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The Jesuits After the Restoration (1814-1912)

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The Jesuits During the Interim (1773-1814)

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Pius VII had resolved to restore the Society during his captivity in France; and after his return to Rome he did so with little delay; 7 August, 1814, by the Bull "Solicitudo omnium ecclesiarum," and therewith, the general in Russia, Thaddeus Brzozowski, acquired universal jurisdiction. After the permission to continue given by Pius VI, the first Russian congregation had elected as vicar-general Stanislaus Czerniewicz (17 Oct., 1782-7 July 1785), who was succeeded by Gabriel Lenkiewicz (27 Sept., 1785-10 Nov., 1798) and Francis Kareu (1 Feb., 1799-20 July, 1902). On the receipt of the Brief "Catholicae Fidei", of 7 March, 1801, his title was changed from vicar-general to general. Gabriel Gruber succeeded (10 Oct., 1802-26 March 1805) and was followed by Thaddeus Brzozowski (2 Sept., 1805). Almost simultaneously with the death of the latter, 5 Feb., 1820, the Russians, who had banished the Jesuits from St. Petersburg in 1815, expelled them from the whole country. It seems a remarkable providence that Russia, contrary to all precedent, should have protected the Jesuits just at the time when all other nations turned against them, and reverted to her normal hostility when the Jesuits began to find toleration elsewhere. Upon the decease of Brzozowski, Father Petrucci, the vicar, fell under the influence of the still-powerful anti-Jesuit party to Rome, and proposed to alter some points in the Institute. The twentieth general congregation took a severe view of his proposals, expelled him from the order, and elected Father Aloysius Fortis (18 Oct, 1820-27 Jan, 1829) (q.v.); John Roothaan succeeded (9 July 1829-8 May 1853) and was followed by Peter Beckx (2 July, 1853-4 March, 1887). Anton Maria Anderledy, vicar-general on 11 May, 1884, became general on Beckx's death, and died on 18 Jan., 1892; Louis Martin (2 Oct, 1892-18 April, 1906). Father Martin commenced a new series of histories of the Society, to be based on the increasing materials now available, and to deal with many problems about which older annalists, Orlandi and his successors, were not curious. Volumes by Astrain, Duhr, Fouqueray, Hughes, Kroess, Tacchi-venturi have appeared. The present general, Francis Xavier Wernz, was elected on 8 Sept., 1906. Though the Jesuits of the nineteenth century cannot show a martry-roll as brilliant as that of their predecessors, the persecuting laws passed against them surpass in number, extent, and continuance those endured by previous generations. The practical exclusion from university teaching, the obligation of military service in many countries, the wholesale confiscations of religious property, and the dispersion of twelve of its eldest and once most flourishing provinces are very serious hindrances to religious vocations. On a teaching order such blows fall very heavily. The cause of trouble has generally been due to that propaganda of irreligion which was developed during the Revolution and is still active through Freemasonry in those lands in which the Revolution took root.

This is plainly seen in France. In that country, the Society began in 1815 with the direction of some petits séminaries and congregations, and by giving missions. They were attacked by the liberals, especially by the Comte de Montlosier in 1823, and their schools, one of which St-Achuel, already contained 800 students, were closed in 1829. The Revolution of July (1830) brought them no relief; but in the visitation of cholera in 1832 the Fathers pressed to the fore, and so began to recover influence. In 1845, there was another attack by Thiers, which drew out the answer of de Ravignan. The revolution of 1848 at first sent them again into exile, but the liberal measures which succeeded, especially the freedom of teaching, enabled them to return and to open many schools (1850). In the later days of the Empire, greater difficulties were raised, but with the advent of the Third Republic (1870), these restrictions were removed and progress continued, until, after threatening measures in 1878, came the decree of 29 March, 1880, issued by M. Jules Ferry. This brought about a new dispersion and a substitution of staffs of non-religious teachers in the Jesuit colleges. But the French government did not press their enactments, and the Fathers returned by degrees; and before the end of the century, their houses and schools in France were as prosperous as ever. Then came the overwhelming Associations laws of M. Waldeck-Rousseau, leading to renewed by not complete dispersions and to the re-introduction of non-religious staffs in the colleges. The right of the order to hold property was also violently suppressed; and, by a refinement of cruelty, any property suspected of being held by a congregation may now be confiscated, unless it is proved not to be so held. Other clauses of this law penalize any meetings of the members of a congregation. The order is under an iron hand from which no escape is, humanly speaking, possible. For the moment nevertheless public opinion disapproves of its rigid execution, and thusfar in spite of all sufferings, of the dispersal of all houses, the confiscation of churches and the loss of practically all property and schools, the numbers of the order have been maintained, nay slightly increased, and so too have the opportunities for work, especially in literature and theology, etc. (See also CARAYON; DESCHAMPS; DU LAC; OLIVANT; RAVIGNAN.)

