The Jesuits, 1534-1921

It was Halnat who first discovered the existence of the venerable Father de Clorivière, a Jesuit of the old Society, who was to be the first provincial of France after the restoration. The pious Mlle. de Cicé, a niece of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, also comes into view at this period. She had been the directress of an association of ladies established by Father de Clorivière to supply as far as possible the place of the expelled nuns, in looking after the young girls of Paris. Varin became her spiritual guide and also directed Mlle. de Jugon, a remarkable woman, who subsequently married a wealthy nobleman; but at his death she resumed with great ardor the charitable works which had previously reflected such glory upon her piety and zeal.

Just at this time, an attempt was made to assassinate Napoleon. An "infernal machine," as it was called, was exploded under his carriage, and Mlle. de Cicé was suspected of knowing something about it, chiefly because of her association with the mysterious personages who had recently arrived in France – Varin and his companions. Indeed, although the good woman's holiness of life was vouched for by a great number of witnesses, chiefly the beneficiaries of her charity, she might have been condemned to death, had not Father Varin appeared in court, where he made a candid explanation of the character of his society, as having for its only purpose religion and charity, without any political affiliations whatever. His good temper at the trial was a happy offset to Father Halnat's outburst of anger which almost provoked an unfavorable verdict. Later Halnat applied for admission to the Society of Jesus, but it was thought unsafe to admit him.

At this juncture, there appears the figure of Madeleine-Sophie Barat, the foundress of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, a title chosen at that time not to indicate any social distinction; indeed Madame Barat was from people in very ordinary circumstances, but the name "religious" was in disfavor at that turbulent period, and it was thought advisable not to obtrude unnecessarily the fact that she and her associates formed a community of nuns. They were merely des dames pieuses, who lived together for charitable and educational work. The name "dames" is an old title for nuns in England.

She was the sister of Father Louis Barat, who was one of the Fathers of the Faith, and when Varin was looking around for some capable woman to give the girls of Paris and elsewhere a Christian education, Barat suggested her as a possibility. He had taught her Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian, and natural philosophy, besides subjecting her to a very rigid and somewhat harsh training in asceticism. She was then twenty years of age, and with her usual habit of submission, she and her three companions addressed themselves to the task. This was in 1801. Before 1857, she had succeeded in establishing more than eighty foundations in various parts of the world and she is now ranked among the Beatified.

To Varin must also be accorded the credit of forming in the religious life another woman who is among the Blessed; the Foundress of the Sisters of Notre-Dame de Namur, Julie Billiart. Perhaps his prayers had something to do with the restoration to health of this remarkable woman, who had been a paralytic and almost speechless for thirty-one years. She recovered her youthful vigor in 1804, at the end of a novena to the Sacred Heart, which had been suggested by her confessor. She was then at Amiens, and Varin united her and her companions into a teaching community, and drew up the rules and constitutions which they have undeviatingly adhered to ever since. Indeed it was this very fidelity that gave them the name of Notre Dame de Namur. For in the absence of Varin a prominent ecclesiastic attempted to modify their rule, whereupon the indignant women left Amiens and emigrated in a body to Namur. That city has ever since been regarded as their spiritual birthplace. In the space of twelve years, namely between 1804 and 1812, this quondam paralytic founded fifteen convents, and made as many as one hundred and twenty journeys, some of them very long and toilsome, in the prosecution of her great work for the Church. Like the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur have establishments all over the world.

Meantime, a very marked difference had displayed itself in the tone of the various members of the Fathers of the Faith. Those who had been followers of Paccanari had no idea whatever of the real nature of religious life, whereas the disciples of Varin for the most part were spiritual men and eager in the work of perfection. How noticeable this was, is revealed in a letter from Bishop Carroll in America. He had asked for help from the new organization, and four priests had been promised him, but only one arrived – an Italian named Zucchi. Whether he lost his way or not, or fancied he could follow his own guidance, he went first to Quebec, but was promptly informed by the government officials there that his presence was undesirable. He finally reached Maryland, and Carroll describes him in a letter to Father Plowden in England as follows: "There is a priest here named Zucchi, a Romano di nascità, a man of narrow understanding, who does nothing but pine for the arrival of his companions. Meantime he will undertake no work. From this sample of the new order, I am led to believe that they are very little instructed in the maxims of the Institute of our venerable mother, the Society. Though they profess to have no other rule than ours, Zucchi seems to know nothing of the structure of our Society, nor even to have read the Regulæ Communes which our very novices know almost by heart."

The bishop had also heard of the establishment of one of the communities of women by Father Varin, and that made him still more suspicious about the genuineness of the Fathers of the Faith. "In one point," he writes to Plowden, "they seem to have departed from St. Ignatius, by engrafting on their Institution a new order of nuns, which is to be under their government."

