Richard W. Thompson - The Footprints of the Jesuits

If there were any evidences to prove that the Jesuits, as a society, have abandoned any of the principles or policy which bear the stamp of Loyola's approval, there would be no necessity, other than that which incites to historic investigation, for a careful and critical investigation of them. But there are none. On the contrary, it will be seen that, from their very nature, they are not susceptible of change so long as the society shall exist. The memory of Loyola is still preserved with intense devotion. He is worshiped as a saint, and the words uttered by him are as much reverenced as those spoken by the Savior. It seems impossible, therefore, to escape the conviction that this extraordinary society is unlike any other now existing, or which has heretofore existed, in the world. That it was conceived by the active brain of an ambitious and worldly-minded enthusiast, who had been disappointed at not winning the military distinction he had expected, is an irresistible inference from facts well established in his personal history. His vanity and imperiousness suggested the starting-point of his organization, whereby man was treated as incapable of intelligent reflection—fit only to become the unresisting tool of those who venture profanely to affirm, contrary to any divine revelation, that God has endowed them alone with authority to subject the world to obedience. His plan of operations was, from the beginning, a direct censure of all the ancient religious orders, as it was also of the methods the Church had adopted after the experience of many centuries. When he conceived it, his chief purpose undoubtedly was, as heretofore explained,33 to make himself and his successors independent of and superior to the pope and the Church. His contemplated antagonism to both was sufficiently indicated by the fact that his original constitution centered absolute and irresponsible power in the hands of the general of his society; and the subsequent introduction of the simulated vow of qualified fidelity to the pope—which was brought about by a degree of necessity amounting almost to duress—has had no other effect than to tax the strategic ingenuity of more than one general by the invention of subterfuges to evade it. In furtherance of this idea, the society holds no intercourse with the pope, nor he with it. Its members are all independent of him. They are the creatures and instruments of the general alone. They obey him, and no other. If he, as the head of the society, does not think proper to execute the orders of the pope—as has often occurred—the question is alone between the pope and him, not with the society. The only point of unity is between the general and the members; and of this the society boasts with its habitual vanity. In enumerating the methods by which its duration is considered assured, Bartoli says: "The chief is a strict union between the members and the head, consequent upon entire dependence, which results from perfect obedience. Ignatius established a monarchical form of government in the society, and placed the whole administration of the order in the hands of the general, with an authority absolute and independent of all men, with the sole exception of the sovereign pontiff. The general then decided absolutely, both in the choice of the superiors, as well as in everything which concerns the members of the company."34 This sufficiently shows that the pope deals alone with the general, and he alone with the society; except through the latter, the former can not reach the members, or communicate his will to them; and even when the pope communicates with the general, the whole obligation of the latter's obedience consists in sending the members of the society to whatsoever part of the world the pope shall direct without remuneration. And it is by these means that the society constitutes what Bartoli calls "one solid and durable whole," nominally with two heads, but practically paying obedience to but one.

It was scarcely necessary to say that the society existed under "a monarchical form of government," for it is impossible for such an organization to exist in any other form. In fact, it surpasses in that respect any institution ever known, not excepting the most tyrannical despotisms by which the Oriental peoples were held in bondage for centuries. Until the time of Loyola no man ever conceived—or if he did, the avowal of it is unknown to history—the idea that the plain and simple teachings of Christ, which are easily interpreted, could be distorted into an apology for reducing mankind to a multitude of unthinking corpses or dead bodies, without thoughts, opinions, or motives of their own, so that they should submit implicitly to the dictation of a single man, who, to prepare them for perfect obedience, required that the best affections of their hearts should be extinguished, and nothing generous or kindly or noble be permitted to exist in them. Absolutism could not possibly be carried further, for there is no degree of humiliation lower than that the Jesuit is required to reach. Howsoever cultivated in art, or learned in letters, or courtly in manners, or fascinating in oratory he may become, his conscience is dwarfed into cowardice, and he has parted with his manhood as if it were an old garment to be cast aside at pleasure. No picture of him could be more true than that drawn by the friendly pen of Bartoli, who tells us, boastingly, that "the society requires no members who are governed by human respect."35 It requires, according to this biographer of Loyola, only those who hold in utter contempt the opinions of the world, those who extinguish in their minds all sense of either praise or shame, and who close all avenues by which men's hearts are reached by noble or generous or patriotic impulses. They seem to think that God, after making man "in his own image" and with capacity for inspiring thoughts, paralyzed his best affections in mere sport, and left him only fitted for blind obedience to an imperious master, who requires him to sunder all the tenderest domestic relations as if they invited to impiety, and who treats all the highest social virtues as vices when they do not advance his ambitious ends, and any form of vice as virtue when it does.

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Any reader of the last two chapters can see—without the admission of Bartoli to that effect—that the government of the society of Jesuits is entirely monarchical, and founded upon the paternalism set up by imperial rulers in proof of their divine right to govern. Like these rulers, Loyola maintained that mankind were not competent to govern themselves, and therefore that Providence has ordained that they can be rightfully and wisely governed only by their superiors, no matter whether they acquire and maintain their superiority by fraud, intrigue, or violence. He had observed society when it was accustomed to pay but little attention, if any, to the structure and details of government, and left all matters of public concern to drift into channels created by those who ruled them with the view of preserving their own power. And hence he imitated their imperial example by making this principle of paternalism the fundamental basis of his society; but transcended the despotism of antiquity by enslaving both the minds and bodies of its members, and annihilating all sense of personality among them. This society, consequently, has never been reconciled to any other form of government than absolute monarchy, nor can it ever be, so long as it shall exist. Without absolutism in its most extreme form it would lose its power of cohesion and fall to pieces, as inevitably as a ship drifts away from its course when the rudder is broken.

Having become thus familiar with the constitution and organization of this society, and the principles which underlie them, it is equally important to discover how these were administered by Loyola himself, and his immediate successors; for otherwise its real character can not be known. It has a history of its own—created by itself, and, in a great measure, when not subject to the inspection of others—and unless we shall become also familiar with this it will be hard, if not impossible, to understand the fierce and tireless animosity with which it has resisted all who have endeavored to block its way to universal dominion, including even popes and the Church. If any other society ever had such a history, it has not been written.