RESTORATION OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

Events so far: The conspiracy of the Bourbons forced the hands of Pope Clement XIV, who, under tremendous duress signed the Brief Dominus ac Redemptor, thus abolishing the existence of the  Society of Jesus worldwide. More than 22,000 Jesuits were affected. It was explicitly stipulated that  the Brief’s content would come into effect when the bishop of the diocese read it out in each and  every Jesuit house. Many were released of their religious vows; others carried on as secular clergy or formed some holy associations. It was a time of complicated political machinations. In 1774, when  the Brief was promulgated, the Society’s members were expelled, buffeted, and some were rescued by  foreign autocrats.

 The Society was not rooted out fully. The Orthodox Catherine II (née Sophia  Frederica Amalia von Anhalt Zerbst), the Empress of Russia, ignored the papal authority and refused to  promulgate it. Grapevine even has it that Pope Clement XIV had sent a secret note to the Empress that the Society could continue in White Russia! She allowed opening a novitiate there, in 1779. The Jesuit Headquarters were in Polotsk. The Society survived in the cold. 

Process of Restoration of the Society of Jesus: Imagine the Society of Jesus emerging from the rubble of the French Revolution’s teeth and the disintegrating Bourbon Empire! The Society of Jesus was fully restored by Pope Pius VII (Giorgio Barnaba Luigi Chiaramonti), on August 7, 1814. In this short but pithy description, we say something about the Jesuits climbing out of their graves. 

It is said that from the first moment of the Society’s suppression there were voices demanding its restoration. Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, for example, one of the most preceptive, clear-minded’ and practical churchmen, who appreciated what the Jesuit role could be in those times said, “If I were master, I would re-establish them tomorrow.” Fr. B.V. Bangert mentions three important factors that hastened Society’s restoration: collapse of the Bourbon united front; gradual and prudent shift of Pope Pius VI from the stringent sanction to a clearly enunciated desire to Society’s restoration; and clear determination of Pope Pius VII to realize his immediate predecessor’s desire. 

The Bourbon wall first chipped away in France by abolition of monarchy and Louis XVI went to the guillotine. The duke of Parma cleverly deserted other Bourbons and asked Catherine of Russia for a handful of Jesuits. Then he appealed to Pope Pius VI who, still threatened by Spain and Naples, nevertheless complied with the request and three Jesuits arrived in Parma from Polotsk (Russsia). José Pignatelli joined the new arrivals, renewed his vows and took care of his fellow Jesuits. Two years later a novitiate with five novices was opened under Pignatelli, who now became a link between the old and the new Society. The duke of Parma requested Pius VI for more Jesuits. 

The pope on his part asked him to turn to his relatives (i.e., all Bourbons) and change their attitudes towards the Jesuits. 

King Charles IV was especially unyielding and wrote to Pius VI that the Jesuits were the cause of the French Revolution’s atrocities. In 1798, the French troops arrested the pope and set him on the road to exile. During the journey his ambassador extraordinary at St. Petersburg came to him with several reasons asking him to pronounce papal recognition of the Society of Jesus in Russia. The pope responded by saying that the Jesuits themselves must first make a formal petition for it. Pius VI died on August 29, 1799. 

In the conclave that followed, Cardinal Barnaba Chiramonti, a Benedictine, was elected Pope Pius VII, on May 8, 1800. He was determined to restore the Society of Jesus in any place from where requests came. The very first thing he did was laying to rest the latent fears of canonical correctness of  the Jesuits in Russia in his Brief Catholicae Fidei (March 7, 1801). As soon as this became public survivors of the suppressed Society and many young men attracted by St. Ignatius’ ideals headed for Russia. Jesuits were invited to Naples but they were asked to exclude any superior outside Naples. 

Pignatelli, who was provincial then of the Italian Province, denied this overture. In late 1805, Joseph Bonaparte of Spain expelled Pignatelli with his men. They went to Rome and settled near the Colosseum, opened a novitiate at Orvieto and a quasi-college at Tivoli. José Pignatelli died, on Nov. 15, 1811, before the full restoration of the Society. Meanwhile the Catholic world in the West faced a major convulsion just in those confused times and the Society of Jesus was caught in the crossfire: Napoleon Bonaparte became the Master of Europe. And so we need to say here something about those fateful years. 

The Napoleonic Episode: Napoleon Bonaparte was basically a despot in the 18th –c. style. His philosophical principles came from Voltaire, Rousseau and Robespierre. His religious practice was external, official, and limited to attendance at Sunday Mass. He pursued policies that permitted him to restrict papal interventions. After laborious negotiations he signed the Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII: all cults were to enjoy liberty; and Catholicism was not to be the state religion. In Napoleon’s vision liberty accorded Catholic public cult was to be submitted to police regulations! His First Consul seems to have secretly altered and incorporated other matters in the Concordat. 

Fissures appeared between Napoleon and the Pontiff very soon regarding application of the Concordat. Conciliating though he was, Pope Pius VII would not compromise his principles. Nevertheless at Napoleon’s earnest invitation, the Holy Father consented to go to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris for Napoleon’s coronation as Emperor (Dec. 2, 1804). There the pope insisted that the irregular situation of Napoleon’s living with widow Josephine de Beauharnais be rectified immediately if he were to participate in the ceremony the next day. 

Napoleon’s conditions were to be un-disclosed – something similar to confessional secrecy – but unacceptable to the pope. After some four months in Paris, the Pontiff returned to Rome.

From here the events began to move faster than the Indian “Duronto” Express trains. The Italian Concordat (1803) recognized Catholicism as state religion. But very soon Napoleon started disregarding it, and speedily introduced into northern Italy laws and institutions motivated by the French Revolution. French Empire began to expand and by 1810, the situation became very acute. By 1806, he had integrated Naples, Venice and other duchies, and comprehensively disregarded the Italian Concordat. When Pope Pius VII did not comply with Napoleon’s certain demands, he ordered his General François de Miollis to occupy Rome (Feb. 21, 1808), and annexed the Papal States to the French Empire (May 16, 1809). 

The Pontiff retaliated by excommunicating the perpetrators. But it had disastrous consequences. On the night of 5th July 1809, Napoleon’s General Radet with his troops was at the papal palace door asking the pope to rescind the bull of excommunication and his temporal powers. When the pope sternly refused the demands, he was taken prisoner and taken to Savona (N. Italy). 

Napoleon wanted to bring the pope to Paris to make him the Supreme Pontiff of his great Empire. Then he also wanted that the pope sanction episcopal nomination to men proposed by Napoleon. The pope rebuffed both demands resolutely. The vacant sees multiplied. Napoleon then nominated to the Parisian See Jean Maury and asked the diocesan bishops to confer on him powers of the Vicar Capitular.  Pius VII came to know of it and secretly sent a Brief to Paris declaring Maury’s power null.                                                        

– It is said that Napoleon discovered this secret correspondence. Immediately he deprived the Pontiff of paper, and ink and any book he found in his room. This was a rude shock for the pope that nearly broke him down. He even suffered from insomnia. In despair and helplessness he yielded the power of institution of the bishops Napoleon had demanded earlier. 

