promised  to  the 
author,  ii.  460;  the  post  had  become 
"  impossible,"  462 

Lang,  Karl  Heinrich  von,  inquires  into 
the  charge  of  immorality  among 
Jesuits,  i.  206-7;  examples  of  vicious 
practices  cited  by,  ii.  68-9 


484 


Index 


Langen,  Professor,  decree  of  excom- 
munication against,  i.  244 

Lapidatio,  a  system  of  fault-linding  in 
the  novitiate,  i.  355 

La  Salette,  the  miraculous  spring  at. 
i.  28-9 

Lassaulx,  Amalie  von,  a  nun  who  re- 
fused to  subscribe  the  dogma  of 
infallibility,  i.  245 

Lateran,  tlie  author  climbs  the  Scala 
Santa  at  the  Church  of  St.  John  of, 
i.  268 

Lateran  Council,  Decree  of,  as  to  con- 
fession, i.  34 

Latin,  Jesuits  and  the  study  of,  i.  96-114; 
dog-Latin  of  the  Jesuit  scholastics, 
98;  novice's  Latin  more  barbarous 
still,  99-100;  the  Latin  of  the  Order 
condemned  by  Oliva,  100-1;  Latin 
always  used  for  ceremonial  purposes, 
106;  imperfectly  taught  by  Jesuits, 
193;  use  of  Latin  compulsory  in 
lectures  and  disputations,  ii.  250, 
261-2 

Latin  grammar  as  taught  by  Jesuits, 
i.   68-70 

Laurentius  on  the  supremacy  of  Church 
over  State,  ii.  344;  on  the  death 
sentence  for  heretics,  356;  his  hos- 
tility to  State  schools,  439 

Lavalette,  a  Jesuit  trader,  ii.  92-3 

Lawsuits  touching  Jesuit  misappro- 
priation of  money :  the  De  Buck 
process  at  Brussels,  ii.  99-100;  the 
Hartmann  process  at  Straubing, 
100-2  B' 

Layman  in  the  Catholic  Church  status 
of,  i.  272;  demeanour  enjoined  as 
lay  Jesuits,  358;  the  custom  of  keep- 
ing the  lay  brother  in  ignorance, 
ii.  388-9 

Laymann  favours  permissible  ambigui- 
ties,   ii.   305-7 

Laynez,  Father  Jacob  (James),  ascribes 
the  authorship  of  the  Exercises  to 
God  and  the  Virgin,  i.  370;  advised 
to  adopt  the  practice  of  insinuation, 
ii.   82;  as  a  theologian,   111 

Lazarist  Missionary  Congregation  ii.  55  • 
founded  by  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.  57 
(note) 

Leaders  in  Jesuit  schools,  duties  of  i 
144 

Le  Bret's  Magazine  of  Church  and  poli- 
tical history  and  law,  ii.  196  (note)  ■ 
on  Jesuit  doings  in  Scio,  364 

Ledochowski,  Cardinal,  receives  the 
author  at   Koine,  i.  262 

Lehmkuhl's  Theologia  moralist,  ii  248- 
his  view  of  the  Creation,  282; 'justi- 
fies the  use  of  mental  reservation, 
307-8;  adviser  of  the  German  Centre 
Party,  344;  on  the  non-observance  of 
civil  oaths  345-6;  when  civil  laws 
may  be  disregarded,  346-9;  condemns 
religious  toleration,  351-2;  his  per- 
sonal character,  368 

Leibnitz  (Leibniz),  Godfrey  William, 
Baron,  on  the  dangers  of  Jesuit 
activity  in  politics,  ii.  196;  on  Jesuit 
morality,  294;  on  the  Douai  for- 
geries, 315-6 

Leo  XII.,  Pope,  detested  by  the  Jesuit 
Order,  ii.  373-4,  374  (note) 

Leo  XIII.,  Pope,  sanctions  the  Lourdes 
pilgrimages,  i.  258:  intercedes  for 
the  restoration  of  the  author's  sister 


Marie,  268 ;  canonises  Johannes  Bech- 
manus,  309;  provokes  the  hostility 
of  the  Jesuits,  ii.  66;  effects  an  end 
to  the  Kulturkampf,  67;  his  mani- 
festoes against  modern  research  and 
learning.  270,  271 ;  on  the  supremacy 
of  Church  over  State,  338 

Leon,  John,  i.  164 

Le  Koux  on  the  deathbed  repentance 
of  the  wicked,  ii.  300-1 

Lessing,  L.  von  Hammerstein's  apprecia- 
tion of,  ii.   232-3 

Libellus  exercitiorum,  i.  380 

Liberalism  of  thought  and  research, 
Jesuit  attitude  to,  ii.  270-85 

Libraries  at  Jesuit  schools,  character 
of,  i.    152-3 

Lieber,  Leader  of  the  German  Centre,  in 
consultation  with  the  Jesuits,  ii.  16o; 
character  of,  402;  his  annoyance  at 
the  Kaiser's  interview  with  the 
author,  459;  attacks  the  author,  460 

Liege,  the  schools  of  the  "  Brothers  of 
the  Common  Life"  at,  i.  63;  the  un- 
just judge  and  the  witch  at,  ii. 
302,  303 

Liguieres,  De,  Father,  how  he  confessed 
Louis  XV.,  ii.  192 

Ligny,  Professor,  entrapped  into  a  sham 
correspondence  at  Douai,  ii.  315 

Liguori,  Alfonso  Maria  di,  canonised  by 
Gregory  XVI.,  ii.  286;  his  teaching 
implicitly  accepted,  287;  on  calum- 
niation. 308;  on  adultery,  309 

Link,  Father,  the  author's  confessor  at 
Feldkirch,  i.  202;  nobility  of  his 
character,  208-10 ;  his  sympathy  with 
boys,  209;  on  the  question  of  school- 
boy friendship,  210 ;  counsels  the 
author  when  eflorts  are  being  made 
to  induce  him  to  enter  the  Jesuit 
Order,  217 

"Little  Table,"  penalty  of  the,  i.  203 

Liverpool,  terrible  social  conditions  of, 
ii.  413 

Loe,  Baron  Felix  von,  intensity  of  hia 
dislike  of  Protestant  Prussia,  i.  212; 
a  surprise  visit  to  Blyenbeck,  ii. 
76 

Loe,  Matilda.  Baroness  von.  (See  Hoens- 
broech,  Matilda,  Marchioness  of) 

Loe.  Max,  Count  von,  on  priestly  pride, 
i.  24;  quarrels  with  his  sister  about 
Prince  Bismarck.  212 

Loe.  Walther,  Baron  von,  Field-Marshal, 
resides  at  Bonn,  i.  245;  connives  at 
the  disqualification  of  the  author 
for  military  service,  253-4 ;  regrets 
the  author's  entrance  into  the  Jesuit 
Order,  405 ;  change  of  his  views  in 
old  age,  406;  opinion  of  Longridge's 
gun,  ii.  218 

Loffler,  Father,  eulogises  the  Marian 
Congregations,  i.  166 :  claims  Jesuit 
direction  for  them,  167-8;  describes 
their  foes,  176;  extols  the  fruits  of 
their  piety,  178;  arrogance  of  his 
praise,  180 

Lohmann,  Father,  as  an  art  critic,  ii. 
397;  harshness  of,  towards  Kreutzer, 
398 

Longridge,  Cecil,  and  his  new  gun,  ii. 
218 

Louis  XIII.,   Jesuits  and,   ii.   183 

Louis  XVI.  and  Father  La  Chaise,  ii. 
183-4;  his  fear  of  the  Jesuits,  191-2; 
his  present  to  Father  La  Chaise,  193 


Index 


485 


Louis  XV.,  how  he  was  confessed  by 
Father  de  Lignieres,  ii.  192 

Lourdes,  the  author  undertakes  a  jour- 
ney to,  i.  253,  257;  the  miracle  at, 
25b;  the  wonder-working  spring  at, 
16.;  revenue  derived  from  the  pil- 
grimages to,  ib.  (note);  intoxication 
of   the   "atmosphere"   at,  258-9 

Love,  Jesuit  degradation  of,  ii.  269 

Loyola,  Ignatius,  putative  enlighten- 
ment of,  i.  76 ;  denunciation  enjoined 
by,  140;  originated  (Spiritual  Exor- 
cises, 162;  examples  of  his  hysterical 
mysticism,  299-o02;  on  the  virtue  of 
obedience,  328-30;  the  non-morality 
of  his  commands  exposed,  330-6; 
author  of  the  Exercises  at  the  dic- 
tatiou  of  the  \irgin  and  God,  370; 
how  the  composition  was  actually 
suggested  to  uim,  371;  original  in- 
tention of,  in  writing  the  Exercises, 
379;  founder  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
407 ;  author  of  the  Constitutions, 
ib.;  recognises  affiliates,  ii.  16-17; 
canonisation  of,  21-2,  111;  founder 
of  the  Inquisition,  23;  advises  how 
the  Order  may  acquire  wealth,  82; 
enjoins  intercourse  only  with  women 
of  very  high  rank,  127 ;  rebufls 
Elisabeth  Koser,  129;  his  considera- 
tion for  tne  Duchess  of  Parnese, 
ib.;  appoints  confessors  to  sover- 
eigns, 169;  the  incarnation  of  pru- 
dence   and   calculation,    424-5 

Luca,  De,  on  capital  punishment  for 
heretics,  ii.  355 

Ludger,  St.,  the  civilisation  of,  ii. 
439 

Lugo  favours  the  use  of  ambiguity,  ii. 
305 

Lukanus  thwarts  the  Kaiser's  wishes,  ii. 
460 ;  Waldersee's  attempt  to  check- 
mate, 461;  the  author  declines  the 
proposals  of,  462 

Lumina,  character  of,  i.  297-8 

L'Univers,  i.  6;  supports  Papal  infalli- 
bility. 222 

Luther,  that  "'horrible  monster,"  ii.  21; 
his  "blasphemous  tongue,"  22;  the 
"Epicurean  swine,"  24;  scurrilous 
account  of,  358-63;  Luther's  suicide! 
360  and  note;  views  on  polygamy, 
362 

