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FATHER JO^ES, S.J. v\ h, W. DRYSDALE Sc CO,» 232 ST. JAMES STREET I 1890. I II n wfiw>iMii>ii ( i i" i " li i i ' iii i iii Tr i I r i ii i i- T I I "'""" I j i ( iiiii » iiMiwiMW i( ii Vn ii|)iiiiiiiB I := '-"j*?! V^i -A im'.fs'-'- t ,i n- ^v n < n JESUIT MORALS: A PAPER / ON TUK V Errors im 'rm Moral, Tkachixc of thk JiiSuits. JVw READ BEFORE THE TROTESTANT MINISTERIAL ASSOCIATION or MONTREAL, i!Y tup: REV. JOHN SCRIMGER, M.A., Professor OH Exegiitical Theology in the Presbyterian College, Montreal, TOGETHER WITH THE CORRESrONDENCE BETWEEN REV. PROF. SCRIMGER AND THE REV. FATHER JONES, S. J., OF ST. MARY'S COLLEGE, MONTREAL. MONTREAL : \VM. DRYSDALE & CO., 232 ST. JAMES STREET. 1890. / ^ * r ^ ^ oo (5^ * ' ■r ' ' PREFATORY NOTE. The following paper on the Errors in the Moral Teaching of the Jesuits \s?LS read before the Protestant Ministerial Association of Montreal, on Monday, February 24th, 1890. A synopsis of the paper, containing a portion of it in full, appeared in the Daily Star the same evening, under the heading. Morale des Jesuites, and led to a brisk correspondence between Father Jones, of St. Mary's College, and myself, which is here reproduced in full. My only object in this publication is to give to my fellow countrymen accurate information as to the teachings of an order that is now domiciled among us, incorporated by Act of the Legislature, and subsidized out of public funds. I shall feel abundantly repaid if it has the effect of awakening a few more earnest minds to the serious nature of the danger which threatens our country from the encouragement of such teachers among us. Montreal, March, 1890. J^f 1 J ^ m * .T. » [ I ERRORS IN THE MORAL TEACHING OF THE JESUITS. For convenience of presentation and discussion the errors in the moral teaching of the Jesuits may be classified under four heads. I. First, those which arise from the erroneous theological dogmas of the Church of Rome, such as the iiifallibility of the Pope, transubstantiation, bap- tismal regeneration, orders, confession, penance, indul- gences, purgatory, intercession of saints, &c. All of these arc supposed to involve certain duties and obligations, which are, of course, largely erroneous, being based on false assumptions. They multiply religious duties, for which there is no Scriptural authority, and lay an undue stress on those things which are external, while the spirit is often belittled. On the other hand, in common with the Roman Catholic Church generally, the Jesuits also ignore the second commandment, forbidding the use of images in worship. Though the discussion of the decalogue forms a large portion of all their works on Moral Theology, in none of them that I have seen is this commandment so much as mentioned, or even a reason given for the omission. They evidently feel that it is not convenient to refer to a precept which so plainly condemns one of the recognized usages of the church. I am, of course, aw^are that they suppose it to be embraced in the first commandment, but prac- tically this comes to be a mere device for overlooking it altogether. It is regularly omitted from their »*iw - G catechisms, and, as far as possible, kept from the knowledge of the people. 2. A second class of errors consists of those which arise from the extravagant political principles of which they are the chief advocates : such as the supremacy of the Pope over all other ecclesiastical authorities in the world, and over all temporal sovereigns, the supremacy of the Chu ch over the State, the right of the Church to define its own sphere as against the State, the right of the Church to control education and marriage, the immunity of all ecclesiastical persons from civil jurisdiction, the right of the Church to con- trol the use of the franchise in its own interest. These, too, all involve corresponding duties which they are not slow to urge upon their adherents. And their teaching on these points is especially dangerous to the public welfare, because the Jesuits have shown themselves inveterate political intriguers wherever they have gained a foothold. There has been much discussion as to whether they teach that the Pope has a right to depose a sovereign who is disobedient to him, or absolve his subjects from their allegiance. The earlier Jesuit writers, such as Bellarmine, undoubtedly did so ; the recent ones maintain a somewhat prudent reserve on that point, though asserting principles that would seem to involve it if carried out to their logical conclusion. But alto- gether apart from that, they teacii quite enough to overthrow all free institutions, and seriously endanger the public well-being. 3. A third class of errors are those which may be said to be inherent in the Confessional as a system. Owing to the establishment of this institution as an essential part of its machinery of discipline, the Church is under the necessity of training all its priests in the special business of judging the moral quality of > 1 * ■ 4 I ^ :j I 1 acts and states of mind in detail, and of advisinf^ as to duty under all circumstances. Instead of laying down broad general principles of morality, and leaving it to the individual conscience to apply these in detail, the priest is called upon to make the applica- tion, and to pronounce judgment accordingly, as the representative of God, by granting or refusing absolu- tion. It is this necessity which has given rise to the whole system of casuistry. The works on Moral Theology are simply manuals for the guidance of the priest in the Confessional. The general objections to the Confessional need not here be discussed, but it will be readily seen how such a purpose must effect an etni 'd code that is prepared with a view to it. From the nature of tl'. care, it is impossible that all sins can be dealt with in the Confessional. The number would be too great. A selection must be made of those which arc more serious. Hence has been devised the distinction between sins mortal and venial, for which there is no Scriptuial warrant, and which rests upon no intelligible principle. The venial sins do not need to be mentioned in confession. If mentioned, no penance need be inflicted, but an easy absolution may be at once granted. The casuist, therefore, has little or no interest in venial sins, except to distinguish them from those that are mortal. To characterize an act as a venial sin is almost the same thing as saying it is no sin at all, and may be com- mitted with impunity. Yet these are often the very things that have most to do with the shaping of character. Such a code is obviously very defective. Further, this purpose necessarily lowers the standard at almost every point to that which can be insisted upon by the confessor, on pain of positive sin, and leaves little room for the encouragement of those ,rij i I I _/ 8 nobler qualities which are the peculiar glory of the Christian character Casuistry comes to be only a higher kind of statute law, and its constant question is as to whether this, that, or the other thing is lawful, not whether it is worthy of a Christian, or Christ-like. Its appeal is to fear rather than to love, and deals mostly with those things which can be enforced by the infliction of ecclesiastical penalties. It is only fair to say that casuist writers themselves are conscious of this and excuse it on the ground that these manuals aie not meant to be counsels of perfection, as they call them, but simply to furnish the law for the tribunal of the Confessional. For the higher virtues they say we must go to the ascetic writers. But here again the distinction is a wholly unscriptural one, and leaves the erroneous impression that the average Christian does not need to aim very high in moral attainment. Holiness may be left to be striven for by ecclesiastics and devotees who have little else to do. Another consequence of the Confessional system, which may, perhaps, be called an evil rather than an error, is the necessity of treating with minute detail in their manuals all those matters which concern the relations of the sexes. Grant the propriety of the Confessional, and, of course, this follows logically. But these very works furnish only too painful a proof of the danger and the evil of it. In spite of occa- sional protests it is all too evident that many of these writers revel in the filth with which they have thus to deal. Instead of avoiding it wherever possible, there is absolutely no department of life from which they draw their illustration of the operation of ethical prin- ciples so frequently as this. This is especially true of Gury, the most popular and most honored Jesuit writer of recent times. It matters not what the 9 » M • ' m ^ subject may be that he is seeking to illustrate, it will go hard with him if he does not invent one or more cases in which sins of lust figure prominently. 4. The fourth and most serious class of errors in Jesuit teaching, however, consists of those which arise from the almost constant tendency to laxity in their judgment of actions and intentions, when considered in the actual circumstances of life. This is the great peculiarity about the Jesuit school of writers as dis- tinguished from other Roman Catholic Theologians, and forms the main charge against them from the Roman Catholic standpoint ; as illustrated, for •example, by Pascal. Certainly it is serious enough. The elucidation of this part of the subject would need much more space than can possibly be given to it here, but a few general statements may perhaps serve for our present purpose. First of all, it is important to observe that the whole attitude of the Jesuit towards his penitent in the Con- fessional is different from that of the Church in gen- eral. His comprehension of its aim is somewhat different. The normal idea of the Confessional is that it exists for the purpose of affording relief to burdened consciences, by eliciting an acknowledgment of sin, pronouncing the ecclesiastical penalties to be inflicted, and administering absolution when these have been complied with. His idea is that it exists also for the instruction and guidance of the penitent, for the shaping of his character, or, as he ex[)resses it, for the direction of conscience. This looks at first sight like an elevation of the institution, and one would expect it to become thereby more largely helpful ; but practically it has tended to lower it, by leading the Confessor to regard those who come regularly to him for advice as his clioits. In the older conception of the Confessional it was the court of 10 conscience in which the penitent was at once criminal and witness against himself; the priest, judge and prosecutor. The Jesuit changed all that by becoming advocate for the accused. Except when it affects the Church or the Clergy* his general procedure is to belittle sin and to find excuses for granting a ready absolution, yet so as not to shock the moral sense of the penitent. His disposition is to take the part of the wrongdoer, who is present and is seeking absolu- tion, against the wro^iged, who is absent and does not need it ; to take tlie part of the criminal, who has become his client, as against society for which he cares little. This disposition on their part to make out the best possible case for the penitent and to grant him absolu- tion as easily as possible, is virtually admitted by their 1^ * This exception is interesting as showing the lack of any real moral sense in the application of their principles. Thus, to strike a layman may be a very venial sin, but to strike a priest is sacrilege. To filch from one's employer may be excusable ; to take anything belonging to a priest or a religious corporation is a mortal sin that cannot be absolved without reference to the bishop of the diocese. Defamation of a layman by a bishop or priest may be atoned for by a little judicious praise ; defamation of a priest, at least in one case, is such an enormity that it is reserved for the Pope hims'elf. All sins are excused in the case of young children except that of striking a priest and of violating the sacred privacy of a religious establishment. A marriage once solemnized is supposed to be indissoluble ; but it may be dissolved with a two months by either party in order to enter a religious community. In certain cases the time for this dissolution may be extended indehnitely. A legacy left informally to a relative or to any secular object need not be paid by the executors ; such a legacy left to the church must always be paid on pain of mortal sin. Restitution need not be made for a wrong done unless the civil law could compel it were the case tried ; not always even then : but if the church is con- cerned, restitution must be made whether the civil law requires it or not. It is on this last principle that the Jesuits have pressed tlieir demand for compensation for their forfeited estates in Canada. It is clear they have taken good care to protect themselves from the inconvenient* con- sequences of tiieir own lax leaching. Every one of the above assertions can be fully substantiated from the writings of Gury and other Jesuits. . own writers, and justified on the ground that too much rigorism would drive people away from the Confes- sional altogether, to their great spiritual injury, and on the ground that such compassion for the erring is becoming on the part of those who represent a merci- ful God. They admit that this compasr^ion has, at times, gone to unwise and unlawful lengths, and led to airy and unreal distinctions between right and wrong, but claim that the motive which has prompted the excess is deserving of all respect. Their rivals in other Orders and the secular clergy have not been afraid to insinuate that it is due not to compassion, but to selfish and ambitious desire for popularity, which scruples at nothing that is likely to further this end. But whatever may be the motive of it, the fact of this tendency to sympathise with the wrongdoer is unquestionable and gives us the key to the spirit in which all their works on Casuistry are written. A case or two from Gury will serve to illustrate this : " Olibrius is overwhelmed by debt and utterly unable to pay ; therefore, he is obliged to sell all his property : but the unfortunate man, to support his wife and a numerous family, threatened with poverty, secretly puts aside a certain sum and hides it carefully. At another time he omits to declare a very secret debt that Titius owes him, and he advises his debtor to keep profound silence on this subject. What must we think of Olibrius ? Ought he to make restitution ? Olibrius must not be disturbed in those two cases, if the money which he has put aside is very necessary to avoid poverty." (Gury, Cases of Conscience, Vol. I., p. 313.) Again, " Palaemon, having secretly cor^mitted a most grievous theft, is easily suspected to be the offender on account of his bad antecedents. Con- sequently, being seized by the police, he is taken to 12 jail. He tries to escape several times, but without success. On being questioned by the judge he repeat- edly denies his crime. He is sentenced to imprison- ment for life. However, he does not stay long in his cell, for he makes a hole in the wall with tools furnished him by a friend and he escapes. Arrested anew, he defends himself by knocking down the police, tearing their clothes. He luckily escapes from their hands and with all speed hastens across the frontier. " Q. — Was he entitled to escape from prison either before or after the sentence, even by making a hole in the wall or by breaking in the doors ; and has the culprit sinned by defending himself against the police while escaping from their hands ? " A. — It is allowed to a culprit to run away, accord- ing to the common opinion, if he has not been sentenced yet ; because no one is compelled to undergo a penalty before judgment. Some affirm it also if the guilty party has been sentenced to a very severe penalty, and assigned to prison until that penalty is paid. But the majority deny it if the imprisonment has been fixed by the judge's sentence, because a just sentence must be obeyed. Several, however, make exception if the prison life is very hard, because it would be a heroic act to suffer a very severe penalty when one can easily escape it. When it is not unlawful for the guilty party to escape he does not sin by breaking the doors or by making holes in the walls, because ivJien the end is lazvfiil the means also nj^e lazvful tvJien in themselves indifferent. This is St. Liguori's probable opinion. He sinned by resisting the agents of justice and tearing their clothes, because it is never permitted to resist authority. However, his sin might be excused if he had escaped without resistance from the hands of the police. Even the act of knocking down a policeman and other matters N % t t a \ J 13 of that kind for the purpose of an escape when it is a question of avoiding so great a penalty should be looked upon as a trifle and even as nothing. At least the sin is not a great one if he has done them a slight harm to escape a great evil, in case the resistance was not serious." (Gury, Cases, Vol. II., p. 7.) Another may be added. — " Anna, who is guilty of adultery, when questioned by her suspicious husband, answered him at first that she had not broken her marriage bond. Then, having received absolution for her sin, she ai.swered : " I am innocent of any such crime." A third time, on being pressed by her husband, she absolutely denied the fault. I have not committed it, said she, meaning, such adultery as I am obliged to reveal, or, I have not committed an adultery that must be revealed to you. " Q. — Must Anna be condemned ? " A. — In all three cases Anna may be excused from any lie, because, in the first case, she could say that she had not broken the marriage bond, since it still con- tinued to exist ; in the second case she could call her- self innocent of adultery, since, after having been to Confession, and, having received absolution, her conscience is at rest, having the moral certainty that her sin was pardoned. She could, according to S. Liguori, even affirm it on oath ; in the third case she could also deny her sin, according to a probable opinion, meaning that she had not committed it in such a way that she was obliged to reveal it to her husband, in the same way as an accused person may say to a judge who interrogates