Napoleon had the pope transferred to Fontainebleau, near Paris (June 1812). Then after his Russian expedition he entered into negotiation with the Holy Father to extract a new Concordat. Pius VII signed it; but the text was intended only as a preliminary one to serve as a basis for a later definitive agreement provided all was kept secret. Instead, Napoleon published it! The infuriated pope withdrew his commitment in it. Finally, as the allied military defeat overwhelmed him, Napoleon freed Pope Pius VII (Jan. 21, 1814). 

Pope Pius VII returned to Rome amidst great rejoicing. Discussions began in the papal curia about restoring the Society of Jesus; and the curia haggled for months over the text itself. The first plan was to declare it on the feast of St. Ignatius – probably because of the importance of close relation between the Holy See and the Ignatian order – and the declaration was eventually formulated to repeal the unfortunate Brief of 1773. However, another Cardinal, who had supported the Society’s suppression, disagreed with the text and proposed another text. His text displeased other cardinals: it was mean in recalling Society’s merits in the past. The pope intervened and a compromise was arrived at on the form of the bull. 

On August 7, 1814 Pope Pius VII went with much pomp to the Gesù, seat if the Jesuits in Rome, offered Mass at the altar of St. Ignatius, and read out to the public assembled there the bull Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum. The bull began like this: “With one voice the Catholic world demands the reestablishment of the Company of Jesus.    We would believe ourselves guilty before God of great error if, among these great dangers to the Christian Republic, we neglected the help granted us by God’s special providence, and if, placed in Peter’s boat, rocked and assailed by continual storms, we refused to make use of vigorous and tested branches which offer themselves spontaneously to break the force of a sea that threatens us at every moment with shipwreck and death. Resolved by so many and such powerful motives, we have decided to do today what we would have wished to do at the beginning of our Pontificate. . . . 

With this formal proclamation the Society of Jesus was no more ostracised, but restored to its rights and privileges. The Jesuits have celebrated several triumphs. But in extent and importance, few have  matched this one. The resurrection of the Company was hailed everywhere. On the part of Pius VII, it was a bold stand that he took against his predecessor Clement XIV. On the sidelines, Fr. Echaniz mentions, “A few days later, almost incognito, Charles IV [of Spain, whose father had been the one who relentlessly stood by the abolition and vetoed the Society’s restoration], visited the Gesù and the Spanish Jesuits resident in Rome gathered to greet him. He saw himself face to face with the men he had persecuted. He found that the feared and hated Jesuits were harmless over-grown children who kept no grudge. Tears came to his eyes several times.” 

After the restoration of the Society of Jesus, the Church has seen some of the great names, e.g., the sturdy peacemaker of the Rockies P.J. de Smet; two pillars of courage and light Gaston Fessard and the tireless Pierre Chaillet; Henri de Lubac (theologian on the firing line!); Karl Rahner (theologian of reconciliation); Pierre de Chardin (the paleontologist); Cardinal Augustin Bea (biblical scholar and ecumenist), and perhaps  M. Martini and P. Arrupe. The Society has also given to the Church several martyrs, who went through horrendous bloodbath in our brutal, unjust world. 

To conclude: When the Minima Societas Iesu celebrates the 200th anniversary of its restoration, the times are considerably different from August 7, 1814. We are living now in the post-modern, globalized, and consumerist world. Politics, economics and information technology have transformed the very lifestyle and ideology of the people the Society seeks to serve. The major consequence of  these agents is the ‘birth’ of wholly new kind of persons. The Creator God has been replaced by idols that seem to be more dominant: pleasure, power, wealth, and prestige with their offshoots. 

In his allocution to the members of GC 35, Pope Benedict XVI has clearly spelt out the typical features of the present context in various sectors of human life. At the same time, we must not forget that the three Divine Persons are looking down with love on the surface and circuit of the globe so full of people.

 To conclude then, the Society of Jesus cannot ignore zillions of challenges facing the world and the human family in multiple ways, today. The Father places the Minima Societas with Christ carrying his cross at the heart of this world. The Spirit of the Risen Lord will guide the Society as He has done thus far for the AMDG. 

                                                        Henry Barla 

Sources consulted: 
A History of the Society of Jesus (1986);
Jesuits: A Multibiography (1995); Passion and Glory (vol. III, 1999); 
New Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. X, 1981);                                    

The Return of the Jesuits (1972).

Context in Which Society of Jesus Made its Way

The Reformation divided Western Christianity and the Enlightenment Challenged its place in Western Society. 

 Reformation: The Reformation is the all-embracing term which describes the fragmentation of Western Christianity in the 16th century. It was extremely complex process in which religious, intellectual, political and social forces converged. Specific causes of Reformation include: 1) the corruption of the Renaissance papacy, 2) the divorce of piety from theology, and theology from the Scripture and post-biblical tradition of the Church. 3) after effects of western schism 4) the rise of national state 5) the close connection bt western Christianity and western civilization. 6) the vision, experiences and personalities of Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin. 

 Counter Reformation: It was basically a reaction by the Church to the Reformation, through which the Church attempted to clarify dogmatic and doctrinal positions. The Council of Trent reaffirmed the 2 sources of faith: Scripture and Tradition, 7 sacraments, etc. Its main objective was to establish true doctrine and maintain discipline. As a result, a re-establishment of Roman Catholicism emerged and there was also a suppression of the Protestant Reformation through political and military power by the Church.

 Enlightenment challenged (17th Century): Enlightenment was characterized by its confidence in reason, its optimistic view of the world and of human nature and its celebration of freedom of inquiry. They rejected supernatural revelation, extrinsic authority etc. It marks the division between pre-critical, authority oriented theology and critical, historically sophisticated and philosophically mature theology. It challenged traditional catholic theology (historical-critical method).   

 The modern missionary movement initiated the world-wide expansion of Christianity. 

 Modern missionary movement expanded Christianity. In 15th century, Christianity moved out of Europe. Spanish Mission moved to Latin America. Portugal mission moved to many parts of Asia and Africa. Vasodagama lands in Calicut. Ecclesiastical center in Goa. Christianization of Goa. Mass conversion, Latinization of Thomas Christians. 

[Vatican 1, affirmed spiritual authority of the Pope because of the loss of temporal power due to Italian nationalism and the impending loss of the Papal States. Due to this, the primacy of Pope  and infallibility of Pope was established]. 

The emergence of the Ecumenical Movement and the Second Vatican Council are the two most important events in contemporary Christianity. 

