BEYOND SUPPRESSION AND RESTORATION: ON THE
FRONTIERS, THE JESUITS IN CHINA.
AN ESSAY AT SOME READING OF HISTORY
by
Yves Camus, S.J.
Macau Ricci Institute
1
Contributor’s Abstract and Profile
Among the various causes that may have led to the worldwide suppression in 1773 of the Society of
Jesus, the Chinese Rites theological controversy in Europe (Paris and Rome in particular) has been
mentioned more often than not. This essay at some reading of the events will focus on how the
suppression of the Jesuit order has been lived by some of them and mainly in Beijing where the
Controversy flared up in a flurry of ecclesiastical decrees while the life of Christian communities in the
provinces of China continued to grow. Attention will be paid as far as possible to the historical context as
much as it can explain the worldwide restoration in 1814 of the Jesuits. Yet the decision by Pope Pius VII
did not take effect in China before 1840, that is at a time when the country was entering the painful
period of humiliations by Western powers. How Jesuits of the restored Society of Jesus were sent to the
field in such a context should merit more attention. Would the seeds of friendship beyond controversies
sown by Matteo Ricci and his brothers three centuries ago perish in the turmoil? Such a question remains
valid as it is still based on hope.
Yves CAMUS, SJ, 趙儀文 after completing post-graduate studies on Chinese Buddhism (1974), has
supervised (1985-1998) the up-dated compilation of a Chinese-French dictionary, the Grand
Dictionnaire Ricci de la Langue Chinoise in 7 volumes (300,000 entries, Paris, 2002). One of the
Founding Members of the Institute, for two terms (1999-2007) as Associate Director, he has taken part
in the conception and development of its research and cultural activities, especially as Director of
Publication then Editor of the Chinese-English quarterly journal 神州交流—Chinese Cross Currents
(2004-2012). He has recently been appointed Research Fellow of the Institute and coordinator of the
English translation and publication project of the Acta Pekinensia, the official Jesuits records in Latin of
the Maillard de Tournon papal legation (1704-1711) to the Court of Emperor Kangxi and related to issues
of the Chinese Rites controversy. His main fields of research and interests are Chinese philosophical and
spiritual traditions in modernity.
Table of Contents
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
Introduction
Summary
The Setting of the Stage
Matteo Ricci’s intuitive initiative (1603-1610) and its influence
Growing Opposition to the Jesuit order
What might be the source of this opposition?
From one Brief to another
History does not repeat itself but it rhymes
As a Postlude
2
p. 3
p. 4
p. 5
p. 6
p. 10
P. 13
p. 17
p. 25
p. 28
BEYOND SUPPRESSION AND RESTORATION:
ON THE FRONTIERS, THE JESUITS IN CHINA.
AN ESSAY AT SOME READING OF HISTORY
Among the various causes that may have led to the worldwide suppression in 1773 of the
Society of Jesus, the Chinese Rites theological controversy in Europe (Paris and Rome in
particular) has been mentioned more often than not. In this essay at some reading of the
events, the attention will first be paid as far as possible to the historical context as much
as it can explain the worldwide “suppression” in 1773 and revival in 1814 of the Society
of Jesus. It will focus on how the “cassation” by Pope Clement XIV of the Jesuit order
has been lived by some of its members and mainly in Beijing where the Controversy
flared up in a flurry of ecclesiastical decrees while the life of Christian communities in
the provinces of China continued to grow. Yet the decision by Pope Pius VII to revive
the Society did not take effect in China before the 1840s, which is at a time when the
country was entering the painful period of humiliations by Western powers. How Jesuits
restored in their identity were sent to the field in such a context should merit more
attention. Would the seeds of friendship beyond controversies, sown four centuries ago
by Matteo Ricci and his followers thanks to their common Jesuit charisma, perish in the
turmoil? Such a question remains valid for it challenges the hope of many.
3
Summary
A_drama of ecclesial proportions
The Setting of the Stage
The Council_of_Trent (1545-1563)
Mikołaj Kopernik (1473-1543) and the Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) case
The ‘Iberian Union’ (1580-1640) and the two Patroado/Patronato
The beginning of the Chinese Rites controversy (1630)
Matteo Ricci’s Intuitive Initiative (1603-1610) and Its Influence
The Malabar Rites controversy (1606-1744)
The Jesuit Reductions (1606-1767) in South America
Growing opposition to the Jesuit order
In Portugal
In France
In Spain
What might be the source of this opposition?
Discerning a hidden tension beyong economic issues
The European Classicism and the Jansenist movement
The Age of Enlightenment and the Jesuit missions
From one Brief to another
The Destruction of the Jesuit institution (1773)
A drama in the drama: the Chinese Christian Communities
The Resurgence of the Jesuit charisma (1814)
History does not repeat itself but it rhymes
Revolutions and expulsions
The Jesuits return in China
As a Postlude
Jesuit charisma in ecclesial history
4
The challenge that historians have to face when writing about the death and resurgence of the
Society of Jesus, the Jesuit catholic religious order, is daunting. “The writing of history remained
trapped in the nets of a conspiracy theory explaining little or nothing but pretending to take
account of all the complexity. The year 2014 could be an occasion for so many things. One of
them could be to give life to the possibility, since we also are at the end of an epoch, to wield
the pen in a new version which above all can give an account of itself.” 1
On the same line of thought this essay is not conceived to be a research on the causes but a
quest for some meaning of both the destruction in 1773 and the reconstruction in 1814 by the
Church of the Society of Jesus, at the end of long and troubled times in Europe. In other words,
this essay aims at some reading of the Jesuit charisma in history as the development of a drama
and of its hidden importance until these days.
Among the various causes that may have led to the worldwide dissolution in 1773 of the
Society of Jesus, the Chinese Rites theological controversy in Europe (Paris and Rome in
particular) has been mentioned more often than not. Nevertheless to better realise the meaning
of the evolving drama in which this crisis happened, a few words on the historical background
as the setting of the stage could perhaps be helpful.
The Setting of the Stage
Soon after its beginnings in 1540, the Society of Jesus had already sent Jesuits to go to the
frontiers of the Christian world, in Asia in particular. That world was then undergoing deep
cultural transformations in a context of tensions.
Let us first mention the long Council of Trent that had lasted for eighteen years (1545-1563).
In 1517, Martin Luther, a German monk of the Augustinian monastery and professor at the
University of Wittemberg (in Saxony, Germany), posted a declaration in 95 statements. He was
protesting to abuses in Rome, for instance the issuance of spiritual indulgences sold to finance the
construction of St Peter Basilica. Basically, Luther proposed a new idea of the practice of religion,
based on the return to its sources. This new approach of Christian faith had three principles: Only
Scriptures, the Bible, have authority in the Church above the Tradition and the Pope. Only faith in
Christ saves, not human deeds, even good works. Through baptism all Christians are equal before
God. In other words, Jesus Christ is the unique mediator, and there is no and should not be any
difference between clergy and lay people.
By reaction, these views have influenced the work of the Council of Trent despite a total of 10
years of interruptions caused by a conflict between Emperor Charles V and the king of France,
Francis I (in 1545, only 29 bishops and 3 general superiors of religious orders attended, and in
1547 the Council was moved to Bologna, to distance itself from any political interference).
The suspense caused by such a delay and the encountered difficulties did not deprive the
Council’s decisions from renewing the ecclesial faith and cohesion in these troubled times. Yet
the reforms had still to be implemented to strengthen the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchical
and centralised authority. To sum them up, they included: first the official list of the Ancient
Testament books of the Bible, the link between Scriptures and Tradition, then the teaching on
original sin, on the soul and purgatory, on divine grace and human freedom, on the sacraments of
Christian life (seven in number) and on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But in a
context of moving landmarks, not a few far away missionaries chose to look for safe ground, and
not to seek any local adaptation.
The reason was, secondly, that the Council of Trent started its work right in the middle of an
epoch marked by an intense ‘cultural revolution’, so to say, that touched upon the place of
humankind in the universe. Faith and science were locked in heated debates over the theory of
1
Martin M. Morales, S.J. “The Suppression: a Historiographic Challenge” - Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome,
Yearbook of the Society of Jesus 2014 Jesuits, p. 19. See www.sjweb.info/resources/annuario/pdf/Annuario2014_en.pdf
5
Mikołaj Kopernik (1473-1543), who just died two years before the start of the Council of Trent.
In his book De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium (‘On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres’),
published just before his death, Kopernik presented his theory that did not fit with the text of the
Bible or with many of its commentators. The case of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), whose
observations supported the Copernican theory of helio-centrism, reached its climax in early 1615
when he was denounced to the Roman Inquisition. 2
Thirdly, to add more confusion in the Christian world already internally agitated, there were
some similarities in this epoch with the Cold War period that followed World War II: despite the
treaty arbitrated by Pope Alexander VI and signed in Tordesillas, south-east from Madrid, in
1494, a continuing state of political conflict, military tension and economic competition remained
between Portugal and Spain. An arbitrary line drawn along ‘a meridian 370 leagues west of the
Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa)’, the world had been divided into two zones of
trade and influence. In exchange for the economic advantages of such an agreement, both powers
had to provide logistic help and military protection to the Christian missions (the so-called
Portuguese Padroado and Spanish Patronato: patronage or tutelage), through which the Holy See
delegated to both kings of Portugal and of Spain the administration of the local Churches in
mission territories, the construction of mission complex including churches, the nomination of
pastors and bishops, etc.). But the tensions remained vivid. Suddenly the geopolitical context of
the world changed dramatically due to important events on the Iberian Peninsula: in 1578, while
fighting in Morocco, Portugal’s young King Sebastian, who had no son to succeed him, died in
the Battle of Ksar El Kebir. This tragedy opened a dynastic crisis that lasted for two years until
some members of the Council of Governors in Lisbon, who were determined to maintain the
country’s independence, sought help to find a new king in the person of Philip II of Spain
(1527-1598). From his mother's side, as the grandson of King Manuel I of Portugal, Philip could
claim the Portuguese throne: he therefore marched into Portugal and defeated the troops of his
opponents in the Battle of Alcântara (25 August 1580). By so doing he was realizing his
ancestors’ early ambition to federate the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. This ‘dynastic union’
was the union of two royal powers in one single sovereign, each power administering its
respective dominions. What the historians use to call the ‘Iberian Union’ was to last for sixty
years (1580-1640), but not without consequences on the later developments of many events
around the world, including in Macau.
This “Iberian Union” in Europe was inevitably to impact on the way both “patronages”
(established at Tordesillas nearly one century earlier) were bound to reach a kind of synergy.
