Richard W. Thompson - The Footprints of the Jesuits

Table of Contents

It is of little consequence to the general reader what place in history is assigned to Ignatius Loyola, apart from the fact that he was the founder and originator of the society of Jesuits, and lived long enough to stamp upon it the impress of his own personality. He availed himself of that organization to maintain among its members the vain and impious assumption of his equality with God, and in that way obtained such complete mastery over them that, in explanation and justification of their slavish obedience, they represent him as having possessed miraculous powers. They assign to him the performance of more miracles than Christ, and do not hesitate to record that he not only restored the dead to life, but, in one conspicuous case, gave life to a child born dead! The silly stories of this character, told of him in apparent seriousness, can have no other effect than to impose upon and encourage ignorant and superstitious people, and are undoubtedly repeated by his Jesuit biographers for this purpose. They seem never to have realized that the world has grown wiser, and that the period has passed when fictions and myths can be proclaimed as realities.

The life of Loyola was written, soon after his death, by Rabadenira, one of his Jesuit followers, who had known him intimately. Of course, under such circumstances, his statement of personal characteristics was presumably reliable. What he stated in the first edition was professedly based upon his own knowledge and what he had learned from Loyola's "intimate friends" and "inseparable companions." And with these facts before him and fully considered, he declared that his "sanctity was not justified by miracles." Some years after, however, it was deemed expedient that this concession should be withdrawn entirely, and another more favorable to the Jesuits be substituted for it. Accordingly, in another edition of the same work, it is stated that Loyola's performance of miracles was "confirmed by the most authentic proofs and careful examination."4 These statements are in direct conflict, and can not both be true. The first bears the impress of veracity because it is consistent with human experience, while the latter shows the tracings of Jesuit fingers too clearly to mislead any thoughtful and intelligent mind.

It is singularly strange that, in the present reading and enlightened age, these pretended miracles are cited by Jesuits to prove that divine power and authority were conferred upon Loyola, because God chose him to accomplish special objects in his name; when the very things which, as they allege, he was providentially appointed to defeat, have transpired in spite of him, his successors, and all their followers. The suppression of the Reformation and the extirpation of Protestantism—its legitimate fruit—were the avowed purposes of himself and his society, because, according to them, the curse of God rested upon these as the excess of unpardonable heresy. For the accomplishments of these objects he converted the members of his society into a compact body of militia, and placed in their hands weapons chosen by himself, instructing them that they were specially selected as the executioners of the Divine vengeance. Yet the Reformation progressed until it marked out new paths of advancement for the nations; and Protestantism has extended its beneficent influences until it is to-day the controlling power in human affairs, and has even taken possession of places where the papacy once ruled with sovereign and unchallenged authority. And the great work thus begun, in the face of Jesuit maledictions and curses, has not yet ended; for Protestantism still continues to build up new nations, elevate and improve peoples, and make mankind freer, happier, and more prosperous; whilst there has not been a time since the Jesuits existed as a society when they have not been odious in all parts of the world, and have not been regarded as the plotters of mischief and disturbers of the public peace. How can a thoughtful mind account for these results by any known process of human reasoning, if it were true that Loyola had divine power conferred upon him expressly for the purpose of exterminating Protestantism as heresy? And how, if his society of Jesuits has been providentially endowed with faculties to consummate his ends, could it have happened that one of the wisest and best of the popes—for whom infallibility is now claimed—was constrained to condemn it by positive suppression, and to declare, under the solemn responsibilities of his sacred office, that it was not worthy of longer existence? But leaving these questions unanswered for the present, it is sufficient to say here that no qualities possessed by Loyola, whatsoever they were, can oblige the present age to recognize his society as entitled to any such prerogatives and immunities as exempt it from having its real worth tested by the rules universally accepted as applicable to human conduct and affairs. It must now be tried by these rules; and if it shall be found that its conduct has been marked by wrong and injustice, its boastful claim of superiority will appear to every investigator as merely vain and presumptuous.

That Loyola was shrewd and sagacious, and laid his plans with a full and intelligent comprehension of the ends he had in view, ought not to be denied. When engaged in framing the constitution of the Jesuits, he was familiar with the troubles existing in the Church, and with the prevailing public sentiment with reference to their causes; that is, the unfitness for the proper discharge of spiritual functions of those charged with their exercise. The Jesuits themselves assert this, in explanation of the necessity for the establishment of theirs as a new society, declaring that the numerous orders then existing—such as the Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans, Minorites, and others—were incompetent to arrest the decline of the Church, on account of their own need of reform. This point in their history should invite the closest attention and scrutiny, because it shows, in a conspicuous degree, the basis of their assumed superiority over all other societies and orders which, in the course of time, have had the sanction of the Church. And this scrutiny is desirable, moreover, inasmuch as it will be seen that the pictures of demoralization prevailing among the clergy, as they were drawn by the reformers in their most vivid coloring, had their accuracy vouched for by Loyola himself, to justify the establishment of his society of Jesuits, not merely because it would constitute a distinct, independent, and superior organization, but would bring back all dissenters to obedience, which he made its main and fundamental principle.

One of the leading Jesuit authorities—an author upon whom the society relies to make known that part of its history considered favorable—endeavors to maintain the proposition that it was absolutely obligatory for Loyola to have been intrusted with the duty "of reforming the morals of the people of Rome," immediately within the shadow of the Vatican. He represents the task as "most difficult and important, as at that time the people were much demoralized, and indulged in the most frightful excesses," notwithstanding the papal Government, with plenary and absolute powers, had existed there during all the period of the Middle Ages—nearly a thousand years. Not content alone with asserting that the people were demoralized, this same author affirms, in addition, that Loyola "sought to reform the monastic orders, and reanimate the priesthood with a holy fervor,"5 thus alleging that the monastic orders and the priesthood were demoralized like the people, and needed that a new guardian of their morals, other and better than any the Church had ever furnished, should be empowered to regulate their conduct. In further explanation of the reasons why Loyola desired to establish the society of Jesuits, he represents him as having addressed directly to the pope, Paul III, this argument: "It appears that this society is absolutely necessary for the eradication of those abuses with which the Church is afflicted."6 And at another place, referring to the condition of the Church in Germany, he says it was "mainly attributable to the ignorance of the people, and, more dangerous still, to the shortcomings of the priesthood, abandoned to the gratification of their own passions. In the entire city of Worms there was but one priest worthy of respect."7 Neither Luther nor the reformers could have employed apter words to justify themselves; nor can those of the present time, who comment upon the vices which then prevailed among the clergy, express themselves in stronger language. The well-established historical fact is, that the same condition of things existed throughout the leading nations of Europe, beginning at Rome and reaching out in every direction, having the papacy as its common center. When the Jesuits, therefore, bestow their curses upon Luther and other reformers for having proclaimed the necessity for reform in the Church because of the demoralization of the clergy, they show their memories to be short in forgetting that their society was justified by its founder upon the plea of the same necessity.