The Jesuits, 1534-1921

CHAPTER XXX

CONCLUSION

Successive Generals in the Restored Society – Present Membership, Missions and Provinces.

As we have seen, the first General of the Society elected after the Restoration was Father Fortis, who died on January 27, 1829. On June 29 of that year Father John Roothaan was chosen as his successor on the fourth ballot. As in the previous election, Father Rozaven was the choice of many of the delegates.

John Philip Roothaan, the twenty-first General of the Society, was born at Amsterdam on November 23, 1785, and finished his classical studies in the Atheneum Illustre under the famous Jakob van Lennep. When he had made up his mind to enter the Society in White Russia in 1804, his distinguished teacher, though a Protestant, gave him the following letter of introduction: "I am fully aware of how in former times the Society distinguished itself in every branch of knowledge. Its splendid services in that respect can never be forgotten, and I am, therefore, especially pleased to recommend this young man whose merit I most highly appreciate. May he be enriched with all your science and your virtues, and I trust to see him again in possession of those treasures which he has gone so far to seek."

The praise was well merited, for, even at that early period of his life, Roothaan had mastered French, Polish, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He studied philosophy at Polotsk, and in 1812 was ordained priest. After the expulsion he went to Switzerland in 1820, and taught rhetoric there for three years. As socius to the provincial, he made the tour of all the Jesuit houses in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Holland three times, and afterwards was appointed rector of the new college in Turin. As General, his chief care was to strengthen the internal life of the Society. His first eleven encyclicals have that object in view. His edition of the "Exercises" is a classic. In 1832 he published the "Revised Order of Studies," adapting the Ratio to the needs of the times; and he increased the activities of the Society in the mission fields. But his long term of office was one uninterrupted series of trials. His enforced visit to the greater number of the houses has already been told in a preceding chapter.

Among the many things for which the Society is profoundly grateful to Father Roothaan is the very remarkable publication of the "Exercises of St. Ignatius." According to Astrain, "the autograph was in rough and labored Castilian," for it must be remembered that the saintly author was a Basque. "The text," he tells us, "arrests the attention," not by its elegance but, "by the energetic precision and brevity with which certain thoughts are expressed. The autograph itself no longer exists. What goes by that name is only a quarto copy made by some secretary, but containing corrections in the author's handwriting. It has been reproduced by photography. Two Latin translations were made of it during the lifetime of St. Ignatius. There remain now, first the versio antiqua or ancient Latin translation, which is a literal version, probably by the saint himself; second, a free translation by Father Frusius, more elegant and more in accordance with the style of the period. It is commonly called the 'Vulgate.' The versio antiqua bears the date, Rome, July 9, 1541. The 'Vulgate' is later than 1541 but earlier than 1548, when the two versions were presented to Paul III for approval. He appointed three examiners, who warmly praised both versions, but the Vulgate was the only one printed. It was published in Rome on September 11, 1548, and was called the editio princeps.

"Besides these two translations, there are two others. One is the still unpublished text left by Blessed Peter Faber to the Carthusians of Cologne before 1546. It holds a middle place between the literal document and the Vulgate. The second was made by Father Roothaan, who, on account of the differences between the Vulgate and the Spanish autograph, wished to translate the Exercises into Latin as accurately as possible, at the same time making use of the versio antiqua. His intention was not to supplant the Vulgate, and on that account he published the work of Frusius and his own in parallel columns (1835)."

Father Roothaan was succeeded as General by Father Beckx, who was born in 1795 at Sichem, near Diest, the town that glories in being the birthplace of St. John Berchmans. He entered the Society at Hildesheim in 1819, after having been a secular priest for eight months. In 1825 he was appointed chaplain of the Duke of Anhalt-Köthen, who had become a Catholic after visiting the home of one of his Catholic friends in France. Anhalt-Köthen is in Prussian Saxony, and there were only twenty Catholics in the entire duchy when Beckx arrived there. Before four years had passed, the number had grown to two hundred. In 1830 he was sent to Vienna and for a time was the only Jesuit in that city. In 1852 he was made provincial of Austria and had the happiness of leading back his brethren to the beloved Innsbruck as well as to Lenz and Lemberg. In the following year he was elected General, and occupied the post for thirty-four years. He used to say that at the time he entered into office the province of Portugal consisted of one Jesuit and a half. The one was in hiding in Lisbon, and the "half" was a novice in Turin. Even now they number only three hundred. All the houses have been seized by the Republican government and the Fathers, scholastics and brothers expelled from their native land in the usual brutal fashion.

