THE BLACK POPE
A HISTORY OF THE JESUITS.
By M. F. CUSACK
(Formerly the Nun of Kenmare)
CHAPTER XIII.
THE JESUIT IN THE CONFESSIONAL—THE FLOGGING MANIA OF THE MIDDLE AGES. THE JESUIT IN THE CONFESSIONAL—THE FLOGGING MANIA OF THE MIDDLE AGES.—
The Confessional.—The Romanist is followed by the confessor from the cradle to the grave.- Every subject is discussed and decided there.—All the affairs of life controlled. — Children terrified. — Hell opened to Christians.—Books to terrify children.—A man-made religion. —How Rome influences Protestants.—It is a system of organised and deliberate deceit.—Why the Jesuits make confession easy.—Cardinal Manning afraid of the Jesuits.— The Jesuits denounced for their immoral teaching by the French Roman Catholic clergy again and again.— Denounced for practising idolatry by Romanist bishops.— Caught in their own trap.—Denounced for interfering in politics.—The flogging mania of the middle ages. - How the Jesuits were concerned in it. —Catherine de Mt did practised it on her court ladies.—Cruelties and immoralities the result.
THERE is no subject of such importance as that of which we are about to treat. In the Roman Catholic Church every one, from the trembling child to the aged and feeble man and woman, is obliged to confess if he hopes for eternal salvation. What a terrible bondage, what an awful crime. And all this must be done and suffered at the dictates of a church which, after all, has confessed herself very doubtful if her priests really possess the " orders," without which they cannot absolve. Enough has been said on that subject, but it is of such grave importance that we would ask the reader again to glance at the pages in which the question is discussed. If all this pain, if all this shame, if all this agony has to be endured for nothing, what shall be said of those who inflict it ? and they know, as few of their penitents know, that the probabilities are against them.
It is no wonder that Rome discourages investigation, and silences thought as a deadly crime. No wonder that she falsifies history, that she dreads honest biography, that she dares not be true. Truth would be her death-blow. But for us, shall we submit to her commands, and bow before her dicta ? Shall we do all that in us lies, as so many are doing at the present day, to support such a system, or shall we do all that in us lies to defeat it ?
The moral, or rather the immoral teaching, of the confessional has been a subject of much discussion, and perhaps has had more exposure than any other subject connected with the Church of Rome. This system is necessary for Rome, and it is one of the notes against her that it should be so.
Perhaps only those who have had a large experience of the system can understand all its evils. It is obviously true that there must be a serious moral contamination to both the priest and the penitent, but this is by no means the only evil. One important point has been somewhat overlooked by those who have treated of it, that point is the question of direction. This touches every affair of life, and is the real source of the power of the Church of Rome. We commence, however, with the question of confession as far as it is merely the confession of sin.
And first, in order to understand the power of Rome, in this and all else, we must try to realise the fact that Roman Catholics believe in the power of the priest to forgive sin, as truly and absolutely as we believe in the power of Christ. We must remember that from the very dawn of reason the Roman Catholic child is taught to look on the priest practically as a god, whose word is absolute, whose power is Divine. The confessional is repulsive to every Catholic, not because it is always a source of evil of a certain kind, but because human nature shrinks from exposing its faults and foibles to any human creature. Hence it has been necessary to make the confessional a source of absolute obligation under the most terrible penalties. Better, cries the priest, to be ashamed here than to be ashamed for all eternity. Hence it is that the priest insists on the child going to confession at the very earliest age possible. No child, they say, is too young to be damned (and horrible stories are told to children to frighten them on this subject), so no child is too young to go to confession. The chain is wound round the soul at such an early age that its power is not realised, and, in some cases, at least, the chain is never broken.
A book called " Hell Opened to Christians," was published in Ireland some years ago, but was withdrawn from circulation for a time at least, in consequence of the exposure of its horrible teaching by Protestants. The tortures which even children of seven years of age endured in hell because they would not go to confession, were described with all the realism of a Dante.
In the " Examination of Conscience, etc." by Liguori, we read : " Tell me, my sister, if in punishment of not confessing a certain sin, you were to be burnt alive in a cauldron of boiling pitch; and if, after that, your sin was to be revealed to all your relatives and neighbours, would you conceal it ? You certainly would not conceal it, if you knew that by confessing it your sin should remain secret, and that you should escape being burnt alive. Now, it is more than certain that, unless you confess that sin, you shall have to burn in hell for all eternity; and that on the day of judgment it shall be made known to the whole human race."
