Everything about Suppression Of The Society Of Jesus totally explained
The
Suppression of the Jesuits in
Portugal,
France, the
Two Sicilies,
Parma and the
Spanish Empire by
1767 was a result of a series of political moves rather than a theological controversy. Following a decree signed by
Pope Clement XIV in July
1773, the
Society of Jesus was suppressed in all Catholic countries. In the
Orthodox nations, particularly in
Russia, where the
Tsar and the metropolitan didn't recognize papal authority, the order was ignored. The scholarly Jesuit
Society of Bollandists moved from
Antwerp to
Brussels, where they continued their work in the monastery of the
Coudenberg; in
1788, the Bollandist Society itself was suppressed by the
Austrian government of the
Low Countries.
Overview
The series of political struggles between various monarchs, particularly France and Portugal, began with disputes over territory in
1750 and culminated in suspension of diplomatic relations and dissolution of the Society by the Pope over most of Europe, and even some executions.
Portugal,
France, the
Two Sicilies,
Parma and the
Spanish Empire were involved to one degree or another.
The conflicts began with trade disputes. In 1750 in Portugal, in 1755 in France, and in the late 1750's in the Two Sicilies. In 1758 the government of
Joseph I of Portugal took advantage of the waning powers of
Pope Benedict XIV and deported Jesuits from America after relocating the Jesuits and their native workers, and then fighting a brief conflict, formally suppressing the order in
1759. In 1762 the Parlement Francais, a court, not a legislature, affirmed a ruling against the society in a huge bankruptcy case, under pressure from a host of groups - from within the Church to secular intellectuals to the king's mistress. Austria and the two Sicilies suppressed the order by decree in 1767.
With the reaction against the anti-clerical excesses of the Revolution, especially after
1815, the Catholic church began to play a more welcome role in official European life once more, and nation by nation the Jesuits made their way back.
The modern view is that the suppression was the result of a series of political and economic conflicts rather than a theological controversy and the assertion of nation-state independence against the Catholic Church. The expulsion of the
Society of Jesus from the
Roman Catholic nations of Europe and their colonial empires is also seen as the first triumph of the secularist notions of the
Enlightenment, which were said to contribute to the anti-clericism of the
French Revolution. The suppression was also seen as being an attempt by monarchs to gain control of revenues and trade that were previously dominated by the Society of Jesus. Catholic historians often point to a personal conflict between
Clement XIII (1758-1769) and his supporters within the church and the
crown cardinals backed by France.
Portugal
The expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal has been reduced by the
Catholic Encyclopedia to a personal quarrel with the prime minister of
Joseph I of Portugal, the reformist and autocratic
Marquis of Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo. Whether Melo's or Portugal's, the quarrel with the Jesuits began over an exchange of South American colonial territory with Spain. By a secret treaty of 1750, Portugal relinquished to Spain the contested colony of
San Sacramento at the mouth of the
Uruguay River in exchange for the Seven Reductions of Paraguay, the autonomous Jesuit missions that had been nominal Spanish colonial territory. The native
Guarani who peopled the mission territories were ordered to quit their country and settle across the Uruguay, an example of
population transfer. Owing to the harsh conditions, the Indians rose in arms against the transfer, and the so-called
Guarani War ensued, a disaster for the Guarani, in which the Jesuits appeared, from the Portuguese perspective, to have had a hand. In Portugal a battle of inflammatory pamphlets denouncing or defending the Order escalated. The Jesuit fathers, suspected of attempting to build an independent empire in the New World, were forbidden to continue the local administration of their former missions, and the Portuguese Jesuits were removed from Court.
On
April 1,
1758, a brief was obtained from the aged
Pope Benedict XIV, appointing the Portuguese
Cardinal Saldanha, recommended by Pombal, to investigate allegations against the Jesuits that had been raised in the name of the King of Portugal. Benedict was skeptical as to the gravity of the alleged abuses. He ordered a minute inquiry, but so as to safeguard the reputation of the Society, all serious matters were to be referred back to himself. Benedict died the following month, however, on
May 3. On
May 15, Saldanha, having received the papal brief only a fortnight before, omitting the thorough visitation of Jesuit houses that had been ordered, and pronouncing on the issues which the pope had reserved to himself, declared that the Jesuits were guilty of having exercised illicit, public, and scandalous commerce, both in Portugal and in its colonies. Pombal moved quickly during the papal
sede vacante: in three weeks' time the Jesuits had been stripped of all Portuguese possessions, and before Cardinal Rezzonico had been made pope, as
Clement XIII, on
July 6,
1758, the Portuguese dispossession of the Society was a
fait accompli.
The last straw for the Court of Portugal was the attempted assassination of the king on
September 3, 1758, of which the Jesuits were supposed to have had prior knowledge (see
Távora affair). Among those arrested and executed was
Gabriel Malagrida, the Jesuit confessor of
Leonor of Távora. The Jesuits were expelled from the kingdom, important non-Portuguese members of the Order were imprisoned. In 1759, the Order was civilly suppressed. The Portuguese ambassador was recalled from
Rome and the
papal nuncio sent home in disgrace. Relations between Portugal and Rome were broken off until 1770.
France
The suppression of the Jesuits in France began in the French island colony of
Martinique, where the Society of Jesus had a major commercial stake. They didn't and couldn't engage in trade, buying and selling to make a profit, any more than any other religious order could do, but their large mission plantations included large local populations that worked under the usual conditions of tropical colonial agriculture of the 18th century, not easily distinguishable from the
hacienda system. As the
Catholic Encyclopedia expressed it in 1908, "this was allowed, partly to provide for the current expenses of the mission, partly in order to protect the simple, childlike natives from the common plague of dishonest intermediaries."
