Jesuits, and Papal Orders by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 18, 1874

Jesuits, and Papal Orders.

By John Norton Loughborough

The Jesuits are the nerve of the holy see of Rome, and they hold a commission authorizing them to destroy every power that makes any pretensions to self-government. They have been driven from Germany, Italy, Austria and Spain, and they come to England and America. In England, they have created a disturbance by introducing, stealthily, confessionals into the high or established Church of England. In America, their great plea is against, and they are trying to break down, the public schools and other signs of progress.

The Guardian, the Catholic organ of San Francisco, says: “It is certain that Catholics generally are but little concerned as to how our public schools are managed, for it is notorious that the best and most thorough educational institutions in the country are those managed by Catholics. No—it is not so much the management of the godless schools, with which Catholics find fault, as in being compelled to contribute to the support of a system of education, which, when not infidel, is avowedly Protestant.”

One thing is a little singular. If they do not care how the schools are managed, why have they worked in such a manner as to introduce a large majority of Catholic teachers into the public schools of San Francisco?

The Tablet, another Catholic paper, in its issue of Nov. 13, 1869, said, “The State must either not tax us at all, or give us our proportion of the money raised to be expended in schools under the control of the church.”

The same paper in its issue of December 25, of the same year, says: “We demand of the State, as our right, either such schools as the church will accept, or exemption from the school tax. If it will support schools by a general tax, we demand that it provide or give us our proportion of the public funds, and leave us to provide schools in which we can educate our children in our own religion, under the supervision of our own church.”

The Freeman’s Journal of Nov. 13, 1869, another Catholic paper, says, “Education is not the work of the State at all. It belongs to families, and should be left to families and to voluntary associations. The school tax is in itself an unjust imposition.”

The same journal for December 11, of the same year, says, “Let the public school system go to where it came from—the devil.”

Talk of the above kind induced the New York Legislature to accede to their claims, and a committee was selected to appropriate the school funds. The committee being largely Catholic, the case came out worse than that of the famous robber who was dividing the money with two of his ignorant fellow-thieves, “There’s two for you two, and here’s two for me too.” In this case it was, “There’s $1.00 for your Protestant schools and here’s $15.00 for our Catholic schools.” Shortly after this triumph on the part of the Catholics, a meeting of Roman Catholics was held in New York. In the meeting, one of the speakers, exulting over what had been gained by them through special appropriations from the New York Legislature, said, “This is the little finger, and we must persevere till we get the whole hand.”

Papists discard Protestant schools, and claim that their plan of educating is the best. Cardinal Wiseman, in a lecture delivered at Leeds, England, says: “Sciences, letters, and arts, never flourished more than under the papacy; the church of Rome is really the mother of all wisdom.” Again, he says: “Italy is the first country in Europe for great genius; but Italy is the center of the papacy; therefore the dominance of the pope is the producer of great genius in sciences, letters and arts.” On this, Gavazzi says: “She produces great geniuses, not by the rule of the pope, but by her sun and soil; not by the Romish domination, but in spite of it. Yes, in spite of it! Rome, without popes, was unequaled for her monuments—the popes destroyed them. Rome of the popes can show nothing to compare with Rome of the pagans.”

“She did not need a pope to produce Cicero, Horace, Livy, Pliny, Tacitus, Virgil, Tibullus, Seneca, and the long list of her illustrious pagan names. Her genius springs, not from the Vatican, but from herself.”

“Cardinal Wiseman says the popes encourage genius, and ventures to cite Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and even Galileo!”

Dante was persecuted; his works were forbidden till about two centuries ago; to this day the Jesuits expel them from their schools. . . . Our best historians, from Guicciardini to Charles Botta, were all forbidden. The best authors on the improvement of laws and political economy, as Filangieri, Beccaria, Giannone, Gioia, Romagnosi, were all forbidden. Galileo, in spite of all the assertions of Wiseman, was imprisoned, persecuted, and morally poisoned by the inquisition. . . . From the days of Gregory the seventh to the present, Italy has produced great geniuses; all have been persecuted. The conclusion is clear; they have been neither created nor fostered by the papacy; but have been the sons of Italy, her natural productions, who have grown to a greatness that will endure forever in spite of popes and popery.”