In Spain the course of events has been similar. Recalled by Ferdinand VII in 1815, the Society was attacked by the Revolution of 1820; and twenty-five Jesuits were slain at Madrid in 1822. The Fathers, however, returned after 1823 and took part in the management of the military school and the College of Nobles at Madrid (1827). But in 1834 they were again attacked at Madrid, fourteen were killed and the whole order was banished on 4 July, 1835, by a Liberal ministry. After 1848 they began to return and were resettled after the Concordat, 26 Nov., 1852. At the Revolution of 1868 they were again banished (12 Oct.), but after a few years they were allowed to come back and have since made great progress. At the present time, however, another expulsion is threatened (1912). In Portugal, the Jesuits were recalled in 1829, dispersed again in 1834; but afterwards returned. Though they were not formally sanctioned by law, they had a large college and several churches, from which, however, they were driven out in October, 1910, with great violence and cruelty.

In Italy they were expelled from Naples (1820-21) but in 1836 there were admitted to Lombardy. Driven out by the Revolution of 1848 from almost the whole peninsula, they were able to return when peace was restored, except to Turin. Then with the gradual growth of United Italy they were step by step suppressed again by law everywhere, and finally at Rome in 1871. But though formally suppressed and unable to keep schools, except on a very small scale, the law is so worded that it does not press at every point, nor is it often enforced with acrimony. Numbers do not fall off, and activities increase. In Rome, they have charge, inter alia, of the Gregorian University, the "Institutum Biblicum", and the German and Latin-American colleges.

Of the Germanic Provinces, that of Austria may be said to have been recommenced by the immigration of many Polish Fathers from Russia to Galicia in 1820 and colleges were founded at Tarnopol, Lemberg, Linz (1837), and Innsbruck in 1838, in which they were assigned the theological faculty in 1856. The German province properly so called could at first make foundations only in Switzerland at Brieg (1814) and Freiburg (1818). But after the Sonderbund, they were obliged to leave, then being 264 in number (111 priests). They were now able to open several houses in the Rhine provinces, etc., making steady progress until they were ejected during Bismark's Kulturkampf (1872), when they numbered 755 members (351 priests). They now count 1150 (with 574 priests) and are known throughout the world by their excellent publications. (See ANTONIEWICZ; DEHARBE; HASSLACHER; PESCH; ROH; SPILLMAN.)

The Belgian Jesuits were unable to return to their country till Belgium was separated from Holland in 1830. Since then they have prospered exceedingly. In 1832, when they became a separate province, they numbered 105; at their 75 years' jubilee in 1907, they numbered 1168. In 1832, two colleges with 167 students; in 1907, 15 colleges with 7564 students. Congregations of the Blessed Virgin, originally founded by a Belgian Jesuit, still flourish. In Belgium, 2529 such congregations have been aggregated to the Prima Primaria at Rome, and of these 156 are under Jesuit direction. To say nothing of missions and of retreats to convents, diocese, etc., the province had six houses of retreats, in which 245 retreats were given to 9840 persons. Belgium supplies the foreign missions of Eastern Bengal and the diocese of Galle in Ceylon. In the bush country of Chota Nagpur, there began, in 1887, a wonderful movement of aborigines (Kôles and Ouraons) toward the Church, and the Catholics in 1907 numbered 137,120 (i.e. 62,385 baptized and 74,735 catechumens). Over 35,000 conversions had been made in 1906, owing to the penetration of Christianity into the district of Jashpur. Besides this there are excellent colleges at Darjeeling and at Kurseong; at Candy in Ceylon the Jesuits have charge of the great pontifical seminary for educating native clergy for the whole of India. In all they have 442 churches, chapels, or stations, 479 schools, 14,467 scholars, with about 167,000 Catholics and 262 Jesuits, of whom 150 are priests. The Belgian Fathers have also a flourishing mission in the Congo, in the districts of Kwango and Stanley Pool, which was begun in 1893; in 1907, the converts already numbered 31,402.