The rupture in the ranks of the Fathers of the Faith took place in 1803. In the preceding year, Rozaven and Varin had gone to Rome and were there confirmed in their suspicions that Paccanari was not sincere in his protestations about his desire to join the Jesuits in Russia. They were also shocked at the lack of religious spirit in the Paccanarist house in Rome. In the following year, Rozaven again returned to Rome, and besides being confirmed in his conviction that Paccanari was working for the development of an independent society, he was informed of certain charges against the personal character of the man. Paccanari's explanation of the accusations, far from convincing Rozaven, only confirmed him in his opinion. The result was that he obtained a private audience with the Pope, and was authorized to sever his connection with the Fathers of the Faith.

To his amazement, he found on his return to London, that his associates had already taken the matter in hand for themselves and had applied to Father Gruber in Russia, for admission to the Society. The petition was granted, not, however to enter corporately but individually, namely after each one's vocation had been carefully examined. The application was to be made to Father Strickland in England, who had been a member of the old Society. With other candidates from Holland and Germany, twenty-five new members passed over to Russia.

It is very distressing to note that Father Charles de Broglie, who with de Tournély had initiated the whole movement, was not in this group. He and three others remained in London as secular priests, and unfortunately, his relations with a certain number of refractory Frenchmen led him into the schism known as La Petite Eglise. He persisted in his rebellion as late as 1842, when he at last made his submission to the Church.

Rozaven wrote from Polotsk to Varin, giving him an account of what had happened to him in Rome, insisting on the justifiableness of the act, and reminding him that they had joined the Fathers of the Sacred Heart, and subsequently the Fathers of the Faith, solely for the sake of uniting with the Jesuits in Russia. As Paccanari had not only no intention of carrying out that purpose, but was doing everything in his power to prevent it, the duty of allegiance ceased, and so the Pope had decided. Forthwith, Varin, with the approval of all his subjects in France, notified Paccanari that they had severed all connection with his Society. Meantime however, they retained the name of Fathers of the Faith.

But this independence was not satisfactory to Varin. What was he to do? Should he disband his communities which were performing very effective work in France or wait for developments? The Apostolic nuncio at Paris, della Genga, decided that he should continue as he was till more favorable circumstances presented themselves. They had not long to wait. The emperor's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, had thus far protected them, but in 1807 Napoleon publicly and angrily reproached him for this patronage, and on November 1st ordered all the Fathers to report to their respective dioceses within fifteen days, under penalty of being sent to the deadly convict colony of Guiana. Fouché offered several positions of honor to Varin and on his refusal to accept them, drove him out of Paris. By this time, however, Varin was a Jesuit and was following the directions of the venerable Father Clorivière who had been empowered to receive him.

The secession of the Fathers of France and England was quickly imitated by the communities in other parts of Europe. Meanwhile Paccanari's conduct became a public scandal. A canonical process was instituted against him in 1808, and he was condemned to ten years' imprisonment. But when the French took possession of the city in 1809 and opened the prison doors, Paccanari disappeared from view, and no one ever knew what became of him.

While the work of the Fathers of the Faith was progressing in France and elsewhere, the saintly Pignatelli, who had been Angel Guardian of the Spanish Jesuits when they were expelled from their native land, was accomplishing much for the general establishment of the Society. After landing in Italy where the Jesuits were as yet unmolested, he had betaken himself, with the advice of the provincial to Ferrara, and there housed the exiles as best he could. He also established a novitiate in connection with the college which had been handed over to him; but all this was swept away when the Brief of Clement XIV suppressed the entire Society in 1773. Of course, the first thought of Pignatelli after this disaster was to join his brethren in Russia, and with that in view he wrote to Pope Pius VI, who had succeeded Clement XIV, asking him if the Jesuits whom Catherine II had sheltered, really belonged to the Society. The reply delighted him beyond measure, for it told him that he might go to Russia with a safe conscience and put on the habit of the Society. The Jesuits there really belonged to the Society for the Brief of Suppression had never reached that country. The Pontiff also added that he would restore the Society as soon as possible; and if he were not able to do so he would recommend it to his successor.

Pignatelli's joy knew no bounds, and he immediately prepared for his journey to the North, but the Providence of God kept him in Italy, for the Duke of Parma, though a son of Charles III of Spain, had resolved to recall the Jesuits to his Duchy, and for that purpose had written to Catherine II of Russia to ask for three members of the Society to organize the houses. The empress was only too glad to accede to his wish; on February, 1794, three Jesuits arrived in Parma and began their work at Calorno, just when Pius VI was passing through that city on his way to the prisons of France. The opportunity was taken advantage of to ask the august captive for authorization to open a novitiate and he most willingly granted the request. Panizzoni, who was then provincial of Italy, appointed Pignatelli as superior and master of novices. Unfortunately the Duke of Parma died, and the Duchy was taken over by France; however, the Jesuits were not molested for a year and a half, and during this time Pignatelli, who was exercising the office of provincial, succeeded in having the Society restored in Naples and Sicily. This was in 1804. But when Napoleon laid his hands on the whole of the peninsula an order was formulated for the expulsion of the Jesuits. Fortunately its execution was not rigorously enforced and colleges were established in Rome, Tivoli, Sardinia and Orvieto.