 Ecumenical Movement: Christians working all over the world began to realize the need for unity. The World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910 was the beginning of the Ecumenical Movement. Protestants are considered as the pioneers of this movement. After several attempts in 1948, the World Council of Churches was founded at Amsterdam [300 churches from 100 countries]. Catholic Church was a late beginner, because Pre-Vatican attitude was negative, and non-cooperative. But, in 1960, Pope John 23rd established a ‘Secretariat for Promoting Christian unity.’ Second Vatican Council has a decree on Ecumenism [Unitatis Redintegratio]’- which calls to restore unity among Christians. 

 The Second Vatican Council (21st Council): The council was unique ecumenical council. Unlike many councils before, it was not called to confront a serious attack on doctrinal or organizational integrity of the Church. On the contrary Pope John 23rd in opening address (Oct 11, 1962) said that, “The Council’s goal was to eradicate the seeds of discord and promote peace and the unity of all the humankind.”  Karl Rahner says, “The fundamental significance of this Council is that for the first time in history, the Church became truly a ‘World Church’. [There were 4 dogmatic constitutions, 9 decrees and 3 declarations]. 

Conclusion

Vatican II marks the beginning of the new age in the Church from a perfect society to a mystery a pilgrim people of God. GS 1 says the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Jesus. Hence, Church has the responsibility to reach out to all people in loving service. 

Suppression of the Society of Jesus in Various Kingdoms

The Suppression of the Jesuits in Portugal, France, the Two Sicilies, Parma and the Spanish Empire by 1767 was a result of a series of political moves rather than a theological controversy.[1] By the brief Dominus ac Redemptor (21 July 1773) Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus. However in non-Catholic nations, particularly in Prussia and Russia, where papal authority was not recognized, the order was ignored. 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 itself was suppressed by the Austrian government of the Low Countries.

Overview  

The series of political struggles between various monarchs, particularly France and Portugal, began with disputes over territory in 1750 and culminated in suspension of diplomatic relations and dissolution of the Society by the Pope over most of Europe, and even some executions. Portugal, France, the Two Sicilies, Parma and the Spanish Empire were involved to one degree or another.

The conflicts began with trade disputes, in 1750 in Portugal, in 1755 in France, and in the late 1750s in the Two Sicilies. In 1758 the government of Joseph I of Portugal took advantage of the waning powers of Pope Benedict XIV and deported Jesuits from America after relocating the Jesuits and their native workers, and then fighting a brief conflict, formally suppressing the order in 1759. In 1762 the Parlement Français, (a court, not a legislature), affirmed a ruling against the society in a huge bankruptcy case, under pressure from a host of groups - from within the Church to secular intellectuals to the king's mistress. Austria and the two Sicilies suppressed the order by decree in 1767.

With the reaction against the anti-clerical excesses of the Revolution, especially after 1815, the Catholic church began to play a more welcome role in official European life once more, and nation by nation the Jesuits made their way back.

The modern view is that the suppression was the result of a series of political and economic conflicts rather than a theological controversy and the assertion of nation-state independence against the Catholic Church. The expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the Roman Catholic nations of Europe and their colonial empires is also seen as the first triumph of the secularist notions of the Enlightenment, which were said to contribute to the anti-clericism of the French Revolution. The suppression was also seen as being an attempt by monarchs to gain control of revenues and trade that were previously dominated by the Society of Jesus. Catholic historians often point to a personal conflict between Clement XIII (1758-1769) and his supporters within the church and the crown cardinals backed by France.

Portugal

Louis-Michel van Loon, The Marquis of Pombal expelling the Jesuits from Portugal, 1766.

The expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal has been reduced by the Catholic Encyclopedia to a personal quarrel with the prime minister of Joseph I of Portugal, the reformist and autocratic Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis de Pombal. Whether Pombal's or Portugal's, the quarrel with the Jesuits began over an exchange of South American colonial territory with Spain. By a secret treaty of 1750, Portugal relinquished to Spain the contested colony of San Sacramento at the mouth of the Uruguay River in exchange for the Seven Reductions of Paraguay, the autonomous Jesuit missions that had been nominal Spanish colonial territory. The native Guarani who peopled the mission territories were ordered to quit their country and settle across the Uruguay, an example of population transfer. Owing to the harsh conditions, the Indians rose in arms against the transfer, and the so-called Guarani War ensued, a disaster for the Guarani, in which the Jesuits appeared, from the Portuguese perspective, to have had a hand. In Portugal a battle of inflammatory pamphlets denouncing or defending the Order escalated. The Jesuit fathers, suspected of attempting to build an independent empire in the New World, were forbidden to continue the local administration of their former missions, and the Portuguese Jesuits were removed from Court.

On April 1, 1758, a brief was obtained from the aged Pope Benedict XIV, appointing the Portuguese Cardinal Saldanha, recommended by Pombal, to investigate allegations against the Jesuits that had been raised in the name of the King of Portugal. Benedict was skeptical as to the gravity of the alleged abuses. He ordered a minute inquiry, but so as to safeguard the reputation of the Society, all serious matters were to be referred back to himself.

Benedict died the following month, however, on May 3. On May 15, Saldanha, having received the papal brief only a fortnight before, omitting the thorough visitation of Jesuit houses that had been ordered, and pronouncing on the issues which the pope had reserved to himself, declared that the Jesuits were guilty of having exercised illicit, public, and scandalous commerce, both in Portugal and in its colonies. Pombal moved quickly during the papal sede vacante: in three weeks' time the Jesuits had been stripped of all Portu- guese possessions, and before Cardinal Rezzonico had been made pope, as Clement XIII, on July 6, 1758, the Portuguese dispossession of the Society was a fait accompli.

The last straw for the Court of Portugal was the attempted assassination of the king on September 3, 1758, of which the Jesuits were supposed to have had prior knowledge (see Távora affair). Among those arrested and executed was Gabriel Malagrida, the Jesuit confessor of Leonor of Távora. The Jesuits were expelled from the kingdom, and important non-Portuguese members of the Order were imprisoned. In 1759, the Order was civilly suppressed. The Portuguese ambassador was recalled from Rome and the papal nuncio sent home in disgrace. Relations between Portugal and Rome were broken off until 1770.

France    

The suppression of the Jesuits in France began in the French island colony of Martinique, where the Society of Jesus had a major commercial stake. They did not and could not engage in trade, buying and selling to make a profit, any more than any other religious order could do, but their large mission plantations included large local populations that worked under the usual conditions of tropical colonial agriculture of the 18th century, not easily distinguishable from the hacienda system. As the Catholic Encyclopedia expressed it in 1908, "this was allowed, partly to provide for the current expenses of the mission, partly in order to protect the simple, childlike natives from the common plague of dishonest intermediaries."

