2081 lines
99 KiB
D
2081 lines
99 KiB
D
32 page printout
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
This disk, its printout, or copies of either
|
||
are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
**** ****
|
||
"Secret Instructions
|
||
of the
|
||
Society of Jesus"
|
||
|
||
or the
|
||
|
||
JESUIT PRIESTS
|
||
|
||
Originally circulated in Manuscript until 1612
|
||
when it was published in Cracow, Poland.
|
||
|
||
Taken From the Edition
|
||
Published in 1882 in San Francisco, California.
|
||
|
||
Reprinted from the copy in the
|
||
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
|
||
Washington, D.C.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
PREFACE
|
||
|
||
By PERITUS
|
||
|
||
The Jesuits are different. Every Catholic Priest knows this.
|
||
The Jesuits have an uncanny manner financially. Operating behind
|
||
the scenes, they seem very inconspicuous, but when the wills of
|
||
rich Catholics, and very many non-Catholics, are filed for probate.
|
||
strangely some Jesuit institution is there for a sizable amount.
|
||
|
||
They are so different in their priestly deportment and social
|
||
conduct too, that other priests feel ill at ease and uncomfortable
|
||
in their presence. A priestly "blast" never really gets organized
|
||
until after the Jesuits have gone home. The prevailing atmosphere,
|
||
when they are present, is one of uneasy suspicion. Other priests
|
||
feel as though the "Jebbies" will immediately take off for the
|
||
Bishop's mansion to stool on all of them. This of course is
|
||
ridiculous because most bishops are just as leary of the Jesuits as
|
||
are the working clergy.
|
||
|
||
Lay people also think that Jesuits are different. They speak
|
||
of the Society of Jesus as the "educated clergy," -- the "teaching
|
||
arm of the church". They have the "most schools" -- which is true.
|
||
The quality of those schools is another question. None of them, at
|
||
least in the U.S. has ever won an award for the volume of
|
||
scientists or philosophers it produced. Voltaire went to a Jesuit
|
||
school. He said later that he learned Latin and nonsense.
|
||
|
||
The Jesuits write the most books -- which is also true. In
|
||
fact it is said that any Jesuit who can pen one word after another
|
||
seems forced "under obedience" to write a book. Judging by a
|
||
perusal of them, the subject matter or the treatment seems of very
|
||
little consequence.
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
1
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
The laity are told that the Jesuits are smarter than other
|
||
priests because they go to school longer. The laity do not realize
|
||
that for some years those Jesuits are in their schools not as
|
||
students, but as teachers -- callow, young, inexperienced boys
|
||
carrying on the "great tradition" of Jesuit education.
|
||
|
||
The laity, Catholic and non-Catholic, are also told that the
|
||
Jesuits are much more selective in their choice of candidates than
|
||
other orders or diocesan seminaries. They pick only the smarter and
|
||
more promising youngsters and thus insure a continuing crop of
|
||
great scholars, teachers, philosophers, orators and, not mentioned,
|
||
ecclesiastical politicians.
|
||
|
||
The truth is, as clerical wags have put it, that the Jesuits
|
||
have just as large a percentage of lesser I.Q.'s as any other
|
||
church order but they are smart enough to hide the numbskulls in
|
||
their foreign missions to primitive countries. In fact, it has also
|
||
been said, that this is the principal reason why the Jesuits have
|
||
foreign missions.
|
||
|
||
However, in spite of these disparaging introductory
|
||
qualifications, there can be no gainsaying the fact that the
|
||
Jesuits possess a hard core of extremely intelligent, intensely
|
||
loyal, politically shrewd, carefully calculating individuals. This
|
||
has been so since the days of their founder, Ignatius of Loyola. A
|
||
catalog of their names would include a large percentage of the
|
||
great minds of the Roman Catholic Church since the sixteenth
|
||
century.
|
||
|
||
Any honest student of church history must admit that behind
|
||
the scenes, they have been the governing genius of the Vatican --
|
||
even though, more often than not, an evil genius.
|
||
|
||
The Jesuit Order is an absolute monarchy. Their general, "the
|
||
Black Pope" rules for life. The pattern of their own Order has
|
||
molded their thinking about all other political structures,
|
||
including, but not confined to, the Vatican.
|
||
|
||
The Jesuits fought the democratic aspirations of the French
|
||
when they helped engineer the "Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve".
|
||
They were the force behind Pope Pius IX and were his principal
|
||
counsellors. The Italian people knew that the Jesuits were the
|
||
strongest opponents of the Unification of Italy and hated them
|
||
accordingly. The Jesuits promoted the dogma of the Immaculate
|
||
Conception and of the Infallibility of the Pope. They wert, the
|
||
experts behind the experts of the First Vatican Council in 1870
|
||
just as they are of the Second Vatican Council.
|
||
|
||
It is obvious that an organization so vast (the largest in the
|
||
Roman Church) covering the globe, and engaged in so many
|
||
activities, some open and honorable, and others secret, delicate
|
||
and "jesuitical" would have to have a set of rules and regulations
|
||
for its own internal control much more detailed and stringent than
|
||
the conventional "rules" or "constitutions" of St. Benedict, St.
|
||
Francis or the other run-of-the-mill orders and congregations.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
2
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
Knowing also that the bulk of the Jesuits at the grass roots
|
||
did not possess the sagacity, shrewdness and ruthlessness of the
|
||
"boys" in the "back room" in Rome it was necessary that many
|
||
enterprises, such as "advising" rich widows, picking of rich men's
|
||
sons to be prospective Jesuits, or purging the Order of a hapless
|
||
Jesuit who began to think for himself, should be speeded out in
|
||
detail.
|
||
|
||
But above all things it was necessary that such regulations
|
||
should be kept secret. They were to be confided only to trusted
|
||
superiors and if accidentally found. they were to be denounced as
|
||
base forgeries.
|
||
|
||
They are called the "MONITA SECRETA SOCIETATIS JESU" -- "The
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus."
|
||
|
||
The average "lower-case" Jesuit, not being in on the know,
|
||
will sincerely tell indignant devout inquirers that these
|
||
regulations are fictitious. The smart "upper-case" Jesuit knows
|
||
that he had better deny their existence. He might not live to
|
||
regret his indiscretion,
|
||
|
||
The existence of the "Secret Regulations of the Jesuits" has
|
||
been proven beyond all possibility of successful legal refutation.
|
||
|
||
Most unbiased historians of the Roman Catholic Church and of
|
||
the Jesuits acknowledge the existence of the "Monita".
|
||
|
||
The British historian, Andrew Steinmetz, in his monumental,
|
||
precisely documented, "History of the Jesuits", published in London
|
||
in 1848, devotes several pages to an analysis of the genuineness
|
||
and history of the "Monita". He outlines the book with the same
|
||
succession of chapters and content as reproduced in this present
|
||
volume. He concludes that "secret regulations" did exist,
|
||
considering 1) overt statements of Jesuit Generals, 2) missing
|
||
chapters in early editions of the official "Constitutions", and 3)
|
||
the actual conduct of the Jesuits, in so many countries and for so
|
||
long. As proof of the latter he cites the catering to the rich, the
|
||
rapid acquisition of tremendous power and wealth and the
|
||
infiltration of the royal powers by the Jesuits as court
|
||
confessors, with their tolerance of licentiousness in order to gain
|
||
power. (Vol. III, p. 363, 364, 365, 366). Of the allegations
|
||
themselves he cites thousands of documented instances in the 1660
|
||
pages of his volumes.
|
||
|
||
The following paragraphs are from the autobiography of a very
|
||
precise and erudite ex-Jesuit. His death places him and his words
|
||
beyond the customary effective reprisals of the Order.
|
||
|
||
"The MONITA SECRETA SOCIETATIS JESU ('Secret Instruction of
|
||
the Society of Jesus') first appeared in print in Cracow in
|
||
1612, after they had already been circulated in manuscript
|
||
form. The editor seems to have been the ex-Jesuit Zahorowski.
|
||
Almost innumerable editions and reprints in all civilized
|
||
tongues followed one another. The latest edition was published
|
||
at Bamberg in 1904."
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
3
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
"The importance of the publication follows from the fact that,
|
||
directly after its appearance, the General of the Order,
|
||
Mutius Vitelleschi, twice (in 1616 and 1617) instructed the
|
||
German Jesuit, Gretser, a prominent theologian of the Order,
|
||
to refute it, and that up to most recent times Jesuit after
|
||
Jesuit has come forward to repudiate it."
|
||
|
||
"It is natural that the Jesuits themselves should deny the
|
||
genuineness in a flood of refutations. But such denials only
|
||
merit the belief or unbelief which the denial of every
|
||
defendant deserves. Only sound proof can turn the scale
|
||
against the genuineness of the Monita. And such proofs have
|
||
not been produced up to now by the Jesuits. Nor has any
|
||
convincing invalidation of the facts advanced on behalf of its
|
||
genuineness been produced.
|
||
|
||
"The advocates of their genuineness rely essentially on the
|
||
fact that the manuscript copies of the Monita, upon which the
|
||
printed edition is based, were to be found in Jesuit colleges.
|
||
The discovery of such copies in the colleges of Prague, Paris,
|
||
Roermond (Holland), Munich, and Paderborn is beyond question.
|
||
The copy in the Jesuit house in Paderborn was found 'in a
|
||
cupboard in the Rector's room' (in scriniis rectoris). The
|
||
manuscript copy at Munich, belonging to the contents of the
|
||
library of the Jesuit college of this place, which was
|
||
suppressed in 1773, was only found in 1870 in a secret recess
|
||
behind the altar of the old Jesuit Church of St. Michael at
|
||
Munich. It would be a decisive token of genuineness if it
|
||
could be proved positively that the Prague copy was already
|
||
there in 1611 -- i.e. before the first printed edition in
|
||
1612. J. Friedrich's statement makes this seem probable, but
|
||
not certain. What the Jesuit Duhr writes to the contrary is of
|
||
no value. It is certain, however, that the discovery in Prague
|
||
was so disagreeable to the Jesuits that the chief champion of
|
||
the spuriousness of the MONITA, the Jesuit Forer, considered
|
||
it advisable to pass it over in silence in his work of
|
||
repudiation, Anatomia Anatomiae Societatis Jesu. On the other
|
||
hand, he zealously demonstrated -- what no one disputed --
|
||
that the copy at Paderborn was only brought to light after the
|
||
first edition had been published. Forer's silence is the more
|
||
remarkable, as a manuscript note, intended for his book,
|
||
treats the Prague discovery as a fact. The saying that those
|
||
who keep silence when they could and should speak seem to give
|
||
consent, comes to my mind in the case of this ominous
|
||
silence."
|
||
|
||
These quoted words were written by a German ex-Jesuit, Count
|
||
Von Hoensbroech, after he left the Jesuit priesthood in 1900*
|
||
|
||
"Fourteen Years a Jesuit" Paul Von Hoensbroech, Cassel & Co.
|
||
Ltd. London, New York 1911, Vol II p. 7-9
|
||
|
||
The chapter headings are almost verbatim identical with the chapter
|
||
headings of the text reproduced in this booklet.
