The Casuistry of the Jesuits

     
     
      It is often asserted, even by authoritative writers, that a Jesuit is bound by his vows to commit either venial or mortal sin at the command of his superior; and that the maxim, “The end justifies the means,” has not only been the principle upon which the society has prosecuted its work but is also explicitly taught in the rules of the order. There is nothing in the constitution of the society to justify these two serious charges, which are not to be regarded as malicious calumnies, however, because the slovenly Latin in one of the rules on obedience has misled such competent scholars as John Addington Symonds and the historian Ranke. Furthermore, judging from the doctrines of the society as set forth by many of their theologians and the political conduct of its representatives, the conclusion seems inevitable that while the society may not teach in its rules that its members are bound to obedience even to the point of sin, yet practically many of its leaders have so held and its emissaries have rendered that kind of obedience.
      Bishop Keane admits that one of the causes for the decline and overthrow of the society was its marked tendency toward lax moral teaching. There can be but little doubt that the Jesuits have ever been indulgent toward many forms of sin and even crime, when committed under certain circumstances and for the good of the order or “the greater glory of God.”
      To enable the reader to form some sort of an independent judgment on this question, it is necessary to say a few words on the subject of casuistry and the doctrine of probabilism.
      Casuistry is the application of general moral rules to given cases, especially to doubtful ones. The medieval churchmen were much given to inventing fanciful moral distinctions and to prescribing rules to govern supposable problems of conscience. They were not willing to trust the individual conscience or to encourage personal responsibility. The individual was taught to lean his whole weight on his spiritual adviser, in other words, to make the conscience of the church his own. As a result there grew up a confused mass of precepts to guide the perplexed conscience. The Jesuits carried this system to its farthest extreme. As Charles C. Starbuck says: “They have heaped possibility upon possibility in their endeavors to make out how far there can be subjective innocence in objective error, until they have, in more than one fundamental point, hopelessly confused their own perceptions of both[H].”
      [Footnote H: Appendix, Note H.]
      The doctrine of probabilism is founded upon the distinctions between opinions that are sure, less sure, or more sure. There are several schools of probabilists, but the doctrine itself practically amounts to this: Since uncertainty attaches to many of our decisions in moral affairs, one must follow the more probable rule, but not always, cases often arising when it is permissible to follow a rule contrary to the more probable one. Furthermore, as the Jesuits made war upon individual authority, which was the key-note of the Reformation, and contended for the authority of the church, the teaching naturally followed, that the opinion of “a grave doctor” may be looked upon “as possessing a fair amount of probability, and may, therefore, be safely followed, even though one's conscience insist upon the opposite course.” It is easy to see that this opens a convenient door to those who are seeking justification for conduct which their consciences condemn. No doubt one can find plausible excuses for the basest crimes, if he stills the voice of conscience and trusts himself to confusing sophistry. The glory of God, the gravity of circumstances, necessity, the good of the church or of the order, and numerous other practical reasons can be urged to remove scruples and make a bad act seem to be a good one. But crime, even “for the glory of God,” is crime still.
      This disagreeable subject will not be pursued further. To say less than has been said would be to ignore one of the most prominent causes of the Jesuits' ruin. To say more than this, even though the facts might warrant it, would incur the liability of being classed among those malicious fomentors of religious strife, for whom the writer has mingled feelings of pity and contempt. The Society of Jesus is not the Roman Catholic Church, which has suffered much from the burden of Jesuitism—wounds that are scarcely atoned for by the meritorious and self-sacrificing services on her behalf in other directions. The Protestant foes have never equaled the Catholic opponents of Jesuitism, either in their fierce hatred of the system or in their ability to expose its essential weakness. A writer in the “Quarterly Review,” September, 1848, says: “Admiration and detestation of the Jesuits divide, as far as feeling is concerned, the Roman Catholic world, with a schism deeper and more implacable than any which arrays Protestant against Protestant.”