# Jesuits



## Scott (May 9, 2005)

Does anyone know any good works on the history of the Jesuits? I have been listening to a college lecture series on the Religious Wars by a secular professor and he has touched on the role of the Jesuits in the countereformation. I was surprised at some of the conspiracies and tactics employed - fomenting rebellion, facilitating assassination, and various cloak and dagger kind of stuff. I had heard things like this before from Still Waters but had remained pretty doubtful.

It seems like they have changed quite a bit. From what I understand they are now largely liberal humanists (and liberal in more ways than one - theologically, politically, morally, etc.).


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 9, 2005)

J.A. Wylie's History of the Jesuits from his _History of Protestantism_

Also, I like reading Blaise Pascal's comments on the Jesuits in the _Provincial Letters_.


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## Bladestunner316 (May 9, 2005)

Isnt there a Jesuit 'Black Pope'( not color but in contrast to the 'white' pope we see) ?

blade


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## Scott (May 9, 2005)

I have not heard anything about a black pope outside of occasional Stillwaters advertisements ("Black Pope and his mudermen" or something like that).


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## Scott (May 10, 2005)

This is an example of something interesting I learned. Jesuits in Protestant countries (esp. England) circulated numerous tracts advocating tyranacide, or the right of people to kill tyrants. Tyrants were, of course, Protestant rulers. This was part of an attempt to foment assassinantion attempts on Protestant rulers. This was definitely not in the spirit of Vatican II! 

[Edited on 5-10-2005 by Scott]


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 10, 2005)

Here is an example of legislation aimed against Jesuits because of their efforts to subvert the Protestant government of England. It may be relevant to your research on suppression of religious dissent too.


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## Scott (May 10, 2005)

Very interesting, Andrew. This statement about the goals of Jesuits in the Act is consistent with what I heard: "[Jesuits seek] not only to withdraw her highness's subjects from their due obedience to her majesty, but also to stir up and move sedition, rebellion, and open hostility within the same her highness's realms and dominions, to the great endangering of the safety of her most royal person . . ."


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## openairboy (May 11, 2005)

The only thing I remember learning about the Jesuits in my Church history class at Covenant Seminary is that they were "great". Not in the sense that they were above reproach, but, either Dr Calhoun or the text, said that the Jesuits were adamant about feeding the poor and whipping protestant theologians in debates. Basically they would go into a peasant place, feed the poor, and beat the local pastor in a theological debate. Think of how powerful the Church would be if we spent our time feeding the poor and "winning" theological/cultural/etc. debates.

I just remembered thinking, we need Protestant "Jesuits"!

openairboy


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## Scott (May 11, 2005)

That is interesting. I don't know much about the Jesuits yet, but it appears that there was a darker side as well, in terms of assassinations, rebellions, sedition, and the like. The secular professor I have been listening to today again remarked about how the Jesuits were creative in coming up with theories of resistance to Protestant rulers. Of course, America's own founding fathers developed theories of resistance that involved the rights of the people to violently resist rulers as well.


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## smallbeans (May 11, 2005)

I attend a Jesuit University and the Jesuits have a very strong emphasis on education. Thinking in theological terms, the Jesuits tend to be a bit more liberal than some of the other orders. I've met many more conservative Franciscans on campus, to give an example. But each of the orders has its strong points. One of the things that appeals to me about Catholic unity is simultaneously one of the things that frustrates me - the Catholic church's unity is very formal and unites a lot of very different groups of people. It is like having United Church of Christ and the OPC in the same organizational structure. That causes all kinds of problems, but it is still admirable that they stick together. It seems like all we Protestants can do is splinter even further.

One interesting bit of trivia is that a lot of the Puritan devotional manuals were based on Jesuit texts. One in particular, Bunny's manual, was actually a rip off a Jesuit text that he passed off as his own. It was in reading Bunny's manual that Baxter was converted! Also, private Puritan devotional practice in general kind of proceeds along the same pattern as the Jesuit exercises.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 11, 2005)

Can anything good come out of Jesuitism? (rhetorical question)

I equate Jesuitism with Machiavellianism (someone wrote this in a review of John Donne's 1610 _Pseudo-Martyr_, a critique of Jesuits in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot/Oath controversy: "the Jesuits leave Machiavelli far behind in Machiavellianism"). 

The Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius Loyola, was designed like a military organization to promote the Counter-Reformation. It requires secret oaths and justifies all means necessary to exterminate Protestantism. The Inquisition is perhaps the most notorious. The Jansenist Pascal mocks Jesuits who justify assassination thus: "A most pious assassination!" Here is an interesting article on the Jesuit behind-the-scenes role in Galileo's conviction on charges of heresy.

Calvin Colton wrote a book in 1836 called _Protestant Jesuitism_, which critiqued the former for imbibing influences from the latter. 

Jack Kettler writing about James Bannerman's famous treatise had this to say:



> James Bannerman in his classic study of Reformed church polity, _The Church Of Christ_, cites two groups that in his day were candidates who would Biblically lose freedom for some of their practices. These were the Mormons and the Jesuits.[1] For example, the Mormon "Danites" were instructed "that plundering all non-Mormons should be standard procedure. . . ."[2] The Jesuits were notorious for employing subversive tactics to bring about the influence of Popery.[3] Bannerman then makes the statement: "It were absurd to allege that any number of men calling themselves a Church, and claiming its privileges, are entitled, without inquiry, to be held to be such."[4] Bannerman goes on to say concerning the right of the state:
> 
> Independently, indeed, of positive statute, it seems to be implied in the very nature of the State, as the ordinance of God for the security and advancement of the temporal well-being of its subjects , that it has a right to make itself acquainted with the character of any society of whatever kind within its borders. . . . Secret societies are, in their very nature, dangerous and unconstitutional . . . the civil magistrate has a right to know and be satisfied that the Church which claims toleration at his hands is in truth what it imports to be, a spiritual society in reality, and not in pretense.[5]



[Edited on 5-11-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]


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## Scott (May 11, 2005)

As I understand, the Jesuits have been deeply involved in the sexual problems (pedophilia being to worst exmaple) plaguing the RC church as of late. As I recall, this point was made in Michael Rose's Goodbye Good Men. Rose is a conservative Catholic.


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## Myshkin (May 11, 2005)

Anyone care to give a summary description of the spectrum of orders in the Roman church. This is something I have always been interested in but don't have the slightest idea where to begin.

I have heard of dominicans, augustinians, franciscans, and jesuits. Any others? or where can I be directed to a brief summary of these groups.

I imagine Andrew has this one resourced somewhere


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 11, 2005)

Allan, This website should provide you with some basic information about the various Roman Catholic orders. Hope it's helpful!


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## smallbeans (May 11, 2005)

RAS, yes that is a huge question. There are tons of religious orders, tons of priestly orders, tons of missionary orders, and then add to that lay orders, sodalities, etc. It is pretty amazing. So an encyclopedia is a great place to start - the "New Catholic Encyclopedia" was just revised a few years ago and any good library will have it. Also, Wikipedia has an entry on religious orders and you can find a list of the various abbreviations in order to decode the suffixes on your Roman Catholic friends' titles.

If Jesuits were heavily involved in the abuse scandal, it is probably only because they are a large order. Statistically, you're going to get more representation from the bigger orders. There's a lot of anti-Jesuit and anti-Roman Catholic stuff that uses statistics pretty loosely. That said, I've heard good things about Rose's book, but haven't read it myself, so I don't know how he uses the statistics.

All this stuff about Jesuit skullduggery is really a mixture of myth and past half-truths. Basically anything you read in Lorraine Boettner should be triple-checked. From the RC point of view, you might be interested in a new book from Oxford UP by Shea called "The Lion and the Lamb" - it is kind of an overview of anti-Catholic critiques, and though he's a bit of a liberal catholic himself, he'll give you a more inside scoop on what they think of some of these critiques.


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## Myshkin (May 11, 2005)

Gracias mi amigo, Andrew.

There is alot more there than I expected. I had no idea there were so many orders, but I guess I should have expected it with how elaborate and complicated a system Rome has. I'll have to come back to it later.

P.S. maybe you should change your screen name to "resource man" or something of that nature. j/k:bigsmile:

I know Luther was Augustinian; what about Calvin and Tetzel?


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by RAS_
> Gracias mi amigo, Andrew.
> 
> There is alot more there than I expected. I had no idea there were so many orders, but I guess I should have expected it with how elaborate and complicated a system Rome has. I'll have to come back to it later.
> ...



You're welcome! 

Calvin was baptised as a Roman Catholic but was never ordained in the RCC. He was, however, given a benefice at the Cathedral of Noyons at age 12 and became CurÃ© of Saint-Martin de Marteville in the Vermandois in 1527, and of Pont l'Eveque in 1529. He became a Protestant soon after.

Tetzel was of the Dominican order.