|
||
|
||
And therein lies a story.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
4
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
The text of the "Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus"
|
||
reproduced here was found beneath the pallet on an adobe bed in a
|
||
cottage in the Andes Mountains of Peru about a century ago.
|
||
|
||
Students of the Incas recall that prior to the expedition of
|
||
the National Geographic Magazine under Hiram Bingham, in 1911,
|
||
archaeologists from European countries probed the ruins of this
|
||
people, one of the greatest civilizations in history.
|
||
|
||
In 1870 a French archeologist slipped unobtrusively into the
|
||
office of the Secretary of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in San
|
||
Francisco, California.
|
||
|
||
He had been sent into the remote recesses of the Andes, where
|
||
Pizarro and his army had conquered the Incas more than three
|
||
centuries before. He had rented a room in a tiny village. This he
|
||
used as a base of his operations. To this spot he returned
|
||
periodically to rest from the dangerously high altitudes and to
|
||
write his reports for shipment back to France.
|
||
|
||
While he was away, the family frequently rented the same room
|
||
to overnight guests. One of these happened to be a Jesuit official.
|
||
On his departure he forgot a little book which he had hidden under
|
||
the mattress. The French archeologist accidentally found it.
|
||
|
||
It was the "Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus" --
|
||
the top classified manual of procedure for the trusted leaders of
|
||
the Jesuit Order.
|
||
|
||
It was in Latin and bore the seal, signature and attestation
|
||
of the General and Secretary of the Order in Rome.
|
||
|
||
For the next few days the Frenchman labored furiously
|
||
translating the work in stenographic notes into French. He then
|
||
replaced the book and left.
|
||
|
||
The Jesuit returned in a few days inquiring nervously about
|
||
his little black packet. He also wanted to know if anyone had
|
||
occupied the room since his departure. On learning of the
|
||
archeologist he began a search so relentless that the Frenchman had
|
||
to leave Peru. He finally reached San Francisco and entrusted his
|
||
precious but dangerous burden to Edwin A. Sherman 32 degree Mason,
|
||
the Secretary of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in California.
|
||
|
||
Mr. Sherman included the "Secret Instructions" in his book
|
||
"The Engineer Corps of Hell" published in 1882.
|
||
|
||
For several years Edwin Sherman was the Masonic Historian of
|
||
California. He was highly esteemed for his great accuracy and
|
||
dependability. This can be verified now by anyone who will inquire
|
||
about him of the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Freemasonry
|
||
at the Grand Lodge office in the Masonic Memorial Temple, 1111
|
||
California St., San Francisco, Calif.
|
||
|
||
Another point that emphasizes the credibility of this work is
|
||
the identity of this copy, found in the fantastically inaccessible
|
||
heights of the Andes in Peru, with the copy quoted by Count Von
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
5
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
Hoensbroech in Germany, Considering that Von Hoensbroech's
|
||
rendition was translated from the German and Sherman's from Latin
|
||
to French and then into English the similarity is still striking.
|
||
|
||
Here are a few examples:
|
||
|
||
Sherman: Ch. XI -- "How We Must Conduct Ourselves Unitedly Against
|
||
Those Who Have Been Expelled From the
|
||
Society."
|
||
|
||
Von Hoensbroech: "What Attitude Should Be Taken By Our Followers
|
||
In Regard to Those Dismissed From the Order?"
|
||
|
||
Sherman: Ch. VI -- "OF the Mode of Attracting Rich Widows."
|
||
|
||
Von Hoensbroech: "How May Rich Widows be Well Disposed Towards
|
||
the Society of Jesus?"
|
||
|
||
Sherman: Ch. IV -- "OF That Which We Must Charge the Preachers and
|
||
Confessors of the Great of the Earth."
|
||
|
||
Von Hoensbroech: "What Attitude Must be Taken up by
|
||
Court-Chaplains and Princely Confessors?"
|
||
|
||
The text that follows is one of the most effective documents
|
||
ever written. The tremendous wealth and power of the Jesuit Order
|
||
is ample proof of that contention.
|
||
|
||
Those who have observed the Jesuits from the vantage point of
|
||
the secular clergy or of another order have often wondered at their
|
||
astounding success in becoming the recipients of wealthy estates,
|
||
of influencing prominent citizens, Catholic and non-Catholic alike,
|
||
into endorsing and endowing their colleges and universities, of
|
||
instilling their scholastics and other students with a spirit of
|
||
self-dedication and self immolation that would make both the Pope
|
||
and Hitler feel frustrated.
|
||
|
||
A careful study of the "Secret Instructions" will give the
|
||
answer. Here is a plan of financial, intellectual and military
|
||
strategy that should make the planners of West Point or Number 10
|
||
Downing Street feel inferior.
|
||
|
||
Check, for example the following:
|
||
|
||
Ch. II -- "THE MANNER WITH WHICH THE FATHERS OF THE SOCIETY MUST
|
||
CONDUCT THEMSELVES TO ACQUIRE AND PRESERVE THE
|
||
FAMILIARITY OF PRINCES, MAGNATES, AND POWERFUL AND RICH
|
||
PERSONS."
|
||
|
||
(Think then how well the Jesuits have done with the local
|
||
State Bar, the Chamber of Commerce, national corporations, wealthy
|
||
foundations, in comparison with the failure of the local corner
|
||
parish clergy. Think how well Georgetown, Fordham, Marquette, and
|
||
Creighton have done in comparison with the Dominicans, the
|
||
Sulpicians or the Franciscans!)
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
Ch. VI -- "OF THE MODE OF ATTRACTING RICH WIDOWS."
|
||
|
||
Just read them and weep, brethren! Read especially this
|
||
sentence p. 8 "Insist upon the advantages of widowhood, and the
|
||
inconvenience of marriage, in particular that of a repeated one,
|
||
and the dangers to which she will be exposed, relatively to her
|
||
particular businesses into which we are desirous of penetrating."
|
||
|
||
Ch. XI -- "HOW WE MUST CONDUCT OURSELVES
|
||
UNITEDLY AGAINST THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN EXPELLED
|
||
FROM THE SOCIETY."
|
||
|
||
This is a portrait of the pattern of persecution and
|
||
annihilation that every ex-Jesuit, and in truth, every past ex-
|
||
priest knows, and every future dissident can expect.
|
||
|
||
Ch. XV -- "HOW THE COMPANY MUST BE CONDUCTED
|
||
WITH THE MONKS AND NUNS."
|
||
|
||
(Meaning other religious Orders -- of course)
|
||
|
||
Ch. XVI -- "HOW WE MUST MAKE PROFESSION
|
||
OF DESPISING RICHES."
|
||
|
||
The gem of them all -- really meaning "How we must pretend to
|
||
despise riches."
|
||
|
||
What more vicious enemies could the bishops and diocesan
|
||
clergy have than those Jesuit Monitors who wrote: "We must inquire
|
||
into and note the defects of the other fathers and when we find
|
||
them, we must divulge them among our faithful friends as though
|
||
condoling over them." (Ch. V. p. 17)
|
||
|
||
Read the Jesuits' opinion of other religious orders "calling
|
||
attention to the indolence and stupidity of the Monks as if they
|
||
were cattle." (Ch. XVII P. 41)
|
||
|
||
The Jesuits themselves should be concerned with the fact that
|
||
history does repeat itself. In Mexico, in Peru, in France, in
|
||
Italy, in Germany, in Spain, in Portugal, in Paraguay, in Colombia,
|
||
in Brazil, in Argentina, in Chile, in Austria and in very many
|
||
other countries the Jesuits gained so much wealth, in land, in
|
||
buildings and in money, that others became jealous.
|
||
|
||
In every country the Jesuits were thrown out. Their property
|
||
and wealth was confiscated.
|
||
|
||
The Jesuits are now repeating their history in the United
|
||
States of America. Their landed wealth and holdings are fabulous.
|
||
|
||
What makes them think that history will not inexorably and
|
||
inevitably repeat itself again here in America?
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
SECRET INSTRUCTIONS
|
||
OF THE
|
||
SOCIETY OF JESUS
|
||
|
||
PREFACE
|
||
|
||
These particular instructions must be guarded and kept with
|
||
careful attention by the superiors, communicated with prudent
|
||
caution to a few of the professors; in the meantime there does not
|
||
exist any other thing so good for the Society; but we are charged
|
||
with the most profound silence, and to make a false show, should
|
||
they be written by any one though founded in the experience we have
|
||
had. As there are various professors who are in these secrets, the
|
||
Society has fixed the rule, that those who know these reserved
|
||
instructions that they cannot pass in any one religious Order,
|
||
whether it be of the Carthusians, to cause them to retire from that
|
||
in which they live, and the inviolable silence with which they are
|
||
to be guarded, all of which has been confirmed by the Holy See.
|
||
Much care must be taken that they do not get out; for these
|
||
counsels in the hands of strange persons to the Society, because
|
||
they will give a sinister interpretation invidious to our
|
||
situation.
|
||
|
||
If (unless God does not permit) we reach success, we must
|
||
openly deny that the Society shelters such thoughts and to take
|
||
care that it is so affirmed by those of the Society that they are
|
||
ignorant by not having been communicated, which they can protest
|
||
with truth, that they know nothing of such instructions; and that
|
||
there does not exist other than the general printed or manuscripts,
|
||
which they can present, to cause any doubt to vanish. The superiors
|
||
must with prudence and discretion, inquire if any of the Society
|
||
have shown these instructions to strangers; for neither for
|
||
himself, or for another, they must be copied by no one, without
|
||
permission of the General or of the Provincial; and when it is
|
||
feared that anyone has given notice of these instructions, we shall
|
||
not be able to guard so rigorous a secret; and we must assert to
|
||
the contrary, all that is said in them, it will be so given to be
|
||
understood, that they only show to all, to be proved, and
|
||
afterwards they will be dismissed.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER 1.
|
||
|
||
THE MANNER OF PROCEDURE WITH WHICH THE SOCIETY
|
||
MUST BE CONDUCTED WHEN CONSIDERING THE COMMENCING
|
||
OF SOME FOUNDATION.
|
||
|
||
1. To capture the will of the inhabitants of a country, it
|
||
is very important to manifest the intent of the Society, in the
|
||
manner prescribed in the regulations in which it is said, that the
|
||
Society must labor with such ardor and force for the salvation of
|
||
their neighbor as for themselves. For the better inducement of this
|
||
idea, the most opportunely that we practice the most humble
|
||
offices, visiting the poor, the afflicted, and the imprisoned. It
|
||
is very convenient to confess with much promptness, and to hear the
|
||
confessions, showing indifference, without teasing the penitents;
|
||
for this, the most notable inhabitants will admire our fathers and
|
||
esteem them; for the great charity they have for all, and the
|
||
novelty of the subject.