How far all this man-made religion is from the pure Gospel of Christ we need not say, the Eternal God cannot be unjust, and it would be a ghastly injustice when the penalty of sin has been once for all paid in blood to exact it again. This is one of the many things which makes the system of Rome so derogatory to the Majesty of Heaven.
But the power which the confessional places in the hands of the Church is almost inconceivable. Rome claims the right to decide on every question of family relationship, on every event in life, on every change of state, on every political and social matter. Rome rules with a vengeance terrible to its subjects, and beyond compare dangerous to every human being who can be reached by her influence. She forbids all intercourse with heretics where and when she dare, she regulates all intercourse with heretics where she cannot forbid it. Which is the more dangerous to the public peace it would be difficult to say. Intercourse, even at the present day, and in this free country, is absolutely and sternly forbidden with those who have left the Church. A word of explanation might be said, a question might be asked, that would arouse a doubt, hence there must be no possibility of such a danger. How weak the Church of Rome is with all her boasted strength. The weakest saint can face all the world with Christ, but Rome is afraid of the poorest child, if that child has been taught a pure religion, and can read the Bible.
So far-reaching is the influence and power of Rome today even in England, that we have known Protestants who have declined any social intercourse with those who have left the Church of Rome, because it might offend their Roman Catholic friends. Thus Rome obtains added strength from those who, if they were asked solemnly, do they desire to see the fires of Smithfield re-lit, would declare they could not imagine such an event possible. Yet Rome has declared openly and plainly that she does desire such a consummation.
There is one of many points to be noted about the confessional, and that is that it is a system of deliberate deceit. Apart from the consideration of a certain class of moral evil, on which we do not propose to touch here more than briefly, there is the question of deliberate deceit, and in this matter the Jesuits are the chief offenders.
The object of the Jesuits has been to attract to the confessional by making confession easy, and this has been done in two ways. First, confession has been made easy by giving the lightest possible penances for even grievous sins, and by having a "moral" code which make the most grievous sin appear as a mere bagatelle. The Jesuit books published with authority for the use of confessors, prove this beyond question, and it is indeed lamentable that English gentlemen, who once prided themselves on being honourable men, should stoop so low as to make such works the guide of their consciences, and of the consciences of others. It is a sad day for old England that even one English clergyman should have learned from an apostate church to teach falsehood and practise treachery.
But it is worthy of especial note that while the Jesuit makes it easy for a servant to rob his master, or for a youth to commit sin, he has a very different code of morals and truth where the Church is concerned.
It is a deadly crime to deceive the Church. It is a deadly crime to conceal a sin, or even a failing, from the priest. Who authorised this double code of morals ? Certainly not Scripture. Even the natural law of the heathen revolts against such double dealing.
When writing of the suppression of the Jesuits by the many nations who have revolted against their code of morals, we shall enter more fully into this subject. For the present we must limit ourselves to giving some extracts from the books which they have published. We have already shown that they teach disloyalty. The only loyalty which they allow to be practised is loyalty to the Pope, and even that is subjected to the will of the General of the Order. With all other authority they are openly or secretly at war. And this is what makes the Jesuit so dangerous to the state or country where he lives, and this is the reason why he has been expelled from so many Roman Catholic countries. In the remarkable life of Cardinal Manning, amongst so much that is noteworthy, there is nothing more so than the determined hand with which he kept down the Jesuits, and the fear which his otherwise outspoken biographer had of giving them the least offence. They rule by fear, but a day comes when men rise up against their excessive tyranny, and cast them out. History repeats itself. What the continental bishops of the 16th and 17th centuries did for the protection of the Church and their people, must be done in the 19th century. In 1614, the French Parliament examined the treatise of the famous Jesuit Frances Suarez, published at Coimbra, in 1613, permissu Superiorum The Arrêt du Parlement described it as "tending to the subversion of States," and to "induce the subjects of kings and sovereign princes to make attempts on their sacred persons," and ordered it to be burnt by the public executioner. It contains such propositions as these :—" That the Pope has power to depose heretical and obstinate kings is one of the dogmas of the faith which has to be retained and believed :" " an excommunicated king may with impunity be killed by anyone." Servin, in one of his addresses to the Parliament, enumerates, as holding the same opinions on these subjects with Suarez, the names of Bellarmine, Gretzer, Becan, Azorius, Bonarscius, Richeome, Keller, Lessius, Vasquez,—all of them Jesuits of note ; to whom may be added Emmanuel Sa and Alphonsus Sa, Delrius, and Tanner. So highly, however, did Pope Paul V. approve of the work, that in September, 1614, he communicated to Suarez his approbation of its contents. The volume was re-issued in 1619, and again in 1655, thus demonstrating that the brief, alleged to have been issued by Acquaviva, prohibiting all discussion by members of the company on the two objectionable propositions noticed above, was written, as the Jesuit historian Jouvencius intimates, solely to allay the unpleasant controversy awakened in France, and was not intended to be a general instruction. It was simply a deception and a snare, and is, as is remarked by Mr. Cartwright, who brought it to light, "an illustration of the equivocation practised by the Order in its corporate capacity."
