Nor is it true that after Vitelleschi's death, "it lost its monastic spirit" for the simple reason that it never had that spirit. The Jesuits are not monks and their official designation in ecclesiastical documents is _Clerici Regulares Societatis Jesu_ (Clerks, or Clerics, Regular of the Society of Jesus). It is precisely because they broke away from old monastic traditions and methods that they were so long regarded with suspicion by the secular and regular or monastic clergy, especially as the innovation was made at the very time that Martin Luther was furiously assailing monastic orders. If, however, by "the monastic spirit" is meant the religious spirit, and that is possibly the meaning of the writers, it will not be difficult to show that piety and holiness of life had not departed from the Society. For instance, some of the greatest modern ascetic writers appeared just at that time in the Society. Thus, Suárez died in 1617, and Lessius in 1623, both of whom may some day be canonized saints. To the latter, St. Francis de Sales wrote to acknowledge his spiritual indebtedness to the Society. Living at that time also were Bellarmine, Petavius, Nieremberg, Layman, Castro Palao, Surin, Nouet, de la Colombiére, and others equally spiritual. Álvarez de Paz died in 1620, Le Gaudier in 1622, Drexellius in 1630, Louis Lallemant in 1635, Lancisius in 1636, de Ponte in 1644, Saint-Jure in 1657. Meantime, the famous work on "Christian Perfection" by Rodríguez, who died in 1616, had been making its way to every religious house in Christendom. There was also a great number of holy men in the Society at that moment. Had that not been the case, Cardinal Orsini, who died in 1627, would not have asked for admission; nor Charles de Lorraine, Prince Bishop and Count of Verdun, who had entered a few years before; nor would the Pope have made the great Hungarian Pazmany a cardinal in 1616, and Pallavicini in 1659. Blessed Bernardino Realini was not yet dead; St. John Berchmans was living in 1621; and St. Peter Claver died in 1654, before his adviser St. Alphonsus Rodríguez; St. John Francis Regis made his first vows in 1633, and Vitelleschi himself is admitted to have been a man of extraordinary sanctity. A religious order with such members is the reverse of decadent.