§ 156.1. The Papacy.—Paul V., A.D. 1605-1621, equally energetic in his civil and in his ecclesiastical policy, in a struggle with Venice, was obliged to behold the powerlessness of the papal interdict. His successor, Gregory XV., A.D. 1621-1623, founded the Propaganda, prescribed a secret scrutiny in papal elections, and canonized Loyola, Xavier, and Neri. He enriched the Vatican Library by the addition of the valuable treasures of the Heidelberg Library, which Maximilian I. of Bavaria sent him on his conquest of the Palatinate. Urban VIII., A.D. 1623-1644, increased the Propaganda, improved the Roman “Breviary” (§ 56, 2), condemned Jansen’s Augustinus (§ 156, 5), and compelled Galileo to recant. But on the other hand, through his onesided ecclesiastical policy he was led into sacrificing the interests of the imperial house of Austria. Not only did he fail to give support to the emperor, but quite openly hailed Gustavus Adolphus, the saviour of German Protestantism, as the God-sent saviour from the Spanish-Austrian tyranny. For this he was pronounced a heretic at the imperial court, and threatened with a second edition of the sack of Rome (§ 132, 2). At the same time his soul was so filled with fanatical hatred against Protestantism, that in a letter of 1631 he congratulated the Emperor Ferdinand II. on the destruction of Magdeburg as an act most pleasing to heaven and reflecting the highest credit upon Germany, and expressed the hope that the glory of so great a victory should not be restricted to the ruins of a single city. On receiving the news of the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632 he broke out into loud jubilation, saying that now “the serpent was slain which with its poison had sought to destroy the whole world.” His successor, Innocent X., A.D. 1644-1655, though vigorously protesting against the Peace of Westphalia (§ 153, 2), was, owing to his abject subserviency to a woman, his own sister-in-law, reproached with the title of a new Johanna Papissa. Alexander VII., A.D. 1655-1667, had the expensive guardianship of his godchild Christina of Sweden (§ 153, 1), and fanned into a flame the spark kindled by his predecessor in the Jansenist controversy (§ 156, 5), so that his successor, Clement IX., A.D. 1667-1670, could only gradually extinguish it. Clement X., A.D. 1670-1676, by his preference for Spain roused the French king Louis XIV., who avenged himself by various encroachments on the ecclesiastical administration in his dominions. Innocent XI., A.D. 1676-1689, was a powerful pope, zealously promoting the weal of the church and the Papal States by introducing discipline among the clergy and attacking the immorality that prevailed among all classes of society. He unhesitatingly condemned sixty-five propositions from the lax Jesuit code of morals. Against the arrogant ambassador of Louis XIV. he energetically maintained his sovereign rights in his own domains, while he unreservedly refused the claims of the French clergy, urged by the king on the ground of the exceptional constitution of the Gallican church. Alexander VIII., A.D. 1689-1691, continued the fight against Gallicanism, and condemned the Jesuit distinction between theological and philosophical sin (§ 149, 10). Innocent XII., A.D. 1691-1700, could boast of having secured the complete subjugation of the Gallican clergy after a hard struggle. He too wrought earnestly for the reform of abuses in the curia. Specially creditable to him is the stringent bull “Romanum decet pontificem” against nepotism, which extirpated the evil disease, so that it was never again openly practised as an acknowledged right.—Continuation, § 165, 1.

§ 156.2. The Jesuits and the Republic of Venice.—Venice was one of the first of the Italian cities to receive the Jesuits with open arms, A.D. 1530. But the influence obtained by them over public affairs through school and confessional, and their vast wealth accumulated from bequests and donations, led the government, in A.D. 1605, to forbid their receiving legacies or erecting new cloisters. In vain did Paul V. remonstrate. He then put Venice under an interdict. The Jesuits sought to excite the people against the government, and for this were banished in A.D. 1606. The pious and learned historian of the Council of Trent and adviser of the State, Paul Sarpi, proved a vigorous supporter of civil rights against the assumptions of the curia and the Jesuits. When in A.D. 1607 he refused a citation of Inquisition, he was dangerously wounded by three dagger stabs, inflicted by hired bandits, in whose stilettos he recognised the stilum curiæ. He died in A.D. 1623. After a ten months’ vain endeavour to enforce the interdict, the pope at last, through French mediation, concluded a peace with the republic, without, however, being able to obtain either the abolition of the objectionable ecclesiastico-political laws or permission for the return of the Jesuits. Only after the republic had been weakened through the unfortunate Turkish war of A.D. 1645 was it found willing to submit. Even in A.D. 1653 it refused the offer of 150,000 ducats from the Jesuit general for the Turkish campaign; but when Alexander VII. suppressed several rich cloisters, their revenues were thankfully accepted for this purpose. In A.D. 1657, on the pope’s promise of further pecuniary aid, the decree of banishment was withdrawn. The Jesuit fathers now returned in crowds, and soon regained much of their former influence and wealth. No pope has ever since issued an interdict against any country.457

