# The Vatican as a World Power/Chapter 10

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Just as the weight of a wave impels the water to a counter stroke, so did the Protestant revolution summon forth the strength of the ancient Church. Her enemies saved her. Yet during the whole conflict a universal rule of battle was observed; the character and trend of the defense were adapted to the nature and method of the antagonist's attack. The Church was now defending its very being against revolu- tionary forces which by the time Clement VII died had already wrested a third of Europe from the old unity. The apostasy as such was as lacking in uniformity as the characters of Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII and Melanchthon were disparate. They agreed only in breaking away from Rome. The Roman Church was incomparably more firmly welded together in reaction and renewal. Nevertheless in its case also die forces of reform did not spring from a single source. Side by side with the melancholy spirit of compulsion (the opposition, too, had its Calvin) there stands the magnanimous charity of great saints. Unbending political manoeuvring existed side by side with the warm inner life of the mystics. The fact that a conflict was in progress stimulated energies, and aroused enthusiasm for hard work in every field; and yet on the other hand, perhaps because of the influence of the Spanish character, there was emphasized a spirit of stern martial discipline which is likely to seem narrow and harsh when compared with the life of the ancient or the mediaeval Church. Perhaps one could explain the cheerful, mobile gesture of baroque art as the projec- tion of a dream image of invisible treasure no longer possessed. The havoc wrought by an excess of freedom was discernible in the ruins of the Church of Luther, and proved a frightening example to the Catholic Church. In its new entrenchment it bore out an ancient saying that our enemies teach us what we ought to do. And yet that which was learned was not always pure gold.
Great things were done under the first Popes after the Sack of Rome. Under Paul III (1534-1549), a Farnese Cardinal, they took place quite without the spur of a passionate yearning for holiness* This Pope was a creature of the Renaissance, who during the forty years o
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his cardinalate had carefully kept up the appearance of being a man who stood above the parties. His heart beat faster for his children and grandchildren, for a princely existence and role, than it did for the Church, but he gave it at least the benefit of skillful and brilliant guidance. Just so a captain spends his careful foresight on a ship and is not asked if he loves the vessel or is able to steer it. This Pope was also like a seaman in that he followed anxiously the course of the stars. The astrological superstitions of the times dictated his hesi- tancies and his actions alike.
His government was inaugurated with a noble deed. Already under Leo X fifty or sixty men had gathered in Rome pious, learned friends of the renaissance of holiness in a Church grown indifferent to what is holy. The example set by this "Oratory in Divine Love" made an impression also on other cities; and when a hard fate was visited on the society in Rome and Florence, Venice afforded them a quiet refuge. Their modest plea for reform began with efforts to purify their own souls; it was drowned out by the storm of revolu- tion in the north, and its real significance was not generally realized even later on. Outside this community there likewise arose here it will suffice to refer to Vittoria Colonna and Michaelangelo a new religious demand that the Church, which had forgotten its Founder through concern with His viceroy, become conscious of its true mission.
At first this was without connection with the Reformation in Ger- many, but later it was in more or less intimate contact with that move- ment. The first concern of these minds was not the Papacy, or even criticism of a Pope who accompanied noisy hunting parties and staged daring plays for his amusement, but rather the realization of the re- ligion of Christ in the Church. Soon Paul III had summoned from the "Oratory" confraternity a number of eminently noble men of Italian and also of foreign descent to the College of Cardinals. This became "the worthiest senate of the Papacy" to have met for centuries. One of them was the aged bishop John Fisher, whose features Holbein has passed down to us, though the summons came only a few weeks before he fell a victim to the wrath of Henry VIII. Like Thomas More, he was beheaded. His countryman Reginald Pole, later Arch- bishop of Canterbury, whom an unflinching conscience had led to refuse recognition to the King's supremacy over the Church, received
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the purple. After Henry's death this Cardinal, on whose mother, brother and friend Henry had avenged himself with the executioner's aid, laboured to effect the Catholic reform of England in a genuinely spiritual sense. A third name, that of Caspar Contarini, is most intimately associated with the Lutheran Reformation. He was a man of fine mind and of every virtue of character, who was descended from one of the oldest and richest families of Venice. Long since he had proved his worth in many ways as a writer of learned, sometimes philosophic treatises, as a holder of high state offices in his native re- public, and as an ambassador to the court of Charles V. He was still a layman when Paul III named him a cardinal. During the difficult theological discussions which marked the Reichstag of Regensburg in 1541, he worked in a spirit of irenic conciliation and was soon exposed to attacks from both sides to the scorn of Luther as well as to ac- cusations from some who were close to the Curia that he had betrayed the Church and assented to heretical teachings. The Counter-reform began to make progress. A commission to which Contarini also belonged was entrusted with the carefully planned work. To each of the nine members, the Pope sent directions which incorporated his desire for serious reform. *'We hope," he said, "that your election will help to restore the authority of Christ in our hearts and in our efforts an authority which had been forgotten by the laity and also by us who are of the clergy. May you be a physician for our malady. May you lead back the scattered sheep of Christ into the one fold. May you turn aside from our heads the wrath and vengeance of God, which we have deserved and which we see already coming down upon us/*
This memorandum of the commissioners also discussed in the same frank way the tasks confronting the Council that was soon to convene. Political and religious struggles, above all the French intrigues, de- layed for years its coming together as well as the choice of the city in which it was to meet. Finally, at the close of 1544, the bull Lcstare Jerusalem called it together; and during the same year it opened its sessions m the Cathedral of the ancient episcopal city of Trent. This Council, twice interrupted for longer periods, lasted almost two decades.
Before the Council met efforts to bring about a reunion in Germany
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had failed. Not all the Lutherans were Melanchthons; not all the Catholics were Contarinis. This outstanding Cardinal, who was actuated by a strong desire for mutual understanding, found opponents in his own ranks. Just as he could not countenance the violent lan- guage used by Luther against the Pope, so also was he far removed from the spirit of the leader of the intransigents the uproarious, adamantine Neapolitan Cardinal Gian Pietro Carrafa, an Oratorian for whom he himself (for he lacked knowledge of men) had obtained a seat in the Sacred College. Severe with himself as well as others, Carrafa banded a group of the sternist reformists together in the Theatine Order, summoned all to battle to the end against heresy, and in 1542, when the Counter-reform was also making headway in Italy and France, gave the impulse to the establishment of the inquisitorial tribunal of the Curia, which was later on to be so well known as the Holy Office. If one adds to this all the missionary effort undertaken during these years in the Americas and in the Orient, the renewal of old Orders, and the foundation of new ones, one has an impressive total which testifies to Rome's determination to see all things as they really were.