him irregularly : I have not committed any crime, meaning in such a manner that he is bound to declare it. This is the opinion of S. Liguori and many others." (Gury, Cases, Vol. I., p. 183.) Similar cases could be cited to almost any extent. ' :- I \ n i 14 excusing dissimulation, mental reservation or lying, clandestine baptism, defamation of character, secret compensation or stealing, smuggling, guilty co-opera- tion in the sin of another, forgery. Many of their earlier writers excuse murder and the assassination of rulers under various circumstances, but Gury is not so bold. We may now consider the methods by which these outrageous conclusions are reached. It need scarcely be said that they are not reached by any direct refusal to acknowledge the plain laws of right and wrong.. Neither their own consciences nor those of their penitents would allow that to be done without instant protest. In fact the Jesuit exposition of the law in theory is generally all that the most rigid moralist could ask for. What could be better, for example, than the following definition of a lie in Gury : " A lie is a word or sign contrary to the thought, with the intention of deceiving." (Compend., Vol. I., p. 344.) And even in their practical decision of any particular case they generally start out by taking high moral ground — high enough to satisfy the most exacting conscience. But the Jesuit has various devices which he applies regularly and systematically for the purpose of reduc- ing the sin to the smallest possible dimensions or of making it disappear altogether ; just as the criminal lawyer has certain well-understood methods of defence which he may employ, according to the nature of each case, for the purpose of securing the aquittal of his client. (a) The first of these that may be mentioned is to make the most of all extenuating circumstances, such as the occasional nature of the sin, ignorance of the consequences, an erroneous conviction as to duty, ignorance or forgetfulness of the law, incapacity f 15 ^4 w through drink, nature of the provocation, strength and suddenness of the temptation. Of course it is perfectly fair that some account should be taken of these circumstances. Some of them certainly would mitigate the punishment inflicted by any civil judge. But the civil judge would rarely allow as much weight to them as is commonly done by these casuists. The conscience of the average individual, if left to itself, would generally take higher ground. In illustration of this may be quoted the very first case given by Gury in his great work on Cases of Conscience. " Arnulfe, an honest man, but of a quarrelsome disposition, meets his enemy. Harassed by him with insults and blows, he is inflamed with a desire to kill him, and springs upon him with a drawn dagger. He, however, masters his passion, and runs away. On cooling down he is troubled at the thought of having committed the deadly assault, at once throws himself at the feet of his confessors, and avows his fault. " Again : Though he has made earnest efforts to check a bad habit of cursing and swearing, in a quar- rel with an opponent, he breaks out into blasphemy, and again betakes himself to the confessor to clear his conscience. " On another occasion, knowing that he is apt to be quarrelsome when intoxicated, he takes care to avoid drinking to excess. But being urged by his com- panions to drink more than usual, he becomes intoxicated before thinking of his danger, and in a rage quairels with the others. On coming to himself he hurries to do penance, and goes to his confessor. " Q. — Has Arnulfe sinned in these three instances? " A. — He does not seem to have sinned in any of the three cases, at least seriously, because he had not a full and perfect knowledge of the evil, and there was no premeditation, as may be gathered from the ' \i Sf circumstances of the cases." (Gury, Cases, Vol. I., p. i.) (d) A second method adopted is to give the peni- tent the benefit of every possible doubt that can be raised in his favor. This again is a recognized principle of jurisprudence to which some place may be given in morals, if properly restricted. But instead of restricting it within the narrowest limits, the Jesuit extends it as far as he possibly can, and no lawyer ever displayed greater ingenuity in raising doubts than the average Jesuit. He raises doubts as to matters of fact, and wherever there can be any uncertainty, always pre- sumes that state of the case which is most favorable to his penitent. He raises doubts as to his responsi- bility for consequences, and if there is any way of accounting for these other than by the direct act of his penitent, whatever his intention may have been, it is used in his favor. He suggests doubt as to the amount of deliberation that preceded an act, and if in any way it can be made out to be unintentional, or the result of a sudden impulse, its heinousness dis- appears, and it becomes a venial sin. He suggests doubts as to the obligation resting on his penitent, to fulfil inconvenient promises that have been given, or inconvenient contracts that have been agreed on ; doubts as to the obligation to tell the truth, even on oath, when there is any serious reason for concealing it, and for misleading the interrogator ; doubts as to the obligation to make reparation for wrongs done, or restitution for damage inflicted. In most of these cases a high sense of honor, or a tender conscience, would lead a man to decide these doubts against him- self. The Jesuit always allows them in favor of the culprit. And with such an array of possibilities it would need to be a clear case indeed in which some loophole of escape cannot be found. 17 1 (c) Closely allied to this is the free use of the famous doctrine known as probabilism, — or, their doctrine as to the course that may be taken when in doubt as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of certain actions. This plays such an important part in their system, and is a principle so foreign to ordinary Protestant modes of thought, that a little explanation is necessary. On many points of -practical morality there is room for difference of opinion as to whether certain things are allowable or not under the general law, owing to the fact that they have not been determined by any sufficient authority. Scriptural or otherwise. This is not unnaturally the special and peculiar sphere of the casuist's mental activity. Instead of laying down broad principles of ethics, and throwing upon every man's own conscience the responsibility of deciding what is right for him in his special circum- stances, as the Protestant moralist would do, the casuist feels bound to decide everything, if he can, for the guidance of the faithful. Accordingly the pros and cons of all such cases are minutely considered by these writers with a view to every conceivable variety of circumstances, and the results at which they arrive are most laboriously set down and registered. Naturally some opinions are for the lawfulness of the action and others against, but necessarily both sides must express their opinions with some degree of hesitation. They are hence given as probable^ i.e., probably lawful or probably unlawful, as the case may be, or as more probable than the opposite opinion, and so to be followed with greater safety, though still doubtful. Now, of course, anyone who is really serious in desiring to keep a good conscience, can always do so by avoiding whatever is of doubtful morality. This It was the position of the Jansenists, and is now that of all Protestants. But that would be too high ground for the Jesuit to insist upon, and the only question with him is as to how far one may go in doubtful courses. There has been some dispute even among themselves on this point. Many of them have held that any course which had ever been declared pro- bably lawful by any acknowledged author, and for which any defence whatever could be set up, was allowable, and could be followed without censure, however doubtful it might be, even though the con- fessor disapproved of it, and the man's own conscience might condemn it. Such lax views, however, brought down the condemnation of Rome, and in words, at least, they now confine license within somewhat narrower limits. A course must ordinarily be declared probably lawful by some considerable number of authors before it can be taken without sin. Even yet, however, one may have the gravest doubts him- self about the propriety of it, and still follow it. The confessor may wholly disapprove of it, but he is bound, nevertheless, to give him absolution. Nor is one bound to be consistent with himself. He may act on one opinion to-day, and on its opposite to-morrow, as best suits his interest, and still claim the benefit of the doctrine. Of course, many men have always acted on this principle, but it remained for the Jesuits to justify it. We can hardly conceive of anything more fitted to debauch conscience and destroy its sensitiveness. (d) A fourth method consists in the htdiscrimijiate use of general principles which are true only within certain limits, and can be safely followed only under certain conditions. Principles, for example, which hold good in ordinary jurisprudence, are not neces- I ■+ If 19 sarily true in ethics. But by the Jesuits they are freely allowed. Thus, for instance, in law a man is not bound to criminate himself, — an important principle which is intended to protect the individual against possible judicial tyranny, but wholly out of place in the court of conscience. The Jesuit uses it to excuse silence, even when this leads to the most serious consequences for innocent victims, such as the imprisonment of a companion, or the death of a friend by poison. Again, it is a general rule in law that a man is bound to make restitution only for damage actually caused. Father Gury uses it to excuse a man who has killed the head of a family from making any restitution to the family, because, as he was wasteful and intemperate, they are really better off without him. (Gury, Cases, Vol. I,, p. 316.) Generally speaking, a man is held responsible only for what he intends to do. Gury uses this principle to acquit from responsibility for any unforeseen con- sequence of a man's crime. A burglar enters a store to steal, and accidentally sets fire to the place. He is under no obligation to make restitution because he did not intend to burn it down. On the other hand, he is not responsible for the goods he meant to steal, even if he got away with them, for otherwise they would have been burned. (Compend., Vol. I., p. 448.) A murderer shoots at one man and kills another. He is under no obligation to his family, as he did not intend to shoot Jiim. (Cases, Vol. I., p. 6.) To this same class belongs the famous maxim about which there has been so much controversy, that the end justifies the means, in the sense that it is lawful to do evil that good may come. This is a principle that holds good within certain limits in time of war, and perhaps within still narrower limits in the 20 detection of criminals. The Jesuits have always repudiated the charge of using this principle in any improper sense. Their denial is both true and false. So far as my knowledge of their works goes, they do not directly appeal to it, except as warranting a prisoner in using deception and violence in making his escape from prison, the case already quoted. Busembaum, one of their earliest writers, in his Medulla Theologies M oralis (first published in 1645, and more than 200 times reprinted), indeed uses it once in another conneccion. But it is certainly not the favorite maxiir. it is sometimes represented to be. Many of their worst conclusions, however, practically involve it, and are defensible only on that ground. For example, dissimulation and even falsehood are excused in the interests of the church ; clandestine baptism is permitted in order to make sure of a prominent convert, who would otherwise suffer great inconvenience ; mental reservation and equivocation may be employed by almost anybody when there is any strong reason, legitimate or otherwise, for con- cealing the truth ; secret compensation, or stealing, is permitted, when a poo." man cannot easily get what he considers his rights in any other way ; forgery is excused, if it be com.mitted to replace a valid document lost or destroyed, that is necessary to make good a claim. It is also clearly involved in the following passage from the Constitutions, which, on the face of it, purports to forbid it : " Although the Society desires all its constitutions, declarations, and order of life to be observed accord- ing to our institute, in no wise deviating in any matter, it is, nevertheless, fitting that all its members should be secured, or, at least, aided against falling into the snare of any sin which may arise from the force of its constitutions or injunctions : It seems < -^ I i I , I 21 good to us, therefore, in the Lord, besides the express vow whereby the Society is bound to the Supreme Pontiff for the time being, and the three other essential vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, that no constitutions, declarations, or order of living can involve obligation to sin, mortal or venial, unless the Superior command these in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of holy obedience, which may be done in those matters or persons wherein it shall be judged that it will conduce greatly to the private or public good." (Part VI., Chap. V.)* In face of these facts, denial is simply an equivoca- tion. If they make so little open use of this maxim, * The text of the chapter from which this translation is made is as ftjllows : " Quod Constitutiones peccati obligationem non inducunt. Cum exoptet Societas universas suas Constitutiones, Declaraliones, ac Vivendi ordinem omnino juxta nostrum Institutum, nihil ulla in re declinando, observari : oportet etiam nihilominus suos omnes securos esse, vel certe adjuvari, ne in laqueum uUius peccati, quod ex vi Con- stitutionum hujusmodi, aut ordinationum proveniat, iricidant : Visum est nobis in Domino, prceter expressum votum, quo Societas Summo I'ontifici pro tempore existenti tenetur, ac tria dia essentialia Pauper- tatis, Castitatis, et Obedientise, nullas Constitutiones, Declarationes vel ordinem ullum vivendi posse obligationem ad peccatum, mortale vel veniale ind'icere : Nisi Superior ea in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi, vel in virtute sanctse obedientite juberet : quod in rebus, vel personis illis, in quibus judicabitur, quod ad particularemuniuscujusque, vel ad universale bonum multum conveniet, fieri poterit : et loco timoris offensae succedat amor omnis perfectionis etdesiderium : ut major gloria et laus Christi Creatoris ac Domini nostri consequatur." This is the form in vi^hich the text appears in the original Roman edition of 1558, in that of 1 570, and in an Antwerp edition of 1702. More recent editions, instead o{ oporiet read optet, which is much more natural ; for farticularetn put particulare, which is more grammatical ; and for prater expressum votum , , . ac tria alia essentialia substitute excepto expresso voio . . . ac tribus aliis essentialihus, which in noway changes the meaning. All editions, however, so far as I can discover, read obligationem ad peccatum. I was not aware of these variations at the time I made the translation in the text, else I would certainly have adopted the first of them, as the oportet etiam puzzled me not a little. I have preferred to let the translation stand as it was, in the meantime at least, for obvious reasons. \ I \ \ \- % it is not because they do not believe in it, but simply because they have so many other methods of letting down the standard, which do not at once revolt the conscience, that they have not much need for one which most assuredly would do so. With such methods as these systematized, and freely used, we can easily understand how all force may be taken out of great ethical principles, however sound, and matters made easy for the conscience. However serious a case may be in itself, you have only to import some one of these false principles of judgment, or take into account some circumstance, accidental or otherwise, that may be associated with it, and presto ! the whole thing becomes harmless, — a mere venial sin, of no account at all. Is it any wonder such confessors are popular with a large class in every community, where they secure a foothold ? Their standard is the standard of the easy-going man of the world, whose conscience is somewhat sluggish. They deftly slip under* the sleeping souls of their penitents the soft pillow of easy absolution, that these may sleep the sounder, and thus be more pliant in their hands. Of course, if a man has scruples that will not down, they can be as rigid as the case demands, and satisfy him, too, by bringing the standard just up to his level. It may be asked how it is, if this be all so, that the pupils of the Jesuits and the members of the order themselves, are able to maintain even a respectable morality. How is it that they are after all not so much won^>e than their neighbors, and often better than many of them ? The answer to this is not far to seek. To begin with, the average standard of worldly morality is not too high a one, and a church or order which can pro- duce nothing higher, nor seeks to do so, has little to / -^ I r T 23 I- boast of It can hardly be said to justify its existence i, in the world. f Moreover, Jesuits and their pupils, like other people destitute of high principle, are constantly under the restraints of society — the law, public opinion, self interest, &c. And there are none with whom these restraints are more potent. There is nothing, for example, your Jesuit dreads so much as scandal, especially if the order is likely to suffer from it. The moment there appears any danger of that he is at once in a panic. Under these circumstances he sometimes lets the standard down with a run, and countenances the most extreme measures, such as dissimulation, chicanery, falsehood, and even worse, for the purpose of concealing it. More frequently he raises the stand- ard with a jump, so as to prevent such a dire calamity. Of course, scandal frequently arises in cases where it was not foreseen, and thus is to be explained the bad odour in which they stand through- out the world. As explaining the fact that they are not a great deal worse than they are, we must also take into account the thought that even in them personal con- science is not altogether dead, though sadly perverted, and largely replaced by a shifting external standard. It still speaks, though it be ni " a still small voice," as the voice of God, warning, checking, restraining. Hence it is rarely found that any pupil of the Jesuits goes the full length of the tether his teachers would allow him, unless he is crazed with fanaticism, and egged on by wicked, selfish, and ambitious superiors, who lack the courage to execute their own plans, but do not lack the villainy to form them. % ! ! 