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
2. To have in mind that it is necessary to ask with religious
|
||
modesty, the means for exercising the duties of the Society, and
|
||
that it is needful to procure and acquire benevolence, principally
|
||
of the secular ecclesiastics, and of persons of authority, that may
|
||
be conceived necessary.
|
||
|
||
3. When called to go to the most distant places, where alms
|
||
are to be received, they are to be accepted, no matter how small
|
||
they may be, after having marked out the necessities of ourselves.
|
||
Notwithstanding, it will be very convenient at the moment to give
|
||
those alms to the poor, for the edification of those who do not
|
||
have an exact understanding of the Society; and, "but we must in
|
||
advance be more liberal with ourselves."
|
||
|
||
4. All must labor as if we were inspired by the same spirit;
|
||
and each one must study to acquire the same styles, with the object
|
||
of uniformity among so great a number of persons, edifying the
|
||
whole; those who do the contrary must be expelled as pernicious.
|
||
|
||
5. In a beginning it is not convenient to purchase property;
|
||
but in case they can be found, some good sites may be bought,
|
||
saying that they are to belong to other persons, using the names of
|
||
some faithful friends, who will guard the secret. The better to
|
||
make our poverty apparent, the property nearest our college must
|
||
belong to colleges the most distant, that we can prevent the
|
||
princes and magistrates from ever knowing that the income of the
|
||
Society has a fixed point.
|
||
|
||
6. We must not ourselves go out to reside to form colleges,
|
||
except to the rich cities; for in this we must imitate Christ, who
|
||
remained in Jerusalem; and as he alone, passed by the less
|
||
considerable populations.
|
||
|
||
7. We must obtain and acquire of the widows all the money that
|
||
we can, presenting ourselves at repeated times to their sight our
|
||
extreme necessity.
|
||
|
||
8. The Superior over each province is the one to whom we must
|
||
account with certainty, the income of the same; but the amount to
|
||
the treasurer at Rome, it is, and must always be, an impenetrable
|
||
mystery.
|
||
|
||
9. It is for us to preach and say in all parts and in all
|
||
conversations, that we have come to teach the young and aid the
|
||
people; and this without interest in any single species and without
|
||
exception of persons, and that we are not so onerous to the people
|
||
as other religious orders.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER II.
|
||
|
||
THE MANNER WITH WHICH THE FATHERS OF THE ORDER
|
||
MUST CONDUCT THEMSELVES TO ACQUIRE AND PRESERVE
|
||
THE FAMILIARITY OF PRINCES, MAGNATES AND POWERFUL
|
||
AND RICH PERSONS.
|
||
|
||
1. It is necessary to do all that is possible to gain
|
||
completely the attentions and affections of princes and persons of
|
||
the most consideration; for that, who, being on the outside, but in
|
||
advance, all of them will be constituted our defenders.
|
||
|
||
2. As we have learned by experience that princes and
|
||
potentates are generally inclined to the favor of the
|
||
ecclesiastics, when these disseminate their odious actions, and
|
||
when they give an interpretation that they favor, as is to be noted
|
||
among the married, contract with their relations or allies; or in
|
||
other similar things; assembling much with them, to animate those
|
||
who may be found in this case, saying to them that we confide in
|
||
the assurance of the exemptions, that by intervention of us
|
||
fathers, which the Pope will concede, if he is made to see the
|
||
causes, and will present other examples of similar things,
|
||
exhibiting at the same time the sentiments that we favor, under the
|
||
pretext of the common good and THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD that is the
|
||
object of the Society.
|
||
|
||
3. If at this same assembly the prince treats of doing
|
||
something, that will not be agreeable to all the great men, for
|
||
which we are to stir up and investigate, meanwhile, counseling
|
||
others to conform with the prince, without ever descending to treat
|
||
of particulars, for fear there may not be a successful issue of the
|
||
matter, for which the Society will be imputed blame; and for this,
|
||
if this action shall be disapproved, there will be advertences
|
||
presented to the contrary that may be absolutely prohibited and put
|
||
in jeopardy, the authority of some of the fathers, of whom it can
|
||
be said with certainty, that they have not had notice of the Secret
|
||
Instructions; for that, it can be affirmed with an oath, that the
|
||
calumny to the Society, is not true in respect to that which is
|
||
imputed to it.
|
||
|
||
4. To gain the good will of Princes, it will be very
|
||
convenient to insinuate with skill; and for third persons, that we
|
||
fathers, are a means to discharge honorable and favorable duties in
|
||
the courts of other kings and princes, and more than any one else
|
||
in that of the Pope. By this means we can recommend ourselves and
|
||
the Society; for the same, no one must be charged with this
|
||
commission but the most zealous persons and well versed in our
|
||
institute.
|
||
|
||
5. Aiming especially to bring over the will of the favorites
|
||
of princes and of their servants, by means of presents and pious
|
||
offices, that they may give faithful notice to us fathers of the
|
||
character and inclinations of the princes and great men. Of this
|
||
manner the Society can gain with facility as much to one as to
|
||
others.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
6. The experience we have had, has made us acquainted with the
|
||
many advantages that have been taken by the Society of its
|
||
intervention in the marriages of the House of Austria, and of those
|
||
which have been effected in other kingdoms, France, Poland, and in
|
||
various duchies. Forasmuch assembling, proposing with prudence,
|
||
selecting choice persons who may be friends and families of the
|
||
relatives, and of the friends of the Society.
|
||
|
||
7. It will be easy to gain the princesses, making use of their
|
||
valets; by that, coming to feed and nourish with relations of
|
||
friendship, by being located at the entrance in all parts, and thus
|
||
become acquainted with the most intimate secrets of the familiars.
|
||
|
||
8. In regard to the direction of the consciences of great men,
|
||
we confessors must follow the writers who concede the greater
|
||
liberty of conscience. The contrary of this is to appear too
|
||
religious; for that they will decide to leave others and submit
|
||
entirely to our direction and counsels.
|
||
|
||
9. It is necessary to make reference to all the merits of the
|
||
Society; to the princes and prelates, and to as many as can lend
|
||
much aid to the Society, after having shown the transcendency of
|
||
its great privileges.
|
||
|
||
10. Also, it will be useful to demonstrate, with prudence and
|
||
skill, such ample power which the Society has, to absolve, even in
|
||
the reserved cases, compared with that of other pastors and
|
||
priests; also, that of dispensing with the fasts, and of the rights
|
||
which they must ask and pay, in the impediments of marriage, by
|
||
which means many persons will recur to us, whom it will be our duty
|
||
to make agreeable.
|
||
|
||
11. It is not the less useful to invite them to our sermons,
|
||
assemblies, harangues, declamations, etc., composing odes in their
|
||
honor, dedicating literary works or conclusions; and if we can for
|
||
the future, give dinners and greetings of divers modes.
|
||
|
||
12. It will be very convenient to take to our care the
|
||
reconciliation of the great, in the quarrels and enmities that
|
||
divide them; then by this method we can enter, little by little,
|
||
into the acquaintance of their most intimate friends and secrets;
|
||
and we can serve ourselves to that party which will be most in
|
||
favor of that which we present.
|
||
|
||
13. If there should be some one at the service of a monarch or
|
||
prince, and he were an enemy of our Society, it is necessary to
|
||
procure well for ourselves better than for others, making him a
|
||
friend, employing promises, favors, and advances, which shall be in
|
||
proportion to the same monarch or prince.
|
||
|
||
14. No one shall recommend to a prince any one, nor make
|
||
advances to any who have gone out from us, being outside of our
|
||
Society, and in particular to those who voluntarily verified, for
|
||
yet when they dissimulate they will always maintain an
|
||
inextinguishable hatred to the Society.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
In fine, each one must procure and search for methods to
|
||
increase the affection and favor of princes, of the powerful, and
|
||
of the magistrates of each population, that whenever occasion is
|
||
offered to support, we can do much with efficacy and good faith, in
|
||
benefiting ourselves, though contrary to their relations, allies
|
||
and friends.
|
||
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER III.
|
||
|
||
HOW THE SOCIETY MUST BE CONDUCTED WITH THE GREAT
|
||
AUTHORITIES IN THE STATE, AND IN CASE THEY ARE NOT
|
||
RICH WE MUST LEND OURSELVES TO OTHERS.
|
||
|
||
1. The care consigned to us, that we must do all that is
|
||
possible, for to conquer the great; but it is also necessary to
|
||
gain their favor to combat our enemies.
|
||
|
||
2. It is very conducive to value their authority, prudence and
|
||
counsels, and induce them to despise wealth, at the same time that
|
||
we procure gain and employ those that can redeem the Society;
|
||
tacitly valuing their names, for acquisition of temporal goods if
|
||
they inspire sufficient confidence.
|
||
|
||
3. It is also necessary to employ the ascendant of the
|
||
powerful, to temper the malevolence of the persons of a lower
|
||
sphere and of the rabble against our Society.
|
||
|
||
4. It is necessary to utilize, whenever we can, the bishops,
|
||
prelates and other superior ecclesiastics, according to the
|
||
diversity of reason, and the inclination we manifest.
|
||
|
||
5. In some points it will be sufficient to obtain of the
|
||
prelates and curates, that which it is possible to do, that their
|
||
subjects respect the society; and that obstructing the exercise of
|
||
its functions among those who have the greatest power, as in
|
||
Germany, Poland, etc. It will be necessary to exhibit the most
|
||
distinguished attentions for that, mediating its authority and that
|
||
of the princes, monasteries, parishes, priorates, patronates, the
|
||
foundations of the churches and the pious places, can come to our
|
||
power. Because we can with more facility where the Catholics will
|
||
be found mixed with heretics. It is necessary to make such prelates
|
||
see the utility and merit that we have in all this, and that never
|
||
will they have so much valuation from the priests, friars, and for
|
||
the future from the faithful. If making these changes, it is
|
||
necessary to publicly praise their zeal, although written, and to
|
||
perpetuate the memory of their actions.
|
||
|
||
6. For this it is necessary to labor, to the end, that the
|
||
prelates will place in the hands of us fathers, as confessors and
|
||
counsellors; and if they aspire to more elevated positions in the
|
||
Court of Rome, we must unite in their favor and aid their
|
||
pretensions with all our forces, and by means of our influence.
|
||
|
||
7. We must be watchful that when the bishops are instituting
|
||
principal colleges and parochial churches, that the faculties are
|
||
taken from the Society, and placed in both vicarious
|
||
establishments, with the charge of cures, and that the Superior of
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
the Society to be, that all the government of these churches shall
|
||
pertain to us, and that the parishioners shall be our subjects, of
|
||
the method that all can be placed in them.
|
||
|
||
8. Where there are those of the academies who have been driven
|
||
out from us, and are contrary; where the Catholics or the heretics
|
||
obstruct our installation, we will compound with the prelates, and
|
||
make ourselves the owners of the first cathedrals; for thus shall
|
||
we make them to know the necessities of the Society.
|
||
|
||
9. Over all, we must be very certain to procure the protection and
|
||
affection of the prelates of the Church, for the cases of
|
||
beatification or canonization of ourselves; in whose subjects
|
||
convened further, to obtain letters from the powerful and of the
|
||
princes, that the decisions may be promptly attained in the
|
||
Catholic Court.
|
||
|
||
10. If it shall be accounted that the prelates or magnates should
|
||
send commissioned representatives, we must put forth all ardor,
|
||
that no other priests, who are in dispute with us, shall be sent;
|
||
for the reason, that they shall not communicate their
|
||
animadversion, discrediting us in the cities and provinces we
|
||
inhabit; and that if they pass by other provinces and cities, where
|
||
there are colleges, they will be received with affection and
|
||
kindness, and be so splendidly treated as a religious modesty will
|
||
permit.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER IV.