Nowhere did the Jesuits get through the troubles inevitable to the interim more easily than in conservative England. The college at Liège continued to train their students in the old tradition, while the English bishop permitted the ex-Jesuits to maintain their missions and a sort of corporate discipline. But there were difficulties in recognizing the restored order, lest this should impede Emancipation (see Roman Catholic Relief Bill), which remained in doubt for so many years. Eventually Leo XII, on 1 Jan., 1829, declared the Bull of restoration to have force in England. After this the Society grew, slowly at first, but more rapidly afterwards. It had 73 members in 1815, 729 in 1910. The principal colleges are Stonyhurst (St. Omers, 1592, migrated to Bruges, 1762, to Liège, 1773, to Stonyhurst, 1794); Mount St. Mary's (1842); Liverpool (1842); Beaumont (1861); Glasgow (1870); Wimbledon, London (1887); Stanford Hill, London (1894); Leeds (1905). The 1910, the province had in England and Scotland, besides the usual novitiate and houses of study, two houses for retreats, 50 churches or chapels, attended by 148 priests. The congregations amounted to 97,641; baptisms, 3746; confessions 844,079; Easter confessions, 81,065; Communions, 1,303,591; converts, 725; extreme unctions, 1698; marriages, 782; children in elementary schools, 18,328. The Guiana mission (19 priests) has charge of about 45,000 souls; the Zambesi mission (35 priests), 4679 souls. (See also the articles MORRIS; PORTER; STEVENSON; COLERIDGE; HARPER.)

There were 24 ex-Jesuits in Ireland in 1776, but by 1803, only two. Of these, Father O'Callahan renewed his vows at Stonyhurst in 1803, and he and Father Betagh, who was eventually the last survivor, succeeded in finding some excellent postulants who made their novitiate in Stonyhurst, their studies at Palermo, and returned between 1812 and 1814, Father Betagh, who had become vicar-general of Dublin, having survived to the year 1811. Father Peter Kenney (d. 1841) was the first superior of the new mission, a man of remarkable eloquence, who when visitor of the Society in America (1830-1833) preached by invitation before Congress. From 1812-1813, he was vice-president of Maynooth College under Dr. Murray, the co-adjutor bishop of Dublin. The College of Clonowes Wood was begun in 1813; Tullabeg in 1818 (now a house of both probations); Dublin (1841); Mungret (Apostolic School, 1883). In 1883, too, the Irish bishops trusted to the Society the University College, Dublin, in connection with the late Royal University of Ireland. The marked superiority of this college to the richly endowed Queen's Colleges of Belfast, Cork, and Galway contributed much to establish the claim of the Irish Catholics to adequate university education. When this claim had been met by the present National University, the University College was returned to the Bishops. Five Fathers now hold teaching posts in the new university, and a hotel for students is being provided. Under the Act of Catholic Emancipation (q.v.) 58 Jesuits were registered in Ireland in 1830. In 1910 there were 367 in the province, of whom 100 are in Australia, where they have four colleges at and near Melbourne and Sydney, and missions in South Australia.

Under the direction of Bishop Carroll the members of the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen in Maryland were the chief factors in founding and maintaining Georgetown College from 1791 to 1805, when they resumed their relations with the Society still existing in Russia, and were so strongly reinforced by other members of the order from Europe that they could assume full charge of the institution, which they have since retained. On the Restoration of the Society in 1814 these nineteen fathers constituted the mission of the United States. For a time (1808 to 1817) some of them were employed in the Diocese of New York just erected, Father Anthony Kohlmann administering the diocese temporarily, others engaging in school and parish work. In 1816, Gonzaga College, Washington, D. C., was founded. In 1833, the mission of the United States became a province under the title of Maryland. Since then the history of the province is a record of development proportionate with the growth in Catholicity in the various fields specially cultivated by the Society. The colleges of the Holy Cross, Worcester (founded in 1843), Loyola College, Baltimore (1852), Boston College (1863) have educated great numbers of young men for the ministry and liberal professions. Up to 1879, members of the Society had been labouring in New York as part of the New York-Canada mission. In that year, they became affiliated with the first American province under the title Maryland-New York. This was added to the old province besides several residences and parishes, the colleges of St. Frances Xavier and St. John (now Fordham University), New York City, and St. Peter's College, Jersey City, New Jersey. St. Joseph's College, Philadelphia, was chartered in 1852, and the Brooklyn College opened in 1908. In the same year, Canisius College, and two parishes in Buffalo, and one parish in Boston for German Catholics, with 88 members of the German province were affiliated with this province, which has now (1912) 863 members with 12 colleges and 13 parishes, 1 house of higher study for the members of the Society, 1 novitiate in the New England and Middle States, and in the Virginias, with the Mission of Jamaica, British West Indies.