3 M T i^ MORALE DES JESUITES. A REPLY TO PROFESSOR SCRIMGER, BY FATHER JONES, SJ.— HE CLAIMS THAT THE PROFESSOR HAS VENTURED BEYOND HIS DEPTH. — PROTESTANT CONFESSION OF FAITH. To the Editor of the Star : Sir, — I am sorry to see the Star condescending to become the echo of the Ministerial Association in its attacks on the code of Catholic morality ; for the heading " Morale des Jesuites " is a misnomer, and to all intents and purposes might as well have been : " Morale de I'Eglise Catholique." Liguori was not a Jesuit, but was the founder of the Order of the Holy Redeemer, worthily represented in this city by the Redemptorist Fathers of St. Ann's parish. The teaching of St. Alphonsus Liguori has received at the hands of the Holy See the most solemn approval, when the saint himself was honored with the title of Doctor of the Church. Gury was indeed a Jesuit, personally known to me as a venerable God-fearing man. But the exponent of the Ministerial Association has not thought fit to point out in what Gury, the Jesuit, differs from S. Liguori, or from other approved Catholic moralists. Until this be done every Catholic will look upon the attack ?3 directed, not against the much maligned order, but against his mother Church. The columns of the daily press are not the place wherein to discuss intricate or delicate questions of ethics. Men, who very commendabl}'' and with right- ^^ ^^n eous indignation, tear down the objectionable poster at the street corner with one hand, and distribute with the other F. Chiniquy's " Confessional " or Paul Bert's " Morale des Jesuites," can scarcely be looked upon as seriously in earnest. Furthermore, the general public, not having had any special training in the matter, are as liable to blunder in the interpretation of the language of the " Schools," as our well-meaning fellow-citizen. Pro- fessor Scrimger. And where is the wonder, for other and abler men have done so before him. I say this in a Christian spirit, as personally I deem him an amiable, kind-hearted and upright man. In no case, more than in this, would one be more reluctant to judge intentions harshly, or more willing to condone shortcomings, with all that excessive leniency with which he supposes Jesuit moralists are instinct in the case of repentant sinners. I instance the only point in the two columns of yesterday's Star which bears directly and exclusively on the Jesuit order. Had our worthy professor been more familiar with ecclesiastical Latin, or the technical expressions of canon law, he would not, I am persuaded, have grossly misinterpreted the meaning of one passage of the constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Let me recall the quotation as given in the Star : ** Although the Society desires all its constitutions, declarcitions and order of life to be observed according to our institute, in no wise deviat- ing in any matter, it is nevertheless fitting that all its members should be secured, or at least aided, against falling into the snare of any sin which may arise from the force of its constitutions or injunctions. It seems good to us, therefore, in the Lord, besides the express vow whereby the Society is bound to the Supreme Pontift' for the time being, and the three other essential vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, that no constitutions, declarations or order of living can involve obligation to sin, mortal or venial ; unless the superior command these in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of holy obedience, which may be done in those matters or persons wherein it shall be judged that it will conduce greatly to the private or public good." 'I 1 ' w 26 The foregoing purports to be a translation of the 5th chapter of the 6th part of the Institute. If we are to take it as meaning that the Superior may enjoin on his inferior a sinful action in virtue of holy obe- dience, it is a monstrous perversion of the plain mean- ing of the text, which is naught else than that nothing in the constitutions, rules, or order of living, induces an obligation under pain of sin, venial or mortal, in virtue of the rule itself But that, in some special case, the Superior may command what falls within the scope of the constitutions, in virtue of the vow of obedience made to him. The only exceptions to this are the essential vows of the religious state, pover<^y, chastity and obedience, and the vow made to the Supreme Pontiff himself in the matter of missions ; for any wilful violation of these vows would be necessarily sinful. One might have thought that the very heading of this chapter 5th would have been sufficient to clear up any doubt had there been room for one : Quod Con- stitutiones peccati obligationent non mdticunt ; i.e.. The constitutions involve no obligation of sin. The preamble is still more explicit. . . "It is never- theless fitting that all its members should be secured, or at least aided, against falling into the snare of any sin which may arise from the force of its Constitutions or Injunctions" (Professor Scrimger's translation.) The marginal references all point the same way : " Hujusinodi stmt illce onnies, in qnibus nidlum manifestuin est pcccatmn, i. e., wherein there is no manifest sin." The blunder lies in rendering "obligatio ad peccatum " into English by " an obligation to sin," as if it were a verb, " ad peccandum ; " while on the con- trary the Latin preposition ** ad " is frequently and classically used for " usque ad." Consequently it / '^. 1 27 should be rendered " an obligation (usque ad) unto, extending as far as reaching sin. Consult any respect- able dictionary, Leverett's for instance, vocabul. " ad." Whatever may be said of " obligatio ad peccatum " as a classical phrase, it was certainly used in theological works fully 300 years before the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus were written. St. Thomas Aquinas was born in 1226, the Society of Jesus was in its infancy in 1534. St. Thomas uses the identical phrase with identically the same meaning. Had the exponent of the Ministerial Association followed a course of Catholic Theology, no doubt he would have been aware of this fact, and not have ventured beyond his depth. Since he has gone to some pains to read up Gury, etc., let him, out of pure love of truth, consult the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, Secunda Secundae, Quaest. 186, art. 9.: " Utrum Religiosus semper peccet mortaliter, transgrediendo ea quae sunt in regula ? " i. e. : Does a religious always sin mortally in transgressing what is prescribed by the rule ? St. Thomas solves the question negatively, and, in answer to the objections he himself proposes, he says : The religious state is more secure than the secular : hence Gregory (In princip. moral.) compares secular life to a troubled sea, and religious life to a tranquil haven. "Sed si quaelibet transgressio eorum quae in regula continentur religiosum obligaret ad peccatmn mortale^'* but if every transgression of what is contained in the rule obliged the religious (ad peccatum mortale) under pain of mortal sin, the religious state would be most dangerous, on account of the multiplicity of observ- ances, therefore, not every transgression of what is contained in the rule is a mortal sin (est peccatum mortale). In the solution of his second objection he proceeds to say : " Sicut ergo in lege civili non facit semper ■ I i I ' dignum poena mortis corporalls transgressio legalis statuti : ita nee in lege Ecclesiae omnes ordinationes vel publica statuta obligant ad mortale ; et similiter nee omnia statuta regulae," i. e., " As, therefore, by the civil law the physical transgression of a legal statute does not always render one worthy of the death penalty ; so, by the law of the Church, not every ordinance or public statute obliges under pain of mortal sin (obligant ad peccatum), and likewise not every prescription of the rule." The conclusion of all this is obvious, namely, that by every canon of interpretation, were interpretation needed, the impugned passages from the constitutions of the Jesuits should be rendered in English, as follows : " It seems befitting to us, therefore, in the Lord, besides the express vow whereby the Society is bound to the Supreme Pontiff for the time being, and the three other essential vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, that no constitutions, declarations or order of living can oblige unto sin (under pain of sin) mortal or venial ; unless the superior command these in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ or in virtue of holy obedience, etc., etc." The zeal of the Ministerial Association may to themselves appear praiseworthy, and the efforts of their exponent sincere ; but please let it be expended on some laudable object, revising, for instance, their Con- fession of Faith. With this they should have their hands full for some time to come. But when they go beyond their sphere and attempt evilly to interpret religious constitutions which the Catholic Church has sanctioned and declared holy, they make themselves unnecessarily offensive, or, much worse, they, the preachers of a Gospel of peace, stir up religious strife. I dare not say that ignorance, like charity, covers a r- ■ > 29 multitude of sins, but according to the " lax morality of the Jesuits " it at least diminishes their guilt ; and may this one day be their excuse before God : they knew not what they did. When convicted, however, of such ignorance, as in the present instance, but one thmg is left for an honest man to do, and that is to repair the injury done their neighbor by their slander. By not so doing, if they be in good faith, they openly espouse the principles they condemn. If, on the other hand, they maliciously circulate evil reports, with a view of injuring a religious body, they father on them- selves the maxim which they have never found in any Catholic theologian, that "the end justifies the means." St. Mary's College, 25 February. A. E. Jones, S.J. ; I: REV. MR. SCRIMGER TO FATHER JONES. — THE PROFESSOR CLAIMS THAT FATHER JONES IS ATTEMPTING TO DIVERT THE ATTEN- , TION OF THE PUBLIC FROM THE REAL ISSUE. / To the Editor of the Star : Sir, — I trust you will allow me space for a brief reply to the animadversions of Father Jones on my paper before the Ministerial Association concerning the moral teaching of the Jesuits. It is hardly worth while to resent his reflections on the Association itself, or the somewhat gratuitous advice he is pleased to tender it. I have no doubt it will continue, as heretofore, to use its influence in re- straint of immorality and indecency, even though it should be necessary sometimes to expose it to the public eye. I am not aware that it is responsible for the distribution of either Chiniquy's " Confessional " or Paul Bert's " Morale des Jesuites." But I think I can safely promise that it will advocate the suppres- sion of the latter when Jesuit authorities consent to suppress or discard all works like those of Gury, of which it is simply an exposure, by giving a fair translation of fairly choLon selections. I made no personal charge against Father Gury, and am glad to know that he was such an estimable man, but to me his writings are simply abominable, — needlessly so, even for a casuist. I appreciate Father Jones' kindly words about myself, and hope I shall always continue to deserve them. But I cannot consent to lie under his charge ■JH 31 of ignorance in my rendering of a Latin phrase such as that referred ^'-> in the constitutions of the Jesuit order, that these constitutions are not to " involve obligationem ad peccaium mortal or venial, unless the Superior command these." All he has shown is that in view of the usage of St. Thomas Aquinas three hundred years before, the expression, " obligatio ad peccaUim " may mean an obligation nnder pain of sin, and that thus the passage would lose its sinister cha- racter as authorizing a superior to order that which is sinful. But I submit that it is not the natural meaning of the phrase. Peccatiim means sin^ not the penalty of sin, and " obligation ad peccatum " means obligation to sin. In this very chapter it is used as the equiva- lent of obligatio peccati, which even Father Jones renders " obligation of sin." His explanation is not in harmony with the usage of Jesuit writers of the present day. I open Gury almost at random, and I find "obligare ad rem impossibilem," " obligare ad rem illicitam," in the obvious sense of obliging to do some- thing impossible, unlawful. Nor, in spite of Father Jones, does it seem to me that the context suggests his rendering. The heading of the chapter, according to his own direct translation, is : " The constitutions involve no obligation of sin." The first part of the chapter is simply an expansion of this admirable limitation of obedience, and then an exception is added : " Unless the Superior command these " (nisi Superior ea juberet). I am prepared to admit, how- ever, that Father Jones is in a better position than I can possibly be to know what is the interpretation put upon this famous passage in the constitutions at the present time among the members of this order, and am glad to learn that, whatever may have been its original intention, it is now understood in an unobjectionable sense. 32 But in that case I am somewhat puzzled at the following passage in Gury on the obedience due to superiors in religious orders, which looks to me mar- vellously like giving the superior the right to override the scruples of his subordinates. " Is a m.ember of a religious order bound to obey, when in doubt, whether a thing is lawful or not ? — Yes, since, etc." (An Religiosus teneatur obedire in dubio, utrum res pra;- cepta sit licita, necne? — Affirm, quia, etc). I agree, however, with Father Jones, in thinking that the columns of the daily press are not the place wherein to discuss intricate or delicate questions of ethics, and will not enlarge upon this point. Only I am the more surprised that, holding this opinion, he should have selected that point for discussion which the general public is, perhaps, least capable of com- prehending, turning as it does upon the meaning of a Latin phrase, which has not even the merit of being good Latin. It looks like an attempt to divert the attention of the public from the real issue in which alone it can have any permanent interest, viz., as to what is the prevailing tone and character of Jesuit teaching. My description of that rests upon too many passages to be the result of any mistranslation of nice phrases, and remains as yet untouched. As to whether that teaching is better or worse than that of the rest of the Roman Catholic Church, I care little. But were it worth the pains, I think a con- siderable amount of difference might be made out. I am no admirer of Liguori, who, I am well aware, was not a Jesuit, but I am not prepared to accept the position that even he is virtually at one in his teaching with the bulk of Jesuit authors. John Scrimger. Montreal, February 26, 1890. ANOTHER LETTER FROM FATHER JONES. — NOT ANXIOUS FOR THE LAST WORD, AND NOT DIVERTING THE ATTENTION OF THE PUBLIC FROM THE REAL ISSUE. To the Editor of the Star : Sir, — It is somewhat reluctantly that I again bespeak a place in your columns for the present com- munication, for I am aware that I may be crowding out more interesting matter. I have all the more scruple in thus trespassing on your patience, as I am not particularly anxious to have the last word when the object of my writing is sufficiently attained. Let me first assure my amiable antagonist that I am not attempting to divert the attention of the public from the real issue, namely : What is the pre- vailing tone and character of Jesuit teaching ? Thfit prevailing tone and character is, in fact, the prevailing- tone and character of the teaching of the Catholic Church. When a Jesuit, or any other Catliolic moralist, goes astray, his teaching is denounced to the Holy See. Should he not humbly submit, he ceases to be both a Jesuit and a Catholic. Now, Gury is taught in most of the Catholic theological semi- naries throughout the world, and during the last quarter of a century no author of moral theology has been more widely known to Catholic theological students. We have yet to hear of his having incurred any censure by his teaching. I can but vaguely surmise what effect this argument may have on the Ministerial Association, but for a Catholic it is peremptory. So that my first point I %i 34 remains unshaken, viz., that the attack on St. Liguori and on his humble follower, Gury, is but a blind, and the report of Professor Scrimger's paper should have been headed, not the " Morale dcs Jesuites," but the " Morale de I'Eglise Catholique." Professor Scrimger may care very little, as he assures us, whether Jesuit teaching be better or worse than the rest of the Catholic Church. I am not sorry to differ with him in this, but am quite satisfied to have it said that it is no better and no worse. The Professor, however, in this seeming indifference, is scarcely in touch with his fellow-religionists, else why all this outcry against Jesuit teaching in the sister Province ? The second point is sufficiently covered by the admission in yesterday's letter : " All he (F. Jones) has shown is that, in view of the usage of St. Thomas, three hundred years before, the expression, ^ obligatio ad peccatuml may mean an obligation under pain of sin^ etc.,'' which is not at all a bad showing in the case. A few minor difficulties, however, yet remain. To clear some of these away I must remark that because peccatum means sin it does not follow that " obligatio ad peccatum " means an obligation to commit sin. Why not gracefully admit that " ad," being used by both Livy and Cicero for " usque ad " in the sense of unto, when used with that signification, is quite classical. To prove thl.