In 1652 the Jesuit Santarel taught " that the Pope can depose kings, not only for heresy, schism, and the like . . . but also for personal iniquity and uselessness; that he can depose the emperor and give his empire to another, if he does not defend the Church . . . . that, as St. Peter was given the power of punishing with temporal punishments and even with death, certain persons, for the correction and example of others, so to the Church and Chief Pastor is given the power of punishing with temporal punishments princes, transgressors of divine and human laws, especially if the crime was heresy."
In 1665 and 1666 Alexander VII., in 1679 Innocent XI., and in 1690 Alexander VIII., successively condemned a large number of immoral propositions advanced by Jesuit writers, but they left altogether uncensored the maxims inculcating sedition, treason, and assassination, also contained in the works of the same authors.
On the 1st of January, 1631, the Archbishop of Paris published his condemnations of " some propositions from Ireland, and of two English books, the one by Edward Knott, whose real name is Matthias Wilson, Vice-Provincial of the Jesuits in England, and the other by John Floyd, Jesuit, under the false name of Daniel a Jesu."
On the 10th of February, 1631, a circular subscribed by the Archbishop of Paris and thirty-four bishops then in Paris, was sent to all the archbishops and bishops of France, declaring their condemnation of the same books, as maintaining "many schismatical and blasphemous maxims, which are most injurious to the sacrament of confirmation, and violate the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff."
On the 1st of April, l641, the University of Paris condemned "La Somme des Pêches," written by Etienne Bauni, professor of moral theology, at Clermont, the Jesuit College, and published by him at Paris in 1639, with the approbation of the provincial of the company. This sentence was soon after endorsed, on the 12th of April, 1642, by an assembly of clergy held at Mante, by the Archbishop of Toulouse, in which it was " resolved with one common voice, that the books of Father Bauni led souls to profligacy, corrupt good morals, violate natural equity and the law of nations, and excuse as light sins blasphemies, usuries, simonies, and several other sins more enormous."
On the 18th of February, 1655, the Archbishop of Malines published an order forbidding the faithful of his diocese to read the books of the Jesuit Caramuel, afterwards immortalised by Pascal, in "The Provincial Letters."
The parish priests of Rouen, about this time, found it necessary, for the sake of Christianity, to attempt to stem the increasing tide of Jesuit immoral teaching. On the 28th of August, and on the 26th of October, in the year 1656, they addressed a memorial to the Archbishop of Rouen, signed by twenty-eight of their number, complaining of the immoral doctrines taught publicly by the Jesuit fathers, Bauni, Hereau, Caussin, Brisacier, des Bois, Berard, and La Briere.
On the 14th of November, in the same year, the parish priests of Paris presented seventy-one propositions extracted from the published writings of Caramuel, Mascarenhas, and Escobar, and on the 24th of November they laid before the General Assembly of the Clergy of France a remonstrance, from which we extract the following: "Will not the Church, Messeigneurs, disavow these rash men ? Will she not testify publicly her heartfelt horror of them ? Shall it be said that to be a Catholic a man must approve domestic robbery with Bauni; simony with Valentia; homicide to avoid a blow with Lessius; assassination for slander with Father Lamy; imposture and false accusations with Caramuel; that he must receive all the pernicious or extravagant decisions of Escobar as mysteries revealed by Jesus Christ; and that one is not to complain of them without being treated as a heretic ? "
In 1665, the faculty of theology at Paris reported of a book published under the name of Amadeus Guimenaeus by Matthew Moya, a Spanish Jesuit, Confessor to the Queen Mother of Spain; that "respect for decency prevented them from noticing the abominations which it contained on the subject of chastity."
Nor can it be said that these heavy charges against the Jesuits are mere "Protestant calumnies," they are simply Roman Catholic facts.
It is noteworthy, also, that English priests have again and again protested against the interference of the Jesuits in political affairs, have declared in plain and emphatic language that they would have enjoyed perfect religious freedom in England if the Jesuits had not tried persistently to stir up strife.