§ 156.3. The Gallican Liberties.—Although Louis XIV. of France, A.D. 1643-1715, as a good Catholic king, powerfully supported the claims of papal dogmatics against the Jansenists (§§ 156, 5; 165, 7), he was by no means unfaithful to the traditional ecclesiastical polity of his house (§§ 96, 21; 110, 1, 9, 13, 14), and was often irritated to the utmost pitch by the pope’s opposition to his political interests. He rigorously insisted upon the old customary right of the Crown to the income of certain vacant ecclesiastical offices, the jus regaliæ, and extended it to all bishoprics, burdened church revenues with military pensions, confiscated ecclesiastical property, etc. Innocent XI. energetically protested against such exactions. The king then had an assembly of the French called together in Paris on March 19th, A.D. 1682, which issued the famous Four Propositions of the Gallican Clergy, drawn up by Bishop Bossuet of Meaux. These set forth the fundamental rights of the French church:

1. In secular affairs the pope has no jurisdiction over princes and kings, and cannot release their subjects from their allegiance;
2. The spiritual power of the pope is subject to the higher authority of the general councils;
3. For France it is further limited by the old French ecclesiastical laws; and,
4. Even in matters of faith the judgment of the pope without the approval of a general assembly of the church is not unalterable.

Innocent consequently refused to institute any of the newly appointed bishops. He was not even appeased by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in A.D. 1685. He was pleased indeed, and praised the deed, and celebrated it by a Te Deum, but objected to the violent measures for the conversion of Protestants as contrary to the teaching of Christ. Then also there arose a keen struggle against the mischievous extension of the right of asylum on the part of foreign embassies at Rome. On the pope’s representation all the powers but France agreed to a restriction of the custom. The pope tolerated the nuisance till the death of the French ambassador in A.D. 1687, but then insisted on its abolition under pain of the ban. In consequence of this Louis sent his new ambassador into Rome with two companies of cavaliers, threw the papal nuntio in France into prison, and laid siege to the papal state of Avignon (§ 110, 4). But Innocent was not thus to be terrorized, and the French ambassador was obliged, after eighteen months’ vain demonstrations, to quit Rome. Alexander VIII. repeated the condemnation of the Four Propositions, and Innocent XIII. also stood firm. The French episcopate, on the pope’s persistent refusal to install bishops nominated by the king, was at last constrained to submit. “Lying at the feet of his holiness,” the bishops declared that everything concluded in that assembly was null and void; and even Louis XIV., under the influence of Madame de Maintenon (§ 157, 3), wrote to the pope in A.D. 1693, saying that he recalled the order that the Four Propositions should be taught in all the schools. There still, however, survived among the French clergy a firm conviction of the Gallican Liberties, and the droit de régale continued to have the force of law.458—Continuation, § 197, 1.

