History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution - Volume 1 by James MacCaffrey (books for 9th graders TXT) 📖

to his predecessor. Clement XIV. promised to agree to the suppression (1769), but asked for time to consider such a momentous step. In the hope of satisfying the opponents of the Jesuits the Pope adopted an unfriendly attitude towards the Society, and appointed apostolic visitors to examine into the affairs of the seminaries and colleges under its control, from most of which, as a result of the investigation, the Jesuits were dismissed. He offered to bring about a complete change in the constitution of the Society, but this offer, too, was rejected. Charles III. of Spain forwarded an ultimatum in which he insisted upon the instant suppression of the Society under threat of recalling his ambassador from Rome. This ultimatum had the approval of all the Bourbon rulers. Faced with such a terrible danger, the courage of Clement XIV. failed him, and he determined to accept the suppression as the lesser of two evils (1772). In July 1773 the Brief /Dominus ac Redemptor noster/, decreeing the suppression of the Society in the interests of peace and religion, was signed by the Pope. The houses of the Jesuits in the Papal States were surrounded by soldiers, and the general, Ricci, was confined as a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo. The decree was forwarded to the bishops to be communicated by them to the Jesuits resident in their dioceses. In most of the countries of Europe the decree of suppression was carried out to the letter, the Jesuits as a body submitting loyally to the decision of the Pope.

Catharine II. of Russia, however, and Frederick II. of Prussia were impressed so favourably by the work of the Jesuits as educators that they forbade the bishops to publish the decree in their territories. In 1776 an agreement was arrived at between Pius VI. and Frederick II., according to which the Jesuits in Prussian territory were to be disbanded formally and were to lay aside their dress, but they were permitted to continue under a different name to direct the colleges which they possessed. The Empress Catherine II. of Russia continued till her death to protect the Society. In 1778 she insisted upon the erection of a novitiate, for which oral permission seems to have been given by Pius VI. In the other countries many of the Jesuits laboured as secular priests, others of them united in the congregation, known as the Fathers of the Faith (1797), and others still in the congregation of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart. In 1803 the English Jesuit community at Stonyhurst was allowed to affiliate with the Russian congregation; in 1804 the Society was re-established with the permission of Pius VII. in Naples, and in 1814 the Pope issued the Bull, /Sollicitudo omnium Ecclesiarum/ formally re-establishing the Society. Strange to say the very next year (1815) a persecution broke out against the Jesuits in Saint Petersburg, and in 1820 they were expelled from Russian territory.

It was fear of the Bourbon rulers that forced Clement XIV. to agree to the suppression of the Jesuits. By sacrificing a society that had been noted for its loyal defence of and submission to the Pope, he had hoped to restore peace to the Church, and to avert the many calamities that threatened its very existence in France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples. But he lived long enough to realise that his weakness led only to new and more exorbitant demands, and that the professors, who had taken the chairs vacated by the Jesuits, were only too ready to place their voices and their pens at the disposal of the civil power and against the Holy See. The suppression of the Society was hailed as a veritable triumph by the forces of irreligion and rationalism. The schemes that this party had been concocting for years were at last crowned with success; the strongest of the outposts had been captured, and it only remained to make one last desperate assault on the fortress itself. The civil rulers, who had allowed themselves to be used as tools for promoting the designs of the rationalists and the Freemasons, had soon reason to regret the cruelty and violence with which they treated the Society of Jesus. In a few years the Revolution was in full swing; the thrones of France, Spain, Portugal and Naples were overturned, and those members of the royal families, who escaped the scaffold or the dungeon, were themselves driven to seek refuge in foreign lands, as the Jesuits had been driven in the days of Clement XIV.
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[1] On the /Monita Secreta/, cf. Bernard, /Les instructions secretes
des Jesuites/, 1903. Duhr, /Jesuitenfabeln/, 1904. Gerard, /Jesuit
Bogey/, etc. (/The Month/, Aug., 1901, p. 179).

[2] Du Breuil, /Un ministre philosophe, Carvalho, marquis de Pombal/
(/Revue historique/, 1895, pp. 1 sqq.).

[3] Carayon, /Le pere ricci et la suppression de la compagnie de Jesus
en 1773/, 1869.


(e) Failure of Attempts at Reunion. Protestant Sects.

Bossuet, /Oeuvres completes/, 1846 (vii.). /Oeuvres de Leibniz/,
etc., 1859. Kiefl, /Der Friedensplan des Leibniz fur
Wiedervereinigung der getrennten Kirchen/, 1903. Lescoeur, /De
Bossueti et Leibnitii epistolarum commercio circa pacem inter
Christianos conciliandam/, 1852. Tabaraud, /Histoire critique des
projets formes depuis trois cents ans pour la reunion des
communions chretiennes/. Kahnis, /Der innere gang des deutschen
Protestantismus/, 3 Auf., 1874. Franke, /Geschichte der
protestantism Theologie/, 1865. Erbkam, /Geschichte der
protestantischen Sekten im Zeitalter der Reformation/, 1848.