The great Roman Catholic historian, De Thou, has given the substance of a very important document, which appears to have been suppressed not long after its publication. It is a memorial presented to the reigning Pontiff, Clement VIII., by English Roman Catholic priests, remonstrating against the conduct of the Jesuits in England. In it they represented :—" That before the arrival of the Jesuits in England there had been profound peace and harmony among the Catholics . . . That up to that time charges of treason were unheard of; that capital laws against the Anglican priests, and those who harboured them, were not yet published; that the Jesuits, when they joined them as associates, though few in number, had swooped upon the labours, of many years, and without toil had reaped what others had sown. That afterwards, when they perceived the danger to which the Catholics were exposed by their own conduct, they had quickly made off, and deserting the warfare of God, had betaken themselves to countries beyond the seas, away from the heat and dust of the conflict; and there, instead of being men devoted to religion, had become the vendors of kingdoms; had assailed chief magistrates in the bitterest terms ; had disseminated letters about invading the kingdom with a foreign army, though it was forbidden by capital laws; had written and published volumes about the controverted succession to the throne. That the result was that Catholics when dragged before the judgment seat, rarely were questioned about religion, always about the state ; and almost everything said and done by the Jesuit fathers about the civil government was turned to the ruin of the accused. That in their seminaries their sole object was to entice into the Society any youth endowed with particular talent; that hence arose complaints and rivalries, since the pupils ever became divested of the old patriotic spirit, or were harassed by the Jesuits in divers ways, for refusing to join them. That Cardinal Borromeo, of holy memory, had perceived their mode of angling, and, disliking their ambition, had deprived them of the care of seminaries in the diocese of Milan, and committed it to the secular priests. That while they held sway in the Anglican Church, a wretched dole was grudgingly distributed among the needy and the prisoners, while the Jesuits themselves lived profusely; so that it became a proverb, that the Jesuits were distinguished by the vow of poverty, but the Catholic priests by poverty itself . . . That Catholics had suffered much in England from the time of Henry VIII, but never had they been beset by a heavier calamity than by this last conflict."
One William Watson, educated at Rheims, ordained a priest, and sent on the mission to England in 1586, and executed in 1603 for sharing in Raleigh's mysterious plot,( into which, according to the report mentioned by Dodd, the Jesuits had inveigled him in order to get rid of a troublesome enemy, in his " Important Considerations," by the secular priests, printed A.D. 1601, says : " Whilst the said invasion (Spaniards' invasion, planned by Parsons) was thus talked of, and in preparation in Spain, a shorter course was thought of if it might have had success. Mr. Hesket was set on by the Jesuits, in 1592 or thereabouts, with Father Parsons' consent or know ledge, to have stirred up the Earl of Derby to rebellion against Her Highness. Not long after, good Father Holt, and others with him, persuaded an Irishman, one Patrick Collen (as he himself confessed) to attempt the laying of his violent and villainous hands upon Her Majesty. Shortly after, in the year 1593, that notable stratagem was plotted (the whole state knoweth by whom) for Doctor Lopez, the Queen's physician, to have poisoned her, for the which he was executed the year after . . . But we must turn again to Father Parsons, whose turnings and doublings are such as would trouble a right good hound to trace him ............
Thirdly, we desire you, by the mercies of God, to take heed of Novelties and Jesuitism ; for it is nothing but treachery, ambition, and a very vizard of most deep hypocrisie. When other kingdoms begin to loath them, why should you so far debase yourselves as to admire them ? "
At the end of the pamphlet, after enumerating the designments of the Popes Pius V., Gregory XIII., and Sixtus V.; of the King of Spain ; of the Jesuits, especially Cardinal Alan and Parsons, against the Crown and person of Elizabeth, he makes this memorable admission:—
" If we at home, all of us, both priests and people, had possessed our souls in meekness and humility, honoured Her Majesty, born with the infirmities of the state, suffered all things, and dealt as true Catholic priests ; if all us (we say) had thus done, most assuredly the state would have loved us, or at least borne with us; where there is one Catholic there would have been ten; there had been no speeches amongst us of racks and tortures, nor any cause to have used them; for none were ever vexed that way, for simply that he was either priest or Catholic, but because they were suspected to have had their hands in some of the said most traitorous designments."
How many of the murders, and how many of the agrarian outrages which have disgraced Ireland, and reflected on the government of England, which has never dared to put them down with a stern hand, may be traced to the influence of Jesuit theology: When it is taught that it is not murder, in fact, that it is not sin to " remove tyrants," what is to prevent men who have been worked up to crime from committing it"? And it is remarkable that ho pope has ever denounced crime in Ireland, though many popes have specifically and openly encouraged it.