§ 156.4. Galileo and the Inquisition.—Galileo Galilei, professor of mathematics at Pisa and Padua, who died in A.D. 1642, among his many distinguished services to the physical, mathematical, and astronomical sciences, has the honour of being the pioneer champion of the Copernican system. On this account he was charged by the monks with contradicting Scripture. In A.D. 1616 Paul V., through Cardinal Bellarmine, threatened him with the Inquisition and prison unless he agreed to cease from vindicating and lecturing upon his heretical doctrine. He gave the required promise. But in A.D. 1632 he published a dialogue, in which three friends discussed the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, without any formal conclusion, but giving overwhelming reasons in favour of the latter. Urban VIII., in A.D. 1636, called upon the Inquisition to institute a process against him. He was forced to recant, was condemned to prison for an indefinite period, but was soon liberated through powerful influence. How far the old man of seventy-two years of age was compelled by torture to retract is still a matter of controversy. It is, however, quite evident that it was forced from him by threats. But that Galileo went out after his recantation, gnashing his teeth and stamping his feet, muttering, “Nevertheless it moves!” is a legend of a romancing age. This, however, is the fact, that the Congregation of the Index declared the Copernican theory to be false, irrational, and directly contrary to Scripture; and that even in A.D. 1660 Alexander VII., with apostolic authority, formally confirmed this decree and pronounced it ex cathedrâ (§ 149, 4) irrevocable. It was only in A.D. 1822 that the curia set it aside, and in a new edition of the Index (§ 149, 14) in A.D. 1835 omitted the works of Galileo as well as those of Copernicus.459

§ 156.5. The Controversy on the Immaculate Conception (§ 112, 4) received a new impulse from the nun Mary of Jesus, died 1665, of Agreda, in Old Castile, superior of the cloister there of the Immaculate Conception, writer of the “Mystical City of God.” This book professed to give an inspired account of the life of the Virgin, full of the strangest absurdities about the immaculate conception. The Sorbonne pronounced it offensive and silly; the Inquisition in Spain, Portugal, and Rome forbad the reading of it; but the Franciscans defended it as a divine revelation. A violent controversy ensued, which Alexander VII. silenced in A.D. 1661 by expressing approval of the doctrine of the immaculate conception set forth in the book.—Continuation, § 185, 2.

§ 156.6. The Devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.—The nun Margaret Alacoque, in the Burgundian cloister of Paray le Monial, born A.D. 1647, recovering from a painful illness when but three years old, vowed to the mother of God, who frequently appeared to her, perpetual chastity, and in gratitude for her recovery adopted the name of Mary, and when grown up resisted temptations by inflicting on herself the severest discipline, such as long fasts, sharp flagellations, lying on thorns, etc. Visions of the Virgin no longer satisfied her. She longed to lavish her affections on the Redeemer himself, which she expressed in the most extravagant terms. She took the Jesuit La Colombière as her spiritual adviser in A.D. 1675. In a new vision she beheld the side of her Beloved opened, and saw his heart glowing like a sun, into which her own was absorbed. Down to her death in A.D. 1690 she felt the most violent burning pains in her side. In a second vision she saw her Beloved’s heart burning like a furnace, into which were taken her own heart and that of her spiritual adviser. In a third vision he enjoined the observance of a special “Devotion of the Sacred Heart” by all Christendom on the Friday after the octave of the Corpus Christi festival and on the first Friday of every month. La Colombière, being made director, put forth every effort to get this celebration introduced throughout the church, and on his death the idea was taken up by the whole Jesuit order. Their efforts, however, for fully a century proved unavailing. At this point, too, their most bitter opponents were the Dominicans. But even without papal authority the Jesuits so far succeeded in introducing the absurdities of this cult, and giving expression to it in word and by images, that by the beginning of the eighteenth century there were more than 300 male and female societies engaged in this devotion, and at last, in A.D. 1765, Clement XIII., the great friend of the Jesuits, gave formal sanction to this special celebration.—Continuation, § 188, 12.

§ 156.7. New Congregations and Orders.