Father Damen, the Jesuit, in his lecture in London, Canada, Feb. 21, 1870, made a statement that “the church of Rome is not opposed to education or to free institutions.” Brock, in his reply, says, “A few years ago, the present pope issued an allocution in reference to the affairs of the republic of New Granada in this continent, in which he says, ‘Nor must we pass over in silence that, by the new constitution of that Republic, enacted in these recent times, among other things, the right of free education is defended, and liberty of all kinds is given to all, so that each person may even print and publish his thoughts, and all kinds of monstrous portents of opinions, and profess privately and publicly whatever worship he pleases.’ On this the pope observes to the College of Cardinals whom he addressed, ‘You assuredly see, venerable brothers, how horrible and sacrilegious a war is proclaimed against the Catholic church, by the rulers of the Republic of New Granada.’”

Damen further states: “The Jesuit lecturer then went on to dwell in glowing language on the patronage extended to the fine arts, by the church of Rome. Printing and sculpture, music and architecture, where would they be but for the fostering care of Rome? I acknowledge that the church of Rome encouraged these arts, but it was only to serve her own ends. Pressed into her service, they ministered to her idolatry, and surrounded it with that which fascinated the eye and pleased the ear. The idolatrous sacrifice of the mass, celebrated in a gorgeous cathedral, amid the trophies of painting and sculpture, and accompanied by ravishing strains of music, would invest the Roman service with charms which to some minds would be irresistible. Rome’s patronage of the fine arts, then, has not been disinterested. They have materially aided her in leading captive the minds of men. Yet think not that to Rome alone belong those who have excelled in art. Many noble painters, and sculptors, and architects, and some of the most illustrious composers, such as Handel

and Mendelsohn, never owned the sway or sought the patronage of Rome.”

Of Rome’s treatment of Galileo, Damen says, “Four months after his arrival in Rome, on June 22, 1633, Galileo was conducted in a penitential dress to the convent of Minerva, where, by the sentence of the inquisitors, the venerable old man was solemnly called on to renounce and abjure, as impious and heretical, the opinions which his whole life had been consecrated to form and strengthen. There, on bended knees, Rome compelled that aged man to pronounce ‘the proposition that the sun is the center of the world to be absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture’—and further to pronounce ‘the proposition that the earth is not in the center of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, to be also absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.’ The old man pronounced the required abjuration, rose from his knees, and then whispered to a friend, ‘It does move though.’ His works and those of Copernicus, and another eminent astronomer, Foscarini, were all put in the Index of Prohibited Books, and remained there up to the year 1828, since which time they have been silently omitted.”

Said Victor Hugo to the priests, “Ah, we know you. We know the clerical party. It is an old party. This it is which forbids to science and genius the going beyond the Missal, and which wishes to cloister thought in dogmas. Every step which the intelligence of Europe has taken has been in spite of it. Its history is written in the history of human progress, but it is written on the back of the leaf. It is opposed to it all. This it is which caused Prinelli to be scourged for having said that the stars would not fall. This it is which put Campanella seven times to the torture for having affirmed that the number of worlds was infinite, and for having caught a glimpse of creation. This it is which persecuted Harvey for having proved the circulation of the blood. In the name of Jesus, it shut up Galileo. In the name of St. Paul, it imprisoned Christopher Columbus. To discover a law of the heavens was an impiety; to find a world was a heresy.”

“You wish us to give you the people to instruct. Very well. Let us see your pupils! Let us see those you have produced. What have you done for Italy? What have you done for Spain? For centuries you have kept in your hands, at your discretion, at your school, those two great nations, illustrious among the illustrious. What have you done for them? I am going to tell you. Thanks to you, Italy, whose name no man who thinks can any longer pronounce without an inexpressible filial emotion; Italy, mother of genius and of nations, which has spread over the universe all the most brilliant marvels of poetry and the arts; Italy, which has taught mankind to read, now knows not how to read. Yes, Italy is, of all the States of Europe, that where the smallest number of natives know how to read.”

“Spain, magnificently endowed; Spain, which received from the Romans her first civilization, from the Arabs her second civilization, from Providence, and in spite of you, a world—America: Spain, thanks to you, to your yoke of stupor—which is a yoke of degradation and decay—Spain has lost this secret power, which it had from the Romans; this genius of art, which it had from the Arabs; this world, which it had from God; and in exchange for all that you have made it lose, it has received from you—the inquisition.”

After quoting the above, Hemphill says: “If the priests are the educators they claim to be, let us see what they have done for our neighbors, the Mexicans. Mexico was colonized a whole century before New England. Its first settlers were the noblest spirits of Spain in her Augustan age—the epoch of Cervantes, Cortez, Pizarro, Columbus, Gonzalo de Cordova, Ximenes, and Isabella. Mexico has been educated by the priests since the fifteenth century; and her career has been glorious! (?) Look at the respective conditions of Mexico and the United States. Mexico is a Catholic country—priests are the educators.”

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

(Concluded next week.)