|
||
|
||
OF THAT WHICH WE MUST CHARGE THE PREACHERS
|
||
AND CONFESSORS OF THE GREAT OF THE EARTH.
|
||
|
||
1. Those of us who may be directed to the princes and
|
||
illustrious men, of the manner in which we must appear before them,
|
||
with inclination unitedly "to the greater glory of God," obtaining
|
||
-- with its austerity of conscience, that the same princes are
|
||
persuaded of it; for this direction we must not travel in a
|
||
principle to the exterior or political government, but gradually
|
||
and imperceptibly.
|
||
|
||
2. Forasmuch there will be opportunity and conducive notices
|
||
at repeated times, that the distribution of honors and dignities in
|
||
the Republic is an act of justice; and that in a great manner it
|
||
will be offending God, if the princes do not examine themselves and
|
||
cease carrying their passions, protesting to the same with
|
||
frequency and severity, that we do not desire to mix in the
|
||
administration of the State; but when it shall become necessary to
|
||
so express ourselves thus, to have your weight to fill the mission
|
||
that is recommended. Directly that the sovereigns are well
|
||
convinced of this, it will be very convenient to give an idea of
|
||
the virtues that may be found to adorn those that are selected for
|
||
the dignities and principal public changes; procuring then and
|
||
recommending the true friends of the Society; notwithstanding, we
|
||
must not make it openly for ourselves, but by means of our friends
|
||
who have intimacy with the prince that it is not for us to talk him
|
||
into the disposition of making them.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
3. For this watchfulness our friends must instruct the
|
||
confessors and preachers of the Society near the persons capable of
|
||
discharging any duty, that over all, they must be generous to the
|
||
Society; they must also keep their names, that they may insinuate
|
||
with skill, and upon opportune occasions to princes, well for
|
||
themselves or by means of others.
|
||
|
||
4. The preachers and confessors will always present themselves
|
||
so that they must comport with the princes, lovable and
|
||
affectionate, without ever shocking them in sermons, nor in
|
||
particular conversations, presenting that which rejects all fear,
|
||
and exhorting them in particular to faith, hope and justice.
|
||
|
||
5. Never receive gifts made to any one in particular, but that
|
||
for the contrary; but picture the distress in which the Society or
|
||
college may be found, as all are alike; having to be satisfied with
|
||
assigning each one a room in the house, modestly furnished; and
|
||
noticing that your garb is not over nice; and assist with
|
||
promptness to the aid and counsel of the most miserable persons of
|
||
the palace; but that you do not say it of them, but only those who
|
||
have agreed to serve the powerful.
|
||
|
||
6. Whenever the death occurs of any one employed in the
|
||
palace, we must take care of speaking with anticipation, that they
|
||
fail in the nomination of a successor, in their affection for the
|
||
Society; but giving no appearance to cause suspicion that it was
|
||
the intent of usurping the government of the prince; for which, it
|
||
must not be from us that it is said; take a part direct; but
|
||
assembling of faithful or influential friends who may be found in
|
||
a position of rousing the hate of one and another until they become
|
||
inflamed.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER V.
|
||
|
||
OF THE MODE OF CONDUCTING THE SOCIETY
|
||
WITH RESPECT TO OTHER ECCLESIASTICS WHO HAVE
|
||
THE SAME DUTIES AS OURSELVES IN THE CHURCH.
|
||
|
||
1. It is necessary to help with valor these persons, and
|
||
manifest in their due time to the princes and lords that are always
|
||
ours, and being constituted in power, that our Society contains
|
||
essentially the perfection of all the other orders, with the
|
||
exception of singing and manifesting an exterior of austerity in
|
||
the mode of life and in dress; and that if in some points they
|
||
excel the communities of the Society, this shines with greater
|
||
splendor in the Church of God.
|
||
|
||
2. We must inquire into and note the defects of the other
|
||
fathers (non-Jesuit priests), and when we find them, we must
|
||
divulge them among our faithful friends, as condoling over them; we
|
||
must show that such fathers do not discharge with certainty, that
|
||
we do ourselves the functions, that some and others recommend.
|
||
|
||
3. It is necessary that the fathers of our Society oppose with
|
||
all their power the other fathers who intend to found houses of
|
||
education to instruct the youths among the populations where ours
|
||
are found teaching with acceptation and approval; and it will be
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
very convenient to indicate our projects to princes and
|
||
magistrates, that such people will excite disturbances and
|
||
commotions if they are not prohibited from teaching; and that in
|
||
the last result, the damage will fall upon the educated, by being
|
||
instructed by a bad method, without any necessity; posting them
|
||
that the Society is sufficient to teach the youth. In case the
|
||
fathers bear letters of the Pontificate, or recommendations from
|
||
the Cardinals, we must work in opposition to them, making the
|
||
princes and great men to point out to the Pope the merits of the
|
||
Society and its intelligence for the pacific instruction of the
|
||
youths, to which end, we must have and obtain certifications of the
|
||
authorities upon our good conduct and sufficiency.
|
||
|
||
4. Having notwithstanding to form duties, our fathers in
|
||
displaying singular proofs of our virtue and erudition, making them
|
||
to exercise the alumni (graduates) in their studies in methods of
|
||
functions, scholars of diversion, capable of drawing applause,
|
||
making for supposition, these representations in the presence of
|
||
the great magistrates and concurrence of other classes.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER VI.
|
||
|
||
OF THE MODE OF ATTRACTING RICH WIDOWS.
|
||
|
||
1. We must elect effective fathers already advanced in years,
|
||
of lively complexion and conversation, agreeable to visit these
|
||
ladies, and whence they can promptly note in them appreciation or
|
||
affection for our Society; making offerings of good works and the
|
||
merits of the same; that, if they accept them, and succeed in
|
||
having them frequent our temples, we must assign to them a
|
||
confessor, who will be able of guiding them in the ways that are
|
||
proper, in the state of widowhood, making the enumeration and
|
||
praises of satisfaction that should accompany such a state; making
|
||
them believe and yet with certainty that they who serve as such, is
|
||
a merit for etemal life, being efficacious to relieve them from the
|
||
pains of purgatory.
|
||
|
||
2. The same confessor will propose to them to make and adorn
|
||
a little chapel or oratory in their own house, to confirm their
|
||
religious exercises, because by this method we can shorten the
|
||
communication, more easily hindering those who visit others;
|
||
although if they have a particular chaplain, and will content to go
|
||
to him to celebrate the mass, making opportune advertencies to her
|
||
who confesses, to the effect and treating her as being left to be
|
||
overpowered by said Chaplain.
|
||
|
||
3. We must endeavor skillfully but gently to cause them to
|
||
change respectively to the Order and to the method of the House,
|
||
and to conform as the circumstances of the person will permit, to
|
||
whom they are directed, their propensities, their piety, and yet to
|
||
the place and situation of the edifice.
|
||
|
||
4. We must not omit to have removed, little by little, the
|
||
servants of the house that are not of the same mind with ourselves,
|
||
proposing that they be replaced by those persons who are dependent
|
||
on us, or who desire to be of the Society; for by this method we
|
||
can be placed in the channel of communication of whatever passes in
|
||
the family.
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
5. The constant watch of the confessor will have to be, that
|
||
the widow shall be disposed to depend on him totally, representing
|
||
that her advances in grace are necessarily bound to this
|
||
submission.
|
||
|
||
6. We are to induce her to the frequency of the sacraments,
|
||
and especially that of penitency, making her to give account of her
|
||
deeper thoughts and intentions; inviting her to listen to her
|
||
confessor, when he is to preach particular promising orations;
|
||
recommending equally the recitation each day of the litanies and
|
||
the examination of conscience.
|
||
|
||
7. It will be very necessary in the case of a general
|
||
confession, to enter extensively into all of her inclinations; for
|
||
that it will be to determine her, although she may be found in the
|
||
hands of others.
|
||
|
||
8. Insist upon the advantages of widowhood, and the inconvenience
|
||
of marriage; in particular that of a repeated one, and the dangers
|
||
to which she will be exposed, relatively to her particular
|
||
businesses into which we are desirous of penetrating.
|
||
|
||
9. We must cause her to talk of men whom she dislikes, and to
|
||
see if she takes notice of anyone who is agreeable, and represent
|
||
to her that he is a man of bad life; procuring by these means
|
||
disgust of one and another, and repugnant to unite with anyone.
|
||
|
||
10. When the confessor has become convinced that she has decided to
|
||
follow the life of widowhood, he must then proceed to counsel her
|
||
to dedicate herself to a spiritual life, but not to a monastic one,
|
||
whose lack of accommodations will show how they live; in a word, we
|
||
must proceed to speak of the spiritual life of Pauline and of
|
||
Eustace, &c. The confessor will conduct her at last, that having
|
||
devoted the widow to chastity, to not less than for two or three
|
||
years, she will then be made to renounce a second nuptial forever.
|
||
|
||
In this case she will be found to have discarded all sorts of
|
||
relations with men, and even the diversions between her relatives
|
||
and acquaintances, we must protest that she must unite more closely
|
||
to God. With regard to the ecclesiastics who visit her, or to whom
|
||
she goes out to visit, when we cannot keep her separate and apart
|
||
from all others, we must labor that those with whom she treats
|
||
shall be recommended by ourselves or by those who are devoted to
|
||
us.
|
||
|
||
11. In this state, we must inspire her to give alms, under the
|
||
direction, as she will suppose, or her spiritual father; then it is
|
||
of great importance that they shall be employed with utility; more,
|
||
being careful that there shall be discretion in counsel, causing
|
||
her to see that inconsiderate alms are the frequent causes of many
|
||
sins, or serve to torment at last, that they are not the fruit, nor
|
||
the merit which produced them.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
16
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER VII.
|
||
|
||
SYSTEM WHICH MUST BE EMPLOYED WITH WIDOWS
|
||
AND METHODS OF DISPOSING OF THEIR PROPERTY.
|
||
|
||
1. It will be necessary to inspire her to continue to
|
||
persevere in her devotion and the exercise of good works and of
|
||
disposition, in not permitting a week to pass, to give away some
|
||
part of her overplus, in honor of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Virgin
|
||
and of the Saint she has chosen for her patron; giving this to the
|
||
poor of the Society or for the ornamenting of its churches, until
|
||
she has absolutely disposed of the first fruits of her property as
|
||
in other times did the Egyptians.
|
||
|
||
2. When the widows, the more generally to practice their alms,
|
||
must be given to know with perseverance, their liberality in favor
|
||
of the Society; and they are to be assured that they are
|
||
participants in all the merits of the same, and of the particular
|
||
indulgences of the Provincial; and if they are persons of much
|
||
consideration, of the General of the Order.
|
||
|
||
3. The widows who having made vows of chastity, it will be
|
||
necessary for them to renew them twice per annum, conforming to the
|
||
custom that we have established; but permitting them
|
||
notwithstanding, that day some honest freedom from restraint by our
|
||
fathers.
|
||
|
||
4. They must be frequently visited, treating them agreeably;
|
||
referring them to spirited and diverting histories, conformable to
|
||
the character and inclination of each one.