Doubtless the greatest event of this pontificate was the rise of a man who, encouraged by Cardinal Contarini, soon began to exercise an influence upon the Papacy, the Church and world history. He was Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. Perhaps never again in human history has a great work so firmly and permanently remained the veritable incarnation of its founder as has the worldwide power of this Society. That is reason enough for riveting one's at- tention upon Loyola.
The most faithful likeness of Ignatius we have is his death mask. It concealed more than it revealed, even as he did when he lived. He never unveiled himself entirely, never permitted a painter or sculptor to confer immortality upon his features; and so every attempt to realize what manner of person he was leads to conundrums despite the history of his life, his own letters, and his succinct memoirs.
The twenty-five-year-old knight Inigo, of the Basque Castle of Loyola, was tried in 1515 for knightly escapades. Even as a boy and as a page in a Castilkn household, he had been full of the joy of
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living. As his patron and protector he selected St. Peter, the un- controllable disciple with a belligerent temperament, Inigo's zest for battle was temporarily dampened by a bloody occurrence of the year 1521. The city of Pamplona was threatened by a French attack. The officers were already prepared to surrender, and only one issued the fiery command, "War to the knife!" He was Ignatius. His advice drowned out the prudence of the others, and the enemy began to storm the fortress. One of the first shots fired during the bombard- ment tore a hole in the wall on which Ignatius was standing. His right leg was mascerated by a second shell, and his left leg was injured when part of the wall collapsed. This happened on May 21.
Pamplona fell. Carried to Loyola on a stretcher, Ignatius endured weeks of pain. His leg was poorly set, so that it grew shorter and had to be reset. Despite his agony, the injured man uttered not a sound, contenting himself with clenching his fists. On St. John's Day hope for his recovery was practically abandoned. Yet the danger passed: ointment, the surgical saw, and a device for stretching his leg saved him. The worst which this man of war had to endure as he lay abed was inactivity. He asked for knightly romances, but all he got was a score of pious books. These he tossed aside in disappointment, preferring to spend three or four hours day-dreaming about the lady of his heart. Yet he was so bored that finally he did pick up the Life of Christ and the Flowers of the Saints. Curiously enough, the content appealed to him deeply. Nevertheless as he read he was still wondering how he could make an impression on his lady fair.
His soul was kept in constant tension by an impulse toward what was great and unusual. It lay there like virgin soil in which the furrows had been newly ploughed and which waited for seed. How would it be, he asked himself , if I did what Francis and Dominic have done? "And therefore, he reflected much and resolved to do a nunv- ber of hard, difficult things." As yet he was driven only by ambition to imitate these men. Only when he had noticed a difference in the after-effects of his dreams, and had seen that his worldly visions left him melancholy while his pious visions cheered him, did he surmise in all this the voice of a higher will: 'This was the first conclusion which he drew in regard to Divine things." Since he had a great desire for adventurous journeys, he decided to travel to the Holy Land,
264 ​ fasting and mortifying himself. The worldly images which had hovered before his imagination gave way to religious visualizations of great strength and clarity. A vision of the Blessed Virgin and her Child cleansed him of all the muck of accustomed sensuality, so that even at the end of his days he could say that since this time he had not in the slightest way assented to lust. Henceforth Maty was his ideal woman and heroic service to the Church became the content of his life.
During the spring of 1522, he left the castles of his ancestors behind, and followed a vocation to saintliness. Like many of the elect before him, he was without a plan and suffered mere chance to show him the way he was to go. He trusted to his mule to know what the next objective of the journey would be. The poor beast slowly bore him up Montserrat, the holy mountain of Catalonia. While the rocky peaks towered round about him, he spent three days in confessing to the priest, thus passing judgment upon himself. On the evening of the 24th of March he exchanged his knightly attire for a pilgrim's coat, hung his sword and dagger on the altar of Mary, consecrated himself to his new knighthood as a spiritual Amadis by keeping an armed guard, spent the long night half kneeling, half standing, leaned over his staff by reason of weariness, and prayed before the miraculous Image. On die next morning he started off toward Barcelona and made his first halt in Manresa.
Here, on the heights above this meagre village, from which one could look out at the peaks of Montserrat, there took place that strenu- ous struggle of his personality with itself, the peaceful outcome of which has been of lasting historical importance and has made the word Manresa abide for all time as synonymous with the religious peace to which the human heart can attain.
A pest had broken out, so that nothing stirred in the harbour of Barcelona. Travel to the Italian maritime cities, and therewith also the journey to the Orient which had been Inigo's next plan, was cut off. Now the zest for action which stirred in this spiritual knight turned itself inward, to the Holy Land of the Soul. As he went about in his curious penitential garment, he seemed to the public one of the personas spirituales those persons who hungry for God, here and elsewhere went from theology to religion, now that the mills of
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Scholastic thought no longer ground any grist and kept going only for the sake of the noise they made. Every day Inigo read the Passion of Our Lord during Mass. Daily he prayed seven hours, wore a hair shirt and a penitential girdle, took care of the sick, and mortified his flesh. All that anguish of rebirth taking place in loneliness, which strikes at the very bottom of the human soul more fiercely than any- thing else in the world, descended upon him, too. Heaven began to play a wild game with him. A storm baffling all description now carried him up to pleasant heights, and then again threw him down into the abyss of despair. Today he could be blissfully aware of his high calling: tomorrow he would feel all the misery of one whom God has forsaken. And when by unrestrained penitence, he had exhausted his body, which he looked upon as a beast of burden in the service of the Church, there was associated with his physical weakness the spiritual illness which in his eyes was worst of all arrogance of the soul, which suggested to him that he could feel certain of Paradise. Like all heroes of self-discipline, he paid for attacks on his own ego with the revenge taken by an undermined nature; and so the sharpest pain he was to feel still awaited him. It is true that his cool temperament preserved him from the usual temptation of extreme ascetics mon- strous sensuality. So much the more was he stabbed by the swords of endless scruples. In this respect he had a certain similarity to Luther. Despite many thorough confessions, Inigo also doubted that his sins had been forgiven, took the body of the Lord in constant fear that he was eating the Judgment, and saw in everything he did naught but sin. Indeed, one Sunday after Communion he nearly committed suicide. Once again he attempted with a long fast to compel God to give him peace* When this also failed, he began to look upon all his life of penance with disgust and was on the verge of abandoning it. Ten months of torment had passed; and then the scruples van- ished into nothingness by reason of the Saint's energetic prayer, and his conviction that all the forces which had lamed him were of the Devil. The battle was over and a new man, rich in peace, had been born into the world.