[Edited on 5-11-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]


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## Scott (May 11, 2005)

"All this stuff about Jesuit skullduggery is really a mixture of myth and past half-truths. Basically anything you read in Lorraine Boettner should be triple-checked."

The source I have been mentioning is from a secular university professor who has not really shown any bias against or for Catholics. From what I understand, the stuff he is discussing is pretty undisputed. The tyranacide tracts (advocating assassination) were numerous, for example.


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## Scott (May 11, 2005)

Andrew: What is your favorite Catholic order?


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## smallbeans (May 11, 2005)

Scott - I didn't mean to imply that there was no truth to the political, counter-reformation activities of the Jesuits. With regard to that stuff, it is just hard to be objective and consider the regicide committed by Protestants too! I'm just saying that there is a tradition of literature that goes beyond the facts into some odd rumors and salacious tales. And then with regard to the true stuff, it is a kind of half-truth to portray the Jesuits in a certain light (especially for a popular audience) without contextualizing their activities. In the end, it just isn't fruitful to dwell on the past in one's attempt to define what a Jesuit is today, and my fear would be that some will continue to narrow their eyes and mistrust Jesuits today for historical things that, in context, don't look a lot different than things our Protestant forebears were doing.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Scott_
> Andrew: What is your favorite Catholic order?



Monty Python's Order of the Spanish Inquisition


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by smallbeans_
> Scott - I didn't mean to imply that there was no truth to the political, counter-reformation activities of the Jesuits. With regard to that stuff, it is just hard to be objective and consider the regicide committed by Protestants too! I'm just saying that there is a tradition of literature that goes beyond the facts into some odd rumors and salacious tales. And then with regard to the true stuff, it is a kind of half-truth to portray the Jesuits in a certain light (especially for a popular audience) without contextualizing their activities. In the end, it just isn't fruitful to dwell on the past in one's attempt to define what a Jesuit is today, and my fear would be that some will continue to narrow their eyes and mistrust Jesuits today for historical things that, in context, don't look a lot different than things our Protestant forebears were doing.



Jesuitism is pure evil -- then and now. Whether involved in promoting assassination in a turbulent bygone age or dabbling in liberation theology or promoting abortion or, on the conservative side, upholding Papal dogma today, there is nothing Christian about Jesuitism and the blanket comparison to "our Protestant forbears" is scurrilous.

Would that Pope Clement XIV had removed this scourage from the face of the earth. But the Jesuits and the Pope are both fighting against the same true and living God, who shall smite them all.

[Edited on 5-12-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]


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## Scott (May 12, 2005)

"I'm just saying that there is a tradition of literature that goes beyond the facts into some odd rumors and salacious tales."

You mean like this?
Secret Instructions of the Jesuits


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## smallbeans (May 12, 2005)

Andrew, that kind of rhetoric is really counterproductive. The "evil" Jesuits just let me get a Ph.D. for free at a wonderfully rigorous university. Not all Jesuits promote abortion. The former head of our department, Fr. Richard Mueller, is a wonderful man who encouraged his students to participate in pro-life causes. As for the liberation theology stuff, the main problem is a lack of understanding of capital markets, not some kind of evil anti-Christian agenda. Ignorance is really the condition of most Christians when it comes to economics. Thank goodness for the Acton Institute which is trying to reverse that ignorance.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (May 12, 2005)

Clearly we have different opinions on the merits of Jesuitism.

[Edited on 5-12-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]


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## Wthompson (May 16, 2005)

Andrew...I have to say that I'm on your side.

I often find that it is a trend in Christianity to associate personality with doctrine. I know that is not too clear, but I can't think of a better way to put it. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Because I know plenty of people in the United Church of Christ, because my Father and Mother belong there, because my grandparents belong there, because some of the nicest people I have ever met go to that Church...people who have given me innumerable gifts and kindnesses over the year...that must mean that what the UCC does and the things it believes are correct. That is the kind of reasoning that alot of Christians today use in whole or in part, consciously or subconsciously. 

I love plenty of the people in the UCC, but I condemn that church as a liberal, modernist, ecumenist synagogue of Satan. I won't consort with it. I keep my doctrinal stands based on facts, and my feelings about my friends and family separate from my doctrinal stands.

I don't mean to accuse anyone here of doing that, but I think it bears reflection as to whether or not any of us are doing it...because as much of "hardshell fundamentalist"(some of my family have called me) as I am...I still use that reasoning in part in some situations until I recognize it and then get rid of it.


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