Lutheranism,  an  object  of  Jesuit  hos- 
tility, ii.  21-4 

"  Lutherisch,"  Jesuit  pronunciation  of 
the  word,  ii.  29-30 

Lying  made  easy,  ii.  302-3 

Macao,   death  of   Cardinal-Legate  Tour- 
non  at,  ii.  54;  Bi3hop  of,  excommuni- 
cated,   59;    the    Jesuit    church    and 
seminary  at,  ib. 
Macaulay,  Lprd,  his  criticism  of  Edward 
Petre,  ii.   153;  on  the  versatility  of 
Jesuits,  197 
MacMahon.  Marshal,  i.  232 
Magdeburg,  Jesuit  greed  at,  ii.  93 
Maggio.  Father,  confe3sor  of  Rudolf  II., 

ii.   178 
Magister  meals  of  Jesuits,  ii.  75-7 
Magistri,  Jesuit  fathers  who  had  charge 
of    the   lessons   at   Feldkirch,    i.    57: 
no  prospects  for,  85 ;  their  loathing 
of  teaching,  86 
Maierot,   Bishop,  banished  at  the  insti- 
gation of  the  Jesuits,  ii.  59 ;  decrees 


against,   issued   by    the   Emperor  of 
Oniua,  64 

Mainteuou,  Madame  de,  on  the  activi- 
ties of  Father  La  Chaise,  ii.  185-6 

Mairhofer,  M.,  Rector  01  the  Jesuit  col- 
lege at  Munich,  ii.  143 

Malagrida  advises  the  murder  of  King 
Joseph  of  Portugal,  ii.  336 

Malta,  apparitions  of  the  Madonna  at 
the  Jesuit  college  at,  i.  323 

Malvasia,  Monsignore,  on  the  attempt  to 
restore  by  force  Catholicism  in  Scot- 
land, ii.  148-9 

Mamachi's  theory  of  crime,  ii.  366 

Manaraus,  Oliverius,  approves  Delrio's 
work  in  favour  of  untruthfulness, 
ii.  303 

Manchester,  terrible  social  conditions 
of,  ii.  413 

Manning,  Cardinal-Archbishop,  author's 
interview  with,  i.  239;  iiostiiity  to 
Jesuits,  239-40;  on  Jesuit  niiscnief- 
making  in  politics,  ii.  163-4;  calum- 
niated by  the  Jesuits,  299 

Manresa,  Loyola's  stay  at,  i.  371 

Mansonius,  Father  Ludovicus,  relates  an 
apparition  of  Jesus  sanctioning 
blind  obedience,  i.  340 ;  the  same  ap- 
parition also  requires  all  to  love  his 
society,  ii.  110 

Manuductor,  the  duties  of,  i.  271,  393 

Marechal,  disclosures  of,  as  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Jesuits  over  Louis 
XIV'.,  ii.  191-2 

Marellus,  Jacobus,  the  loves  of,  i.  206, 
ii.  68 

Maria-Laach,  i.  230 

Maria  Theresa,  Empress,  intervenes  on 
behalf  of  German  in  the  Jesuit 
schools,  i.  114;  supports  Gerhard 
van  Swieten  against  the  Jesuits,  ii. 
43  and  note;  betrayal  by  the  Jesuits 
of  her  confession,  174-6;  her  scruples 
as  to  the  partition  of  Poland,  176; 
her  opinion  of  Jesuit  learning,  279-80 

Marian  Congregations  considered,  i. 
163-80;  significance  of,  164;  the 
founders  of,  ib.;  controlled  by  the 
Jesuits,  165-72;  pliability  of,  166;  aim 
of,  168;  tercentenary  of,  170;  ad- 
ministration of,  174;  power  of  the 
president,  175;  vow  taken  by  all 
congreganists,  ib.;  alleged  educa- 
tional purpose  of.  177;  supervision 
effected  by,  ib. ;  doubtful  value  of,  179  j 
extravagant  claims  on  behalf  of,  180 

Mariana,  Juan,  on  Jesuit  neglect  of 
Latin,  i.  103;  applauds  the  murder 
of  Henry  III.  of  France,  ii.  144;  his 
De  Eege  et  Regis  Institute  one ,  327; 
the  book  licensed  by  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  328;  Mariana's  teaching  as  to 
the  killing  of  tyrants  and  princes 
328-31;  the  Mayence  reprint  of  his 
book,  332:  book  burned  at  the  order 
of  the  Sorbonne,  333 

Marks,  reading  out  of.  at  Jesuit  schools, 
mischief  of,  i.  144-5 

Marpingen,  the  alleged  apparition  of 
the  Virgin   at,  i.   266-7 

Marriage,  the  simple  vows  of  scholas- 
tics and  spiritual  and  temporal  co- 
adjutors in  the  Society  of  Jesus,  an 
impediment  to,  i.  273,  417;  Jp3uit 
degradation  of,  ii.  289 

Marseilles.  Jesuit  trading  scandal  in, 
ii.  92-3 


486 


Index 


Martin,  Dr.,  escapes  from  Wesel,  i.  257 

Martin,  Joseph,  on  the  Marian  Congre- 
gations, i.  170-1 

Martin,  Luiz,  and  the  control  of  the 
Marian  Congregations,  i.  172;  mental 
reservation  of  his  statements,  173 

Martinique,  Jesuit  trading  in.  ii.  92-3 

Marxheim,  i.  24y 

Mary,  Mouth  of,  i.  161;  Flowers  of,  ib. 
(See  Virgin) 

Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  ii.  149-53 

Mass,  character  of  the  ceremony  of  the, 
i.  22;  midnight  Mass  on  Christmas 
Eve  at  Peldkirch,  201-2 

Mass-game,  i.  22-3 

Matthieu,  Jesuit,  chief  promoter  of  the 
League  of  the  Guises,  ii.  144;  in- 
volved in  Parsons'  plot  against 
Queen  Elizabeth,  150 

May  Laws,  Jesuit  casuistry  respecting, 
i.  264 

May  meditations  in  Jesuit  education,  i. 
161 

Mayence,  the  Gymnasium  teaching  at, 
i.  118;  the  Gymnasium  at,  220;  von 
Ketteler,  Bishop  of,  and  his  charac- 
ter, 220-5;  the  "  trinity  "  of,  221;  von 
Doss,  Superior  of  the  Jesuit  settle- 
ment at,  and  his  influence,  225-9; 
Heinrich  Bone,  Director  of  the  Gym- 
nasium, 229-30,  excitement  at,  during 
the  Franco-German  War,  232;  the 
National  Union  for  Catholic  Ger- 
many founded  at,  ii.  375 

Meals,  daily,  of  the  Jesuits,  ii.  75; 
"magister"  meals,  75-7;  duplicia 
feasts,  75  (note) 

Mecklenburg,  Friedrich  Franz  III., 
Grand  Duke  of,  i.  244 

Meditations  of  the  Exercises,  i.  375-6 

Mein  Austritt  ous  dern  Jesuitenorden, 
ii.  449 

Mejer,  Otto,  lectures  of,  at  GSttingen, 
i.  122 

Melchers,  Archbishop,  arrest  and  im- 
prisonment of,  i.  257 

Memoires  de  la  Congregation  de  la 
Mission,  official  character  of,  ii.  55, 
57 ;  charges  against,  56 ;  its  state- 
ments in  the  matter  of  the  Legation 
and  death  of  Cardinal  Tournon  un- 
assailable, 58;  some  of  the  docu- 
ments it  published,  59-65 

Memorie  Storiche  dell'  Eminentissimo 
Monsignore  Cardinale  di  Tournon, 
ii.  54  et  seqq. 

Mendoza,  Cardinal,  on  Jesuit  political 
activity  against  England,  ii.  150-1 

Mendoza,  Hernando  de,  on  the  evil  of 
reserved  cases  of  sin,  i.  364-5;  de- 
nounced by  Jesuits,   364   (note) 

Menstruae  Disputationes,  ii.  248-9 

Mental  reservation,  uses  of,  i.  173.  174; 
Cardinal  Franzelin  on.  264-5;  Jesuit 
justifications  of,  ii.  304-5,  306,  307-8 

Mercurian,  General  of  the  Jesuit  Society, 
on  matters  outside  of  pastoral  func- 
tions, ii.  137-8 

Meschler,  Father,  on  the  uncertainty  of 
the  Jesuit's  calling  and  location,  i. 
88;  becomes  confessor  of  the  author's 
mother,  234  (note) ;  guarantees  the 
authenticity  of  the  apparition  of  the 
Madonna  at  Marpingen,  266 ;  ap- 
plauds the  extravagances  at  i/ourdes, 
it.:  examines  the  author  before  his 
admission  into  the  Jesuit  Order,  282; 


ascetic  practices  encouraged  by,  389- 
90;  travels  in  comfort,  ii.  132 

Meulen,  Fraulein  von,  her  influence  on 
the  author,  i.  25;  her  faith  in  gross 
supernaturalism,  26  et  seqq. 

Mezzafalce,  Papal  Legate  to  China,  per- 
secuted by  the  Jesuits,  ii.  58;  ban- 
ished through  their  means,  59 

Migazzi,  Cardinal,  on  Jesuit  flouting  of 
the  Pope,  ii.  52 

Miller,  Father,  approves  of  the  author's 
progress,  ii.  215;  experiences  an  em- 
barrassment, 225 

Minoux,  Father,  Rector  at  Feldkirch,  i. 
197 

Mio.uel  and  the  author's  interview  with 
the  Kaiser,  ii.  460 ;  his  "  collective 
policy,"  465 

Miracle  "  cures,"  i.  13 

Miranda,  on  the  difficulty  of  learning 
all  about  the  Society,  ii.  6 

Missions  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  416;  in- 
stances of  the  missionary  spirit,  ii. 
382-3 

Missions,  popular,  exercises  for  the 
masses,  i.  384;  excitement  during  the 
continuance  of,  ii.  380-1;  instances  of 
the  organisation  of,  383-4;  carried 
on  in  Germany,  384 

Modernism,  Jesuit  denunciation  of,  ii. 
271-4 

Modesty,  false,  and  its  bane,  i.  40-2 

Mohler,  Professor  Johann  Adam,  on 
Jesuit  morality,  ii.  293-4 

Molinism,  the  doctrine  of,  ii.  187;  a 
synonym  for  Jesuitism,  290 

Mommsen  asserts  that  Jesuits  attempt 
to  do  away  with  incriminating  docu- 
ments in  public  libraries,  i.   189 

Monita  privata  Societatis  Jesu,  ii.  7;  the 
question  of  its  genuineness,  7-9; 
examples  of  the  Secret  Instructions, 
10-13 

Monod,  Father,  his  influence  in  France, 
ii.  189 

Monsperger,  Professor,  confessions  of 
eminent  persons  discovered  by,  ii.  177 