The exposure of the teaching of the Jesuits in the confessional by Pascal, in his famous " Provincial Letters," is well known to the historian. Pascal lived and died a Romanist, and devoted to his church, which he wished to save from a system which struck at the roots of all morality. But the public read of such incidents in the history of the past with a cold indifference, which contrasts strangely with the burning eagerness with which the controversy was pursued in the beginning.
We have already related an incident in which a Jesuit father was caught in his own trap. Another example of this retribution is given by Pascal as having happened in his time. Nor could this be an invention of ah enemy, for the names, dates, arid places are all given, and any discrepancy of statement would have been at once detected. A certain John d'Alba was servant in the Jesuit college of Clermont; not being satisfied with the wages which he received, he stole some articles belonging to the fathers. He had learned from their theology that this was quite justifiable, but it was one thing to steal from " seculars," and quite another to steal from " fathers." The fathers in a moment of forgetfulness prosecuted him. When the culprit was brought before the judge he pleaded the teaching of the Jesuit father and casuist, Bauny.
But he pleaded in vain, the judge, M. de Montronge, declared that the doctrine was contrary to all law, human and divine, that the unhappy man should be flogged before the gates of the college, by the common hangman, and that' the writings of the Jesuits should be burned publicly at the same time.
Such ah arrangement, however, would have been too great an exposure for the fathers, so they contrived to stop the prosecution, and the servant escaped. There is evidence, however, that this affair, which was made public property, was one of several reasons which caused the expulsion of the Jesuits.
Even a cursory examination of the doctrines taught by the Jesuits will prove that their system is destructive of all law, human or divine. The continued existence of such a class of men is an amazing and inexplicable fact. But all the reproaches which have been heaped, and justly heaped, on the Church of Rome, pales before the accusation which must be brought against her, of supporting and encouraging a system which has been denounced again and again by the best and highest prelates, in her own communion, by Catholic princes, and by Catholic people. Nay, even an infallible pope has denounced the Jesuit, and the system of the Jesuit as an unendurable evil.
The historian Mosheim says:—" There is scarcely any part of the Catholic world which does not offer for our inspection some conflict of the Jesuits with the magistrates, with other orders of monks, or with the bishops and other religious teachers."
It is impossible in these pages to give any detail of their conduct in carrying out their missions ; but a sufficient estimate of it may be formed from the remarkable letter addressed to Innocent X., by Bishop Palafox, of Mexico, on the 8th of January, 1649. His character was so high that he was selected to occupy the post of Viceroy in Mexico, and eventually he was promoted to be Bishop of Osma, in Spain. He is described by Cretineau-Joli, the warm advocate of the Jesuits, as "A man full of apostolic gifts, possessing a bright intellect, and a heart overflowing with charity." But the Jesuits hated him because he would not allow them to rule his diocese.
In self-defence, he was obliged to forward to the Pope a formal remonstrance, in which he expressed himself very plainly regarding Jesuit proceedings, not only in his own case, but also in other instances of which he was cognisant. It is from this letter to Pope Innocent X., dated 8th of January, 1649, that the following passages are cited :—
" What advantages can Ministers of State, great Lords and Princes, derive from the Jesuits sometimes serving them usefully in their Court, . . . when they see monks, under the pretext of the internal government of consciences, enter with so much pliability into the secrets of houses, which they thus govern as well as the souls, and thus pass scandalously and perniciously from things spiritual to things political, and from profane things to the most criminal ?
What other order, after having fallen from its first fervour, has by the writings and examples of some of its professors, carried so much laxity into the purity of the ancient morals of the church touching usury, the ecclesiastical precepts, those of the Decalogue, and generally, all the rules of the Christian life ?
Thus young men who have them as masters, being all filled with these maxims, these opinions, this doctrine, and these examples, become not only cowardly and effeminate, removed from all spirituality, and borne on to all the carnal pleasures, but there is even reason to fear that they have all their life an aversion, disgust, and horror, for all that is a little painful in the Church, and which leads to penitence and the mortification of the Cross.
What order, most holy father, since the first foundation of monks and mendicants, has,like the Jesuits, practised banking in the Church of God, given out money at a profit, and held publicly, in their own houses, butchers' stalls and other shops for traffic, scandalous and unworthy of a religious order ?
What other has ever become bankrupt, and to the astonishment and scandal of seculars, filled almost all the world with their commercial dealings contracts on this by sea and land, and with their subject ? The whole Church of China groans and publicly complains that it has not been instructed but seduced by the instructions given by the Jesuits touching the purity of our belief; that they have deprived it of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; that they have concealed the Cross of the Saviour, and authorised all heathen customs!
