The Jesuits, 1534-1921

CHAPTER XIX

THE EXECUTION

Seizure of the Gesù in Rome – Suspension of the Priests – Juridical Trial of Father Ricci continued during Two Years – The Victim's Death-bed Statement – Admission of his Innocence by the Inquisitors – Obsequies – Reason of his Protracted Imprisonment – Liberation of the Assistants by Pius VI – Receipt of the Brief outside of Rome – Refused by Switzerland, Poland, Russia and Prussia – Read to the Prisoners in Portugal by Pombal – Denunciation of it by the Archbishop of Paris – Suppression of the Document by the Bishop of Quebec – Acceptance by Austria – Its Enforcement in Belgium – Carroll at Bruges – Defective Promulgation in Maryland.

Two days before the subsidiary Brief was signed, namely on August 16, 1773, the commissioner began operations. Led by Alfani and Macedonio, a squad of soldiers invaded the Gesù, where the General and his assistants were notified of the suppression of the Society. Apparently no one else was cited, and hence, according to de Ravignan, the procedure was illegal as far as the rest of the community was concerned. However, they made no difficulty about it and from that moment considered themselves as no longer Jesuits. It was supposed that a great amount of money would be seized at the central house of the Society; but the hope was not realized; for only about $50,000 were found, and that sum had been collected to defray the expenses of the beatification of St. Francis Hieronymo. It really belonged to St. Peter's rather than to the Gesù. However, there was plenty of material in the gold and silver vessels of the chapels, the works of art, the valuable library, and the archives.

The same process was followed in the other Jesuit establishments of the city. The Fathers were locked up while the soldiers guarded the doors and swarmed through the rooms and passage ways. The old and infirm were carried to the Roman College, and then sent back to the place whence they had been taken; in both instances on stretchers, when the victim was unable to walk. One old Father was actually breathing his last during the transfer. They were all suspended from their priestly faculties, and ordered to report every three months to the authorities with a certificate of their good behavior, signed by the parish priest. They were ecclesiastical "ticket of leave men." Pretexts were multiplied to have many of them arrested. They were paraded through the streets in custody of a policeman, and after being put in the dock with common criminals were locked up or banished from the Papal States.

On August 17 at night-fall, the carriage of Cardinal Corsini drove to the Gesù. In it was the auditor of the congregation with a request to Father Ricci to meet the cardinal at the English College. The invitation was accepted in perfect good faith, although that very morning an offer made by the minister of Tuscany to take the General under his protection and thus secure him from arrest had been declined by Ricci. The freedom of the house was given to him on his arrival, but soon he was restricted to three rooms, and he then noticed that soldiers were on guard both inside and outside of the college. He was kept there for more than a month, during which time he was subjected to several judicial examinations; finally he was transferred to the Castle Sant' Angelo where he was soon followed by his secretary, Commolli, and the assistants, Le Forestier, Zaccharia, Gautier and Faure. They were all assigned to separate cells. The enemies of the Society now had the arch-criminal in their hands, the General himself, Father Ricci; and they could get from him all the secrets of the redoubtable organization which they had destroyed. His papers, both private and official, were in their possession. The archives of the Society were before them with information about every member of it from the beginning, as well as all the personal letters from all over the world written in every conceivable circumstance of Jesuit life. They were all carefully studied and yet no cause for accusation was found in them. The jailors seemed to have lost their heads and to have forgotten their usual tactics of forgery and interpolation.

The trial of Father Ricci was amazing both in its procedure and its length. There were no witnesses to give testimony for or against him, but he was brutally and repeatedly interrogated by an official named Andretti who was suggestively styled "the criminalist." The interrogatories have all been printed, and some of the questions are remarkable for their stupidity. Thus for instance, he was asked, "Do you think you have any authority since the suppression of the Society?" The answer was, "I am quite persuaded I have none." "What authority would you have if, instead of abolishing the Society, the Pope had done something else?" "What he would give me." "Are there any abuses in the Order?" To this he replied, "If you mean general abuses, I answer that, by the mercy of God there are none. On the contrary, there is in the Society a great deal of piety, regularity, zeal, and especially charity, which has shown itself in a remarkable way during these fifteen years of bitter trials." "Have you made any changes in the government of the Order?" "None." "Where are your moneys?" "I have none. I had not enough to keep the exiles of Spain and Portugal from starvation."

