Jesuit History: Conclusion

As you may recall from my last post, the Jesuits were in trouble with the Spanish government.  The Spaniards had made a treaty with the Portuguese to surrender the territory of the native peoples: the Guarani.  The Jesuits lived and worked closely with the Guarani; but were kicked out by the Spanish.  Fearing enslavement, the Guarani took up arms against he Portuguese, infuriating both monarchs.  The Jesuits were blamed.

Five years after the Guarani lost their war, the prime minister of Portugal, the Marquis de Pombol, completed a long-waged attack against the Jesuits.  There was a riot against state policies near the capital.  The 'Hat and Cloak Riots' were a fight over attempts by the government to abolish old practices of clothing in favour of modern (French) styles.  The people were outraged.  It is now agreed by historians that the Jesuits were completely uninvolved, but they were certainly blamed. And the Bourbon dynasty king of Portugal agreed with his minister: the Jesuits were to be expelled from Portugal.  They were woken in the night and told that by dawn they must be aboard sailing ships to the Papal states: "For the peace and harmony of the nation". 

Thus in 1759 Portugal, one of the oldest Jesuit provinces, was emptied.  And the other great Empires were shown that it could be done.  All that was needed was the courage to stand up to the Pope.  The dominoes began to fall.

The other Bourban royals had similar feelings about the power of the church and the Jesuits in particular.  High-ranking officials were outraged several years before when a Jesuit had taken out loans from the French elite to invest in sugar and indigo in order to finance the missions.  The ships carrying the cargoes were lost at sea and the Jesuit defaulted.  He was kicked out of the Society for violating the Jesuits' poverty rules... but the French still called the Society to task for the debt.  This mood of resentment, combined with the French King's solidarity with his counterpart in Portugal, lead to the 1764 expulsion of the Jesuits from France, "for the peace of the kingdom".

Three years later in Spain, similar pressures are being brought to bear.  And with similar false accusations of riot and rebellion, the Jesuits are expelled.  There are few places in Europe left for Jesuits to go; and poor Jesuits are shipped to Rome by the boatload.  Schools were left empty and many libraries and archives were seized by the state, never to be returned. 

And the Bourbon kingdoms begin cutting off trappings of Papal authority in their respective nations.  They deny the Pope many forms of temporal authority and give more power to local bishops.  And the Pope himself comes under heavy pressure to abolish the Jesuits: one of the strongest symbols of his temporal influence (in education and science, in the culture of the ruling class as confessors and orators).  There are even threats to the autonomy of the papal states if the Pope refuses to comply.  The Pontiff delays as long as possible... but it begins to be an issue of saving the Church or saving the Jesuits.  The Church eventually conceded.  And the order of suppression was given in 1773.

The document was called fiat pax.  The reason given for the dissolution of the Society was "for the peace of the church".  It named complaints against the Jesuits but did not speak to whether or not they were true. 

The dissolution took place gradually over the course of five-years.  Most Jesuits carried on as secular clergy under their bishops.  The Jesuits on mission, however, had a worse time of it.  Many of them were shipped back to Europe by hostile colonial powers.  A group of South American Jesuits were crammed into a ship's hold like prisoners with only a few loaves between them.  Over half perished  from the horrible conditions they endured.

The Jesuits made no plan to disobey the Papal edict.  And there are many accounts of Jesuits quietly bowing their heads in prayer upon hearing the news of the dissolution.  Some native North Americans offered to fight the Europeans on behalf of their beloved black-robes... but they were hurriedly requested to abandon thoughts of violence.  The Jesuits did the best they could to transition their missionary work to often-sympathetic Dominicans and Franciscans. 

However, Katherine the Great of Russia refused to promulgate the Papal edict in her kingdom.  She cited that Russia was autonomous from the squabbles of other powers and that the Jesuits were much needed for educating her people. 

When the Jesuits in Russia debated whether to carry on as Jesuits or to obey the edict, they sent a message to the Pope requesting instruction.  He wrote back to them instructing them to use their own discernment: "May the result of your prayer be a happy one".  So the Society carried on.

At the turn of the century, the landscape looked much different.  The Bourbon dynasties were drastically reduced in influence; especially after the French revolution.  And there was a new detente between 'the throne and the altar' in order to protect the traditions of power of the monarchies.  The Popes had been looking for any chance to reinstate the Jesuits and the bureaucratic steps were taken slowly and subtly.

In the end, the reinstatement of the Jesuits was not widely remarked-upon.  But in 1814 the Papal declaration was promulgated by the Holy See itself, so that no king might have the choice to obey or disobey it.  The Russian Society was found to be in continuity with both the old and the new Society of Jesus, and the long labour of rebuilding the Society began; with special emphasis on missions and education. 

The Society of Jesus continues to face various challenges.  For a long time the suppression had been a black-mark on the record of the Society and widely interpreted as a punishment for Jesuit arrogance.  But newer reflection has described the period as a sort of 'dark night of the soul' in which men, lacking any solid rule to cling to, clung bravely to faith in God.
.