At Trent Canisius found four of his religious brethren, and joined them at their lodgings in the hospital. Here the five Jesuits followed the special rule of life which St. Ignatius had sent to them. "Three things I wish you to bear in mind," he wrote:—
"(1) at the sessions of the Council the greatest glory of God, and the general good of the Church; (2) outside the Council your fundamental principle to labour for the salvation of souls, a matter that lies especially near my heart in this your journey; (3) when at home not to neglect yourselves." He recommended them to behave as prudently as possible at the Council, not to speak hastily, and to be ever on the side of peace. Every evening they were to confer with each other on the day's proceedings, and to make resolutions for the morrow. "Moreover," he continued, "you will allow no opportunity to escape you of acquiring merit in the service of your neighbour. You must always be on the watch to hear confessions, to preach to the people, to instruct the little ones, to visit the sick." In their sermons they were to avoid controverted dogmas, and to lay stress on all that appertained to the reform of morals, and obedience to the Church.
The meetings of the Council being adjourned till 1550, Canisius was called to Rome, where he remained for five months, under the personal guidance of St. Ignatius himself, who submitted him to the most humiliating trials in order to prove his virtue. He sent him to beg and to preach in the most frequented parts of the city, and to nurse the sick in the hospitals, where he was day and night at the beck and call of exacting officials, who set him to perform the most loathsome tasks, and often curtailed his sleep and food. St. Ignatius would then cause inquiries to be made at the hospitals concerning the behaviour of his novice under this kind of treatment.
In the spring of 1548, Canisius was sent with eleven companions to Messina, where the Viceroy, Don Juan de Vega, had founded a college. On the eve of their departure St. Ignatius put to them four questions in writing. Canisius answered the questions thus:—
1. "I am ready, with the help of God's grace, to remain here or to go to Sicily, to India, or wherever it may be that obedience requires me.
2. "If I am sent to Sicily I affirm that I will accept with joy whatever office is conferred on me, even should it be that of porter, cook, or gardener.
3. "I am ready to learn or to teach in any department of science, although hitherto I may have been quite unskilled in it.
4. "I will regard as best for me whatever my superiors may decide to do with me, whether they entrust me with any office or with none. I promise this day, the 5th February, for my whole life never to demand anything for myself concerning my lodging, office or any other similar thing, but once for all I leave the guidance of my soul, and every care for my body in the complete submission of my judgment and will, to my father in God, the Rev. Father General, 1548. Peter Canisius of Nymwegen."
Hereupon St. Ignatius appointed him professor of rhetoric at Messina, and Canisius wrote to his friends at Cologne: "As I am useless for any spiritual office I am entrusted with the insipid department of belles lettres. I teach rhetoric for which I have little aptitude, but I take pains to form these good youths, and am always ready, with God's help, to do all that obedience requires of me."
After a fruitful year, during which he had learned Italian, and having preached in that language, had obtained some wonderful conversions from sin, he was recalled to Rome, where he laid his four solemn vows* in the hands of St. Ignatius. Immediately afterwards he was told to prepare for his apostolate in Germany.
* The first three of the solemn vows taken by the Jesuits are those of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The fourth vow is the promise to go wherever the Pope may send them.
William IV., Duke of Bavaria, surnamed the valiant, on account of his faithful adherence to the Catholic Church, at a time when so many of the reigning princes of Germany fell away, saw, with distress and alarm, the daily increasing dangers to which his beloved fatherland was a prey. Even in the college which he had himself founded at Ingolstadt, heresies were steadily gaining the upper hand, and he besought St. Ignatius to send him learned men, imbued with the apostolic spirit, to stay the progress of error.
The Church was not wanting at this time in men of learning and piety. Theologians, such as Cardinal Cajetan, Gropper of Cologne, Eck of Ingolstadt, Cochlaeus, and others, had a European reputation. The first members of the Society of Jesus were all saints and scholars. Lainez, Salmeron, Lefevre, Faber, Le Jay, Bobadilla, were formed for the exigencies of the time; but for the special work required of him, Canisius effaces them all, or rather, gathers up in his own character each of the great qualities which they possessed. His strength, moreover, was equal to his enormous task. Westphalia, Bavaria, Saxony, Bohemia, Austria, Franconia, Suabia, Moravia, Tirol, Switzerland, from the falls of the Rhine to its source in the Alps, both banks of the Danube, from Freiburgim-Breisgau to Pressburg, the banks of the Main and of the Vistula—all this was the scene of his labours during a period of fifty-four years; and within these limits, it is an incontrovertible fact that there is no city or district still remaining Catholic but owes its faith to him.
St Ignatius answered the demand of the Duke of Bavaria by sending Fathers Le Jay, Salmeron, and Peter Canisius, the three most distinguished men of his Society. On the way to Germany they stopped at Bologna, in order that the two first might receive the degree of doctor, Canisius, as we know, being already a graduate of Cologne. The German heretics prided themselves so much on the few individuals in their ranks who had attained to it, that it was important to provide them with opponents whom they might meet in controversy on equal grounds. At Munich Duke William welcomed them, assuring them that nothing lay nearer to his heart than the maintenance of the Catholic religion in his states, but that heresy had already taken possession of many of his towns and villages, and had even ventured to lift its head in the University of Ingolstadt. The three missionaries proceeded at once to that place, where they were received by the principal dignitaries of the University.
A few days later they began their lectures: Salmeron, with a commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans; Canisius, with a dissertation on the Sentences of Peter Lombard; Le Jay, with an exposition of the Psalms. From the beginning their success was assured, but in a few months the whole work devolved on Canisius, Le Jay being sent to the Diet of Augsburg, Salmeron going to support Lainez, at the re-opened Council of Trent, as the Pope's theologian.
So great was the confidence which Canisius inspired, that already, in 1550, the University, by unanimous consent, elected him its rector. Humility prompted him to refuse the office, but St. Ignatius bade him accept it. The need for drastic changes in various departments was only too apparent; Canisius not only secured the good he aimed at, but by his tact escaped the odium which so frequently attaches to the crusader against time-honoured abuses. As he accepted none of the emoluments belonging to his offices, he was the more free to insist on the perfect probity with which the administration of the funds of all offices should be conducted.
He next tools away from the students all heretical books, and obtained from Duke William a mandate, forbidding the booksellers to sell such. He abolished gambling, to which the students had been much addicted. He settled disputes between them and their professors, and the ancient rules and regulations concerning studies ceased to be a dead letter. His words animated his hearers with a love of work, creating a stimulus and a desire to excel. He re-established the unjustly discredited syllogistic form of argument, and reverted to the learning of the Schools in its primitive purity, deprived of the excrescences with which would-be scholars had disfigured it. Lastly, he succeeded in freeing the University from every reproach of immorality and license, and this was, perhaps, his most signal victory at Ingolstadt. The annals of the University abundantly testify to the greatness of the work accomplished.
At the end of his six months' rectorship, Canisius gave an account of his administration, and declined the chancellorship then offered to him. Ingolstadt, in that short space of time, had been transformed, and in order to perpetuate the benefits conferred on it, the Duke resolved to found a college to be handed over to the sons of St. Ignatius.
