2023-07-22 12:03:55
Juan Francisco AlonsoBBC News World
July 22, 2023, 10:03 GMT
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Before Pope Clement XIV dissolved the congregation founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, its members were expelled from Portugal, France, Spain, and parts of Italy.
With 14,439 members, 200 universities, 850 schools and thousands of social, cultural and religious works spread across 127 countries, the Society of Jesus is, until January 2022, the largest religious order in Catholicism.
A position that has been reinforced with the election, a decade ago, of one of their own: the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the current Pope Francis, as the head of the Vatican.
However, 250 years ago the congregation founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola was about to disappear from the face of the Earth and by decision of the one they swore to obey: the Pope.
On July 21, 1773, Clement XIV signed a brief – or papal document written in a less solemn way than the bulls – entitled Dominus ac Redemptor, through which he eliminated the Jesuits from the structure of the Church and stripped them of all their assets.
What were the reasons why Rome decreed the suppression of the Jesuits, as members of the order are popularly known?
The measure did not occur overnight, but was preceded by a smear campaign and persecution against the members of this order that began 15 years earlier, with their expulsion from Portugal and its overseas domains.
It all started in Paraguay
“The news at the time stated that the missions that the Company had in Paraguay had gold mines and the Portuguese king wanted them. So, after signing an agreement with Spain, he eliminated the missions,” Andrés Martínez Esteban explained to BBC Mundo.
Martínez, who is a professor of Church History at the University of San Dámaso (Spain), indicated that the decision triggered a revolt by the Guarani indigenous people who lived in the missions and the Lusitanian authorities accused the Jesuits of the uprising.
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The Portuguese king José I took over the missions that the Jesuits had in Paraguay.
These events were recreated, with historical licences, in the award-winning 1986 film “The Mission”, starring American Robert De Niro and British Jeremy Iron.
“Shortly there were two events that deepened the distrust of the Portuguese crown towards the congregation: The Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which some Jesuits claimed was a divine punishment, due to the king’s decision to take away the Paraguayan missions. And the assassination attempt on King José I in 1758, a plot that the authorities attributed to the Jesuits,” the expert said.
A combination of economic, theological and above all political reasons caused, in the following years, that the monarchs of France, Spain and Naples and Parma followed in the footsteps of their Portuguese counterpart.
for your ideas
“The Society of Jesus was an entity with a lot of access to the different monarchies, many Jesuits were confessors or spiritual directors of kings and queens. However, their political ideas greatly annoyed both the absolutist monarchs and the enlightened ones,” said the Venezuelan Jesuit Arturo Peraza, rector of the Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas (UCAB).
“The Company assumed Thomism, which does not support the idea of royal absolutism, but rather believed that the king should be accountable to God and to the people as well,” added the lawyer and doctor in Political Science.
Thomism is a philosophical and theological doctrine developed by Saint Thomas Aquinas who, among other things, considers it lawful for the governed to rebel against their rulers when the latter behave like tyrants, provided that the alternatives to resolve the situation have been exhausted.
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Spanish King Carlos III forged an alliance with the French and Italian monarchs, to whom he was related, to get the Vatican to liquidate the Society of Jesus.
The way in which the members of the order founded by San Ignacio de Loyola carried out their evangelizing work around the world also served to attack them.
“The Company considered that the cultures it reached had a set of positive elements that could be integrated into the Catholic ritual (…) this generated a kind of hysteria on the part of conservative groups, something similar to what has happened recently with Pope Francis’ position on the use of Latin,” said the Venezuelan Jesuit Peraza.
too independent
Martínez, for his part, provided another reason for the animosity of the sovereigns, particularly the Spanish: the way in which the Jesuits are organized, which prevented them from controlling them like the rest of the Catholic hierarchy.
“The kings had rights over the Church and they were the ones that the bishops proposed to the pope, but this did not happen with the Jesuits. This lack of control did not like the kings and their advisers,” he said.
In similar terms, the professor of History at the University of Navarra, Jesús Mari Usunáriz, pronounced: “The Company does not depend on the states and if the monarchies and states have suspicions about it for anything, it is because of their fourth vote: the vote of obedience to the Pope, which places them outside state jurisdiction,” he said.
Peraza agreed that the independence of the order was another of the reasons that led to its suppression.