The result of this investigation which went on for more than two years was that nothing was found either against him or against the Society, and yet he was kept in a dungeon until he died. As the end was approaching Father Ricci read from his dying bed the following declaration:

"Because of the uncertainty of the moment when God will please to summon me before him and also in view of my advanced age and the multitude, duration, and greatness of my sufferings, which have been far beyond my strength, being on the point of appearing before the infallible tribunal of truth and justice, after long and mature deliberation and after having humbly invoked my most merciful Redeemer that He will not permit me to speak from passion, especially in this the last action of my life, nor be moved by any bitterness of heart, or out of wrong desire or evil purpose, but only to acquit myself of my obligation to bear testimony to truth and to innocence, I now make the two following declarations and protests:

"First, I declare and protest that the extinct Society of Jesus has given no reason for its suppression; and I declare and protest with that moral certainty which a well-informed superior has of what passes in his Order. Second, I declare and protest that I have given no reason, not even the slightest, for my imprisonment, and I do so with that sovereign certitude which each one has of his own actions. I make this second protest solely because it is necessary for the reputation of the extinct Society of which I was superior.

"I do not pretend in consequence of these protests that I or any one may judge as guilty before God any of those who have injured the Society of Jesus or myself. The thoughts of men are known to God alone. He alone sees the errors of the human mind and sees if they are such as to excuse from sin; He alone penetrates the motives of acts; as well as the spirit in which things are done, and the affections of the heart that accompany such actions; and since the malice or innocence of an external act depends on all these things, I leave it to God Who shall interrogate man's thoughts and deeds.

"To do my duty as a Christian, I protest that with the help of God I have always pardoned and do now sincerely pardon all those who have tortured and harmed me, first, by the evils they have heaped on the Society and by the rigorous measures they have employed in dealing with its members; secondly, by the extinction of the Society and by its accompanying circumstances; thirdly, by my own imprisonment, and the hardships they have added to it, and by the harm they have done to my reputation; all of which are public and notorious facts. I pray God, out of His goodness and mercy, through the merits of Jesus Christ, to pardon me my many sins and to pardon also all the authors of the above-mentioned evils and wrongs, as well as their co-operators. With this sentiment and with this prayer I wish to die.

"Finally I beg and conjure all those who may read these declarations and protests to make them public throughout the world as far as in them lies. I ask this by all the titles of humanity, justice and Christian charity that may persuade them to carry out my will and desire. (signed) Lorenzo Ricci."

The trial had been purposely prolonged. At each session only three or four questions would be put to the accused, although he constantly entreated the inquisitors to proceed. Then there would be an interruption of eight, ten and even twenty days or more. At times the interrogations were sent in on paper, until finally, Andretti, the chief inquisitor, said that the case was ended and he would return no more. Nevertheless he made his appearance a few days later.

"No doubt," says Father Ricci, "someone had told him that the whole process was null and void; and I pitied this honest man, advanced in age as he was, and so long in the practice of his profession, who was now told that he did not know the conditions necessary for the validity of a process. Those who gave him that information should have warned him long before. So he began again, going over the same ground in the same way, and I gave him the same answers. His questions were always preceded by long formulæ to which I paid no heed. After each question, he made me repeat my oath. I asked him to let me know the reason of my incarceration and could get no answer; but, finally he uttered these words: 'Be content to know that you have not been imprisoned for any crime; and you might have inferred that from the fact that I have not interrogated you about anything criminal whatever.'"

As a necessary consequence of this exoneration by the official deputed to try him, it follows that the Order of which he was the chief superior was also without reproach; for, if the numberless offences alleged against the Society were true, it would have been absolutely impossible for the General not to have known them; and having this knowledge, he would have been culpable and deserving of the severest punishment, if there had been dissensions in the Order and he had not endeavored to repress them; if lax morality had been taught and he did not censure it; if the Society had indulged in mercantile transactions and he had not condemned such departures from the law; if it had been guilty of ambition and he had not crushed it. Being the centre and the source of all authority and of all activity in the Order, his knowledge of what is going on extends to very minute details and hence if the Order was guilty he was the chief criminal. But even his bitterly prejudiced judges had declared him innocent and he was, therefore, to be set free.

At this juncture, the Spanish minister, Florida Blanca, intervened and in the name of Charles III warned the Pope not to dare to release him. The Bourbons were still bent on terrorizing the Holy See. The difficulty was solved by the victim himself who died on November 24, 1775. He was then seventy-two years of age. He was able to speak up to the last moment and was often heard to moan: "Ah! poor Society! At least to my knowledge you did not deserve the punishment that was meted out to you."

