A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
The Jesuits, however, were not the only body interested in the downfall
of Molinos. There is a curious anonymous tract devoted to explaining
what it calls the secret policy of the Quietists, assuming their main
object to be the destruction of all the religious Orders and especially
of the Dominicans and Franciscans. Apparently taking advantage of the
development of the Pelagini about this time, it asserts that the
Quietists had organized conventicles and oratories throughout Italy;
that they had a common treasury in which 14,000 ducats were found; that
they flattered the secular clergy and sought to unite them in opposition
to the regulars, whom they systematically decried, raking together all
the stories of their corruption and ignorance. In short, Quietism was a
deep-laid conspiracy, through which Molinos expected to revolutionize
the Church and reduce the religious Orders to impotence.[102] The only
importance of the tract is as a manifestation of the attitude of the
regulars towards Molinos and the hostility aroused by his success in
winning from them, for his disciples, the directorship of souls which
was their special province.
The enormous influence of the elements thus combining for his
destruction left little doubt of the result. The first open attack was
made in June, 1682, when Cardinal Caraccioli, Archbishop of Naples, a
pupil of the Jesuits, reported to the pope that he found his diocese
deeply infected with this new Quietism, subversive of the received
prescriptions of the Church, and he asked instructions for its
suppression, nor was he alone in this for similar appeals came from
other Italian bishops. Molinos was too firmly established in the papal
favor for this to dislodge him, but the hostile forces gradually
gathered strength and, in November, 1684, the Congregation of the
Inquisition formally assumed consideration of the matter. At its head
was Cardinal Ottoboni, a fanatic whose experience with the Pelagini,
when Bishop of Brescia, had sharpened his hatred of mysticism. The
spirit in which he conducted the inquest is revealed in a memorandum in
his handwriting of the points to be elaborated in the next day's meeting
of the Congregation--that this heresy is the worst of all and if left
alone will become inextinguishable; that it is spreading in Spain
through the Archbishop of Seville and in France with many books of the
most dangerous nature; that it destroys the Catholic faith and all the
religious Orders; that in Jesi the canons and the cura of the cathedral
keep a school for its propagation; that a rich and powerful citizen of
Jesi threatens the witnesses and that a vigorous commissioner must be
sent there; that the monasteries of Faenza and Ravenna are infected and
one in Ferrara has a Quietist confessor; that this pestilence calls for
fire and steel.[103] In a court presided over by so bitter a prosecutor,
the judgement was fore-ordained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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