The Convent and the Educational Work in the Church of Rome
By Chas. T. Everson
AMONG all the institutions of the Catholic Church perhaps those dedicated directly to the cause of education stand pre-eminent in their influence in favor of Catholicism. The church in this instance furnishes us with a strange paradox. For while she has a well-earned reputation for holding her people in ignorance, yet she does not forget to make a wonderful use of education to further her cause. We might say that the Catholic educators are masters in the art of making the science of didactics serve the purpose at which they aim. They are famous not so much for what they teach as for how they teach. The pupils that issue from their educational institutions are not as a general rule equal in mental capacity and instruction to those trained in other schools. But the inferiority of mental accomplishments is of little consequence to the Catholic educator as long as the Catholic atmosphere has been imbibed by the learner, and the Jesuitical virus has been inoculated into his young mind. In fact, it does not even matter whether the student has been able to comprehend the doctrines of Catholicism, or can defend them in a discussion; it is sufficient that he has the general principles well grounded in his mind that Protestants are demons and heretics, and Catholics only can be saved. As is well known, the foremost educators in the Catholic Church are the Jesuits. They devote themselves exclusively, we might say, to the educational work. And how successfully they have plied their art is evinced by the powerful influence that they exert and have exerted from the beginning of their history. They were raised up to counteract the Reformation. As Satan is a close student of prophecy, he understood what the dawning of the Reformation meant to the cause that he represents. God raised up Martin Luther as the apostle of the Reformation. Therefore an instrument must be found that would be able to stem the tide of the rising power of the Reformation. This instrument was found very soon after the appearance of Luther upon the stage of action, in the person of Ignatius de Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Martin Luther was born in 1483 and died in 1546, while Ignatius de Loyola first saw the light of day in 1491, and his death took place in 1556. We see, therefore, that the birth of the apostle of the Reformation preceded that of the founder of Jesuitism by but eight years, and their lives ran contemporaneously for over half a century. The Reformation was a movement that aimed at enlightening and instructing the people. For that reason the educational feature became a prominent factor in its successful development. Ignorance and superstition are sisters, and together form the foundation of the great apostasy. Truth and light are the mighty factors that co-operate in building up the kingdom of God. Before the time of the Reformation, the Catholic Church had depended upon its religious orders that vaunted their poverty, seclusion from the world, self-abnegation, etc., as its most potent forces to maintain its prestige among the people. But with the rise of the Reformation, which turned the search-light of truth and investigation upon the corrupt life of the convent, the boasts of monasticism became the most deadly weapons that were used in its destruction. A new order must enter the field in which the Reformation was playing such havoc; this was Jesuitism. It entered the educational field, and very quickly made its power felt in almost every department of religious activity. The mighty power that Jesuitism has exerted ought to demonstrate to us the tremendous importance of the educational work in the religious world. Those who fall under the hateful influence of Jesuitism seldom fully recover from the toxic effects of its diabolical principles and teaching. The Jesuits have ever been famous for meddling in the affairs of government and family; and by playing upon the tender minds of the youth they have succeeded in opening to themselves means for entering into the secret recesses of home and country. Their drastic measures, furthered by such underhand means, have more than once brought down upon their heads the wrath of nations. As a consequence, they have been repeatedly expelled from both Catholic and Protestant countries; and in fact, Jesuitism proved itself such a viper even in the bosom of the Catholic Church, that Pope Clement XIV, in 1773, hurled the papal bull at it, and crushed its head. But hydra-like, it sprang again into new life, and in these last few years has made gigantic strides. In order to gain some idea of its tremendous operations, it will be but necessary to call attention to the fact that in the city of Rome alone there are no less than ninety schools administered by the Jesuitical order. With ninety Jesuit schools, over four hundred convents, and thousands upon thousands of priests and prelates in the city of Rome, one can well imagine that every effort to advance the truth is met with the strongest opposition, and every inch of the ground is fiercely contested. Although the number of clerical schools and convents is already phenomenal, yet to those already existing, new schools and convents are being added by the religious orders, which, driven out of France, have flocked to Rome in great numbers, and have bought some of the choicest building sites. Among the ninety schools and colleges administered by the Jesuits at Rome are numbered some of the foremost institutes. To these schools the aristocracy of the city sends its children to receive their education. And when these children are once well educated under Jesuitical influence, they remain ever afterward almost immune to true religious impressions and Bible truth. The efforts to convert a young man who from childhood has been dyed in the Jesuitical shop, are almost futile. For that reason we should not forget that in order to meet Catholicism on its own ground, the educational problem, as a means of evangelization, can not be ignored, but must be intelligently reckoned with.