Richard W. Thompson - The Footprints of the Jesuits

The constitution was locked up in the secret archives of the society for more than two hundred years, many of its details having been unknown, it is said, even by a considerable portion of the members, whose submissive obedience must have reduced them to the condition of trained animals. This concealment by a society professedly religious could not have been favorable to Christianity, and must have been the consequence of some sinister motive, as subsequent developments have shown. This is a fair inference from the reluctance with which the constitution was surrendered when the French Government demanded its exposure. The facts connected with the proceedings of the French Parliament, when they compelled the society to make it known, justify the belief that there must have been some special reason for its long concealment, and that the public odium, so long resting upon it in France, was attributable, among other things, to the secrecy of its proceedings. And when it is considered that the strong and vigorous measures adopted by the Parliament to extort the constitution by dragging it from its hiding-place, transpired at a time when Protestantism had no control whatsoever over the public affairs of France, it conclusively proves that the integrity of the society was suspected by the French people whilst they were faithful adherents of the Roman Church. Such a fact as this indicates—what every Jesuit stands ready to deny if necessary—that where the society was best known, it was most suspected and disliked.

The whole machinery of this society was admirably designed to accomplish its complete consolidation. Although Loyola was neither a theologian nor a learned man, having obtained almost his entire education after he was thirty years of age, yet he understood, far better than many who had acquired higher intellectual culture, the springs and motives of human conduct; and this, supplemented by cunning, which never deserted him, constituted his leading characteristic. As his sole object was to dominate over others by promising them a place in paradise as a reward for unmanning themselves, he studiously excluded all who could not be reduced to this low condition by training, discipline, and education. Accordingly, before an applicant could be admitted to probation, his whole life and character were closely scrutinized by the general, if it were in his power to do so; but if not, by persons selected as spies, who were "to live with him and examine him," so as to be able to penetrate his most secret thoughts.13 Upon admission, he was required to confess to a rector, who was to be recognized by him as holding "the place of Christ our Lord," and from whom nothing should be concealed—"not opposing, not contradicting, nor showing an opinion in any case opposed to his opinion."14 When the probationer was found by these tests qualified for membership—that is, when it was ascertained that he had no will of his own, but was fitted by nature and inclination for a state of complete bondage—he was required to recognize the general of the society as occupying the place of God, and as possessing absolute authority over him, with the right to exact absolute obedience from him. He was reduced to the condition of a mere inanimate machine, with no discretionary power whatsoever over his own emotions, opinions, or actions. This obligation is thus expressed in the constitution: "He must regard the superior as Christ the Lord, and must strive to acquire perfect resignation and denial of his own will and judgment, in all things conforming his will and judgment to that which the superior wills and judges."15 And, in order to assure, beyond the possibility of mistake, the complete surrender of all individuality, and to bring the probationer down to the lowest possible degradation, his uninquiring obedience is defined and exacted in these words: "As for holy obedience, this virtue must be perfect in every point—in execution, in will, in intellect—doing what is enjoined with all celerity, spiritual joy, and perseverance; persuading ourselves that everything is just; suppressing every repugnant thought and judgment of one's own, in a certain obedience; ... and let every one persuade himself that he who lives under obedience should be moved and directed, under Divine Providence, by his superior, just as if he were a corpse ( perinde ac si cadaver esset ), which allows itself to be moved and led in any direction."16

It would be hard to find, in any written or spoken language, words more expressive than these of the complete eradication of all sense of personality, unless it be some elsewhere employed in the same society to express the same or equivalent ideas. In the Prague edition of the "Institutes," the following is given as the language of one of its decrees: "It behooves our brethren to be pre-eminent in true and absolute obedience, in abnegation of all individual will and judgment."17 The Jesuit Bartoli, in his history of Loyola, expresses the meaning of the constitution in substantially the same words, thus: " An entire abnegation of their own will, of their own judgment ."18 Elsewhere he says the members must act "according to the pleasure of the superior."19 Again: "What can be more complete than our submission to the orders of our superiors in everything that concerns our state of life, the places we are to dwell in, the employments, the offices we are to be engaged in."20 And again, this submission to the will and judgment of the superior, or general, is called "renouncing our own judgment," "the annihilation of self," "complete obedience, entire dependence upon the will of others, perfect abandonment of personal reputation."21

This self-abnegation, this slavery of the mind, is a worse form of servitude than the slavery of the body. The latter places fetters upon the limbs, the former rivets shackles upon the mind. A brief comparison will illustrate this. The methods of punishing slaves for disobedience have varied accordingly as masters have been humane or otherwise. Some have been compelled to endure the torture of solitary imprisonment and starvation; others to wear iron fetters until they have eaten, by slow degrees, into their flesh; and multitudes have escaped only with the lash. In all this, merely the animal capacity for enduring physical suffering has been put to the test,—the minds of the victims having been left free to implore the mercy and protection of Providence, according to their own wills and consciences. But this Jesuit method of training probationers and novices to secure their implicit obedience to their superiors, transcends anything pertaining, especially in modern times, to the relation of master and slaves. It trifles with the interests and destiny of the soul, its relations to God and to eternity, by substituting a mere man, with the passions and impulses of other men, as the final arbiter of human conduct, and with the power to open and close the doors of heaven at his own personal pleasure. It is for fitting him to assent implicitly to this that the Jesuit is required to abnegate his individual self, dismiss from his mind the idea that God gave him the priceless faculty of thought and reflection, and abase himself to such a degree that he has no will or judgment of his own concerning the future condition of his soul. By considering himself a mere corpse—dead to everything in life but humiliating obedience to the general—he consents to accept his commands as equal to those of God, and to recognize the sentence he might see fit to pass upon him in this life, in lieu of the judgment of God in the life to come.

There is a vast deal of cumulative evidence upon these points, which have evidently been considered fundamental and indispensable. Besides the foregoing humiliating vows, strict rules and regulations are established for the government of the novices. Number 34 is as follows: "At the voice of the superior, just as if it came from Christ the Lord, we must be most ready, leaving everything whatsoever, even a letter of the alphabet, unfinished, though begun." Rule 35 defines "holy obedience" to be "abnegating all opinion and judgment of our own contrary thereto [that is, to what they are commanded to do], with a certain blind obedience." Rule 36 is in these words: "Let every member persuade himself that those who wish to live under obedience, ought to suffer themselves to be borne along and governed through Divine Providence through the superiors, just as if they were a corpse, which may be borne as we please, and permits itself to be handled anyhow; or like an old man's stick, which everywhere serves any purpose that he who holds it chooses to employ it in."22 The same ideas exactly are expressed in one of the vows which Loyola made conspicuous, and which is given by Bartoli in his biography, as follows: "I should regard myself as a dead body, without will or intelligence, as a little crucifix which is turned about unresistingly at the will of him who holds it, as a staff in the hands of an old man, who uses it as he requires it, and as it suits him best."23