All things are more sharply defined in the pure air that follows a storm and so Ignatius now saw the things of the world of the spirit with new plainness. Glancing into the rivulet at Manresa, he seized
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in an Instant that passed with lightning-like swiftness the world's meaning. It was in consonance with his soldierly nature that he should see God as the hidden Shepherd o creatures, who in the well- ordered gradations o their hierarchy serve Him. A vision of light which comforted him was often his companion as he went along. Seeing Satan in the form of a snake, he struck at him with his staff. An image of the Trinity as a clavichord of three keys, which came to mind as he was going up the steps of a church, filled his eyes with tears of joy. Often, in sudden flashes of luminous intelligence, he under- stood mysteries with such clarity that he thought no amount of study could have brought him anything comparable. While fully conscious he was wrapped in ecstasy, and felt thereafter that he had been "an- other man with another intellect." During hours when he had to make great decisions, he entered into conversation with his visions. In their presence he stood as if he were in God's school, and there re- ceived knowledge of the right and the strength to do that right. Even so he was afterward to look with cool scepticism on everything un- usual in the religious life and to oppose sharply the yearning for visions entertained by others.
Ignatius had wandered through all the corridors of the labyrinth of the inner man. Of these he made sketches and reflected on how he could build up a system of religious exercises. What he had read and had himself experienced was to become a plan and rule for others. Distinguished ladies of Barcelona were his first pupils, but his urge to conquer men for his principle, "All for the greater glory of God," drove him on. Perhaps he was already then entertaining the idea of found- ing a community; but before proceeding to carry out any such plan he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1523. Political obstacles pre- vented him from working as a missionary there. What he saw of the Holy Places stirred him profoundly; he made careful note of his emo- tions which were to serve him later on as aids in the will-training which his "Exercises" were to foster. Then he returned to Spain via Venice in order to secure the theological education he lacked. He was then thirty-three years old, but he took his place on a school bench to learn Latin. He bore patiently with all the chicanery which the clergy and the Inquisition showered on him, studied in Alcala and Salamanca while begging his daily bread, and "exercised" the souls of his fellow
THE " ​students. Then he went to Paris and there attended the university. The zeal with which his soul was filled made him so bothersome to many that he barely escaped being whipped out publicly; but he steadfastly put up with venomous remarks and even hid the fact that he was of noble ancestry when he could have mastered difficult situations by assuming an aristocratic air. Quietly, after many failures, he won friends and assistants: the shy, dour peasant's son, Peter Faber of Savoy; the brilliantly unrestrained Francis Xavier, of a noble Spanish family; the learned, intellectually agile Spanish Jew Lianez; the sanguine and noble Salmeron; the busy and boisterous Boabdilla; and the contemplatively phlegmatic, amiably vain Rodriguez. All of them he attached to himself, the leader, for life. When he banded them together on the 15th of August, 1534, in a Church on Montmartre, the germ of the Jesuit Order had been embedded. The handbook of this association of students was the little volume of Exercitia Spiritualia—a well planned offensive on an ego ever threatened by itself, a compendium of the ordinances of a dictator of order in human inner life.
This book has gripped the souls of millions. In the hand of one reader it is nothing. But in the hand, in the mind, of a master of spiritual exercises it is an incomparable instrument of metamorphosis, a method of dying in order to live. Nobody who has not personally experienced its meaning knows what it is. Its objective, to be attained during four weeks, is made visible at the very beginning: the Divine itself is stressed as the purpose and end of all existence. In images of both mercy and terror, God's work of salvation for mankind is made to pass before the deeply moved imagination of the listener. When he has been filled to the brim with awareness of the gentle but stern majesty of the Eternal One, he is led to reflect upon his own existence, his nothingness, his misery. He is then confronted with the ghosts of guilt that rise out of his own past, and is shown the way toward that new life in and with the Church that is his sole salvation. The greatest possible indifference to every-day joys and sorrows, to health or sickness, to riches or poverty, to honour or contempt, to a long life or a short life, is to produce the highest possible eagerness to lead energetically a life devoted to the honour of God. If you free yourself from the ego and from the world, you will conquer both as you ​INTAKE JERUSALEM
should! Loyok did not awake images and reflections for their own sakes, but only as instruments to serve the will and the action which that will had in rnind from the beginning the liberation from tendencies to disorder, restoration to the order designed by God, and realization of the maxim that man must "become what he is." Loyola also utilized German mysticism in forging his weapons. But being a Spaniard, and therefore always a cherub and a stoic at the same time, he produced at last something uncannily like cold steel which emits sparks when it is struck.
The objective to which the young association was dedicated was mis- sionary work in the Orient. If this proved to be out of the question, the members were to place themselves at the disposition of the Pope. The missionary plan did not materialize; but service to the Papacy was there- by all the more assured. In Venice Ignatius saw men of the Counter- reform working beneficently in the confessional, in the pulpit and in hospitals. Thereupon he transformed his own circle of companions into a society of priests pledged to serve the home missions. This Society has been well characterized as a kind of Catholic Salvation Army under the supreme command of the Pope. While proceeding to Rome in 1537, Loyola gave his spiritual soldiers the name of Company of Jesus. Upon entering the city he said to his companions: "I see that many windows are locked." He had a premonition of difficulties, and this was borne out by the facts. The little group was suspected by the Inquisition, which believed that heresy and innovation were at work. Though, after the Pope intervened, a formal trial proved the in- nocence of Ignatius, the resistance of the commission of cardinals to the recognition of the new Order had still to be overcome. It was not until 1540 that Pope Paul III confirmed the establishment of the Society in a famous Bull which begins with the martial words Regimini militantis ecclesia. This new army vowed unconditional military obedience to the Pope on the field of home and foreign missions. Very gradually but constantly more noticeably, it gained the con- fidence of the Curia.
Ignatius, meanwhile ordained a priest, was elected General in 1541, twenty years after the mystical experience of Pamplona. The little man went through the streets of Rome with his cane, a spiritual field- marshal. Nearly a decade had still to pass before he completed the
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constitution which was to govern his army. Meanwhile St. Francis Xavier had long since gone to India, and the Company had quickly gained ground in both Europe and the New World. Its first objective was the conversion of masses estranged from the Church. Other tasks presented themselves one by one the establishment of schools, the struggle against heresy, primarily the Lutheran heresy, and influence upon the policies of European governments. The character of a chosen legion always ready to do battle for the Papacy in carrying on the Counter-reformation necessarily demanded that the Society take cognizance of political as well as spiritual developments. It carefully selected mature, ingratiating men who possessed quiet energy, ripe culture, unconditional devotion to the cause and military discipline. For this last Ignatius employed St. Francis of Assisi's symbol of a corpse having no will of its own and obedient. The chosen men were to win a victory for the Church in all parts of the world, with all the means of pastoral care as well as all the methods of secular politics, in so far as these were righteous.