Whatever hopes there might have been of restoring unity to the Christian world during the early years of the Reformation movement, the prospects of a reunion became more and more remote according as the practical results of the principle of private judgment made themselves felt. It was no longer with Luther, or Calvin, or Zwingli that Catholic theologians were called upon to negotiate, nor was it sufficient for them to concentrate their attention upon the refutation of the /Confessio Augustana/ or the /Confessio Tetrapolitana/. The leading followers of the early Reformers found themselves justified in questioning the teaching of their masters, for reasons exactly similar to those that had been alleged by their masters in defence of their attack on the Catholic Church. The principle of religious authority having been rejected, individuals felt free to frame their own standard of orthodoxy, and were it not for the civil rulers, who interfered to preserve their states from the temporal dangers of religious anarchy, and to supply by their own power some organisation to take the place of the Catholic hierarchy, Calvinism and Lutheranism would have assumed almost as many forms as there were individuals who professed to accept these religious systems. As it was, despite the religious formularies, drawn up for the most part at the instigation and on the advice of the civil rulers, it proved impossible for man to replace the old bulwarks established by Christ to safeguard the deposit of faith. As a consequence new sects made their appearance in every country that accepted the reformed doctrine.

In France some attempts were made by Cardinal Richelieu to bring about a reunion between the Catholics and the Calvinists. In taking these steps he was influenced more by considerations of state than by zeal for the welfare of the Church, but the gulf separating the two parties was too wide to be bridged over even by French patriotism. In Poland, where unity was particularly required and where the disastrous consequences of religious strife were only too apparent, Ladislaus V. determined to summon a conference at Thorn in 1645 to discuss the religious differences, but though it was attended by representatives from several states of Germany it produced no good results.

In Germany the work, that had proved too great for the theologians, was undertaken by the princes in 1644, with no better results. Later on, at the instigation of the Emperor, Christopher Royas de Spinola, an Austrian bishop, spent the last twenty years of his life (1675- 1695) in a vain effort to put an end to the religious dispute. Heedless of repeated rebuffs, he passed from court to court in Germany till at last at Hanover he saw some prospect of success. Duke Ernest August assembled a conference of Lutheran theologians (1679), the principal of whom was Molanus, a Protestant abbot of Loccum. The Lutheran theologians were willing to agree that all Christians should return immediately to their obedience to the Pope, on condition, however, that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be suspended, and that a new General Council composed of representatives of all parties should be assembled to discuss the principal points in dispute. On his side Royas was inclined to yield a good deal in regard to clerical celibacy and the authority of secular princes in ecclesiastical affairs. Innocent XI., while not approving of what had been done, praised the bishop for the efforts he had made to bring about a reunion.

Leibniz, the librarian and archivist of the Duke of Brunswick, having taken already some part in the work of bringing about a reconciliation, entered into a correspondence with Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux. He favoured a compromise on the basis of acceptance of the beliefs of the first five centuries, and published his /Systema Theologicum/ as a means of bringing the Catholic standpoint before the minds of his co-religionists. Bossuet and the French historian Pellisson reciprocated his efforts, but the schemes of Louis XIV. and the hopes of the English succession entertained by the House of Brunswick out an end to all chances of success.

From the beginning, though Luther and Zwingli were at one in their opposition to Rome, they were unable to agree upon a common religious platform. The Sacramentarian controversy, confined at first to Luther and Carlstadt, grew more embittered after Zwingli had espoused openly the side of the latter. Several German princes having embraced the views of Zwingli, it was felt necessary to preserve some kind of unity amongst the Reformers, especially in view of the threatening attitude assumed by Charles V. A conference was called at Marburg (1529), at which Luther, Melanchthon, Osiander, and Agricola agreed to meet Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Butzer, and the other Swiss leaders. The conference failed to arrive at a satisfactory agreement, but in 1536 the Concord of Wittenberg was concluded, whereby it was hoped that peace might be restored by the adoption of a very ambiguous formula. Luther, however, refused to allow himself to be bound by the agreement, and the controversy went on as violently as before.

In the meantime Calvin had undertaken to preach doctrines on the Eucharist entirely different from those put forward by either Zwingli or Luther, with the result that Zurich found itself in conflict with Geneva as it had found itself previously in conflict with Wittenberg. To restore some semblance of unity among the Swiss Reformers Bullinger, the recognised head of the Zurich party, entered into communication with Calvin, and a doctrinal agreement was arrived at known as the /Consensus Tigurinus/ (The Zurich Concord) in 1549. Later on this was confirmed by the /Confessio Helvetica/ (1564).

After the death of Luther in 1545 Melanchthon became the acknowledged head of the Lutheran party. On many questions he was inclined to disagree with the doctrine of his master. His teaching in regard to the Eucharist began to approximate more closely to the views of Calvin, so that the Impanation and Companation theories of Luther lost favour in Germany. The Philippists or Crypto-Calvinists gained ground rapidly in the country, with