From Manila, under Spanish ‘patronage’, Spaniard Friars of different religious orders have been
eager to reach China through its only gate, Macau, that is through the Portuguese Padroado.
Not later than 15 years after the Roman condemnation of the scientifically challenging
Copernican theory supported by Galileo Galilei, newly arrived missionaries in China had already
observed from the mid 1630s the similarly challenging new apostolic approaches promoted by
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and for already some fifty years followed by most of his fellow Jesuits:
the newcomers opposed this accommodation spirit. That was the beginning of the Chinese Rites
Controversy. What was really at stake?
Matteo Ricci’s intuitive initiative (1603-1610) and its influence
When he was Superior of the Jesuit mission in China, Matteo Ricci had granted the permission,
maintained also by his successors, allowing Chinese Christians to venerate their ancestors
according to traditional rituals (in general and slightly modified to avoid later added
2
See Pierre-Noël Mayaud, S.J., La condamnation des livres coperniciens et sa révocation à la lumière de documents
inédits des Congrégations de l'Index et de l'Inquisition (Miscellanea historiae pontificiae), Rome, Editrice Pontificia
Università Gregoriana, 1997, 352 pages, ISBN-10: 8876527605.
6
superstitions); but Christian scholars or officials were warned not to participate in rituals in
honour of Confucius some of which the Jesuits had allowed. Consultation to Rome on the issue
delivered seemingly contradictory answers in their decrees. So much so that, before the arrival
in Macau of the Pontifical Legation of Maillard de Tournon (1668-1710) in April 1705, the
Jesuits in Peking, with the help of friends at the Court, obtained from the Emperor Kangxi what
has been known as the Imperial Declaration on the nature of the Chinese rites. Here is the text in
a recent English translation:
Although some European learned men have heard about the Rites in which the Chinese are
accustomed to honour Heaven, Confucius and dead relatives they have a poor understanding
of the reason for these rites, hence they have written to us in the following words:
Since the kindness and munificence of the Great Emperor of China has spread everywhere,
and the fame of his clearly admirable name and wisdom has penetrated completely to all
kingdoms and it seems furthermore that the practice of the aforesaid Rites must rest on some
foundation, we therefore request you to write to us explaining each of these matters. We reply
thus:
When the Chinese honour Confucius they do this in order to show their respect for him on
account of his teaching which has been passed down. Since they have received this from him
how could it not be that they not demonstrate due honour to him for it by bending their knees
and lowering their heads to the ground? This is the real reason why the Chinese world has
Confucius for its Master and venerates him. And this is the true meaning of the way the
Chinese cultivate him. Certainly they do not do so to seek from him intellectual brilliance,
understanding or honours.
As for the libations and rites which they observe for their dead relatives and those close to
them snatched away by death, these are conducted by them to demonstrate the love and
reverence due to them and gratitude for the originators of their family and clan. In addition,
the ancient emperors laid down the solemn rites wherein each year at stated times in winter
and summer honour is exhibited to the dead, both by sons to their parents, and by brothers
and others towards those tied to them by bonds of friendship or relationship. This is instituted
and expressly done with the intention of expressing in this way, so far as possible, our very
great affection for those close to us.
As for those tablets which they put up for their ancestors or predecessors, we say they are not
erected out of a belief that the souls of the dead reside in them, or to seek good luck and
prosperity from them, but a feast is placed before their tablets, and they make oblations,
simply to show love and reverence to them as if they were alive and present, and so in this
way they demonstrate a constant and perpetual goodwill towards the authors of their family.
Regarding the sacrifices accustomed to be offered to Heaven by the ancient kings and
emperors, they are those which the philosophers of China call 郊社 Jiao she; that is
sacrifices dedicated to Heaven and Earth, in which they say Shangdi himself, or the
Supreme Lord, is cultivated, and for this same reason, the tablet before which these
sacrifices are offered, bears this inscription: Shangdi, that is, the Supreme Lord.
From this it is clear that these sacrifices are not offered to the visible and material sky
but specifically to the Author and Lord of Heaven, Earth and all things, whom, since
they out of great fear and respect do not dare to call him by his own name, are
accustomed to invoke under the names of Supreme Heaven, Beneficent Heaven and
Universal Heaven. In the same way, when they speak reverently about the Emperor
himself, out of respect in reference to the Emperor they use terms like: beneath the
steps of the Throne, or the Greatest Hall of the Palace. These terms differ in
themselves but in fact in regard to what is being named, are plainly one and the same.
Hence, similarly, it is quite clear that that honorific inscription which was formerly
granted to us by the Emperor in which he wrote with his own hand the words Jing
Tian (honour Heaven), was really given to us in the same understanding.
We foreigners, and subjects of the Emperor, since we are hardly experts in the same
7
Rites, and are ignorant whether what we have written here agrees with the truth,
reverently request that he may deign to reply to us with an imperial rescript, and to
emend in his reply anything in which it departs from the true understanding of the
Chinese.
When the Emperor had read this, and given it careful consideration and thought, he
replied in this way in the Manchu language:
All that is contained in this document is well expressed, and in complete agreement
with the Great Teaching.* It is the common law of the whole world to offer
appropriate respect to Heaven, Lords, Parents, Masters and Ancestors. What is
contained in this document is very truthful and there is absolutely nothing that
requires amendment.
*The Chinese call the teachings of Confucius the ‘Great Teaching’ 3
Such Imperial Declaration on the nature of the Chinese rites should have dispelled all
theological misunderstandings or preconceptions. But it was by itself too challenging for
missionaries who were determined to import and implant on the Chinese soil and in the Chinese
social fabric what they had received in the West as to be absolutely true. Ignoring all dialogical
attitude and respect for the local culture as if they were blind within themselves, they had
imported their own boundaries of names and practices, as defined at the Council of Trent, not
realising that what they hoped to import is beyond boundaries of names and practices. On the
contrary, in his Imperial Declaration, Kangxi manifested that the Lord of Haven and the worship
appropriately offered to Heaven, Ancestors and Confucius remains beyond boundaries of any
name and practice.
This was implied in the intuitive initiative taken by Matteo Ricci and his followers. Its
challenging influence was due to bear fruit in India and in South America, in both places with
the same fate and at about the same period of time.
The Malabar Rites controversy (1606-1744)
In India, centred on the work of the Jesuit Roberto de Nobili (1577-1656), a crisis developed
known as the Malabar Rites controversy. 4 Nobili, after reaching Goa in 1606, was quick in
realising how difficult it will be for the Christian Gospel to be received in India unless he
“acculturates” himself to be accepted by the brahmins, the highest caste of the Indian social
fabric that refuses to have any contact with people of lower castes. Settling in Madurai, Tamil
Nadu (south-east India), he then trained himself for two years, dressed as a sannyasy or ascetic
recluse. He started to learn Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil languages which he later mastered,
studied the Vedas and Tamil literature, adopted also certain practices which he understood as not
being superstitious. Thus he could communicate more easily with local people without carelessly
infringing social customs among castes, etc. His approach to Indian society could have been to a
certain degree compared with Ricci’s approach to China. No wonder therefore that Nobili met
also with suspicion, criticisms and, denunciations to higher ecclesial authorities, locally and in
Rome: in fact he had himself adopted and formed catechumens and Christians to keep also local
practices which were not religious or superstitious by themselves, but social customs and civil in
3
Text quoted from the “Acta Pekinensia” (in preparation), Introduction by Paul Rule and note 183: “The Brevis Relatio
([Beijing, 1701]) in the Introduction says that a Chinese draft was presented on 19 November 1700 to He-sken and Cham
Cham Cu (Zhang Changzhu) who had it translated into Manchu and presented to the Emperor (ff.3r-5r, of copy in
ARSI: Jap. Sin. I.206). In an interview with Tournon on Christmas Day 1705, Henkama [Hescken the main intermediary
between the Jesuits and Kangxi in 1700] and Zhao Chang claim to have been responsible for the Declaration and
Henkama says he personally composed the text in the Tartar language (AP 28).
4
The crisis had nothing to do with the liturgical rites of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in Kerala, south-west
India. The Church of Malabar Syrians is in full communion with the Catholic Church, and has its origin in Thomas the
Apostle’s activity in the first century of the common and Christian era.
8
nature, in the same way that Kangxi had declared customary Chinese rites to be. The dispute was
settled by Pope Gregory XV with the Constitution Romanæ Sedis Antistes (The Patriarch of the
See of Rome) issued on 31 January 1623. The customs of the three-stringed thread hanging on the
shoulder across the chest, the tuft of hair on top of the head, the use of sandalwood paste on the
forefront and baths were allowed inasmuch they did not imply any superstitious ritual. The Pope
invited also the Indian neophytes to overcome their caste sensitivity and their despisal of the
Dalits. 5
But some decades later a new dispute arose again, this time in Pondichery where a large
community of French people, seamen and traders etc. had settled under the spiritual care of
Capuchin missionaries who were also ministering among the native Hindus. To help them get
better apostolic results, the bishop decided in 1699 to call upon Jesuits to whom he entrusted the
mission among the Hindu population, letting Capuchins in charge of foreigners. Some time later
on 6 November 1703, Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon, also from France, Patriarch of
Antioch, sent by Clement XI with the power of legatus a latere, 6 stopped over in the city. He was
to visit the new Christian missions of the so-called East Indies and was on his way to China. As he
had to wait here for eight months until favorable winds would permit to sail further Eastward, so
he decided to launch an inquiry related to the complains of the Capuchins. But he was sick and
unable to visit any post in the field, so apart from the Capuchins who had neither worked outside
the city, he interviewed with interpreters only some natives and probably also the Jesuits.
Under such really not ideal circumstances, one may wonder if he was justified in issuing a
decree of sixteen articles of important impact on the whole of the Christian community of India.
These articles concerned some practices supposedly followed by the neophytes of the regions,
condemned and prohibited them as detrimental for the purity of the faith and Christian life, and
ordered the missionaries, on pain of canonical penalties, to forbid them in the future. Dated 23
June 1704, the decree was not handed over to the superiors of the Jesuits until on 8 July, three
days before Tournon’s departure from Pondicherry. Making good use of this delay, the Jesuits
spared no effort to help the Legate realise how shallow was his information on these matters and
dangerous were his decisions for the mission. It was to no avail, except that he agreed to orally
cancel the threat of sanctions and to suspend for the time being his command to minister the sick
of lower castes and Dalits not only in the churches, but also in their dwellings.