In Rome Ignatius himself set an example of the kind of reformer he had in mind. He practiced charity on a grand scale, according to the principle that if one wished to win all men one must be everything each desired. 1538 being a year of famine, he distributed bread among thousands, cared for three hundred poor people in his house, planned the foundation of orphanages, attempted (though in vain) to gather all the beggars of Rome together in a home, erected Houses of Martha to combat prostitution, reformed decadent convents, took an active interest in the mission to the Jews, and harboured the con- verts in his own house. The directions he gave to pastors combined gentleness with prudence. The confessional was to exercise a con- structive, comforting influence; sermons must appeal to the emotions. Fervour of the spirit and fire in the eye would, he held, make more impression on the masses than a carefully worded speech or precocity of diction. From the beginning it was the intention of this utterly maculine character, "to form no relationships with women, excepting those who were distinguished ladies." It was only fire or smoke that proceeded from conversation with women. Nevertheless, despite all his precautions, neither he nor his companions were spared embarrass- ing moments of feminine origin. Throughout his life he refused to
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follow the example set by other founders and establish an order of women in accordance with his rule. Later on Mary Ward of Eng- land was to make such an attempt; and though this met with the resistance of Rome, it led indirectly to the establishment of a teaching Order of Sisters. Everyone knows how little the Society of Jesus has refrained from guiding women who could be leaders of men and custodians of the spirit of the Church, but in its methodology of gain- ing influence, the feminine element did not have the last word.
The history of Loyola in Rome, of his attitude to the Pope and the Curia, to the reform movement and the Council, to missionary labours and political policy, merely serves to complete the picture of a man who manifested an almost puzzling combination of mystic, soldier and diplomat. These things impressed themselves upon his Society for all time; and whatever traits, amiable and otherwise, have ever been manifested in the achievements and failures of this Society were al- ready manifest in the personality of its founder. Loyola, the mystic, possessed genuine, immaculate fervour. This he probably expressed most completely in that magnificent prayer which begins, "Accept and receive, O Lord, all my liberty." The tenderest traits of his char- acter were seldom revealed, but then appeared all the more surpris- ingly. He forgave others gladly and easily; he loved flowers, and hesitated to pluck them; when he looked up at the starry sky, he felt a renewed urge to serve God; merrymaking was not alien to him, and once on Monte Cassino he danced the Basque national dance for the benefit of a friend who had pushed ascetic discipline to the extreme. He was always a lover of song, and was happy to see about him people who were jovial and could boast of appetites. Lingering visions brought him unusual energy from out of a higher reality. From these there came his consciousness that God was with him, and with that his power over men. Had it not been for certain natural limitations this mystic would have ceased to be a soldier. Just a few impressions could move his tremendous will, even as a gentle wind moves a great ship if the sails are set to receive it. The logic of cool reason kept watch over his fervour; and no matter through what turbulent waters his soul might go, there stood at the helm a lucid, unassailable common sense. Though he was a man of prayer, he was also a man of energy, restlessly dedicated to a multitude of tasks. For God's battles had
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to be fought here and now. Therefore he suffered with two-fold pa- tience men who struck violently about them, loved hot temperaments because of the difficult struggle they fought against themselves, and treasured a strong impulse that was mastered more than the passive contemplation of a tranquil soul. His principle that one must fight temptations and not run away from them is worthy of a soldier. The counsel he gave was: curb your uncurbed ego according to the prin- ciples of Christ, and then place it willingly on the altar of the Church. A passion for discipline and for a strict hierarchical order was associated in this classic exponent of spiritual subjugation with a cool strangeness toward the humanistic interests of culture. Just as the baroque style of his time drew figures and columns into a strange system of motion with grandiose indifference to reality, so Loyola subordinated the world over which he had control to the stylized dictatorship of a uni- fied purposive architecture without regard for the autonomous laws of things in themselves.
Therefore his military point of view automatically became a diplo- matic point of view. More than once there occurs in Loyola's letters a sentence which condenses everything that can be said about him and his Order: "I will enter into everyone's house through his door, in order to lead him out through my door and thus win him for Christ." The counsel that one must be as cunning as a snake is followed by him almost to the verge of disrespect for the other commandment of can- dour. He himself is wholly surrendered to the supremacy of the end to be gained, and to it he subordinates all else as well. He was the phrase "in order to" personified. He weighed everything pedanti- cally, went round and round his objective, was a chess player who pondered all the possible effects of his moves and all the opportunities that might be taken by his opponent, a man with two irons in the fire. A friend of poverty and lowliness, he coveted the favour of the rich and the mighty because the governance of affairs was usually en- trusted into such hands. Because the Pope had fostered the Society, Ignatius closed an eye to the fact that there were many Papal relatives. The same attitude in similar cases was exacted of his followers. He wanted the Society to take conditions and characters as they were in order to make use of them as possible instruments. Though himself naturally a stranger to learning, he recommended study as the road to
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official position and influence. He demanded over and above mere obedience, the spiritual subordination not only o the will but also of thought to the superior. In his mysticism of activity, the quiescent values of the spirit had value only as germs of practical action, and reflection was looked upon as merely the motor impulse to an effort. A life of knowledge he evaluated as a religious pragmatist pure and simple; and he insisted that in all theologically doubtful matters his Society must unanimously side with the weightier authority. In deal- ing with men, the system he employed and fostered was true to the pedagogy outlined in his Exercises. He led thought across the fiery zone of a methodically aroused imagination, and on the other hand subjected imagination to an inescapable control by cooling it in the stream of unemotional thinking* Ignatius as he was at last, domi- nated utterly by the purposes of the Church, by the reasoning and planning undertaken by ecclesiastical theocracy, was a politician in the highest, purest sense. The end to be reached is everything; and whatever values may be in themselves, from the point of view of the soul, the mind and culture, they can all be made to serve the highest end, which is the glory of God, the Divine will, which is to become real inside space and time in the form of the Church.
That a mind so political in its point of view and so purposive had another side is not surprising. This side may be described as reserve, distance the unapproachable energy of one who sets things in mo- tion secretly. During the years he spent in Rome, Ignatius had hardly a friend. He kept his plans strictly to himself, like the general of an army. On days when he was suffering he refused to accept the sym- pathy of those nearest to him. Polanco himself, his secretarial right- hand, could not recall that in all the years of their association Ignatius had given an expression of his confidence. The saint had a premoni- tion of his death. He burned his diaries, concealed the sorrows of his soul behind the wall of silence, and died on July 31, 1556 before mourners could assemble at his death bed. His Society is the im- mortal monument to his personality. This has served, and still serves, the Papacy; and often the Papacy has served it. It became the majes- tic annex of the universal Church and permeated the activity, thought and feeling of that Church for centuries. The Basque saint still lives and shows the world its Master, urbi et orbi.