Meantime matters were progressing favorably in Russia, so much so that in 1803 Father Angiolini was sent as imperial ambassador to the Pope to solicit alms for the missions. When he appeared in Rome dressed as a Jesuit, he found himself the sensation of the hour. The Sovereign Pontiff received him with effusive affection and granted all that he asked. He remained there as procurator of the Society, and in the following year, was able to communicate to Father Gruber the pleasing news that, at the request of King Ferdinand, the Society had been re-established in the Two Sicilies. Father Pignatelli was made provincial, and as many as 170 of those who had survived after Tanucci had driven them out thirty-seven years previously came from the various places that had sheltered them during the Suppression to resume their former way of life. Several of them who had been made bishops asked the Pope for permission to return but all were refused except two, Avogado of Verona and Bencassa of Carpi.

The whole kingdom welcomed back the exiles with enthusiasm. The King came in person to open the Church which he had persistently refused to enter ever since the expulsion; at the first Mass he and the entire royal family received Holy Communion. He also gave the Fathers their former college, and endowed it with an annual income of forty thousand ducats. This example encouraged others; colleges were founded everywhere, and the number of applicants was so great that the conditions for admission to the Society had to be made as rigorous as possible. Unfortunately this happy condition of affairs did not last long, for in March 1806, Joseph Bonaparte replaced Ferdinand IV on the throne of Naples, and the Jesuits again took the road of exile. The Pope offered them a refuge in Rome, and when they protested that such a course would draw on him the wrath of Napoleon, he replied that they were suffering for the Church, and that he must receive them just as Clement XIII had done when they were exiled from Naples.

While these events were occurring in Italy and France, an opportunity was presented to the Jesuits of Russia to revive their old missions in China. Unfortunately it was frustrated. The story as told in the "Woodstock Letters" (IV, 113) is a veritable Odyssey, and is particularly interesting to Americans, for the reason that the principal personage concerned in what proved to be a very heroic enterprise became subsequently the President of Georgetown College: John Anthony Grassi.

Grassi was a native of Bergamo, and in 1799 entered the novitiate established by Father Pignatelli at Calorno. He thus received a genuine Jesuit training and escaped the influence of the establishments which Paccanari was inaugurating in Italy just at that time. From Calorno he was sent to Russia, and was made Rector of the College of Nobles which was dependent upon the establishment at Polotsk. Meanwhile, he was preparing himself for the missions of Astrakhan, and was already deep in the study of Armenian when the Chinese matter was brought to the attention of Father Gruber by a letter from a member of the old Society, who had contrived to remain in China ever since the Suppression. He was Louis Poirot. It appears that his ability as a musician had charmed the emperor, and thus enabled him to continue his evangelical work in the Celestial Empire.

Hearing of the establishment in Russia, he bethought himself of having the Jesuits resume their old place in China, evidently unaware that the Brief of 1801 expressly declared that the Society had been established "only within the limits of the Russian Empire." But not knowing this he availed himself of the return of a Lazarist missionary and wrote two letters; one to the Pope and another to the Father General in which he said: "I am eighty years of age and there is only one thing I care to live for. It is to see the Jesuits return to China." His letter to the General ends with a request to be permitted to renew his vows, "so as to die a true son of the Society of Jesus." Between the time he wrote this letter and its arrival in Europe, the limitation of the approval of the Society to Russia had been withdrawn, and Father Gruber immediately set about granting the venerable and faithful old man's request. Happily a solemn legation was just then to leave St. Petersburg for China, and the ambassador, Golowkin, was urged to take some Jesuits in his suite. The offer was gladly accepted, but it was decided that it should be better for the priests to go by the usual sea route than to accompany the embassy overland.