Father Antoine La Vallette, Superior of the Martinique missions, managed these transactions with great success, and like secular proprietors of plantations he needed to borrow money to expand the large undeveloped resources of the colony. But on the outbreak of war with England, ships carrying goods of an estimated value of 2,000,000 livres were captured, and La Vallette suddenly went bankrupt for a very large sum. His creditors turned to the Order's Procurator at Paris to demand payment, but the Procurator refused responsibility for the debts of an independent mission— though he offered to  negotiate for a settlement. The creditors went to the courts, and an order was made in 1760, obliging the Society to pay, and giving leave to distrain in the case of non-payment.

The Fathers, on the advice of their lawyers, appealed to the Parlement of Paris. This turned out to be an imprudent step. For not only did the Parlement support the lower court, May 8, 1761, but having once gotten the case into its hands, the Jesuits' enemies in that assembly determined to strike a blow at the Order.

Enemies of every sort combined. The Jansenists were numerous among the enemies of the orthodox party. The Sorbonne joined the Gallicans, the Philosophes, and the Encyclopédistes. Louis XV was weak; his wife and children were in favor of the Jesuits; his able first minister, the Duc de Choiseul, played into the hands of the Parlement, and the royal mistress, Madame de Pompadour, to whom the Jesuits had refused absolution, for she was living in sin with the King of France, was a determined opponent. The determination of the Parlement of Paris in time bore down all opposition.

The attack on the Jesuits was opened by the Jansenist sympathizer, the Abbé Chauvelin, April 17, 1762, who denounced the Constitution of the Jesuits, which was publicly examined and exposed in a hostile press. The Parlement issued its Extraits des assertions assembled from passages from Jesuit theologians and canonists, in which they were alleged to teach every sort of immorality and error. On August 6, 1762, the final arrêt was issued condemning the Society to extinction, but the king's intervention brought eight months' delay and meantime a compromise was suggested by the Court. If the French Jesuits would separate from the order, under a French vicar, with French customs, as with the Gallican church, the Crown would still protect them. In spite of the dangers of refusal the Jesuits would not consent. On April 1, 1763 the colleges were closed, and by a further arrêt of March 9, 1764, the Jesuits were required to renounce their vows under pain of banishment. At the end of November 1764, the king signed an edict dissolving the Society throughout his dominions, for they were still protected by some provincial parlements, as in Franche-Comté, Alsace, and Artois. But in the draft of the edict, he canceled numerous clauses that implied that the Society was guilty, and writing to Choiseul, he concluded "If I adopt the advice of others for the peace of my realm, you must make the changes I propose, or I will do nothing. I say no more, lest I should say too much."

Spain and Naples  

The Suppression in Spain and in the Spanish colonies, and in its dependency, the Kingdom of Naples, was carried through in secrecy, and the ministers of Charles III kept their deliberations to themselves, as did the king who acted upon "urgent, just, and necessary reasons, which I reserve in my royal mind;". The correspondence of Bernardo Tanucci, the anti-clerical minister of Charles III in Naples contain all the ideas which from time to time guided Spanish policy. Charles conducted his government through Count Aranda, a reader of Voltaire, and other liberals. At a council meeting of January 29, 1767, the expulsion of the Society of Jesus was settled. Secret orders, which were to be opened at midnight between the first and second of April, 1767, were sent to the magistrates of every town where a Jesuit resided. The plan worked smoothly. That morning, 6000 Jesuits were marching like convicts to the coast, where they were deported, first to the Papal States, and ultimately to Corsica, which was a dependency of Genoa. Due to the isolation of the Spanish Missions of California, the decree for expulsion did not arrive in June of 1767, as in the rest of New Spain, but was delayed until the new governor, Portolà, arrived with the news on November 30. Jesuits from the fourteen operating missions at the moment reunited in Loreto, whence they left for exile on February 3, 1768. It took until 1768 for the Royal order to reach the Jesuit missions in the south of the Philippines, but by the end of the year, the Jesuits had been dispossessed throughout the Spanish dominions.

Tanucci pursued a similar policy in Bourbon Naples. On November 3 the Jesuits, without a trial or even an accusation, were simply marched across the frontier into the Papal States, and threatened with death if they returned.

The change in the Spanish colonies in the New World was particularly great, as the far-flung settlements were often dominated by missions. Almost overnight in the mission towns of Sonora and Arizona, the "black robes" (as the Jesuits were often known) disappeared and the "gray robes" (Franciscans) replaced them.

Parma  

The independent Duchy of Parma was the smallest Bourbon court, where Louis XV's favorite daughter was Duchess. So aggressive in its anti-clericalism was the Parmesan reaction to the news of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Naples, that Clement XIII addressed to it (January 30, 1768) a public warning, threatening the Duchy with ecclesiastical censures, not a tactful move. At this all the Bourbon courts turned in fury against the Holy See, and demanded the entire dissolution of the Jesuits. As a preliminary, Parma at once drove the Jesuits out of its territories, confiscating all their possessions.As the Napoleonic Wars were approaching their end in 1814, the old political order of Europe was to a considerable extent restored at the Congress of Vienna after years of fighting and revolution, during which the Church had been persecuted as an agent of the old order and abused under the rule of Napoleon. With the political climate of Europe more stable and the powerful monarchs who had called for the suppression of the Society no longer in power, Pope Pius VII issued an order restoring the Society of Jesus in the Catholic countries of Europe. For its part, the Society of Jesus made the decision at the first General Congregation held after the restoration to keep the organi- zation of the Society the way that it had been before the suppression was ordered in 1773.

Suppression: From the Renaissance to the French Revolution

Rev. James MacCaffrey, S.J., 1914     

RATIONALISM AND ITS EFFECTS

The Suppression of the Society of Jesus.

From its foundation by St. Ignatius of Loyola and its approval by Paul III. the Society of Jesus had remained true to the teaching and spirit of its holy founder and loyal to the Holy See. In the defence of the Church, especially in Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, and France, in the domain of education and of literature, in the work of spreading Christianity amongst the races and peoples in India, China, Japan, and America, the Jesuit Fathers took the foremost place. They laboured incessantly to stay the inroads of heresy, to instil Catholic principles into the minds of the rising generation, and to win new recruits to take the place of those who had gone over to the enemy.