“The enlightened people wanted to achieve the independence of the national states against the Vatican’s claim to exercise a kind of moral control over them and they saw the Jesuits as an ultramontane presence and persecuted them as spies for Rome,” he asserted.
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The fact that San Ignacio de Loyola took elements from the military world, from which he came, to organize the Jesuits seems to have contributed to their fame as conspirators.
The so-called Esquilache riot that took place in Spain in 1766 was used by critics of the order, both conservative and liberal, to convince King Carlos III that the followers of San Ignacio were behind these events.
The revolt was sparked by a controversial decision by a minister (Leopoldo de Gregorio y Masnata, Marquis of Esquilache) to ban long capes and other traditional crime-fighting clothing. The unpopular measure, together with the high cost of the time, unleashed virulent protests that forced the monarch to temporarily leave Madrid.
“Charles III was convinced that the Jesuits orchestrated the riots, in which he feared for his life. And, for this reason, he not only expels them from Spain and the colonies, but also makes a family pact by which the Bourbon crowns (Spain, France, Naples and Parma) join forces so that when Clement XIII dies, a Pope who commits himself to suppressing the Society of Jesus is elected,” Martínez explained.
Saved by the periphery
After threatening to break with Rome, the alliance of the Bourbon monarchies achieved its objective and the new pontiff, Clement XIV, dissolved the congregation.
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The refusal of Empress Catalina “La Grande” to endorse the decision of Pope Clement XIV to suppress the Society of Jesus, allowed the order to survive in the Russian Empire.
However, in the opinion of the experts, the Pope was not convinced of the measure and as evidence they highlighted that the legal instrument with which he suppressed the order left the doors open for its reinstatement, something that happened 41 years later.
“For the brief to have the force of law, it had to be endorsed by the different monarchs where it was going to be applied,” explained Revuelta González.
The refusal of Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine of Russia to endorse the papal decision allowed the Jesuits to continue operating as if nothing had happened in those territories.
About 200 of the estimated 22,000 Jesuits at the time found refuge under the cloak of Protestant and Orthodox sovereigns.
“Tsarina Catalina wanted the Jesuits to continue running their schools and educating the new Russian ruling class, in order to compete with the rest of the European powers,” Peraza explained.
Both the experts and the bibliography consulted by the BBC realized that the friars, monks and priests of the Society of Jesus took the measures against them without offering resistance. This, despite the fact that during the expulsions from the American colonies it is estimated that hundreds lost their lives.
The fact that the then superior general, Lorenzo Ricci, was arrested and died in the dungeons of Castel Sant’Angelo, adjacent to the Vatican, is evidence of his submission to the will of the Pontiff.
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The Jesuits were the target of a harsh smear campaign, in which members of other religious orders participated.
During the time in which the order was suppressed, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars and the beginning of the Latin American wars of independence followed one another. The hangover from these events would end up facilitating his return in 1814, with the approval of Pius VII.
“The Company was reborn in a political and religious environment marked by restoration (…) Dethroned dynasties and old borders were restored (…) The rationalist spirit seemed to beat a retreat before the recovery of the religious spirit,” wrote the Jesuit and Spanish historian Manuel Revuelta González.
Professor Usunáriz spoke in similar terms, stating: “The suppression of the Company meant a loss of power for the Church, in my opinion. And with its restoration the Church tried to recover an instrument of social, political and cultural influence.”
However, Martínez offered other reasons. “The suppression was an injustice, a decision that had no canonical or magisterial reasons, but political ones,” he said.
At the time of the restoration of the order, there were barely 2,500 religious, most of them elderly.
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In 2013 the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio not only became the first Latin American pope, but also the first Jesuit to reach that position.
Dealing with the myth
Despite its restoration, the Jesuits continue to carry a kind of stigma that has been reflected in expressions such as “if you go with the Jesuits, you don’t go with Jesus.”
What is this about? “Because it is unknown and that has allowed a cloud of legend to settle on it,” said the Spanish historian.
For his part, Peraza conceded that the way in which the followers of Saint Ignatius carry out their work has not always been understood, neither inside nor outside the Church.
“The Jesuits believe that salvation is not achieved in the convent, but to the extent that we try to transform reality. Therefore, if the monarch or ruler can change reality, then why not try to influence him,” he explained.
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