Next to Bavaria, Austria was to share in the blessings which the very presence of Canisius seemed to draw down from Heaven, but the whole German-speaking world clamoured for his possession. The Bishop of Saxony entreated him to come and change the deplorable state of his diocese. Duke Albert, son and successor of William IV., stoutly maintained that he was needed at Ingolstadt, and that he could not suffer him to leave it; while St. Ignatius was besieged with demands for the services of his most learned disciple. The Prince-Bishop of Freising and the Bishop of Eichstadt each claimed him as his theologian at the Council of Trent. Ferdinand, King of the Romans, urged that "the Light of Germany" should be instantly sent to the capital of the Austrian dominions, then plunged in the darkness of heresy. Pope Julius III. solved the difficulty by desiring that he should proceed at once to Vienna, and St. Ignatius softened the blow to Duke Albert in these words: "The formal demand of his Holiness obliges me to send Father Canisius to Vienna, but without taking him absolutely from your Highness; I am merely lending him to the King of the Romans for a time, after which he shall return to Ingolstadt."
The capital of Austria had fallen a complete prey to heresy. For twenty years not a single priest had been ordained there; religious vocations were no longer heard of. Scarcely the twentieth part of the population had remained Catholic. Three hundred country parishes near the city were entirely without priests. The University, instead of providing a remedy, aggravated the existing evils by a teaching that was more or less heterodox. Society, moreover, was rotten to the core, and needed to be entirely reconstructed. Such was the condition of things when, at the call of the feeble but devout Ferdinand I., Blessed Peter Canisius arrived at Vienna in March 1552. Thirteen of his religious brethren had preceded him by nearly a year, and had opened a college which already promised well.
Canisius began by preaching sermons at court, and to the people, by catechising children, and by seizing every possible opportunity of doing good. Then the plague broke out, and he devoted himself to the stricken. The Pope proclaimed a jubilee, and Canisius profited by the occasion to vindicate the honour of indulgences. His method everywhere seems to have been to do the next, the obvious thing, whatever it might be, and to throw himself heart and soul into it. Not content with his work in the city, he evangelised the country places. The poorest hamlets attracted him most, and as he went on his way, he instructed, consoled, heard the confessions of a life-time, gave the sacraments to the living and the dying, and brought back many hundreds of lost sheep to the fold. He continued to work thus without a break during the winter months, among people who were Christian but in name, intemperance, ignorance, and long neglect, having brutalised them almost beyond human reach. But where he passed, every village changed its aspect; conversions little short of miraculous marked his progress everywhere. Words that from the mouth of another might have returned unto him void, uttered by Canisius carried compunction into the hardest hearts. It was his sanctity, his entire abnegation of self and whole-hearted dependence on the Divine Will, far more than his learning, vigour, or energy that gave his words wings, and worked wonders among this forsaken and degraded country folk; and his charity was such that he would have been well content to have laboured among them for the rest of his life.
But meanwhile Vienna was suffering from his absence, and all sorts and conditions of men clamoured for his return. The episcopal see having become vacant, the king besought the Pope and St. Ignatius that it might be conferred on Father Canisius. But the utmost he could obtain after long importunity was that Canisius should administer the affairs of the diocese for one year, pending the election of a bishop, with the proviso that he should not touch a single farthing of the rich revenues belonging to the see, which he was to govern as a simple religious.
The arrangement was one admirably adapted to the restoration of order in the existing state of chaos, while no sacrifice of its discipline was forced on the Society by the promotion of one of its members to rank and dignity.
Canisius was afterwards made Dean of the University, in the hope that he would do for it what he had already done for Ingolstadt, and he set about the work in the same masterly fashion that distinguished all his schemes of reform. His first act was to obtain a royal decree, limiting the admission of professors to those who had submitted themselves to a rigorous examination in religious doctrine, and had given irrefragable proofs of orthodoxy. The same conditions were in future to be exacted of all who presented themselves for degrees. The university teemed with Lutheran literature; it was swept away by the same inexorable root-and-branch measures that had been so successfully employed at Ingolstadt.
The next care of the reformer was to petition the king for a seminary wherein the ranks of the clergy, thinned almost to extinction, might be reinforced by men carefully trained to a due appreciation of their high calling. The result was the foundation of the seminary of priests of noble family, recruited mainly from the college which the Jesuits had opened at Vienna, and to which had flocked students from all the great families of Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, etc. In conjunction with this seminary, St. Ignatius, about the same tune, founded the celebrated German College in Rome, for the regeneration of Germany by means of a clergy that should be as learned as it was morally irreproachable.
In the midst of his multifarious occupations, Canisius continued his sermons at court, in the Cathedral, and in the principal churches of Vienna. Lutherans frequented them largely, and some, touched by the power of his doctrine and eloquence, asked him for conferences, which he gladly accorded them. Among these were two preachers of some celebrity, pillars of Protestantism, who defied him to answer their arguments in a public disputation. He accepted the challenge, and the day, place, and hour were fixed. A great concourse of people, composed largely of the new sectaries, were assembled, prepared to swell the expected triumph of their champions. The two heretical doctors held their dissertations, one after the other, and sat down amid the applause of their sympathisers. Then Canisius stood up with religious modesty and humility, his bearing expressive of the calmness and benevolence of one who has the whole Catholic Church, past and present, on his side. His prodigious memory and profound knowledge enabled him to refute easily every charge brought by his adversaries, whom he completely crushed with the overwhelming consistency of his logic. They both acknowledged themselves defeated; one returned to the Catholic Church, and a few months later entered the Society of Jesus, of which he remained an edifying member till his death; the other became a more determined advocate of heresy than before, and swore to avenge his defeat by a persistent persecution of the Jesuits.
Nor were enemies wanting on any side; the more converts the Jesuits made, the greater was the hatred they inspired. Calumnies were sown broadcast, and the life of Father Canisius was in constant danger. Ferdinand, warned of a plot to murder the holy man, obliged him, greatly to his discomfiture, to accept a bodyguard whenever he went out. But the work of reform and conversion went on steadily, and from all parts of Germany, bishops, princes, and governors sought to obtain the presence of the illustrious apostle. "I am ready," he wrote in this regard to St. Ignatius, "to go wherever obedience calls me, and to work for the salvation of souls however abandoned they may be, whether in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Tartary, or China, wherever I am sent."
He was sent to Prague, perhaps the most God-forsaken spot in the whole empire. Every imaginable sect had accumulated in Bohemia during the preceding twenty years. Scarcely a vestige of Catholicism remained, and Hussites, Wicklifites, Vaudois, Lutherans, Zwinglians, and various other offshoots of the principal sects, were busy relegating each other in eloquent terms to eternal damnation, when the arrival of Catholic missionaries gave the signal for a coalition against the common enemy of them all. At Prague itself, where Canisius was charged to found a college with the injunction not to leave Bohemia until it should be solidly established and in a flourishing condition, the Hussites outnumbered the others. Scarcely had he arrived and set to work, when the Duke of Bavaria, reminding St. Ignatius that Canisius had only been lent to Austria, claimed him, at least temporarily, for the foundation of the college which the Society was to establish at Ingolstadt. The claim was admitted to be just, and accordingly the affairs of Prague could only be proceeded with four months later, when Canisius returned from Germany, having been made provincial.