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We shall now return to the days o Pope Paul III, who loved the world, and to the Council which convened in a solemn mood at Trent. The real, and finally victorious desires o the majority of the Curia assembled there were in conformity with the spirit of the Jesuit Order. It is true that tendencies once so influential in Basel and Constance were also not missing here, but they did not dominate. An objective was kept in mind from the beginning and was clung to firmly despite all party divisions, crises and upheavals. Two conceptions of the purpose and method of the Council were arrayed against each other that of the Curia, and that of the princes. Which should be dealt with first the cause of heresy, which was the decadence and lawless- ness prevalent in the Church, or the effects of the German revolt and the dissolution of dogma which this involved? The princes gave priority to one, the Pope to another. Moreover the princes demanded that the laity be given a part in the proceedings; but the Curia insisted that the hierarchy alone be empowered to speak. Was the Church to deal with heresy on terms of equality, and to arrive with the aid of an oratorical contest at a reconciliation by compromise? This was the Emperor's desire, and in this spirit religious discussions had been con- ducted in Germany during several years. Rome did not concur, and it could not concur. Reconciling heresy with the Church meant noth- ing else than reconciling the Church with heresy. Since the new Separated Churches had abrogated the very nature of Catholic faith, what purpose could be served by Charles* interreligio imperial** a religion of the juste milieu? Ecclesiastical practice and its reform were of secondary consequence. The things that mattered primarily were principles and dogmas. The very question of method raised at the Council was intimately bound up with the query as to what a Council really was. The principle of innovation was religious indi- vidualism; and the principle of the Catholic Church was the objectiv- ity of religion, included in which was the idea of authority which heresy had undermined. The Church met in the Council in order to solidify its innermost structure. And so its efforts to preserve au- thority constituted the basis on which its work of reform would have to be carried on.
Everything else followed logically from the Church's conception o its nature. To it the Bible could not be what it was to Protestants
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the sole source of faith. Could it have blotted out unwritten tradi- tion, the whole development throughout a long historical season, of germs latent in the primitive Church? Did not parts of the Bible itself Jesus* sayings regarding His own and the Holy Spirit's in- dwelling in a Church that was to grow like a tree afford a basis on which faith in the gradually accumulated treasury of teaching could be established? By discussions and decisions concerning justification, the Sacraments and the priesthood, the principle that salvation is mediated through the visible Church was reaffirmed, yes, even more, clearly enunciated* For salvation was viewed as an historical process. In the Visible Church the Invisible Church is incarnate it must be so in view of the divine law that all human and earthly things shall be unities of body and spirit. The decrees of Trent were not revolu- tionary, but the institutional side of the Catholic religion was given a more definitive expression. To the creeds of the renegade Churches, which at first sight seemed to spiritualize religion but in reality also sundered the here and now from the beyond and thus made belief ex- clusively a concern with the invisible, the Council opposed more and more persistently the wise observation that what is out of sight is soon out of mind. It was not unattributable to the powerful influence of the Jesuits Salmeron and Lainez, whom Ignatius had bidden to main- tain an unflinchingly conservative attitude, that attempts to compro- mise with the dogmatic ideas of the reformers were frustrated.
The first period of the Council came to a close in 1547. Anxiety lest the Emperor might utilize the occasion to make himself master of the Papacy was not borne out. During this same year his power was at its zenith; and it seemed as if his troops might succeed in re-estab- lishing the old faith in many parts of the country. The defeated groups had to promise that they would recognize the Council and conform with its decisions. Then there took place an incident which changed the Emperor's attitude. From the beginning Rome had not been in favour of meeting in a German city; and now during the spring of 1547, the spotted fever broke out in Trent. The site now chosen was Bologna, on Italian soil; for since voting in this Council was according to individuals (in Constance it had been according to nations) the Italian prelates were greatly in the majority. The Pope concurred, and the Emperor then abandoned all hope of inducing the
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Protestants to appear in a Papal city. He acted on his own responsi- bility at the Augsburg interim, where he maintained Catholic disci- pline as a whole but conciliated the Protestants by granting priest marriage and giving of the chalice in lay communion. It was a futile compromise, but Charles' protests against the transfer of the Council from Germany was not without effect. In Bologna it was decided (1549) to adjourn.
Paul III died, and Julius HI succeeded him. The Vigna di Papa Giulio in Rome was his creation and reflected his spirit. He lavished incredible sums on this luxurious palace and its fountains. Bacchic processions and carousals, voluptuous bodies, comely garlands, enlivened the ceilings of the reception and banquet halls which the brush of the Zuccas adorned. Here the aging Roman Pontiff, once president ot the Council, loved to rest from his labours and troubles. Surrounded by a host of richly attired servants and by a forest of peacock feathers which cooled the air, he was rowed thither from the Vatican bank of the Tiber in a sumptuous barque, and then lifted out into a litter bedecked with gold and soft ermine. Amidst jesting and laughter he was borne into the villa, where he took a refreshing bath amidst marble nymphs half hidden in the green of water plants. Afterward all his favourites joined in a frolicsome feast round a well-laden table.
But though the Pope coveted all the joy of living, he did not slight his office. He reformed the administration of the Curia, encouraged the Jesuits, and at Loyola's request erected the Collegium Germani- cum, an educational institution for the training of priests, in the Jesuit style, who were to reawaken the Catholic spirit in Germanic countries. In addition the Pope, friendly to the Emperor, resisted all the intrigues of France and ordered the Council to go on. It met again in Trent during 1551, but remained in session only one year and minus the French prelates, for the Pope was involved in a war with Henry II. The deliberations, in which delegates of Protestant German princes and cities participated (though in vain), were interrupted when the Lutheran princes rebelled against the Emperor who was then menaced by Maurice of Saxony. By treason this prince gained the upper hand over the aging victorious Emperor, who was in Tyrol in order to keep watch on Germany and Italy. Maurice's object was to destroy the
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work of unification proceeding at Trent. Both the Emperor and the Council fled.
During a whole decade the work of the Church Fathers made no further progress. Cardinal Marcello Cervini, the ablest man in the College and president of the Council during the first period, became Pope Marcellus II, but reigned only twenty-two days. Everyone remembers his name because of the Mass Palestrina dedicated to him. This luminous hope of all good men, this dream personified of genuine reformation, gave way all too soon to the despotic Cardinal Caraffa, who ascended the throne as Paul IV (15551559) when he was almost eighty years of age. He lacked much that would have enabled him to imitate his model Innocent III; and the rimes had so changed that they lacked everything which would have enabled them to endure another Innocent. His short pontificate finally ended in tragedy. This founder of the Roman Inquisition, this Italian patriot, was driven by his passionate antipathy to Spain and to the Emperor into an alliance with France which encouraged Protestants and even induced Islam to take up the sword against the Catholic master of the Empire. Simi- larly the Pope, who had emphasized most strongly the immaculate majesty of his throne, succumbed to nepotism. The unworthiest of the lot, his nephew Carlo, he made a Cardinal and entrusted with the political business of the Holy See. The Pope himself said that this nephew's arms were up to the elbows in blood. Through him an al- liance between Pope Paul and the French King was arranged, a com- plete breach with Habsburg Spain was effected, and a war was suffered to break out between the ultra-orthodox King Philip II, Lord of Naples, and the ultra-orthodox Pope.