But their very success was sufficient to arouse the wrath of their adversaries and the jealousy of their rivals. Lutherans and Calvinists, enraged by the success of the Counter-Reformation, denounced the Jesuits as enemies of progress and enlightenment, whose very existence was a danger to the peace and the liberty of Europe. These charges were re-echoed by Jansenists and Gallicans, by infidel philosophers and absolutist politicians, and, stranger still, by many whose orthodoxy could not be questioned, but whose judgment was warped by their annoyance at the wonderful success of a comparatively young organisation. The Jesuits were accused of favouring laxity of morals on account of the support given by some of them to Probabilism, of sympathising with Pelagianism on account of the doctrine of Molina, of supporting tyrannicide on the strength of the work of Mariana, of upholding absolutism on account of their close relations with the rulers of France, and Spain, and of seeking to undermine governments and constitutions by their secret political schemes and their excessive wealth. Garbled extracts taken from the works of individual Jesuits were published as representing the opinions of the body, and the infamous Monita Secreta, purporting to contain the instruction of Aquaviva to his subjects, was forged (1612) to bring discredit upon the Society.1

More than once the combined assaults of its enemies seemed on the point of being crowned with success. During Aquaviva’s tenure of office as general (1585-1615) the society was banished from France and from Venice, while the demands of the Spanish Jesuits for a Spanish superior, backed as it was by the influence of the court, threatened to destroy the unity of the Society. Again in the time of Paul Oliva (1664-1681) and Charles Noyelle (1682-1686) controversies regarding Jansenism, Probabilism, the Regalia, and the Gallican Declaration of the French clergy (1682), endangered the existence of the Society in France, and threatened to lead to misunderstandings with the Holy See, but under the Providence of God these dangers were averted, and the eighteenth century found the Jesuits still vigorous in Europe and not less vigorous in their labours among the heathen nations.

But their opponents though beaten time and again, were not disheartened. The infidel philosophers of the eighteenth century recognised in the Jesuits the ablest defenders of the Catholic Church. If only they could succeed in removing them, as Voltaire declared, the work of destroying the Church seemed comparatively easy. Hence they united all their forces for one grand assault upon the Society as the bulwark of Christianity. They were assisted in their schemes by the Jansenists, eager to avenge the defeat they had received at the hands of the Jesuits, and by the absolutist statesmen and rulers of Europe, who aimed at the enslavement of the Church, and who feared the Jesuits as the ablest exponents of the rights of religion and of the Holy See. The Jesuits controlled to a great extent Catholic education both lay and clerical, and it was hoped that by installing teachers devoted to state supremacy and Enlightenment in their place the future of absolutism and of rationalism might be assured.

The attack on the Jesuits was begun in Portugal during the reign of Joseph Emmanuel (1750-1777). He was a man of liberal views, anxious to promote the welfare of his country, as well as to strengthen the power of the crown. In accomplishing these objects he was guided by the advice of the prime minister, Joseph Sebastian Carvalho, better known as the Marquis of Pombal.  The latter had travelled much, and was thoroughly imbued with the liberal and rationalistic spirit of the age. He regarded the Catholic Church as an enemy of material progress, and the Jesuits as the worst teachers to whom the youth of any country could be entrusted. A treaty concluded with Spain, according to which the Spaniards were to surrender to Portugal seven of the Reductions of Paraguay in return for San Sacramento, afforded him the long desired opportunity of attacking the Jesuits (1750). The Indians on the Reductions, who had been converted by the Jesuits, were to be banished from their lands to make way for mining operations in search of gold, and though the Jesuits tried hard to induce their people to submit to this decree, the Indians, maddened by the injustice and cruelty of the treatment of the Portuguese, rose in revolt. The Jesuits were blamed for having fomented the rebellion. By orders of Pombal they were arrested and brought to Portugal, where the most extravagant charges were published against them in order to damage them in the eyes of the people.

The Portuguese government appealed to Benedict XIV. to take action against the Society. The Pope appointed Saldanha an apostolic visitor to examine into the charges that had been made. Though the instructions laid down for the guidance of the visitor were precise in every detail, Saldanha, unmindful of the restrictions imposed by the Pope and without hearing any evidence that might favour the accused, decided against the Jesuits and procured the withdrawal of their faculties in Lisbon (1758). In September of that year a plot directed against one of the royal officials, but supposed to have for its object the murder of the king, was discovered and attributed without any evidence to the Jesuits. They and many of their supposed allies among the nobility were arrested and thrown into prison; their schools were closed, and various fruitless attempts were made to induce the younger members to disown the Society. Finally in September 1759 a decree of banishment was issued against the Jesuits. Most of them were arrested and despatched to the Papal States, while others of them, less fortunate, were confined as prisoners in the jails of Portugal. Father Malagrida, one of the ablest and most saintly men of the Society, was put to death on a trumped-up charge of heresy (1761). Clement XIII. (1758-1769) made various attempts to save the Society, and to prevent a breach with Portugal, but Pombal determined to push matters to extremes. 

The Portuguese ambassador at Rome suddenly broke off negotiations with the Holy See and left the city, while the nuncio at Lisbon was escorted to the Spanish frontier (1760). For a period of ten years (1760-1770) friendly relations between Rome and Portugal were interrupted.

In France the Jesuits had many powerful friends, but they had also many able and determined enemies. The Jansenists who controlled the Parliament of Paris, the Rationalists, the Gallicans, and not a few of the doctors of the Sorbonne, though divided on nearly every other issue, made common cause against the Society. They were assisted in their campaign by Madame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress, for whom the Jesuit theology was not sufficiently lax, and by the Duc de Choiseul, the king’s prime minister. The well-known Jesuit leanings of Louis XV. and of the royal family generally, imposed a certain measure of restraint upon the enemies of the Society, until the famous La Valette law suit offered its opponents an opportunity of stirring up public feeling and of overcoming the scruples of the weak-minded king. The Jesuits had a very important mission in the island of Martinique. The natives were employed on their large mission lands, the fruits of which were spent in promoting the spiritual and temporal welfare of the people. La Valette, the Jesuit superior on the island, had been very successful in his business transactions, and encouraged by his success, he borrowed money in France to develop the resources of the mission. This money he could have repaid without difficulty, had it not been that during the war between France and England some vessels bearing his merchandise were seized by the English (1755). La Valette was in consequence of this unable to pay his creditors, some of whom sought to recover their debts by instituting a civil process against the procurator of the Paris province. For several reasons the Jesuits, though not unwilling to make a reasonable settlement, refused to acknowledge any responsibility. The creditors insisted on bringing the case to trial, and the court at Marseilles decided in their favour. The Jesuit procurator then appealed to the Parliament of Paris, at that time strongly Jansenist in its tendencies. The Parliament, not content with upholding the verdict, took advantage of the popular feeling aroused against the Society to institute a criminal process against the entire body (1761).

A commission was appointed to examine the constitutions and privileges of the Jesuits. It reported that the Society was dangerous to the state, hostile to the Gallican Liberties, and unlawful. The writings of Bellarmine and Busenbaum were ordered to be burned, and the famous Extrait des Assertions, a kind of blue-book containing a selection of unpopular views defended by Jesuit writers, was published to show the dangerous tendencies of the Society and to prejudice it in the eyes of the people. The Provincial of the Jesuits offered for himself and his subjects to accept the Declaration of the French clergy and to obey the instructions of the bishops, but the offer, besides being displeasing to the Roman authorities, did not soften the wrath of the anti-Jesuit party, who sought nothing less than the total destruction of the Society.