During Father Beckx's term of office eighty Jesuits were raised to the honors of the altar. All but three of them were martyrs. In spite of this the Society was expelled from Italy in 1860; from Spain in 1868; and from Germany in 1873, at which time the General and the assistants left Rome, where, after the Piedmontese occupation, it was no longer safe to live. They took up their abode at Fiesole and there the curia, as it is called, remained until after the death of Father Beckx's successor. In 1883 the age and infirmities of the General made the election of a vicar peremptory, and Father Anderledy was chosen. Father Beckx died at the age of ninety-two, and one who saw him in the closing years of his life thus writes of him: "This holy old man who has attained the age of nearly ninety years, so modest, so humble, so prudent, always the same; always amiable, with the glory of thirty years' government and of interior martyrdom inflicted upon him by the mishaps of the Society, was a spectacle to fill one with admiration. His angelic mien delighted me. With how great charity he received me in his room! With what deference! His poor cassock was patched. He is as punctual at the exercises as the most vigorous. In spite of his old age he observes all the laws of fasting and abstinence. At a quarter past five he commences his Mass and spends considerable time kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament. God grant us many imitators of his virtues."

Father Anderledy was a Swiss. He was born in the canton of Valais in 1819, and entered the Society at Brieg in 1838. He was sent to Rome for his theological studies and it is reported that he was such a pertinacious disputant that old Father Perrone said to him one day: "Young man, cease or I shall get angry." In the disturbances of 1847, he was on his way to Switzerland when he was halted by a squad of furious soldiers who asked him "Are you a Jesuit?" "What do you mean by a Jesuit?" he asked. When the conventional answer was given, he angrily demanded "Do you take me for a scoundrel?" and they let him pass. In 1848 he was sent to America and was ordained at St. Louis by Archbishop Kenrick and then put in charge of a German parish at Green Bay, Wisconsin, a place teeming with memories of the old Jesuit missionaries: Marquette, Allouez and others. On his return to Europe, he went through Germany preaching missions and winning a reputation as a great orator, although working in conjunction with the famous Father Roh. He was made rector of the College of Cologne and, subsequently, professor at the scholasticate of Maria-Laach. In 1870 he was called to Rome to be made German assistant, and in 1883 he was elected vicar to Father Beckx with the right of succession. He was particularly zealous as General in promoting the study of theology and philosophy, and in training men in the physical sciences. During his administration, the Society increased from 11,840 members to 13,275, but he was very much adverse to the establishment of new provinces. The creation of Canada as an independent mission was all he would grant in that direction. He died at Fiesole on 18 January, 1892.

Luis Martín García, or, as he is commonly called, Father Martín, who succeeded Father Anderledy, was the fifth Spanish General of the Society. He was born on 19 August, 1846, at Melgar de Fermamental, a small town about twenty-five miles north-west of Burgos, and was already a seminarian in his second year of theology when he began to think of becoming a religious. To be a Jesuit, however, was at first as abhorrent to him as becoming a Saracen. But his ideas on that point began to clarify when he heard his very distinguished professor Don Manuel González Peña, who had been a theologian in the Vatican Council, discourse enthusiastically and on every occasion, about the glories of Suárez, Toletus, Petavius, Bellarmine and the other great lights of the Society. The impression was heightened by some letters from the Philippine Jesuits which had fallen into his hands, and Crétineau-Joly's history also contributed to his change of views. A conversation with the Jesuit superior of the residence at Burgos, and the departure of a brilliant fellow-student for the novitiate, completed the disillusionment and he was admitted at Loyola on 13 October, 1864.

In 1870, when the Society was expelled from Spain, he went with the other scholastics to Vals in France, and later to Poyanne. In the latter place he remained as minister and professor of dogmatic theology until 1880, and when the religious were expelled from France he returned to Spain and was made superior of the scholasticate which had been opened in Salamanca. He was charged also with the duty of teaching theology and Hebrew. In 1886 he opened the house of studies at Bilbao, and in the same year he was made provincial of Castile. Previous to that he had been the editor of "The Messenger of the Sacred Heart" for a year. In 1891 he was summoned to Rome by Father Anderledy, to analyze and summarize the reports sent in by all the provinces on the proposed quinquennium of theology and a new arrangement of studies. On the death of Father Anderledy he was made Vicar General. He was then only forty-five years of age. His appointment coincided with the outbreak of an epidemic of influenza of which he was very near being a victim. Singularly enough, it was this same disease that carried him off thirteen years later, supervening as it did on the terrible sarcoma from which he had long been suffering.

