I have narrated this curious story at some length, relying entirely
on the Jesuit Sacchini, because it is of extreme significance for one
who would judge the character and history of the Society. Catholic
historians, who suppress it entirely or give a very misleading version
of it, are clearly of opinion that the mere record of the facts will
disturb their readers, while anti-Catholic writers enlarge on it with
pleasure. Those who desire to have an intelligent and just estimate
of the Jesuits can neither ignore nor misinterpret such facts. That
Lainez was personally ambitious, that his eagerness for power had not
entirely the unselfish character of such ambition as we may recognise
in Ignatius, can hardly be doubted. But Brouet and Salmeron shared and
supported his conduct, and in those two, at least, one is disposed to
see the first spirit of the Regiment of Jesus in its original purity.
The clue to the seeming inconsistency or hypocrisy of such men defying
or evading the Pope's commands I have already indicated. The Society of
Jesus had consecrated diplomacy to the service of God. If a Pope would
strip their order of those distinctions and privileges which, in their
conviction, peculiarly fitted it to carry on the holy war, he was not
acting as the Vicar of Christ, and his commands must be evaded. It did
not occur to them that this was, in the end, the Protestant principle
of private judgment, against which they thundered the doctrine of
papal authority. They were the children of Ignatius, who had always
felt that _his_ private judgment was the judgment of God. So Jesuitism
moved slowly toward its inevitable goal.
One other incident at Rome may be recorded before we distribute the
events of the next seven years in their national departments. A little
more than a year after the election, on 18th August 1559, Paul IV.
died. How the Romans, stung by the misery they had suffered during
his war with Spain and the brutalities of his Inquisition, burst
into the streets with wild rejoicing, and attacked the palace of the
Inquisitors, and how the new Pope surrendered the criminal nephews of
his predecessor, including a cardinal of the Church, to the scaffold,
must be read in general history. The fact that the Jesuits were called
to sustain Cardinal Caraffa in his last hours is of no significance. It
is more pertinent to tell that Lainez returned to the learned Cardinal
Puteo, and the odious command of Paul IV. was declared to have died
with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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