Louis XV. endeavoured to bring about a compromise by procuring the appointment of a vicar for France. With this object he called a meeting of the French bishops (1761), the vast majority of whom had nothing but praise for the work of the Jesuits, and wished for no change in the constitution of the Society. Similar views were expressed by the assembly of the French clergy in 1762. Clement XIII. laboured energetically in defence of the Jesuits, but in open disregard of his advice and his entreaties, the decree for the suppression of the Society was passed by Parliament in 1762, though its execution was delayed by orders of the king. 

Meanwhile proposals were made to the Pope and to the general, Ricci, for a change in the constitution, so as to secure the appointment of an independent superior for France, which proposal was rejected by both Pope and general. In 1763 the Jesuit colleges were closed; members of the Society were required to renounce their vows under threat of banishment, and, as hardly any members complied with this condition, the decree of banishment was promulgated in 1764. Clement XIII. published a Bull defending the constitution of the Society, and rejecting the charge against its members (1765), while the French bishops addressed an earnest appeal to the king on its behalf (1765).

The example of Portugal and France was soon followed by Spain. Charles III. (1759-1788) was an able ruler, anxious to restore the former greatness of his country by encouraging the establishment of industries and by favouring the introduction of foreign capital and foreign skill. He was by no means irreligious, but he was influenced largely by the liberal tendencies of the age, as were also in a more marked degree his two principal ministers Aranda and de Roda. Popular feeling was aroused by the favour which the king showed towards French capitalists and artisans, and in some places ugly commotions took place. The ministers suggested to the king that the Jesuits were behind this movement, and were the authors of certain dangerous and inflammatory pamphlets. Secret councils were held, as a result of which sealed instructions were issued to the governors of all towns in which Jesuit houses were situated that on a fixed night the Jesuits should be arrested (1767). These orders were carried out to the letter. Close on six thousand Jesuits were taken and hurried to the coast, where vessels were waiting to transport them to the Papal States. When this had been accomplished a royal decree was issued suppressing the Society in Spain owing to certain weighty reasons which the king was unwilling to divulge. Clement XIII. remonstrated vigorously against such violent measures, but the only effect of his remonstrances was that the bishops who defended the papal interference were banished, those who would seek to favour the return of the Society were declared guilty of high treason, and the punishment of death was levelled against any Jesuit who attempted to land in Spain.

In Naples, where Ferdinand, son of Charles III of Spain then ruled, the suppression of the Jesuits was planned and carried out by the prime minister, Tanucci, a man hardly less unfriendly to the Society than Pombal. The Jesuits were arrested without any trial, and were sent across the frontier into the Papal States (Nov. 1767). Much the same fate awaited them in the territories of the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, where the minister du Tillot had pursued for years a campaign against the rights of the Catholic Church. In 1768 Clement XIII. issued a strong protest against the policy of the Parmese government. This aroused the ire of the whole Bourbon family. France, Spain, and Naples demanded the withdrawal of this Monitorium under threat of violence. The Papal States of Avignon and Venaissin were occupied by French troops, while Naples seized Benevento and Pontecorvo. Various attempts were made to secure the support of the Empress Maria Theresa, and to stir up opposition in the smaller kingdoms of Italy. But Clement XIII., undaunted by the threats of violence of the Bourbons, refused to yield to their demands for the suppression of a Society, against which nothing had been proved, and against which nothing could be proved except its ardent defence of the Catholic Church and its attachment to the Holy See. In January 1769 an ultimatum was presented by the ambassadors of France, Spain, and Naples demanding the suppression of the Society. The Pope refused to agree to it, but before the threats it contained could be carried into execution Clement XIII passed away (Feb. 1769).

In the conclave that followed, the Bourbon rulers made every effort to secure the election of a Pope favourable to their views. Their representatives were instructed to use the veto freely against all cardinals known to be favourable to the Jesuits. After a struggle lasting three months Cardinal Ganganelli was elected and took the title Clement XIV. (1769-1774). He restored friendly relations with Parma, opened negotiations with Portugal, created the brother of Pombal a cardinal, appointed Pereira, one of the court theologians, to a Portuguese bishopric, despatched a nuncio to Lisbon, and brought about a formal reconciliation (1770).

It is not true that before his election Clement XIV had bound himself formally to suppress the Jesuits. Hardly, however, had he been crowned, when demands were made upon him by the representatives of France and Spain similar to those presented to his predecessor. Clement XIV promised to agree to the suppression (1769), but asked for time to consider such a momentous step. In the hope of satisfying the opponents of the Jesuits, the Pope adopted an unfriendly attitude towards the Society, and appointed apostolic visitors to examine into the affairs of the seminaries and colleges under its control, from most of which, as a result of the investigation, the Jesuits were dismissed. He offered to bring about a complete change in the constitution of the Society, but this offer, too, was rejected. Charles III of Spain forwarded an ultimatum in which he insisted upon the instant suppression of the Society under threat of recalling his ambassador from Rome. This ultimatum had the approval of all the Bourbon rulers. Faced with such a terrible danger, the courage of Clement XIV failed him, and he determined to accept the suppression as the lesser of two evils (1772). In July 1773 the Brief Dominus ac Redemptor noster, decreeing the suppression of the Society in the interests of peace and religion, was signed by the Pope. The houses of the Jesuits in the Papal States were surrounded by soldiers, and the general, Ricci, was confined as a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo. The decree was forwarded to the bishops to be communicated by them to the Jesuits resident in their dioceses. In most of the countries of Europe the decree of suppression was carried out to the letter, the Jesuits as a body submitting loyally to the decision of the Pope.

Catharine II. of Russia, however, and Frederick II. of Prussia were impressed so favourably by the work of the Jesuits as educators that they forbade the bishops to publish the decree in their territories. In 1776 an agreement was arrived at between Pius VI. and Frederick II., according to which the Jesuits in Prussian territory were to be disbanded formally and were to lay aside their dress, but they were permitted to continue under a different name to direct the colleges which they possessed. The Empress Catherine II. of Russia continued till her death to protect the Society. In 1778 she insisted upon the erection of a novitiate, for which oral permission seems to have been given by Pius VI. In the other countries many of the Jesuits laboured as secular priests, others of them united in the congregation, known as the Fathers of the Faith (1797), and others still in the congregation of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart. In 1803 the English Jesuit community at Stonyhurst was allowed to affiliate with the Russian congregation; in 1804 the Society was re-established with the permission of Pius VII. in Naples, and in 1814 the Pope issued the Bull, Sollicitudo omnium Ecclesiarum formally re-establishing the Society. Strange to say the very next year (1815) a persecution broke out against the Jesuits in Saint Petersburg, and in 1820 they were expelled from Russian territory.