|
||
|
||
5. But that they may not abate, we must not use too much rigor
|
||
with them in the confessional; that it may not be, that they by
|
||
having empowered others of their benevolence, that we do not lose
|
||
confidence of recovering their adhesion, having to proceed in all
|
||
cases with great skill and caution, being aware of the inconstancy
|
||
natural to woman.
|
||
|
||
6. It is necessary to have them do away with the habit of
|
||
frequenting other churches, in particular those of convents; for
|
||
which it is necessary to often remind them, that in our Order there
|
||
are possessed many indulgences that are to be obtained only
|
||
partially by all the other religious corporations.
|
||
|
||
7. To those who may be found in the case of the garb of
|
||
mourning, they will be counselled to dress a little more agreeable,
|
||
that they may at the same time, unite the aspect of mourning with
|
||
that of adornment, to draw them away from the idea of being found
|
||
directed by a man who has become a stranger to the world. Also with
|
||
such, that they may not be very much endangered, or particularly
|
||
exposed to volubility, we can concede to them, as if they
|
||
maintained their consequence and liberality, for and with the
|
||
society, that which drives ensuality away from them, being with
|
||
moderation and without scandal.
|
||
|
||
8. We must manage that in the houses of the widows there shall
|
||
be honorable young ladies, of rich and noble families; that little
|
||
by little they become accustomed to our direction and mode of life;
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
17
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
and that they are given a director elected and established by the
|
||
confessor of the family, to be permanently and always subject to
|
||
all the reprehensions and habits of the Society; and if any do not
|
||
wish to submit to all, they must be sent to the houses of their
|
||
fathers, or to those from which they were brought, accusing them
|
||
directly of extravagance and of glaring and stained character.
|
||
|
||
9. The care of the health of the widows, and to proportion
|
||
some amusement, it is not the least important that we should care
|
||
for their salvation; and so, if they complain of some
|
||
indisposition, we must prohibit the fast, the hair cloth girdle,
|
||
and the discipline, without permitting them to go to church;
|
||
further continue the direction, cautiously and secretly with such,
|
||
that they may be examined in their houses; if they are given
|
||
admission into the garden, and edifice of the college, with
|
||
secrecy; and if they consent to converse and secretly entertain
|
||
with those that they prefer.
|
||
|
||
10. To the end that we may obtain, that the widows employ
|
||
their utmost obsequiousness to the Society, it is the duty to
|
||
represent to them the perfection of the life of the holy, who have
|
||
renounced the world, estranged themselves from their relations, and
|
||
despising their fortunes, consecrating themselves to the service of
|
||
the Supreme Being with entire resignation and content. It will be
|
||
necessary to produce the same effect, that those who turn away to
|
||
the Constitutions of the Society, and their relative examination to
|
||
the abandonment of all things. We must cite examples of the widows
|
||
who have reached holiness in a very short time; giving hopes of
|
||
their being canonized, if their perseverance does not decay; and
|
||
promising for their cases our influence with the Holy Father.
|
||
|
||
11. We must impress in their souls the persuasion that, if
|
||
they desire to enjoy complete tranquility of conscience it will be
|
||
necessary for them to follow without repugnance, without murmuring,
|
||
nor tiring, the direction of the confessor, so in the spiritual, as
|
||
in the eternal, that she may be found destined to the same God, by
|
||
their guidance.
|
||
|
||
12. Also we must direct with opportunity, that the Lord does
|
||
not desire that they should give alms, nor yet to fathers of an
|
||
exemplary life, known and approved, without consulting beforehand
|
||
with their confessor, and regulating the dictation of the same.
|
||
|
||
13. The confessors must take the greatest care, that the
|
||
widows and their daughters of the confessional, do not go to see
|
||
other fathers (i.e. non-Jesuit priests) under any pretext, nor with
|
||
them. For this, we must praise our Society as the Order most
|
||
illustrious of them all; of greater utility in the Church, and of
|
||
greater authority with the Pope and with the princes; perfection in
|
||
itself; then dismiss the dream of them, and menace them, that we
|
||
can, and that we are no correspondents to them, we can say, that we
|
||
do not consent to froth and do as among other monks who count in
|
||
their convents many ignorant, stupid loungers who are indolent in
|
||
regard to the other life, and intriguers in that to disorder, &c.
|
||
|
||
14. The confessors must propose and persuade the widows to
|
||
assign ordinary pensions and other annual quotas to the colleges
|
||
and houses of profession for their sustenance with especially to
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
18
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
the professed house at Rome; and not forgetting to remind them of
|
||
the restoration of the ornaments of the temples and replenishing of
|
||
the wax, the wine, and other necessaries for the celebration of the
|
||
mass.
|
||
|
||
15. If they do not make relinquishment of their property to
|
||
the Society, it will be made manifest to them, on apparent occasion
|
||
in particular, when they are found to be sick, or in danger of
|
||
death; that there are many colleges to be founded; and that they
|
||
may be excited with sweetness and disinterestedness, to make some
|
||
disbursements as merit for God, and in that they can found his
|
||
etemal glory.
|
||
|
||
16. In the same manner, we must proceed with regard to princes
|
||
and other well doers, making them to see that such foundations will
|
||
be made to perpetuate their memory in this world, and gain eternal
|
||
happiness, and if some malevolent persons adduce the example of
|
||
Jesus Christ, saying, that then he had no place to recline his
|
||
head, the Society bearing his name should be poor in imitation of
|
||
himself, we must make it known and imprint it in the imagination of
|
||
those, and of all the world, that the Church has varied, and that
|
||
in this day we have become a State; and we must show authority and
|
||
grand measures against its enemies that are very powerful, or like
|
||
that little stone prognosticated by the prophet, that, divided,
|
||
came to be a great mountain. Inculcate constantly to the widows who
|
||
dedicate their alms and ornaments to the temples, that the greater
|
||
perfection is in disposing of the affection and earthly things,
|
||
ceding their possession to Jesus Christ and his companions.
|
||
|
||
17. Being very little, that which we must promise to the
|
||
widows, who dedicate and educate their children for the world, we
|
||
must apply some remedy to it.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER VIII.
|
||
|
||
METHODS BY WHICH THE CHILDREN OF RICH WIDOWS
|
||
MAY BE CAUSED TO EMBRACE THE RELIGIOUS STATE,
|
||
OR OF DEVOTION.
|
||
|
||
1. To secure our object, we must create the custom, that the
|
||
mothers treat them severely, and show to them, that we are in love
|
||
with them. Coming to induce the mothers to do away with their
|
||
tastes, from the most tender age, and regarding, restraining, &c.,
|
||
&c., the children especially; prohibiting decorations and
|
||
adornments when they enter upon competent age; that they are
|
||
inspired in the vocation for the cloister, promising them an
|
||
endowment of consideration, if they embrace a similar state;
|
||
representing to them the insipidity that is brought with matrimony,
|
||
and the disgust that has been experienced in it; signifying to them
|
||
the weight they would sit under, for not having maintained in the
|
||
celibate. Lastly, coming to direct in the conclusions arrived at by
|
||
the daughters of the widows, so fastidious of living with their
|
||
mothers, that their feet will be directed to enter into a convent.
|
||
|
||
2. We must make ourselves intimate with the sons of the widows, and
|
||
if for them an object or the Society, and cause them to penetrate
|
||
the intent of our colleges, making them to see things that can call
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
19
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
their attention by whatever mode, such as gardens, vineyards,
|
||
country houses, and the farm houses where the masters go to
|
||
recreate; talk to them of the voyages the Jesuits have made to
|
||
different countries, of their treating with princes, and of much
|
||
that can capture the young; cause them to note the cleanliness of
|
||
the refectory, the commodiousness of the lodges, the agreeable
|
||
conversation we have among ourselves, the suavity of our rule, and
|
||
that we have all for the object of the greater glory of God; show
|
||
to them the preeminence of our Order over all the others, taking
|
||
care that the conversations we have shall be diverting to pass to
|
||
that of piety.
|
||
|
||
3. At proposing to them the religious state, have care of
|
||
doing so, as if by revelation; and in general, insinuating directly
|
||
with sagacity, the advantage and sweetness of our institute above
|
||
all others; and in conversation cause them to understand the great
|
||
sin that will be committed against the vocation of the Most High;
|
||
in fine, induce them to make some spiritual exercises that they may
|
||
be enlightened to the choice of this state.
|
||
|
||
4. We must do all that is possible that the masters and
|
||
professors of the youth indicated shall be of the Society, to the
|
||
end, of being always vigilant over these, and counsel them; but if
|
||
they cannot be reduced, we must cause them to be deprived of some
|
||
things, causing that their mothers shall manifest their censure and
|
||
authority of the house, that they may be tired of that sort of
|
||
life; and if, finally, we cannot obtain their will to enter the
|
||
Society, we must labor; because we can remand them to other
|
||
colleges of ours that are at a distance, that they may study,
|
||
procuring impediment, that their mothers show endearment and
|
||
affection, at the same time, continuing for our part, in drawing
|
||
them to us by suavity of methods.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER IX.
|
||
|
||
UPON THE AUGMENTING OF REVENUE IN THE COLLEGES.
|
||
|
||
1. We must do all that is possible, because we do not know if
|
||
bound with the last vow of him, who is the claimant of an
|
||
inheritance, meanwhile we do not know if it is confirmed, to not be
|
||
had in the Society a younger brother, or of some other reason of
|
||
much entity. Before all, that which we must procure, are the
|
||
augmentations of the Society with rules to the ends agreed upon by
|
||
the superiors, which must be conformable: for that the Church
|
||
returns to its primitive splendor for the greater glory of God; of
|
||
fate that all the clergy shall be found animated by a united
|
||
spirit. To this end, we must publish by all methods, that the
|
||
Society is composed in part of professors so poor, that are wanting
|
||
of the most indispensable, to not be for the beneficence of the
|
||
faithful; and that another part is of fathers also poor, although
|
||
living upon the product of some household property; but not to be
|
||
grievous to the public, in the midst of their studies, their
|
||
ministry, as are other ordinary mendicants. The spiritual directors
|
||
of princes, great men, accommodating widows, and of whom we have
|
||
abundant hope, that they will be disposed at last to make gifts to
|
||
the Society in exchange for spiritual and eternal things, that will
|
||
be proportioned, the lands and temporalities which they possess;
|
||
for the same, carrying always the idea, that we are not to lose the
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
20
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
occasion of receiving always as much as may be offered. If promises
|
||
and the fulfillment of them is retarded, they are to be remembered
|
||
with precaution, dissimulating as much as we can the coveting of
|
||
riches. When some confessor of personages or other people, will not
|
||
be apt, or wants subtility, that in these subjects is
|
||
indispensable, he will be retired with opportunity, although others
|
||
may be placed anticipatedly; and if it be entirely necessary to the
|
||
penitents, it will be made necessary to take out the destitute to
|
||
distant colleges, representing that the Society has need for them
|
||
there; because it being known that some young widows, having
|
||
unexpectedly failed, the Society not having the legacy of very
|
||
precious movables, having been careless by not accepting in due
|
||
time. But to receive these things, we could not attend at the time,
|
||
and only at the good will of the penitent.