^ I made a reference in my last to Leverett's dictiottary, of which, I am sorry to say, no account has been taken since Professor Scrimger now insists that it " has not even the merit of being good Latin." Theologians are generally not particular to a degree as to the elegance of their Latinity, but it is quite discouraging when they are to be rated for following Tully. What, however, is more grievous is that the marginal references have been set at naught. This I .* .sn 'k > shall endeavor to remedy, though I already quoted one in my last. I do not impeach the Professor's fairness, for very likely he has been quoting at second hand. If, indeed, he has a copy of the Institute, it is but another proof of the perversity cf things, that his eye should not have fallen on the 31st number of the summary of the constitutions, where we are exhorted to conform our will and judgment " wholly to the superior's will and judgment, /// all things where there appears no sinT Let me see, in the seconci place, assure Professor Scrimgcr that the interpretation of the Society's con- stitutions were as much in keeping with sound morality in the past as they are to-day. He has been kind enough to take my word for the present, and it will not be difficult to satisfy the most fastidious as to ages gone by. Suarez, one of the Society's greatest theologians, who was born in 1549, and died in 1617, wrote several. large volumes on the Society's constitu- tions, and he may be taken as a safe expounder of their meaning. The following citation is from Book IV. De Votis, etc., ch. XII, § 7 : " Tertia parte (con- stitutionum), § 3, dicitur obediendum esse superiori, licet difficilia et secundum sensualitatem repugnantia jubeat. Ya infra dicitur : /;/ omnibns rebus, nbi peccatuvi non cerneretiir. Quae exceptio declarat, omneui actionem Jwnestam sub materia hujus voti comprehendi ; et ita ibi concluditur, voluntatem superioris pro regula propriae voluntatis habendam esse ; ergo huec obedientia non limitatur per aliquam regulam scriptam, sed per regulam vivam, quae est voluntas superioris intra latitudineni materiaeJwnestae. Idem sumitur ex sexta parte constitutionum, cap. I, § I, ibi : Ita ut omnibus in rebus, ad quas potest cum charitate se obedientia extendere, id est, in qiiibus nullum est manifestuni peccatnm (ut ibi in declaratione \\ 36 explicatur) ad ejus vocem obedientiam praestamus, etc." which may be rendered thus : " In part third, § 3, of the constitutions, it is declared that the superior is to be obeyed even though he command what is arduous and repugnant to sensuaHty. And further on : in all things zvherein sin appears not. Which exception implies that every righteous action is comprised in the matter of this vow ; so that the con- clusion is tnere drawn, that the will of the superior is to be held as the rule of our own will ; hence this obedience is not limited by any written, but by a living rule, which is the superior's will ivitJiin the scope of ci worthy object. The same is drawn from the sixth part, chap, i, § i, it is then stated : So that in all things to which, in the spirit of charity, obedience may extend, that is, i7i ivhich there is no manifest sin (as is there declared in explanation) we yield obedience to his (the superior's) voice." Therefore, in the past the interpretation of the impugned passage was just as unobjectionable as it is at present. And let the Professor have no qualms of conscience, since it is said " wherein there is no manifest sin," or because Gury decides, that when there is no doubt, the superior is to be obeyed, for practically the inferior has every facility for clearing up such doubt. Suppos- ing, however, a case where the doubt persists, which of the two does the Professor think would be in the right, the inferior or the superior ? Let him look to his own household and see if he would brook any such hesitancy on the part of one of his sons. But Gury says, in the place found at random, "obligare ad rem impossibilem, etc."? Certainly, nor did I ever contend that " obligare ad " was never used. *' Ad," indeed, is used in more than one sense. Nor has " obligatio peccati " any weight in the matter. I*. But let us quote the famous passage of Gury, which contains the "obHgare ad." I only wonder how Professor Scrimger came to forget that it had a very important bearing on the discussion. Though the volume and chapter were also omitted in his letter, it is to be found in Vol. II., Ch. Ill, Art. 3, No. 168. Gury quotes from Liguori : " Religiosus vi sui voti non tenetur obedire Superiori rem impossibilem, ant evide?iter illicitae, aut graviter sioi noxiam praecipicnti — S. Ligor. n. 47, etc." i.e., a religious, in virtue of his vow, is not obliged to obey his Superior who enjoins something impossible, or evidently illicit. He then adds himself: " Et sane non potuit se obligare ad rem impossibilem, cum nemo ad impossibile teneatur ; neque ad rem certo illicitam, siquidcm votum nequit esse vinculum iniquitatis, etc." " And forsooth, he could not bind himself to what is impossible, as no one may be held to the impossible ; no more than he could bind himself to what is illicit, since indeed a vow cannot be a bond of iniquity. If our m.uch esteemed Professor be still puzzled to know why I selected a point which he thinks the general public is little capable of comprehending, I .-ee no reason for not gratifying his legitimate curiosity. My first reason is that I prefer rather to run the risk of not being understood than of shocking v.he sensitiveness cf chast'- irs. If I mistake not, St. Paul, in the beginning of the 5th chapter to the Ephesians, speaking to the common among the faithful, enjoins that " it should not ^o much as be named " among them. If a sad necessity obliges the healer of souls, as of the body, to come in contact with the unclean, that is no reason why such topics, though veiled in me'-^/'ival Latin, should be exhibited before the genet\il public. And were it not forbidden by the law of God, )t is by human ordinances and by 38 the laws of our own country. I refer the incredulous to Folkard's Starkie on Slander and Libel (Banks and Bros., New York, 1877, p. 781). It will there be .seen how in England the " Protestant Electoral Union " fared in a similar matter, The objects of the society- were stated to be " to protest against the teachings and practices of the Romanist and Puseyite systems, which are un-English, immoral, and blasphemous ; " "to maintain the Protestantism of the Bible and the liberty of England ;" and *' to promote the return to Parliament of men who will assist them in these objects ; and particularly will expose and defeat the deep-laid machinations of the Jesuits, and resist grants of public money for Romanist purposes." This is quite realistic, but I assure your readers, Mr. Editor, that there is no allusion to current local events. Put let us proceed. "As the end justifies the means," they exposed for sale " The Confessional Unmasked," and other horrors. This pamphlet con- sisted of extracts from the works of theoloc'ans on the doctrines and discipline of the Church of Rome, and particularly of auricular confession. On the one side of the page were printed passages in the original Latin, and opposite a free translation into English. It was held that, notwithstanding the object of the defendant was not to injure public morals, but to attack the religion and practice of the Roman Catholic Church, this did not justify his act, nor prevent it from being a misdemeanor proper to be prosecuted, etc. My second reason for selecting the passage from the Constitutions was that my present object is to defend, not the Church at large, but the Society in particular. Now, as in the two-column report this was absolutely the only real and direct attack on the Society, I thought it my duty to repe) it. 39 Whether I have done so effectually or not 1 leave to the general public, and I am far from underrating their intelligence, as Professor Scrimger would have me do. With a fair hearing of both sides, and a full statement, they generally discern which side is right. St. Mary's College, February 27 A. E. Jones, S.J. PROFESSOR SCRIMGER ON FATHER JONES. — THE CRITIC OF JESUIT MORALITY ADHERES TO HIS OWN TRANSLATION. — ^THE CONSCIENCE OF A CHILD. i L To the Editor of the Star : Sir. — At the risk of wearying the public I must crave the privilege of a further rcpl}^ to Fathei- Jones. I regret that he still persists in confining the dis- cussion to what is after all a comparatively minor point, and refuses to discuss the wider and more serious question as to the prevailing tone and cha- racter of Jesuit teaching, in which I and the public are mamly interested. His reasons for this refusal are characteristic. One is, that such a discussion would be in danger of shockinq' the sensitiveness of chaste ears. I cer- tainly feci that there is some force in this, as no Jesuit casuist that I ha\ : read seems to be able to discuss any subject very long without introducing matters which should " not so much as be named." But what is to be thought of this reason as coming from one i ' I 40 who claims the right to' introduce these topics at will into his private professional interviews with any of his penitents, whether men or women ? I am accustomed to think that publicity is a better safeguard against abuse in dealing with such matters than the mere judgment or purity of the individual confessor. The other reason for refusal is that the teaching of the Jesuits is practically identical with that of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and therefore, I suppose, needs no defence. This, if true, will no doubt wei^'^ with the members of that Church. (I need scarcely ' it weighs nothing with me.) But is it true? The \. int is one on which an outsider must speak with caution, but I very much mistake the condition of things within that church, if all the ethical, and especially the political principles of the Jesuits are accepted universally by its adherents. The Jesuits may have triumphed over all opposition, but if so, it has been only after a hard struggle with the nobler and mere patriotic Gallica.T party ; and the end is not yet. Father Jones seems surprised that I should care so little about this point, and hints that I am scarcely in touch with my fellow-religionists. It may help him to understand my position if I explain that, in making that remark, I referred mainly to ethical points, whereas the present just alarm has arisen chiefly from the practical assertion of those extravagant and dangerous political principles, of which the Jesuits are the chief, if not the sole advocates. For these, and perhaps other reasons also, which he does not care to mention, Father Jones will not dis- cuss the general issue. He, however, suggests another mode of dealing with it, which seems more to his mind, — the persecution of those who presume to criticise too severely by means of vexatious libel suits. i 41 I Ji • it • I think we have heard of this style of argument before, and the covert threat to resort to it in this instance docs Httle credit to the goodness of his heart or the strength of his cause. I certainly am not anxicus for a libel suit, but I suspect Father Jones, and those who may back him, will find that truth is not to be so trampled down on the American conti- nent in this nineteenth century. It may not, however, be one of the least of the supposed advantages of their recent incorporation, that they are now able to insti- tute such actions in their corporate capacity. It is certainly one of the first uses they have made of it, and I have to thank Father Jones for his hint that this is to be their policy. Forewarned is forearmed. But as he refuses to discuss the general question, I may be allowed to make a few remarks on the point which he does discuss, viz., the correct rendering of the passage in the constitutions of the Jesuit order. He, not unnaturally, makes the most of my admission in the previous letter that, in view of the usage of Thomas Aquinas three hundred years before, the words " Obligatio ad peccatum " 7;i(rjf mean an obliga- tion tinder pain of sin^ and that I was prepared to accept his word for it that this was the meaning put upon it by the order at the present time. He ought to have been content with that admission ; for I fear I shall now have to take it back, or at least to qualify it, as the result of his additional argument. He proves altogether too much for his own view of the case. He endeavors to make out that the interpretation of the Society's constitutions was as much in keeping with sound morality in the past as it is to-day. In support of this he appeals to the commentary of Suarez on the constitutions published about three hundred years ago, as an exponent of the meaning put upon this passage at that time. This is perfectly 42 fair. But when we look at that interpretation what do we find ? I must assume the accuracy and fulness of Father Jones' extracts from Suarez, as this work is not accessible to me at the moment. But unless I mis- understand Suarez, his interpretation of the passage, while certainly unobjectionable, is entirely different from that of Father Jones. The view presented by the latter is so strange that I find some of my friends, reading less cirefully, have missed it altogether, and I take the liberjy of re-stating it, as I understand it, in slightly different terms. He makes the passage to mean that no rule of the constitutions, apart from the great vcws, can involve an obligation under pain of sin, in virtue of the rule itself. To make an infraction of such a !Mle -irful, it must be specially commanded by the Superior in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of holy obedience. Suarez seems to take no account of the exception at the end, " nisi superior ea, etc.," "unless the Superior commands these," etc., but contents himself with asserting that, according to this paragraph, obedience is to be yielded to the Superior's voice in all things in which there is no manifest sin (in quibits nullum est manifestum pecca- tuin). This is unexceptionable, indeed, as far as it goes, but it is entirely different from Father Jones' interpretation. In fact, he does not claim that it is the same, but only that it is " equally unexceptionable." The truth seems to be that, whenever the Jesuits seqk to explain this passage for tJie public eye, they feel its awkwardness, and cast about for some method of explaining it away. The earlier method was the more satisfactory until the constitutions themselves had to be published, as the result of the famous law-suit over Lavallette's bankruptcy in the middle of the last cen- tury, Then the exception, " nisi Superior ea juberet," came out, and something new had to be devised. ■ \ 43 Father Jones gives us one device, but for aught I know now there may be half a dozen others doing duty in various parts of the world.* The same thing may be said of the interpretation given in the summary of the constitutions. I may say to Father Jones that I had not overlooked the passage in the 31st number, which he kindly quotes for my benefit, where they are exhorted to ronform their will and judgment wholly to the Superior's will and judgment in all things where there appears no sin (ubi pcccatum non cerneretur). But neither do I forget that this also was printed long before the constitutions appeared, at least a century and a half, perhaps more. (The edition from which I read is dated 1607. The earliest authorised edition of the constitution was in 1757.) I presume this was supposed to give the drift of the paragraph under dis- cussion. It is all very well so far as it goes, but like Suarez, it forgets to mention the exception, which was then unknown to the public. Father Jones finds fault with me for overlooking the marginal references in the constitutions, on which he seems to lay much stress. But I did cite the heading of the chapter, and now we are coolly told that the expression, " obligatio peccati," which occurs there, " has no weight in the matter," as giving the * Proof of tliis surmise, at least in part, hns come to me sooner than I expected. Some one unknown to me, to whom I hereby tender tlianks, has been kind enough to send me a pampldet, t;ivin;; the sul)- stance of a discussion on this very point between Fatlier Drummond, of Winnipet;, and Dr. Littledale. Father Drummond, indeed, jrives the same rendering of the phrase ol>ligatio ad pcccaiiim as Father Jones, t)ut he gets at it in altogether a different way. According to him oblii^ari; has once in Cicero (I'ro Don.o Suo, 8), the meaning "to render liable through guilt," "to make guilty," and htiwct obligatio ad peccatiim may have the cognate meaning, "the 1)eing rendered liable to the guilt of sin." He forgets to notice that in the passage in Cicero obligare is followed by the ablative. They are all evidently hard put to justify their rendering in such a way as to make it seem natural. \ r. 44 general subject of the chapter. Mere marginal refer- ences could hardly carry greater weight, even if it were true that they pointed in a different direction, which is not the case from his own showing. Both alike indicate that the general aim of the chapter is to restrain the rules from leading to the commission of sin. But they naturally take no account of the exception, wherein lies the whole sting of the charge. He also comf lains that I do not discuss his explana- tion of " ad " as equivalent to " usque ad," and some- what ostentatiously refers me to Livy and Cicero, and Leverett's dictionary. Now, Leverett happens to be the dictionary I use, and I never doubted or ques- tioned that meaning of it. But that sense is quite as consistent with my rendering as with his — in fact, a little more so. What I did say was that the natural meaning of peccatum was sin^ not penalty of sin^ in which sense it is not found in any classical author that I can discover. Now, I do not mean to crowd Father Jones too much. I can easily understand how, with the best intentions, men may be led to persuade themselves that awkward and inconvenient passages in their recognized formularies do not mean what they plainly say, but something else that is unobjectionable. And I had far rather see him do that, than defend such a monstrous doctrine as this which appears in the con- stitutions. He is heartily welcome to his interpreta- tion, as it must be a great relief to his conscience. But I still maintain that my rendering is the natural rendering of the passage. Not one of my arguments has been overthrown. He admits that I am sustained by the usage of Gury. All his own authorities bear out my view as to the general purport of the chapter. That granted, the exception at the end can have no sense other than what I have given it. And I am not s ^ 45 alone in this opinion. A friend has furnished me with the translation of this passage by Dr Littledale the writer of the article on the Jesuits in the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and I find his rendering almost identical with my own. One more word and I have done. He asks me to look to my own household, and see how I would brook any hesitancy on the part of one of my sons to obey a command as to which he had scruples of conscience I answer that I can hardly conceive of any worse crime before God against my son, than that of requir- ing him, by force or fear, to soil his conscience throu-h obedience to any command of mine ; unless it should be to train him . up in such fashion that he would cherish no thoughts but mine, know no will but mine have no conscience but mine. I would then be able to obtain unquestioning obedience, but I should have slain his soul. John Scrimger. if Montreal, February 28th, 1890. 