RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Jesuits
is requisite to its sinfulness for the person committing it, was widely advocated by members of the society. The repudiation of some of the most scandalous maxims of Jesuit writers by later writers, or the placing of books containing scandalous maxims on the Index, does not relieve the society or the Roman Catholic Church from responsibility, as such books must have received authoritative approval before publication, and the censuring of them does not necessarily involve an adverse attitude toward the teaching itself, but may be a mere measure of expediency.
Lainez, who succeeded Ignatius in the office of general (1558-65), manifested in the administration of the affairs of the society more of worldly wisdom and less of pietistic enthusiasm than the founder. Paul IV. became alarmed 7. Internal at the remarkable growth and aggres- Develop- siveness of the society. He sought ment and (1558) to curb the almost irresponsible Moral power of the generals by limiting their Declension, tenure of office to three years, and to limit the freedom of the body by requiring the observance of the canonical hours for singing in the choir. These changes would have placed the society on somewhat the same basis as the other orders and would have stripped it of half its power. These measures were earnestly resisted and the death of the pope (1559) prevented the calamity. Pius IV. let Lainez have his ambitious and aggressive way and employed his services in the later sessions of the Council of Trent. Francis of Borgia had spent his fortune in founding a college in Gandia and the Collegium Romanum and came to the office of general (1565) with all of the ascetical enthusiasm of Ignatius, but with little of his worldly wisdom. He was succeeded in 1572 by Mercurian, whose administration was relatively feeble. The greatest of all the generals was Claudius Acquaviva (1581-1615), a Neapolitan. He had to contend with a powerful and determined Spanish faction in the society that resented Italian control. The Spanish Jesuits secured the support of the Inquisition, of Philip II., and of Clement VIII. The latter summoned a General Congregation (1592) to deal with the difficulties. Acquaviva managed the meeting with such adroitness that he was triumphantly vindicated and thoroughly established in his office. Molina's Pelagian teaching provoked a fresh Dominican onslaught on the society. Acquaviva and his supporters espoused the cause of Molina (q.v.), though he had been condemned by the Spanish Inquisition. The pope transferred the dispute to Rome (1596) and for a time it looked as if the Dominicans would triumph; but Acquaviva's consummate skill again averted calamity. At the General Congregation he confounded his opponents by springing upon the assembly the news that Henry IV of France had espoused his cause. Under Acquaviva the Counter-Reformation was carried forward with astonishing success. The failure of Dominicans, Inquisition, and pope to silence the Pelagian anthropology of the order encouraged its members to go to the greatest extremes in their moral theology. Under the administration of Mutius Vitelleschi (1615-45) the Counter-Reformation was car-
ried almost to its completion and the Thirty Years' War almost ran its course. In 1640 the jubilee of the society was celebrated with great eclat. It now numbered 15,000 members distributed into thirtynine provinces. The ascetical requirements of Ignatius had been put aside. The professed had increased in numbers in far greater proportion than the membership, and now freely accepted positions of honor and influence, enjoyed regular incomes, and lived like gentlemen, leaving the drudgery of the educational and church work to younger and less experienced men. They constituted a sort of aristocracy that neutralized to some extent the autocracy of the General. Degeneration continued unimpeded under Caraffa (d. 1649) and Piccolomini (d. 1651). The German Nickel (1651-64) proved so unsatisfactory as general that Oliva was made his vicar (1661). Oliva was a favorite of the pope and lived in splendor. His independent administration (1664-81) was favorable to the development of the worst features of Jesuitism. He was an advocate and promoter of Probabilism and other immoral forms of teaching and encouraged to the utmost the disposition to meddle with national and international politics that had become characteristic of the society. Ignatius had opposed with all his might the promotion of Jesuits to high ecclesiastical positions. In 1593 Tolet was made a cardinal; in 1599, Bellarmine; in 1629, Pazmany; in 1643, De Lugo, and many afterward. Their literary activity in all religious and secular branches of learning was very great during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The same may be said of the more recent time.
The growing secularization of the society and its need of vast resources for the maintenance and extension of its world-wide work and the diminution of free-will offerings that had sufficed in the times when religious enthusiasm was at its 8. Decline height led the society to engage in and Pro- great speculative business enterprises, scription. those conducted in Paraguay and Martinique resulting in disaster to many innocent investors (1753 onward), and brought upon the society much reproach in Portugal and France. In Portugal the Marquis of Pombal, one of the foremost statesmen of his time, became convinced that the liberation of the country from ecclesiastical rule, in which Jesuits had long been predominant, required the exclusion of the latter. An insurrection in Portuguese Paraguay by the natives furnished an occasion to Pombal for denouncing the Jesuits to the king and for demanding papal prohibition of their commercial undertakings. The papal prohibition was issued in 1758 and priestly privileges were withdrawn from Jesuits in Portugal. An attempt upon the life of the king (Sept. 3, 1758) was attributed to Jesuit influence and led to. a decree for the expulsion of the society and the confiscation of its property (Sept. 3, 1759). The pope tried in vain to protect them and his nuncio was driven from the country. Malgrida, a Jesuit, was burned at the stake in 1761. Speculations by Jesuits in Martinique, in which vast sums of money were lost by French citizens, led to a public investigation of the methods of the society, and on April 16. 1761. the Parliament
Jesuits