Monte,  Cardinal,  avows  Jesuit  opposi- 
tion to  Lutheranism,  ii.  22 

Montezon  on  the  moral  teaching  of  the 
Jesuits,  ii.  287 

Montserrat,  Benedictine  Convent  at,  i. 
370 

Monumenta  Germaniae  paedagogica,  i. 
63  (note) ;  purpose  with  which  it  was 
compiled,  184;  spirit  in  which  the 
compilers  did  their  work,  191  (note) 

Moral  theology,  a  variant  of  the  con- 
fessional, ii.  286;  irretrievably 
damaged  by  the  Jesuits,  289,  293; 
Dollinger  and  Reusch's  great  work 
on  the  "  Moral-Theological  Dis- 
putes "  in  the  Catholic  Church,  396-7 

Morality,  Jesuit,  ii.  286-337;  unwhole- 
someness  of  Jesuit  teaching  regard- 
ing, 327;  and  the  State,  338-68;  ap- 
plication of,  363-8 

Moretus,  Balthasar,  ii.  112 

Muffendorf,  exorcising  a  ghost  at,  i.  27-8 

Munchen-Gladbach,  the  author  commis- 
sioned to  help  the  pastor  of  a  parish 
near,  ii.  420-21 

Munich,  Jesuit  documents  lodged  in  the 
library  at,  i.  189;  revelations  of  the 
secret  Jesuit  documents,  206.  207; 
documents  in,  concerning  the  Jesuits 
and    miracles,    312;    and    about    the 


Index 


487 


Jesuits  and  witchcraft,  320 ;  memo- 
rial of  the  Jesuit  College  at,  touch- 
ing blind  obedience,  338;  evidence  at, 
of  the  use  of  secret  reports  by  Jesuit 
officials,  353;  MS.  of  the  Monita  at, 
ii.  9;  luxury  of  the  Jesuit  College  at, 
81;  endowment  of  the  Jesuit  College 
in,   83-4 

Munster,  political  activity  of  the  Jesuits 
of,  ii.   160 

Music,  sensuousness  of,  affected  by 
Jesuits,  i.   160 

Mysteries  of  the  Exercises,  i.  376 

Mysticism,  false,  warmly  approved  by 
the  Jesuits,  i.  299  et  seqq.;  true, 
strongly  antipathetic  to  them,  299 

Naniur,  Jesuit  activity  at.  in  1692,  ii. 
162 

Natalia,  Father,  on  permissible  subjects 
of  talk  among  Jesuit  novices,  i.  292-3 

National  Union  for  Catholic  Germany, 
ii.  375 

Nationality,  sense  of,  obliterated  under 
the  Jesuit  education,  i.  131-3;  de- 
struction of,  required  by  the  Jesuit 
spirit  of  cosmopolitanism,  ii.  34-8 

Naumann,  Dr.  Friedrich.  his  error  re- 
specting Thomas  Aquinas,  ii.  256 
(note) 

Newnham  Paddox,  i.  242 

Nicasius  Grammaticus  on  the  barbarous 
Latinity  of  Spanish  Jesuits,  i.  103 

Nickel,  Goswin,  General,  supports  Jesuit 
activity  in  Hungary  in  1655,  ii.  145; 
one  of  the  two  German  Generals  of 
the  Order,  145  (note) ;  his  ordinance 
touching  the  confessing  of  sove- 
reigns,  173 

Nickes,  compositions  by,  i.  160 

Nidhard,  Eberhard,  ii.  158 

Niemoller,  deathbed  confession  of,  ii. 
318 

Nimeguen,  Peace  of,  ii.  42 

Nix,  Hermann,  takes  the  Wynanderade 
scholastics  to  view  the  relics  at 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  i.  323;  receives  the 
author  as  a  member  of  the  Jesuit 
Order,  407;  involved  in  the  Hart- 
mann  trial,  ii.  100-2;  character  of, 
201 ;  the  author's  indebtedness  to, 
202;  Nix's  reverence  for  the  Virgin, 
208;  his  eulogy  of  the  Jesuit  Order, 
213-4 

Noailles,  Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Paris, 
and  the  Jesuits,  ii.  192 

Noris,  H.,  Cardinal,  and  Probabilism,  ii. 
297 

Novenae.  value  of,  i.  306-7;  "  novena  of 
grace "  in  honour  of  St.  Francis 
Xavier,  323 

Novice  Master,  duties  of,  i.  271,  284, 
285,  286.  287,  290,  291,  297,  298,  318, 
355,  393 

Novitiate,  ignorance  during,  i.  99; 
novice's  Latin,  99-100;  the  novice's 
garb,  284,  285 ;  the  novice's  patron 
saint,  285-6;  daily  routine  of,  286-7; 
hardship  and  discomfort  of  life  at 
Exaeten,  288-9;  fare  of  novices,  289; 
recreations  of,  290;  oratory,  practice 
of.  during,  291 :  seclusion  during, 
292-4;  permissible  subjects  of  conver- 
sation during,  292-3;  meditation  im- 
perative, 297;  object  of  the  Lumina, 
297-8;  tale-bearing  and  fault-finding 
encouraged.   355-6;   the  novice's   all- 


seeing  eye,  557;  deadly  monotony 
of  life  of,  358-61;  full  course  of 
the  Exercises  during,  371 ;  manual 
work  during,  392-3;  modes  of  self- 
humiliation  during,  394;  penitential 
practices  in,  394-5;  the  cruelty  of 
renunciation  of  parents  in,  398-402; 
expulsion  from,  403 

Noyelle,  Charles  de,  Jesuit  General,  on 
illiterate  teachers,  i.  186 

Noyers,  Louis  XIII. 's  secretary,  a  lay 
member  of  the  Jesuit  Society,  ii.  19 

Nun,  the  confessions  of  a,  i.  260;  Jesuits 
forbidden  to  undertake  the  regular 
cure  of  nuns.  ii.  124;  avoidance  of 
nuns,  though  enjoined,  only  osten- 
sible, 131;  a  nunnery  more  comfort- 
able than  a  convent,  132;  Jesuits 
supposed  to  exist  for  men,  not 
women,  »b.;  really  women  and  nuns 
exist  for  Jesuits,  ib. 

Nursing  Orders,  self-sacrifice  of  the,  ii. 
exist  for  Jesuits,  ib. 

Oaths,  Jesuit  attitude  to  non-observance 
of  civil,  ii.  345-6;  when  oath  of  alle- 
giance may  be  ignored,  437-8  (note) 

Obedience,  the  first  law  of  Jesuits,  i. 
88;  the  vow  of,  273;  the  dominant 
note  in  Jesuit  ascetic  discipline,  326 
et  seqq,;  the  three  degrees  of,  328; 
Jesuit  obedience  absolutely  non- 
moral,  330-6;  as  enjoined  by  Jesus, 
333-4;  how  the  Jesuit  doctrine  com- 
pels to  sin,  335-6;  Jesuit  defence  of 
the  doctrine  of,  336;  testimony  of 
history  to  breach  of  the  vow,  ii. 
50-67 

Observator,  duties  of,  i.  138-9 

Old  Catholics,  Jesuit  attitude  towards, 
i.  244-5 

Oldenburg,  Grand  Duke  of,  i.  244 

Oliva,  Paul,  on  poor  quality  of  Jesuit 
Latin,  i.  100,  101;  condones  breach 
of  the  "  Statement  of  Conscience," 
346;  condemns  Gonzalez's  work  on 
Probabilism,  ii.  50;  disobeys  the 
Papal  injunction,  51 

Omnia  ad  majorem  Dei  gloriam,  motto 
of  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  365,  ii.  106 

Oncken,  Hermann,  his  Rudolf  von  Ben- 
nigsen,  ii.  344  (note) 

Oosen,  the  Jesuit  villa  at,  ii.  77;  equi- 
vocation associated  with  its  pur- 
chase, 319 

Oppelt,  Johannes,  an  approved  German 
classic  in  Jesuit  eyes,  i.  110  (note) 

Orders  in  the  Catholic  Church,  status 
of  monastic,  i.  272;  essentials  of  an 
Order,  273;  wealth  of  the  French 
Orders,  274  (note);  artificial  basis  of, 
276-7;  why  they  are  filled,  278;  the 
disillusionment,  279;  the  steps  of 
membership  of  an  Order,  280  et  seqq.; 
the  impediments  to  membership, 
280-1;  the  garb  of  the  Jesuit  Order, 
284-5;  exaggerated  opinions  of  the 
perfection  of  the  members  of  various 
Orders,  ii.  377-8;  the  common  life 
within  the  Jesuit  Order,  376  80; 
heroism  of  the  nursing  Orders,  378 
(note);  most  Orders  free  from  the 
gross  defects  of  the  Jesuit  Order, 
424 

Ordinations,  the  four  minor,  ii.  215 

Ordrupshoj,  Denmark,  Jesuit  school  at, 
i.    53;    the    benefactress    of,    ii.    167; 


488 


Index 


"  harmless "     place     for     men      of 

thought,  268 
Original  sin,  doctrine  of,  ii.  224 
Orlandinus    on    the    authorship    of    the 

Constitutions,  i.  408 
Oswald,  Augustine,  ii.  413 

Pachtler,  Georg  Michael,  defends  the 
Jesuit  system  of  education,  i.  63 
(note);  attacks  freemasonry,  64 
(note);  one  of  the  only  two  profes- 
sional teachers  at  Feldkirch,  72; 
approves  a  crystallised  scheme  of 
education,  83 ;  tries  to  veil  the 
selfishness  of  Jesuit  education,  84; 
admits  the  centralisation  of  the 
Jesuit  Order,  92;  his  lack  of  the 
historic  conscience,  191;  examined 
the  author  before  his  admission  to 
the  Order,  282;  attacks  Leo  XIII., 
ii.  67 

Paderborn,  MS.  copy  of  the  Monita  at, 
ii.  9,  10 

Palafox,  Don  Juan  de,  Bishop  of  Los 
Angeles,  protest  of,  against  the  secret 
statutes  of  the  Jesuits,  ii.  6-7;  perse- 
cuted by  the  Jesuits,  6 ;  calumniated 
by  the  Jesuits,  86-7  (note);  proposed 
beatification  of,  ib. 