Father
Antoine La Vallette, Superior of the Martinique missions, managed these transactions with great success, and like secular proprietors of plantations he needed to borrow money to expand the large undeveloped resources of the colony. But on the
outbreak of war with England, ships carrying goods of an estimated value of 2,000,000
livres were captured, and La Vallette suddenly went bankrupt for a very large sum. His creditors turned to the Order's Procurator at
Paris to demand payment, but the Procurator refused responsibility for the debts of an independent mission— though he offered to negotiate for a settlement. The creditors went to the courts, and an order was made in 1760, obliging the Society to pay, and giving leave to distrain in the case of non-payment.
The Fathers, on the advice of their lawyers, appealed to the
Parlement of Paris. This turned out to be an imprudent step. For not only did the Parlement support the lower court,
May 8,
1761, but having once gotten the case into its hands, the Jesuits' enemies in that assembly determined to strike a blow at the Order.
Enemies of every sort combined. The
Jansenists were numerous among the enemies of the orthodox party. The
Sorbonne joined the
Gallicans, the
Philosophes, and the
Encyclopédistes.
Louis XV was weak; his wife and children were in favor of the Jesuits; his able first minister, the
Duc de Choiseul, played into the hands of the Parlement, and the royal mistress,
Madame de Pompadour, to whom the Jesuits had refused absolution, for she was living in sin with the King of France, was a determined opponent. The determination of the Parlement of Paris in time bore down all opposition.
The attack on the Jesuits was opened by the Jansenist sympathizer, the
Abbé Chauvelin,
April 17,
1762, who denounced the Constitution of the Jesuits, which was publicly examined and exposed in a hostile press. The
Parlement issued its
Extraits des assertions assembled from passages from Jesuit theologians and canonists, in which they were alleged to teach every sort of immorality and error. On
August 6,
1762, the final
arrêt was issued condemning the Society to extinction, but the king's intervention brought eight months' delay and meantime a compromise was suggested by the Court. If the French Jesuits would separate from the order, under a French vicar, with French customs, as with the
Gallican church, the Crown would still protect them. In spite of the dangers of refusal the Jesuits wouldn't consent. On April 1, 1763 the colleges were closed, and by a further
arrêt of
March 9, 1764, the Jesuits were required to renounce their vows under pain of banishment. At the end of November 1764, the king signed an edict dissolving the Society throughout his dominions, for they were still protected by some provincial parlements, as in
Franche-Comté,
Alsace, and
Artois. But in the draft of the edict, he canceled numerous clauses that implied that the Society was guilty, and writing to Choiseul, he concluded "If I adopt the advice of others for the peace of my realm, you must make the changes I propose, or I'll do nothing. I say no more, lest I should say too much."
Spain and Naples
The Suppression in Spain and in the Spanish colonies, and in its dependency, the
Kingdom of Naples, was carried through in secrecy, and the ministers of
Charles III kept their deliberations to themselves, as did the king who acted upon "urgent, just, and necessary reasons, which I reserve in my royal mind;". The correspondence of
Bernardo Tanucci, the anti-clerical minister of Charles III in
Naples contain all the ideas which from time to time guided Spanish policy. Charles conducted his government through
Count Aranda, a reader of
Voltaire, and other liberals. At a council meeting of
January 29,
1767, the expulsion of the Society of Jesus was settled. Secret orders, which were to be opened at midnight between the first and second of April, 1767, were sent to the magistrates of every town where a Jesuit resided. The plan worked smoothly. That morning, 6000 Jesuits were marching like convicts to the coast, where they were deported, first to the
Papal States, and ultimately to
Corsica, which was a dependency of
Genoa. Due to the isolation of the
Spanish Missions of California, the decree for expulsion didn't arrive in June of 1767, as in the rest of
New Spain, but was delayed until the new governor,
Portolà, arrived with the news on
November 30. Jesuits from the fourteen operating missions at the moment reunited in
Loreto, whence they left for exile on
February 3,
1768. It took until 1768 for the Royal order to reach the Jesuit missions in the south of the
Philippines, but by the end of the year, the Jesuits had been dispossessed throughout the Spanish dominions.
Tanucci pursued a similar policy in
Bourbon Naples. On
November 3 the Jesuits, without a trial or even an accusation, were simply marched across the frontier into the Papal States, and threatened with death if they returned.
The change in the Spanish colonies in the New World was particularly great, as the far-flung settlements were often dominated by missions. Almost overnight in the mission towns of Sonora and Arizona, the "black robes" (as the Jesuits were often known) disappeared and the "gray robes" (Franciscans) replaced them .
Parma
The independent
Duchy of Parma was the smallest Bourbon court, where Louis XV's favorite daughter was Duchess. So aggressive in its anti-clericalism was the Parmesan reaction to the news of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Naples, that Clement XIII addressed to it (
January 30,
1768) a public warning, threatening the Duchy with ecclesiastical censures, not a tactful move. At this all the Bourbon courts turned in fury against the
Holy See, and demanded the entire dissolution of the Jesuits. As a preliminary, Parma at once drove the Jesuits out of its territories, confiscating all their possessions.
Papal defender, Clement XIII
Return of the Jesuits
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