On the evening of the 25th, Father Ricci's remains were carried to the Church of St. John of the Florentines. The whole edifice was draped in black, and the coffin was placed on the bier around which were thirty funeral torches. A vast multitude took part in the services. The Bishop of Commachio, a staunch friend of the Society, celebrated the Mass. He came, he said, not to pray for the General but to pray to him. Another bishop exclaimed: "Behold the martyr!" In the evening, the corpse was carried to the Gesù. It should have arrived by 9 o'clock, but it reached the church only at midnight. To avoid any demonstration, the approaches to the church had been closed, and there were only five or six Fathers present. From Carayon's narrative it would appear that the uncoffined body was carried in a coach and was clothed in a very short and very shabby habit. The curé of the parish and two other persons were in the conveyance. Two other carriages whose occupants were unknown but who were suspected of being spies followed close behind. After the absolution, the body was placed in the coffin and laid in the vault beside the remains of Ricci's seventeen predecessors. The tomb was then closed and a scrap of paper was fixed on it, with the inscription: "Lorenzo Ricci, ex-General of the Jesuits, died at Castle Sant' Angelo, November 24, 1775."

After reciting these facts, Boero asks why the ex-General was kept in such a long and severe confinement? There is no answer, he says, except that such was the good pleasure of His Majesty Charles III. The Spanish minister, Moñino, had declared that such was the case. To let him out alive would have been an indirect condemnation of the pressure exerted by the court of Madrid in directing the course of the commission which had been expressly created to pass a sentence of death on the Society. The knowledge that the General and his assistants had issued alive from the dungeons of Sant' Angelo would have troubled the peace of Charles III and his fellow-conspirators; hence, in spite of the good will and the affection of the Sovereign Pontiff, Father Ricci, after two years imprisonment in Adrian's Tomb, was carried out a corpse. Those of his companions who survived were released, but were commanded by the judges to observe the strictest silence on what had passed during their captivity, or not to tell what questions had been put to them.

One of the victims showed his indignation at this excessive cruelty, and exclaimed, "Why should you require me to swear on the Holy Gospels not to speak of my trial, when you know very well that it consisted of two or three insignificant and ridiculous questions?" Another assistant was merely asked his name and birthplace, and no more. A third satisfied the judges when he replied, "I have neither said nor done anything wrong." He was never interrogated again. The secretary of the Society had been asked in what subterranean hiding-place he kept the treasures. He answered that there were no subterranean hiding-places, and no treasures. In that consisted his whole examination. He died shortly afterwards of sickness contracted in the prison and his death was for a long time concealed.

Father Faure inquired of one of his judges: "For what crime am I in jail?" "For none," was the reply, "but the fear of your pen, and especially the fear of having you write against the Brief. That is the only cause of your imprisonment." "By the same rule," retorted the prisoner, "you might send me to the galleys for fear I might steal, or to be hanged to prevent me from committing murder." He was the only recalcitrant, and he was so dreaded that during his incarceration he was ordered to keep his light burning all night, so that he might be watched. This was after they found a black spot on his bed. They thought it was ink. Father Ricci, however, contrived to keep an exact account of the questions that were asked. Carayon has published them in his "Documents inédits."

One of these redoubtable personages so rigidly kept in confinement was Father Romberg, the German assistant, who was eighty-two years of age. He became very feeble, and had a stroke of paralysis which kept him to his chair. When the governor of the Castle came with the judges and officials to tell him he was free, he thanked them effusively, but requested the favor of being left in his cell to die. "You see," said he, "I have two fine friends who are prisoners here, and they, out of charity, come regularly every morning and carry me in my chair to the chapel where I can hear Mass and go to Communion. If I leave this place, God knows if I should have the same help and the same consolation." This was a specimen of the men who made Charles III and Florida Blanca tremble. In spite of the protests of the Spanish minister, every one was set free on February 16, 1776, and Pius VI cancelled the order of the inquisitors who forbade their victims to hold any communication with their fellow-Jesuits.

The manner in which the Brief was executed outside of Rome varied with the mentality and morality of the nations to which it was sent. Much to the chagrin of the Sovereign Pontiff, it was enthusiastically acclaimed by all the Protestants and infidels of Europe. For, was it not a justification of all the hatred they had invariably heaped on the Society wherever it happened to be? They could now congratulate themselves that they had instinctively divined the malignant character of the Institute which it took centuries for the Church to discover, and they logically concluded that all the laudatory Bulls lavished on the Society by previous Pontiffs were intentional deceits or ignorant delusions. They might have argued contrariwise, but as it would have been against themselves they refrained. They were jubilant because the Sovereign Pontiff had slain their chief enemy, and they had a medal struck to commemorate the event.

In "Les Jésuites" by Böhmer-Monod (p. 278) we find the following: "Cultured Europe triumphed in the Suppression of the Order, and the people everywhere showed their approval. Here and there some pious devotees raised their voices in lamentation, but nowhere in Europe or elsewhere was there any serious opposition to the Brief. The Order had forfeited all esteem; and public opinion evinced no compassion for anything tragic that occurred in its fall. It remained quite indifferent to the atrocities of which Pombal was guilty. The injustices which certain Fathers suffered in various places were considered a just retribution or at least were regarded as necessary for progress of light and virtue." This is not very flattering to "cultured" Europe.