CLEMENT
36
CLEMENT
find its way in. There is no one who would undertake
to hand it in" (19th Jan., 1773).
On 4 July, 1772, appeared on the scene a new Span- ish ambassador, Joseph Monino, Count of Florida Blanca. At once he made an onslaught on the per- plexed pope. He openlj' threatened him with a schism in Spain and probably in the other Bourbon states, such as had existed in Portugal from 1760 to 1770. On the other hand, he promised the restitution of Avignon and Benevento, still held by France and Naples. WTiilst Clement's anger was roused by this latter simoniacal proposal, his good, but feeble, heart could not overcome the fear of a widespread schism. Monino had conquered. He now ransacked the archives of Rome and Spain to supply Clement with facts justifying the promised suppression. Monino must be held responsible for the matter of the Brief "Dominus ac Redemptor", i. e. for its facts and pro- visions; the pope contributed little more to it than the form of his supreme authority. Meanwhile Clem- ent continued to harass the Jesuits of his own do- minions, perhaps with a view to preparing the Cath- olic world for the Brief of suppression, or perhaps hop- ing by his severity to soothe the anger of Charles III and to stave off the abolition of the whole order. Un- til the end of 1772 he still found some support against the Bourbons in King Charles Emmanuel of Sardinia and in the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. But Charles Emmanuel died, and Maria Theresa, giving way to the importunate prayers of her son Joseph II and her daughter the Queen of Naples, ceased to plead for the maintenance of the Society. Thus left to himself, or rather to the will of Charles III and the wiles of Monino, Clement began, in November, 1772, the composition of the Brief of abolition, which took him seven months to finish. It was signed 8 Jvme, 177.3; at the same time a congregation of cardinals was appointed to administer the property of the sup- pressed order. On 21 July the bells of the Gesu rang the opening of the annual novena preceding the feast of St. Ignatius; the pope, hearing them, remarked: " They are not ringing for the saints but for the dead ' '. The Brief of suppression, signed on 8 June, bears the date 21 July, 1773. It was made know^l at the Gesii to the general (Father Ricci) and his assistants on the evening of 16 August; the following day they were taken first to the English (College, then to Castel Sant' Angelo, where their long trial was commenced. Ricci never saw the end of it. He died in prison, to his last moment protesting his innocence and that of his order. His companions were set free under Pius VI, their judges having found them "not guilty".
The Brief "Dominus ac Redemptor" opens with the statement that it is the pope's office to secui-e in the world the unity of mind in the bonds of peace. He must therefore be prepared, for the sake of charity, to uproot and destroy the things most dear to him, whatever pains and bitterness their loss may entail. Often the popes, his predecessors, have made use of their supreme authority for reforming, and even dis- solving, religious orders which had become harmful and disturbed the peace of the nations rather than promoted it. Numerous examples are quoted, then the Brief continues: "Our predecessors, in virtue of the plenitude of power which is theirs as Vicars of Christ, have suppres.sed such orders without allowing them to state their claims or to refute the grave accu- sations brought against them, or to impugn the mo- tives of the pope." Clement has now to deal with a similar case, that of the Society of Jesus. Having enumerated the princi|5al favours granted it by former popes, he remarks that "the very tenor anil terms of the said Apostolic constitutions show that the Society from its earliest days bore the germs of ilissensions and jealousies which "lore its own members asunder, led them to rise against ot her religious orders, against the secular clergy and llie universities, nay
even against the sovereigns who had received them in
their states". Then follows a list of the quarrels in
which the Jesuits had been engaged, from SLxtus V to
Benedict XIV. Clement XIII had hoped to silence
their enemies by renewing the approbation of their
Institute, "but the Holy See derived no consolation,
the Society no help, Christianity no advantage from
the Apostolic letters of Clement XIII, of blessed mem-
ory, letters which were wrung from him rather than
freely given". At the end of this pope's reign "the
outcry and the complaints against the Society increas-
ing day by day , the very princes whose piety and hered-
itary benevolence towards it are favourably known of
all nations — our beloved Sons in Jesus Christ the
Kings of France, Spain, Portugal, and the two Sicilies
— were forced to expel from their kingdoms, states and
provinces, all the religious of this Order, well knowing
that this extreme measure was the only remedy to
such great e\ils." Now the complete abolition of the
order is demanded by the same princes. After long
and mature consideration the pope, " compelled by
his office, which imposes on him the obligation to pro-
cure, maintain, and consolidate with all his power the
peace and tran(|uillity of the Christian people — per-
suaded, moreover, that the Society of Jesus is no
longer able to produce the abundant fruit and the
great good for which it was instituted — and consider-
ing that, as long as this order subsists, it is impossible
for the Church to enjoy free and solid peace", resolves
to "suppress and abolish" the Society, "to annul and
abrogate all and each of its offices, functions, and ad-
ministrations ". The authority of the superiors was
transferred to the bishops; minute provisions were
made for the maintenance and the employment of the
members ot the order. The Brief concludes with a
prohibition to suspend or impede its execution, to
make it the occasion of insulting or attacking anyone,
least of all the former Jesuits; finally it exhorts the
faithful to live in peace with all men and to love one
another.
The one and only motive for the suppression of the Society set forth in this Brief is to restore the peace of the Chiu'ch by removing one of the contending parties from the battlefield. No blame is laid by the pope on the rules of the order, or the personal conduct of its members, or the orthodoxy of their teaching. More- over, Father Sydney Smith, S. J. (in "The Month", CII, 02, July, 1903), observes: "The fact remains that the condemnation is not pronounced in the straightforward language of direct statement, but is merely insinuated with the aid of dexterous phras- ing ' ' ; and he contrasts this method of stat ing grounds for the suppression of the Society 'with the vigorous and direct language used by former popes in sup- pressing the Humiliati and other orders. If Clement XIV hoped to stop the storm of unbelief raging against the Bark of Peter by throwing its best oarsmen over- board, he was sorely mistaken. But it is unlikely that he entertained such a fallacy. He loved the Jesuits, who had been his first teachers, his trusty ad- visers, the best defenders of the Church over which he ruled. No personal animosity guided his action; the Jesuits themselves, in agreement with all serious his- torians, attribute their suppression to Clement's weak- ness of character, unskilled diplomacy, and that kind of goodness of heart which is more bent on doing what is pleasing than what is right. He w'as not built to hold his head above the tempest; his hesitations and his struggles were of no avail against the enemies of the ordtT, and his friends found no better excuse for him than that of St. Alphonsus: What could the poor pope do when all the Courts insisteil on the sup- pression? The Jesuit Cordara expresses the same mind: "I think we should not condemn the pontitT wlio, after ,so many hesitations, lias judged it his duty to suppress the Society of Jesus. I love my order as mucli as any man, yet, had I been in the pope's place