That they have rather corrupted than introduced those which are veritably Christian; that in making idolaters become Christians, they have made Christians become idolaters; that they have united God and Belial at the Carrie table, in the same temple; at the same altars, and same sacrifices ; and in fine, this nation beholds with inconceivable grief that under the mask of Christianity, they revere idols, or to speak better, that under the mask of Paganism they soil the purity of our holy religion.
The bishops and ecclesiastics who, in the primitive Church, shed their blood in instructing peoples over all the earth, did they practise the methods which the Jesuits use to instruct these Neophytes ? . . .
Have all the holy order ever instructed the infidels in this way ? . . .
Have they ever exempted their Neophytes from the precepts of mortification, of fasting, and of the reception of the Holy Eucharist at least once a year ?
Have they ever permitted these same Neophytes not only to go into the temples where idols are worshipped, to assist at the abominable sacrifices offered to them; even to sacrifice to them, and thus to soil their souls by so horrible a crime? . .
I am much deceived if the angel of darkness does not rejoice when he beholds, in temples raised to his honour, not only his old adorers, but also the baptised, the Neophytes and sometimes those who profess to preach our holy faith, offering with these idolaters sacrifices at his altars, kneeling down, prostrating themselves and giving him incense, thus communicating with them by external acts . . . which, since the Apostles' time, has never been suffered in the Catholic Church, with whatever pretext they try to cover this idolatry, by which, in directing internally their intention towards a cross which they carry secretly, they offer an external service to the idol of the demon"[ very nicely stated and all true, DC]
CHAPTER XIV.
CONCLUSION.
I DO not conclude the present work without a very deep sense of personal responsibility, nor without a very clear knowledge of the danger to which I have exposed myself in writing it. It is always a serious matter to write history; but when the writing of the history of the past must so closely affect the history which we are all making at the present, then, indeed, truth and accuracy are of supreme importance.
No doubt I have omitted much which might have been said and said with advantage, but this omission has been the result of necessity, not of choice. To have said all that might have been said would have made it necessary to enlarge the work considerably, and this would have added to expenses, which are already difficult to meet. There is perhaps no more painful sign of the times than the difficulty in inducing the general public, and even some Christian people, to read any work which criticises Roman Catholic teaching. Witness the treatment which has been meted out to a recent biographer, not merely by his Roman Catholic brethren, but by the so-called Protestant press. One might suppose that Rome was and had always been the greatest benefactor to the people of England, instead of having been the cause of wrongs and sufferings which we should never forget, because by forgetting we risk the nonenforcement of even ordinary precautions against the renewal of such terrible evils. How are our children to be warned by the true history of the past if it is to be studiously concealed from them ?
Again, a false charity has been the cause of much harm amongst those who as Christians should be eager, for the honour of their Lord, to protect the future of their country from the domination of an unchristian Church. Perhaps it may be added that a love of controversial sensationalism has had its share, and no small share, in producing this distaste for truth and solid facts. Those who seek truth, and truth only, will certainly hear all sides, but the side of strict truth is above all things the side which we should choose in matters of such supreme moment.
Again, there is no doubt that some of the usual Jesuit wiles have been played all too successfully on earnest Protestants. The question as to whether there are or are not Jesuits in disguise has been disputed with acrimony ; acrimony always blinds to truth, and this is precisely what the Jesuit desires. In the face of history, which proves that Jesuits in disguise have been common and successful; and in the face of the fact, that the Jesuits themselves, now become daring in England, have even given a list, of those who have acted in this way, why should there be any doubt on the subject ? But it should be remembered that the Jesuit in disguise is a Jesuit in disguise. Further, the Jesuit would be no Jesuit if he did not make the disguise suit times and circumstances. The plans which were carried out in the reign of Elizabeth of brave memory, or of James II., could not be carried out at the present day, as they - would too easily be discovered.
We all live too much in public now to admit of men going about in multifarious disguises, however well these methods suited other times. I believe, and it should be remembered that I know Rome from the inside as well as from the outside, and this with no ordinary knowledge, that the danger to-day is from the relatives of Protestants who have become Romanists, and who have a power and influence which is unsuspected, and therefore a serious danger. In some families a mother has become a Romanist or a daughter has become a Romanist. The zeal of converts to Rome is proverbial. Family ties and affections are not easily loosened. What more natural than that the daughter should be influenced by the Romanist mother or the mother influenced by the Romanist daughter ?