|
||
|
||
2. To attract the prelates, canonicals and other rich
|
||
ecclesiastics, it is necessary to employ certain arts, and in place
|
||
procuring them to practice in our houses spiritual exercises, and
|
||
gradually and energetically of the affection that we profess to
|
||
divine things; so that they will be affectionate towards the
|
||
Society and that they will soon offer pledges of their adhesion.
|
||
|
||
3. The confessors must not forget to ask with the greatest
|
||
caution and on adequate occasions of those who confess, what are
|
||
their names, families, relatives, friends, and properties,
|
||
informing their successors who follow them, the state, intention in
|
||
which they will be found, and the resolution which they have taken;
|
||
that which they have not yet determined obtaining, having to form
|
||
a plan for the future to the Society. When it is founded, whence
|
||
directly there are hopes of utility; for it will not be convenient
|
||
to ask all at once; they will be counseled to make their confession
|
||
each week, to disembarrass the conscience much before, or to the
|
||
title of penitence. They will be caused to inform the confessor
|
||
with repetition, of that which at one time they have not given
|
||
sufficient light; and if they have been successful by this means,
|
||
she will come, being a woman, to make confession with frequency,
|
||
and visit our church; and being a man, he will be invited to our
|
||
houses and we are to make him familiar with ourselves.
|
||
|
||
4. That which is said in regard to widows, must have equal
|
||
application to the merchants and neighbors of all classes, as being
|
||
rich and married, but without children, of that plan by which the
|
||
Society can arrive to be their heirs, if we put in play the
|
||
measures that we may indicate; but over all, it will be well to
|
||
have present, as said, near the rich devotees that treat with us,
|
||
and of whom the vulgar can murmur, when more, if they are of a
|
||
class not very elevated.
|
||
|
||
5. Procuring for the rectors of the colleges entrance for all
|
||
the ways of the houses, parks, groves, forests, lawns, arable
|
||
lands, vineyards, olive orchards, hunting grounds, and whatever
|
||
species of inheritances which they meet with in the end of their
|
||
rectory; if their owners pertain to the nobility, to the clergy, or
|
||
are negotiators, particulars, or religious communities, inquiring
|
||
the revenues of each one, their loads and what they pay for them.
|
||
All these dates or notices they are to seek for with great skill
|
||
and to a fixed point, energetically yet from the confessional, then
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
21
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
of the relations of friendship; or of the accidental conversations;
|
||
and the confessor meets with a penitent of possibles, he will be
|
||
placed in knowledge of the rector, obtaining by all methods the one
|
||
conserved.
|
||
|
||
6. The essential point to build upon, is the following: that
|
||
we must so manage, that in the ends we gain the will and affections
|
||
of our penitents, and other persons with whom we treat,
|
||
accommodating ourselves to their inclinations if they are
|
||
conducive. The Provincials will take care to direct some of us to
|
||
points, in which reside the nobility and the powerful; and if the
|
||
Provincials do not act with opportunity, the rectors must notice
|
||
with anticipation, the crops (the field of operations) that are
|
||
there, which we go to examine.
|
||
|
||
7. When we receive the sons of strong houses in the Society,
|
||
they must show whether they will be easy to acquire the contracts
|
||
and titles of possession; and if so they were to enter of
|
||
themselves, of which they may be caused to cede some of their
|
||
property to the college, or the usufruct (profit) or for rent, or
|
||
in other form, or if they can come for a time into the Society, the
|
||
gain of which may be very much of an object, to give a special
|
||
understanding to the great and powerful, the narrowness in which we
|
||
live, and the debts that are pressing us.
|
||
|
||
8. When the widows, or our married devoted women, do not have
|
||
more than daughters, we must persuade them to the same life of
|
||
devotion, or to that of the cloister; but that except the endowment
|
||
that they may give, they can enter their property in the Society
|
||
gently; but when they have husbands, those that would object to the
|
||
Society, they will be catechized; and others who desire to enter as
|
||
religiouses in other Orders, with the promise of some reduced
|
||
amount. When there may be an only son, he must be attracted at all
|
||
cost, inculcating the vocation as made by Jesus Christ; causing him
|
||
to be entirely disembarrassed from the fear of its fathers, and
|
||
persuading him to make a sacrifice very acceptable to the Almighty,
|
||
that he must withdraw to His authority, abandon the paternal house
|
||
and enter in the Society; the which, if he so succeeds, after
|
||
having given part to the General, he will be sent to a distant
|
||
novitiate; but if they have daughters, they will primarily dispose
|
||
the daughters for a religious life; and they will be caused to
|
||
enter into some monastery, and afterwards be received as daughters
|
||
in the Society, with the succession of its properties.
|
||
|
||
9. The Superiors will place in the channel of the
|
||
circumstances, the confessors of these widows and married people,
|
||
that they on all future occasions may act for the benefit of the
|
||
Society; and when by means of one, they cannot take our part he
|
||
will be replaced with another; and if it is made necessary, he will
|
||
be sent to great distances, of a manner that he cannot follow
|
||
understandingly with these families.
|
||
|
||
10. If we succeed in convincing the widows and devoted
|
||
persons, who aspire with fervor to a perfect life, and that the
|
||
better means to obtain it is by ceding all their properties to the
|
||
Society, supporting by their revenues, that they will be
|
||
religiously administered until their death, conforming to the
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
22
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
degree of necessity in which they may be found, and the just reason
|
||
that may be employed for their persuasion is, that by this mode,
|
||
they can be exclusively dedicated to God; without attentions and
|
||
molestations, which would perplex them, and that it is the only
|
||
road to reach the highest degree of perfection.
|
||
|
||
11. The Superiors craving the confidence of the rich, who are
|
||
attached to the Society, delivering receipts of its proper hand
|
||
writing whose payment afterwards will differ; not forgetting to
|
||
often visit those who loan, to exhort them above all in their
|
||
infirmities of consideration, as to whom will devolve the papers of
|
||
the debt; because it is not so to be found mention of the Society
|
||
in their testament; and by this course we must acquire properties,
|
||
without giving cause for us to be hated by the heirs.
|
||
|
||
12. We must also in a grand manner ask for a loan, with
|
||
payment of annual interest, and employ the same capital in other
|
||
speculation to produce greater revenues to the Society; for at such
|
||
a time, succeeding to move them with compassion to that which they
|
||
will lend to us, we will not lose the interest in the testament of
|
||
donation, when they see that they found colleges and churches.
|
||
|
||
13. The Society can report the utilities of commerce, and
|
||
value the name of the merchant of credit, whose friendship we may
|
||
possess.
|
||
|
||
14. Among the peoples where our fathers reside, we must have
|
||
physicians faithful to the Society, whom we can especially
|
||
recommend to the sick, and to paint under an aspect very superior
|
||
to that of other religious orders, and secure direction that we
|
||
shall be called to assist the powerful, particularly in the hour of
|
||
death.
|
||
|
||
15. That the confessors shall visit with assiduity the sick,
|
||
particularly those who are in danger, and to honestly eliminate the
|
||
other fathers, which the superiors will procure, when the confessor
|
||
sees that he is obliged to remove the other from the suffering, to
|
||
replace and maintain the sick in his good intentions. Meanwhile we
|
||
must inculcate as much as we can with prudence, the fear of hell,
|
||
&c., &c., or when, the lesser ones of purgatory; demonstrating that
|
||
as water will put out fire, so will the same alms blot out the sin;
|
||
and that we cannot employ the alms better, than in the maintaining
|
||
and subsidizing of the persons, who, by their vocation, have made
|
||
profession of caring for the salvation of their neighbor; that in
|
||
this manner the sick can be made to participate in their merits,
|
||
and find satisfaction for their own sins; placing before them that
|
||
charity covereth a multitude of sins; and that also, we can
|
||
describe that charity, is as a nuptial vestment, without which, no
|
||
one can be admitted to the heavenly table. in fine it will be
|
||
necessary to move them to the citations of the scriptures, and of
|
||
the holy fathers, that according to the capacity of the sick, we
|
||
can judge what is most efficacious to move them.
|
||
|
||
16. We must teach the women, that they must complain of the
|
||
vices of their husbands, and the disturbances which they occasion,
|
||
that they can rob them in secret of some amounts of money, to offer
|
||
to God, in expiation of the sins of their husbands, and to obtain
|
||
their pardon.
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
23
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER X.
|
||
|
||
OF THE PARTICULAR RIGOR OF DISCIPLINE
|
||
IN THE SOCIETY.
|
||
|
||
1. If there shall be anyone dismissed under any protest, as an
|
||
enemy of the Society, whatever may be his condition, or age; all
|
||
those who have been moved to become the devotees of our churches;
|
||
or of visiting ourselves; or who having been made to take the alms
|
||
on the way to other churches; or who having been found to give to
|
||
other fathers; or who having dissuaded any rich man, and well
|
||
intentioned towards our Society, or giving anything; or in the time
|
||
in which he can dispose of his properties, having shown great
|
||
affection for his relations with this Society; because it is a
|
||
great proof of a mortified disposition; and we conclude that the
|
||
professions are entirely mortified; or also, that he having
|
||
scattered all the alms of the penitents, or of the friends of the
|
||
Society, in favor of his poor relations. Furthermore, that he may
|
||
not complain afterwards of the cause of his expulsion, it will be
|
||
necessary to thrust him from us directly; but we can prohibit him
|
||
from hearing confessions, which will mortify him, and vex him by
|
||
imposing upon him most vile offices, obliging him each day to do
|
||
things that are the most repugnant; he will be removed from the
|
||
highest studies and honorable employments; he will be reprimanded
|
||
in the chapters by public censures; he will be excluded from the
|
||
recreations and prohibited from all conversation with strangers; he
|
||
will be deprived of his vestments and the uses of other things when
|
||
they are not indispensable, until he begins to murmur and becomes
|
||
impatient; then he can be expelled as a shameful person, to give a
|
||
bad example to others; and if it is necessary to give account to
|
||
his relatives, or to the prelates of the Church, of the reason for
|
||
which he has been thrust out, it will be sufficient to say that he
|
||
does not possess the spirit of the Society.
|
||
|
||
2. Furthermore, having also expelled all those who may have
|
||
scrupled to acquire properties for the Society, we must direct,
|
||
that they are too much addicted to their own judgment. If we desire
|
||
to give reason of their conduct to the Provincials, it is necessary
|
||
not to give them a hearing; but call for the rule, that they are
|
||
obligated to a blind obedience.
|
||
|
||
3. It will be necessary to note, whence the beginning and
|
||
whence their youth, those who have great affection for the Society;
|
||
and those which we recognize their affection until the furthest
|
||
orders, or until their relatives, or until the poor shall be
|
||
necessarily disposed, little by little, as carefully said, to go
|
||
out; then they are useless.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER XI.
|
||
|
||
HOW WE MUST CONDUCT OURSELVES
|
||
UNITEDLY AGAINST THOSE
|
||
WHO HAVE BEEN EXPELLED FROM THE SOCIETY.