1. At the head of the new orders of this century stands the Benedictine Congregation of St. Banne at Verdun, founded by Didier de la Cour. Elected Abbot of St. Banne in A.D. 1596, he gave his whole strength to the reforming of this cloister, which had fallen into luxurious and immoral habits. By a papal bull of A.D. 1604 all cloisters combining with St. Banne into a congregation were endowed with rich privileges. Gradually all the Benedictine monasteries of Lorraine and Alsace joined the union. Didier’s reforms were mostly in the direction of moral discipline and asceticism; but in the new congregation scholarship was represented by Calmet, Ceillier, etc., and many gave themselves to work as teachers in the schools.
2. Much more important for the promotion of theological science, especially for patristics and church history, was another Benedictine congregation founded in France in A.D. 1618 by Laurence Bernard, that of St. Maur, named after a disciple of St. Benedict. The members of this order devoted themselves exclusively to science and literary pursuits. To them belonged the distinguished names, Mabillon, Montfaucon, Reinart, Martène, D’Achery, Le Nourry, Durand, Surius, etc. They showed unwearied diligence in research and a noble liberality of judgment. The editions of the most celebrated Fathers issued by them are the best of the kind, and this may also be said of the great historical collections which we owe to their diligence.
3. The Fathers of the Oratory of Jesus are an imitation of the Priests of the Oratory founded by Philip Neri (§ 149, 7). Peter of Barylla, son of a member of parliament, founded it in A.D. 1611 by building an oratory at Paris. He was more of a mystic than of a scholar, but his order sent out many distinguished and brilliant theologians; e.g. Malebranche, Morinus, Thomassinus, Rich, Simon, Houbigant.
4. The Piarists, Patres scholarum piarum, were founded in Rome in A.D. 1607 by the Spaniard Joseph Calasanza. The order adopted as a fourth vow the obligation of gratuitous tuition. They were hated by the Obscurantist Jesuits for their successful labours for the improvement of Catholic education, especially in Poland and Austria, and also because they objected to all participation in political schemes.
5. The Order of the Visitation of Mary, or Salesian Nuns, instituted in A.D. 1610 by the mystic Francis de Sales and Francisca Chantal (§ 157, 1). They visited the poor and sick in imitation of Elizabeth’s visit to the Virgin (Luke i. 39); but the papal rescript of A.D. 1618 gave prominence to the education of children.

§ 156.8.

1. The Priests of the Missions and Sisters of Charity were both founded by Vincent de Paul. Born of poor parents, he was, after completing his education, captured by pirates, and as a slave converted his renegade master to Christianity. As domestic chaplain to the noble family of Gondy he was characterized in a remarkable degree for unassuming humility, and he wrought earnestly and successfully as a home missionary. In A.D. 1618 he founded the order of Sisters of Mercy, who became devoted nurses of the sick throughout all France, and in A.D. 1627 that of the Priests of the Missions, or Lazarists, who travelled the country attending to the spiritual and bodily wants of men. After the death of the Countess Gondy in A.D. 1625, he placed at the head of the Sisters of Mercy the widow Louise le Gras, distinguished equally for qualities of head and heart. Vincent died in A.D. 1660, and was subsequently canonized.460
2. The Trappists, founded by De Rancé, a distinguished canon, who in A.D. 1664 passed from the extreme of worldliness to the extreme of fanatical asceticism. The order got its name from the Cistercian abbey La Trappe in Normandy, of which Rancé was commendatory abbot. Amid many difficulties he succeeded, in A.D. 1665, in thoroughly reforming the wild monks, who were called “the bandits of La Trappe.” His rule enjoined on the monks perpetual silence, only broken in public prayer and singing and in uttering the greeting as they met, Memento mori. Their bed was a hard board with some straw; their only food was bread and water, roots, herbs, some fruit and vegetables, without butter, fat, or oil. Study was forbidden, and they occupied themselves with hard field labour. Their clothing was a dark-brown cloak worn on the naked body, with wooden shoes. Very few cloisters besides La Trappe submitted to such severities (§ 185, 2).
3. The English Nuns, founded at St. Omer, in France, by Mary Ward, the daughter of an English Catholic nobleman, for the education of girls. Originally composed of English maidens, it was afterwards enlarged by receiving those of other nationalities, with establishments in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. It did not obtain papal confirmation, and in A.D. 1630 Urban VIII., giving heed to the calumnies of enemies, formally dissolved it on account of arrogance, insubordination, and heresy. All its institutions and schools were then closed, while Mary herself was imprisoned and given over to the Inquisition in Rome. Urban was soon convinced of her innocence and set her free. Her scattered nuns were now collected again, but succeeded only in A.D. 1703 in obtaining confirmation from Clement XI. Their chief tasks were the education of youth and care of the sick. They were arranged in three classes, according to their rank in life, and were bound by their vows for a year or at the most three years, after which they might return to the world and marry. Their chief centre was Bavaria with the mother cloister in Munich.—Continuation, § 165, 2.