1 i. ;i mmmm FATHER JONES ON PROFESSOR SCRIMGER. HOW THE JESUIT FATHER BALANCES THE ACCOUNT FOR THE WEEK — NO BONES BROKEN AND NO VERY HARD NAMES. ■■■-, / / - • ■ To the Editor vf the Star ; Sh^, — Saturday is a good day to balance one's accounts. I invite you to inspect with me the results of this week's business. For convenience sake I shall distribute it under several headings. I cordially invite our mutual friend, Professor Scrimger, to join the party. You will probably congratulate us on the fact that no bones were broken, no very hard names given, and that good humor and mutual self-respect have characterized our little " difference." WHAT THE PROFESSOR HAS NOT GRASPED : 1. That to vindicate the constitutions I do not take " peccatum " for the penalty of sin, but for sin. That we are not discussing the import of " obligatio peccati " but of " obligare ad peccatum," and that con- sequently " obligatio peccati " has nothing to do with the matter. 2. That Suarez, loco citato, is laying down, as given in the Constitutions, the limits of the superior's right to command, and insists upon the very exception scouted at by the Professor. 3. That there are much earlier authorized editions of the Constitutions than the one he gives of 1757; so that he will have to make room for a few more books in his library. » h ■ 'i i f i 4. That *' nothing- new had to be devised," as the famous '' iibi pcccatiun lion ccrncrctur'' maybe found on pages 16-17, of an authorized edition 01 .\e Sum- mary of the Constitutions, printed in 1 583, and which, Mr. Editor, I take the Hberty of sending you for inspection. WHAT THE PROFESSOR HAS NEGLECTED TO DIS- PROVE, OR HAS C0NVENH:NTLY OVERLOOKED. 1. That the Ministerial Association, etc., is attacking the Cathohc Church over the shoulders of the Jesuits. 2. That the Catholic Church has found naught to condemn in Liguori's teaching, or in that of his humble follower, Gury. 3. That it is the custom, from the days of St. Thomas Aquinas, in speaking of the duties of religious, to make use of the phrase " obligare ad peccatum," '* to bind unto sin " in the sense of " oblig- ing under pain of sin," and not of " obliging to commit sin." 4. That in corroboration of the interpretation of the *' obligare ad " of the 5th ch. of the 6th Part of the Institute, we have the parallel passages : (a) Summary of the Constitutions, No. 31. The will and judgment of the inferior is to be conformable to the will and judgment of the superior in all things where there appears no sin. (b) Part Third (of the C".::;itutions,) ch. i, § 23. The superior is to be obeyed \\\ all things ivherein sin appears not. (c) Part Sixth, ch. i, § i. The inferior is to yield obedience to the superior's voice in all things to which, in the spirit of charity, obedience may extend, and these are (Declaration B) things in ivJiich there is no ma7iifest sin. (d) Letter on obedience, No. i8, substantially the same. 5. That Suarez (i 549-1617) after quotinfj the above passages in explaining the scope of obedience in ♦^hc Society {Star, 27th Feb.) declares that the supei right to exact obedience does not go beyond, but must be exercised ivithin the coiifijies of the licit (intra latitudinem mai.eriae honestae.) 6. That Liguori, quoted approvingly by Gury {Star, 27th Feb.) says a religious is not bound to obey when the superior commands something evidently illicit (evidenter illicitum). 7. That Gury, a contemporary {Star, 27th Feb.) declares that when the superior commands what is illicit, the inferior is not bound to obey, for the very serious reason that no mru may bind himself by '"^w to a ivork of iniquity (votum nequit esse vine n iniquitatis). WHAT THE PROFESSOR GRANTS : 1. That it has been shown that in view of the usage of St. Thomas Aquinas three hundred years before, the expression '* obligatio ad peccatum " may mean an obligatio7i under pain of sin {Star, Feb. 26). 2. That he never doubted or questioned that mean- ing of " ad," whereby it is rendered as " usque ad," ''unto'' {Star, Y^o. 2^). WHAT THE PROFESSOR DENIES : That '^ usque ad'' is the natural meaning of ''ad" {Star, Feb. 28.) I deferentially submit that the natural meaning of an expression is any one of those significations in which it is used by standard authors. Both Livy and 4t Cicero have used it in this acceptation, therefore it is the natural meaning of the word. If the Professor means that it is not the usual acceptation, then, at least, let him refrain from saying that it " has not even the merit of being good Latin '' {Star, Feb. 26). What should a conscientious man do when a word with a two-fold meaning occurs and the reputation of iiis neighbour depends upon the interpretation he is to put on it? Is he to take it, in spite of the protesta- tions of his neighbour, in the sense that would go to make him a villain ? Or should he consult the context and parallel passages of the document to determine the meaning. Jesuit morality, as well as the law of charity, would prescribe the latter course. But what are we to think of him, if the acceptation sanctioned by usage in the schools from the days of St. Thomas precludes all doubt as to the rendering he should adopt. . THE PROFESSOR HAS INDULGED IN A LITTLE LEGERDEMAIN. I thought Jesuits were the only ones to be accused oi finessing in an argument. I refer to the point where the inferior has a doubt about the propriety of obey- ing his superior, or when the boy calls in question the right of his father to clear up a similar doubt. I am not so truculent as to require the father to slay his soul outright. The boy has a conscience, given to him by God himself ; but to whom is he to turn for the proper formation of that conscience ? By whom should he be taught those lessons of morality necessary to prevent that conscience from being warped ? And we must not lose sight of the fact that in the hypo- thesis, his conscience is not made up as to the unright- eousness of an act, for then he must disobey, as when n |r . the father would have him He, or steal, or otherwise sin. But he doubts whether the thing be right or wrong. Let us take a case in point. His son is an assiduous attendant at Sunday-school. He is com- manded by God to keep holy the Sabbath, the seventh day in the week. Hitherto, like other Christians, he has kept Sunday, the first day of the week, but one Saturday he is told bj his father to saw a cord of wood. He finds no warranty in the Scripture for the change. Professor Scrimger no doubt would proceed to form his boy's ccnscience. He, on another occasion, thinks he finds ample authority in Scripture for transubstan- tiation (a much-abhorred doctrine) in the words " This is my body," '' do this in commemoration of me," and forthwith asks his father if it would not b.3 well for him to attend Catholic service, while that doctrine is put into practice. Would the conscientious Professor be more inclined to fla}^ his body than to slay his soul ? For the inferior, in the Jesuit order, there is no neces- sity, in such cases, of '' unquestioning obedience." St. Ignatius himself in his letter on that subject, which forms part of the Constitutions, gives the following directions to the inferior: in iVo. 19 (No. 18 ends with the famous limitation in another form "... quae cum peccato manifesto conjunctae non sunt"): "Neither are you hindered by this, if anything occurs to you different from the superior's opinion, and it seems (after you have commended the same humbly to God) that it ought to be declared, but that you may propose it unto him, etc." r WHAT THE PROFESSOR RASHLY OPINES. That it ,vou1g be preferable for the confessor and the penitent to invite the public to audit the settling of all matters of conscience; while, very likely, he J- -'■( 51 would not tolerate in public all consultations between the physician and his patient, nor enthusiastically encourage indiscriminate clinical operations in the forum. Once again our notions of morality are at variance. The Professor seems unduly alarmed at the prospect of the forum in another form. To allay his fears, I can assure him that we have not the slightest intention of dragging him before relentless judges. (Though it might inspire with a salutary fear certain publishers to be told that it is not at all necessary to be armed with a bill of incorporation to proceed against them.) Any citizen, be he a member of the Law and Order Society or not, might amuse himself at their expense. My thanks, in closing this letter, are due to the Professor, and I take you to witness, Mr. Editor, that he has been considerate enough almost to promise not to crowd me too much. But if I feel myself seriously incommoded, and find that there is not room for us both, why, I shall as gracefully as possible bow myself out, and perhaps it is time to do so already. A. E. Jones, S.J. St. Mary's College, ist March, 1890. T THE BALANCE SHEET IS CHECKED BY PROF. SCRIM- GER, WHO MAINTAINS "USQUE AD " DOES NOT MEAN "UNDER PAIN OF" — THE LIMITS OF OBEJIENCE TO JESUTT SUPERIORS. To the Editor of the Star : Sir, — Though I have already trespassed upon your kindness and space, I may be allowed, in accordance with Father Jones' invitation, to check his balance sheet of Saturday last and supplement some of its omissions from my point of view. Though he has been kind enough to assure me that I am to be exempted from the operation of the libel suit policy, 1 notice that this does not apply to the publisher, so I shall be as moderate as I can. Perhaps I shall the better succeed in this that a quiet Sunday has intervened. I. On one point we seem to have misunderstood each other all through, as even the most fair-minded and good-natured controversialists will sometimes do. It now appears that in the phrase " obligatio ad pecca- tum," which has figured so largely in the discussion. Father Jones takes peccatum, as I do, in the sense of j/>/, but makes ad mean Jinder pain of, on the ground that it is equivalent to usqtie ad. This greatly simpli- fies the matter. For, while I am prepared to admit that ad may properly be used as equivalent to usque. ad, I am not prepared to admit that usque ad in classical Latin ever has the meaning under pain of Leverett, his own authority, gives us the meaning even to, as far as, tip to, to the amount of etc., but nowhere under pain of or anything equivalent to it. 53 Unto is not equivalent to iinder pain of, as Father Jones asserts, except by an ellipsis which he would supply in one way, while I think it ought to be sup- plied in another. The natural phrase to express his meaning is not ad peccatiim^ but sub peccato, or more fully sub poena peccati. 2. On a second point a little additional information is necessary. The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus were first authoritatively published in 1757. Father Jones correctly enough says there are earlier authorized editions. I have before me a reprint of the original Latin edition printed in Rome, at the House of the Society (Romae, in aedibus Societatis Jesu) 1558. But these earlier editions were for the use of the members of the Society only (apparently not even for all of them) and were carefully prevented from going into general circulation. The text of this chapter was therefore not known to the public until the middle of the last century, except surreptitiously^ and as it was thus of doubtful authenticity like the famous Secreta Monita or like the so-called exposures of Freemasonry, it was easily denied. I dare say this fact was already known to Father Jones and that he communicated it to you privately, when he sent down for your inspection his precious 1582 copy of the Summary (an altogether different work, which does not contain the passage under discussion.) But he has forgotten to mention it to the public. 3. Father Jones admits that my rendering of the passage is sustained by the usage of Gury and is the regular classical usage, even as I admit that his render- ing is sustained by the usage of Aquinas, though I believe not classical at all. If I am right, therefore, in assuming that he is mainly responsible for the rather stagey exhibition of the works of Aquinas in your window on the leading business street of the 54 city for the edification of the Latin-reading public, he ought, in all fairness, to have put the volume of Gury beside it, that they might have both and judge between us. For the benefit of those whose Latin is a little rusty he might have sent along also Leverett's Lexicon, if he could spare it for a few days. As there appears to be some ambiguity in the statement of the Con- stitutions, anfi as he seems to think the matter very serious, I venture likewise to suggest that here is opportunity for a little revision of official standards nearer home than the Confession of Faith about which he was so anxious in his first letter. 4. Father Jones has not furnished a particle of evi- dence that previous to 1757 any author, Jesuit or otherwise, held his view as to the meaning of the passage, viz., that no infraction of any rule in the Con- stitutions, apart from the great vows, was to be regarded as sinful, unless the superior solemnly com- manded it in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ or in virtue of holy obedience. I must conclude, therefore, that it is a " new device" to escape its plain meaning. 5. Every interpretation and every parallel passage cited by Father Jones relates -to the subject of the limit of obedience, and not one of them to that of the sinfulness or otherwise of an infraction of the minor rules in the Constitutions. In proof see the admirable condensation of them in Saturday's letter. This shows that even Father Jones feels this to be the sub- ject of the chapter, notwithstanding his own assertion that it is about something else. 6. When I test these interpretative and parallel passages, one after another, by adding the obnoxious exception of this passage under discussion ; unless the Superior command these in the name ofonr Lord Jesus Christy etc., I find that they all make good sense, which would hardly be the case if it were already 55 embraced in them, and that this sense is exactly the one I have given to the chapter. I take the shortest as a sample, adopting Father Jones' words : " The Superior is to be obeyed in all things wherein sin appears not," unless the Superior command these in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ or in virtue of holy obedience. I ask your readers to try it with any of the others in the same way. These solemn formulas of command "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" or " in virtue of holy obedience," are very rarely to be used (see Gury, Compend. Vol. II., § 171,) but when they are used the subordinate's only course is obedience. I am sorry if this sense ' goes to make out some of my neighbors as villains,' or rather to show that their system may lead to the perpetration of villainies when the object to be gained is important enough. But that is not my fault. And when I con- sider that the Society, in its brief history of three and a half centuries has been expelled in turn from almost every country under heaven, Catholic and Protestant, Christian and Pagan, as well as suppressed by the very authority that created it, I am inclined to think there must be sojnething WYong with it. It can hardly plead its record at any rate in arrest of judgment. 7. I am sorry to introduce any nev/ matter at this stage of the discussion, but as P\ither Jones has done so in his communication of Saturdav, bv referring to a couple of passages, Nos. 18 and 19, in the famous Letter on Obedience, I trust he will pardon me if I ask whv he has not also cited for us a little more of Chap. I, § I, of the Sixth part of the Constitutions. It has a very intimate bearing on the subject, and is interesting. Let me cite it l^or him. The section is too long to give in full, but one or two sentences may serve the purpose. I can furnish the Latin if neces- sary, but I hope he will not quarrel with my translation : f ] 56 " And let everyone persuade himself that they who live under obedience should permit themselves to be moved and directed under Divine Providence by their superiors, just as if they were a corpse, which allows itself to be moved and handled in any way, or as the staff of an old man, which serves him wherever and in whatever th'ng he who holds it in his hand pleases to use it. Thus obedient, he should execute anything on which the Superior chooses to employ him in the service of the whole body of the Society with cheer- fulness of mind, and altogether believe that he will a7iswer the Divine ivill better in that ivay than in any other which he can follow in compliance with his own zvill and differing jndgnientr I leave this to the judgment of the public, asking only one question : Even if the Superior were bound to respect the scruples of his subordinate, how many scruples is a man likely to have who submits himself to the will and authority of another in that spirit ? 