It was the beginning of Lent 1555, and on the 21st April twelve priests sent to him from Rome by St. Ignatius, arrived to second him in his perilous undertaking. The first time the Jesuits appeared in the streets they were saluted with handfuls of mud cast at them by the city urchins, who had been bribed to insult them. The cry "Dogs of Jesuits" (a play upon the word Canisius) followed them wherever they went. Father Peter was himself assailed with a large stone hurled through the window of the church as he stood at the altar saying Mass. A plot was formed to throw the whole community one by one into the Moldau, as they passed over the bridge that connected the old and the new town; and ruffians, who had received a part of their reward in advance, were stationed in the middle of the bridge to waylay them. But a timely edict issued by the Archduke of Bohemia threatened with the most severe penalties whoever should raise a hand against any member of the Society, or even treat any one of them disrespectfully. He went still further, and sent a detachment of guards to the college daily, with orders to accompany each of the priests wherever he went, and in sufficient numbers to prevent any attack.
Added to the open enmity and fierce hatred which they inspired, the Jesuits had to encounter the jealousy of the University professors, who would have been willing enough that they should preach, but who, on the opening of their college, did all they could to hamper them and prejudice people against them.
The reputation of the Society for teaching was great all over Germany. Wherever a college was established by them, it immediately attracted students from all parts, and it was perhaps natural that other educational institutions should fear for their own existence. But the pettiness and meanness with which this fear was expressed at Prague resulted for the Jesuits in a penury so abject, that for many months they had nothing to eat but bread and cheese, and nothing to drink but water from their own well. For several days they were even prevented from going out for want of suitable garments. Nevertheless, however much they might have to suffer in any one place, struggling through a painful existence to the end in view, the work of reform went steadily forward.
About this time, the cathedral at Regensburg was in need of a preacher; the Diet was about to assemble in that city, all the princes and electors of the empire were to take part in it, and the new sectaries were expected in great numbers, in order to wrench, if it might be, such concessions from the authorities as they had not yet been able to obtain. The chapter therefore appealed to Father Canisius, and besought him to throw himself into this important breach. Realising all that was at stake, he started at once for Regensburg.
His first appearance in the cathedral pulpit was a splendid testimony to the opinion in which he was held. The vast building was filled with a brilliant throng, on the fringe of which the people hung in dense crowds overflowing into the streets. In a letter to Father Lainez (who had succeeded St. Ignatius as General of the Society) in September 1556, Canisius describes his efforts as successful in supporting and strengthening the persecuted Catholics, but he goes on to say that the Lutheran representatives at the Diet let loose a string of calumnies against him, and did all they could to poison the minds of the weak and simple. But for the States of the Empire they would have cast him out of the city as one so dangerous to the Protestant cause that they declared it would be wrecked altogether if Canisius continued to preach there.
However, continue he did during the whole of the sessions, save for a short interval of absence. In this interval he visited Innsbruck, in which town a college of the Society was nearing completion; and Augsburg, whose bishop, his old friend the celebrated Otto Truchsess, desired to consult him on the affairs of his diocese. There, overwhelmed with his almost superhuman labours, Canisius fell ill. He desired to be taken to the college at Ingolstadt, and Cardinal Truchsess accompanied him thither, while the Duke of Bavaria sent him his physicians. Thanks to their skill and to the enforced rest of his mental and physical powers, he soon recovered, and was able on the 1st December to return to his post at Regensburg. On all the Sundays of Advent he preached at the cathedral, but as it could not contain the vast concourse of people who crowded to hear him, he was obliged to preach three times in the week also. From the pulpit he went to the confessional, and when he returned to his lodging he was besieged by those who came to seek his advice-princes, concerning the interests of religion in their dominions, prelates, in regard to the reform of their dioceses, or to their own spiritual needs. The King of the Romans, and the Duke of Bavaria often sent for him to confer with him, and all admired the humility, simplicity, and patience with which he listened, no less than the frankness and freedom from human respect with which he proffered his advice. But time was wanting for all the demands made upon him; and that all might be satisfied he drew up for the use of bishops a short treatise on the means of reforming the clergy, and of introducing good morals among their flocks.
The Diet of Regensburg ended in nothing but resolutions to continue the controversy at Worms, and fearing the objections of Canisius, who was known to feel great repugnance towards these public conferences with heretics which never came to any practical conclusion, Ferdinand sought to anticipate his refusal by obtaining a promise from Father Lainez that so able a defender of Catholic doctrine should also be present.
Canisius had already written to the general thus:—
"Knowing as I do my poverty of intellect, my great want of aptitude, and my incapacity, I confess that I should like to run away from this place, and would rather go and beg in India than involve myself in those dangerous disputes, out of which nothing can come but perpetual disgrace to religion, and great harm to the rights of the Church. But the Lord God will make known to me His will by His servant my Superior, and when I know it I shall have no further fear, but shall appear with boldness in the enemy's camp; for all my confidence and all my strength are in obedience. I can be nothing else but a beast of burden in the house of the Lord all the days of my life."
Father Lainez shared to the full the opinion of Canisius as to the uselessness of these conferences, which were exacted by the Lutherans in the hope of wresting something to their own temporal advantage, and the Pope differed from neither in his estimation of the small amount of good to be hoped from them. But as the Emperor was not to be restrained from granting concessions which all Catholics agreed were futile, it was extremely important that the interests of religion and the rights of the Holy See should be ably defended; and Father Lainez therefore insisted that Canisius should not only remain at the Diet of Regensburg to the bitter end, but that he should hold himself in readiness to reopen the campaign at Worms.
In the interval Canisius went to Rome to pay his respects to the new General, and on his return to Germany visited Munich. The capital of Bavaria was also a hot-bed of heresy, and after a brief sojourn there he wrote to Father Lainez, entreating that he would send some Fathers capable of attracting people by their sermons and of edifying them by the holiness of their lives. He then went to Ingolstadt, and was greatly consoled by the results that had been obtained by the newly founded college. Heresy no longer ventured to raise its head where formerly it had flaunted its colours unabashed, and in every respect the university was worthy of the care that had been bestowed upon it. The place was naturally dear to his heart, as the magnificent first-fruits of his labours for Germany, but tearing himself reluctantly from the piety and peace which he had so successfully planted there, he proceeded to confront the enemy at Worms.
The greater number of the Lutheran disputants had already arrived, but of the six Catholic theologians deputed to enter the lists against them, the most celebrated, Johann Gropper, Archdeacon of Cologne, was conspicuous by his absence. Canisius wrote to entreat him to come, but Gropper was so thoroughly convinced of the uselessness of the disputations, that he persistently refused to take part in them. The organisation of the whole matter therefore devolved on Canisius, who prepared the plan of defence, and appointed to each Catholic theologian the subject of which he was to treat. Besides this, he continued to preach, to hear confessions and to take counsel with his colleagues daily. At night he allowed himself but a brief interval of sleep, the rest of the time being spent in prayer and study.
He had stipulated before the opening of the conferences that none but those Protestants who belonged to the Confession of Augsburg, and who were the only regular, and to some extent, disciplined body among them should take part in the disputations. This condition had been accepted, but from the very beginning, Anabaptists, Sacramentarians, and heretics of every imaginable sect appeared, and claimed the right of speech. Those of the Augsburg Confession were furious, and refused to make common cause with the new arrivals. Recriminations, invectives, and threats were hurled about the Protestant camp till a formidable tumult ensued. The Augsburg Lutherans at last succeeded in turning out the other sects, but ashamed of the spectacle they had presented to the eyes of the Catholics who were all united, they left Worms secretly, and contented themselves with attacking each other in the usual vituperative terms.
