RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Jesuits
duke of Gandia, who had been a courtier of Charles V., and had been employed in important administrative offices, to membership (1548) was no doubt the most important addition to the personnel of the society since it received papal recognition. He was to prove one of the ablest and most enthusiastic workers and to become the third general (July 2, 1565). The universities of Alcala and Salamanca resisted strenuously the efforts of the Jesuits to gain control; but they finally succeeded in establishing themselves in these centers of influence. Further progress was less difficult. The society encountered antipathy and mistrust in France. A number of youths sent by Ignatius to the University of Paris in 1540 were driven away. The archbishop of Paris, the parliament of Paris, and the Sorbonne united their forces in opposition to the aggressions of the body. The cardinal of Lorraine supported the society. The Jesuits did not succeed until 1661 in establishing a college in France, and this (Clermont) was long denied university privileges. The Jesuits Auger and Pelletian preached and labored with such efficiency in Lyons (1559) as to cause an uprising against the Huguenots that resulted in the burning of their books, the banishment of their preachers, and the suppression of their worship. A Jesuit college was established there in commemoration of their triumph. They persistently opposed Henry of Navarre in his struggle for the crown, refused to pray for him after his submission to the pope, and denounced the Edict of Nantes. Henry did everything in his power to conciliate them, recalled a decree of banishment that had been issued against them, made a Jesuit his confessor, and sought to use the Jesuits in defending himself against Spain, where the Dominicans were highly influential. He was not content with giving to the Jesuits a foremost place in France, but he sought to secure their restoration to Venice, whence they had been expelled in 1606, and to extend the sphere of their influence in other lands. He eagerly promoted the canonization of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier (1608). Yet he was distrusted by the society and when, as he was on the point of marching an army against the emperor and his allies, he was assassinated by Francois Ravaillac, the Huguenots charged that Jesuit influence had compassed his death, though direct instigation could not be proved. After the death of Henry IV. the society became still more powerful in France, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (q.v.) and the destruction of the Huguenots (q.v.) were largely due to their persistent efforts. The Jansenists asserted that their theology was Pelagian and that their morals were lax (q.v.; see also Aenauld; Dv Vehgier de Haubanne, Jean; Pascal, Blaise; Poet Royal;
QUESNEL, PaSQUIEe).
Germany and Austria were the scenes of their greatest triumphs. The first Jesuit to enter Germany was Lefevre, who, in 1640, ac- 3. In Ger- companied Ortiz, deputy of Charles V., many and to the Diet of Worms. In the city of Austria. Worms he found only one priest that was not a concubinary or polluted with crime, so with a zeal rarely surpassed he undertook to rally the demoralized Catholic forces VI.— 10
and to inspire with love for Romanism and hatred for Protestantism the few priests and laymen that were amenable to his influence. He participated in the Diet of Regensburg (Apr., 1641), at which Butzer and Melanchthon represented the Evangelical interests. Deeply lamenting the lack of zeal and efficiency in the Catholics present, he invited bishops, prelates, electors, ambassadors, vicarsgeneral, theologians, and others to his courses in training in the Spiritual Exercises. He was made the confessor of the son of the duke of Savoy. Germans, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italians eagerly sought his spiritual guidance. He extended his efforts to Nuremberg. Having been ordered by the general to Portugal, his place was taken by LeJay, whose chief work was to train the priests for aggressive work against heresy and to inspire the nobles with the conviction that heresy must be exterminated at whatever cost. He was soon reinforced by Bobadilla, who in 1541 had achieved a great success in the diocese of Viterbo, had formed an intimate acquaintance at Innsbruck with Ferdinand I., king of the Romans, won him to the Jesuit way of thinking, and accompanied him to Vienna, and had supported the Catholic cause in a number of diets. A college was established in Vienna, which soon became affiliated with the university. LeJay succeeded in filling with enthusiastic zeal against Protestantism many priests who had been idle and indifferent and in enlisting many nobles in the coercive and educational measures proposed by the society. Lefevre returned to Germany in 1642 and made his influence powerfully felt in Speyer, Mainz, Brandenburg, and other places. Peter Canisius (q.v.) was even more important than Lefevre or LeJay in organizing Jesuit work in Germany and in establishing training-schools for the propagation of Jesuit principles. From 1559 onward Munich was the chief Jesuit center, and came to be known as the " German Rome "; and the college established there attracted many noble Protestant youths, who were won over by their instructors. All the chief cities of Germany where Catholics had retained the ascendency and many where Protestantism had made great headway felt the influence of these enthusiastic and dauntless missionaries. Under their guidance Albert V. of Bavaria gave his Protestant subjects the choice of becoming Catholics or leaving the country. With their help Baden was cleared of Protestants in two years (1570-71). Similar measures were carried out in the territory of the abbot of Fulda, in Cologne, Munster, Hildesheim, Paderborn, and Wurzburg. In 1595 the bishopric of Bamberg was cleared of heretics, and about 1602 the work was completed in the archbishopric of Mainz. From 1578 onward Jesuits led in the work of exterminating Protestantism in the Austrian provinces. The Counter-Reformation had largely accomplished its work in Austria and its dependencies before the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War (1618; q.v.). It was rapidly pressed to completion from this time onward. For the details of Jesuit activity in the Counter-Reformation and in the revived Inquisition, see Counter- Refoemation and articles there referred to; also Inquisition.
Jesuits