Received by pope Clement XI with reservations, Tournon’s decree was provisionally
confirmed in Rome on 7 January 1706. This hesitation lingered all along the following
pontificates with several procedures of confirmation in 1727, 1734 (commanding the
missionaries to take an oath to observe the Decree, etc.). Finally, the 12th article of the Decree
seemed utterly incompatible with Hindu mores and rendered Jesuit ministry among the upper
Hindu castes quite impossible. It stipulated that the missionaries administer the sacraments to the
sick of lower castes or the Dalits in their own dwellings and publicly. A solution had to be devised
by the Jesuits who asked to form among themselves a special group of priests dedicated to
minister only among the lower castes. Pope Benedict XIV consented and after a trial period
adopted the proposal which took form in the Constitution Omnium sollicitudinum (Of all
sollicitudes) published 12 September 1744. Confirming again the earlier regulations on the
Malabar rites of 1734 (on the oath to observe the decree), the new document was greatly
beneficial for the ministries among the Hindu catechumens of lower castes; it is less evident that it
was also constructive for the mission as a whole, about which the reports are less comforting. The
controversy on the Malabar Rites, although different from that of the Chinese Rites, carries
evidently within itself a set of other lessons.
5
Category of people who fall outside the caste system. As such, members of the lowest of the lower ranks of Indian
society.
6
That is: Legate from the side [of the pope]: his personal representative.
9
The Jesuit Reductions (1606-1767) in South America
The intuitive initiatives taken by Matteo Ricci in China and by Roberto de Nobili in India were
inspired by the same Jesuit charisma that has lead them, beyond the boundaries of Christendom,
to respect in the fabric of the social culture they were living in what Clement of Alexandria (c.
150-c. 215) in his early time had called “the seeds of the Word”. The Jesuit charisma manifested
itself also in the so called “Reductions” in South America. Jesuits had not invented this
apostolic approach but have highly improved it against the prevailing policies of the
contemporary mercantile establishment.
Originally, Spanish Amerindian Reductions (reducciones de indios) were part of larger
reforms started in 1567 by Francisco de Toledo, the viceroy of Peru. This scheme was adopted by
the Spanish crown to "aggrandize Spanish power by consolidating vice-regal rule and to revive
the flow of Andean silver to the metropolitan treasury." 7 In order to implement these economic
policies efficiently, the reform implied to relocate the scattered native Peruvian population of the
Andes into larger settlements called reducciones. But on these places local micro-climates and the
nature of the fields were not adapted to the original living conditions (seeds, tilling fields
techniques, diet, hygiene and health, etc.) of the people. The purpose of the massive resettlement
program "was to establish direct state control and facilitate the church's Christianization of the
native population, while enhancing the collection of the tribute tax and the allocation of labour
known as mita in Spanish." 8
Jesuits did not arrive in the Americas until around the 1570s. They were called to start their
first reduction only in 1609 in Paraguay along the Parana river, a territory under Spanish
Patronato. Originally the purpose of the reductions was firstly economical and colonial but
jointly apostolic as mentioned supra. Jesuit reductions similarly were settlements organised on the
pattern of a Spanish rural village, but their purpose and method were greatly improved: through
respect and development of the local culture and language, including adapted humanistic
education and formation to Christian faith, they had produced much better economical results all
during a period of 150 years. Some reductions were situated in the proximity of Portuguese
administered territory and frequently exposed to destructive attacks of slave traders, the
Bandeirantes based in São Paulo. Militias were organised, grouping up to 4 000 armed men and
tactical cavalry able to repulse damaging raids. By the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, territorial
boundaries were readjusted; several Jesuit reductions formerly under Spanish crown were now
placed under the Portuguese Padroado. That was the origin of the Guarani resistance first won
against Spanish troops in 1754, but finally brutally crushed under superior Spanish-Portuguese
allied forces in 1756. The Reductions experiment vanished in 1767 with the destruction of the
Jesuit order in Spain.
The economic and pastoral successes of the Reductions were the fruits of the Jesuit creative
and independent initiative, in other words of the Jesuit charisma. Moreover, the late events of the
story no doubt have revealed the ambiguous and mercantile motivations that were hidden in both
European “patronages” agreed upon in the Tordesillas treaty. They might also have indirectly
contributed to foster in Europe the growing and fatal antagonism the Society of Jesus was facing.
Growing Opposition to the Jesuit order
Let us first briefly mention the political manifestations of this opposition. For different causes it
has taken various expressions all converging towards the same objective: expulsion, dissolution
7
Peter F. Klaren, Peru, Society and Nationhood in the Andes (Latin American Histories), Oxford University Press, USA,
1999, 512 pages, p. 58-59.
8
Ibid., p. 60.
10
or destruction including spoliation of properties of the Society of Jesus. One comparative study on
the many expulsions incurred by the Jesuits during their history notes that “the question o f
contagion o f anti-Jesuits policies” needs to be discussed. [ …] “… in each individual country
the methods used in order to set up and to enforce the expulsions show a high degree of
continuity over the course of three centuries.” 9 But as far as this essay is concerned, just a
summary of the main measures taken by three European states against the Jesuits in this
period of time will be mentioned with a note about the occasion or alleged cause.
In Portugal
The first measure taken concerns the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal on September
1758. The ban cannot be reduced to a personal quarrel of the Jesuits with the reformist and
autocratic Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, future Marquis of Pombal, the prime minister of
Joseph I of Portugal. But if quarrel with the Jesuits there was, it started in 1750 with the secret
Treaty of Madrid which stipulated an exchange of colonial territories at the mouth of the Uruguay
River for the Seven Reductions of Paraguay, the autonomous Jesuit missions that were on
nominally Spanish colonial territory. The so-called Guarani War, as already reported above,
followed some time later but ended as a disaster for the Guaranis, believed by the Portuguese to
have been supported or even organised by the Jesuits. In Portugal a public opinion battle of
pamphlets denouncing or defending the Jesuits escalated. As they were suspected of attempting to
establish an independent nation based on the reductions, the Jesuits were forbidden to continue
the local administration of their former missions, and the Portuguese Jesuits were removed from
the Court.
On 1 April 1758, the aged Benedict XIV (Pope for 1740-1758), who was skeptical as to the
gravity of the alleged abuses by the Jesuits, appointed the Portuguese Cardinal Saldanha,
recommended by Pombal, to investigate these allegations. He nevertheless reserved all serious
matters to be examined by himsef. But Benedict died the following month on 3 May. On 15 May,
Saldanha, who had not visited the Jesuit houses as he was ordered to do so, declared that the
Jesuits were guilty of having exercised "illicit, public, and scandalous commerce", both in
Portugal and in its colonies; he further pronounced on the issues that the pope had reserved to
himself. Pombal, making good use of the time elapsed before the next papal election, in three
weeks ordered that the Jesuits be deprived of all their Portuguese possessions. Before the
confirmation of the new pope Clement XIII on 6 July 1758, the spoliation of the Society was an
accomplished fact.
Moreover, the last blow for the Court of Portugal was the attempted assassination of king
Joseph I on 3 September 1758. Allegations were rumoured that the Jesuits had known in advance
about it. Some dignitaries were arrested and executed among whom was Gabriel Malagrida, the
Jesuit confessor of Leonor of Távora, mother of Teresa Leonor, the mistress of king Joseph. Then
the 861 Portuguese Jesuits 10 were expelled from the kingdom under the worst material conditions,
and important non-Portuguese members of the Order were imprisoned. In 1759, the Order was
civilly suppressed. The banishment lasted more than 70 years, until 1839.
In France
Then followed in France the dissolution of the French Province of the Society of Jesus. It was
ordered on November 1764 in relation with the case of Jesuit member Antoine Lavalette
9
See: Bertrand M. Roehner, “Jesuits and the State: A Comparative Study of their Expulsions (1590-1990)”, in Religion
(1997) 27, pp.165-182, © 1997 Academic Press Limited.
10
Ibid, p. 167.
11
(1708-1767). Sent first to Martinique Island, Lavalette had been appointed Superior of all the
Jesuit missions in French dominions in Central and South America. As he became accused of
engaging in commerce, contrary to canon law, in order to financially support his many apostolic
works, he was summoned to Paris for trial, but his case was first dealt with locally then dropped.
Meanwhile extensive purchases of land in Dominica and other commercial ventures proved to
be unsuccessful: among them, goods worth about 2,000,000 French livres were shipwrecked in
a storm. Obviously, the missions were heavily in debt: he confessed later that they amounted to
about 2,400,000 French livres. In 1757 Lorenzo Ricci, the Jesuit Superior General (1758-1773),
sent three Visitors to Martinique: all of them met with shipwreck, but a fourth Visitor succeeded
in Spring 1762. He organized a tribunal of fellow Jesuits: Lavalette was condemned and
suspended of all ecclesiastical functions until further decision based on the Visitor’s report
arrives from Rome. Lavalette signed a declaration on his sole guilt, then went to England, where
he was notified by the Jesuit General of his dismissal from the order. As the French Jesuit
Province could not shoulder the financial burden in order to settle the case in court with
Lavalette’s creditors, the Society of Jesus was held responsible for the debt. The Parliament of
Paris examined the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and, in 1762, condemned the Jesuit
order as “detrimental to civil order, contrary to natural law, destructor of religion and morals,
corrupting the youth”. Then king Louis XV who wanted to protect the Jesuits received some
advice with the view to prevent them from banishment out of France: it was to propose some
change in their Constitutions, letting French Jesuits depend on a general vicar living in France,
where they would be protected by the king, but not under the authority of the Superior General
in Rome. Probably after consultation on the matter with Lorenzo Ricci, the General,
Pope Clément XIII replied: “Sint ut sunt aut non sint” (Let them be as they are, otherwise not
be). 11 Anyway, it was quite sure that the Jesuits would not accept the proposal. 12 In
consequence of which, by decree of the Parliament of Paris, all Jesuit property was seized, and
by royal edict of November 1764, the Society of Jesus in France (3 350 members 13) was
declared bankrupt and abolished in all French dominions. The banishment lasted 76 years until
1850.
In Spain
Just three years later, the Jesuits in Spain met with the same fate, but only in a slightly different
setting. Historians might perhaps focus on the economic advantages gained by the Spanish crown
through the 1750 Treaty of Madrid that caused so many disadvantages for the Guarani people who
have fought the decision to move their reductions to new lands. During the reign of Charles III
of Spain (1759-1788), the kingdom and the Spanish Indies had entered into a period of economic
and infrastructures reforms under the administration of a minister of foreign origin, Leopoldo de
Gregorio (1699-1785), Marquis of Esquilache, and the influence of his mentor Bernardo Tanucci
(1698-1783), both Italians from Naples: they shared the same enthusiasm for the European
Enlightenment atmosphere and were great readers of Voltaire and other “philosophes” of similar
anti-clerical orientations. Deliberations with the king were held in secrecy, the sovereign
keeping the reasons of his decision for himself. In a period of sudden increase of basic staples
prices, troubles arose known to the historians as the Sombrero Riots in March 1766: Esquilache
wanted to enforce a fashion reform, forbidding the people of Madrid to wear their traditional
sombrero (broad-brimmed hat) and long cape (both could hide faces and weapons): the purpose
was to adopt the modern, more elegant three-cornered hat and short cape, like people do in Paris!