"It was," wrote Canisius, "as if the giants of old were seeking to rebuild the Tower of Babel. God visited them with the same spirit of confusion which prevented their understanding one another, so that Melancthon was punished by the work of his own hands, like those who are devoured by the wild beasts which they have themselves bred up with great pains and difficulty."
Cologne, Strassburg, and his own native Nymwegen next came in for a share in the apostles' labours. The Bishop of Trent begged him to come and found a college in his diocese; the Duke of Bavaria called upon him to organise the one he had already set on foot at Munich, and to establish another at Landshut. But Straubing, by reason of its extreme need, detained him longer than any of these places.
Charles V. had himself been mainly responsible for the worst of the difficulties and complications that existed at Straubing, on account of his famous interim, which granted to all, on his own personal authority, permission to communicate under both kinds, pending the decision of the Council of Trent on this point. Straubing had availed itself without exception of the permission, and even after the decision of the Council persisted in retaining the custom. A few priests had attempted resistance, but numberless apostasies and half an insurrection had followed on their action, and now the position had come to be regarded as impregnable.
Canisius made no attempt to storm the fortress; he arrived, and was gentleness itself. He had scarcely passed a week in the town when he was regarded as the friend and adviser of all its principal citizens. His sermons drew crowds as usual, and his instructions on the subject of Holy Communion, of which his hearers proved to be strangely ignorant, were continued in the confessional, and on every possible occasion. At Easter nearly the whole population approached the sacraments, and communicated without making the least difficulty, under one kind. The apostle, broken with fatigue, for he had preached throughout Lent, three times a week, besides catechising, visiting the sick, hearing confessions, and answering the objections of all who came to him, was yet beaming with joy, so markedly had his labours been blessed.
It would be superfluous to follow Canisius in his journey to Poland, in his fruitful sojourn at Augsburg, in his campaign against the ignorance of the clergy at Wurzburg, against the Calvinism of the Swiss Protestants. Everywhere the story is the same: ignorance, vice, and heresy fled before the bright light of his presence, and his wisdom provided, that where he had planted the good seed, others should follow him, to keep it watered, so that there should be no return to the former errors. Long after his death, the colleges of the Society which he had founded continued his work, and formed an efficient barrier against the modern spirit of revolt from authority and order.
If in a sense the old ages of faith were dead, the new age witnessed a wonderful resurrection, the effect of which is still going on in our own day. And the scourge of heresy wherewith the Church in Germany was scourged to its ultimate salvation in the sixteenth century, lies now a thing of nought, effete and all but lifeless, while the Bride of Christ has renewed her youth like the eagle.
Lacordaire once wrote in a letter to Madame Swetchine these remarkable words concerning the disciples of St. Ignatius:
"Tout ce qui m'a tombe sous la main m'a toujours revolte par l'emphase ridicule de l'eloge, ou par l'impudeur du blame. II semble que cette nature d'hommes ait toujours ote la raison a ses amis et a ses ennemis. Je voudrais leur consacrer dix annees d'etudes, ne fut ce que pour mon plaisir propre; mais Dieu nous donne et nous prepare une bien autre besogne, et il faut dire avec l'auteur de l'Imitation, 'relinque curiosa.' Les Jesuites continueront a faire du bien, et a le faire mal quelquefois; ils auront des amis frenetiques et des ennemis furieux, en attendant le jour du jugement dernier, qui sera pour bien des raisons un tres-interessant et tres-curieux jour."
At no time has the world been more occupied with the Jesuits than at the present moment, and the prophecy of the celebrated Dominican above quoted seems more than ever likely to be fulfilled. If their friends are indeed still as extravagant in their praise as Lacordaire found them, perhaps on the other hand criticism is even louder, hatred more profound, accusation more wild and general. Most of the governments of Europe have banished them, on the ground that they are the enemies to progress, to liberal ideas, that they have meddled in politics, and constitute a danger to the State, by seeking to grasp the helm of public affairs, secretly stirring up the nations against their rulers.
The subject appears to be of perennial and universal application, since even in this twentieth century, and in so tolerant a country as England, people have been moved to some apprehension lest we should be incurring a danger in suffering the Jesuit to live unmolested in our midst. But it is not our present ambition to settle so burning a question as the right of members of the Society of Jesus to exist anywhere; rather would we make an excursion into the domain of history, and inquire what have been the rules and regulations, and what has been the practice of the Society concerning politics in the past, what has been the attitude of its members, prescribed and actual towards kings, potentates, and dynasties.
Certain facts have recently come to light, bearing on the history of the Jesuits at the various German courts in the sixteenth century, and the scattered remains of the private correspondence belonging to the archives of the old Society before its suppression have been gathered together. What was done more or less in secret is now proclaimed on the housetops, and the result, as might be expected, is in many ways interesting and instructive.*
* Die Jesuiten an den deutschen Furstenhofen des 16ten Jahrhunderts.Auf Grund ungedruckter Quellen. Von Bernhard Duhr, S. J., Freiburg imBreisgau, 1901.
This correspondence consists of communications between the rank and file, and the superiors at Rome, and vice versa, and includes the letters which passed between the General and the kings, archdukes and other reigning princes, who were ostensibly friends of the Society, but who did their best to put frequent spokes in the wheels of the Constitutions.
The great dearth of learned preachers and confessors that prevailed about the middle of the sixteenth century appealed strongly to the Jesuits to throw themselves into the breach, and thus against the original intention of their founder, they became the spiritual guides of those who made the history of Europe for the next hundred years and more. It was a delicate and an onerous task, fraught with temptations from without and from within.
Ignatius of Loyola, being a man of the world as well as a saint, was well aware of the perils to which he exposed his sons, in sending them forth into the midst of vanities, while at the same time, having had some experience of courts, he knew that princes love not contradiction. But he decided after mature deliberation that after all his "least Society" was created to do a certain work in the Church and in the world, the need of which work was only too apparent in the decayed state of faith and morals. It was not by turning his back on courts that he could hope to regenerate them; but it would be interesting could we discover whether by a contrary decision he would have averted some of the odium which the name Jesuit has accumulated in the course of ages.
John III. of Portugal was the first king to demand a Jesuit confessor, and to him Ignatius sent Father Luis Gonzalez de Comara, much against the desire of the said individual. To his entreaties and objections the first General of the Society made answer, on the 9th August 1552, that he was indeed edified by the humility which caused Father de Comara to shrink from a position which many envied; nevertheless, he was of the opinion that he should obey his Highness in this, as in other things, "for the honour of God our Lord." St. Ignatius went on to say that he need not occupy himself with any but good and pious objects, neither had he reason to fear that the king would, against the will of the Society, confer upon him those honours and dignities with which it was the custom to distinguish other confessors. If moreover, his remaining at court was a cross to him, he must bear it with patience as he would all else that obedience required of him.