Palestrina,  Masses  by,  in  Jesuit  worship, 
i.  160 

Palmieri,  Domenico,  in  conflict  with  the 
censorship,  ii.  269;  on  the  use  of 
equivocation,  307 

Papacy,  the  character  of,  ii.  392;  a 
purely  human  institution,  406.  (See 
Pope) 

Papal  States,  independence  of,  ii.  166; 
attempt  to  galvanise  the  question, 
391-2.     (See  Pope) 

Paris,  the  author's  sojourn  at,  ii.  421 

Parsons,  Father  Robert,  engaged  in 
Jesuit  activity  in  England,  ii.  46,  111; 
his  plot  against  Queen  Elizabeth, 
149-53;  his  many  pseudonyms,  151 
(note);  his  political  pamphlets,  151, 
152;  and  the  deposition  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  312;  object  of  his  book 
against  the  succession  of  the  King 
of  Scotland,  313-4;  on  the  repudiation 
of  the  oath  of  allegiance,  437-8 
(note) 

Passau,  endowment  of  the  Jesuit  College 
at,  ii.  84 

Passionei,  Cardinal,  author  of  the 
Memorie  storiche  Tournon,  ii.  56; 
annotates  the  Jesuit  memorial  to 
Innocent  XIII.,  60-1  (note) 

Passow's  Lexicon,  uses  of,  i.  123-4 

Patriotism,  Christian  view  of,  ii.  34; 
what  the  Jesuits  put  in  its  place, 
35;  essential  characteristics  of  real, 
35-6;  "two-faced"  patriotism,  37 

Paul  III.,  Pope,  issues  the  Bull  found- 
ing the  Society  of  Jesus,  i.  407, 
413 

Paul  V.,  Pope,  canonises  Loyola,  ii.  Ill; 
at  war  with  Venice,  364 

Paul  the  Hermit,  the  questions  asked 
by,  i.  293 

Paulsen,  Friedrich,  lectures  on  Modern 
Philosophy  at  Berlin  University,  ii. 
404 

Peking,  usurious  practices  of  the  Jesuits 
in,   ii.    88.    89 

Pemble,  Father,  on  the  undergarment 
and  seamless  cloak  of  Jesus  and  the 


wood  of  the  Cross,  i.  304-5;  his 
booklet  about  the  Virgin,  ii.  207 

Penitential  practices  in  the  novitiate,  i. 
394-5 

Pere  La  Chaise  cemetery,  ii.  193 

Pereyra,  Thomas,  Superior  of  the  Por- 
tuguese Jesuits,  and  Cardinal  Tour- 
non,  ii.  60   et   sega. 

Perfection,  counsel  of,  i.  273-6 

Pergen,  Count,  memorial  to  tne  Empress 
Maria  Theresa  on  the  imperfect 
study  of  German  in  the  Jesuit  curri- 
culum, i.  114;  deplores  the  neglect 
of  poor  scholars,  146-7;  animadverts 
on  the  deticiences  of  Jesuit  educa- 
tion, 194-5 

Perjury,  Jesuit  notion  of,  ii.  305-6 

Pesch,  Tilmann,  gives  way  to  jealousy 
and  abuse,  ii.  131-2;  how  he  enjoys 
the  appearance  of  scholarship,  277; 
his  "Christ  oder  Anti-Christ,"  357; 
defames  Protestantism  and  slanders 
Luther,  358-63;  favours  an  extremist 
policy  against  non-Catholic  Chris- 
tians, 375;  is  refused  the  author's 
collaboration,  394-5 

Petre,  Edward,  the  evil  counsellor  of 
James  II.,  ii.  153-5;  attitude  of  the 
Jesuit  Order  towards,  155-8 

Petri,  Dr.,  and  Jesuit  designs  against 
the  Hohenzollerns,  ii.  384-5 

Pfeil,  Aloysius,  on  the  effective  conver- 
sion of  the  heathen,  ii.  382-3 

Pfiilf,  Father,  and  A.  von  Doss's  lecture 
and  article  on  German  classics,  i. 
227,  228 

Philip  II.  of  Spain  implicated  in  Par- 
sons' plot  against  Queen  Elizabeth, 
ii.  149-53 

Philip  V.  of  Spain,  violation  of  a  con- 
fession of,  by  his  confessor,  ii.  178; 
the  victim  of  Jesuit  intrigues, 
189 

Philosophy  in  the  Jesuit  sense,  ii.  246; 
the  course  of  the  study  of,  in  the 
scholasticate,  246-7;  what  is  compre- 
hended by,  247-8;  Aristotle  supreme 
in,  250-3 

Piaget  on  the  Jesuit  Order,  ii.  425  and 
note 

Piccolomini,  General,  and  the  study  of 
Aristotle,  ii.  252-3 

Piety,  in  Jesuit  education,  various 
phases  of,  i.  158-63;  of  the  Jesuit 
Order,  295  et  seqq.;  objects  of  the 
Lumina,  297-8;  battens  on  mawkish 
mysticism,  299  et  seqq.;  disregard  of 
the  Scriptures  as  a  means  of  edifica- 
tion, 318 ;  the  sole  use  of  the  New 
Testament  in.  ib.;  belief  in  devils 
and  witchcraft  a  feature  of,  319-23; 
the  part  played  by  relics  in,  324-5 

Pilgrimages,  wickedness  and  degradation 
of,  ii.  212 

Pingsmann,  Dr.,  on  the  return  of  the 
Jesuits  to  Germany,  ii.  47 

Pius  V.,  Pope,  excommunication  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  by,  ii.  311 

Pius  VII.,  Pope,  restores  the  Jesuit 
Order,  ii.   135 

Pius  IX.,  Pope,  overcome  by  the  secrets 
at  La  Salette,  i.  28;  alleged  hopes 
respecting  France.  238;  sanctions  the 
Lourdes  pilgrimages,  258;  unattrac- 
tive personality  of,  262;  his  cast-off 
clothes  as  relics,  263;  his  manifestoes 
anent  modern  research  and  learning. 


Index 


489 


ii.    270,    271;    on   the   supremacy    of 
Church  over  State.  339 

Pius  X.,  Pope,  enjoins  absolute  docility, 
i.  51;  sanctions  the  Lourdes  pil- 
grimages, 258;  his  syllabus  against 
Modernism,  ii.  270;  on  the  supremacy 
of  Church  over  State.  338 

Plantin  Press  produces  the  Imago,  ii. 
112-3 

Plautus  as  a  theologian,  i.  102 

Poland,  Jesuit  political  intrigues  in,  ii. 
138,  139;  the  candidature  for  the 
throne  of,  146-8;  Maria  Theresa  and 
the  partition  of,   176 

Politics  and  the  Jesuit  Order,  ii.  133-98; 
Jesuit  political  ability  greatly  over- 
rated, 136  and  note;  the  "con- 
science" formula  in,  170-1;  Hoffaus 
on  the  evils  of  Jesuit  interference 
in  temporal  affairs,  193-4 

Pombal,  Marquis  of,  his  scheme  to  unite 
Portugal  to  England  thwarted  by 
the  Jesuits,  ii.  163 

Pondicherry,  Jesuit  trading  at,  ii.  91 

Pontah  (Spanmuller),  Jacob,  on  the 
abuses  in  the  Jesuit  system  of  in- 
struction, i.  189-91 

Ponte,  Father  Louis  de,  on  the  author- 
ship of  the  Exercises,  i.  370 

Pope,  the,  relations  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus  to,  i.  412;  the  Jesuits  claim  to 
be  the  bodyguard  of,  ii.  50;  Jesuit 
resistance,  active  or  passive,  to,  51, 
52,  53,  53-66,  66-7;  on  the  supreme 
power  of  the  Pope  in  civil  matters, 
339;  is  the  Pope  the  Vicar  of  Christ? 
392 ;  the  price  the  Pope  has  had  to 
pay  for  Jesuit  support,  428;  the 
"  direct "  power  of  the  Pope,  no 
longer  tenable,  replaced  by  the  "  in- 
direct," 428.     (See  Papal,  Papacy) 

Porquet,  Father,  on  the  Chinese  rites 
adopted  by  the  Jesuits,  ii.  64; 
excommunicated  by  the  Cardinal 
Legate  Tournon,  ib. 

Porsch.  Dr.,  and  the  author's  Church 
and  State  pamphlet,  ii.  393 

Portico,  the  residence  for  theology 
students  at,  i.  287;  the  author  enters, 
ii.  411;  his  experiences  at.  413-4 

Portugal,  political  activity  of  the  Jesuits 
in,  ii.  162-3 

Possevin,  Anton,  Jesuit  political  agent 
at  Stockholm,  ii.  138;  receives  John 
III.  into  the  Catholic  Church,  ib,; 
intervenes  in  the  affairs  of  Poland, 
139 

Postulancy,  the  stage  preceding  the 
novitiate,  i.  228;  the  period  of  pro- 
bation, 280;  the  preliminary  exam- 
ination for,  280-2 

Pottgeisser,  Julius,  General  Prefect  at 
Feldkirch,  i.  145;  introduces  the  game 
of  "running  the  gauntlet,"  156-7;  a 
narrow-minded  martinet.   210 

Poverty,  the  Jesuit  attitude  to,  i.  147-8 ; 
the  vow  of,  273;  the  counsel  of 
poverty  examined,  273-5;  scope  of  the 
vow  of,  ii.  71-4;  habitual  disregard 
of,  74-104 
Praetor,  duties  of,  i.  138-41 
Prague,  the  Jesuit  College  at,  contained 
no  German  classic  in  1772,  i.  114  j 
MS.  of  the  Monita  at.  ii.  9;  Jesuits 
secure  the  control  of  the  University 
of,  52-3;  Jesuits  and  the  Carolinian 
Academy  at,  110 


Prantl,  his  account  of  Jesuit  intrigues 
in  the  Ludwig-Maximilian  University 
at  Ingolstadt,  ii.  38-40 

Prat  on  tne  dealings  of  the  Jesuits  and 
the  French  League,  ii.  161-2;  on 
Father  Coton's  interference  in  French 
politics,  183 

Prays.  Father,  calumnious  work  on  the 
Chinese  Missions,  ii.  66  (note) 

Prayer,  the  chief  function  of  true  re- 
ligion,  ii.  465,   457 

Predestination,  Jesuit  view  of,  i.  251; 
security  of  salvation  and  probability 
of  damnation,  403-5 

Prefects,  Jesuit  Fathers  who  super- 
intended pupils  at  Feldkirch,  i.  57; 
no  prospects  for,  85;  prefects  of  the 
novices  at  Exaeten,  290 