§ 156.9. The Propaganda.—Gregory XV. gave unity and strength to the efforts for conversion of heretics and heathens by instituting, in A.D. 1662, the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. Urban VIII. in A.D. 1627 attached to it a missionary training school, recruited as far as possible from natives of the respective countries, like Loyola’s Collegium Germanicum founded in A.D. 1552 (§ 151, 1). He was thus able every Epiphany to astonish Romans and foreigners by what seemed a repetition of the pentecostal miracle of tongues. At this institute training in all languages was given, and breviaries, mass and devotional books, and handbooks were printed for the use of the missions. It was also the centre from which all missionary enterprises originated.—Continuation, § 204, 2.

§ 156.10. Foreign Missions.—Even during this century the Jesuits excelled all others in missionary zeal. In A.D. 1608 they sent out from Madrid mission colonies among the wandering Indians of South America, and no Spaniard could settle there without their permission. The most thoroughly organized of these was that of Paraguay, in which, according to their own reports, over 100,000 converted savages lived happily and contented under the mild, patriarchal rule of the Jesuits for 140 years, A.D. 1610-1750; but according to another well informed, though perhaps not altogether impartial, account, that of Ibagnez, a member of the mission, expelled for advising submission to the decree depriving it of political independence, the paternal government was flavoured by a liberal dose of slave-driver despotism. It was at least an undoubted fact, notwithstanding the boasted patriarchal idyllic character of the Jesuit state, that the order amassed great wealth from the proceeds of the industry of their protégés.—Continuation, § 165, 3.

§ 156.11. In the East Indies (§ 150, 1) the Jesuits had uninterrupted success. In A.D. 1606, in order to make way among the Brahmans, the Jesuit Rob. Nobili assumed their dress, avoided all contact with even the converts of low caste, giving them the communion elements not directly, but by an instrument, or laying them down for them outside the door, and as a Christian Brahman made a considerable impression upon the most exclusive classes.—In Japan the mission prospects were dark (§ 150, 2). Mendicants and Jesuits opposed and mutually excommunicated one another. The Catholic Spaniards and Portuguese were at feud among themselves, and only agreed in intriguing against Dutch and English Protestants. When the land was opened to foreign trade, it became the gathering point of the moral scum of all European countries, and the traffic in Japanese slaves, especially by the Portuguese, brought discredit on the Christian cause. The idea gained ground that the efforts at Christianization were but a prelude to conquest by the Spaniards and Portuguese. In the new organization of the country by the shiogun Ijejasu all governors were to vow hostility to Christians and foreigners. In A.D. 1606 he forbad the observance of the Christian religion anywhere in the land. When the conspiracy of a Christian daimio was discovered, he caused, in A.D. 1614, whole shiploads of Jesuits, mendicants, and native priests to be sent out of the country. But as many of the banished returned, death was threatened against all who might be found, and in A.D. 1624 all foreigners, with the exception of Chinese and Dutch, were rigorously driven out. And now a bloody persecution of native Christians began. Many thousands fled to China and the neighbouring islands; crowds of those remaining were buried alive or burnt on piles made up of the wood of Christian crosses. The victims displayed a martyr spirit like those of the early days. Those who escaped organized in A.D. 1637 an armed resistance, and held the fortress of Arima in face of the shiogun’s army sent against them. After a three months’ siege the fortress was conquered by the help of Dutch cannon; 37,000 were massacred in the fort, and the rest were hurled down from high rocks. The most severe enactments were passed against Christians, and the edicts filled with fearful curses against “the wicked sect” and “the vile God” of the Christians were posted on all the bridges, street corners, and squares. Christianity now seemed to be completely stamped out. The recollection of this work, however, was still retained down to the nineteenth century. For when French missionaries went in A.D. 1860 to Nagasaki, they found to their surprise in the villages around thousands (?) who greeted them joyfully as the successors of the first Christian missionaries.