At the second General Congregation held in 1565, the question arose whether Cardinal Otto of Augsburg might have a member of the Society attached to his court, as theologian. The Congregation decided not to allow any member to reside permanently at the court of any prince, spiritual or secular, or to consent to his following the said court on its travels, either in the capacity of preacher, theologian or confessor, and that no appointment of such a kind should be permissible for longer than one month or double that period at the most.
Ten years later, the Provincial Congregation of North Germany was reminded of this decree in drawing up propositions to be placed before the third General Congregation, and it was expressly stated that none but the General of the Society himself should have the power to make such appointments, that they should be made as rarely as possible, experience having proved that more harm was done to the confessor by his residing at court than good to the penitent by his ministrations. The reply to this proposition was to the effect that with the General alone should rest the appointment.
By degrees, further legislation became imperative, and the fifth General Congregation, held in 1593, forbade in the most solemn form every member of the Society to interfere in politics or any public affairs whatever. The decree was so absolute that not only did it ensure the imprudent from taking part in the questions of the day, but timid confessors were thereby prevented by their scruples from giving counsel, when appealed to on matters that could scarcely be supposed to border on politics.
In order therefore, to correct all misapprehension, the General, Father Aquaviva, issued an Instruction for the confessors of princes, which was formally approved by the General Congregation of 16o8. This was considered so important a document that it was incorporated into the Institute, a sort of code, containing the Constitutions which St. Ignatius drew up, as well as the decrees of General Congregations. The Instruction was in fact a summary of all previous experience on the subject. It provided, first of all, that in cases where the Society could not avoid compliance with the demand for a confessor at court, great care should be taken in the choice of the individual member to fill the office, so that he might conduce to the welfare of the prince, the edification of the people, and the avoidance of all injury to the Order. The last clause bore reference to the fact that not infrequently the Society was called upon to suffer in one place for wounds inflicted on it in another. Rules for the said confessor were then laid down, to fit every possible emergency, and in minute detail.
For instance, the king's confessor, although attached to the royal chapel, must not only lodge exclusively in a college of his Order, but he must remain subject to the rule, like any other member of the Society. Even when travelling with the court he was obliged to sleep in a house of his Order, or if passing through a town where no such house existed, he must beg hospitality of any other religious community, preferably to passing the night at court.
It was again solemnly impressed upon him not to allow himself to be drawn into any secular concerns, which rule the king was humbly petitioned to enforce.
Neither must the confessor undertake to be an emissary between the prince, his penitent, and any of his ministers, or other officials.
As regarded the prince himself, he was bound to listen to his confessor, not merely when he exhorted him on the subject-matter of his confessions, but also in matters relating to the prevention of injustice, oppression, or other scandals such as often came about through the fault of officials, and which were unknown to the sovereign.
None might undertake the office of permanent confessor at court without the consent of his provincial. It was, moreover, the duty of the provincial before according such permission, to hand this Instruction to the prince in order that he might thoroughly understand what the Society was willing to bestow upon him. The prince was further to be reminded in modest but decided terms, that superiors retained the right to the obedience of the individual who became his confessor, as absolutely as to that of any other member of the Society.
At first there seemed no great need for these precautions. The emperor, Charles V., chose Dominicans for his confessors, and his successor, Ferdinand, followed his example. But Ferdinand held the Society in great esteem, and at his death Father Lainez, who was then General, ordered that each priest in the college at Dillingen should offer twelve Masses for the repose of his soul, and the lay-brothers were to say certain prayers with the same intention. The Society was not only indebted to him for his unvarying friendship, but owed to his munificence the foundation of four colleges, viz., those of Vienna, Prague, Innsbruck, and Tyrnau.
Ferdinand's son and successor, Maximilian, having Protestant leanings, dispensed with a confessor altogether, but his wife, Doha Maria, sister of Philip II. of Spain, was provided with a Spanish Franciscan, who was chosen for her by her brother. Maximilian's sons all chose Jesuit confessors, as did also his daughter, the Queen of Bohemia.
At that time the Lutherans thought that Catholicism was at its last gasp, and they eagerly anticipated the banishment of the Jesuits. But Maximilian, in spite of his Protestant tendencies, was well disposed towards them, and their college at Vienna received many marks of his favour, to the great disgust of his Lutheran subjects. The Protestant nobles assembled at the Landtag held in Vienna, attached three conditions to their votes of supplies for his war against the Turks:—The abolition of the procession of Corpus Christi, the confirmation of the Confession of Augsburg, and the banishment of the Jesuits. They declared that if the emperor refused to grant these requests, they would not furnish him with the required subsidy for the war. Maximilian replied that it was his business to repulse the Turks; the other things did not concern him, but the Pope.*
* Orig. G. Epist., 6, 48 seq.
Disappointed in their hopes, the Lutherans, allying themselves with the enemies of the Jesuits within the Church, began to circulate false reports against the Society. At one moment they accused Father Peter Canisius of prejudicing the Pope against the emperor, at another, the whole community at Vienna were declared guilty of openly insulting the Protestants. Reiterated complaints poured into the emperor's ears ended by alienating Maximilian from his former friends, and it was difficult, almost impossible for them to obtain a hearing. But the empress remained loyal to them, and would perhaps have been termed by Lacordaire frenetique.
Father Maggio, who was then court preacher, seems to have been a man of great prudence and mildness, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of religion. By degrees he not only convinced Maximilian of the injustice of the attacks made upon the Society, but the two became fast friends, so that when he was made Provincial of Austria in 1566, the appointment gave much satisfaction at court. He was frequently summoned to private audiences, and the emperor treated him with so much confidence that Father Maggio would sometimes venture to address to him written words of exhortation, words which Maximilian invariably took in good part. The empress, observing the affection of her husband for the Jesuit would consult Father Maggio as to the best means of confirming him in the Catholic religion.
When Father Maggio was made provincial, Father Antonio, a Portuguese Jesuit, became court preacher, but so little to his own satisfaction that he repeatedly appealed to the empress and to the General for his release. He bewailed his unfitness for a post requiring so much exceptional virtue, and expressed his desire to be sent to foreign missions. If such were not the will of his superiors, he entreated that he might have some humble office in a house of novices, where he might live unnoticed by the world, and labour for his soul's health.
The General, Father Mercurian, replied, on the 18th March 1576, that he had no one to replace him at court, and that he must perforce remain where he was. Previously to this, Father Antonio had besought the empress to dismiss him, but she had answered that she counted on his ministrations at the hour of death. A month after Father Mercurian's refusal to remove him, he again wrote to the General, begging that he might apply to the empress for, at least, a year's leave of absence, during which time a locum tenens might be dispensed with. Two days later, he followed up this letter with another, giving the General his opinion why it was inexpedient for any member of the Society to remain at court for more than a short term, such as a month or two. There was, he said, no bishop, ambassador, or person of consequence who did not desire to have several of the Fathers about him; the door which, at their profession, they had shut on the world, seemed in a certain sense to be reopened by a residence at court; unfortunately, men were not wanting who aspired to such offices, and great inconveniences ensued thereby. Some grew accustomed to a certain independence, little in accordance with the rules of the Society, some were altogether spoiled, and brought disgrace on the Order. It was, perhaps, not astonishing that after this letter the General showed even less inclination than before to remove Father Antonio. One who thus appreciated the dangers of the world would be less likely than another to fall a prey to them, and was as safe at court as in fulfilling the humblest duties of the noviceship.