It was fear of the Bourbon rulers that forced Clement XIV to agree to the suppression of the Jesuits. By sacrificing a society that had been noted for its loyal defence of and submission to the Pope, he had hoped to restore peace to the Church, and to avert the many calamities that threatened its very existence in France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples. But he lived long enough to realise that his weakness led only to new and more exorbitant demands, and that the professors, who had taken the chairs vacated by the Jesuits, were only too ready to place their voices and their pens at the disposal of the civil power and against the Holy See. The suppression of the Society was hailed as a veritable triumph by the forces of irreligion and rationalism. The schemes that this party had been concocting for years were at last crowned with success; the strongest of the outposts had been captured, and it only remained to make one last desperate assault on the fortress itself. The civil rulers, who had allowed themselves to be used as tools for promoting the designs of the rationalists and the Freemasons, had soon reason to regret the cruelty and violence with which they treated the Society of Jesus. In a few years the Revolution was in full swing; the thrones of France, Spain, Portugal and Naples were overturned, and those members of the royal families, who escaped the scaffold or the dungeon, were themselves driven to seek refuge in foreign lands, as the Jesuits had been driven in the days of Clement XIV.

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Jesuit Victims of Nazi Regime

 152 Jesuit Victims of the Nazis 

Jesuits Killed During the Holocaust - 82 Victims 

Jesuits who Died in Concentration Camps - 43 Victims 

Jesuits who Died in Captivity or of its Results - 27 Victims 

From The Jesuits and the Third Reich 

by  Vincent A. Lapomarda

BASILICA OF THE SACRED HEART KRAKOW, POLAND 

PLAQUE OF POLISH JESUITS WHO WERE VICTIMS OF THE NAZIS

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Rev. Pedro Arrupe (1907-1991), Superior General of the Society of Jesus (1965-81) signing the Guest Book at the Majdanek, the major concentration camp in area of Lublin, Poland, where at least three Jesuit priests (Kazimierz Maciejewski, Stefan Sliwinski, and Jozef Warszawski) and one Jesuit brother (Marcin Malik) were imprisoned during World War II.  This Picture was published in Ojczyzna (1969). 

Father Adam Sztark and Companions, Jesuit Martyrs: 

(Their Cause was  inaugurated, on March 23, 2000; the Vatican Congregation approved, on May 15, 2003, the request of the Polish Bishops Conference to open the Canonization Process;  the first session of the Canonization Process took place on September 17, 2003. On the 4th November 2004, in a solemn ceremony, Joseph Cardinal Glemp brought to a close the informatory process of nine Jesuit servants of God, who belonged to the Jesuit Province of Greater Poland and Masovia, martyrs of the WW II (they are indicated with a cross).  The Jesuits of the  Province of Minor Poland are conducting their own informatory process on the eight other Jesuit martyrs.) 

                                                                                                                                                                           Fr. Stanislaw Bednarski (1902-1942) at Dachau 

Fr. Jozef Cyrek (1904-1940) at Auschwitz 

Fr. Kazimierz Dembowski (1912-1942) at Dachau 

Fr. Stanislaw Felczak (1906-1942) at Dachau+ 

Fr. Franciszek Kaluza (1877-1941) at Dachau 

Br. Stanislaw Komar (1882-1942) at Dachau+ 

Fr. Michal Malinowski (1887-1942) at Dachau+ 

Fr. Marian Jozef Wojciech Morawski (1881-1940) at Auschwitz+ 

Mr. Jerzy Musial (1919-1945) at Dachau+ 

Fr. Stanislaw Tadeusz Podolenski (1887-1945) at Dachau 

Fr. Edmund Roszak (1900-1943) at Swislocz+ 

Fr. Czeslaw Sejbuk (1906-1943) at Dachau+ 

Mr. Stanislaw Sewillo (1907-1943) at Dachau 

Fr. Adam Sztark (1907-1942) at Slonim+ 

Fr. Wladyslaw Wiacek (1910-1944) at Warsaw+ 

Mr. Bronislaw Wielgosz (1916-1942) at Dachau 

Br. Jan Zajac (1911-1945) at Dachau 

ADAM  SZTARK, S. J.  (1907-1942) 

Martyr

When Pope John Paul II visited Warsaw, on 13 June 1999, he beatified 108 victims of the Nazis, half of whom died through torture or execution at the Auschwitz or Dachau concentration camps. The list included Capuchins, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Salesians, not to mention a number of other religious whose orders and congregations which, as far back as 1992, responded to the invitation to introduce the causes of their members.  Unfortunately, at that time, the Jesuits of Poland did not regard the inclusion of Jesuits as that important.  Subsequently, they have come to appreciate that they had missed an important opportunity to include those heroic Jesuits who were martyred by the Nazis during World War II. 

            Certainly, it is encouraging to anyone who knows the extent of the Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church  that the Holy Father was able to beatify so many martyrs of his native country. 

            These Polish martyrs for the faith recall St. Augustine of Hippo's affirmation that there was no need to pray for the repose of the souls of martyrs because they had already attained eternal life through their martyrdom.  This is what Augustine's Latin judgment "Injuriam facit martyri qui orat pro eo" ("he offends a martyr who prays for him") means.  The Church now makes much the same declaration by simply declaring that recognized martyrs need no proof of a miracle before beatification. 

            The Second World War, which saw the destiny of many groups  linked in suffering,  was a horrible time for dedicated Catholics as well as Jews. Just as it is true to speak of a Nazi war against the Jews, it is also accurate to speak of a similar war against the Jesuits.  This is particularly so in Poland where at least seventy Polish Jesuits perished as victims during the Nazi persecution.  Of these, some twenty died at Dachau where more Jesuits than any other religious order were imprisoned.  And, of the approximate 150 Jesuit victims of the Nazis, at least half of them were Polish priests, brothers, and seminarians. 

            One of that number was Adam Sztark, a priest who sacrificed his life at the age of thirty-five to save Jewish children. 

            For years, this writer has engaged in corresponding with Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to have that authority recognize Father Sztark as a Righteous Gentile (at least eight Jesuits are listed among them)  for sacrificing his life to save Jewish orphans. 

            However, the lack of documentation in his case has been regarded as an obstacle to recognizing him as a Righteous Gentile by the state of Israel. 

            Yet, Father Sztark has at least three times been named a Jesuit martyr ---  by Felicjan Paluszkiewicz, Przyszli sluzyc (Rome, 1985), by the present author, in his book on The Jesuits and the Third Reich (1989), and by the editor of an encyclopedia on the Jesuits in Poland  (1992).  Moreover, he has now been listed in the martyrology  yearbook of the Society of Jesus  for 2000.  His sacrifice has earned him the honor of being considered one of Poland’s most distinguished unsung heroes of the Holocaust and World War II. 

 There are few details about  Sztark's life before he had his rendezvous with destiny. The son of Wladyslaw and Teresa (Galecka) Sztark, Adam was born, on 30 July 1907, at Zbiersk in the Province of Kalisz, southwest of Warsaw. The day of his birth was the day before the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, the Founder of the Society of Jesus.  He entered  the Jesuit Order at Stara Wies, on 6 September 1924,  becoming a member of the branch of  known as the Greater Polish and Mazovian Province of  the Society of Jesus, which is centered in Warsaw. 