By ups and downs the riots lingered for three months until the rioters’ demands were accepted by
11
See Jacques Crétineau-Joly, Clément XIV et les jésuites: histoire de la destruction des jésuites, Paris, 1848, p. 381.
12
On 9 March 1764, the Jesuits were ordered to abjure their Institute or go into exile. Only 15 of them have abjured.
13
See: Bertrand M. Roehner, op. cit., p. 167.
12
the king (they requested in particular the cancelation of the reform and the removal of the
minister). Meanwhile as the Jesuits might have in their houses taken care of the wounded rioters
or protected some passers-by, their enemies spread the calumnious rumour that the Jesuits had
organised the trouble. That was not enough to incite the devote catholic Charles III to sanction the
Jesuits. So historians report that, added to the riot, a calumnious letter had been written under the
name of Lorenzo Ricci, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, in which was alleged that the
king’s father Charles II of Spain was illegitimate. Rumours remain that the letter had been forged
by the Duque de Choiseul and the Count Aranda, both Prime Ministers respectively of France and
of Portugal, in order to press Charles III to ban the Jesuits from Portugal. The riots and the forged
letter then reached their target: in April 1767, 2 943 Jesuits were ignominiously expelled from all
their property and banished from Portugal and its dominions. The ban would last for 48 years,
until 1815. 14
On the other frontiers of the Christian world, Jesuits in China would face similar obstruction
when the development of the Chinese Rites controversy reaches its climax. The “anti-Jesuitism”
in its various manifestations all along the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries in Europe proved itself
able to use all sorts of devices to succeed in its campaigns. But what might be the origin of such an
opposition?
What might be the source of this opposition?
The above short narrations of three important but only local suppressions of the Jesuit order reveal
two common points: the suppressions were apparently motivated by various politico-economic
reasons but, except for the Lavalette case in France, the accusations of the misdeeds committed
by the Jesuits were based on calumnious allegations. Would have there been some hidden
or undeclared conflict of interests or values?
Discerning a hidden tension
In the quest for some answer, it is worth remembering some tenets of the historical context, as
mentioned at the beginning of this essay: right before the Council of Trent which had
re-centralised the “institutions” of the Catholic Church, Pope Paul III had established in 1542
the Congregation of the Holy Office, the task of which was to maintain and defend the integrity
of the faith and to examine and proscribe errors and false doctrines. It was the supervisory body
of local Inquisitions, both in Spain and in Rome. Secondly, even during the Iberian union period
(1580-1640), the Padroado/Patronato agreements were still effective and were specifically
dedicated to safeguard the Catholic “institutions” in the missions. Hence the apostolic Zeitgeist
or spirit of the time as it expressed itself in the minds and hearts of not a few Church people: to
consider “implanting” Church institutions in their known forms as the primordial goal of their
action.
But by spiritual training (the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola) and by tradition of
companionship (the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus), Jesuit apostolic activity originated
from a different approach, a dialogical “encounter” with the other, be it a person or a culture, an
experience that reverberates in the Jesuit person as a creative and conducive way to “adaptation”
or “inculturation” of the Gospel message. The Jesuit mystical charisma, as lived for instance by
Matteo Ricci or Roberto de Nobili and by so many unknown Jesuits in the Reductions, is first of
all the interior synergy of the creative divine force of love with a deep self-abnegated personal
dedication. Hence the challenge so many times presented in Jesuit history by Jesuit action in
various contexts. Two sentences attributed to Ignatius of Loyola might give a hint about this
14
Ibid.
13
mystical charisma as it is lived through obedience. The first says: Non coerceri a maximo,
contineri tamen a minimo, divinum es [Not to be daunted by the greatest [mission], yet to invest
oneself in the smallesti [action], this is divine]. The other is: Sic Deo fide quasi rerum successus
omnis a te, nihil a Deo penderet, ita tamen eis operam omnem admove, quasi tu nihil, Deus
omnia solus sit factrus [So trust in God as if the success of things totally depended on you, not
at all on God, yet apply all operation on them as if you nothing, God alone would do all].
The challenge might have been experienced as a hidden tension, most of the time
misapprehended by the “institutional” setting. That would have been the case when the
opposition to the Society of Jesus was growing in the XVIIth and XVIIIth century periods. But if
such an interpretation has some validity, other aporia can more easily find some explanation.
European Classicism and the Jansenism dispute
Established right in the middle of the European Renaissance period, the Jesuits have soon been
as active in overseas missions as in the development of what can be called European classicism
in the XVIIth Century. This is due in particular to their involvement in education and
universities. In 1599 was published, after years of experimentation, the final edition of their
Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Iesu [System and organisation of studies in the
Society of Jesus]. As the French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) says, the goal of
education is to form “a well-made head rather than a well filled head", but more importantly
Jesuit education aims at forming the whole human person. What is generally known as ‘classical
humanism’ was born at that time.
No wonder therefore that age old Christian questions came again under discussion. In the
doctrine of salvation, how to understand the link between the grace of God that saves and the
free will of the person to be saved? The bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria) saint
Augustine (354-430) had already insisted that without divine grace, the human being cannot do
anything good, yet the efficient grace of God does not suppress human freedom. To refute the
excessive pessimism of John Calvin (1509-1564), Jesuit Luis de Molina (1535-1600) explained
that divine grace gives to the human being all that suffices to do good, provided that the human
being decides freely to do it, hence the term ‘sufficient grace’. Contemporary theologians were
then divided: Dominicans sustaining Augustine’s position on the necessary and efficient grace,
Jesuits sustaining Molina’s position on the sufficient grace. The debate flared up again when in
1640 was published in Louvain, Belgium, the posthumous work of Cornelius Jansen or Jansenius
(1585-1638), bishop of Ypres, under the title of Augustinus. The work gave new force to the
‘efficient grace’ position, which Jesuit theologians opposed for its pessimism on the free will of
the person to do good; the human free will can do good thanks to the ‘sufficient grace’. Despite
the condemnation by Rome in 1642, the Augustinus continued to have a great influence on the
general public in the Jansenist movement of thought, and particularly in France among
Dominicans, Oratorians, some doctors of the Sorbonne University. A great intellectual figure,
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) derided Jesuit moral casuistry in his eighteen Lettres provinciales
(‘Provincial letters’, 1656-1657) addressed to a fictitious friend living in the province. Based on a
theology of the relation between grace and human freedom, the Jansenist movement attacked the
Jesuits mainly on their casuistry and on what they deemed to be lax morals, made of compromises
and trust in human free will and responsibility.
In this juncture, it is worth noting that the Jesuit-Jansenism controversy has not had any direct
impact on the suppression of the Society of Jesus, either in France in 1764, as we have seen, or in
Rome in 1773. But it has had some impact on the Chinese Rites controversy.
The Jesuit favourable position on the Chinese rites, in following Emperor Kangxi’s
understanding of them, was at the same time challenging and echoing the European theological
debate. On the eastern frontier of the Christian world, Chinese people were known for having a
14
certain belief in and adoration of the Lord of Haven: the “way of Haven” and the “way” of man
are thought to be one, hence the traditional veneration they have for their ancestors, among whom
Master Kong, who all of them continue to inspire the life of the people, despite any failures. No
wonder that newcomer missionaries, inclined to adopt some Jansenist theological tenets, would
also be reluctant to accept what Matteo Ricci and his copanions had with amazement explored and
discovered in China? ‘Implantation’ of foreign ‘institutions’ in already living Christian
communities was at stake.
It is all the more remarkable that Jesuit orthopraxis in China (in Jesuit terminology:
contemplation in action) and Jesuit orthodoxy (in Jesuit terminology: sentire cum Ecclesia, to
discern with the Church) are fruits of the same charisma: that was confirmed in Rome by the 1642
decision against Jansenist theology but in favour of the Jesuit position.
The problems began, as Paul Rule explains, when after some fifty years of missionary
experience in China,
“the Jesuits were joined by members of other religious orders. Following some early
unsuccessful attempts to establish a China mission, Spanish Dominican and
Franciscan, and later Augustinian friars from Manila established missions, mainly in
Fujian province a short journey from the Philippines, from the mid-1630s. Their
initial reaction to Chinese popular religion, especially ancestor rituals, was
unfavourable, and Juan Bautista de Morales O.P. took the issue to Rome where he
was successful in 1645 in obtaining a decision against the Jesuit practices by a decree
of the recently formed Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, commonly
known from its Latin name as Propaganda Fide, which was approved by Pope
Innocent X on September 12th that year. The Jesuit Martino Martini appealed the
decision in Rome and the Holy Office decreed in his favour (approved 22 March 1656
by Pope Alexander VII).” 15
These remarks clearly show how the Jesuit accommodation approach was suspected from
being the result of Jesuit laxism, even in the orthodox theology of the ‘sufficient grace’.
“The situation became more complicated”, continues Paul Rule, “and the controversy
was renewed with the arrival in China of new missionaries, not members this time of
religious orders, but under the direct auspices of Propaganda Fide which was
attempting to assume control over all Catholic missions. Many of these belonged to a
new association of French missionary priests, the Missions Étrangères de Paris
(M.E.P.); others […] were sent directly by Propaganda Fide and are commonly
referred to as Propagandists or Missionaries Apostolic i.e. sent by the Apostolic See.
And to further complicate matters, some were created Vicars Apostolic with the
powers of bishops but without formal dioceses.” 16
Not a few of these newcomers had some likings for Jansenist theology of grace and Catholic
practice. The tension alluded to earlier in this essay manifested itself in China when
“the matter was referred to Rome and resulted in apparently contradictory decrees:
1645 (against these Chinese Rites) and 1656 (in favour) on both occasions with
certain qualifications. In 1669, the Holy Office declared both previous decrees held,
according to the circumstances and evidence presented.” 17
The confusion generated by these salvos of decrees, first in favour of, then against the main
issue, etc., reached its climax when the Legatus a Latere Maillard de Tournon and his suite, after
a stop-over visit in India in 1704, already mentioned, and later in Manila, finally landed in Macau
15
“Acta Pekinensia” (in preparation), Introduction by Paul Rule.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
15
on April 1705. The visit, duly and officially narrated in Latin by the German Jesuit Kilian Stumpf
(1655-1720) in an still unpublished manuscript, seems to have been a sequence of unbecoming
happenings; it ended in a complete failure when the Legate was ordered, empty handed, by the
Emperor Kangxi to go back to Macau where he was put under house arrest watched over by a
Chinese guard, and where he died in 1710, aged 41.