8. Father Jones is in error in supposing that I desire to have the public present at the settling of all matters of conscience. I believe in publicity of instruc- tion in all matters of morals, but I see no need for the presence of the public in any such transaction between the soul of the true penitent and his God. Nor do I see any need for the presence of any spiritual broker to intervene between them, more especially when he demands an outrageousl)^ h'gh commission for his pains. So far as I can judge, the New Testament knows nothing of the confessional. The Protestant churches manage to get on very well without it, as I hope he will be ready to acknowledge. Sweep the institution away, and then he will get quit of the whole system of casuistry which seems ever to entrap those who wander much in its mazes, even though their intentions are of the best. V 1 ^1 57 ■ \ • 9. Father Jones accuses me ai finessing in my reply- to his question as to the right of a father to compel obedience from his son when the latter has scruples of conscience. I am sorry he should have allowed him- self to use the expression, as it is wholly unwarranted, and is the only thing which prevents me from heartily endorsing all that he has said as to the courtesy dis- played in the discussion thus far. I shall not retort the offensive term, but shall suppose that it is through mere inadvertence he now states that question as if it related to the right of a father to dear up his son's doubts. These two things : compelling obedience in the face of scruples and clearing up doubts, may mean the same to Father Jones ; they are far from being identical with me. If the case related to my horse or my dog, they might be so, but not with my son, or any other moral being. Of course, I would seek to clear up my son's doubts, and remove his scruples. In both of the ingenious cases which he supposes, I would seek to " form his conscience." That is what I am trying to do every day, with all the wisdom and discernment God has granted me, by giving him instruction, and laying down sound principles of action, even by guarding him from such teaching as he might receive from Jesuit moralists as to mental reservation, secret compensation, and the like. And I mean to keep on doing so as long as he remains under my control and influence. But I may add that I should neither " flay his skin " for respecting his own scruples, nor coerce him by any other penalty. I might restrain him from what I thought wrong as long as I am responsible for him, but as for compelling him to do what he feared was not right, never. One who has himself consented to become as '* a dead body " in the grasp of his Superior, as *' a staff in an old man's hand," may be unable to appreciate such a 58 measure of respect for the individual conscience, but every father will understand my meaning who is not a bad man, or a tyrant, or perhaps a pupil of the Jesuits. In conclusion, let me say that, as I am urged to reprint this correspondence along with the paper which has called it forth, I shall be glad to receive from Father Jones notice of any corrections, clerical or otherwise, which he might desire to have made in his part of it, so that full justice may be done him. Montreal, March 3rd, 1890. John Scrlmger. FATHER JONES TO PROFESSOR SCRIMGER. — HE AWAITS WITH EQUANIMITY THE REPUBLICA- TION OF THE CONTROVERSY, WHICH MAY DRAW OUT A REJOINDER. To the Editor of the Star : Sir, — The better to meet satisfactorily a number of points in Professor Scrimger's letter in yesterday's Star, I shall begin with what comes under the heading of his paragraph 4. He will be hard to please, if what follows does not put an end to his last scruples. If, after this, the constitutions of the Jesuits be still maligned, he will not have even the excuse of pleading before his Maker that he acted up to the dictates of his conscience in obeying a formal command given to him by a legitimate superior. He will continue then in accusing thousands of his fellow men of sanctioning, '1 59 by their membership in an order, the infamous prin- ciple that a superior may command, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, what would be an offence to His Divine Majesty. A. — Suarez (i 549-1617), Opera omnia, Tom. 16, Tract. 10, Lib. 4, c. 12 : "Are the religious of the Society of Jesus bound by their vow in every matter whatever, if licit ? " In § 6, under the above heading, after a prefatory remark on the status quivstionis, Suarez proceeds to say : " In relation to the special obedience which the vow exacts, when viewed in connection with the rigorous binding force of the pre- cept, the chief enquiry is : how far-reaching is that obedience in the Society ; in other words, does it extend to any object whatever, and to any actions ? And here there is no question of any action implying wickedness, nor of any circumstantial adjunct of sin ; for, from the nature of the thing (and we have proved it already in tome 2), it is certain that such acts cannot be included in the promise of a vow, as they are dis- pleasing to God, and consequently cannot be com- prehended in the vow of obedience. A second reason is because the command of an inferior, that is to say, of man, cannot hold good against the command of the Superior, that is, God." * This sets at rest the * Original texl of quotation marked A. CAPUT XII. Ultrum ex volo obedienliiTS obligari possint religiosi Societas in quacumque honesta materia. § 6. De propria ergo obedieiitia, quae ?d votum pertinet, dubium prsecipuum est, quantum extendi in Societate possit, quo ad rigorosam praecepti obligationem, id est, an in omni materia, et in quibuscumque actionil)Us, locum habeat. In quo non inquiritur de actionil)us haben- tibus, malitiam, vel rationem, peccati adjunct.mi, nam per se constat, et supra, in 2 torn., ostensum est, has non posse cadere sub prouiissionem voti, cum Deo displiceant,ac proinde nee sub votum obedientiir. Item quia mandalum inferioris, id est, hominis, non potest obligare contra mandatum Superioris, nemp'.; Dei. (End of quotation. ) accusation that the Jesuits believe that a Superior may command sin, and this evidence is " previous to 1757." I rehearsed part of § 7, of this same chapter XII., in my letter of Thursday last, and I now pass over the remainder of that section and the other sections which ^jrecede and follow it, as far as § 13. The passage's omitted would throw still more light on the subject, but are too lengthy to find room in your columns. Those interested may consult them in the original. If Professor Scrimger be willing to accept my invitation, he will be welcome to peruse Suarez at his leisure. For his former visit has left none but pleasant recollections. I now come to § 13, entitled " Confirmatio proxime dictorum. — B. Ignatius et exactam in suo ordine observantiam et obligationem ad culpam extra vota nullam inducit." Anglice : "Confirmation of what has just been said. — In his order, St. Ignatius imposes neither a strict observance nor an obligation under pain of sin, outside the matter of the vows." Suarez, we here see, mai.js use of " ad " after the manner of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Ignatius. He takes " obligatio ad culpam " as an equivalent for " obligatio ad peccatum." To take it as it here stands, in this chapter 12, with its immediate surroundings, in any other sense than that of "an obligation unto sin," or, in plain English, " an obligation under pain of sin," would suppose a recklessness of consequences of which I deem Professor Scrimger to be too shrewd a person to be guilty. To forfeit a reputation for exegetical capacity, would be simply ruinous for any man in the professor's position. It would be drawing too heavily on the treasures of a fair name, amassed by long years of unremitting labor. It would, in fine, be putting too violent a strain on the good will and implicit Gl reliance on his word, which bind to him a not insig^nificant train of admirers. It was indeed with unfeigned regret that I watched the professor venturing ah'eady so far out in treacherous waters, though he was warned in time that his foothold on the shelving bottom was less steady. It is un- doubtedly not yet too late to save his rei)utation as a sincere man, and an unfaltering seeker after truth ; but as for his reputation as an exegete, a few ugly rents require immediate mending before it can again stand the scrutinizing gaze of an over-exacting public. But we are losing sight of Suarez, who, in treating ex prof es so, in this his Chapter XII., the Chapter V of Part VI. of the Constitutions, goes on to say: B. — " And this (what he had just developed in pre- ceding sections) is borne out, since a more extended power {i. e., of commanding things not according to the ordinary mode of life within the Society) under this vow (of obedience) is neither necessary nor useful to the Society in view of its end ; nay, more ; it would prove hurtful on account of the peril and perturbation which might arise from the exercise of it. It is, therefore, beyond belief that any such power was given to Superiors either in the intention of those vowing or of those who framed and who approved the Institute. And this may be correctly asserted in view of the 5th chapter of the sixth part of the same Constitutions, in which our blessed Father Ignatius wisely provides against dangers and for the perfection of his children. In this view he makes a two-fold utterance. The first is that he desires ' all the Society's Constitutions, declarations and order of life to be observed according to our institute, in no wise deviating in any particular.' The second is that it nevertheless seemed expedient to him, irrescinding from the obligations of the vows, that in the Society's Constitutions, or any ordinances 02 whatsoever, there should be no obh'gation under pain of sin, mortal or venial, to the end, that snares and perils might be avoided ; he adds, however, one excep- tion: * Unless the Superior command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of obedience (nisi Superior in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi, vel in virtute obedientiae juberet). Let ne here interrupt the quotation to remind Professcr Scrimger that Suarez does take account of Hie exception, " Nisi Superior ea, etc.;" and that the «=ume exception did not come out for the first time on the occasion of Lavalette's bankruptcy, in the middle of the last century, but when the Society's Constitu- tions were first approved by the Holy See. In the days of Suarez they had already become public pro- perty, though it be not the custom of religious orders to place their constitutions in the market. Conse- quently, Professor Scrimger's unhistorical insinuation, in the Star of February 28, is but another myth in the minds of anti-Jesuits. I must add, for the Professor's satisfaction, that he, in the same paragraph, renders quite correctly the meaning of the passage as it is universally understood by every Jesuit, from the great Suarez down to my own humble self. I thank him, therefore, for having set me right with his friends, and beg him to believe that so far from its being anything strange or anomalous in religious orders, it is the exception when their constitutions bind the Timbers, under pain of sin, in virtue of the ru' ^ i' ^elf. 1 revert now to the interrupted quotation " A-nd he (St. Ignatius) declare .liat not even this should be done without urgent cause, v hen he says: " Which may be done in the case of such matters and persons, in which it shall be judged, that it will greatly conduce to each one's individual welfare or to the welfare of all ? If the context be properly taken into 63 account this power (of commandiiif,^) bears on the observance of the constitutio)is, declarations a)id order of Hfe strictly in keeping ivith our institute, and con- cerninfT these very thin^^s that circumspection and Hmitation is added, for the proper exercise of such power; therefore if there be any point whicli can in no wise be brought under these heads, it does not in fact constitute the matter of this power, or of a rigorous precept which may arise from it." * As the foregoing extracts are a categorical answer to paragraph 4, 5 and 6 have no longer a raison detre^ with the exception of the closing phrase of the latter. The historical objection of the persecution and wan- ton expulsion of the Society of Jesus, by the infidel statesmen who ruled the Courts of Europe, has been * Orijjinal text of t^^e passage marked I?. §13. Et confirmatur hoc, quia major potestas praecipiendi sub obliga- tione luijiis voti nee ;>ocietau est ntcessaria ad finem suum, iieque utilis ; imo potest esse nociva propter pericuUnn, ^i pei turhationem, qua.' ex usu ejus oriri possunt ; non est ergo verisiiuile d;iri superiorihus talem potes- tatem, vel ex intentione voventium, vel ex intentione instituenlium et approbantium institutum. Quod recte potest declarari ex cap. quinto partis sextai earumdem Constitutionuin, in quo P.. P. Ignatius sapienter jirovidit et periculis, et perfectioni suorum iiliorum ; et ideo duo dicit : uiium est, exoptare se, uuiversas suas Cotistitiuioiies derlaraftones, et vivendi ordiiiein omniuo jiixtn nostrum instilutntii nihil iilia in re declinando obsen^ari. Aliud est, visum sil)i nihdoniinus esse expedireut, seclusis votorum obligationibus, nulla sit in Soc'.etatis Conslitutionibus, aut quibuscumque ordinationibus obligatio ad cidpam 7nortale>n vel venialem,\xi laquei et pericula evitentur; addit vero exceptionem : lYisi superior in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi vel in virtnte obedientioe juberet, et declarat hoc ipsuin non sine magna causa faciendum esse, dicens : Quod in rebus wl personis illis, in quibus judicabilur, quod ad partictdare uniuscujusque vel ad universale bonum multum convemet, fieri poterit. Ubi si contextus recte attendatur, potestas haec cad it supra observantiam constitutionum^ deciai-ationuvi^ac vivenai ordinem, omnino juxta nostrum insntutum. Et circa haec ipsa adjungitur ilia circum- spectio et restrictio in usu debito talis potestatis ; ergo si quid eat quod sub illis capilii)us nullo niodo comprehendatur, revcra non est materia hujus potestatis, vel rigorosi prsecepti quod ab ilia manare possit. (End of 2nd quotation.) 64 answered time and again. Cretineau-Joly may be consulted on this point, and Father Weld in his " Suppression of the Society of Jesus." For a serious man, of JVofcssor Scrimger's stamp, it should chal- lenge reflection, for they have fared no better than the Divine Master, whom they profess closely to fol- low, and whom Professor Scrimger honors as his God. As for the S 3ciety's record, she may well appeal to it, but, very likely, not as set down in such authors whom the Professor is wont to consult. I venture to assert (Vid. paragraph 3) that there can be little just cause of complaint if Gury was not placed on exhibition. This vvurk may be consulted in any Catholic book-store, and I moreover gave entire in my letter, the passages referred to. An old edition of St. Thomas is not of very common occurrence, and though the Professor is too gentlemanly personally to impeach my veracity, my character of Jesuit would lead many of those whom we both elbow on the crov/ded thoroughfare, to give scant credence to my assertion if unsupported. And to come back to our old friend *' ad," which has had such prominence in our discussion, I beg the Professor to take note, that T did not precisely say that " unto " is equivalent to " under pain of" (Vid. par. i) but that as " obligaread peccatum " is equivalent in the case in point to " obligare usque ad peccatum " to oblige unto or as far as sin, the latter should be rendered by " to oblige under pain of sin," as indicating the limit, or, if you will, the extent of the obligation. Though no fault can be found with the scholastic use of " obligare ad," even from a classical point of view, I would not have it overlooked, that craftsmen are justified in taking liberties with their mother tongue, or any other, in coin- ing technical terms to express tersely their thoughts. Usage in theology has set its seal upon ** obligare ad m peccatum," and only they, who are not famih'ar with the peculiarities of the craftsmen's language are apt to find fault with it. For this and like reasons the Latin of St. Thomas, St. Ignatius and Suarez needs no revision (Par. 3.) Happy are they, however, whose for- mulas would require but a touching up here and there to improve their Latinity, and who do not feel the want of remodeling their symbol of faith, the better to answer the exigencies of modern society. The latter craving would point to the fact that such religions were intended to suit the shifting- fancies of men, and not to endure, one and the same, unto the end. I have neither leisure nor space to follow the pro- fessor in his invectives against the interior dispositions of perfect obedience, understood as it is by every Catholic in relation to a legitimate object. It is the virtue most repulsive to the world, I admit, as opposed to the pride of intellect, the great blighting- sin of this and of every age. " Thereby fell the angels," and man. It was of the contrary virtue that our Lord set us the most sublime example, being obedient even unto death. The great revolt against the Church of Christ has left its mark in this upon its chil^'ren, so that a Catholic is often at a loss how adequately to convey an idea of his belief in words capable of being under- stood by those outside his communion. When it is once understood that the Catholic clings to an infallible Church, his mother, and that she in turn sanctions religious life, and invests religious superiors with a character which makes them, with all their human weaknesses, the representatives of God, it will be time enough for further explanations. To show how that power is hedged around by innum.erable precau- tions, to prevent abuse, would then become compara- tively easy, as it would to convince the bitterest opponent that as " obedience is better than victims," 1 66 its practice is most agreeable to God. As for the case of obedience where there is but a mere doubt as to the lawfulness of the command, the solution by Gury dates as far back as the time of St. Augustin, and has been universally followed. The main reason is that the