Suppression of the Society of Jesus

The suppression of the Society of Jesus was the removal of all members of the Jesuits from most of Western Europe and their respective colonies beginning in 1759 along with the abolition of the order by the Holy See in 1773; the papacy acceded to anti-Jesuit demands without much resistance.

[2] Monarchies attempting to centralise and secularise political power viewed the Jesuits as supranational, too strongly allied to the papacy, and too autonomous from the monarchs in whose territory they operated.

[4] In 1814, a subsequent pope, Pius VII, acted to restore the Society of Jesus to its previous provinces, and the Jesuits began to resume their work in those countries.

The series of political struggles between various monarchs, particularly France and Portugal, began with disputes over territory in 1750 and culminated in the suspension of diplomatic relations and the dissolution of the Society by the pope over most of Europe, and even some executions.

In 1758 the government of Joseph I of Portugal took advantage of the waning powers of Pope Benedict XIV and deported Jesuits from South America after relocating them with their native workers and then fighting a brief conflict (Guaraní War), formally suppressing the order in 1759.

In 1762 the Parlement Français (a court, not a legislature) ruled against the Society in a huge bankruptcy case under pressure from a host of groups – from within the Church but also secular notables such as Madame de Pompadour, the king's mistress.

By a secret treaty of 1750, Portugal relinquished to Spain the contested Colonia del Sacramento at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata in exchange for the Seven Reductions of Paraguay.

[10][11] On 1 April 1758, Pombal persuaded the aged Pope Benedict XIV to appoint the Portuguese cardinal Francisco de Saldanha da Gama to investigate allegations against the Jesuits.

[12] The suppression of the Jesuits in France began in the French island colony of Martinique, where the Society of Jesus had a commercial stake in sugar plantations worked by black slaves and free labor.

But on the outbreak of war with Great Britain, ships carrying goods of an estimated value of 2,000,000 livres were captured, and Lavalette was unable to pay his very large debts and went bankrupt.

The attack on the Jesuits was opened on 17 April 1762 by the Jansenist sympathizer Abbé Henri Chauvelin, who denounced the Constitution of the Society of Jesus, which was publicly examined and discussed in a hostile press.

The Parlement issued its Extraits des assertions, assembled from passages from Jesuit theologians and canonists, alleging then to have taught every sort of immorality and error.

[17] Contemporaries in Spain attributed the suppression of the Jesuits to the Esquilache Riots, named after the Italian advisor to Bourbon king Carlos III, that erupted after a sumptuary law was enacted.

Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, attorney for the Council of Castile, the body overseeing central Spain, articulated this view in a report the king read.

King Carlos' closing sentence read: "If a single Jesuit, even though sick or dying, is still to be found in the area under your command after the embarkation, prepare yourself to face summary execution.

"[23] Pope Clement XIII, presented with a similar ultimatum by the Spanish ambassador to the Vatican a few days before the decree would take effect, asked King Carlos, "by what authority?"

Since the Jesuits had owned extensive landed estates in Mexico – which supported their evangelization of indigenous peoples and their education mission to criollo elites – the properties became a source of wealth for the crown.

"[28] One well-known Mexican Jesuit, Francisco Javier Clavijero, during his Italian exile, wrote an important history of Mexico, with emphasis on the indigenous peoples.

[37] In Naples, king Carlos' minister Bernardo Tanucci pursued a similar policy: On November 3, the Jesuits, with no accusation or trial, were marched across the border into the Papal States and threatened with death if they returned.

[11] Historian Charles Gibson calls the Spanish crown's expulsion of the Jesuits a "sudden and devastating move" to assert royal control.

[26] However, the Jesuits became a vulnerable target for the crown's moves to assert more control over the church; also, some religious and diocesan clergy and civil authorities were hostile to them, and they did not protest their expulsion.

In Misiones, in modern-day Argentina, their suppression led to the scattering and enslavement of indigenous Guaranís living in the reductions and a long-term decline in the yerba mate industry, from which it only recovered in the 20th century.

[41] Hospitaller Malta was at the time a vassal of the Kingdom of Sicily, and Grandmaster Manuel Pinto da Fonseca, himself a Portuguese, followed suit, expelling the Jesuits from the island and seizing their assets.

So aggressive in its anti-clericalism was the Parmesan reaction to the news of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Naples, that Pope Clement XIII addressed a public warning against it on 30 January 1768, threatening the Duchy with ecclesiastical censures.

[44] After the suppression of the Jesuits in many European countries and their overseas empires, Pope Clement XIV issued a papal brief on 21 July 1773 in Rome titled Dominus ac Redemptor Noster.

Having further considered that the said Company of Jesus can no longer produce those abundant fruits...in the present case, we are determining upon the fate of a society classed among the mendicant orders, both by its institute and by its privileges; after a mature deliberation, we do, out of our certain knowledge, and the fullness of our apostolical power, suppress and abolish the said company: we deprive it of all activity whatever... And to this end a member of the regular clergy, recommendable for his prudence and sound morals, shall be chosen to preside over and govern the said houses; so that the name of the Company shall be, and is, for ever extinguished and suppressed.After papal suppression in 1773, the scholarly Jesuit Society of Bollandists moved from Antwerp to Brussels, where they continued their work in the monastery of the Coudenberg; in 1788, the Bollandist Society was suppressed by the Austrian government of the Low Countries.

The Jesuits, led first by Franciszek Kareu, a Polish Welshman,[49] followed by the Austrian Slovene, Gabriel Gruber and after his death by Tadeusz Brzozowski, continued to expand in Russia under Alexander I, adding missions and schools in Astrakhan, Moscow, Riga, Saratov, and St. Petersburg and throughout the Caucasus and Siberia.

[52] The Secularization Decree of Joseph II (Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790) issued on 12 January 1782 for Austria and Hungary banned several monastic orders not involved in teaching or healing.

The modern view is that the order's suppression resulted from political and economic conflicts rather than a theological controversy and the assertion of nation-state independence against the Catholic Church.

Catholic historians often point to a personal conflict between Pope Clement XIII (1758–1769) and his supporters within the church and the crown cardinals backed by France.