The age of Enlightenment and the Jesuit missions
In early XVIIIth century, the age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason had already impacted on
European culture. Towards the end of the XVIIth century, important thinkers and scientists had
exerted a deep influence through their research and publications. To quote just a few and in the
following domains, they were: on the method of natural sciemces: John Locke (1632-1704),
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689 and Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Philosophiæ
Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687); on
mathematics, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716), German mathematician and
philosopher; on political philosophy, Locke again and Montesquieu (1680-1755), De l'Esprit
des Lois or “On The Spirit of the Laws”, 1748; Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), from
Geneva, Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique (The social contract or principles of
political right), 1762; on philosophy, Voltaire (1694-1778), historian and philosopher and
Denis Diderot (1712-1784), the main editor and author of many articles of the Encyclopédie. 18
Historians of European culture agree to see the beginning of the Enlightenment time in the
mid-1680s, with the publication in 1687 of Newton’s main work “Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy”. It was at that time (1685) that king Louis XIV of France (1638-1715), at
Kangxi’s expressed wish, had five Jesuits sent to China as expert mathematicians in order to
help in drawing the Empire’s map. 19 Despite Macau’s objection to these newcomers, they
reached China not through Macau but by Ningbo in 1687. To react against this violation of the
rules, in 1688 an oath of acknowledgement of the Padroado was imposed by the king of Portugal
to every missionary going to China. 20
One of the « King’s mathematicians”, Louis Le Comte was to be soon sent back to France in
1688 as Procurator for the China mission. During his stay in France, he published the Nouveaux
Mémoires sur l'État présent de la Chine (New Memoirs on the Present State of China) in 3
volumes printed in Paris en 1696, 1697 et 1701. The work was followed by a Lettre sur les
Cérémonies de la Chine (Letter on the Ceremonies of China; Liège, 1700) addressed to the
Duque of Maine and intended to present in a positive and detailed manner the traditional rites
practiced in China and what was the friendly approach to them by the author’s fellow Jesuits.
Both publications stirred up an intense debate, crowned by a selection of 19 passages, all
censured by the doctors of the Sorbonne on 18 October 1700: the reason was that they were
pleading for the Jesuit adaptation of the Chinese rites which the Society of Foreign Mission of
Paris considered as idolatrous. The academic exchange of letters which followed was risking
backfiring in the same tension already alluded to between charisma and institutions: actually,
these institutions were already shaken by many new challenges of boiling new ideas. The letters
sent from China to Europe, were written with scholarly care (curious) and edifying: through
18
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Encyclopaedia, or a Systematic
Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts), Paris, 1751-1780, 35 volumes, 75 000 entries, 4 250 copies printed and
widely sold.
19
They were : Jean de Fontaney (1643-1710), Superior, Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730), Jean-François Gerbillon (1654-1707),
Louis Le Comte (1655-1728) et Claude de Visdelou (1656–1737). Except Le Comte, they had been promoted on 20
December 1684, just some days before leaving Paris, “corresponding members of the Royal Academy of Sciences”. See
Isabelle Landry-Deron, Les Mathématiciens envoyés en Chine par Louis XIV en 1685, at
http://poncelet.math.nthu.edu.tw/disk5/js/history/envoy.pdf .
20
See Dehergne, Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800, Institutum Historicum S.I., 1973, p. 335.
16
them a detailed and abundant documentation on Chinese culture and society was shared with the
European academe.
These letters from Jesuits “on the frontiers” in China have been collected and published in
the famous series known under the somehow “pompous” title as Lettres édifiantes et curieuses
(Edifying and curious letters), 21 the first edition being of eight annual volumes published by
Jesuit Charles Le Gobien, started in 1702. Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (1674-1743) would continue
de 1709 à 1743; he will also base on them his master piece of work the Description de la Chine
[…]22 etc., published in 1736. The latest volumes of the “letters” (vol. XXVII-XXXII) were
published from 1749 till 1776, by two other Jesuits, Louis Patouillet (1699-1779) and Ambrose
Maréchal (1764-1828).
By reading these letters and du Halde’s Description, important figures of that time like
Voltaire or Montesquieu have been fascinated by what they learned about China. Leibniz deemed
the Jesuit missions in China as “the greatest enterprise of our time.” The precision of the given
details, the variety of the observations, the scope of the topics and the quality of reflections were
reasons given for considering the series of encyclopaedic importance.
By the information given on the Chinese civilisation and other cultures, the European
intelligentsia was awakened to some new horizons by a kind of de-centralisation and shift of
focus. It seemed, for instance, that the ideal republic dreamt of by Plato had already been realised
a long time ago and elsewhere, or what Rousseau described as the “noble savage” was not a pure
view of the mind. Some religion of reason or deism had also germinated in not a few intellectuals’
mind that was to be challenging the received Christian traditions, etc. In his witty criticism against
the Catholic establishment, Voltaire was also calling for freedom of religion and of expression,
and the separation of church and state. All these ideas were already smacking of what later on
would be debated throughout the various European revolutions.
From one Brief to another
The times were not ripe yet, but old political institutions of the “ancient régime” were worried
about lurking dangers: they braced themselves in defense.
Several of the disputes alluded to supra, be they theological, ethical, economic, cultural or
social, appeared to involve one way or another the influent Society of Jesus versus other religious
orders. The political establishment in Europe under the rule by members of the royal house of
Bourbon was relentlessly putting pressure on the leadership of the Catholic church which also
was at stake, as Voltaire used to shout: “Écrasons l’Infâme!” (Let us crush the Infamous!).
European states, large (Portugal, France, Spain) or small (Naples, Parma) had already banished
the Jesuits from their territories, yet the threat remained, if there was any.
The history of the events which led to the Brief Dominus ac Redemptor Noster published by
21
The complete title is Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, écrites des Missions Étrangères par quelques Missionnaires de la
Compagnie de Jésus [Edifying and curious letters, written from the foreign missions by some missionaries of the
Society of Jesus]. The whole series comprises XXXII volumes, mainly letters from China but some volumes gather
letters from the Americas, the Near East and India. Partial translations exist in Spanish (16 vol., 1753-1757), Italian (18
vol., 1825-1829), German (7 vol., 1726-1761), English (2 vol., 1743). The last complete edition was published in Paris
between 1828 and 1843 by Louis Aimé-Martin, a French writer.
22
The complete title is Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la
Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, enrichie des cartes générales et particulieres de ces pays, de la carte générale et des cartes
particulieres du Thibet, & de la Corée; & ornée d'un grand nombre de figures & de vignettes gravées en tailledouce, La
Haye, H. Scheurleer, 1736, 4 vol.. An English tranlastion followed very soon five years later: The General History of
China Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political and Physical Description of the Empire of China,
Chinese-Tartary, Corea, and Thibet; Including an Exact and Particular Account of Their Customs, Manners, Ceremonies,
Religion, Arts, and Sciences : The Whole Adorn'd with Curious Maps, and Variety of Copper-Plates (3rd ed.), London, J.
Watts, 1741, 4 vol..
17
Pope Clement XIV in 1773 could be summed up as follows: a new Spanish ambassador named
Moriño arrived in Rome in 1772, having the mission, in cooperation with two agreed cardinals, to
increase pressure on the Holy See in order to force the Pope to abolish the Society of Jesus. The
plot, including some lucrative estate given as retribution to one cardinal, succeeded in preparing
the draft of the brief, signed by the Pope only on 21 July 1773. 23 A summary analysis of the text,
its content and style could perhaps help at getting a better understanding of its intent. 24
The Destruction of the Jesuit institution (1773)
The text of the Brief is not short, at least in its English translation it amounts to 6 300 words. The
title places it under the King a Peace, Jesus Christ “Dominus ac Redemptor Noster”, in a quest for
the internal peace of the ecclesial institution, a reconciliation in the Church between religious
orders; despite their importance, when needed the Holy See had in the past suppressed a few of
them. But from its very beginnings, the Society of Jesus has received many privileges, yet many
internal disputes arose from inside and protests were addressed against it from outside. The
Society should not enter into temporal or political affairs. Despite the efforts by Popes of the past,
bishops and religious orders have complained in Europe, Africa, Americas and about “idolatrous
rites”, against Jesuits, in France, Spain, Portugal and Sicily, so much so that the Society of
Jesus should be abolished and past approbations since the Council of Trent be re-examined. Hence
is stated the Pope’s decision, which is a dismemberment of the Jesuit institution, piece by piece:
"Actuated by so many and important considerations, and, as we hope, aided by the
presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; compelled, besides, by the necessity of our
ministry, which strictly obliges us to conciliate, maintain, and confirm the peace and
tranquillity of the Christian republic, and remove every obstacle which may tend to
trouble it; having further considered that the said Company of Jesus can no longer
produce those abundant fruits, and those great advantages, with a view to which it was
instituted, approved by so many of our predecessors, and endowed with so many and
extensive privileges; that, on the contrary, it was very difficult, not to say impossible,
that the Church could recover a firm and durable peace so long as the said Society
subsisted; in consequence hereof, and determined by the particular reasons we have
here alleged, and forced by other motives which prudence and the good government of
the Church have dictated; the knowledge of which we reserve to ourselves; conforming
ourselves to the examples of our predecessors, and particularly to that of Gregory X. in
the general Council of Lyons; the rather as, in the present case, we are determining
upon the fate of a society classed among the mendicant orders, both by its institute and
by its privileges; after a mature deliberation, we do, out of our certain knowledge, and
the fullness of our apostolic power, suppress and abolish the said company: we deprive
it of all activity whatever, of its houses, schools, colleges, hospitals, lands, and, in short,
every other place whatsoever, in whatever kingdom or province they may be situated;
we abrogate and annul its statutes, rules, customs, decrees, and constitutions, even
though confirmed by oath, and approved by the Holy See or otherwise; in like manner
we annul all and every its privileges, indults, general or particular, the tenor whereof is,
and is taken to be, as fully and as amply expressed in the present Brief as if the same
were inserted word for word, in whatever clauses, form, or decree, or under whatever
sanction their privileges may have been conceived. We declare all, and all kind of
23
See:
“Feb.