|
||
|
||
1. As those whom we have expelled, when knowing little or
|
||
something of the secrets, the most times are noxious to the Society
|
||
for the same, it shall be necessary to obviate their efforts by the
|
||
following method, before thrusting them out; it will be necessary
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
24
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
to obligate them to promise, by writing, and under oath, that they
|
||
will never by writing or speaking, do anything which may be
|
||
prejudicial to the Society; and it will be good that the Superiors
|
||
guard a point of their evil inclinations, of their defects and of
|
||
their vices; that they are the same, having to manifest in the
|
||
discharge of their duties, following the custom of the Society, for
|
||
that, if it should be necessary, this point can serve near the
|
||
great, and the prelates to hinder their advancement.
|
||
|
||
2. Constant notice must be given to an the colleges of their
|
||
having been expelled; and we must exaggerate the general motives of
|
||
their expulsion; as the little mortification of their spirit; their
|
||
disobedience; their little love for spiritual exercises; their self
|
||
love, &c., &c. Afterwards, we must admonish them, that they must
|
||
not have any correspondence with them; and they must speak of them
|
||
as strangers; that the language of all shall be uniform, and that
|
||
it may be told everywhere, that the Society never expels any one
|
||
without very grave causes, and that as the sea casts up dead
|
||
bodies, &c., &c. We must insinuate with caution, similar reasons to
|
||
these, causing them to be abhorred by the people, that for their
|
||
expulsion it may appear plausible.
|
||
|
||
3. In the domestic exhortations, it will be necessary to
|
||
persuade people that they have been turned out as unquiet persons;
|
||
that they continue to beg each moment to enter anew into the
|
||
Society; and it will be good to exaggerate the misfortunes of those
|
||
who have perished miserably, after having separated from the
|
||
Society.
|
||
|
||
4. It will also be opportune to send forth the accusations,
|
||
that they have gone out from the Society, which we can formulate by
|
||
means of grave persons, who will everywhere repeat that the Society
|
||
never expels any one but for grave causes; and that they never part
|
||
with their healthy members; the which they can confirm by their
|
||
zeal, and show in general for the salvation of the souls of them
|
||
that do not pertain to them; and how much greater will it not be
|
||
for the salvation of their own.
|
||
|
||
5. Afterwards, the Society must prepare and attract by all
|
||
classes of benefits, the magnates, or prelates, with whom those who
|
||
have been expelled begin to enjoy some authority and credit. It
|
||
will be necessary to show that the common good of an Order so
|
||
celebrated as useful in the Church, must be of more consideration,
|
||
than that if a particular one who has been cast out. If an this
|
||
affliction preserves some affection for those expelled, it will be
|
||
good to indicate the reasons which have caused their expulsion; and
|
||
yet exaggerate the causes the more that they were not very true;
|
||
with such they can draw their conclusions as to the probable
|
||
consequences.
|
||
|
||
6. Of all modes, it will be necessary that they particularly
|
||
have abandoned the Society by their own free will; not being
|
||
promoted to a single employment or dignity in the Church; that they
|
||
would not submit themselves and much that pertains to the Society;
|
||
and that all the world should withdraw from them that desire to
|
||
depend on them.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
25
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
7. Procuring soon, that they are removed from the exercise of
|
||
the functions celebrated in the Church, such as the sermons,
|
||
confessions, publication of books, &c., &c., so that they do not
|
||
win the love and applause of the people. For this, we must come to
|
||
inquire diligently upon their life and their habits; upon their
|
||
occupations, &c., &c., penetrate into their intentions, for the
|
||
which, we must have particular correspondence with some of the
|
||
family in whose house they live, of those who have been expelled.
|
||
In surprising something reprehensible in them or worthy of censure,
|
||
which is to be divulged by people of medium quality; giving in
|
||
following the steps conducive to reach the hearing of the great,
|
||
and the prelates, who favor then, that they may be caused to fear
|
||
that the infamy will relapse upon themselves. If they do nothing
|
||
that merits reprehension, and conduct themselves well, we must
|
||
curtail them by subtle propositions and captious phrases, their
|
||
virtues and meritorious actions, causing that the idea that has
|
||
been formed of them, and the faith that is had in them, may little
|
||
by little be made to disappear; this is of great interest for the
|
||
Society, that those whom we repel, and more principally those who
|
||
by their own will abandon us, shall be sunk in obscurity and
|
||
oblivion.
|
||
|
||
8. We must divulge without ceasing the disgraces and sinister
|
||
accidents that they bring upon them, notwithstanding the faithful,
|
||
who entreat for them in their prayers, that they may not believe
|
||
that we work from impulses of passion. In our houses we must
|
||
exaggerate by every method these calamities, that they may serve to
|
||
hinder others.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER XII.
|
||
|
||
WHO MAY COME THAT THEY MAY BE SUSTAINED
|
||
AND PRESERVED IN THE SOCIETY.
|
||
|
||
1. The first place in the Society pertains to the good
|
||
operators; that is to say, those who cannot procure less for the
|
||
temporal than for the spiritual good of the Society; such as the
|
||
confessors of princes, of the powerful, of the widows, of the rich
|
||
pious women, the preachers and the professors who know all these
|
||
secrets.
|
||
|
||
2. Those who have already failed in strength or advanced in
|
||
years; conforming to the use they have made of their talents in and
|
||
for the temporal good of the Society; of the manner which has
|
||
attended them in days that are passed; and further, are yet
|
||
convenient instruments to give part to the Superiors of the
|
||
ordinary defects which are to be noted in ourselves, for they are
|
||
always in the house.
|
||
|
||
3. We must never expel but in case of extreme necessity, for
|
||
fear of the Society acquiring a bad reputation.
|
||
|
||
4. Furthermore, it will be necessary to favor those who excel
|
||
by their talent, their nobleness and their fortune; particularly if
|
||
they have powerful friends attached to the Society; and if they
|
||
themselves have for it a sincere appreciation, as we have already
|
||
said before. They must be sent to Rome, or to the universities of
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
26
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
greater reputation to study there; or in case of having studied in
|
||
some province, it will be very convenient that the professors
|
||
attend to them with special care and affection. Meanwhile, they not
|
||
having conveyed their property to the Society, we must not refuse
|
||
them anything; for after confirming the cession, they will be
|
||
disappointed as the others, notwithstanding guarding some
|
||
consideration for the past.
|
||
|
||
5. Having also especial consideration on the part of the
|
||
Superiors, for those that have brought to the Society, a young
|
||
notable, placed so that they are given to know the affection made
|
||
to it; but if they have not professed, it is necessary to take care
|
||
of not having too much indulgence with them, for fear that they may
|
||
return at another time, to carry away those whom they have brought
|
||
to the Society.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER XIII.
|
||
|
||
OF THE YOUTH WHO MAY BE ELECTED TO BE ADMITTED
|
||
INTO THE SOCIETY,
|
||
AND OF THE MODE OF RETAINING THEM.
|
||
|
||
1. It is necessary that much prudence shall be exercised,
|
||
respecting the election of the Youth; having to be sprightly,
|
||
noble, well liked, or at the least excellent in some of these
|
||
qualities.
|
||
|
||
2. To attract them with greater facility to our institute, it
|
||
is necessary in the meanwhile, to study that the rectors and
|
||
professors of colleges shall exhibit an especial affection; and
|
||
outside the time of the classes, to make them comprehend how great
|
||
is God, and that some one should consecrate to his service all that
|
||
he possesses; and particularly if he is in the Society of his Son.
|
||
|
||
3. Whenever the opportunity may arrive, conducive in the
|
||
college and in the garden, and yet at times to the country houses,
|
||
that in the company of ourselves, during the recreations, that we
|
||
may familiarize with them, little by little, being careful,
|
||
notwithstanding, that the familiarity does not engender disgust.
|
||
|
||
4. We cannot consent that we shall punish them, nor oblige
|
||
them to assemble at their tasks among those who are the most
|
||
educated.
|
||
|
||
5. We must congratulate them with gifts and privileges
|
||
conforming to their age and encouraging above all others with moral
|
||
discourses.
|
||
|
||
6. We must inculcate them, that it is for one divine
|
||
disposition, that they are favorites among so many who frequent the
|
||
same college.
|
||
|
||
7. On other occasions, especially in the exhortations, we must
|
||
aim to terrify them with menaces of the eternal condemnation, if
|
||
they refuse the divine vocation.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
27
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
8. Meanwhile frequently expressing the anxiety to enter the
|
||
Society, we must always defer their admission, that they may remain
|
||
constant; but if for these, they are undecided, then we must
|
||
encourage them incessantly by other methods.
|
||
|
||
9. If we admonish effectively, that none of their friends, nor
|
||
yet the fathers, nor the mothers discover their vocation before
|
||
being admitted; because then, if then, they come to the temptation
|
||
of withdrawing; so many as the Society desires to give full liberty
|
||
of doing that which may be the most convenient; and in case of
|
||
succeeding to conquer the temptation, we must never lose occasions
|
||
to make them recover spirit; remembering that which we have said,
|
||
always that this will succeed during the time of the novitiate, or
|
||
after having made their simple vows.
|
||
|
||
10. With respect to the sons of the great, nobles, and
|
||
senators, as it is supremely difficult to attract them, meanwhile
|
||
living with their fathers, who are having them educated to the end,
|
||
that they may succeed in their destinies, we must persuade,
|
||
vigorously, of the better influences of friends that are persons of
|
||
the same Society; that they are ordered to other provinces, or to
|
||
distant universities in which there are our teachers; careful to
|
||
remit to the respective professors the necessary instructions,
|
||
appropriate to their quality and condition, that they may gain
|
||
their friendship for the Society with greater facility and
|
||
certainty.
|
||
|
||
11. When having arrived at a more advanced age, they will be
|
||
induced to practice some spiritual exercises, that they may have so
|
||
good an exit in Germany and Poland.
|
||
|
||
12. We must console them in their sadness and afflictions,
|
||
according to the quality and dispositions of each one, making use
|
||
of private reprimands and exhortations appropriate to the bad use
|
||
of riches; inculcating upon them that they should depreciate the
|
||
felicity of a vocation, menacing them with the pains of hell for
|
||
the things they do.
|
||
|
||
13. It will be necessary to make patent to the fathers and the
|
||
mothers, that they may condescend more easily to the desire of
|
||
their sons of entering the Society, the excellence of its institute
|
||
in comparison with those of other orders; the sanctity and the
|
||
science of our fathers; its reputation in all the world; the honor
|
||
and distinctions of the different great and small. We must make
|
||
enumeration of the princes and the magnates, that, with great
|
||
content, have lived until their death, and yet living in the
|
||
Society. We must show how agreeable it is to God, that the youth
|
||
consecrate themselves to Him, particularly in the Society of his
|
||
Son: and what thing is there so sublime as that of a man carrying
|
||
the yoke of the Lord from his youth. That if they oppose any
|
||
objections because of their extreme youth, then we must present the
|
||
facility of our institute, the which not having anything to molest,
|
||
with the exception of the three vows, and that which is most
|
||
notable, that we do not have any obligatory rule, nor yet under
|
||
penalty of venial sin.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
28
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER XIV.
|
||
|
||
UPON RESERVED CASES AND MOTIVES THAT NECESSITATE
|
||
EXPULSION FROM THE SOCIETY.