Prelection,   i.  94 

Preludes  of  the  Exercises,  i.  373 

Premonstrams,  Jesuit  opposition  to,  at 
Magdeburg,  ii.  98 

Preussische  Jahrbiicher,  the  author's 
articles  in  the,  ii.  449 

Pride  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  ii.  105- 
23 

Priest  in  the  Catholic  Church,  status  of. 
i.  272;  his  part  in  the  Mass,  ii. 
219-21;  course  of  studies  and  dis- 
cipline necessary  for,  i.  271-390,  ii. 
227-69 

Priests,  German  Catholic,  i.  23-4 

Princes'  confessors,  influence  in  politics 
of,  ii.  135;  the  salaries  of,  193 

Privatdozent.  the  post  of,  ii.  463 

Probabilism,  the  Pope's  order  respecting 
works  on,  ii.  50-1 :  the  mischief  of, 
293 

Procuratorial  Congregation  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  i.  424 

Procurator,  status  of,  in  the  Jesuit 
Order,  i.  354  (note) :  two  classes  of, 
424 

Professed  members  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  qualifications  for,  i.  414-5; 
vow  of,  417-8;  five  minor  vows  of, 
418 

Promotor  Fidei,  duties  of,   ii.  86  (note) 

Property,  renunciation  of,  by  intending 
priests,  ii.   215 

Proselytising   at  Jesuit  schools,  i.   157-8 

Protestantism,  qualified  by  tradition, 
i.  6;  relations  of  Ultramontanism 
towards,  9;  weakness  of  its  view 
respecting  art,  46-7;  antagonism  with 
Catholicism  after  the  close  of  the 
Franco-German  War,  232-3;  travesty 
of,  ii.  358-63;  the  Jesuits  of  Pro- 
testantism, 451;  ignorance  of  Catho- 
licism too  common  in  the  ranks 
of,  ib. 

Provinces  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  416; 
how  they  are  governed,  424 

Provincial  Congregation  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  i.  424 

Prussia,  Catholic  dislike  of  Protestantism 
of,  i.  8-9;  boycott  of  history  of,  at 
Feldkirch.  122 
Purgatory,  suffering  souls  in,  the  coun- 
terpart of  ghosts,  i.  26 
Piitz.  Father,  singular  conduct  of,  ii. 
393 

Qnestor   in   Jesuit    schools,    duty  of,   i. 

144 
Quintinye,    La,    on    Jesuit   morality,   ii. 

300 


490 


Index 


Eacke's  attack  on  Lieber.  ii.  402 

Eackelwitz,  in  Saxony,  i.  234  (note);  the 
author's  brother-in-law  buried  at, 
267 

Eagnsa,  Latin  and  Greek  in  the  JeBuit 
high  school  at,  i.  69 

Ranee,  Armand  de,  Abbe,  on  Jesuit 
morals,  ii.  290;  treatment  of,  by  the 
Jesuits,   291,  299 

Eanke,  why  the  "  History  of  the  Popes  " 
by,  is  forbidden,  ii.  273;  influence  of, 
on  the  author,  406 

Eatgeb,  Father  Jacob,  justifies  the 
alleged  removal  from  public  libraries 
of  documents  incriminating  Jesuits, 
i.  189;  about  the  doubts  concerning 
the  completeness  of  the  Constitu- 
tions, ii.  2;  on  the  return  of  the 
JesuitB  to  Germany,  47;  consults 
with  the  leaders  of  the  German 
Centre,  165;  approves  of  the  author's 
progress  in  philosophy  and  theology, 
269;  termination  of  the  author's  in- 
timacy with,  372-4;  commissions  the 
author  to  write  in  defence  of  the 
Jesuit  Order,  393;  on  Dollinger  and 
Reusch's  book  on  the  "  Moral-Theo- 
logical Disputes,"  396-7;  commissions 
the  author  to  go  to  Berlin  to  prepare 
for  a  Jesuit  settlement  there,  399- 
400;  consents  to  the  author's  ter- 
tiate,  411 

Ratio  conscientiae,  i.  342  et  seqq. 

Ratio  Studiorum  Societatis  Jesu,  the 
be-all  and  end-all  of  the  Jesuit 
system  of  education,  i.  63-111;  its 
prescription  as  to  Physics,  65-6;  as 
to  Mathematics,  67;  as  to  History, 
ib.;  as  to  the  Natural  Sciences,  ib.; 
as  to  Theology  and  Philosophy,  68; 
as  to  Scholarship  and  Philology, 
68-70;  fulsome  and  ridiculous  praise 
of,  74-6;  egotism  of,  82;  the  system 
of  education  authorised  by,  135  et 
seqq.;  on  hostility  to  heretics,  ii. 24-5; 
considers  the  execution  of  heretics 
an  edifying  sight,  356-7 

Eavaillac,  murder  of  Henry  IV.  of 
France  by,  ii.  333 

Eavignan  on  Jesuit  support  of  the  re- 
volution in  Portugal,  ii.  162-3;  on 
the  struggle  of  the  Order  with 
Gonzalez  and  the  Pope.  295-6 

Eeal  Presence,  doctrine  of  the,  i.  199; 
the  essence  of  the  Catholic  priest- 
hood, ii.  219;  the  dogmatic  teaching 
of  the  Church  respecting  the,  219-22 

Regulae  jCommunes,  ii.  2 

Rejerendar,  or  county  court  judge,  i. 
264;  the  author  appointed  to  the 
office  at  Cleves,  265;  difficulty  of  his 
reappointment  to,  ii.  459;  is  offered 
the  post  of,  at  Frankfort-on-the- 
Oder,  462 

Reformation,  Jesuit  scheme  to  undo  the, 
ii.  159 

Regulae  Communes,  ii.  2 

Beichensperger,  August,  on  Jesuit  poli- 
tical activity,  ii.  166 

Eeichmann,  his  praise  of  Tilmann  Pesch, 
ii.  357;  how  he  dealt  with  the 
calumny  of  Luther's  suicide,  360 
(note);  collaborates  with  Tilmann 
Pesch,  395   (note) 

Eeinhold.  Professor  Karl  Leonard,  on 
the  Jesuit  rule  commanding  renun- 
ciation of  parents,  i.  399-400 


Eeinkens,  Bishop,  Bonn  students'  rude- 
ness towards,  i.  245 

Eeisach,  Cardinal  Count,  once  Arch- 
bishop of  Munich  and  afterwards 
President  of  the  Vatican  Council,  i. 
237;  his  prediction  about  France 
speedily  falsified,   238 

Eelics,  Pope's  cast-off  clothes  utilised  as, 
i.  263 ;  at  the  Church  of  St.  John 
of  Lateran,  268;  at  Aix-la-Chapelle 
described,  324-5;  the  author's  misery 
at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  ii.  212 

Eeligion,  the  chief  function  of  true,  ii. 
455;  what  constitutes  true,  456;  the 
only  basis  of  true,  456-8 

Eem,  Father  Jacob,  visited  by  the  souls 
of  the  dead,  i.  310-1 ;  his  pity  im- 
mortalised by  Biedermann,  311 

Eemigius,  the  strange  case  of,  ii.  346-9 

Eenewal  of  vows,  ii.  389 

Eeports,  the  method  and  character  of, 
in  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  352-5 

Eesidences  of  Jesuits,  i.  78 

Eetz,  Francis,  General,  laments  the 
decay  of  the  zeal  for  knowledge,  i. 
185 

Eeusch,  Professor,  decree  of  excommuni- 
cation against,  i.  244;  accepts  as 
probable  the  report  of  the  poisoning 
of  Cardinal  Tournon,  ii.  55;  his 
"  History  of  the  Moral-Theological 
Disputes "  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
396-7 

Eeutsch,  Father  Karl,  forbids  the  ad- 
mittance of  boys  to  the  bedroom  of 
his  brotherhood,  i.  203 

Ehenish-Westphalia,  Catholics  of,  and 
their  hatred  of  Prussia,  i.  8-9;  de- 
fective education  in,  10;  their  strong 
pro-Austrian  attitude  in  the  war 
with  Prussia,  211;  fanaticism  of, 
concerning  the  doctrine  of  infalli- 
bility, 221-2 

Ehetoric,  studies  of,  during  the  scholas- 
ticate,  ii.  230-45 

Eibadeneira  on  the  authorship  of  the 
Constitutions,  i.  408 

Eiembauer,  Father  Franz,  confesses  to 
the  murder  of  a  woman,  ii.  367-8 

Eiezler,  Sigmund,  on  Loyola's  piety  and 
asceticism,  i.  299  (note);  on  the  effect 
of  Jesuit  piety  in  Bavaria,  319;  on 
Duhr's  untrustworthiness,  ii.  283 

Eist,  M.,  illustrates  the  Jesuit  notions 
of  patriotism,  ii.  37;  relates  how 
peace  may  be  made  with  the  Church, 
381 

Eivalry  in  Jesuit  schools,  unwholesome, 
i.  143-4 

Eodriguez,  Alonzo,  on  simplicity  in 
Jesuit  garb,  i.  285;  sanctity  attached 
to  his  "  Practice  of  Christian  Per- 
fection," 313-4;  quotations  from  this 
work  as  examples  of  credulity.  314-8; 
on  blind  obedience,  339-40;  his  ex- 
cessive literalism.  389;  is  assured 
that  no  Jesuit  will  be  damned,  404; 
on  the  authorship  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, 408 

Roermond,  i.  283 

Boh,  Father,  teaches  the  author,  i.  34; 
proposes  a  safe  bet,  ii.  320 ;  alleged 
statement  of,  about  the  Jesuit  de- 
signs against  the  Hohenzollerns,  385 

Roller.  John,  deplores  the  laziness  of 
Jesuit  teachers,  i.  187 

Rom  und  das  Zentrum,  ii.  402 


Index 


491 


Rome,  external  show  at,  i.  262;  -visit  to 

the   miraculous   image  of   Mary   at, 

263 
Roothaan,    John,    General,   re-edits   the 

Ratio  Studio-rum,  i.  63;  relates  how 

a  dismissed  Jesuit  missed  salvation, 

405;    declares    the    Jesuit    Order    is 

strictly   non-political,   ii.    133;   holds 

a    conierence   to    establish    missions 

in  Germany,  383-4 
Rosary   as    used    by   Jesuit   students,    i. 