10th
1773
Moniño
writes
the
Brief
of
www.sj2014.net/1/post/2014/02/feb-10th-1773-monio-writes-the-brief-of-suppression.html .
24
The Latin text of Dominus ac Redempter Noster and English translation
www.sj2014.net/original-latin1.html.
An
English
translation
can
be
http://www.reformation.org/jesuit-suppression-bull.htm.
18
Suppression”
are available
consulted
at
at
at
authority, the General, the provincials, the visitors, and other superiors of the said
Society to be for ever annulled and extinguished, of what nature soever the said
authority may be, as well in things spiritual as temporal. We do likewise order that the
said jurisdiction and authority be transferred to the respective ordinaries, fully and in
the same manner as the said generals, &c. exercised it, according to the form, places,
and circumstances with respect to the persons and under the conditions hereafter
determined; forbidding, as we do hereby forbid, the reception of any person to the said
Society, the novitiate or habit thereof. And with regard to those who have already been
admitted, our will is, that they be not received to make profession of the simple, solemn,
absolute vows, under penalty of nullity, and such other penalties as we shall ordain:
Further, we do will, command, and ordain, that those who are now performing their
novitiate be speedily, immediately, and actually sent back to their own homes; we do
further forbid that those who have made profession of the first simple vows, but who are
not yet admitted to either of the holy orders, be admitted thereto under any pretext or
title whatever; whether on account of the profession they have already made in the said
Society, or by virtue of any privileges the said Society has obtained, contrary to the
tenor of the decrees of the Council of Trent.
And now, the real intent of the measure is the destruction of the Jesuit order:
"Further, we do ordain, that after the publication of this our letter, no person do presume
to suspend the execution thereof, under colour, title, or pretence of any action, appeal,
relief, explanation of doubts which may arise, or any other pretext whatever, foreseen
or not foreseen. Our will and meaning is, that the suppression and cassation 25 of the said
Society, and of all its parts, shall have an immediate and instantaneous effect in the
manner here above set forth; and that under pain of the greater excommunication, to be
immediately incurred by whosoever shall presume to create the least impediment or
obstacle, or delay in the execution of this our will: the said excommunication not to be
taken off but by ourselves, or our successors, the Roman Pontiffs."
The Latin original text of the Brief uses the term cassatio [not cessatio], a juridical concept
for ‘annulment, annulation’, as of a judicial decision by a higher court. — Hence the insistence of
the Brief in the following part of the text on all juridical aspects or levels of this “cassation” or
annulation of all vows, grades, offices, superiors, authorities, decrees of General Congregations,
indults or privileges previously granted by the Holy See or previous popes, etc. – in other
words: the so called “Institute of the Society of Jesus” – about which, later on in the brief, the
mention of any study or opinion will be forbidden as subversive, since absolutely deprived of
any object.
The remaining of the Brief examines case by case how these general decisions have to be
applied. In particular, one reads also:
“We wish that whatever we determined for the suppression of the Society be applied to
the sacred missions. We reserve to ourselves the establishment of means by which the
conversion of infidels and the settlement of dissidences 26 are to be facilitated and more
surely attained.”
This attention to the detail, including the missionary method to be employed, is understandable
since “at the time of the brief there were more than 22 000 Jesuits all around the world in 42
provinces operating nearly 700 colleges and nearly 200 seminaries. Historian Owen Chadwick
describes the brief as 'the most tremendous use of power in the Church ever achieved by a
25
“Cassation”: 1. (Law) Law (esp. in France) Annulment, annulation, as of a judicial decision by a higher court [C15:
from Old French, from Medieval Latin cassātiō, from Late Latin cassāre, to cancel, from Latin quassāre, to quash. See
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991,…2003.
26
The original translation has “reconciliation of schismatics”. But the Latin original text of the Brief writes dissidiorum
sedatio, “the settlement of dissidences”, allusion to the Protestant churches and perhaps also the Orthodox churches.
19
Pope'. Eammon Duffy called this 'the papacy's most shameful hour'.” 27
On the frontiers, the Jesuits in China have had to wait, for various procedural reasons, before
being formally informed. ‘The brief of suppression was delivered in the centre of the country on
17 June 1775. Thereupon, the Jesuit bishop Gottfried Xavier von Laimbeckhoven and five
Chinese Jesuits signed it in submission to papal authority, and the Jesuits in the other provinces
acted likewise.” 28 In Beijing the problem was to decide among several ecclesiastical authorities
in China which had to officially promulgate the Brief to the community of around 20 Jesuits for
it to take effect locally in the “cassation” of the Society of Jesus. “Arguments about policy and
about the distribution of the assets that once had belonged to the Society flared up among the
ex-Jesuits, and between the ex-Jesuits and the missionaries of other orders. The situation
degraded to the extent that by 1785 almost all the missionaries of Beijing had been
excommunicated for one reason or another by one of the parties. It was the new bishop who
absolved the excommunicated, offered a solution to this schism and finally established peace.” 29
This was not done in Beijing until the 15 November 1775, 30 that is more than two years after its
signature.
A drama in the drama: the Chinese Christian Communities
The impact on the Jesuit communities has been extreme as the biographer of Jesuit Joseph
Amiot (1750-1795) relates in great details. 31 But the consequences on the Christian
communities have been equally dramatic, a drama as admirable as what Japanese Christians had
already been living in for about two centuries without priests. 32
More new information will be given during this seminar by the contribution of Fernando
Mateos, S.J., “based on Jesuit correspondence and original documents that depict three main
climax periods of the Jesuit exile in China: the suppression of the Society, the tribulation of its
former members and then their final incorporation into the restored Society.” The presentation
will give a precious overview of the human and geographical Jesuit presence and its activities in
various Chinese provinces at that time.
The Resurgence of the Jesuit charisma (1814)
Crossing therefore beyond the forty-one year long period of intended destruction of the Jesuit
institution, the troubled years in Europe of the French revolution and its aftermath had opened
up a new world stage. This essay focuses only on a few personalities or events that have
impacted even in this part of the world. The first of course will be Pope Pius VII (1782-1823)
for his role in calling back to life the Society of Jesus.
Born in 1756 Barnaba Chiaramonti, he entered the Benedictine Order aged 14 at the Abbey
of St Maria del Monte of Cesena in Italy and was given the name Gregorio. A teacher at
27
Quoted by Jesuit Restoration 1814, at
www.sj2014.net/dominus-ac-redemptor-1773.html .
See: Nicolas Standaert S.J., “The Chinese Mission Without Jesuits History”, in Yearbook of the Society of Jesus 2014, p.
57.
29
See Standaert, op. cit., p. 58.
28
30
For more details: Camille de Rochemonteix, S.J. (1834-1923), Joseph Amiot et les derniers survivants de la Mission
Française à Pékin (1750-1795). Nombreux Documents inédits avec carte. Paris, Librairie Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1915,
lxiii, 563 p. – See chapters 6 and 7, specially p. 199.
31
Ibid.
32
See Eugenio Menegon, Ancestors, virgins, & friars : Christianity as a local religion in late Imperial China, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University Press, 2009 –
4. Suppression and persistence, 1723-1840s, pp. 116-154.
20
Benedictine colleges in Parma and Rome, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1765 and by his
relative Pius VI (1775-1799), Dom Gregory, aged 34, was appointed abbot of the Monastery
of Sant’Anselmo in Rome (an irregular procedure resented by the monks who were regularly
used to elect their abbot). Later on, Dom Gregory was appointed Bishop of Tivoli and in 1785
Cardinal-Priest and Bishop of Imola, where he had to compose in 1797 with the invading
French Revolutionary troops and the Cisalpine Republic established by them. After the death
in 1799 of Pius VI as a quasi-prisoner in Valence (France), Cardinal Chiaramonti was elected
Pope in Venice during the Conclave and took the name of Pius VII on 14 March 1800.
Beginning with the Concordat of 1801 signed with the First Consul Bonaparte, one may say that
the pontificate of Pius VII has been constantly troubled for the following fifteen years by
conflicts with the Emperor Napoleon, including years of house of arrest in various locations
until the Emperor’s fall and death in 1815. Pius VII died eight years later on 20 August 1823.
His years in captivity (1809-1814) under such an imperial ruler stretching his revolutionary
forces all across Europe, even to Russia where Jesuits had found some refuge, and up to the
Berezina frozen river (Belarus) in a retreat battle (26-29 November 1812), might have fostered
in the pope’s mind some important decision rooted in the needs of the time.
It was to be a follow up of some earlier ones: on 7 March 1801, Pius VII had earlier
promulgated the Brief Catholicae Fidei which approved the existence of the Society of Jesus in
Russia. The then Vicar General Jesuit Franciszek Kareu was appointed 'Superior General of the
Jesuits in Russia'. Not long afterwards, on 30 July 1804, by the Brief Per alias, what was
granted to the Russian Empire was extended at the request of King Ferdinand IV to his Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies. It was only but three months soon after his triumphal return to Rome in 1814
that Pius VII promulgated on 7 August his Brief Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum by which the
Society of Jesus was reconstituted in the whole world. As Tadeusz Brzozowski (1749-1820) had
been in 1805 elected Superior General by exiled Jesuits in Russia, they have agreed that no
general congregation was again necessary for the whole reconstituted Society of Jesus. So
Brozowski became Superior General in the full meaning of the position. But, as Czar Alexander
I forbid the Superior General to leave Russia, Brzozowski appointed Luigi Fortis, based in Italy,
to represent him in Rome. Brzozowski died on 5 February 1820 and was buried in Polatsk,
Belarus. “In the very next month, all 350 Jesuits in Russia were banished from the country.” 33
But to make sure that the Congregation that would elect his successor would meet in Rome,
he had earlier nominated an Italian Jesuit, Mariano Petrucci, as his Vicar General.
Some analytic comparison between the Brief of “cassation” and the Brief of “reconstitution”
of the Society of Jesus could perhaps provide some light on their differences in spirit.
The first could concern the titles given to each document. Clement XIV wanted to stress the
need for peace in the Church and in the nations of the Christian world (including the missions in
Asia and the Americas), agitated by too often recurrently ignited disputes, hence the title
Dominus ac Redemptor Noster, the King of Peace. There is a strong contrast with the other title
Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum given by Piusi VII to his Brief; it is inspired by Paul’s second
Letter to the Corinthians: “Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for
all the churches” (2 Cor., 11, 28). This implies, from the part of Pius VII, the awareness of the
various traditions existing in the Christian world, particularly in Prussia (reformed Churches)
and in Russia (the Orthodox Church) where Jesuits had taken refuge. It implies also allusion to
India and China, all regions where disputes concerning cultural traditions had arisen.