As Vicar he convoked the general congregation, assigning September 23 as the date and choosing Loyola in Spain as the place of meeting. It was the first time in the history of the Society that the convention took place outside of Rome, with the exception of the meetings in Russia during the Suppression. The reason for the decision was that the Pope let it be known that it would not be possible to remain in session in Rome for any considerable period, though he suggested that they might elect the General in Rome and then continue the congregation elsewhere. After long deliberation by the assistants, it was determined not to separate the election from the other proceedings. As for the place of meeting, Loyola was chosen, though Tronchiennes in Belgium had been offered. The choice of Spain was determined by the vote of the assistant who had no Spanish affiliations. Father Martín was elected general on 2 October, and the sessions continued until 5 December.

In this congregation, Father Martín called the attention of the delegates to the fact that no Jesuit had ever addressed himself to the task of writing the complete history of the Order; an abstention, it might be urged, which ought to acquit them of the accusation of unduly praising the Society. Father Aquaviva had indeed commissioned Orlandini to begin the work, but the distinguished writer not only got no further then the Generalate of St. Ignatius but did not even publish his book. Sacchini his continuator had to see to the publication; his own contributions appeared in 1615 and 1621. Jouvancy was then called to Rome to finish the second half of the fifth section which had by that time appeared, but he did not advance beyond the year 1616. He had bad luck with it even in that small space, for certain opinions appeared in it about the rights of sovereigns which were not acceptable to the Bourbon kings, and the book was forbidden in France by decrees of Parliament, dated 25 February and 25 March, 1715. Finally, Cordara, an Italian, assumed the task and wrote two volumes, which though exquisitely done embraced not more than seventeen years of Father Vitelleschi's generalate (1616-33), and only one volume was published then. More than one hundred years elapsed before the second appeared. It was edited by Raggazzini in 1859.

It was high time, Father Martín declared, that something should be done to remedy this condition of affairs and that a history of the Society should be written on a scale commensurate with the greatness of the subject, and in keeping with the methods which modern requirements look for in historical writing. As the undertaking in the way it was conceived would have been too much for any one man, a literary syndicate was established in which Father Hughes was assigned to write the history of the Society's work in English-speaking America, Father Astrain that of the Spanish assistancy, Father Venturi the Italian, Father Fouqueray the French, Father Dühr and Father Kroess the German. This work is now in progress. Those who are engaged on it are men of unimpeachable integrity. Meantime an immense number of hitherto unpublished documents are being put in the hands of the writers. As many as fifty bulky volumes known as the "Monumenta historica Societatis Jesu," consisting of the chronicles of the houses and provinces, the intimate correspondence of many of the great men of the Society, such as Ignatius, Laínez, Borgia etc., have been printed, and sent broadcast through all the provinces. Nor is this mass of material jealously guarded by the Jesuits themselves. It is available to any sincere investigator.

As the Congregation had expressed the desire that the residence of the General and his assistants at Fiesole be closed, and that if the political troubles would permit it he should return to Rome, Father Martín, after consulting with the Pope, who granted the permission with some hesitation, established himself at the Collegium Germanicum on 20 January, 1895. The public excitement that was apprehended did not occur. The papers merely chronicled the fact but made no ado about it whatever. Father Martín had much to console him, during his administration, as, for instance, the beatification of several members of the Society, but he had also many sorrows such as the closing of all the houses in France by the Waldeck-Rousseau government and the deplorable defections of some Jesuits in connection with the Modernist movement.

In 1905 the first symptoms of the disease that was to carry him off in a short time declared themselves. In that year, four cancerous swellings developed in his right arm. He had submitted to the painful cutting of two of them without the aid of anesthetics. The operation lasted two hours and a half, and he maintained his consciousness throughout. A little later, the other swellings showed signs of gangrene and the amputation of the arm was decided upon, but in this instance he submitted to chloroform. He rallied after the operation and in spite of his crippled condition was permitted by the Pope to say Mass. His strength had left him, however, and on 15 February, 1906 he was attacked by influenza and he died on 18 April at the age of sixty. At his death the Society numbered 15,515 members.

Father Martín's successor was Francis Xavier Wernz who was born in Würtemberg in 1842. When the Society was expelled from Germany in 1872, he went to Ditton Hall in England to complete his studies, after having spent the greater part of a year in the army ambulance-corps, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. He taught canon law for several years at Ditton Hall, and in 1882 was a professor at St. Beuno's in Wales. From there he was transferred to the Gregorian University in Rome, where he lectured from 1883 to 1906. In September of the latter year, he was elected General, in which post he lived only eight years. Previous to his election, he had issued four volumes of his great work on canon law. Two others were published later, one of them after his death. The end of his labors came on 19 August, 1914. He was then in his seventy-second year and had passed fifty-seven years in the Society. It was during this generalate that the provinces of Canada, New Orleans, Mexico, California and Hungary were erected.