The Duke of Alba, Spain's Governor at Milan, led the Catholic armies of the Escorial against Rome and the Papal States. The Pope's troops included Protestants who scoffed at what they defended physi- cally. Even the Sultan had been petitioned to send aid. But Alba defeated these armed forces as well as their French auxiliaries, proceed- ing very tactfully. Threatened with a second sack of Rome, the Vatican had to accede to a peace. The Spanish General kissed the Pope's foot in his own name as well as in that of the king, assured him of undisputed possession of the Papal States, but compelled him to sever the alliance with France. Italy could no longer escape the
SAINT ​CHARLES BORROMEO 277
meshes of Habsburg power; and after Charles V had abdicated, Env peror Ferdinand allied himself more closely with the Protestants.
The Pope had failed as a patriot; toward the end of his days he also began to undermine his own house. His eyes were now opened to the despicable conduct of Carlo. Since he had always surrounded himself with a wall of distrust for others, he was now all the more horrified at learning how he had been betrayed and how he had be- trayed himself. He tore his family out of his heart, and in a gather- ing of cardinals mercilessly suggested that a sentence of death be passed on his nephew. He swore that he had never been aware of the truth; and he professed not to see the aged mother of his one-rime favourite, who lay at his feet. He brought about the downfall of all who had served him; and he set up a box, to which he alone kept the key, into which everyone who wished to complain to him could place a missive. Thus he became the "cleanser of the Temple" and is so portrayed on a medal struck in his honour. Whatever exuded the aroma of simony was now repudiated and reformed. Divine service was ennobled and rendered more solemn by special ordinances. The Jesuits were compelled to let the Pope have his will in matters con- cerning their constitution. With inhuman passion he enlarged the scope of the Inquisition, sharpened its methods, and conferred on it the terrible right to use torture. Innocent men who had proved their mettle were now brought to trial before this institution. He drew up an Index listing heretical and forbidden books, which was so severe that it could not possibly be reconciled with practical life. There was a universal sigh of relief when he died. The Roman people rioted against the Pope's memory, destroyed the building in which the Inqui- sition was housed, tore down the monument erected to him, and vented their crudest scorn on the marble head crowned with the tiara, which had been broken off.
On the facade of the Vigna di Papa Giulio, one finds the images and names of Pius IV and Charles Borromeo. These two men sought to find a happy medium between the Famese and Caraff a Popes and to substitute the spirit of fortiter in re, sttaviUr in modo, for the reign of terror. Devoted to the world, generous, and cheerful, Pius (1559- ,1565) won everyone's affection. He did not interfere with the spirit- ual police of the Holy Office, but he attended none of their meetings*
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Nevertheless there emanated from his charitable lips a death sentence probably too hastily arrived at, when he delivered the verdict against the nephews of Julius III, who had been tried on a vast array of charges. Two of them were executed: one was beheaded, and the other (Cardinal Carlo Caraffa) was strangled. It seemed certain that such a Pope would avoid even the appearances of nepotism, but he helped his family, which was of Milanese extraction, to many a rich benefice. Yet among those he favoured there was one for whose sake the Pope's weakness can actually be praised Charles Borromeo. Consecrated Archbishop and Cardinal of Milan at the age of twenty- one, he became a truly great man and earned a reputation for saintli- ness. He inaugurated his life's work by making the Vatican the scene of an active spiritual life, took care that the Papal States were governed more efficiently, and as the shepherd of his own diocese ded- icated himself particularly to those who were poorest and most for- saken. On his official journeys he could be seen climbing on all fours to the highest, most miserable villages of the Alps. When famine and pest raged he remained on the scene, after all the other spiritual and temporal authorities had fled. But the hardships which he en- dured because of his zeal and his love for men caused his death in the prime of life and thus deprived the Church of a great reformer, teacher and ascetic whom the people adored and who may safely be considered the good, yes, even the better genius of the Pope.
To Saint Charles as well as to his uncle the reforms of Trent meant exactly what they did to the Church as a whole. Paul IV had been antagonistic to the Council from the bottom of his soul, but Pius IV convened it anew during the early months of 1562. This third ses- sion lasted nearly two years. The religious revolution had led to abiding cleavages, and the Council now concerned the Catholic world alone. Nevertheless antagonistic points of view, nations and factions clashed resoundingly. The Catholic countries and princes, too, were conscious of a conflict of interests between Church and State; and the conservative spirit opposed every innovation such as the grant of the chalice to laymen, then so widely demanded, and of course also any modification of celibacy. By reason of the great influence of the Jesuits the Papal system triumphed over a minority who wanted to restore to the authority of the bishops the rights and dignities of old.
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It also overruled the Gallican demand that the Council be considered superior to the Pope. Thus it was a parliament which decreed the abolition of the parliamentary idea, and professed allegiance to an absolute monarchical authority. Decisive, wise reforms, which cut deep into the life of the Church and of society, envisaged ecclesiastical administration of the cult and cultural activities; but the right to ex- pound these decrees was given to the Pope. It was with deep emo- tions that the Fathers parted company during December, 1563. Soon thereafter the Pope codified the dogmatic decisions contained in the Tridentine Creed and gave a new expression to the projected Index, which remained in force until the close of the nineteenth century. When Pius died in the arms of Saint Charles Borromeo, his sister's son, a Pope of the new era passed away who, according to Ranke, had voluntarily broken with the tradition that the hierarchical order was antagonistic to the secular order. Even so, however, the natural ten- sion between these powers did not cease to exist . . . clericis laicos.
The Council had ended by restoring to the Papacy its full power. But this was also a challenge to the Popes to carry out the program of renewal. And they performed their duty in preserving or winning back for the Church (which remained essentially what it had always been) the spiritual dominion which is proof against changing times. This is the import of the Counter-reformation policy of the Papacy, The antagonists were now the autonomous state, autonomous science, autonomous piety, all of which were related to and also embraced by the spirit of heresy which dominated the new era. One must understand how profound this antagonism was if one would evaluate the work of the Papacy during the rime to come. The dogma of the Church is binding in its entirety because all the parts are related organically to the whole. Movement and evolution in dogma are only the development of a perfection posited at the very beginning, only the historical expli- cation of a reality which transcends history and is eternally implicit. Thus Dante saw it in Paradise, when he fastened his gaze upon the Everlasting Light:
'In its depths I saw all things contained, By love as in one single book restrained What in the world far-scattered pages are.**
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The Council could have joined with this same Dante in proclaim- ing, *Te have the Old and the New Testament, and also the Shepherd of the Church to lead ye; and surely these should suffice unto your salvation."