            He was ordained a priest at Lublin, east of Warsaw, on June 24, 1936, after the customary long years of Jesuit preparation.  He was assigned as pastor of the Marian Shrine at Zyrowice in 1939, the fatal year of the German invasion of Poland. The shrine was located in what is now the country of Belarus in the region of  Grodno (Hrodna)  not far from Slonim, in a territory which, between the two world wars, was held by Poland,  and later by the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1941, until  the Germans occupied the area. 

            The terror unleashed by  the Nazi occupation forces began in Slonim on June 25, 1941, three  days after Germany invaded Russia.  In a short time the Nazis had exterminated  almost the entire  Jewish population of Slonim. Before the German seized the area, that population numbered at least twenty thousand. 

            The Jewish community in the area of  Slonim dated back to Ashkenazic Jews who fled to Eastern Europe from Portugal and Spain in the early 1500s.  Jews were already settled in Slonim there when the Jesuits established their famous Baroque church,   a college and a school there in the late 1600s. 

            Located northeast of Warsaw, Slonim was  noted for its historic Jewish center, the Great Synagogue, along with its historic Jesuit church, until  the Jesuit presence in the area had been terminated with the suppression of the Society of Jesus in the later part of the 1700s.  The Jewish presence remained very evident  in that part of Belarus after the Jesuits had been deprived by the papacy of their ecclesiastical and educational foundations.  With their restoration in the early 1800s, the Jesuits returned to that region  to carry on different apostolic works, such as that of Father Sztark at the Marian shrine at Zyrowice and at the local hospital, where he ministered to Roman Catholics. 

            Starting on  July 14,  1941, the Nazis began rounding up the leadership of the Jewish community, executing  at least one thousand of them. Then, on November 14, the Nazis went after ten thousand more of the Jewish population, before they set up a ghetto in the Zabinka area of Slonim in December.  In June of 1942, the Nazis set fire to this hoping to eliminate even more of the Jewish population. These were preliminary steps in the German plan of total annihilation, temporarily delayed by fierce Russian battles.  From August 1942, the German Army had been engaged  in furious actions which would in the following year lead to the pivotal Battle of Stalingrad.  The Nazis were counting on a victory there that would enable them to complete their  barbaric extermination policy which was already well under way. 

           It was in the final phase of their "final solution" that  the Gestapo broke into the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on December 19,  1942.  The convent was in the [prewar Polish] provincial area of Nowogrodek, in  Slonim.  The religious community was under Mother Superior Kazimiera Wolowska (1879-1942) whose religious name was Sister Maria Marta. 

She was assisted by Bogumila Noiszewska (1885-1942) who was known in religious life as Sister Maria Ewa.  Both had been hiding and caring for orphaned Jewish children, whom Father Sztark had been rescuing and bringing to them.  The children had been hidden in the attic of the convent of the nuns. 

             Though the sisters lived in fear of a Nazi search, they were completely surprised  when armed men broke into their convent.  A thorough search soon located the Jewish children in the attic. Since hiding Jews was a crime punishable by death, the Gestapo tortured the sisters to extract any information they could use to continue their campaign against the Jews. When the sisters refused to betray any of those helping them in their clandestine activities, the Nazis. that very day, took  both sisters out to a nearby execution site,  a place called Gorki Pantalowickie. There they forced the nuns into a pit and shot them. 

            Within ten days of the execution of Blessed Maria Marta and Blessed Maria Ewa, the Gestapo caught up with Father Sztark.  The priest's life had been in danger for years.  First during the hostile occupation  by the Soviets and then by the Nazis.  He never hesitated to serve as a shepherd for the defenseless, first as the pastor for parishioners in Zyrowice, then for Jewish childrlen who had managed to survive the round up and slaughter of their parents.  The priest repeatedly risked his life by collecting the children and concealing them in his rectory until he was able to secretly take them to the relative safety of  the Immaculate Conception Convent.  He fully knew that keeping these Jewish children out of the hands of the Nazis would cost him his life if he should be discovered.  It is clear that he began this work and continued to carry it out in respect to the Gospel command to "love your neighbor." 

            Just as the Gestapo came in suddenly on the Sisters in the convent on December 19th, so on December 27th their command car appeared without warning  in front of the priest’s house in  Zyrowice.  The startled priest was immediately ordered to leave without taking anything with him.  He asked if he could take bread in order to say Mass. The Gestapo agent leading the Jesuit away sardonically said:   "Where you are going, there's plenty of bread!"  This merciless tone of the SS man told  Fr Sztark that his end was near.  He submitted, simply saying: "It is my martyrdom." 

           Fr Sztark still had one more night to live, however.  It was not until the following day that he was packed into a truck filled with others who had defied the laws of the Nazi occupation. They were taken to the same place, Gorki Pantalowickie, where the two Sisters of the Immaculate Conception had been killed just a few days previously, the same site which the Nazis used for their executions of the Jews in that area.  When they arrived there,  Fr Sztark, like his fellow victims, was ordered to undress himself.  He was prepared to meet his Maker, but he wanted to do so in the black robe of the Jesuit Order of which he was such a faithful member.  So he told his executioners he would not undress, saying he wanted to die in his robe.  For some reason his killers granted him his last wish. 

             The Nazis forced him along with all their victims into a pit, and began riddling them with bullets.  The priest, though mortally wounded, was not immediately killed.  In one last great display of will and in excruciating pain he managed to stand and gasp out these final, glorious words: "All for Christ the King!  Long Live Poland!" 

For Jesuits, those words recall the final words of another Jesuit, Blessed Miguel Augustin Pro (1891-1927).  Fr. Pro had been brought to his execution in a similar manner three years after Father Sztark had entered the Society of Jesus.  The Mexican priest had cried out, "Long Live Christ the King!" Perhaps Blessed Miguel Pro's last words had inspired Fr Sztark's words of courage, faith, love and patriotism. 

      Certainly, in reflecting on the life of Father Sztark, there is no doubt that he died    a martyr.  His life stands as a symbol of what the Jesuits did in order to help the Jews at a time when the Jesuits themselves were the objects of constant Nazi persecution. 

           And, since the two Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, who had helped Fr. Sztark rescue the orphaned Jewish children, were among those 108 Polish martyrs who were beatified by Pope John Paul II in Warsaw, there can be no doubt that Rev. Adam Sztark, S. J.,  is also worthy of being considered one of the distinguished Polish martyrs of the twentieth century. 

*** 

By Rev. Vincent A. Lapomarda, S. J. 

Coordinator, Holocaust Collection 

Copyright ©  INSIDE THE VATICAN, May 2000, 52-53 

[Later Published in Polish, ZYCIE DUCHOWE, Jesien, 24/2000] 

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