“It is not, however, the ill-judged gibe that compels us to revert to the
Society, as much as the suspicion that the editor of the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_ seems to fancy that we had nothing to say beyond calling
attention to his dilapidated bibliography, which he labels with the very
offensive title of ‘the bibliography of _Jesuitism_’—a term which is as
incorrect as it is insulting—or that we merely objected to the employment
of two dead and discredited witnesses to tell the world what kind of an
organization the Society is.
“It may be, moreover, that we misjudged a certain portion of the reading
public in treating the subject so lightly, and as the Encyclopædia is
continually reiterating the assertion that it has no ‘bias’ and that its
statement of facts is purely ‘objective,’ a few concrete examples of the
opposite kind of treatment—the one commonly employed—may not be out of
place.
“We are told, for instance, that ‘the Jesuits had their share, direct or
indirect, in the embroiling of States, in concocting conspiracies and in
kindling wars. They were responsible by their theoretical teachings in
theological schools for not a few assassinations’ (340). ‘They powerfully
aided the revolution which placed the Duke of Braganza on the throne of
Portugal, and their services were rewarded with the practical control of
ecclesiastical and almost civil affairs in that kingdom for nearly one
hundred years’ (344). ‘Their war against the Jansenists did not cease
till the very walls of Port Royal were demolished in 1710, even to the
very abbey church itself, and the bodies of the dead taken with every
mark of insult from their graves and literally flung to the dogs to
devour’ (345). ‘In Japan the Jesuits died with their converts bravely
as martyrs to the Faith, yet it is impossible to acquit them of a large
share of the causes of that overthrow’ (345). ‘It was about the same time
that the grave scandal of the Chinese and Malabar rites began to attract
attention in Europe and to make thinking men ask seriously whether the
Jesuit missionaries in those parts taught anything which could fairly be
called Christianity at all’ (348). ‘The political schemings of Parsons
in England was an object lesson to the rest of Europe of a restless
ambition and a lust of domination which were to find many imitators’
(348). ‘The General of the Order drove away six thousand exiled Jesuit
priests from the coast of Italy, and made them pass several months of
suffering on crowded vessels at sea to increase public sympathy, but the
actual result was blame for the cruelty with which he had enhanced their
misfortunes’ (346). ‘Clement XIV, who suppressed them, is said to have
died of poison, but Tanucci and two others entirely acquit the Jesuits.’
‘They are accountable in no small degree in France, as in England, for
alienating the minds of men from the religion for which they professed to
work’ (345).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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