But when all was said and done, the influence of the Jesuits at the Court of Vienna was not very great. Their El Dorado was the Archducal Court at Gratz, where reigned Ferdinand's son, Charles II. Here their power was at least supposed to be so great that their enemies declared that they possessed the master-key of all the doors in the palace, and could pass through all the rooms composing the apartments of the Archduchess at will. This, however, with other things, she declared solemnly to be nothing but lies—nur lautere Lugen—and an attack on her honour.*
* Hurter, Ferdinand II, 3, 578.
Apart from these unpleasant calumnies, the Society flourished at Gratz as hardly anywhere else, and was able to train its novices, give the Spiritual Exercises, and administer the sacraments undisturbed. The only difficulties that arose were in connection with the right of the provincial to move his men about as he chose, the archduke, like the emperor, being inclined to regard his confessors as his own property. This was notably the case with the celebrated Father Blyssem, who received marching orders in 1578. The Archduke at once wrote to the General, declaring that Father Blyssem's removal would be extremely inconvenient, and was not to be contemplated. If the General were on the spot he would be of the archduke's opinion. First, Father Blyssem was his and the archduchess's confessor, and they both wished above all things to keep him. Secondly, he was not only a vigilant rector of the college under him, and an experienced confessor, but he was also an excellent preacher. And finally, he was beloved by all, was well acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of the country, enjoyed a good reputation and inspired respect even in the opponents of the Catholic religion. His sudden departure could not therefore but be injurious to the temporal and spiritual welfare of the college, and detrimental to the general good.
Not alone the archduke, the papal legate, Bishop Ringuarda, also appealed to the General of the Jesuits in the same interest, saying that he had already sought the intervention of the Pope and the Cardinal of Como, to prevent the removal of Father Blyssem. As he now heard that, in spite of his efforts, Father Blyssem was to go to Rome, at least for three months, Bishop Ringuarda begged most urgently that this order might be cancelled, the Father's absence for even a week, to say nothing of a month, being likely to entail serious harm to the Church in Austria. His daily presence was so necessary, that if he were not already at Gratz, he must be sent there without delay. The legate then went on to enumerate all the wonderful qualities possessed by the rector, and ended his letter with the solemn entreaty that the General would on no account remove him.*
* Orig. G. Epist., 3, 298.
Pressure such as this being frequently brought to bear on superiors, they could scarcely be said to exercise undivided control over their own subjects.
Driven into a corner, Aquaviva was obliged to leave the archduke's confessor where he was, accommodating matters by making him Provincial of Austria, in place of Father Maggio, Father Emerich Torsler replacing Father Blyssem as rector of the college at Gratz. The archduke expressed himself content with the arrangement, provided that Father Blyssem did not absent himself on the business of the province when he required him at his side.
The new provincial had occasion, in January 1582, to write to the General about the sermons of a certain Father John Reinel, which were, he complained, too lengthy and too violent. In regard to the first fault he had improved somewhat, but no admonition had succeeded in causing him to desist from his biting attacks on the heretics. His Paternity was, therefore, requested to command him to observe more moderation and gentleness, and instead of handling the heretics angrily and roughly, to teach and exhort them with Christian charity. In this manner he would convert a far greater number, as every one maintained. But if he continued as heretofore, Father Blyssem would be obliged to send him to another college, where he would have to adopt a different style or give over preaching altogether, and take up another occupation.
But the removal of Father Reinel was not so simple a matter as it at first appeared. Towards the end of the year, Father Blyssem again wrote to Aquaviva on the same subject. It had been decided during the preceding summer to send the unmanageable preacher to another sphere of activity, he having been already so long a time at Gratz, where he was too much engrossed in the court, which he had recently, against the wishes of his superiors, accompanied in its journey of several months through Bavaria and Suabia, to the neglect of the pulpit at Gratz. Moreover, his harsh and aggressive manner of preaching was as repulsive to the Catholics as to the Lutherans, but when, according to his instructions, he was on the point of starting for Vienna, the archduchess, whose confessions he sometimes heard in Father Blyssem's temporary absence, was so much aggrieved at the change, that she entreated her husband with many arguments and tears to prevent his departure. Accordingly, the archduke begged the provincial to defer Father Reinel's removal on account of his consort's distress, and this he apparently did, but he wrote to the General asking him to insist on the order being carried out, and to persuade the archduke to agree to it.
Sometimes varying reports were sent to the General concerning the behaviour of certain Fathers at court. Thus, the rector of the college at Gratz wrote somewhat severely of Father Saxo, who also was a favourite in the most exalted circle.
But Father Blyssem in a letter to Aquaviva, dated gist December 1585, defended him, saying:—
"Your Paternity appears to be incorrectly informed as to Father Saxo. In my judgment, and in that of other Fathers of consideration, he has very greatly improved in his manner and conduct towards others. When I was at Gratz last year he was in possession of a costly little alarum, which he had received as a present from a nobleman. He was well pleased that the clock should be taken from him, and sold for the benefit of the noviceship. The seal which he used at missions, and which he would willingly have kept afterwards, he gave up at once at the instance of his superior. He had received a great many books as presents in the course of his missions, to assist him in preaching, and these he delivered up for the common use, after very little delay. The Fathers whom I questioned answered that they had noticed nothing in Father Saxo that might give scandal, nor had they ever heard anything of the kind about him."
The complaints against Father Viller were less easily answered. He had filled the office of Austrian Provincial between the years 1589 and 1595, and in the latter year was appointed rector of the college at Gratz. During this time the Archduke Ferdinand chose him as his confessor. Not long afterwards he was accused to the General of being a courtier, an imputation so vague as to need a discursive reply. But his long letter of self justification addressed to Father Aquaviva is interesting on account of the vivid scenes it lays before us. Its main contents are these:—
"Already fifteen or sixteen years ago, when Father Maggio had left the province, certain Fathers in Vienna complained bitterly to the new provincial, Father Blyssem, that I had a courtier-like mind, because people about the court came to me, and I associated with them. I was, it is true, in favour with the imperial council, with the bishops and the Hungarian nobles, also with the apostolic nuntios Delphin and Portia, and I laboured to the extent of my power in the interests of religion. Father Provincial removed me from my office, and I became his secretary and admonitor. Two years later, when a visitor, Father Oliver came, he reinstated me as Master of the alumni, discipline among them having become relaxed. When I had been another two years in this office, I was again accused to the provincial. I was deposed, but in the meantime, the baselessness of the charges brought against me having been proved, I was appointed rector at Olmutz, and Father Provincial assured me with tears that I had been unjustly treated. Five years afterwards I was elected provincial, and the Father Visitor was able to testify that I suffered much, even to the danger of losing my life, in discharging the duties of this office in Bohemia and Hungary. The next provincial (Father Ferdinand Alber) evinced dislike of me immediately on his taking up office, the reason of which was, I believe, merely that we do not share the same opinions. He, like Fathers Bader, Reinel, and Scherer, is for public penitential exercises in the refectory daily; I, on the contrary, am for a milder proceeding, such as I have learned of Fathers Maggio, Everard (Mercurian) Goudan, Canisius, and Lanoy. Therefore, I am called a courtier, even when I am not at court. The whole college will bear witness that I go there less often than Father Reinel, who at least went once a day, whereas I go on an average but once a week.
