SUPPRESSION OF THE JESUITS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 102, 10 April 1875, Page 5

SUPPRESSION OF THE JESUITS.

(From the Irish Ecclesiastical Record.) And now began to rise the dreadful storm against the illustrious Order of Jesuits. The doctrines and maxims of the French infidels were spreading rapidly over Europe. A profound feeling of hostility was excited against the Church and her ministers. The Jesuits led the vanguard of learning, and displayed indefatigable activity in defence of Eeligion : hence on them the first fury of the tempest fell. In 1762 they were expelled from Prance. Crowds of these heroic sons of St. Ignatius crossed the border into Spain, and were received "by their brethren with every mark of appreciation and respect. They bore their misfortunes with Christian patience, and that contempt of the trials of this world which reveals the true follower of the Crucified. The Spanish Provincial, Francis Xavier de Idiaquez, prohibited all his Fathers from uttering or writing any complaint of the unjust treatment of their brethren in France j for these men the Gospel counsels were not dead letters, but the regulators of their conduct. The storm passed the Pyrenees, and was daily growing more menacing. The turn of the Spanish Fathers was coming. Calumnies were circulated by the infidels, who knew they could make no headway as long as the Jesuits held the outposts of the Church. The Jesuits prayed for their calumniators — this was the only revenge they took or sought on them. Year by year the Father General, Dorenzo Eicci, wrote to his brethren to bow their heads in penance, sackcloth, and ashes before the Lord, that the weight of His anger might not fall on them. Year, by year, however, the Lord seemed not to listen. The FFather Generalr r General cried louder and louder, and grew more and more earnest in beseeching his children to humble themselves before God, and try to excite among them that spirit of fervor which animated all the sons of the Society in former times. He tells them to have recourse to the Blessed Sacrament; to fly for refuge to the Blessed Virgin, whose special devotion they had learned to practise from their novitiate, and to continue their supplications, their litanies, and triduums. Such were the arras with which those holy men defended themselves agamst their cruel and unsparing enemies, and fought the battle of Christian liberty and civilisation against the barbarism which began to overwhelm Europe, and has held her in more or less subjection since. All this is the bare truth as I take it from letters of tne father-General and the Provincials for 1759, 1760, 1764, Darker and more threatening grew the heavens j thicker and thicker rained the big drops of black calumny, till the storm burst on them withsudden fury on the same night all over the Spanish dominions. The 3rd of April, 1767, is remembered as the date of the expulsion of the Jesuits by Charles in.— a lasting blot on the bright page of his reign in Spanish history. On the previous niffht the mayors of the different towns in which Jesuit Colleges existed burst into them by virtue of secret orders received from the king, and took aU the Fathers prisoners, barbarously compelling them to rise from their beds, and commence their journey to the sea coast without any preparation whatever. They were then shipped from the principal ports to the Papal States. The sufferings Tthey endured, and the privations they bore during their wanderings may be gathered from some letters of the celebrated Padre Isla, as well known for his sincere piety as his profound learning, written to his brother-in-law. In 1773 Clement XIV. yielded to the clamours which infidelity had succeeded in raising against it, and, as an act of prudence suppressed the Order of Jesuits. Thus for a time passed from the scene this great and illustrious Society, founded by St. Ignatius of .Loyola, and confirmed by Paul 111. on the 27th September, 1540 after an existence of 233 years, in which it had conferred immense services on Eeligion and the Catholic Church. Its missionaries were ever the first, in the most remote regions of the earth to carry the cross among their savage inhabitants, and subdue, with the mildness of the Gospel, the fury of their wild bosoms, whilst others ot its members led the van of the sciences in Europe, or boldly confronted the proud leaders of heresy, and humbled them in the CLUB Is* xv ? er^ r 8 of them, during the suppression:— "But now this Society no longer exists ! We sincerely wish that other secular and regular bodies may produce missionaries like those who carried the Faith to Japan, China, Siam, Touquin, India, Mexico Peru, Paraguay, California; theologians like Saures, Petavius' birmond, Gamier; orators like Bourdaloue, Lame, Seeard Griffet' Neuvdle; historians to surpass Orleans, Lonqueval, Daniel Mariana J literati to eclipse Eapine, Vaniers, Coinmire, Juvencv, Andres .. BB j lt ' ltnia 7 tasked, if the Jesuits be such as we have described them, how comes it that they have been expelled from the Catholic nations of Europe ? We shall answer this question in the words of a writer quoted by Oliver :— ~> j"^ 8 ? 8^^ 8 very . natural enquiry, we must remind the 3!mFJ%? f P l e conspira ? y was f °"aed ** France, about the middleof the last century, for the Subversion of the Altar, the Prostration of Thrones and the Dissolution of Civil Society From T £ OT i a °I very con sp«ators, it is clearly demonstrated, that the destruction of the Jesuits was determined as essentially necessary for the success of their abeminable protect Their policy was deep-they saw that the charge of edSSting youth was principally entrusted to the Jesuits, and they prophet? «01y declared that if these instructors and directors of youth were «?^f msletem s letel y d ! B £°y ed > al J the otl > er religious orders would TfaU 2L«? mse ] veß ' and that the rising generation, in the absence of all moral and religious instruction, would easily be corrupted and When by dint of the foulest calumnies and intrigue, they had succeeded in dispossessing the Jesuits of their college ai Paris, D* Alem bert writes thus, May 4, 1762 : < The evacuation^ of thT coUet?^ Louis le Grand is of more importance to us than that of Sinfco.