presumption is in favor of legitimate authority. I sincerely regret that Professor Scrimger (Par. 9) has felt hurt a: a relatively very harmless expression, borrowed from the Englishman's ipa.stime par exce//ence, the equally harmless game of whiic. It is inconceiv- able to me how, after supposing that I could abet the slaying of his boy's soul, he found that the reproach of finessing lacked the courtesy to be expected from me. Had he one year's experience of a Jesuit's life he would have to complain of many and much more ener- getic expressions. I cheerfully withdraw if it has caused the least pain. I expect two things from his own sense of rectitude. Let him admit that I have satisfied him, that there is no ground for the sinister interpretation placed on the " obligare ad peccatum " in our Constitutions ; and that he manfully cease fly- ing false colors. My meaning I think is clear. When he intends attacking the doctrines of the Catholic Church (Par. 8) as he does when he would have us send by the board our doctrine of Confession (though as a sacrament it was instituted by Christ) let him frankly acknowledge it ; and so for other dogma or religious practices. When he wishes to attack what is peculiar to the Society of Jesus let him label his wares properly and not mislead the public, for this is much worse tha.n finessing. The time has gone by for such subterfuges, I do not say on his part, but on the part of his co-religionists. Catholics know perfectly well that the Society of Jesus enjoys the full favor of the Holy See, and that in what pertains to faith and morals, neither Jesuit nor aught else can cause to t t 67 deviate one hair's breadth the unerring utterances of the Vicar of Christ. As for the publication of his paper we can all await it with equanimity. A straightforward course may- draw out a rejoinder, if he be anxious for one, where double dealing will simply suggest that it go by unheeded. I cannot but rejoice, however, at the pub- lication by him of our correspondence, for it will secure for the Jesuit caus' a hearing in quarters which anything I could publish would stand little chance of reaching. A. E. Jones, S.J. St. Mary's College, March 4th, 1890. ANOTHER LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SCRIMGER. — HE DECLARES THE ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE YIELDED BY THE JESUITS TO BE THE FUNDAMENTAL IMMORALITY OF THE ORDER. To the Editor of the Star : Sir, — I had thought my correspondence with Father Jones ended on the balancing of our accounts, but he evidently cannot resist the temptation to be fully represented in a discussion that is likely to take permanent form, and circulate among all classes of the people. Least of all, apparently, is he willing to allow my last rejoinder to be the closing word in that correspondence. As I have said all along, the point under discussion is to me a very minor one, not in any way affecting the general argument of the paper out ! ( I r 68 of which the discussion has grown, but it seems very important to him. Perhaps I should feel the same if I were in his place. 1 shall not trouble the public further with ad and usqtie ad, the more especially that Father Jones grants almost all that T have contended for, but shall content myself with saying i still adhere to my opinion that the rendering I gave of the passage of the Consti- tutions under discussion is the natural rendering, according to all sound laws of Latin grammar and interpretation. When I find translator after translator giving substantially the same rendering, independently of each other, and without hesitation, when I see their own casuists using the same construction elsewhere in my sense, and generally, if not universally, employing a different phrase to express Father Jones' meaning when they clearly wish to express it, I can hardly help feeling that it is the 07ily natural rendering. I, at any rate, gave it in good faith. One must respect, however, the earnestness with which Father Jones seeks to clear the Constitutions of his Society from the odious charge of expressly authorizing a superior to lay a command upon a subordinate, requiring him to perpetrate a crime. Whatever may have been the intention of the passage originally, I take it that he at least recognizes no such right on the part of his superior, and if so ordered would refuse to obev. I have to acknowledge that in his last letter he has very considerably strengthened the evidence that his interpretation of the passage was also held by Suarez. The language of Suarez is not altogether free from difficulty and even contradiction. If I catch the spirit of his discussion aright from the extracts given by Father Jones (and the fairness of which I shall not question), he seems to be all through laboring to make t #MH Ji | » a".iiBMWiB MW a 69 out a case. But until 1 can find time and opportunity to avail myself of Father Jones' kind invitation to examine Suarez fully, I shall not press the point. I hope he will not think I am taking an unfair advan- tage of him, if I call attention to the fact that he himself furnishes the explanation of the attitude of Suarez, when he insists that, though published surrep- titiously, the Constitutions of the order '* had already become public property " in his time. Most assuredly, if this passage had become public property, it was necessary that some explanation should be given of it which might quiet the inevitable alarm, and stay the rising storm of public indignation. But, sir, I have still something further to say on the general question, if the public and Father Jones will bear with me. Even suppose it could be proved to a demonstration that the meaning which he puts upon this passage were not merely his meaning and that of Suarez, but the only legitimate meaning, and the meaning intended by the founder, I do not know that it would very much change my opinion as to the practical tendency of the Constitutions, and as to the whole Jesuit doctrine of obedience. No one, brought up as I have been, at least, can read these Constitutions, or the Summary of them, or Loyola's Letter on the Virtue of Obedience, without a shudder of horror at the dishonor which is thereby put upon our common humanity, by the way in which obedience on the part of one frail, fallible man to another is made the great, almost the only, virtue of the Christian character. I do not mean to be offensive, but I cannot refrain from saying that, so far from carrying out the spirit of the texts of Scripture quoted by Father Jones in his last letter, it \'=, positively immoral for any man to consent to be thus deprived of his manhood, and become a mere corpse^ to be moved hither and thither by another 70 i ^ at will, a mere staff in an old man's hand. It is infinitely more immoral than would be any physical self-mutilation from a supposed religious motive. And if there is one thing more than another that is pitiable in the whole matter, it is the way in which they seem to priory in their self-abasement, and hug the bondage tc which they have subjected their souls. Father Jones speaks of my invectives on this subject. I would that 1 could make them a hundred times as strong. They would not then express all that I feel. And this initial fundamental immorality in the order is the fruitful mother of others. It is this which has given birth to that not inconsiderable number of iniquities with which the order stands righteously charged by history, given birth to them so naturally, that the members of the order seem to be almost unconscious that they are iniquities at all. Cretineau- Joly's work is not unknown to me. A volume of it lies open before me at this moment. But, notwith- standing all that this able apologist has said, I believe the verdict of history still remains unreversed and irreversible, except in a few minor details. For the Jesuits to compare themselves in their sufferings with our Blessed Lord, whose name they have chosen to assume, may be plausible to them. To me it is only blasphemous. It is an immorality of the kind that breaks down the moral sense, and perverts the judgment, as almost nothing else could do in the case of men who have any earnestness or piety in them. In no other way can I account for the fact that men, with no mean powers, and supposed to respect the voice of conscience at all, should teach and defend so many abominable practices as have done almost all the writers of their order. Losing all true keenness of moral insight, they become the victims of a mechanical logic, without T L T t I 71 power to burst through the fetters they have forged for themselves. In my paper I have given some illustrations of this from Gury. I would recommend the public to study the case of Anna, which was given in full in your synopsis of my paper in the issue of February 24th. Let me now give another from this very Suarez, who, according to Father Jones, guards himself so carefully as to the limit of obedience. I must ask Father Jones' pardon if I quote a passage or two secondhand, not having the original. I believe them to be genuine and accurate : " It is permitted to an individual to kill a tyrant in virtue of the right of self-defence ; for though the community does not command it, it is always to be understood that it wishes to be defended by every one of its citizens individually, and even by a stranger. Then, if no defence can be found excepting the death of the tyrant, it is perviitted to every man to kill him." " Whenever a king has been legitimately deposed {i.e.^ by the Pope), he ceases to be a king or a legiti- mate prince, and that can no longer be affirmed of him which may be said for a legitimate king ; he henceforth should be called a tyrant. Thus, after he has been declared to be deprived of his kingdom, it becomes legal to treat him as a real tyrant, and con- sequently any man has a right to kill him." (See Chalotais, Report on the Constitutions of the Jesuits to the Parliament of Brittany, 1761.) It would be easy to add to this from other sources, but I forbear. With such convenient ideas as to wdiat is sinful, no limitation of obedience can count for very much, when a real emergency arises, though of course like every one else who values his reputation they prefer to gain their ends by fair means when they can. Father Jones complains of the difficulty of making 72 ' I ' i their position as to obedience intelligible to those who have been trained under the principles of the Reform- ation. I sympathize with him in this, for I have been struck by the fact that he seems incapable of under- standing what is meant by a real respect for the indi- vidual conscience, though, if I am correctly informed, it does appear surprising that he should so completely have forgotte.i the traditions of his Protestant ancestry. It is only a fresh proof of the blighting, conscience-obliterating, man-effacing tendency of the system of which I complain. Father Jones persists in endeavoring to shelter him- self behind the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. Of course he is doing this for a purpose of his own, as must have been apparent to your readers all through. But let me advise him not to be too sure of his ground here. If it be indeed true that the position of the whole church is identical with that of the Jesuit order I am heartily sorry for it. I admit that some countenance is given to his assertion by the well- known fact that the Jesuits only too well succeeded in their attempt to " capture " the Vatican Council of 1870. But the approval of them by the Holy See has not been uniform. In proof of which I might quote the familiar words of Pope Clement's Brief of Suppression, 1773, but it is very long and already well known. The haughty reply of Father Ricci, General of the Order, at the time, to a suggestion that the Society should be reconstructed on a new and sounder basis, was, " Let them be as they are or cease to be." (Sint ut sunt aut non sint.) The proud motto of the Church is semper eadem. The Pope has suppressed the Order once; he may do it again, and this time not at the demand of princes merely, but at the demand of the whole body of the church, refusing longer to T I nn tolerate their baleful ascendency. ** The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small," Montreal, March 6th, 1890. - John Scrimger. o' FATHER JONES VALEDICTORY. INSISTS THAT THE DOCTRINES OF THE JESUITS ARE DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH. — PROMISES TO DIS- CUSS TYRANNICIDE LATER. 7^0 the Editor of the Star : Sir, — It would be ungracious to close this contro- versy without thanking Professor Scrimger for the very notable service he has, during the past fortnight, rendered the Society of Jesus. This service is mani- fold and invaluable. No fitter illustration of the methods of the adver- saries of the Society and of the Church could have been devised than the one given by our worthy Prof- essor ; and for this we are grateful. If one thing more than another has been brought out into bold relief it is the flimsiness of the substructure upon which a whole fabric of accusations has been piled, story after story, with Eiffel-like pertinacity, against the Jesuit order. Their Constitutions are attacked as sanctioning an infamous principle ; but whatever the Ministerial Association or its exponent may yet fondly but hopelessly cling to, the public has seen the accusa- tion resolve itself into its constituents : religious 1 1 1 fanaticism, and, very mildly speaking, groundless assertion. " I still adhere to my opinion that the rendering I gave the passage of the Constitutions under discuss- ion is the natural rendering according to all sound laws of Latin G.ammar and interpretation," — such is the Professor's conclusion. Well, the more is the pity. Opportunities lave been lavished on him in vain. Were he a judge on the bench, the poor man who would have to face the consequences of similar inter- pretations of the law would be in a sad plight. The Professor has made manifest the wisdom of our refusal in the Hurlburt-Whelan controversy, to accept a fifth arbiter of his own and Principal MacVicar's choosing, and for this a^^ain we are thankful. No man of their particular school of thought enjoyed, so far as I could learn, a more enviable reputation for fairness than the Professor. I leave it to you, Mr. Editor, to determine, since the most elementary rules of interpretation have been so cavalierly thrust aside by him, what fate would have awaited the minority, had a fifth man been chosen from the same circle. And why follow him in his fresh attacks on the Constitutions of the order so long as a similarly enlightened mode of procedure is to be adopted ? If the worthy Professor carry out his peculiar canons of exegesis in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, where oftentimes interpretation is really required, all his amiability and mildness of disposition will avail but little, and he may well wonder that he does not find a Christianity to his liking beyond his own immediate range of vision. Useless, therefore, to think of entering upon any discussion of the tenets of Christ's true religion. Equally useless to waste words and blacken paper in the further elucidation of the present question. For, J t 75 if I understand his style of argument, neither correct Latinity, nor the context, nor parallel passages, nor the invariable custom of the schools for centuries, nor the unmistakable teaching of their theologians, nor the repeated protestations of the members of the order from the beginning are to have weight with him. If so, the sooner, for his own sake, the debate is closed, the better. For all that, the Professor has placed the Society under an obligation to him and he purposes to do more. He will re-publish these letters, which at all events are luckily in your columns for reference ; and I would remind future readers that only one point has been touched upon, but for which it should be said " ab uno disce omnes." As for " probabilism," " the end and the means, etc.," the true teaching of the Society is on record, within the reach of all, and may be had for the asking. Tyrannicide, God willing, I shall touch upon before long, and bring home to their own doors what the enemies of the Societv would fain foist in her teaching. Professor Scrimger, instead of frankly admitting that he was misled into believing that the superior could enjoin a sinful act, after the numerous proofs submitted, sums up the whole of his concession in the following : " I have to acknowledge that in his last letter he (F. Jones) has very considerably strengthened the evidence that his interpretation of the passage w^as also held by Suarez. The language of Suarez is not altogether free from difficulty and even contradiction." Then follow several insinuations as to the straight- forwardness of Suarez in his simple commentary on the Constitutions. Why cannot the Professor once for all get rid of his utterly erroneous notion that the Constitutions of the Order were, or could be an unknown quantity at least for the Holy See ? He 76 11 must be aware that no religious order can properly exist as such within the Church unless its constitutions be approved by the Sovereign Pontiff. Now, Benedict XIV. declares in terms sufficiently clear that : "The approbation of a religious order is not only a mere permission but ? definition of the Sovereign Pontiff by which truly lie decrees that the rule he approves and confirms co.itains nothing repugnant to evangel- ical perfection." — Approbatioalicujusordinis Religiosi, non nuda duntaxat est permissio, sed definitio summi Pontificis, qua nimirum decernit regulam quam approbat et confirmat nihil continere evangelicae perfectioni repugnans (Lambertini, de Sanctorem Canonis, T. i, pag. 381). Now, if the Constitutions of the Jesuits ever sanctioned the enjoining of a nefarious deed, or ever encouraged an obedience, which the Professor has stigmatized as "positively immoral," the Catholic Church solemnly approved both. But as the Minis- terial Association has not the courage apparently to attack openly the Church, lest it should rouse the ire of Catholics in general, and as it suits its purpose far better to sever the cause of the Jesuits from that of the Church, it ascribes to the Society of Jesus what it deems condemnable in her teaching. The great bulk of anti-Jesuits and a few bad or ignorant Catho- lics