THE JESUITS,  "THE POPE'S MEN"

From their founding, the Jesuits had been the tireless defenders of the Pope; and, for this, they were hated and insulted.  Webster's 3rd New International Dictionary gives this negative meaning of Jesuits: ". . .one given to intrigue or equivocation, a crafty person."  And Dornseif's Dictionary adds: ". . .two faced, false, insidious, dissembling, insincere, dishonorable, dishonest, untruthful."  A French saying even goes: "Whenever two Jesuits come together, Satan is in the midst of them."  A Spanish proverb even warns: "Never trust your wife to a monk nor your money to a Jesuit."  All this because the Jesuits fulfilled the Pope's mission through thick and thin.  

St. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society of Jesus, popularly called Jesuits, at a time when all heresies were aimed at the authority of the Pope.  The Society was founded to do battle for the Pope; and the Jesuits carried the battle to kings, in universities, at crossroads and market places, to municipal councils.  Their preaching message was: "The Bishop of Rome is successor to Peter the Apostle upon whom Christ founded the Church.  Any other church claiming the same is heretical, the child of Satan." 

Their obedience to the Pope was such that when Pope Clement XIV dissolved the order "for reasons we keep locked up in our own heart", the Jesuits obeyed.  

Resurrected in 1814 by Pope Pius VII, the Jesuits collaborated to ensure that the Pope's infallibility became an article of faith and a divinely revealed dogma during the First Vatican Council in 1870.  For this, the hatred for the Jesuits increased, especially among the bishops who wanted to arrogate the same power to themselves.  Countries who rejected Papal authority expelled the Jesuits:  France, Germany, Austria, England, Belgium, Mexico, Sweden, Switzerland.  

The fidelity of the Jesuits to the Pope was such that, in early 19th century America, the Protestants really believed that the Jesuits were working there to make the Pope head of the Union.  This belief still persists up to now.  

It has always been said that an attack on the Pope is an open declaration of war with the Jesuits; and an attack on the Jesuits was an attack on the Pope.  This is the price for being the "Pope's Men," this is what made the Jesuits great:  this is why St. Ignatius founded the Society. . .to be soldiers for the Catholic Church in the service of the Pope.  

(01-17-04)