This development, or possibly rather this making plain, of the Church's teaching is effected by. the collaboration of God and man in the movement of history. Error, heresy too, become (as St. Paul said) something that spurs truth into manifesting itself. There are no new dogmas; there are merely new definitions. The Word of revelation makes use of the thought, the conscience and the inner lives of men rich in grace. But the definition of teaching is not arrived at, as it were, by volcanic eruption, but is the result of long effort presided over and scrutinized by sovereign authority. The new is measured by the stable, the living by the traditional, the intuition of a pious soul by the old rule, the personally experienced by common sense, and the right of the manifold by the logic of unity. Thus the Roman Church lives between the immobile stability of the Eastern Churches and the anarchy of opinion that characterizes modern Protestantism* Boundary, dam, support, form, permanent value, the rights of history, the binding authority of what is reasonable and tested by experience, legitimacy, authoritativeness all these are Catholic ideas employed in the battle against the borderless, the shoreless, the moving for movement's sake, the radically doubting mind of Descartes, the arbi- trary, the independence of the individual, the "God in the human breast," and everything else that constitutes a definition of modernity.
The Catholic world could not ignore the fact that times had changed. It saw great entities arise owing their origin to heresy. The Church could not surrender to the new spirit, because she could not believe in this chaos even though it bore splendid fruit, and be- cause she had also seen the splendid fruit of order. Nevertheless for a thousand reasons she dared not fail the new world. To look at the cosmos from the human point of view alone, to leave God out of the picture at least hypothetically this became the great temptation even for believing mankind. The certitude of mysticism, which the sixteenth century had brought forth in Catholic life, could not become everybody's certitude. Doubtless men would wish to believe every- thing they had believed before, if the science of those who delved and
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expounded without faith not only did not contradict this faith but even supported it. Jesus permitted Thomas to lay his finger in the Wound and to remain with the others who had believed without proof. And again, since they saw Rome's antagonists err in their struggle and search for truth, men rejoiced in the visible contemporaneousness and solidity of a religion the preservation of the very nature of which had led the Papacy to decline making a spiritual compromise with the apostate half of Europe. A quiet though not untroubled confidence animated Catholics after the rise of the new learning: those who dwelt in the camp of free inquiry, men addicted to an effort that was at bottom godless, would sometime, somewhere, utter the prayer of doubting Thomas and find the content of faith, which is objective truth, for which they were seeking. Rome did not permit the stable world of its teaching to be subordinated to the unending experi- ments of science; and thus it naturally also risked the danger of taking a wrong attitude towards questions having nothing to do with dogma.
After the dismemberment of Europe, Rome was forced to adopt a new tactic in defending what it possessed and in seeking to gain back what had been lost. State policy was separated from religion: yes, the process of secularization went so far that the ancient relationship was reversed, and religion was toyed with as a political instrument. The Roman principle of authority could not have more deeply violated consciences than did the Protestant principle of freedom, which in J 555 proclaimed that the sovereign had a right to determine the reli- gion of his subjects. A paradox had thus become a fact. The slogan of a man's innermost right to self-determination had brought about a situation in which what is holiest and most personal was subjected to that power which is most external the will or the whim of a human being.
Nevertheless this power was a verity with which Rome had to reckon. Since it was the duty of the Church to exist, it was likewise its duty to exist under the circumstances in which the debate now took place. The end for which the Church existed and worked de- pended upon political means, open negotiation and secret diplomacy, for its realization. It was only after an agreement with the temporal powers had been reached that missionaries could go out and preach.
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Propaganda needed a diplomat as much as it did a pulpit orator. Charlemagne had cleared a path for the Church with the sword. The Popes of the Counter-reformation made use of the advance-guard of their diplomats and agents at the Courts. The Nuncios began their well-planned but soon hated activities, and the confessors of Catholic princes and political leaders whispered and acted behind the scenes. All the arts of sail-trimming were employed in order to get across the sea, regardless of whether the wind was favourable or whether there was merely a breeze. Now the spirit of Loyola had its great oppor- tunity and its age of glory. "The Janissaries of the Holy Father" were also the most imperturbable agents of Curial policy during the era of the Counter-reformation, No matter what they may have failed to accomplish or what they may have ruined, the fact remains that when one regards their work from a sufficient distance one sees that they played in a tragic drama. For the sake of what was holy they involved themselves so deeply in what was unholy that scandals were bound to come . . . and woe to those by whom scandal comes! Georges Goyau says that the Jesuits smoothed off certain corners on the Catholic edifice without removing a single stone. By way o making concessions they often gladly sacrificed the relative to the absolute; and when tempted by the hope of success, they also stressed the relative to the point of sacrificing the absolute. They were the most glowing defenders of Roman doctrine, and yet they were some- rimes to enkindle in wholly candid minds a feeling of tension, even of hatred, towards Rome, One does not know them all, the Jesuits, if one holds the same view either good or evil of them all. French disciples of Loyola flattered their kings by declaring that a monarch had no master above him on earth save God. But though Suarez did not proclaim tyrannicide legitimate as did his fellow Jesuit Mariana, he nevertheless terrified the parliament of Paris by opposing to the absolutistic theory of James I of England the teaching that sovereignty is conferred by society and that revolution is lawful when directed against princes who disregard either the contractual agreement between the sovereign and his people or the laws of natural reason. As a buffer state between king and Pope, the Order of St. Ignatius could not escape meeting the natural fate of such states. We shall see how this was visited upon the Jesuits.
PIUS ​V 283
The strange chiaroscuro of the Catholic Restoration also dims the figures of its Popes. In Pius V (1566-1572) one finds, for example, traits that to a modern mind are irreconcilable. He had entered the Dominican Order when he was hardly more than a boy. Through- out life he remained a genuine mendicant monk, simple, pious, kindly, benevolent and forgiving. The young brother who made every jour- ney on foot with a kit-bag on his back became an impoverished car- dinal, a Pope of few wants, and a man who always touched the hearts of the people as he walked barefoot through the streets in processions. But the great and dangerous idea that he was an instrument of Provi- dence took possession of him. The zeal that consumed him was to consume others, too. He insisted on Church discipline to an extent that was almost rigorous; and in carrying out a will which seemed to him the will of God, he could be hardhearted to the point of cruelty. The substance of all his wishes was to transform the world in accord- ance with the decrees of the Tridentine Council. Heresy was a crime in his eyes, and therefore he also regarded the heretic as a criminal. The social injury wrought by the religious revolution was so tremen- dous to his inquisitorial conscience that he did not take into considera- tion at all the persons and personal characters of the guilty. It was his wish that the Inquisition should not only suppress heretics who spoke or were silent, but even those who did not know they were here- tics. It was under his reign that Pietro Carnesecchi, once the in- fluential secretary of Pope Clement VII, was beheaded and burned on a charge of favouring die Reformation. Even one of the great men of the Council, the Pope's pious and magnanimous fellow Dominican Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, was thrown into a Roman dungeon. Since the Reformation was making progress in England, he hurled the anathema at Queen Elizabeth, declared her deposed, released her subjects from the oath of loyalty, and so brought about the unfortu- nate persecution of all Papists as a sect dangerous to the state. Ger- many enjoyed a great deal more consideration and moderation because the powerful and influential apostle of the Counter-reformation, Saint Peter Canisius (a Jesuit born in the Netherlands) guided the arm of the Pope. There were many who wished that he had more such men at his side. Exaggerating rather than weakening the Roman claims of the Middle Ages, the Pope made the Bull Ccsna Domini a col-
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lection of sentences o excommunication, which had expanded during the centuries a code of ecclesiastical criminal law. Even Catholic states, though it is true they were such which, like Spain and Venice tended toward a State Church, protested against this action.