I do not speak without knowledge and painful experience. The first object of these " converts " is the advancement of their Church. It is fashionable just now to be a Romanist. Rome is patronised in high quarters, and unhappily men and women who call themselves Christians are not always above the inducements of social advancement. They may be themselves persons of good social position, all the more, they desire, perhaps unconsciously, to maintain that position. They " wear their jewels still,", they still wish to make the most of both worlds. On the platform they are perhaps strongly Protestant, but in private they listen to their Roman Catholic friends, and are influenced by them, and yet they may appear to be very pronounced Protestants, but those who are true and sincere converts from Rome to Christ must always suffer at their hands.
Rome smiles at their folly, while she uses it to her advantage. If Rome apprehends danger from one who has renounced her faith, and who exposes her tactics well and fearlessly, she at once tries to silence the voice which would condemn her effectually. It is easily done. The Romanist mother or daughter has only to wait her time, and insinuate that after all this brave protester against Rome is " a Jesuit in disguise," and the end is attained. Rome is a past master in duplicity and in understanding human nature, and how to work on the jealousy, pride, or other weaknesses of poor humanity.
If she can silence a tongue or a pen which has exposed her truthfully her end is gained, and it is all the more triumph to her if she can turn the arms of the enemy against the enemy. Rome has already described fully how successfully she worked in this way in former times, so that there is no excuse for ignorance.
There are two classes of English men and women to whom this work should appeal. Christian people should be aroused to save England from an unchristian power. Men who have even the least appreciation for intellectual and social freedom, should leave no effort unmade to save England from the dominion of a Church which has been everywhere the grave of thought and intellectual freedom.
This book will have been written in vain if it is not realised that there can be no religious freedom where Rome has power, if it is not realised that there can be no political or intellectual freedom where Rome has power.
We have said elsewhere that it is a mistake to suppose that the Jesuits are in some way different from the Roman Catholic Church. Would the Church of Rome have supported the Jesuits; as she has done, if they were not Romanists of the Romanists ? The fact is that Jesuitism is Romanism carried to its logical conclusion.
It would seem sometimes as if we were living under the same social and moral conditions as those who lived before the Flood. They ate and drank, they married and gave in marriage, they mocked at those who warned them in the name of the Lord. But for all that, the Flood came and swept them all away. It is so pleasant to drift with the tide, it is so easy to be " popular," and to let troubles pass us by. That there will be a future retribution, either in this world or the next, for these despisers of prophetic warnings, is certain, but they live for the present, and they have their reward.
Sadder still is it for those who are truly called of God when they allow prejudice or self-interest to influence, if not warp their judgment, and who turn, from those who, having had long experience of Rome, can best help them in the controversy. It is the object of Rome to divide those who are most earnest in opposing her, and unhappily she too often succeeds in attaining her end. Surely a careful study of the attempts of Rome, and especially of the Jesuits to divide Christian people, should be a sufficient warning. It is, after all, simply copying the worst characteristics of Rome when Christian people refuse to co-operate with each other because of trifling differences of doctrine or opinion. So it is also lamentable when differences arise as to the manner in which the holy war against the enemy of God and truth should be carried on ; it weakens the hands, and chills the zeal of those who should maintain a united front against an always united enemy.
If Christians only united as Rome does, how soon would there be a change which would alter the whole face of society.
Again, even Christians often, perhaps unconsciously, are ashamed of a quiet, steady, but open profession of their detestation of teachings which are distinctly contrary to the Word of God. Rome is never either afraid or ashamed of her religion, and proclaims it on all occasions, and at all times and places. Protestants are doing the work of Rome by their indifference and want of courage. The outposts are being surrendered to the enemy. It is the first step, and an important step, in gaining an entrance to the citadel.
Even those who do not oppose Rome because she is unchristian, or who have persuaded themselves that she is Christian because they do not take the trouble to understand what she teaches, should pause ere they give her power to take away all our liberties. Rome is the grave of intellectual progress and of moral rectitude.
Mr. Cartwright, a calm and dispassionate writer oh the Jesuits, says :—" Much has been said about; the intellectual eminence of the Order, as shown in educational institutions, its scholastic efforts have uniformly been directed to substitute for the occasional irregularities attendant on a buoyant nature that monotony which accompanies stagnant life— the dead-level of mediocrity. Independence of character, of mind, of research, are objects hateful to the Society, which must be expelled, and in lieu of these it has evolved a system of pseudo-culture, studded with the counterfeits of science—playthings adapted to natures that are being carefully nursed to grow up with stunted strength. Accomplishments of a captivating order—talents of handy and specious character—have largely distinguished those trained in the schools of the Society ; but in the long roll of Jesuit Fathers—men of undeniably busy and sedulous habits—it will hardly be possible to pick out one name, the bearer whereof admittedly takes rank amongst the great discoverers in the fields of science and of thought—amongst the men who have materially advanced the knowledge of mankind. A glance at the Ecclesiastical annals of the last centuries is enough to reveal the increasing sterility within the officially recognised area of the Latin Church. "
In the seventeenth century, the French clergy, in corporate declarations with their names appended thereto, over and over again protested against, and stigmatised as outrageous, the theological maxims propounded by Jesuit divines."