§ 156.12. In China, after Ricci’s death (§ 150, 1), the success of the mission continued uninterrupted. In A.D. 1628 a German Jesuit, Adam Schell, went out from Cologne, who gained great fame at court for his mathematical skill. Louis XIV. founded at Paris a missionary college, which sent out Jesuits thoroughly trained in mathematics. But Dominicans and Franciscans over and over again complained to Rome of the Jesuits. They never allowed missionaries of other orders to come near their own establishments, and actually drove them away from places where they had begun to work. They even opposed priests, bishops, and vicars-apostolic sent by the Propaganda, declared their papal briefs forgeries, forbad their congregations to have any intercourse with those “heretics,” and under suspicion of Jansenism brought them before the Inquisition of Goa. Clement X. issued a firm-toned bull against such proceedings; but the Jesuits gave no heed to it, and attended only to their own general. The papal condemnation a century later of the Jesuits’ accommodation scheme, and their permission of heathen rites and beliefs to the new converts, complained against by the Dominicans, was equally fruitless. In A.D. 1645 Innocent X. forbad this practice on pain of excommunication; but still they continued it till the decree was modified by Alexander VII. in A.D. 1656. After persistent complaints by the Dominicans, Innocent XII. appointed a new congregation in Rome to investigate the question, but their deliberations yielded no result for ten years. At last Clement XI. confirmed the first decree of Innocent X., condemned anew the so called Chinese rites, and sent the legate Thomas of Tournon in A.D. 1703 to enforce his decision. Tournon, received at first by the emperor at Pekin with great consideration, fell into disfavour through Jesuit intrigues, was banished from the capital, and returned to Nankin. But as he continued his efforts from this point, and an attempt to poison him failed in A.D. 1707, he went to Macao, where he was put in prison by the Portuguese, in which he died in A.D. 1710. Clement XI., in A.D. 1715, issued his decree against the Chinese rites in a yet severer form; but the Franciscan who proclaimed the papal bull was put in prison as an offender against the laws of the country, and, after being maltreated for seventeen months, was banished. So proudly confident had the Jesuits become, that in A.D. 1720 they treated with scorn and contempt the papal legate Mezzabarba, Patriarch of Alexandria, who tried by certain concessions to move them to submit. A more severe decree of Clement XII. of A.D. 1735 was scoffed at by being proclaimed only in the Latin original. Benedict XIV. succeeded for the first time, in A.D. 1742, in breaking down their opposition, after the charges had been renewed by the Capuchin Norbert. All the Jesuit missionaries were now obliged by oath to exclude all pagan customs and rites; but with this all the glory and wonderful success of their Asiatic missions came to an end.—Continuation, § 165, 3.

§ 156.13. Trade and Industry of the Jesuits.—As Christian missions generally deserve credit, not only for introducing civilization and culture along with the preaching of the gospel into far distant heathen lands, but also for having greatly promoted the knowledge of countries, peoples, and languages among their fellow countrymen at home, opening up new fields for colonization and trade, these ends were also served by the world-wide missionary enterprises of the Jesuits, and were in perfect accordance with the character and intention of this order, which aimed at universal dominion. In carrying out these schemes the Jesuits abandoned the ascetical principles of their founder and their vow of poverty, amassing enormous wealth by securing in many parts a practical monopoly of trade. Their fifth general, Aquaviva (§ 149, 8), secured from Gregory XIII., avowedly in favour of the mission, exclusive right to trade with both Indies. They soon erected great factories in all parts of the world, and had ships laden with valuable merchandise on all seas. They had mines, farms, sugar plantations, apothecary shops, bakeries, etc., founded banks, sold relics, miracle-working amulets, rosaries, healing Ignatius- and Xavier-water (§ 149, 11), etc., and in successful legacy-hunting excelled all other orders. Urban VIII. and Clement XI. issued severe bulls against such abuses, but only succeeded in restricting them to some extent.—Continuation, § 165, 9.

§ 156.14. An Apostate to Judaism.—Gabriel, or as he was called after circumcision, Uriel Acosta, was sprung from a noble Portuguese family, originally Jewish. Doubting Christianity in consequence of the traffic in indulgences, he at last repudiated the New Testament in favour of the Old. He refused rich ecclesiastical appointments, fled to Amsterdam, and there formally went over to Judaism. Instead of the biblical Mosaism, however, he was disappointed to find only Pharisaic pride and Talmudic traditionalism, against which he wrote a treatise in A.D. 1623. The Jews now denounced him to the civil authorities as a denier of God and immortality. The whole issue of his book was burnt. Twice the synagogue thundered its ban against him. The first was withdrawn on his recantation, and the second, seven years after, upon his submitting to a severe flagellation. In spite of all he held to his Sadducean standpoint to his end in A.D. 1647, when he died by his own hand from a pistol shot, driven to despair by the unceasing persecution of the Jews.