may be entrapped, but the vast majority of fair- minded Protestants and the entire body of earnest Catholics will detect the fraud. The anti-Jesuit method is further exemplified by the old make-shift. When fairly brought to bay on one count, these experts in dialectics smilingly pass on to a second with the convenient transition, " Let me now give another from this very Suarez, etc." This fire-and-fall-back mode of warfare was not unknown to the ingenious Parthians. It would seem > - i i '• that it is yet in vogue. It may do very well for the unfledged nestlings of the Professor's seminary, but it will not be over-popular with those whose little weak- ness is to prefer " mechanical logic ; " though the exponent of the Ministerial Association has not gone out of his way to enlighten us as to how mechanical logic may be opposed to " all true keenness of moral insight." As it has been my very unpleasant duty to arouse the Professor from the delusive dream that he was quite conversant with the technical expressions of the School, I am constrained furthermore to undeceive him with regard to his knowledge of monastic and religious institutions in the Old Church. He would have his immediate following to believe on his " ipse dixit " (for who else would trust to it now ?), that the vow of obedience is at the bottom of all the mischief, and has been the bane of the Society. He no doubt is partial to refractory monks who have broken their vows, and would, as others have done, welcome them with open arms. He must not the less lose sight of the fact that St. Bernard, in the tenth century, had very much the same notions of perfect obedience as St. Ignatius had in the sixteenth. In inveighing against this vow the Professor is covertly, but very vigorously striking at all religious orders. While on this point, let me, with all due moderation, remark that the Professor's vocabulary is singularly enc-i'getic for a Christian controversialist. I can bear with him all the same, for I fully understand that it has been all along very annoying to have had their little game exposed to the public gaze in your columns. I will go so far as to say that I have very serious doubts as to their ever republishing my letters in full. It would be beyond question a very noteworthy deviat'on from their well-known methods. The Professor has not ! ^ 78 hesitated to draw the attention of the public to the fact that the Protestant traditions of my ancestry are not my own. What relates to my own very insignifi- cant self must be singularly devoid of interest to the public. It neither adds to, nor eliminates oiie jot from the weight cf my arguments. But since he does remark with surprise that I should have so completely forgotten the traditions of my Protestant ancestry, it would not have oeen out of place to have added that that same Protestant ancestry had previously and very unfortunately discarded the true Catholic traditions of their own forefathers in the faith. As for the closing paragraph of his Saturday's letter, the Professor may possess his soul in patience. The r')r»ner suppression of the Society, as a means of disarming enmity, was greeted by a too prolonged and a too tumultuous cry of joy from her foes to warrant the Church ever to have recourse again to a similar expedient. But should that day ever come, unfalter- ing obedience to his commands will enable the Society quietly to cease again to exist at the voice of the Vicar of Christ, who first sanctioned her existence and crowned with the halo of sanctity numbers of her obedient children. Accept, Mr. Editor, my own thanks and those of the fair-minded public for the gracious manner in which )'ou have opened your columns to the free dis- cussion of this and similar topics of actual and general interest. A. E. Jones, S.J. St. Mary's College, March lo, 1890. 1 COMMENTS FROM PROFESSOR SCRIMGER ON FATHER JONES' LETTER, WHO CLAIMS TIL\T THE LATTER HAS FAILED TO DEAL WITH HIS CHIEF ARGUMENTS. To the Editor of the Star : Sir, — Father Jones' letter, dated the loth inst., hardly calls for any serious rep I)', but I may be allowed, throu<^h your kindness, space for one or two comments thereon. I. I would remind Father Jones and the public that he has not vet dealt with the chief arL^iiments which I adduced in support of my contention as to the natuial meaning of the disputed passage in the con- stitutions, as judged by the rules of correct Latinity and interpretation. He has not explained, for example, why it is that the parallel passages adduced by him- self from Loyola's Letter on Obedience, from the Summary, from the Constitutions, Chapter I. of Part VI., as well as the heading of the chapter and the marginal notes, all make this chapter under discussion treat of the limit of obedience, and not of the sinful- ness, or otherwise, of an infraction of the minor rules. If that be the subject of the chapter, as I maintain it is, the exception cannot well mean anything else than what I have said. If he will turn his subject into Latin, and compare it with the present heading, even he will at once see the difference. In using this passage hereafter, I shall gladly explain that Father Jones and others interpret it in a different way. But I cannot so lightly forego the evidence of my own reason as to what it naturally means. 80 2. Father Jones would have the public believe that in the famous arbitration over the Hurlburt-Whelan controversy, vvhich unfortunately fell through, he and his colleague were justified in refusing to accept as the fifth arbitrator Dr. Murray, of McGill University, a gentleman of the highest attainments, whose chief fault in the eyes of his worst enemies is his indepen- dence. I leave the public to determine whether he was likely to be as fair a judge as any Roman Catholic professor of moral theology, who, by his very position as such, was committed to every principle of Jesuit teaching, according to Father Jones himself Had they suggested such a scholar as the late Dr. Dollingcr, of Munich, then alive, who was neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, we would gladly have accepted him. Father Jones will find my decision on the casr h. my forthcoming paper. I ask his attention to it, and would be glad to know his opinion regarding it. 3. I am sorry that I seem to have lost the good opinion which Father Jones was led to entertain of myself personally, and which was somewhat effusively expressed in his previous letters. I am surprised, however, at the greatness of the change, when I con- sider that the only fault of which I have been guilty is that of having expressed a concession as to the interpretation of Suarez in a somewhat guarded way, as I then felt, and still feel, I was justified in doing. My character for exegetical fairness I am content to leave to those who are best capable of judging. Much as I would value a clean certificate from Father Jones on this point, I fear I cannot comply with the neces- sary condition, viz., to admit that the constitutions of the Jesuit order must be free from anything so objec- tionable as I charge against them, because the Pope approved of them at the time of their adoption. I am not accustomed to attach much weight to arguments 81 2 that helan e and 2pt as ersity, ; chief depen- her he athoUc )osition f Jesuit Had Dllingcr, :athoUc ed him. ;f. \vi tny It, and it. the good ertain of effusively surprised , en I con- en guilty as to the rded way, in doing, content to ,g. Much ther Jones the neces- itutions of y so objcc- j* the Pope ion. 1 am arguments of that sort. But even if I were disposed to do so, I cannot forget that the approval of the constitutions was first given by Pope Paul III. in 1540, with considerable hesitation, and before they zoere ivritten out in full by Loyola — only a rough draft of them having been submitted. I do not ask the public to take my word for this. I quote from their own favorite historian, Cretineau-Joly : " All obstacles were removed ; the Pope made no further difficulty, and on the 27th September, 1540, the bull, Reginiiui inilitantis Ecclesia\ was proclaimed. This is that which institutes the Society of Jesus, and therefore it must be criven in full in its historv- Before giving it, however, we must make one remark, which is, that the Pope, trusting fully in the knowledge and honesty of Ignatius and his companions, authorized the Institute on the simple sketch of the future Coiistitutions!' * It would seem as if the Pope's confidence had been somewhat misplaced. Of course, having once com- mitted himself by a formal Bull^ there was no drawing- back. 4. I am also sorry that Father Jones should have given way to impatience just when the discussion was beginning to talm 83 >/ I 7. Failing to find sufficient shelter behmd the Roman Catholic Church as a whole, Father Jones now seeks to hide behind the other orders and to identify their cause with that of his own. I acknowledge that I have no particular liking for any of these orders, though none of the others do I regard as being so dangerous to liberty as the Jesuit. But unless I mis- read history the other religious orders have never shown any special desire to be bracketed with the Jesuits, or to be embraced in the same category. Let me advise him not to trust to them, either, for his pro- tection. They will soon discover that their own interests are paramount. If he is in any mood for taking advice from me, I have something better to suggest than that. Let him honestly and bravely cut himself clear from his entangling vows which he ought never to have taken, and repudiate those doctrines which have brought so much discredit even upon his own church. Let him assert his manhood and regain his liberty. He will have much to sacrifice, but his splend'd abilities will soon secure for him a position wherein he can exercise them in freedom and for a nobler cause than for the defence of an order which has no future before it but the righteous hatred of all good men. 8. Father Jones is good enough to thank me for the services which I may have rendered to the Jesuit order by this correspondence. I am glad he appreciates it. I should be well satisfied to think that I had been able to open his eyes, as well as those of the public, to the real nature of their teaching. I am taking steps, at any rate, to secure, as far as I can, that they shall get the full benefit of the knowledge I have gained from a personal perusal of their writings at first hand. It may reassure Father Jones to be told that the whole of this correspondence, up to the present point, J can- 84 not engage for the future if he writes any more letters like the last) as w .^11 as the original paper, is now in the hands of my j: ublisher and will be issued with all convenient speed. As soon as it is ready I shall have much pleasure ir sending him two or three copies as a slight acknowledgment of similar favors on his part. Meanwhile I remain his and your obedient servant, John Scrimger. Montreal, March 13 th, 1890. f '4r' • . .'^ > ■ •^ LIGUORI AND THE JESUITS. In view of the strong statements of Eathcr Jones in the foregoing correspondence as to the identity of the teaching of Jesuit writers with that of the Roman CathoHc Church in general, and especially with that of Liguori, I have been led to look a little into the facts of the case. The comparison with Liguori is a perfectly fair one and indeed a decisive one, owing to the peculiar position which he holds among Roman Catholic theo- logians. He has received every honor the Holy See has to bestow. He was declared ** venerable " in 1796, nine years after his death ; beatified in 1 816, canonized in 1839, and finally made "doctor of the church" by Pius IX, in 1 87 1. This last honor is a very rare one. Liguori is the only one who has received it since the Reformation, and it places him on the same level as Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Thomas Aquinas. In 1803 his works were formally declared to contain notJmig worthy of censure (nihil censura dignum.) If, therefore, the Jesuits can truly say that Liguori is altogether at one with them in their teaching they may not improperly claim that their doctrines are simply those of the church as a whole. I can ""ive here only a brief summary of the results of my investigations. Should these be seriously ques- tioned I am prepared to give the grounds for my conclusions in full. Liguori's standard is by no means a high one. He set out with the intention of tracing a via media between rigorism and laxism, but unfortunately for him, the subject of morals does not readily lend itself 86 ■■'■■■' to that method of treatment When the barriers of right are partially broken down it is not easy to pre- vent further damige, and he very frequently errs on the side of undue laxity. Notwithstanding much that is good, I should never dream of placing his works in the hands of any young man or woman as a guide to conduct. It could hardly fail to be other than injuri- ous. But when we compare him with the Jesuits he still appears to very considerable advantage. Father Jones' claim can be accepted only with very decided qualifications. 1. It does not hold good at all with reference to the earlier Jesuit writers of the i6th and 17th centuries. Their teaching was so lax that at one time or another different Popes condemned at least 115 propositions contained in their works. Generally speaking, it may be said that all of these are avoided by Liguori, though as a matter of fact some of them are only evaded through some subtle distinction. 2. Taking Gury as a typical representative of the modern Jesuit writers, Liguori differs from him in his doctrine of probabilism. Liguori calls himself an yEqiiiprobabilist, i.e., in doubtful cases the chances of being right must appear to be about even in order to justify a course of action. Gury describes himself as a moderate probabilist. He endeavors to make it appear that this position is virtually identical with that of Liguori (Compend, Vol. I., §65), but in reality it allows considerably greater latitude. According to the former the authorities must be about equally divided in opinion. According to the latter any rea- sonable number of authorities may make an opinion probable, and in some cases one authority of high standing may make it so. It is easy to conceive cases in which the practical difference would be very con- siderable. Gury further gives to each person the right V .f' ■**. to follow one opinion to-day and the opposite opinion bt^^r p^b.^ '--' -''' '-'- '"'--- - '-ras 3- In the detailed consideration of doubtful points Gury commonly follows the opinion of LiguoriTery closely, but not ahvaj's. Turning over th? pac.es of Gury rapidly I have found somL t^venty ,K in mind that m eighteen out of the twenty his opinion IS in favor of greater laxity. ' It is true that Gury's opinions have not been con- demned by the church, but it is also true that thev are not quite the same as those of Liguori. And when we take into account the still laxcr spirit in which they are in the habit of applying the law in tlK- confes- sional, we can understand in some measure how wide the difference practically may be and notoriously is m \' MONASTIC OBEDIENCE. The subject of monastic obedience, which is raised by the discussion of the famous passage in the con- stitutions of the Jesuit order, is deserving of a further word or two. The vow of obedience is taken by all the religious orders, both male and female, and is regarded as the most excellent of the vows, because by it they offer to God their highest and noblest possessions, viz., the will and the intellect. In none of them, however, is so much stress laid upon it as in the Jesuit order, in which a double vow of obedience is taken, first to their own superiors in the order, and secondly to the Pope personally. It is also made far more prominent in their constitutions, and other official documents. Except in this one passage under dispute, the limi- tation of obedience to that which is not clearly sinful is laid down in all of them in one form or another. But almost everywhere the value of that limitation is nullified practically ; first, by the fact that they must still obey if they have only doubts as to the lawfulness oi a command, and secondly, by the fact that they receive almost all their moral education in the estab- lishments of these same orders, and are taught to see Jesus Christ in the person of every superior. If, in spite of this, a novice should show signs of indepen- dence, he would soon find himself shouldered out of the order. A favorite analogy by which they seek to vindicate their doctrine of obedience is that of the soldier's obedience to his superior officer. It is his duty to obey all orders of every kind, the whole responsibility 'Y ^■1 89 V> in r lying with the superior officer, and disobedience is punishalDle with death. But this analogy is erroneous and misleading. Even in the army such obedience is rcciuired only in time of actual war, when all (ordinary laws are over- ridden, and even then thu superior officer can be called to account for his commands by the civil authorities. Whereas the religious orders are never supposed to be at war, and the real superiors are frequently cjuitc beyond the jurisdiction of the nation within which a crime may be perpetrated. Practically, the only guarantee against the issuing of iniquitous commands lies in the personal character of these superiors, and in the nature of the aims which they set before them. If the superior be an upright man, and his aims pure, all may be well. But in the not inconceivable case of his being a selfish and un- scrupulous politician, with far-reaching plans for the aggrandisement of himself or of his order, he will be dangerous just in proportion to the height of his ambition. This is why the Society of Jesus has rendered itself so much more obnoxious than any of the others. It aims at ruling the world. of to ity «V'te IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 4 // O \ 1.0 I.I 1.25 t 1^ M M 1-4 IIIIII.6 V] e /a /: "^ -c*l 9. y /(S^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WESV MAIN STREET WEBSTEK.NY. 14S80 (716) 872-450'i ^' o. I -f^"* t'V ) ^"W"P^v«>j. ''rii!'^ ..'v''*' i^ny "*^^«^- , Cro^ Paper, EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE PAPERS-1888 ^ cZ... k .. ■ """^otf aol; ^'t?„r»- a^ins. 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