This system of moral theology leaves every man at the mercy of the confessor', so that between man and man there can be no social or business confidence. The confessor decides on the rectitude of contracts, and dictates the policy of the statesman. He decides the conduct of the husband to the wife, of the wife to the husband, of the employer towards the employed, of the servant to the master, and from his decisions there is no appeal. Nor is this iniquitous interference with the rights of humanity confined to the Jesuit. The moral theology of the Jesuit is approved by the universal Roman Catholic Church ; it is taught in every Roman Catholic college in the world. Rome is responsible for all; the crimes which ever have been or ever may be committed by the Jesuit, for she has set the seal of her highest approval on his teaching. Even the present Pope, who is proclaimed, or proclaims himself, as one of the most learned arid enlightened of his class, has, as we have shown elsewhere, bestowed the highest approval which pope can give on these men, and their soul destroying system. And are they to govern England, and are their pupils to be our legislators and rulers ? It seems so.
Perhaps there is no more remarkable statement in a remarkable book than that in which the writer declares when the religious orders were suppressed by the revolution in Italy, Pius IX. said that though he was bound publicly to condemn the suppression of monasteries, in his heart he could not but rejoice, for it was a blessing in disguise. Mr. Purcell says he asked Cardinal Manning in 1887 if this statement was well founded. The Cardinal replied that it truly represented the views of the Pope. What a commentary on the supposed sanctity of the religious orders of the Church of Rome, and what an exposure of the failings of infallibility. We find popes and cardinals very ready to interfere in the affairs of those with whom they have no concern, but very slow to attempt any reform in their own Church, no matter how necessary.
Further, Cardinal Manning declared that the success of the revolution in Italy was -"principally due to the laxity of morals in the clergy, and to defective education and religious training in the schools."
And yet we are asked to support monasteries and convents, and to endow colleges and other institutions with public money where precisely the same system is carried out. Has England been bewitched by Rome ?
The Church which compelled Galileo to swear to what he knew to be a lie in order to obtain liberty to exist, has not changed. To-day, if Rome had the power, all scientific discussion would be banned and barrel and she would find some theological reason for forbidding the investigations of Rontgen, and discover heresy in the X rays. Rome flourishes best in darkness, and Rome knows it.
But grave as these matters are, what shall be said of the frightful heresies which she approves and encourages. If scientific research is discouraged, theological disquisitions are allowed which border on blasphemy.
Huber, in his admirable work, " Les Jesuites," calls attention to the heresy which teaches that the body of Mary is found in the sacrament with the body of Christ. This horrible, must we not say, blasphemy seems to have originated with Ignatius Loyola. Even so lately as the year 1851, Oswald, the professor of theology at Paderborn, taught in his Mariologie dogmatique, that priests, in reward for their virginity, received in the Communion not only the body of Christ, but also the flesh and the milk of Mary. Mgr. Malou, Bishop of Bruges, has taught that Mary wears a triple crown as the daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son, and the spouse of God the Holy Ghost.
These are not mere mediaeval theological pastimes or refinements; they are taught today as part of the deposit of faith, and approved by the Church as, such. Much more might be said, but of what avail ? The question of questions remains, Will Christian people support even by silent acquiescence a system which teaches blasphemy ? Will they support by their indifference a system which places the forgiveness of sin in the hands of man, and deprives God of His chief attribute of mercy ?
Will Englishmen, who pride themselves on their love of liberty, support a system which is based on the right to deprive all mankind of all liberty except what the "Church " permits ? Will they vote for the pecuniary endowment of men who teach that rebellion against their lawful sovereign is so noble a virtue as to deserve the highest honours which the " Church " can pay ? Every endowment, every pecuniary help which is given, whether it be large or small, national or private, will be used to teach the coming generation that the "Church" is above every power and every law, and that in order to be a faithful Romanist abject submission must be paid to every dictate of Rome in matters social and political as well as in matters of religion.
It is time that this should be clearly understood, and it is time that when good men and women who love their God, and who love their country, should have the courage of their opinions, rather we should say of their faith, and stay the plague which is destroying the land, and which, if it but spreads a little further, will make a desolation of England as it has made a desolation of every land and every clime where it has been fostered and encouraged.
3 Appendix covering six pages, sources, four pages of historic documents on the "Nun of Kenmare"
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