182 
Roser,  Elisabeth,  rebuffed  by  Loyola,  ii. 

129 
Roeetti,  Professor  Costa,  avows  that  it 

is   very    probable   all   Jesuits   go  to 

heaven,  i.  405 
Rosignoli,     Father,    extracts    from    his 

"  Pity    the   Souls   in    Purgatory,"   i. 

305-6 
Roth,  Hugo,  ii.  314 
Rothe,   influence  of,  on  the  author,  ii. 

406 
Roux,   Le,  on  the  deathbed  repentance 

of  the  godless,  ii.  300-1,  381-2 
Ruga,  Father,  ii.  17-8 
Rules  concluding  the  Exercises,  i.  376 
Rumer,  Rector  of  the  Jesuit  College  at 

Passau,  ii.  159-60 
Ryswick.  peace  of,  ii.  42 

Sabbatina  disputation,  ii.  248-9 

Saint  {Sanctus),  the  title  of  the  canon- 
ised, i.  310  (note) 

St.  Hedwig's  Infirmary,  the  headquarters 
of  the  Jesuits  in  Berlin,  ii.  411 
(note) 

Saint-Simon,  the  Duke  de,  recognises 
the  existence  of  lay  members  of  the 
Jesuit  Society,  ii.  19 ;  his  anecdote 
about  chocolate  for  the  General,  104; 
of  the  Jesuits  at  Namur,  162  and 
note;  on  Jesuit  influence  at  the 
courts  of  Europe,  167-8 ;  his  portrait 
of  Tellier,  186-8 ;  his  note  about 
Father  Bermudez,  188 ;  his  opinion 
of  Father  D'Aubanton.  189;  on  the 
pressure  brought  to  bear  by  the 
Jesuits  on  Louis  XIV..  191-2 

Salmeron,  Alphonso,  a  famous  Jesuit 
theologian,  ii.  Ill 

Sanchez,  disgraceful  character  of  his 
writings,  ii.  289-90 ;  favours  the  use 
of  ambiguity,  304 

Santarelli's  Tractatus  de  Eaeresi  ap- 
proved by  the  Jesuit  Society,  and 
condemned  by  the  Sorbonne,  ii. 
312 

Sarasa,  Antonius  de,  on  blind  obedience, 
i.  338-9 

Sardinia,  King  of  (Charles  Emmanuel), 
on  the  wealth  and  arrogance  of  the 
Jesuits,  ii.   103 

Sarpi,  Paolo,  on  Jesuit  intrigues  in 
politics,  ii.  196;  on  Jesuit  approval 
of  the  murder  of  Henry  IV.  of 
France,  336;  on  the  conduct  of  the 
Jesuits  towards  Venice,  364-5 

Sarrazin  effects  a  deathbed  repentance, 
ii.  381 

Sattenwolf,  Father  Wenzel,  enjoined  to 
take  steps  to  raise  the  standard  of 
Latinity,  i.  101 

Scapulars,  wearing  of.  i.  21  (note) 

Schaffer,  Father  Karl.  i.  132-3 

Schall,   Adam,  ii.  60   (note) 

Scheeben,  Professor,  on  the  genuineness 


of  the  sham  apparition  at  Marpin- 
gen,  i.  266 

Schiller,  a  false  ideal  in  von  Doss's 
opinion,  i.  227;  tne  author's  bodeful 
motto  from  Schiller's  Piccolomini, 
230 ;  L.  von  Hammerstein's  estimate 
of,  ii.  232-3;  Baumgartner's  criticism 
of,  234-6 

Schleiermacher,  influence  of,  on  the 
author,  ii.  406 

Schneider,  Father  Joseph,  how  his  "  ma- 
gister "  meal  was  interrupted,  ii. 
76 

Scholastic,  the  garb  of  a,  i.  284  (note); 
is  kept  in  ignorance  of  the  history 
of  the  Order  of  Jesuits,  ii.  224-5 

Scholasticate,  meditation  during  the.  i. 
297;  study  of  the  Exercises  during 
the,  371 ;  when  the  scholasticate 
begins,  407;  duration  of,  ib.  and 
note;  simple  vows  of,  417;  uniformity 
of  the  routine  during  the,  ii.  199-200 ; 
ignorance  of  the  Order  a  peculiarity 
of  the,  224-5;  scheme  of  study  during 
the,  227-69;  humanistic  studies  dur- 
ing the.  228-9;  rhetoric  studies 
during  the,  229-45;  philosophy  and 
theology  studies  of  the,  246-9 

Scholasticism,  Jesuit,  perfect  sterility 
of,  ii.  260;  Kink  on  the  evils  of, 
278-9 

Schreiber.'s  specimens  of  subjects  selected 
for  disputation  at  Freiburg,  ii.  280-1 

Schwarzenberg.  Prince,  and  the  German 
Empire's  indebtedness  to  the  Jesuits, 
ii.  85 

Scio,  how  the  Jesuits  Christianised  the 
Mohammedans  of,  ii.  364 

Scotland,  Jesuit  designs  touching  the 
restoration  of  the  Catholic  religion 
in,  ii.  148;  Parsons'  plot  in  favour 
of  Mary.  Queen  of,  149-53 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  as  a  classic  at  Stony- 
hurst,  i.  242 

Scourge,  use  of,  i.  395 

Scriptor,  duties  of,  ii.  370,  389-90 

Secrecy  enjoined  in  the  Jesuit  Order, 
i.  353;   use  of  a  cipher,  ib. 

Secret  instructions  of  the  Jesuit  Society. 
(See  Monita) 

Secrets  at  La   Salette,  the,  i.   28 

Secular  clergy,  relations  of  the  Jesuits 
with,  ii.  44-8 

Sedan,  prisoners  taken  at,  i.  233;  mis- 
representation of  the  results  of,  234 

Sendbote  des  gottlichen  Herzens,  ex- 
amples of  the  grotesque  cures  re- 
corded in  the,  i.  306-8 

Sergardi,  Ludovico,  on  Jesuit  morals, 
ii.   289-90 

Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  true  Chris- 
tian code,  i.  274 ;  why  the  Jesuits  set 
it  aside,  277 

Servi  Mariae  in  Jesuit  schools,  duties 
of,  i.   144 

Settlements  of  Jesuits,  i.  78  (note);  con- 
stitution of,   424 

Seuse,  the  mysticism  of,  repugnant  to 
the  Jesuits,  i.  299 

Sexuality,  teaching  of  the  Christian 
Church  regarding,  i.  40-1;  attitude 
of  Jesuits  towards,  in  schools,  202-8; 
delicacy  of  the  question,  209 

Simple  vows  of  scholastics  and  spiritual 
and  temporal  coadjutors,  i.  417; 
constitute  an  impediment  to  mar- 
riage,  273,   417 


492 


Index 


Sixtus  V.,  Pope,  favours  the  Marian 
Congregations,  i.  165,  169;  condemns 
Loyola's  letter  on  obedience,  336; 
death  of,  ii.  110   (note) 

Slaugnter,  Fatner,  on  the  deathbed  re- 
pentance "of  the  wicked,  ii.  382 

Smet,   de,   character  of,  ii.  391 

SnuU-taking,  a  nabit  of  Jesuits,  i.  205; 
Pius  IX. 's  "  snuny  "  appearance,  262 

Socialism  has  a  link  with  Jesuitism,  ii. 
371   (note) 

Societas  Jesu,  or  Society  of  Jesus, 
Monita  of,  ii.  7;  Anatomia  of,  9; 
Arcana  of,  10;  name  of.  110  and 
notes,  119-20;  Imago  of,  112-23,  (See 
Imago,  Institute.  Jesuits) 

Socius,  tlie  post  of,  in  a  Jesuit  Society, 
i.  271;  and  in  a  Province,  424 

Solms-tiraunfels,  Prince  Alexander  of, 
turns  Catholic,  i.  20 ;  widow  of,  en- 
tertains von  Doss  as  her  spiritual 
director  at  Marxheim,  249 

Sorboune,  the,  condemns  Santarelli's 
Tractatus  de  Haeresi,  ii.  312;  orders 
Mariana's  book  to  be  burned,  333 

Sotelo,  Louis,  Franciscan  Bishop,  records 
the  conduct  of  the  Jesuits  towards 
him,   ii.  365 

Soubirous,  Bernadotte,  i.  253 

Soullier,   Father,  ii.   92 

Southwell,  Father  Eobert,  equivocation 
of,  ii.  312  „      . 

Sovereigns,  Jesuits  and  the  confession 
of,  ii  168-98;  secret  instructions  for 
the  confessing  of,  172;  purpose  oi 
the  confessing  of,  172-3 

Spalatro,  Jesuit  trading  in  the  district 
of,  ii.  98 

Spee  Friedrich  von,  on  the  Jesuits  and 
witchcraft,  i.  319,  320 

Spichern,  incident  of  the  news  of  the 
German  victory  at,  i.  233 

Sprenger  on  legitimate  equivocations,  ii. 
302 

Stanislaus'  Day,  St.,  i.  285;  author 
preaches  the  sermon  on,  291.  (See 
Kostka) 

Stapleton,  Lady,  and  the  use  of  Ditton 
Hall  as  a  Jesuit  college,  i.  287 

State,  the,  in  its  relations  to  the  Church, 
ii.  338-68;  Jesuitism  a  standing 
menace  to,  436-41;  Jesuit  hostility 
to  the  schools  of  the,  439,40;  the 
connection  between  Church  and 
State  considered,  452-5 

Stattler,  Father  Benedict,  his  theory  of 
justifiable  murder,   ii.  366   and  note 

Steer,  Father  Norbert,  on  the  evil  of 
confessing  children  in  the  confessor's 
bedroom,  i.   203 

Stella  Matutina,  Jesuit  school  at  Feld- 
kirch,  i.  54-60 

Stentrup,   Professor,  ii.  367 

Stern,  Dr.  Jacob,  anent  the  violation  of 
Maria  Theresa's  confession,  ii.  175-6 

Stessl,  Jac,  condemns  the  ignorance  of 
Greek  amongst  Jesuits,  i.  187 

"  Stieger,"  meaning  of  the  new  verb 
"to,"  i.   150 

Stimmen  aus  Maria-Laach.  i.  325;  head- 
quarters of,  at  Exaeten,  ii.  369,  370 

Stitzing,  Professor  von,  ultramontane 
students'  demonstration  against,  i. 
244-5 

Stficker,  Dr.  Adolf,  invites  the  author 
to  write  for  the  Kreuzzeitung,  ii. 
449;  character  of,  451 