"If it be objected that I suffer the princes to come frequently to the college, I reply, as I replied to the Father Provincial, that I will undertake they shall come no more, but the responsibility for this must rest with others.
"I am further reproached with having invited the princes to dinner at the vineyard, and also at the college, and that I even played with them at the vineyard. As for the invitation, the princes themselves asked to be invited, and the Apostolic Nuntio, and the Bishop of Laibach, were present at the games, which were, in my judgment, honourable and modest.
"I have begged to be removed from both my offices, in order to remove suspicion, and to obtain peace, for I see that I am not agreeable to my provincial, he having forbidden me to hear the confessions of the archduke and those of the dowager archduchess, who with her daughters insists on confessing to me.
"If any one has told the provincial that the college is in a bad state, ocular demonstration will prove the contrary; everything goes on in an orderly way. The archduke receives Holy Communion every Sunday. He is burning with desire to reinstate the Catholic religion, and he labours for the conversion of the nobility. Only yesterday a man in a very high position was received into the Church. As for your Paternity's exhortation to guard against the spirit of the world, I thank you, but I do not see how I am to do it, unless I flee from the court and from those about it. I will take pains to satisfy my conscience and obedience, but I fear that I shall not content those who look on the dark side. If your Paternity thinks that I seek the favour of princes more for my own sake than that of the Society, it is a bitter reproach, for I would rather die than be guilty of such a fault. The archdukes will bear me out how often I have spoken to them on this subject, and how I have begged them to write nothing on my behalf to the General or to the provincial; but they insist that if I lay down the rectorate I must retain the confessorship."*
* Orig. G. Epist., 35, 479.
In the end, this suggested compromise was effected. Father Viller was no longer rector of Gratz, but remained confessor to the archducal family. Nevertheless, complaints of him did not cease, and he had to defend himself against the charge of clinging inordinately to the worldy advantages of his position. In a confidential letter to the German Resident in Rome he wrote:—
"I call God to witness that I do not value the court and my present office more than any other service which my superiors may call upon me to render to the Society. I am cheerfully ready to leave the court at any moment, and at the risk of losing the prince's favour, whenever my superior expresses a wish that I should do so, to say nothing of receiving a decided order. I have not so high an opinion of my person that I seek consideration on account of the favour and affection of the prince."
Still the attacks on Father Viller did not cease. Those who were for unmitigated austerity looked on his broad views with horror. Father Scherer, one of the most rigid, called him "the synagogue of Libertines." The provincial, and the Spaniard, Father Ximenes, were among those who judged him most severely. He was, moreover, involved—and this is perhaps less to his credit than any supposed laxness with which he was charged—in the squabbles between the Hapsburg and Wittelsbach royal families, concerning the bishopric of Passau. This had for long been an apple of contention between Austria and Bavaria, and the new rector of the college at Gratz, Father Haller, in describing the situation to the General, wrote: "Outsiders on either side naturally throw oil on the flames, and as regards Ours, I doubt whether they do their best to extinguish them, exercising the necessary charity and prudence. Father Viller does the reverse, blaming and condemning everything Bavarian, while he praises and defends the Austrians indiscriminately. Both parties have their adherents, who publish everything from their own point of view. As this one-sided material is all that is laid before Ours, the danger is that the advice given is not in favour of investigation. It is taken for granted that all that comes before their eyes is true, and the other side is condemned unheard. But as it is clear that the Christian cause in Germany would be greatly benefited by a union of the two parties, it would be well worth the trouble, seeing the immense influence which the Society has over the princes and their advisers, for the members of the Order to labour with more zeal than heretofore, to bring about this reconciliation, particularly at Prague, Vienna, Munich, and Gratz." He concludes with the wish that not alone the Society, but the rulers of the Church also, might advance the cause of union.
In a postscript Father Haller returns to his charge against Father Viller, who, he declares, has disregarded the rules of the fifth General Congregation. At Ferrara, for instance, he engaged in a violent controversy with the Bavarian agent, Sper, about the Passau question, as well as that of the bishopric of Salzburg, which the Bavarians were supposed to covet. Besides this, Father Viller, blinded by prejudice, disapproved of the contemplated marriage between the Austrian Archduke and the Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria, "which he would prevent if he could. In short," wrote the provincial, "the good Father has extravagant and dangerous notions, and gives no good example to the college."
In his own defence Father Viller wrote that he was by no means averse from the alliance, that he had himself secretly applied for, and obtained, the necessary dispensation at Rome, and had frequently expressed his earnest desire that the marriage might take place, considering that a union between the two princely houses would conduce to the honour of both, and to the protection and defence of the Catholic religion in Germany.
Only, the health of the bride must be considered no less than her great and remarkable piety, as it was important to provide for the continuation of the line of the august house, into which it was proposed she should enter. He had thought that as marriage was so delicate an affair, foresight was needful, in order that no want of physical health and beauty might in course of time change affection into aversion, such as was to be daily observed in the marriages of so many illustrious persons. This, Father Viller declared, was his whole mind on the subject, and such as he had in all humility expressed it to the prince. With his whole heart he wished both exalted personages the tenderest love, firm union, and continuous happiness. He believed that the Archduke Ferdinand could not form a more suitable alliance with any other family in Europe, but at the same time, no one should quarrel with him, Father Viller, for wishing that the bride might possess sufficient corporal health and beauty to ensure the well-being of their issue, and the continuance of conjugal affection. For this reason he trusted in the great piety and noble character of the duke and duchess that they would not endanger the future of their daughter, and that of her children, as well as the happiness of their prospective son-in-law, by concealing a want of health on the part of their most devout and admirable daughter.*
* The reports as to the condition of the Princess Maria Anna's health appear not to have been without foundation. Hurter mentions her delicacy, and Koch says that she was unhealthy. She died on the 8th March 1616.
But Duke William of Bavaria was deeply offended with the Archduke Ferdinand's confessor, and even after the marriage which took place on the 23rd April 1600, at Gratz, Father Viller having indiscreetly reopened the subject of the bride's want of health, complaints of him reached the General. But, in spite of all this, he did not lose the archduke's favour, retaining his entire confidence to the end.
An incident connected with the jealousy with which the Society guarded its rule of non-interference in politics, is furnished by the same Father Viller, who, in 1599, was appointed to go to Rome on a mission from the Austrian archduke. On this occasion the General, Father Aquaviva, wrote to Father Viller as follows:—
"As at the present time general suspicion is aroused, especially in Venice, by any semblance even of politics, it will be difficult to avoid remarks, when it is seen that your reverence is charged with an embassy from the archduke to the Pope. And as the good prince has deserved so well of the Church and of the Society, and especially as your reverence has resisted so long, excusing yourself in prudent and religious fashion, it appears to me that a via media is possible, and an exception may be made. That is to say, that if the mission has nothing whatever to do with politics, but has merely regard to matters of faith, concerning heretics or the Turks, your reverence is at liberty to undertake it, and may set out as soon as is desired. But if the business is a political one, you must entreat the archduke, appealing to his love for the Society, to send some one more suitable in your place. This will be better for the archduke himself, and will confer a benefit on the Society."*
*Ad. Austr., 1573-1600.
