The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-09-26
THE BLACK POPE.
How the General of the Jesuits l:
 Elected.

From the London Times.
 However great may be the charm which attaches to the novels of Alexandre Du- mas pere, the most devoted of his admir- CTS would hardly suggest that fidelity to the details of history was enc of his strong points When, therefore, in the first part of the ''Vicomte de Bragelonne' he gives an account of the demise of the General of the Jesuits and the appoint ment of Aramis as his successor, the novelist's description cannot safely be accepted as a guide to the proceedings Of the Rev. Fathers electors, who are now sweltering in Rome in the heat of an exceptional September. According to Du- mas the candidates for the office-who ln- cluded an Austrian brigadier, a spanish Cardinal, a merchant of Bremen Scotch laird with seven Highlanders in his train a Venitian senator and a Flemish lady met at the inn of the Beau Paon of Fon- tainebleau. and took part in a sort of competitive examination, in which the coveted dignity was to be the prize of him who revealed the most important politi- cal secret to the dying general. With this last alone the choice rested, and by the simple act of transferring to Aramis his ring of office in the presence of two wit nesses the moribund prelate constituted him his successor and made him, appar- ently without question or dispute, 'the master of monarchs and the equal of popes.' All this does not sound very probable, and the Jesults must practice blind obedience in an even greater de- gree than Is commonly believed if an association so governed should have been able to hold together for some hundreds of years. amid all the disntegrating in fuences to which 1t is exposed.
 In point of fact, the election of the gen. eral the Jesuits is safeguarded from ar bitrary or unconstitutional action by an elaborate procedure, every detail of which is carefully regulated. There was a time no doubt, when, to all save the initiated, these things were wrapped in mystery, but since the days of the sup presson of the order and the consequent conhscation of numberless Jesuit libraries the "Institutum Societatis Jesu'' has be- come farm from rare book. There are dozen copies of the work in all it's vari- ous editions, ancient and modern, to be found in the British museum, and 1t is often to be met with In booksellers cat alogues.
 Now this Constitution" contains the whole official legislation of the Society of Jesus, and among other documents incorporated in 1t there Is included special section headed Formula Con gregatlonis Generalis;" in other words, code of procedure for the general assem- bly, which elects the superior of the order. This code was drawn up in 15S1 some forty years after the foundation of the society. but 1t is merely an elaboration of the provisions already existing in the Constitutions" which were drafted in Spanish by the hand of the founder him self It may consequently be said that the method of electing the general, though it has been developed in certain details. dates from the very beginning of the Jes- uit organization.
 In particular-the essential feature, which enjoins that the electoral body should consist of three representatives from each of the various provinces who meet in some assigned place and form general congregation" with considerable detail in the eighth book of St. Ignatius Loyola's own constitutions. Thus the as sembly which after his death elected Father James Laynez as his successor, was duly constituted in accordance with these provisions. and the same method has been allowed in each of the twenty six general congregations which have met from 1858 to the present date
 Depending as it does upon the number or separate provinces" the total number of electors has varied considerably at diff ferent periods At the death of Ignatius there were twelve provinces, but some of these, on account of their remoteness, could not send their quota of represen- tatives. The general congregation consist ed, consequently, of hardly thirty fathers. On the other hand. in 1759, there were forty-one provinces. which implies gen. eral congregation nearly four times as numerous as that of two centuries earlier. At the present day there are twenty-three provinces which send their representat!va to talk part in the election This gives us sixty-nine votes in all, and to these have to be added the five "assistants,' a sort of permanent council residing with the general in Rome. who represent groups of provinces and who may be roughly identified with the five principal languages spoken by the members of the order, to-wit: Italian, Spanish. French, German and English.