|
||
|
||
1. To most of the cases expressed in the Constitutions, and of
|
||
which only the Superior or the ordinary confessor, with permission
|
||
of this, can absolve them, where there is sodomy, unnatural crime,
|
||
formication, adultery, of the unchaste touch of a man, or of a
|
||
woman; also if under the pretext of Zeal, or whatever motive, they
|
||
have done some grave thing against the Society; against its honors
|
||
and its gains; these will be just causes for reason of the
|
||
expulsion of the guilty.
|
||
|
||
2. If anyone confesses in the confessional of having committed
|
||
some similar act, he will not be promised absolution, until he has
|
||
promised to reveal to the Superior, outside of the confessional,
|
||
the same or by his confessor. The Superior will operate the better
|
||
for it, in the general interests of the Society; further, if there
|
||
is founded hope of the careful hiding of the crime, it will be
|
||
necessary to impose upon the guilty a convenient punishment; if
|
||
otherwise he can be expelled much before. With all the care that is
|
||
possible, the confessor will give the penitent to understand that
|
||
he runs the danger of being expelled.
|
||
|
||
3. If any one of our confessors, having heard a strange person
|
||
say, that he had committed a shameful thing with one of the
|
||
Society, he will not absolve such a person, without his having
|
||
said, outside of his confession, the name of the one with whom he
|
||
has sinned; and if he so says, he will be made to swear that he
|
||
will not divulge the same, without the consent of the Society.
|
||
|
||
4. If two of ourselves have sinned carnally, he who first
|
||
avows it will be retained in the Society; and the other will be
|
||
expelled; but he who remains permanent, will be after such
|
||
mortification and bad treatment, of sorrow, and by his impatience,
|
||
and if we have occasion for his expulsion, it will be necessary for
|
||
the future of it that it be done directly.
|
||
|
||
5. The Society being a noble corporation and preeminent in the
|
||
Church, it can dismiss those that will not be apt for the execution
|
||
of our object, although giving satisfaction in the beginning; and
|
||
the opportunity does not delay in presenting itself; if it procures
|
||
continuous maltreatment; and if he is obliged to do contrary to his
|
||
inclination; if they are gathered under the orders of gloomy
|
||
Superiors; if he is separated from his studies and from the
|
||
honorable functions, &c., &c., until be gets to murmuring.
|
||
|
||
6. In no manner must we retain in the Society, those that
|
||
openly reveal against their Superiors, or that will complain
|
||
publicly, or reservedly, of their companions, or particularly if
|
||
they make them to strangers; nor to those who are among ourselves,
|
||
or among persons who are on the outside, censure the conduct of the
|
||
Society in regard to the acquisition or administration of temporal
|
||
properties, or whatever acts of the same; for example, of crushing
|
||
or oppressing many of those whom we do not wish well, or that they
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
29
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
the same having been expelled, &c., &c. Nor yet those, that in
|
||
conversation, who tolerate, or defend the Venetians, the French and
|
||
others, that have driven the Society away from the territories, or
|
||
that have occasioned great prejudices.
|
||
|
||
7. Before the expulsion of any we must vex and harass them in
|
||
the extreme; depriving them of the functions that they have been
|
||
accustomed to discharge, dedicating them to others. Although they
|
||
may do well, it will be necessary to censure them, and with this
|
||
pretext, apply them to another thing. Imposing by a trifling fault
|
||
that they have committed the most severe penalties, that they blush
|
||
in public, until they have lost all patience; and at last will be
|
||
expelled as pernicious to all, for which a future opportunity will
|
||
present itself when they will think less.
|
||
|
||
8. When some one of the Society has a certain hope of
|
||
obtaining a bishopric, or whatever other ecclesiastical dignity, to
|
||
most of the ordinary vows of the Society he will be obliged to take
|
||
another; and that is, that he will always preserve good sentiments
|
||
towards the Society; that he will always speak favorably of it;
|
||
that he will not have a confessor that will not be to its bosom;
|
||
that he will do nothing of entity without having heard the justice
|
||
of the same. Because in consequence of not having observed this,
|
||
the Cardinal Tolet the Society had obtained of the Holy See, that
|
||
no swinish descendants of Jews or Mahometans were admitted, that he
|
||
did not desire to take such vows; and that for celebrity that is
|
||
out, he was expelled as a firm enemy of the Society.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER XV.
|
||
|
||
HOW THE SOCIETY MUST BE CONDUCTED
|
||
WITH THE MONKS AND NUNS.
|
||
|
||
1. The confessors and preachers must guard well against
|
||
offending the nuns and occasioning temptations contrary to their
|
||
vocation; but on the contrary, having conciliated the love of the
|
||
Lady Superiors, that we obtain to hear, when less, their
|
||
extraordinary confessions, and that it is predicted that we may
|
||
hope soon to receive some gratitude from them; because the
|
||
abbesses, principally the rich and noble, can be of much utility to
|
||
the Society, by themselves, and by their relatives and friends; of
|
||
the manner with which we treat with them and influence of the
|
||
principal monasteries, the Society will little by little arrive to
|
||
obtain the knowledge of all the corporation and increase its
|
||
friendship.
|
||
|
||
2. It will be necessary, notwithstanding, to prohibit our nuns
|
||
from frequenting the monasteries of women, for fear that their mode
|
||
of life may be more agreeable, and that the Society will see itself
|
||
frustrated in the hopes of possessing all their properties. We must
|
||
induce them to take the vow of chastity and obedience, at the hands
|
||
of their confessors; and to show them that this mode of life will
|
||
conform with the uses of the Primitive Church, placed as a light to
|
||
shine in the house, and that it cannot be hidden under a measure,
|
||
without the edification of their neighbor, and without fruit for
|
||
the souls; furthermore, that in imitation of the widows of the
|
||
Gospel, doing well by giving themselves to Jesus Christ and to his
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
30
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
Society. If they were to know how evil it can possibly be, of the
|
||
life of the cloisters; but these instructions must be given under
|
||
the seal of inviolable secrecy that they do not come to the ears of
|
||
the monks.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER XVI.
|
||
|
||
HOW WE MUST MAKE PROFESSION OF DESPISING RICHES.
|
||
["How we must pretend to despise wealth."]
|
||
|
||
1. With the end of preventing the seculars from directing
|
||
attention to our itching for riches, it will be useful to repel at
|
||
times alms of little amount, by which we can allow them to do
|
||
services for our Society; though we must accept the smallest
|
||
amounts from people attached to us, for fear that we may be accused
|
||
of avarice, if we only receive those that are most numerous.
|
||
|
||
2. We must refuse sepulture to persons of the lowest class in
|
||
our churches, though they may have been very attached to our
|
||
Society; for we do not believe that we must seek riches by the
|
||
number of interments, and we must hold firmly the gains that we
|
||
have made with the dead.
|
||
|
||
3. In regard to the widows and other persons who have left
|
||
their properties to the Society, we must labor with resolution and
|
||
greater vigor than with the others; things being equal, and not to
|
||
be made apparent, that we favor some more than others, in
|
||
consideration of their temporal properties. The same must be
|
||
observed with those that pertain to the Society, after that they
|
||
have made cession of their property; and if it be necessary to
|
||
expel them from the Society, it must be done with discretion, to
|
||
the end that they leave to the Society a part for the less of that
|
||
which they have given, or that which they have bequeathed at the
|
||
time of their death.
|
||
|
||
CHAPTER XVII.
|
||
|
||
METHODS TO EXALT THE COMPANY.
|
||
|
||
1. Treating principally all, though in things of little
|
||
consequence, we must have the same opinion, or at least exterior
|
||
dignity; for by this manner we may augment and strengthen the
|
||
Society more and more; to overthrow the barrier we have overcome in
|
||
the business of the world.
|
||
|
||
2. Thus strengthening all, it will shine by its wisdom and
|
||
good example, that we shall excel all the other fathers, and
|
||
particularly the pastors, &c., &c., until the people desire us to
|
||
all. Publicly divulging that the pastors do not need to possess so
|
||
much knowledge; with such they can discharge well their duties,
|
||
stating that they can assist them with the counsels of the Society;
|
||
that for this motive they can dedicate themselves to all classes of
|
||
studies.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
31
|
||
|
||
Secret Instructions of the Society of Jesus
|
||
|
||
3. We must inculcate this doctrine with kings and princes,
|
||
THAT THE CATHOLIC FAITH CANNOT SUBSIST IN THE PRESENT STATE,
|
||
WITHOUT POLITICS; but that in this, it is necessary to proceed with
|
||
much certainty. Of this mode, we must share the affection of the
|
||
great, and BE ADMITTED TO THE MOST SECRET COUNSELS.
|
||
|
||
4. We must entertain their good will, by writing from all
|
||
parts interesting facts and notices.
|
||
|
||
5. It will be no little advantage that will result, by
|
||
secretly and prudently fomenting dissensions between the great,
|
||
ruining or augmenting their power. But if we perceive some
|
||
appearance of reconciliation between them, then we of the Society
|
||
will treat and act as pacificators; that it shall not be that any
|
||
others shall anticipate to obtain it.
|
||
|
||
6. As much to the magnates as to the people, we must persuade
|
||
them by all possible means, that the Society has not been, but by
|
||
especial Divine Providence, conforming to the prophecies of the
|
||
Abbot Joachim, for to return and raise up the Church, humbled by
|
||
the heretics.
|
||
|
||
7. Having acquired the favor of the great and of the bishops,
|
||
it will be an entire necessity, of empowering the curates and
|
||
prebendaries to more exactly reform the clergy, that in other times
|
||
lived under certain rule with the bishops, and tending to
|
||
perfection; also it will be necessary to inspire the abbeys and
|
||
prefaces; the which it will not be difficult to obtain; calling
|
||
attention to the indolence and stupidity of the monks as if they
|
||
were cattle; because it will be very advantageous for the Church,
|
||
if all the bishoprics were occupied by members of the Society; and
|
||
yet, as if it was the same apostolic chair, particularly if the
|
||
Pope should return as temporal prince of all the properties; for as
|
||
much as it is very necessary to extend little by little, with much
|
||
secrecy and skill, the temporalities of the Society; and not having
|
||
any doubt that the world will enter the golden age, to enjoy a
|
||
perfect universal peace, for following the divine benediction that
|
||
will descend upon the Church.
|
||
|
||
8. But if we do not hope that we can obtain this, supposing
|
||
that it is necessary that scandals shall come in the world, WE MUST
|
||
BE CAREFUL TO CHANGE OUR POLITICS, CONFORMING TO THE TIMES, AND
|
||
EXCITE THE PRINCES, FRIENDS OF OURS TO mutually make terrible wars
|
||
THAT EVERYWHERE THE MEDIATION OF THE SOCIETY WILL BE IMPLORED; that
|
||
we may be employed in the public reconciliation, for it will be the
|
||
cause of the common good; and we shall be recompensed by the
|
||
PRINCIPAL ECCLESIASTICAL DIGNITIES; and the BETTER BENEFICIARIES.
|
||
|
||
9. In fine, that the Society afterwards can yet count upon the
|
||
favor and authority of the princes, procuring THAT THOSE WHO DO NOT
|
||
LOVE US SHALL FEAR US.
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
BANK of WISDOM
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
32
|
||
|