Stolberg,  Count  Alfred,  on  Kullmann'a 
attempt  on  Bismarck's  life,  i.  212 

Stolberg-Stolberg,  Count  Caius  zu,  his 
anupatiiy  to  Protestantism,  i.  6-7  ; 
the  author's  godfather,  7,  243 

Stolberg-btoiOeig,  (jount  Franz  zu,  en- 
gaged to  tbe  author's  sister  Marie, 
i.  243;  death  of,  267 

Stoloerg-Stolberg,  Count  Friedrich  Leo- 
pold zu,  i.  7,  243 

StonyUurst,  fees  at,  i.  116;  character  of 
tUe  buildings  at.  240;  laxity  of 
supervision,  240-1 ;  pursuits  of  the 
students,  241 ;  inadequacy  of  the 
instruction  at,  241-2;  the  "table" 
at,   ii.   75 

Straubing,  the  Hartmann  lawsuit  at, 
h.  100-2 

Strauss,  Father  Karl,  Music  Prefect  at 
Feldkirch,   i.   213 

Streicher,  Father,  exposes  the  Spanish 
Jesuits'  ignorance  of  Latin,  i.  102; 
how  members  dismissed  from  the 
Order   are    treated,    ii.    12-13 

Stuarts,  the  Jesuits  and  the  downfall  of 
the,  ii.  153,  155 

Studt  sanctions  the  right  of  gymnasium 
to  a  part  in  Marian  Congregations, 
i.    172 

Sturm,  Johannes,  scholastic  scheme  of, 
copied  by  the  Jesuits,  i.  63 

Suarez,  Francis,  the  greatest  theologian 
of  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  408,  if.  Ill; 
thesis  in  his  De  lieligione  touching 
the  authorship  of  the  Constitutions, 
i.  407-8;  condones  the  use  of  ambi- 
guity, ii.  305;  on  adultery,  309;  on 
the  supremacy  of  Church  over  State, 
538 ;  allows  that  heretics  may  be 
sentenced  to  death,  355 :  teaches 
the  "  indirect  "  power  of  the  Pope, 
428 

Substantialia  Instituti,  "  the  essential 
contents  of  the  Institute,"  are  kept 
strictly  secret,  i.  414;  supposed  defi- 
nition of,  ii.  3-4 

Suikow,  Demetrius,  Archbishop  of  Lem- 
berg,  on  persons  dismissed  the  So- 
ciety of  Jesus,  ii.   13 

Summa  theologica,  ii.  255 

Summarium   Constitutionum,  ii.   2 

Superior,  subordination  to,  must  be 
complete,  i.  134 ;  the  Constitutions 
on  the  supremacy  of  the,  326  et  seqq.; 
head  of  Province  and  of  Settlement, 
424 ;  secret  routine  before  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  Provincial  Superior, 
425-7 

Superstitious  observances  in  Catholi- 
cism, i.  12-14 

Suppression  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  86, 
16S,  ii.  22,  66;  Cordara  discusses  why 
God  permitted  it,  ii.  106-9 

Sweden,  Jesuit  political  intrigues  in,  ii. 
138 

Swieten,  Gerhard  van.  summoned  to 
Vienna  by  Maria  Theresa,  ii.  43;  his 
struggle  with  the  Jesuits,  43-4;  slan- 
dered by  the  Jesuits,  43  (note) ;  in- 
forms Maria  Theresa  of  Jesuit  an- 
noyance at  the  Imago,  112;  on  the 
decay  of  those  universities  where 
the  Jesuits  ruled,  279 

Sybel,  Heinrich  von,  lectures  of,  i.  122 

Tamburini.  General,  prohibits  certain 
propositions     from     Descartes     and 


Index 


493 


Leibnitz,  ii.  255;  on  the  persecution 
of,  by  the  Order,  295  {note) 

Tanner,  Father  Matthias,  recommends 
scourging  for  Jesuits  who  fondle 
young  persons,  i.  206 

Tauler,  the  mysticism  of,  repugnant  to 
the   Jesuits,   i.    299 

Taunton,  E.  L.,  his  "  Jesuits  in  Eng- 
land "  cited,  ii.  46, 150, 152, 153, 154;  his 
review  of  Edward  Petre's  conduct, 
155;  ascribes  the  fall  of  the  Stuarts 
to  the  Jesuits,  ib.;  on  Foley's  habit 
of  garbling  the  text,  284-5  (note); 
on  Gerard's  notion  of  allegiance, 
311-2 

Taunue,  an  all-night  sitting  in  the,  i. 
226,   249 

'Paxil  hoax,  the,  i.  267 

Teaching,  why  Jesuits  must  fail  in,  i. 
134    (See   Education    and  Jesuits) 

Tellier  succeeds  La  Chaise  as  Confessor 
to  Louis  XIV.,  ii.  186;  Saint-Simon's 
pen  portrait  of,  187-8 

Teresa,  Saint,  vision  of.  i.  404;  unwit- 
tingly gets  Hahn  into  trouble,  ii. 
269 

Terrien.  Father,  i.  404 

Tertiaries,  a  class  of  Jesuit  affiliates, 
ii.  19 

Tertiate,  full  course  of  the  Exercises 
during  the,  i.  371 ;  final  stage  of  pro- 
bation for  the  priesthood,  ii.  369; 
course  of  study  during,  412-5;  chief 
feature  of,  412 

Theology,  importance  of,  to  Jesuits,  ii. 
248;  course  of  study  of,  248-250; 
authority  of  Thomas  Aquinas  su- 
preme in,  253-6 

Thirty  Years'  War,  Jesuit  selfishness 
during  the,  ii.  41;  Jesuits'  share  in 
the,  158-9;  partly  financed  by  the 
Jesuits,  160-1 

"  Thomism  "  and  "  Thomistic,"  ii.  256 
(note) 

Thorn,    the    massacre    of,    ii.    25-29 

Toleration,  relierious,  Jesuit  attitude 
towards,  ii.  349-354 

Toni,  or  the  practice  in  oratory,  i.  291 

Torres,  Miguel,  ii.  16 

Tournay,  Convent,  an  old  vest  of  the 
Pope's  sent  to,  as  a  relic,  i.  263 

Tournon,  Charles,  sent  by  Clement  XI. 
to  settle  the  disputes  about  the 
Chinese  rites  and  missions,  ii.  53; 
opposed  by  the  Jesuits,  54;  Jesuits 
accused  of  poisoning  him,  54-6;  let- 
ters and  reports  from  Tournon  com- 
plaining how  the  Jesuits  obstructed 
him,  59-64;  condemns  their  usury  in 
China,   89 

Trade  and  commerce,  Jesuits'  success 
in,    ii.    91-9 

Transubstantiation,  the  process  of,  ii. 
220 

Treitschke,  Heinrich  von,  as  a  lecturer, 
ii.  404-5;  influence  on  the  author, 
405 

Triduum,  the  nature  of  the,  ii.  389 

Trinity,  doctrine  of  the.  ii.  224 

Turmae,  the  system  of,  i.  290 

Tyannicide,  Jesuit  teaching  about, 
ii.  327-337:  approval  of  Mariana's 
doctrine  in  favour  of  the  kill- 
ing of  princes,  328;  attempt  of 
the  Order  to  meet  the  public  in- 
dignation caused  by  their  approval, 
332-3 


Ultramontanism,  certain  journals  of, 
i.  6;  heresy-hunting  spirit  of,  7;  how 
it  colours  loyalty  and  patriotism 
9;  tyranny  of,  over  the  mind,  12 
superstitious  observances  of,  12,  13. 
the  essence  of,  21;  unscrupulous 
fondness  for  theatricality,  22-3;  the 
supernatural  world  of,  26;  teaches 
belief  in  guardian  angels,  ghosts 
and  devils,  26-7;  why  it  insists  on 
early  confession,  34;  evil  tof  its- 
teaching  respecting  sexuality,  39; 
its  attitude  towards  the  liberal  arts, 
46-78;  internationalism  in  its  system 
of  education,  49-51;  complete  sub- 
servience of  the  laity  to,  142;  whole- 
hearted selfishness  of,  222-3;  atti- 
tude of  towards  freemasonry,  224; 
in  the  political  arena,  231,  246-7; 
pomp  and  splendour  of  and  their 
object,  237-8;  resistance  to  its  arro- 
gance would  help  undo  it,  238;  inso- 
lence of,  towards  the  Old  Catholics, 
244-5;  consolidated  by  the  Kultur- 
kampf,  255-6;  the  bondage  of  Ultra- 
montanism 260-1 ;  doctrine  as  to  the 
Catholic  taking  of  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance in  Germany,  264-5;  the  will- 
ing dupe  of  hoaxes  and  sham 
apparitions,  266-7;  its  classification 
of  Christians  of  its  own  Church, 
272;  its  doctrine  of  the  Orders,  273; 
puts  on  one  side  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  in  favour  of  its  own  artificial 
basis  for  the  Orders,  277;  governed 
also  by  Christian  idealism,  278;  its 
handling  of  confession,  361-9;  doc- 
trine of,  touching  God,  Christ  and 
the  world,  377;  the  Exercises  the 
main  prop  of,  377-8;  its  view  of 
woman,  ii.  125;  its  reason  for  invent- 
ing the  system  of  princes'  confes- 
sors. 135;  its  faith  in  the  devil  a 
vital  matter,  209;  has  dominated 
dogma  within  the  Catholic  church, 
287-8;  insists  on  the  supremacy  of 
Church  over  State,  338-368:  uses 
confession  as  a  lever  to  move  the 
world,  386-7;  an  abuse  of  the  Catho- 
lic religion,  406-7;  the  Order  fatal 
to  the  Papacy,  427;  historically  and 
actually  a  separable  force  from 
Catholicism,  465:  the  proper  method 
of  combating  it,  in  Germany,  465 
(note) 

Uniformity  in  the  Jesuit  Order,  i.  356- 
361 

Universities,  Jesuit  intrigues  at  the,  of 
Ingolstadt,  ii.  38-40;  of  Freiburg  in 
Breisgau,  40-2;  of  Vienna,  42-5;  of 
Paris,  47-8 

Untruthfulness,  an  all-pervading  Jesuit 
failing,  ii.  49;  considered  in  detail, 
302-319 

Urban  VIII..  Pope,  canonises  Ignatius 
Loyola,  ii.  21-2;  forBids  the  Orders 
to  carry  on  commerce,  99  and  note ; 
favours  the  annexation  of  Lusatia 
to  France.    182 