More importantly perhaps, the spirit that has inspired the drafting of each text seems to be
33
John W. Padberg, S. J., “The General Congregations of the Society of Jesus. A Brief Survey of Their History” in Studies
in the Spirituality of Jesuits, Published by the American Assistance Seminar on Jesuit Spirituality, especially for
American Jesuits working out their aggiornamento in the spirit of Vatican Council II, Vol. VI January and March, 1974
Nos.
1
and
2,
St.
Louis
University,
St.
Louis
(Missouri),
p.
43-45.
Accessed
at
ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/jesuit/article/viewFile/3677/3262.
21
totally different: disciplinary and juridical for the first, where the use of the term “cassation” as
mentioned supra manifests by itself the real intent of the brief, utter abolition. On the contrary,
creative openness to new possibilities in the shorter second text, which has been drafted to
answer a call coming not only from the exiled Jesuits and their friends but obviously also from
the needs of the time, particularly as far as education of the youth in humanities, science, morals
and Christian faith is concerned.
Thirdly, if it were necessary to better appreciate the characteristics of both texts by virtue of a
contrastive comparison, let it suffice to mention the measures taken by the two Popes through
which the authority of their Briefs is meant to be preserved and fostered for future ages! Here
are some paragraphs presented in two columns:
22
Quoted from
Quoted from
Clement XIV, Dominus ac Redemptor
Noster [1773]
Pius VII, Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum
[1814]
"Further, we do ordain, that after the
publication of this our letter, no person do
presume to suspend the execution thereof,
under colour, title, or pretence of any action,
appeal, relief, explanation of doubts which
may arise, or any other pretext whatever,
foreseen or not foreseen. Our will and
meaning is, that the suppression and
cassation of the said Society, and of all its
parts, shall have an immediate and
instantaneous effect in the manner here
above set forth; and that under pain of the
greater excommunication, to be immediately
incurred by whosoever shall presume to
create the least impediment or obstacle, or
delay in the execution of this our will: the
said excommunication not to be taken off but
by ourselves, or our successors, the Roman
Pontiffs.
Decreeing this letter and its whatsoever
contents to exist now and in the future to be
lastingly and always firm, valid, and efficacious,
and that it effects with full and complete
acceptance, and that it should be inviolably
observed by those to whom it applies and for all
the time in which it shall apply. Thus and not
otherwise ought it to be likewise judged and
evaluated by any judges discharging whatever
authority; and that if it be otherwise treated by
anyone of whatever authority, whether
knowingly or out of ignorance, his act be null and
void.
"Further, we ordain and command, by
virtue of the holy obedience to all and every
ecclesiastical person, regular and secular, of
whatever rank, dignity, and condition, and
especially those who have been heretofore of
the said Company, that no one of them do
carry their audacity so far as to impugn,
combat, or even write or speak about the said
suppression, or the reasons and motives of it,
or about the institute of the Company, its
form of government, or other circumstance
thereto relating, without an express
permission from the Roman Pontiff, and that
under the same pain of excommunication.
The above, notwithstanding apostolic
constitutions and ordinations, and particularly the
above mentioned letter in the form of a brief of
Clement XIV of happy memory beginning with
the words Dominus ac Redemptor issued under the
ring of the Fisherman on the 21st day of July in
the year of our Lord 1773. This letter and its
intended effects we wish now to abrogate
expressly and in particular, notwithstanding
anything to the contrary.
But we wish that for any transcribed, or
printed copies of this present letter, subscribed
by the hand of any public notary, and showing
the seal of any person situated in an authorised
ecclesiastical position, that there be employed the
same trust, judicial or not, which is used for this
present letter, if the copies shall be shown or
displayed.
Therefore it is permitted to no person at all to
violate this page of our ordination, statute,
extension, concession, indult, permission,
acceptance,
reservation,
admonition,
exhortation, decree, and abrogation, or make
any rash effort to go against it. But if anyone
should presume to attempt this, let him know
that he will incur the wrath of the omnipotent
God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
23
To elect a successor to Tadeusz Brzozowski, his Vicar General Petrucci on 4 September 1820
called the General Congregation in Rome. But during the preparation, disagreement erupted
between two groups of the 24 delegates. 34 One under Sicilian Jesuit Rezzi, with some of the
members being veterans of the old Society, the other one composed of newer, very vigorous and
more active Jesuits, some of them formerly members of the Fathers of the Faith, society and
more recently enrolled in Russia, like the Frenchman Rozaven. The Rezzi group questioned the
validity of the Russian solemn professions, and both groups had in Rome the support of a
Cardinal. In addition, one Cardinal intervened and gave Petrucci the full powers of a General
Superior, increased the number of his assistants, and formed a commission against abuses, all
measures not conformed with the Institute of the Society. Rozaven and eighteen delegates got
their complains to Pope Pius VII who settled the matter in accordance with the original
arrangements and ratified the validity of the Russian professions in question. On its first
meeting on 1 October, the congregation expelled Rezzi and removed Petrucci from his office of
Vicar General. And on 18 October 1820, the congregation elected as Superior General on the
second ballot the Provincial of Italy, Luigi Fortis (1748-1829).
At the age of 14 years old, Luigi Fortis had joined the Society of Jesus in 1762, and he followed
the customary Jesuit formation, including regency in teaching Humanities at the University of
Ferrara until the suppression of the order in 1773 that forced him to return to his home city of
Verona. He then became a teacher of Mathematics. Ordained priest in 1778, he contacted Jesuits
in Russia but was advised that he was more needed in Italy. Then in 1793 the Jesuits in the Duchy
of Parma re-admitted him in the Society where he renewed his vows, and taught Physics and
History at the College of the Nobles of Parma, but he was obliged to flee to Naples when the
Napoleon army invaded Parma. When José Napoleon arrived in Naples, the Jesuits were expelled,
and Fortis returned to Verona (1810), where he taught Poetry, Mathematics, Philosophy and
Logic.
In view of the intrigues that have troubled the preparation of the Congregation that elected
Luigi Fortis as General Superior, it was normal, as John Padberg writes, that
“the over-riding consideration of the congregation was that [the Society] not be a
"new," in the sense of a "different", Society but a continuation of the "old" in the
sense of a Society "imbued with the original spirit". Just about the first act after the
elections was to decree that all of the Constitutions, Decrees, Rules, Ratio Studiorum,
ordinations of the generals "maintained their ancient force."[92] A new edition of the
Institute, too, was to be prepared. This was obviously with the intention that the legal
or juridical character of the Society should remain the same. More important, still,
was the maintenance of the spiritual character. To this end, there was a series of
postulata on religious discipline, and the congregation urged a full and careful
novitiate [93] and tertianship on all Jesuits and faithful observance of common life.”
[92: GC XX, dd. 6, 9. Censures, precepts, and reserved cases were excluded from this
decree, but a later congregation, GC XX, d. 24, brought them back with all their
original force.” 35
The new Pope Leo XII granted Luigi Fortis this confirmation early during his pontificate.
And, after being Superior General for a little more than eight years, he died in Rome on 27
January 1829. At that time, the Society had already 2 100 members in 9 provinces.
34
For the following details, see Padberg, op. cit., p. 43-45.
35
Padberg, op. cit., p. 44.
24
“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” 36
With the aftermath of the French Revolution and the end of the Napoleon era in Europe, the not
so new Society of Jesus was facing new times, new needs and new challenges: it was restored in
the pristine spirit of its Constitutions, will it be inspired by the contemporary spirit of the
political restoration of the “ancient regime”? The game was not over, and revolutionary
after-chocks sparked all along the new century in several countries. Here is just a short list of
events:
1814: Convocation of the reactionary Congress of Vienna (September 1814 to June 1815) which
tried to put Old Europe together again by redesigning new boundaries, but Old Europe was
not to be revived, whatever the hopes of the Congress of Vienna.
1820s…: Revolutions in Latin America broke away from the imperialist, mercantilist colonial
power of West European monarchies.
1830: Revolutions in several countries: in France and Belgium, they led to the establishment of
very similar constitutional monarchies, called popular monarchies; in Brazil, liberals
expelled Emperor Pedro I from the country, where he had played an authoritarian role since
the struggle for Independence, although he had supported the Portuguese liberals during the
Portuguese civil war; in Poland occurred the unsuccessful November Uprising against the
Czar of Russia; in Switzerland, following the French July Revolution in 1830, a number of
large assemblies were held calling for new cantonal constitutions.
1836: Irish independence movement against English oppression intensified.
1848: Revolution rocked major European capitals. New fissures opened in social life between
property (workers or "the proletariat"). Those who hungered for equality turned against those
who prospered with owners ("the capitalist class") and a huge new social formation, that is
those who had only their labour to sell. Dominant "bourgeois" entrepreneurs increasingly
demanded protection, just as they welcomed European revolution. Earlier, the main factional
lines were defined by relationships to the pre-modern security. Politics are always beautifully
complex (for instance, the “interests”), but we can discern a major shift in the ("feudal") and
agrarian economic and social structures. […] The 1848 Revolution was faintly echoed in
Russia by what has come to be called "the Petrashevtsy" 37 defined by relationships to the
modernizing industrial economy. Conflict was no longer "commoners" versus "aristocrats,
monarchs and priests" but prosperous commoners ("owners") versus commoners who
worked for them ("labour").38
When the Society of Jesus had been restored by “solicitude for all the Churches”, its
“reconstitution” into a living body took most of its energies in the midst of the painful birth of
new and modern nations in Europe and elsewhere. Should really one wonder that the Jesuit
charisma met so many challenges in those times? The following list of expulsions or
expropriations of the Jesuits can give some hints at the struggle:
1815, 20 December
Czar Alexander Ist published an ukase or edict banishing the Society of Jesus from Saint
Petersburg and Moscow: the restoration of the Society came at a time when Russia was
experiencing a strong nationalist movement, calling, among other things for a strengthening
of the Orthodox Church. The Jesuits were seen as an obstacle to that.
36
Attributed to Mark Twain (1835-1910).
The Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded commoner-intellectuals in St.
Petersburg organized by Mikhail Petrashevsky (1821-1866), a follower of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier.
37
38
See “Three Phases Of The European Revolution”: […] Post-French-Revolutionary Chronology, accessed at
http://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/EUR.REV.2.PHASES.htm .
25
1816, 3 January
The Superior General Tadeusz Brzozowski and 25 members of the Society were arrested by
the civil government, guarded by soldiers at Saint Petersburg, then expelled. Their High
School was confiscated on the ground that the Jesuits were using it to convert Russian
nobles to Catholicism. Sensing that the days of the Society in Russia were numbered,
Brzozowski sent several Jesuits to a number of countries in Western Europe to speed up the
reestablishment of the order.
