Richard W. Thompson - The Footprints of the Jesuits

That the Jesuits are not content with the separation of Church and State is a fact too palpable for contradiction. Hence the readiness with which they engage in the organization, in this country, of a politico-religious party pledged to restore the pope's temporal power, notwithstanding such a party is condemned by the spirit of our institutions, and is regarded by the general public as impolitic, inexpedient, and hazardous; and inasmuch as they have chosen to thrust this issue upon us, we are not permitted to become indifferent to it, or shrink from our responsibility of citizenship under a Government entitled to our patriotic allegiance. Such an issue can not be evaded, and must be met with fearlessness and becoming candor. If one is informed that a poisonous viper is coiled up under a pillow upon which he is about to lay his head, he will instinctively strive after the means necessary to escape its fangs. So, when apprised that cunning and adroit adversaries, like the Jesuits, are plotting against cherished and vital principles of our institutions, the obligation to make ourselves familiar with their principles, policy, and history becomes imperative. Being forewarned, we shall have no excuse for not being forearmed.

We must do nothing, either now or hereafter, forbidden by our national character, or by the liberalism we prize so highly. Our Constitution amply protects the rights of free speech, free thought, and a free press, all of which must be held inviolable; but violence is manifestly done to the spirit of patriotism which guarantees this protection when it is demanded of any portion of our population that they shall participate in the work of undoing, in any degree whatsoever, what the founders of the Government considered fundamental. We are prohibited from submitting to anything that shall tend, even by possibility, to subject the people to any sovereignty, either spiritual or temporal, higher than themselves, in such matters as involve their own happiness and welfare. It would be well, consequently, for those who are seeking to accomplish this, to learn that the world is large enough for them and us; that there are other fields wherein better grounds of hope are furnished for re-welding the fragments of shattered monarchies; and that, when they avail themselves of the tolerance of our institutions to assail their foundations, they become intruders into a peaceful and harmonious circle, where, but for them, universal peace and quiet would prevail.

In his conflict with the Italian people for the re-possession of the temporal power, by overthrowing the Constitutional Government they have established, the pope could not find another ally so formidable as the Jesuits, nor one with such implacable hatred of liberalism and popular government. Their society is so united and compact that its ranks can not be broken. They are everywhere the same, moved by a common impulse, under the dictation of their general in Rome. They are the deadly enemies of civil and religious liberty. Nothing that stands in their way can become so sacred as to escape their vengeance. Protestantism has borne no fruits to which they have ever been reconciled. They consider the Reformation which gave birth to it to have been criminal resistance to the only rightful authority upon earth—that which proceeds from Church and State combined. They believe that the condition of mankind during the Middle Ages, staggering under the weight of feudal oppression, was preferable to modern progress and enlightenment; that human happiness would be promoted by the return to that period; that the political right of self-government by the people can not be set up against the higher right of papal and monarchical power; that the progress of the advancing nations is delusive and unsubstantial; and that institutions which guarantee civil and religious freedom, if not arrested by some coercive power strong enough to put an end to them, will lead, through heresy, to social ruin and desolation. If, at the period of the Reformation, this society had not been established for the express purpose of counteracting its influence, a knowledge of the difference between primitive Christianity and the prevailing dogmas might have led to such reforms as would have reconciled Christians to dwell together in peace and concord. But when a dove should have been sent forth bearing the olive-branch of Christian charity, this society sprang from the brain of a disappointed military adventurer, and began at once to scatter the seeds of strife and discord. Almost from the beginning it has been a disturber of the peace of nations, suffering only such as have bestowed patronage upon it to escape its maledictions and its plottings.

The members of this society are numerous and powerful in the United States. They are constantly increasing, mainly by accessions from their drilled and disciplined companions in Europe, but also by conversions of unsuspecting young men, who are seduced by their vain and supercilious pretensions as educators. They are, as they have always been, selfish and vindictive—restless under opposition, and compromising in nothing. They have neither country, nor homes, nor families, nor friendships beyond the limits of their order—none of the affections of the heart which give charm to life and social intercourse—being required to abandon all these and fit themselves for uninquiring obedience to their general, whose commands, whether right or wrong, good or bad, they have solemnly vowed to execute, without the least regard for consequences. Having persistently refused to become reconciled to the forms and methods of Christian civilization which prevail among our Protestant population, they employ all the resources they can command in endeavoring to arrest them. They insist that Church and State shall be united wheresoever they are separate, and that the basis of such union shall be the subordination of the State to the Church. Self-government by the people is held by them to be violative of the divine law, and on that account may rightfully be resisted as heretical, when its overthrow can be assured. They will allow no rights to exist in either States, peoples, or individuals, against what they consider the prerogatives of their society as defined by their general, who, in their estimation, possesses the divine right to enlarge or contract them at his own pleasure. There must be no limitation to the power and independence of the pope, either in the spiritual or temporal domain, except where the interests of their society command otherwise; they must be full, absolute, unquestioned, to the extent defined by himself. His liberty must be such that he may, at his own discretion, curtail the liberties of all others. His spiritual sovereignty must include whatsoever he shall embrace within it. Neither the existence nor the extent of this sovereignty must be brought in question before any human tribunal; but he alone shall define it, together with the character of the obedience he shall exact. And if, in the course of the papal economy, he should ever find it necessary to hold in one hand emblems of harmony and peace, this restless and uncompromising society stands always ready to place the rod of chastisement in the other.

The conflict of opinions, therefore, in which the Protestant people of the United States find themselves engaged is not of their own inviting. They are unwilling parties to it. It had its origin in the spirit of aggression which prevails among those who have stronger sympathy for an alien power than for the right of self-government, and, on account of their peculiar fitness for the work, it will engage every Jesuit tongue and pen in the land. Because of this, a sense of both duty and security demands that the history and character of this skilled and powerful adversary—alien in birth, growth, and sentiment—should be understood; as also the causes which have led to the expulsion of the Jesuits from every country in Europe, the public odium which has rested upon them for many years, their long-continued disturbance of the peace of nations, and the final suppression and abolition of their society by one of the best and most enlightened of the popes. In view of the obligation to preserve our civil institutions as they are, not only for ourselves and our children, but for the multitudes who shall seek shelter under them, we have no right to become either indifferent or inactive in the presence of such assailants, who complacently fling defiance in our faces, and seek to impregnate the free and pure atmosphere of our schools and seminaries of learning with the poison of monarchism. "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence," said Washington, "the jealousy of a free people ought ever to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government."