Ursula,  St.,  the  virgins  of,  ii.  207 

Vatican   Council   of   1870,   incidents   at, 

i.  220-4:  the  minority  party  at,  220-1; 

surrender  of  the  German  bishops  at, 

223-4;  its  President,  237 
Vatican  Palace,  non-Christian  character 

of,  i.  263 


494 


Index 


Vaughan,  Father  Bernard,  in  great  re- 
quest for  charity  sermons,  ii.  413 

Vaux,  Lady  Anne,  letters  of.  to  Father 
Garnet,  ii.  128 

Venerable  (Venerabilis),  a  title  pre- 
liminary to  Saint  (Sanctus),  i.  310 
(note) 

Venice,  conquest  of  Scio  by,  ii.  364; 
Paul  V.  at  war  with,  ib.;  Jesuits 
driven  out  of,  364-5 

Vergara,  secretly  a  Jesuit,  ii.  16 

Verjus,  Father  Antoine,  ii.   198 

Vervaux.  Father,  ii.   190-1 

Vicar-General  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
duties  of,  i.  421-3 

Vicecomes,  Jesuit  General,  on  the  com- 
petition of  secular  schools,  i.  187 

Vicious  practices  alleged  of  Jesuits,  i. 
206-7,  ii.   68-9 

Vienna,  important  Jesuit  documents  in 
the  library  at,  i.  184  et  seqq..;  how 
they  came  to  be  placed  there,  189; 
ignorance  of  German  on  the  part 
of  Jesuit  Professors  at  the  Univer- 
sity of,  ii.  32-3;  Jesuit  intrigues  at 
the  University  of,  42-5 

Villas  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  ii.   77 

Viller,  Father,  an  active  political  agent 
in  Austria,  ii.  139;  deprecates  Jesuit 
jealousy,   195 

Vincent,   Julian,  i.   336 

Vincent  de   Paul,   St.,  ii.   57   [note) 

Virgin,  the  adoration  of  the,  ii.  204-5 ; 
extravagances  of  the  worship  of 
the,  205-7 

Visitator,  status  of,  in  the  Jesuit  Order, 
ii.  33   (note) 

Vitelleschi,  Mutius,  General,  requires 
the  Monita  to  be  refuted,  ii.  7; 
ordinance  of,  auent  the  confessing 
of  sovereigns,  173;  approves  San- 
tarelli's  Tractatus  de  Haeresi,  312 

Vocation,  choice  of,  ii.  215;  gains  stu- 
dents for  the  Jesuit  priesthood,  216 ; 
disregard  of  the,  and  the  mental 
torture  it  entails,  260-1 

Voit  on  the  advice  to  avoid  a  greater 
sin  by  perpetrating  a  lesser,  ii. 
326-7 

Voltaire  mentions  an  instance  of  a 
betrayed   confession,   ii.   177-8 

Vow,  Jesuits  by,  ii.  17-20.    (See  Affiliates) 

Vows  of  poverty,  chastity  and  obedi- 
ence, i.  273;  devotional  or  votive 
vows.  402-3;  constitutional  vows  of 
the  Society,  416-8;  simple  vows  of 
scholastics  and  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral coadjutors,  417;  vow  of  the 
professed,  417-8;  five  minor  vows  of 
the  professed.  418;  final  vows  of  the 
spiritual  and  temporal  coadjutors, 
ib.;  Jesuit  violation  of  the  vow  of 
obedience,  ii.  50-67;  Jesuit  violation 
of  the  vow  of  chastity,  67-71;  Jesuit 
violation  of  the  vow  of  poverty,  71- 
104;  the  renewal  of  vows,  389 

Wagner,  Franz,  on  a  uniform  time- 
table for  use  in  Jesuit  schools,  i. 
93 

Waitz,  Georg.  lectures  of,  at  GSttingen, 
i.   122 

Waldburg-Zeil,   Georg,   ii.   383-4 

Waldemar  of  Denmark,  the  Princess, 
under  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits, 
ii.   167 

Waldersee,   Count,   ii.   461 


Waldthauser,  Ferdinand,  Bohemian  Pro- 
vincial, on  secret  drinking  among 
Jesuits,   i.    188 

Walienstein,  fall  of,  the  work  of  the 
Jesuits,  ii.  159;  Jesuits  assist  in 
procuring  the  doom  of,   179-S0 

Warner,  Jesuit  Confessor  of  James  II., 
ii.  153 

Wars :  Austro-Prussian  of  1866,  i.  210-3  ■ 
Franco-German  of  1870-1,  232-3 ;  Jesuit 
hostility  to  Prussia  in  both  cases, 
ib.;  Jesuit  conduct  during  the  Thirty 
Years'   War,   ii.   41,    158-9 

Warsewiez,  Stanislaus,  ii.  138 

Wasmann.  Erich,  ii.  266 

Wealth  of  the  Jesuit  Order,  ii.  82-90; 
acquired  in  trade  and  commerce, 
91-9;  revenue  of  the  Jesuits  in  the 
Upper  German  Province  from  1620 
to  1700,  82-3;  vast  landed  property 
of  the  Jesuits  in  the  Upper  German 
Province  in  1773,  84-5;  wealth  of 
the  Order  in,  at  the  date  of  its 
suppression,  85;  in  the  Province  of 
America,  87-8:  in  China,  88-9;  in 
France  at  date  of  the  suppression. 
89-90 

Wendt-Gevelinghausen,  Baron  von,  ii. 
393 

Wenig,  Professor  J.  L..  on  the  death 
sentence  for  heretics,  ii.  354;  cries 
'"  God  bless  the  Inquisition !  "  355 

Wernz,  Francis  Xavier,  General,  a 
teacher  at  Feldkirch,  i.  118;  one 
of  the  two  German  Generals  of  the 
Order,  ii.  145  (note);  insists  on  the 
supremacy  of  Church  over  State, 
333-40;  holds  that  non-Catholic 
Christians  are  beyond  the  pale, 
350-1;  his  hostility  to  State  schools. 
439 

Wertenberg,  Father,  i.  264 

Weston,  Father,  records  instances  of  the 
exorcism  of  devils,  i.  321-2 

'*  Why  should  the  Jesuits  not  return  to 
Germany?"  the  author's  pamphlet 
in  defence  of  the  Order,  ii.  393-4; 
why  it  is  superficial  and  untrue. 
395-6 

Wiedemann,  Father,  character  of.  ii. 
217-8;  interested  in  a  new  gun,  218 

Wilhelm,  Balthasar,  ii.  277 

William  I.  and  the  Empress  Augusta, 
i.  8;  reception  of  the  Emperor  at 
Mayence,  232 

William  II.,  German  Emperor,  has  a 
long  conversation  with  the  author 
ii.  459 ;  the  Kaiser's  promise,  460 
Count  Waldersee's  memorial  to,  461 . 
the  author  has  another  interview 
with,  461-2;  the  Kaiser  "lets  the 
man   drop,"  462-3 

William  V.  of  Bavaria.  Duke,  ii.  83 

Windthorst,  Herr,  in  frequent  consulta- 
tion with  the  Jesuits,  ii.  165-6;  not 
in  favour  of  extreme  measures 
against  non-Catholic  Christians,  375  ; 
decides  to  make  capital  out  of  the 
Papal  States  question,  391-2;  ap- 
proves of  the  author's  Church  and 
State  pamphlet.  393;  approves  of  the 
Jesuit  settlement  in  Berlin,  400; 
Lieber's  relations  with,  402;  extra- 
ordinary statement  alleged  to  have 
been  made  bv,  ib. 

Winfridian  Students'  Union  at  Gottin- 
gen,  i.   246 


Index 


495 


Wisbeach  (Wisbech),  Jesuit  activity  at, 
in  Elizabeth's  reign,  ii.  46 

Wiseman,  Cardinal  Nicholas,  "  Hidden 
Gem  "  by,  the  type  of  a  safe  drama 
in  Jesnit  eyes.  i.  125;  deplores  the 
lack  of  Jesuit  zeal  in  London,  ii. 
31-2 

Witchcraft  and  magic,  Jesuit  procedure 
in  cases  of,  i.  154-5;  how  to  exorcise 
witches,  320-1;  instance  of  bewitch- 
ment, 322 

WolS-Metternich,  Count  Paul,  i.  261 

Woman,  place  of,  in  the  Jesuit  scheme, 
in  theory  and  in  practice,  i.  384,  ii. 
123;  easily  led  by  Jesuit  guile,  ii. 
11,  12,  18;  relation  of  the  Order  to, 
123-32;  instructions  to  Jesuits  re- 
specting women  and  confession  per- 
meated with  suspicion  and  sugges- 
tion, 124-5 ;  women  of  rank  may  enter 
Jesuit  Colleges,  126;  the  status  of 
the  women  who  may  be  visited  by 
Jesuits,  126-7:  woman  as  regarded 
by  Loyola,  127;  every  attention  paid 
by  Jesuits  to  wealthy  women,  128-9 

Wurzburg,  the  author  studies  for  the 
Law  at,   i.  261 

Wynandsrade,  the  professional  staff  at 
the  College  at,  i.  119-24;  the  Rhetoric 


curriculum  at,  120;  the  History 
course  at,  121-2;  set  aside  for  the 
students  of  Humanity,  287;  the 
author  migrates  to  Wynandsrade 
for  his  scholasticate,  406,  407;  its 
villa  at  Aalbeck.  ii.  77;  the  author's 
residence  at,  for  Humanity  and 
Ehetoric,  201-14;  the  Virgin  held  in 
special  honour  at,  208 

Xavier,  St.  Francis,  successful  invoca- 
tion to,  i.  304 ;  miraculous  portrait 
of,  312;  "  novena  of  grace"  in 
honour  of,  323;  universal  fame  of, 
ii.   Ill 

Zahorowski,  editor  of  the  first  edition 
of  the  Monita  privata,  ii.  7 

Zeil,  the  haunted  wing  in  the  Castle 
of,  i.  27 

Zeno,  Antonio,  and  the  renegade  Moham- 
medans of  Scio,  ii.  364 

Zorell,  Francis,  on  the  clockwork  sys- 
tem of  Jesuit  education,  i.  93 

Zorzi,  Marino,  ii.  158 

Zottowski,  Ladislaus,  Jesuit  Provincial, 
on  the  indifference  shown  by 
teachers,  i.   186 


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