The Parliament of Paris are the public executioners, and take their orders from Philosophism without knowing it.' Alf ew months before, Sept. 8, 1761, he had written that Philosophism was on the point of being revenged on the Jesuits. The conspirators considered the total extinction of the Jesuits of _such vital importance, that D'Alembert, panic-struck with a report.- id Jthe probability of the Order being revived in Spain and Portugal, .thus expressed himself, 23rd June, 1777 : ' Eeason is" undone should the enemy's army gain the battle.' It was necessary to begin by prejudicing the public mind against the Body ; for this purpose they propagated the most infamous calumnies against it — the indiscretion* of a single Jesuit served as the ground of indictment against Jthe whole Society, and no expense was spared in disseminating libels and scandalous pamphlets.', Two great sovereigns of Europe, outside the Catholic Church, bore remarkable testimony to the value of the Jesuits as priests and educators of youth. Frederick of Prussia used to call them the Life Guards of the Pope, and the Grenadiers of Eeligion. After the publication of the Brief of Clement XIV. suppressing the Order, Frederick wrote thus to Abbe Colombian, his agent at Some :— , > " You have my author; r/ to declare to everybody, and to inform the Pope, or his Prime Minister, that my determination with respect to the Jesuits, is to protect them in my dominions, in the earn© manner us hitherto. By the treaty of Breslau I guaranteed the statv, quo of Eeligion, and 1 never met with letter priests than the Jesuits." Catherine of Eussia wrote the following letter to Pope Pius Vl.:— . ' " Tres saint Pere. Je sais que votre Saintete est tires embarraisee, mais la crainte convient mal a votre earactere. Votre dignite no peut pas B'accorder avec la politique, toutes les fois que la -politique blesse la religion. Les motifs gui mont determined a accorder ma protection aux Jesuites sont fondes sur la rauon et la justice, ainii quo sur l'espoir qu'ila seront utiles a xnes Etats. Cette troupe d'hommes paisible et innocens vivra dans mon empire, parceque de toutes lee cocietes catholiques, elle est la plus propre a instruire meg sujets catholiques, et a leur inspirer des sentimens d'humanite* et lea principes de la religion chretienne. "Je satis resolve de soutenir ces pretres contre quelque puissance que se soifc, ot en cela je ne fais que remplir mon devoir, puisque je suis leur eouveraine, et que je les regard© comme des sujeta fiddle* et utiles." Voltaire himself had written of them in 1746, in the following words : — '• It iB impossible to express my astonishment, when I hear the Jesuits taxed with teaching a laxity of morals. I dare venture to say, that there is nothing more inconsistent, nothing more, unjust, nothing more shameful, than to acccuse persons of corrupt morals, who lead the most rigid lives in Europe.' 1 But notwithstanding this important testimony, the calumnious accusation is still repeated' and believed, and the Jesuits are accused of teaching 'that the end. justifies the means ; " which is opposed to the pure morality of the Catho* lie Church, whose very catechisms tell us in plain language, that 'no reason or motive can excuse a lie.' However, it seems impossible- to eradicate this falsehood about the Jesuits' doctrine, for the .'good rea« son, I suppose, assigned by Bulwer, when he says :— " There is a wonderful vigor of constitution in a Popular Fallacy. When, the world has once got hold of a lie, it is astonishing^ how.,, bard it is to get it out of the world. You beat it about the head, until, it , seems to have given up the ghost, and the next day it is as healthy as ever." In fine, the historian Volta, the declared enemy of the Jesuits* fis compelled to admit the benefits conferred by them on science : ."Tjeuly we find," he says, " that from the houses of the Jesuits have come forth eminent men in great numbers, whether in the moral, physical, or mathematical sciences, or in the sublime art of preaching.". And evennow the re-established Society continues to .produce the same crop of eminent for which the old Society was famous. . We have only to name F. F. Secchi, Eiccardi, Borgundi, Boscovitch,. Per. rone, Carafa, Liberatore, Turner, and a host of others, withont mentioning Father J ohn Boiling, who renews in the Roman College; the marvels of the celebrated Mezzofanti. This father speaks' correctly more than forty languages, above all, the modern Oriental ones. All the Jesuits of 1773 had not passed away when Pius VII. reestablished the Society in Russia on the 7th of March, 1801 ; in the kingdom of Naples on the 3rd of July, 1804 ; and in the whole universe on the 7th of August, 1814. Those remains of the old Society came flocking eagerly to adopt the rules and resume their .venerated habit, the loss of which they had so bitterly bewailed. The- nations which expelled them revoked the author of expulsion, convinced .that society and the authority of Government had suffered deeply by their absence. If one Pope suppressed them for the peace of the Church, other Pope re-established them for the good of the world. They had been expelled from France, from Portugal, from Spain, and from Naples as seditious subjects, and they returned to these countries, "because," says the Protestant John de Muller, "it iraß found that the common bulwark of all authority had fallen with them." A-curi-ous event occurred on their return to Portugal. They found ' among some rubbish a skeleton which had lain for over fifty years without; burial. This was all that remained of the notorious Pombal, the the fierce persecutor of their Society, who had died exiled from the Court, detested by men, and eaten with leprosy. A grave in consecrated ground had been denied him ; but the Jesuits collected hit re* mains, offered the Holy Sacrifice for the repose of his soul, .and' gave burial to his neglected skeleton.

Windmill power is being extensively utilised in New York The 'American Manufacturer' says that upwards of a hundred windmills of a new and improved form are now in use in private houses near that city for pumping water, sawing wood, grinding, &c, and in many instances are superseding steam and other agents The English graves in the Crimea are in a ruinous condition.