SOCIETY
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SOCIETY
into its final form and signed. Still the pope delayed,
until Monino constrained him to get copies printed;
and as these were dated, no delay was possible beyond
that date, which was 10 August, 1773. A second
Brief was issued to determine the manner in which the
Suppression was to be carried out. To secure secrecy
one regulation was introduced which led, in foreign
countries, to some unexpected results. The Brief
was not to be pubhshed Urbi el Orbi, but only to
each college or place by the local bishop. At Rome,
the father-general was confined first in the Enghsh
College, then in Castel S. Angelo, with his assistants.
The papers of the Society were handed over to a
special commission, together with its title deeds and
store of money, 40,0(X) scmli (about $50,000), which
belonged almost entirely to definite charities. An
investigation of the papers was begun, but never
brought to any issue.
In the Brief of Suppression the most striking fea- ture is the long hst of allegations against the Society, with no mention of what is favourable; the tone of the Brief is very adverse. On the other hand the charges are recited categorically; they are not definitely stated to have been proved. The object is to represent the order as having occasioned per- petual strife, contradiction, and trouble. For the sake of peace the Society must be supjiressed. A full explanation of these and other anomalous features cannot yet be given, with certainty. The chief reason for them no doubt is that the Suppression was an administrative measure, not a judicial sen- tence based on judicial inquiry. We see that the course chosen avoided many difficulties, especially the open contradiction of preceding popes, who had so often prai.sed or confirmed the Society. Again, such statements were less liable to be controverted; and there were different ways of interpreting the Brief, which commended themselves to Zelanti and Bor- honid respectively. The last word on the subject is doubtless that of St. Alphonsus di Liguori — "Poor Pope! What could he do in the circumstances in which he was placed, with all the sovereigns conspir- ing to demand this Suppression? As for ourselves, we must keep silence, respect the secret judgment of God, and hold ourselves in peace".
Cr£tineac-Jolt, Clement XIV et Us jesuites (Paris. 1847); Danvilla t Coll.\do, Reinado de Carlos III (Madrid, 1893) ; Delpl-vce, La suppression des jisuites in Etudes (Paris, 5-2(5 July, 1908): Ferrer del Rio, Hist, del reinado de Carlos III (Madrid, 1856); de Ravignan, Clement XIII el Clement XIV (Paris, 18.54) ; Rosseau, Rigne de Charles III d'Espagne (Paris, 1907) : Smith, Suppression of the Soc. of Jesus in The Month (Lon- don, 1902-.3) ; Theiner, Oeseh. des Pontificals Clement A'/F (Paris, 1853; Frencii tr„ Brussels, 1853); Kobler, Die Aufhebung der Gesellschaft Jesu (Linz, 1873); Weld, Suppression of the Soc. of Jesus in the Portuguese Dominions (London, 1877) ; Zalen8Ki, The Jesuits in White Russia (in Polish, 1874; Fr. tr., Paris, 1886) ; Carayon, Le phre Ricci et la suppression de la comp. de Jesus (Poitiers, 1869) ; Saint-Priest, Ch-uie des j^auites (Paris, 1846) : NippoLD, Jesuitenorden von seiner Wiederherstellung (Mannheim, 1867).
The Interim (1773-1814).— The execution of the Brief of Suppression having been largely left to the local bishops, there was room for a good deal of variety in the treatment which the Jesuits might receive in different places. In Austria and Germany they were generally allowed to teach (but with secular clergy as superiors); often they became men of mark as preachers, like Beauregard, Muzzarelli, and Alexan- dre Lanfant (b. at Lyons, 6 Sept., 1726, and massacred in Paris, 3 Sept., 1793) and writers like Frangois-X. de Feller (q. v.), Zaccharia, Ximenes. The first to receive open official approbation of their new works were probably the English .Jesuits, who in 1778 obtained a Brief approving their well-known .\cademy of Li^ge (now at Stonyhurst). But in Russia, and until 1780 in Prussia, the Emjiress Catherine and King Frederick II desired to maintain the Society as a teaching body. They forbade the local bishops to promulgate the Brief until their placet was obtained.
Bjshop Massalski in \\'hite Russia, 19 September,
1773, therefore ordered the Jesuit superiors to con-
tinue to exercise jurisdiction till further notice. On
2 February, 1780, with the approbation of Bishop
Siestrzencewicz's Apostolic visitor, a novitiate was
opened. To obtain higher sanction for what had
been done, the envoy Benislaski was sent bv Cathe-
rine to Rome. But it must be remembered that the
animus of the Bourbon Courts against the Society
was still unchecked; and in some countries, as in
Austria under Joseph II, the situation was worse than
before. There were many in the Roman Curia who
had worked their way up by their activity against
the order, or held pensions created out of former
Jesuit property. Pius VI dechned to meet Cathe-
rine's requests. All he could do was to express an
indefinite as.sent by word of mouth, without issuing
any written documents, or observing the usual for-
mahties; and he ordered that strict secrecy should be
observed about the whole mission. Benislaski
received these messages on 12 March, 1783, and later
gave the Russian Jesuits an attestation of them (24
July, 1785).
On the other hand, it can cause no wonder that the enemies of the Jesuits should from the first have watched the survival in White Russia with jealousy, and have brought pressure to bear upon the pope to ensure their suppression. He was constrained to declare that he had not revoked the Brief of Sup- pression, and that he regarded as an abuse anything done against it, but that the Empress Catherine would not allow him to act freely (29 June, 1783). These utterances were not in real conflict with the answer given to Benislaski, which only amounted to the assertion that the escape from the Brief by the Jesuits in Russia was not schismatical, and that the pope approved of their continuing as they were doing. Their existence therefore was legitimate, or at least not illegitimate, though positive approval in legal form did not come till Pius VII's Brief "Cath- olicae Fidei" (7 March, 1801). Meantime the same or similar causes to those which brought about the Suppression of the Society were leading to the dis- ruption of the whole civil order. The French Revo- lution (1789) was overthrowing every throne that had combined against the Jesuits, and in the anguish of that trial many were the cries for the re-establish- ment of the order. But amid the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, during the prolonged captivities of Pius VI (1798-1800) and of Pius VII (1809-14), such a consummation was unpossible. The English Jesuits, however (whose academy at Liege, driven over to England by the French invasion of 1794, had been approved by a Brief in 1796), succeeded in obtaining oral permission from Pius VII for their aggregation to the Russian Jesuits, 27 May, 1803. The permission was to be kept secret, and was not even communicated by the pope to Propaganda. Next winter, its prefect. Cardinal Borgia, wrote a hostile letter, not indeed cancelling the vows taken, or blaming wliat had been done, but forbidding the bishops "to recognize the Jesuits", or "to admit their privileges", until they obtained permission from the Congregation of Propaganda.
Considering the extreme difficulties of the times, we cannot wonder at orders being given from Rome which were not always quite consistent. Broadly speaking, however, we see that the popes worked their way towards a restoration of the order by degrees. First, by approving community life, W'hich had been specifically forbidden by the Brief of Sup- pression (this was done for England in 1778). Second, by permitting vows (for England in 1S03). Third, by restoring the full privileges of a religious order (these were not recognized in Englnnd until 1S29). The Soci- ety was extended by Brief from Ku.ssia to the Kingdom of Naples, 30 July, 1804; but on the invasion of the