It cannot be denied that during the reigns of the Archdukes Ferdinand, Charles, and Rudolph, the Court of Gratz was a model of purity, uprightness, and activity. As the Jesuits were all-powerful there during the whole of this period, it is obvious that this satisfactory condition must, in a large measure, be attributed to their influence.
The introduction of the Society into Innsbruck was the work of the Emperor Ferdinand, and the first Jesuit to labour in the new field was the Tyrolese, Father Charles Grim. At Innsbruck, in 1561, lived the five so-called queens, daughters of the emperor, who lived a semi-religious life, and who desired to be confessed, directed, and preached to by members of the Society. In 1563 the emperor paid a visit to his daughters, and inspected the new college at Innsbruck. He expressed his satisfaction with it, and presented the community with a garden.
The five "queens," Magdalen, Margaret, Barbara, Helena, Joanna, had a great reputation for piety and charity. A young girl, who had received severe injuries from a fire, was received into their palace and nursed with the most loving care. Certain persons were charged by them to inform them of cases of need as they arose. Father Edmund Hay told the General that three of the "queens" had dedicated themselves to God by a vow, and had resolved to remove as soon as possible from the turmoil and luxury of the court into greater solitude. One of them was especially pious, frequented the sacraments once a month and oftener, and would practise very great austerities if her confessor would allow her. In 1565 people already declared that the court of these archduchesses was like a convent; every sign of pomp and splendour had disappeared, and humility and modesty reigned in their stead.
On the 11th January 1566, Father Dirsius wrote to the General, St. Francis Borgia, in behalf of the "queens" Margaret, Magdalen, and Helena, telling him that their brothers, the emperor, and the Archdukes Ferdinand and Charles, fully concurred in their making the above-mentioned vow. They had wished, he said, to remove to Munich, with their attendants, and to live there in a convent of Poor Clares, apart from the world. But this plan their brothers opposed, and desired them to remain in Austria. The emperor had even offered them deserted convents in Corinthia, but in those parts there were too many heretics to please the princesses. Everyone advised them to remain at Innsbruck, where they already edified the faithful by their virtuous example, and prevented apostasy. They themselves were willing to remain; at least they wished to be in a place where there was a college of the Society, and were thinking of taking the newly-built Franciscan convent, the Italian Franciscans for whom it had been constructed being unlikely to remain on account of the climate and the difficulties they experienced in mastering the German language. In case the archduchesses did not get possession of this convent they had also in view a house in the neighbourhood of Innsbruck. In this event they humbly begged for fathers to direct them spiritually, and to undertake the care of other souls in the place.
In answering this letter St. Francis Borgia said that the Society was ready to help the archduchesses spiritually, if only out of gratitude to their father and brother, but that it was contrary to the Institute for the members of the Society to live for any length of time apart from their colleges or houses, and it would in any case be displeasing to the Fathers themselves to forego the company and edifying example of their religious brethren. It seemed, therefore, advisable that the three princesses should take up their abode where there was a college or house of the Society, and preferably at Innsbruck, where they might inhabit the house built by their father, or some other of the same description, where they might observe the rule of life they had adopted, and keep the vow they had taken before God. The Fathers might hear the confessions of the princesses and preach to them. A proviso was afterwards made that, in the event of the "queens" founding a convent, the Jesuits should no longer be their confessors, as this would be directly contrary to the intention of St. Ignatius, as expressed in the Institute.
The General then sent Father Canisius to Innsbruck to arrange matters, and the holy apostle of Germany formulated the opinion that "Ours should not easily receive permission to direct women, even the most exalted in position, for we have experienced to our detriment and the detriment of this college in particular, that Ours are liable in such matters to suffer in their vocation, and as a consequence to become unbearable."*
* Kroess, p. 177.
The next year (16th August 1567), Father Peter Canisius reiterated his apprehension: "I consider it extremely difficult to keep Fathers to their obedience and religious discipline when they are in any way bound to the court," he said.
Meanwhile, the "queens" had chosen Hall, a little town near Innsbruck, as their residence, and Father Dirsius announced the circumstance to the General in these terms:—
"The Queens have purposed for years to withdraw from the world. Now, with the consent of their brothers, they have decided to reside at Hall, and there with some of their ladies and attendants who wish to imitate them, to lead a religious life in common, but without adopting a habit or the rule of any religious order. They need priests, however, and wish for Fathers of the Society. They beg, therefore, that the church to be built at Hall with all its treasures may be taken over by the Society, for which they also wish to found a novitiate there."
But Father Borgia again objected, foreseeing nearly all the difficulties which arose later on. The Society might not undertake the direction of a community of women, even though these were not leading a thoroughly conventual life. It was not advisable for the Fathers to accept the church offered to them at Hall, because the college they were to establish in that place would have its own church connected with it, which would suffice. Further, it was not convenient that a church, communicating with the house where the archduchesses lived with their suite, should be handed over to them, and lastly, it was not the custom of the Fathers to go daily from their own to another church at a distance, to conduct divine service there. The General concluded his letter with the remark that, as the project of the "queens" was directly opposed to the Institute, nothing further need be said about such a foundation.
In a second letter he instructed Blessed Peter Canisius to impress upon the archduchesses that they should be content with the confessor chosen by the Society as the one best suited to them. Canisius was then to name Father Lanoy, whom the General was sending to Innsbruck from Vienna, the empress having been very well contented with him. If they demurred, it was to be represented to them that it was not becoming for "Ours" to frequent palaces much. The less frequently they were seen there the better, and the less people testified their affection for them by sending them food and clothes, the better would they be enabled to live a community life, and observe the Institute. The better also would they be able to render spiritual service.
Father Borgia communicated this instruction to the rector of Innsbruck College also, and added that he feared the Fathers were too much spoiled by presents from the "queens," who were in the habit of sending meals daily from their palace to them. In answer to the rector's question as to what was to be done with the food thus sent, the General replied that it was to be given to the sick, or to those in need. It was to be desired that the "queens" might be persuaded to send no more things of the sort. If they wished to bestow an alms on the college, they should do so in a more useful way. On no consideration should their confessor be allowed to take his meals in his own room; sickness being the only exception to this rule.
It was some time before the princesses could be induced to give up sending delicacies to their confessors, two lackeys being daily told off to carry the various dishes from the palace to the college. At last, however, the unwelcome favours were stopped by the rector declaring that the dinners thus sent did not reach the destination intended, but were distributed to the sick members of the community and others, the "queens" confessors partaking of the ordinary fare.
Nevertheless, the archduchesses gained their point as regarded the other matter, for in the end, the General gave an unwilling consent to their choosing their own confessors, but he told Canisius that this arrangement only held good during the lifetime of the "queens," and was to form no precedent. After their death the Society would not continue to direct the community of ladies which they had founded, such work not being in accordance with the rules of the Institute, which, in this particular as in others, had been approved by the Holy See.
In order to secure the Jesuits permanently as their directors, the pious archduchesses determined to found a novitiate at Hall, and to offer it to the General of the Society. St. Francis Borgia accepted the offer, but on condition that no responsibility was to accrue to the Society respecting the future of the community, and he wished it to be impressed on the princesses how much he had condescended in allowing their confessors to associate with their court, such frequent intercourse with seculars, especially with ladies, being undesirable for religious, and giving occasion to idle and frivolous remarks.