The Missouri province began as a mission from Maryland in 1823. Father Charles van Quickenborn, a Belgian, led several young men of his own nationality who were eager to work among the Indians, among them De Smet, Van Assche, and Verhaegen. As a rule, the tribes were too nomadic to evangelize, and the Indian schools attracted only a very small number of pupils. The missions among the Osage and Pottawatomie were more permanent and fruitful. It was with experience gathered in these fields that Father De Smet started his mission in the Rocky Mountains in 1840. A college, now St. Louis University, was opened in 1829. For ten years, 1838-48, a college was maintained at Grand Coteau, Louisiana; in 1840, St. Xavier's was opened at Cincinnati. With the aid of seventy-eight Jesuits, who came over from Italy and Switzerland in the years of revolution, 1838-48, two colleges were maintained, St. Joseph's, Bardstown, 1848 until 1861, another at Louisville, Kentucky, 1849-57. In this last year, a college was opened at Chicago. The mission became a province in 1863; since then, colleges have been opened at Detroit, Omaha, Milwaukee, St. Mary's (Kansas). By accession of part of the Buffalo mission when it was separated from the German province in 1907, the Missouri province acquired an additional 180 members, and colleges at Cleveland, Toledo, and Prarie du Chein, besides several residences and missions. Its members work in the Territory west of the Alleghenies as far as Kansas and Omaha, and from the lakes to the northern line of Tennessee and Oklahoma, and also in the Mission of British Honduras.

New Orleans

For five years, 1566-1571, members of the Peruvian province laboured among the Indians along the east coast of Florida, where Father Martines was massacred near St. Augustine in 1566. They penetrated into Virginia, where eight of their number were massacred by Indians at a station named Axaca, supposed to be on the Rappahannock River. Later, Jesuits from Canada, taking as their share of the Louisian territory the Illinois country and afterwards from the Ohio River to the gulf east of the Mississippi, worked among the Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Natchez, Yazoo. Two of their number were murdered by the Natchez, and one by the Chickasaw. Their expulsion in 1763 is the subject of a monograph by Carayon, "Documents inédits", XIV. Originally evangelized by Jesuits from the Lyons province, the New Orleans mission became a province in 1907, having seven colleges and four residences. It has now 255 members working in the territory north of the Gulf of Mexico to Missouri, and as far east as Virginia.

California

In 1907, A province was formed in California, comprising the missions of California, the Rocky Mountains, and Alaska (United States). The history of these missions is narrated under California Missions; Missions, Catholic Indian, of the United States; Alaska; Idaho; Sioux Indians.

New Mexico

In the mission of New Mexico ninety-three Jesuits are occupied in the college at Denver, Colorado, and in various missions in that state, Arizona, and New Mexico; the mission depends on the Italian province of Naples. In all the provinces of the United States there are 6 professional schools with 4363 students; 26 colleges with full courses, with 2417, and 34 preparatory and high schools with 8735 pupils.

Jesuits returned to Canada from St. Mary's College, Kentucky, which had been taken over, in 1834, by members of the province of France. When St. Mary's was given up in 1846, the staff came to take charge of St. John's College, Fordham, New York, thus forming with their fellows in Montreal the New York-Canada mission. This mission lasted till 1879, the Canadian division having by that year 1 college, 2 residences, 1 novitiate, 3 Indian missions, and 131 members. In 1888 the mission received $160,000 as its part of the sum paid by the Province of Quebec in compensation for the Jesuit estates appropriated under George III by imperial authority, and transferred to the authorities of the former Province of Canada, all parties thus agreeing that the full amount, $400,000, thus allowed was far short of the value of the estates, estimated at $2,000,000. The settlement was ratified by the pope, and the legislature of the Province of Quebec, and the balance was divided among the archdiocese of Quebec, Montreal, and other diocese, the Laval University besides receiving, in Montreal, $40,000 and in Quebec, $100,000.

In 1907 the mission was constituted a province. It now has two colleges in Montreal, one at St. Boniface with 263 students in the collegiate and 722 in the preparatory classes, 2 residences and churches in Quebec, one at Guelph, Indian missions, and missions in Alaska, and 309 members.

In Mexico (New Spain) Jesuit missionaries began their work in 1571, and prior to their expulsion, in 1767, they numbered 678 members of whom 468 were natives. They had over 40 colleges or seminaries, 5 residences, and 6 missionary districts, with 99 missions. The mission included Cuba, lower California, and as far south as Nicaragua. Three members of the suppressed Society who were in Mexico at the time of the Restoration formed a nucleus for its re-establishment there in 1816. In 1820, there were 32, of whom 15 were priests and 3 scholastics, in care of 4 colleges and 3 seminaries. They were dispersed in 1821. Although invited back in 1843, they could not agree to the limitations put on their activities by General Santa Anna, nor was the prospect favourable in the revolutionary condition of the country. Four of their number returning in 1854, the mission prospered, and in spite of two dispersions, 1859 and 1873, it has continued to increase in number and activity. In August, 1907, it was reconstituted a province, It has now 326 members with four colleges, 12 residences, 6 mission stations among the Tarahumara, and a novitiate (see also Mexico; Pious Fund of the Californias).