Great visions do not grow from little visions, nor do they visit peace- ful and harmonious men. Pius V proved himself half a Don Quixote when he crowned the anachronism of his pontificate with a deed of secular importance. Always he saw Europe not as it was, but as it ought to be according to his plans; and often the fact that the goal he sought was unobtainable wearied him and made him contemptuous of man. But his greatest political intuition, which was nothing short of an order that history reverse itself, was borne out by fortune. This was his Crusade against Islam. Already for decades France, as the protector of the Holy Places in Syria, had flirted with the people of Mohammed. Diplomacy had become accustomed to look upon Cross and Crescent as political factors having an equal right to exist, but the Pope was still a man of the Middle Ages and thought and acted otherwise. Like Pius II he looked upon the Moslem as the inevitable and eternal enemy of the Christian order, the law of the West. He refused to debate the matter with the powers and per- suaded Spain and Venice to join with the forces of Italy and the fleet of the Papal States in the attack which at Lepanto destroyed Ottoman rule in the Mediterranean. This victory encouraged the dying Saint to feel confident, when in his last days on earth he knelt once more to kiss the steps of the Scala Sancta, that the Papacy which had as- sembled the Christian galleys to war against the infidel would also overpower the anti-Christ of heresy.
Gregory XIII (15721585) was only half fitted to inherit the spirit of his predecessor. He took life far less seriously, and had become the father of a natural son before entering the priesthood. Now, under the influence of the Jesuits and the Theatines at his court, he adjusted his conduct and his outlook to the increased strictness of the demands that were made upon the Papal dignity. These his pedagogues were rewarded an hundred fold. Twenty-two colleges of the Society of Jesus owe their foundation to him. The renovation of the Collegium Gennanicum and the Collegium Romanum, which still clings to the name of Universitas Gregoriana in so far as its highest department is
ST. ​BARTHOLOMEW'S EVE 285
concerned; the foundation o the English College, in which Loyola's Order trained priests ready to endure martyrdom for the Catholic defense and offense on the other side of the Channel; the Greek Col- lege, erected to serve the idea of winning back the Schismatics, and therefore staffed with Greek professors granted an indult to use a special rite; all these were his achievement. The money was taken from the treasury of the Papal States. "Every day," says the chron- icle, "old papers were examined in Rome, and every day new claims were made." But the use of force in order to levy taxes greatly ex- cited those who were affected; and under the protection of the nobles, victims of many a confiscatory action, the peasants mustered stiff op- position and the bandits took the law into their own hands.
The great theme of the Curial policy was the strengthening of Catholic powers against the monarchs who in England, France and the German countries upheld the Reformation. Spain and the Jesuits were used in all the attempts at Restoration, in so far as they did not for their part use the Papacy as a lever.
The political alliance between France and Reformation Germany had opened a new door to the new faith. Those French nobles or burghers who were of German descent adopted Calvinism and its idea of a corporative republic. The antagonism they created within the state came to a head under the Regency of Catherine of Medici. Niece of a Pope, she had joined forces with the Catholic family of Guise and her own husband's mistress in a plan to persecute the here- tics. Into these dark, smudgy depths of love affairs, egotistical ambi- tions and pseudo-religious impulses, Huguenot blood also flowed dur- ing St. Bartholomew's Eve, 1572, in Paris. The Vatican had had no part in this affair. But it was jubilant when misleading reports de- clared that a victory had been won for the Catholic cause. The Pope celebrated the event with a Te Deum and a procession, and ordered a memorial medal to be cast. The ethical attitude towards politics was the same in both camps. Admiral Coligny, the most important vic- tim of the massacre, had not intervened to prevent the murder of Duke Francois de Guise, though he had known it was to take place; and after- ward he praised the assassination as a supreme good fortune for France while Beza, the Calvinist theologian, lauded the murderer as the arm of a rescuing God.
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If Gregory had been a prince like other princes, even his attitude toward Queen Elizabeth o England might be condoned with a refer- ence to the morals of that time. But he was Pope and therefore summoned above all to break with the curse of the time rather than with the teaching of his Master, who in Gethsemane had bidden Peter put the sword back into its sheath. It is understandable that he should have urged Philip II to invade England; but, in recommending that brutal murder serve as the instrument by which the Church could win against the Queen, he degraded the Papacy with an act of political stupidity.
In northern Europe, the Jesuits acted during this rime as very docile representatives of Papal diplomacy. Gustav Vasa had compelled his people to accept Lutheranism, but one of his sons, John, strove to re- store the rights of the ancient Church. Armed with a commission from Pope Gregory, Antonio Possevin, a widely experienced diplomat, scholar, and master of pedagogy, negotiated at John's Court in Stock- holm. This disciple of Loyola dressed like a nobleman, wore a sword at his side, and carried a halberd under his arm. The King became a Catholic, but his people remained Lutheran. Not long afterward Possevin was in Russia trying to bring about a union with Rome. He failed in this, but none the less brought about an armistice between Ivan the Terrible and Stephen Barthori of Poland, and then induced Polish Catholics and schismatic Christians to join in making common cause against Islam.
The least bellicose achievement of this Pope has done most to im- press his name on the pages of history. This was his reform of the calendar, which the Council of Trent had already discussed. In agree- ment with Christian princes and universities, he decreed (1582) on the basis of preliminary studies carried out by a commission to which a German Jesuit also belonged, that the difference between the civil year and the astronomical year, which was a legacy from the Julian calen- dar, was to be ironed out by denominating the i4th of October the 1 5th, and thereafter skipping three days in 400 years. The Protestant rulers opposed astronomy in the name of hatred of the Papacy. There resulted a confusion in the business of daily life which ended only in an enlightened eighteenth century, which was friendly to reason even when this emanated from a Pope.
ROME,