1820, 13 March
In Russia, after the death of Tadeusz Brzozowski on 5 February 1820, an imperial ukase of
Czar Alexander Ist banished all Jesuits from the Empire where the Society had survived from
1773 until its restoration in 1814.
1820, 6 September
King Ferdinand VII of Spain supressed the Society of Jesus in his kingdom and dominions.
1834, 25 May
Don Pedro IV banished the Society of Jesus from Brasil.
1845, 12 June
Pope Gregory XVI refused the request of the French gouvernement to secularise French
Jesuits and to close their houses. — Cf. « Sit ut sunt aut not sint ».
1848, 10 March
In Naples a crowd threatened to massacre the Jesuits if they refused to leave the city
immediately.
1848, 10 May
The Austro-Hungarian government decreed the suppression of the Society of Jesus in all the
empire.
1861, 26 July
In Colombia, the dictator and persecutor of the Church, Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera,
published a decree to banish Jeuits from Grenada Nueva: 52 Jesuits were obliged to abandon
their fatherland a third time and to go to exile in Guatemala.
1870, 4 December
The Roman College, which Piedmont’s government had appropriated, was re-opened as a
high school. The monogram of Society of Jesus on the main entrance was taken down.
1872, 22 August
The Jesuits were banished from Germany during the Kulturkampf of Bismarck.
1873, 4 April
In Mexico, a law was proposed in the parliament in order to banish the Society of Jesus..
1873, 19 June
In Rome, Victor Emmanuel and his Parliament excluded explicitly that the Superior General
of the Society of Jesus had any eventual financial retreat or pension.
1873, 20 October
In Rome, all the houses of the Society of Jesus, including the church of the Gesu and the
central Curia were converted into government property.
A detailed history of all these suppressions in their various political, social and economic
contexts would be precious for a general history of the Society of Jesus and its apostolic vitality
during those post-restoration times.
26
The Jesuits return in China
The same would be true to understand better in which context the Jesuits returned in China. As
early as the years 1810s and 1820s, Chinese Christian communities in the provinces as in Beijing
had sent quite many repeated demands to obtain Jesuit priests back in China that the new Superior
General Jan Roothaan (1785-1853), elected in 1829 and already overburdened by similar calls
coming from Europe, could not satisfy any request from China. It was only through the
intervention of a newly appointed Vicar Apostolic of the Propaganda Fide, Ludovico De Besi
(1805-1871)39 that Roothaan sent three Jesuits to China. They were destined to the Jiangnan
mission and arrived in Wusong near Shanghai on 11 July 1842. 40 That was one month after the
battle of Wusong and about six weeks before the signature of the Treaty of Nanjing on 29
August 1842 that concluded the first Opium war between Great Britain and China.
The place and the date have some importance: before the suppression of the Society of Jesus,
all missionaries reached China through Macau where Alexandro Valignano (1539-1606) had
established Saint Paul College in 1594 to train new missionaries in the language, history and
culture of China. Confiscated after the suppression of the Jesuits in Portugal (1759), the college
lost its earlier purpose and with the nearby church was destroyed in a fire in 1835. But Macau
was a place situated not very far from Humen (the Tiger’s Gate, known also as Bocca Tigris, the
Tiger’s mouth), a heavily fortified straight on a curve of the Pearl River and a naval gateway
to Guangzhou. It was there that a major battle ignited the First Opium War (1839-1842) fought
between Great Britain and China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations,
trade, and the administration of justice for foreign nationals. Chinese officials, in particular Lin
Zexu (1785-1850), Governor of Guangdong, in order to end the spread of opium in China,
confiscated and destroyed in Humen town around 20,000 chests of opium (about 12,000 tons)
from British traders, an act that the British government reacted against by using its navy and
military power as to enforce free trade. If this was not enough, in 1842, in the Treaty of Nanjing
– the first of the “unequal treaties” – Great Britain was granted an indemnity, five treaty ports
(including Shanghai) were declared open to trade and the Hong Kong Island occupied by the
British. The poor results of the treaty in terms of improved trade and diplomatic relations led to
the Second Opium War (1856-1860), considered in China as the beginning of a period of
humiliations in modern Chinese history.
Did Ludovico de Besi and his new missionary Jesuits pay attention to the signs of the time
before getting into contact with their welcoming Christian communities? Historians would have
better inquire in order to understand what quite soon would follow after just the first three years
in their pastoral work.
Nicolas Standaert notes:
“After having waited for decades and made such a great effort in bringing back Jesuits
to China, those who had played a major role in launching the petitions were very
excited to see the Jesuits finally arrive in Jiangnan. Yet some Christians soon began to
realize that those "new Jesuits" were nothing like the "old Jesuits" that they had
expected. Prompted by some of the reforms initiated by Mgr. de Besi and the newly
arrived Jesuits, a serious conflict broke out in 1845. This eventually led to the
resignation of Besi in 1847 on account of an alleged abuse of authority, and to a
division in the Christian communities in the central region that lasted more than 10
years.”
“The conflict between the local Christian communities and the new missionaries
See data at http://ricci.rt.usfca.edu/biography/view.aspx?biographyID=285 .
Ann Nottingham Kelsall, Zi-ka-wei and the Modern Jesuit Mission to the Chinese 1842-1852, Master's Thesis
University of Maryland, 1978, p.. 41. See http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Gotteland. — Wusong (吴淞 or 吳淞),
formerly Woosung, is a port town located fourteen miles downriver from Shanghai. The Battle of Woosung occurred
on 16 June 1842 between British and Chinese forces during the First Opium War.
39
40
27
started with the pastoral instructions launched by Mgr. de Besi in 1845. […] Chinese
Christians composed an Open Letter, originally signed by thirty Christians in 1845,
which was printed and widely circulated among Christian communities. It revealed
the voice of a Chinese church that had seldom been heard and that criticized the
manner in which the new-corners had been administering the churches in the region.
The writers complained that Mgr. de Besi and the Jesuits discouraged Chinese Christians to
read Chinese Christian texts, and did not allow them to deliver sermons in churches. Part of the
problem was due to the Europeans' lack of proficiency in Chinese. […] Unlike the old Jesuits
they were ignorant of the contents of the Confucian classics and histories, and that they could
not even appreciate the works translated into Chinese by the former Jesuits. […]
The documents of this controversy show that the new Jesuits encountered a Church
that was already becoming Chinese with living Christian communities imbedded in
Chinese culture and in the hands of the Chinese themselves. Insufficiently aware of
the attitude of the old Jesuits and of the achievements of the Christian communities
during the period without Jesuits, they imposed a new type of Church that was
opposed by theological tradition. Even if they succeeded in planting the church
institution, as Jean-Paul Wiest pointed out, they – deliberately or not – repeatedly
blocked the emergence of the local church. […] The memory of these events may
open up our understanding and imagination regarding the role of local Christian
communities in the Church today.” 41
These few lines should have an impact all the more stronger that these Christian communities
were not pleading for the recognition that the Chinese rites are not contrary to their Christian
faith – they knew that these rites had been disputed and forbidden by the Church authorities a
long time ago.42 The Christian communities in China requested to be able to continue practicing
what they had devised as means to keep alive their Catholic faith, even under political duress, 43
when their leaders, lay women and men, were deprived of the service of any priest. The failure,
if there were any, of these Jesuits in their service was perhaps due, despite their generosity, to
the Zeitgeist of the European “restoration” period, that had deprived them from the dialogical
and mystical Jesuit charisma which was mentioned earlier in this essay.
In other words, the revival in China of the Society of Jesus on the frontiers of the Christian
world and from its very beginning is far from being fully written, or even clearly known. It is
worth thinking about such a loophole in order to enter faithfully into the future. On this front,
the quest for Jesuit charisma more than for any institution should answer many needs.
~~
As a Postlude
This essay at some reading of history was aiming at better understanding the hidden tension that
led to the “cassation” and the “revival” of the Society of Jesus world-wide. Beyond the
Christian world the Jesuits were in China or elsewhere on the frontiers, even if the Chinese rites
See: Nicolas Standaert S.J., “The Chinese Mission Without Jesuits History”, in Yearbook of the Society of Jesus 2014,
pp. 58-60, passim.
42
Thanks to a better understanding of the civil but not idolatrous neither superstitious value of these rites, the
prescription against them was abolished by the Holy See only later on 8 December 1939 by a new decree known as
Plane Compertum (that is : “It is clearly found…”. Better late than never…!).
43
“During this period, especially in the years 1784-1785, 1805 and 1811, there were some serious persecutions which
greatly affected the Christian communities and the (foreign) missionaries.” See Standaert, op. cit., p. 58.
41
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controversy had been at the centre of attention for many years past. On the world stage, a drama
of ecclesial proportions progressively developed: in it the tension was apparently economic and
geopolitical at the time of the twin “patronage” casted by the Iberian Union as a net all over the
world at large. The Council of Trent exerted also its centralised effort at reform all over this
world, and Clement XIV in suppressing the Jesuit order has referred his action to the Council.
But with the Copernican revolution, the terrestrial world as it was known before lost its central
position in the Universe. On the other hand, the Society of Jesus grew in number and in its many
endeavours in a world that was discovering its cultural diversity. The Jesuits lived the tension
inherent into what Pius VII called his “solicitude for all the Churches” and their various
cultures. The “restoration” of the Jesuit order in its pristine “Institute” was easy to decide or
implement at a time when Europe was also going through a restoration process. But beyond the
re-established institutions, the Jesuit charisma so painfully lived in the difficult times of the past,
needed more time and adapted preparation to be rekindled in China, as we have seen, and
elsewhere.
“As Michel de Certeau reminds us: "Only the end of an epoch allows us to enunciate
what has given it life, as if it were necessary to die in order to be converted into a
book" 44 or simply expressed in an article.
“There is a word of the Danish philosopher and theologian Sören Kierkegaard
(1813-1855): 'You can live only forwards but backwards only to understand life.' For
each human being her/his past is of essential moulding importance. This is true also
for organisations and above all for life communities.” 45
44
Martin M. Morales, S.J. “The Suppression: a Historiographic Challenge” - Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome,
Yearbook of the Society of Jesus 2014 Jesuits, p. 19.
45
Otto Syré, S.J. (1913-2008), compiler of Calendar of the Society Of Jesus, Introduction. See the Otto Syré webpage at
www.con-spiration.de/syre/indexe.html.
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