Father Grassi was considered to be the most available man in the circumstances, and he was told merely that he was to go to a distant post, and that his companions were to be Father Korsack, a native of Russia and a German lay-brother named Surmer, who happened to be a sculptor. On January 14, 1805, they left Polotsk, and travelling day and night, arrived at St. Petersburg on January 19. Only then were they informed that their destination was Pekin. On February 2 they started on sleds for Sweden. At the end of three days, they were all sick and exhausted, but kept bravely on till they reached the frontier where they found shelter in a little inn. Fortunately a physician happened to be there and he helped them over their ailments, so that in ten days they were able to resume their journey. They then started for Abo, the capital of Finland and from there crossed the frozen sea at top speed, till they reached the Island of Aland. On March 20 they traversed the Gulf of Bothnia in a mail packet, and landed safely on the shore of Sweden. On March 22 they were in Stockholm, but the Abbé Morrette, the superior of the Swedish mission to whom they were to present themselves was dead. An Italian gentleman, happily named Fortuna, who was Russian Consul at that place, took care of them and presented them to Alopeus, the Russian minister.

Alopeus dissuaded them from going to England as they had been directed, and suggested Copenhagen as the proper place to embark. Arrived there, they were informed that there was a ship out in the harbor, waiting to sail for Canton, but that the captain refused to take any passengers; whereupon they determined to follow their original instructions, and after a stormy voyage arrived at Gravesend on May 22. From there they went to London where they met Father Kohlmann.

The same misfortune attended them at London for although Lord Macartney, who had known the Jesuits in Pekin, did everything to secure them a passage to China, he failed utterly. Then acting under new instructions they set sail for Lisbon on July 29, but were driven by contrary winds to Cork in Ireland, where of course they met with the heartiest welcome from everyone especially from the bishop. They finally landed at Lisbon on September 28; passing as they entered the harbor, the gloomy fortress of St. Julian where so many of their brethren had been imprisoned by Pombal. They were befriended there by an Irish merchant named Stack, and also by the rector of the Irish College; but were finally lodged in an old dismantled monastery where they slept on the floor. Then, in the dress of secular priests, they presented themselves to the Apostolic nuncio who was very friendly to the Society, and who would have been a Jesuit himself had it not been for the opposition of his family. He warned them to be very cautious in what they did and said, and informed them that there were very few ships clearing for Macao.

While at Lisbon, they devoted themselves to the study of mathematics and astronomy, and after two months their friend, the Irish merchant, came to tell them that there was a ship about to sail. They hastened to advise the nuncio of it, but were then told that they could not go to China, without the Pope's permission, for the reason that the Society had been suppressed in that country. They also learned from a missionary priest of the Propaganda, that Rome was very much excited about their proposed journey; Father Angiolini who was then in Rome, wrote to the same effect. It was then March 1806. Not knowing what to do, they began a course of astronomy at the observatory of Coimbra, but unfortunately, the founder of the observatory, an ex-Jesuit, José Monteiro da Rocha, was very hostile to the Society; and even went so far in his opposition that in a public oration before the university he had praised Pombal extravagantly for having abolished the Order.

The wanderers remained at Coimbra for two months, and then returned to Lisbon. On their way to the capital they saw the unburied coffin of Pombal. On June 4 a letter came from England which revived their hopes, especially as it was followed by pecuniary help from the czar; but soon after that, they received news of the Russian embassy's failure to reach China, and they also heard that the country of their dreams was in the wildest excitement because a missionary there had sent a map of the empire to Europe. The imprudent cartographer was imprisoned and an imperial edict announced that vengeance was to be taken on all Christians in the empire. Who the poor man was we do not know. It could not have been old Father Poirot. He was merely a musician and not a maker of maps. On December 2, 1806, the nuncio at Lisbon was informed that the Pope quite approved of the project of the Fathers and had urged his officials to assist them to carry it out. The reason of this change of mind on the part of the Holy Father is explained by the fact that he was anxious to propitiate Russia. Nevertheless, the nuncio advised them to wait for further developments.

Another year went by, during which they continued their studies and made some conversions. They had also the gratification of being introduced to the Marchioness of Tavora, the sole survivor of the illustrious house which Pombal had so ruthlessly persecuted. Finally they were recalled to England, which they reached on November 16, 1807, after a month of great hardship at sea. They were welcomed at Liverpool by the American Jesuit, Father Sewall, who was at that time sheltering four other members of the Society in his house. When the little community met at table, they represented seven different nationalities – American, English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Belgian. Father Grassi remained in England, chiefly at Stonyhurst until 1810, and on August 27 of that year set sail from Liverpool for Baltimore, where he arrived on October 20. He had thus passed three years in England where community life had been carried on almost without interruption from the time of the old Society. For although the Brief of Suppression had explicitly forbidden it, nevertheless Clement's successor had authorized it as early as 1778, and had permitted the pronouncement of the religious vows in 1803, – a privilege that was extended to the Kingdom of Naples in 1804. Arriving in the United States, Father Grassi found that there had been virtually no interruption of the Society's traditions in this part of the world. The Fathers had been in close communication with Russia as early as 1805 and were being continually reinforced by members of the Society in Europe. When the Bull of Re-establishment was issued there were nineteen Jesuits in the United States.