Abstract
This is small work on a big topic, and it is a very useful book indeed for gaining an overview of the shifting and complex relations between the Society of Jesus and the papacy, from the sixteenth century to today. In an introduction, eleven chapters, and a conclusion, O’Malley traces an extreme diversity of papal attitudes toward Jesuits. There were popes, such as Paul III (r. 1534‒49), Gregory XIII (r. 1572‒85), Pius VII (r. 1800‒23), and Pius XI (r. 1922‒39) that saw, appreciated, and utilized the potential of Jesuits for service of the church. And there were others, such as Paul IV (r. 1555‒59) or Clement XIV (1769‒74), who distrusted the Jesuits, worked to make them into something other than what their founder intended, or to eliminate their religious order altogether. Rarely in the period 1540 to 1773, from Paul III’s approval of the Society to Clement XIV’s suppression of it, was there a lack of voices within the Catholic Church seeking the demise of the Society. Such voices included rival religious orders, Catholic monarchs suspicious of the international nature of Jesuit structures and ways of proceeding, Jansenists opposed to what they described as Jesuit deviation from traditional Catholicism, Jesuit advocacy of lax morals, and Jesuit lust for power and wealth everywhere. One of the strengths of this “sketch” by O’M. is its emphasis on the significance of the suppression of the Jesuits, and on the restoration, in 1814, by Pius VII. The 2014 bicentennial of that restoration was the occasion for a large number of conferences and publications on the topic, and O’M. draws appropriate attention to these, and he states with satisfaction that “the virtual silence of scholars on the suppression of 1773 has finally been broken” (119).
Using the term “the long Ultramontane century” (95‒106) for the period from the restoration of the Society by Pius VII to the papacy of Pius XII (r. 1939‒58), O’M. examines an era of especially close relations between popes and the Jesuits. This did not necessarily mean an easy time for the Society, as nationalist, anti-clerical, and secularizing forces in many countries sought to minimize if not destroy the papacy and its allies and apologists. Though the US and other Anglophone countries proved relatively hospitable to Jesuits, many other nations expelled them and confiscated their schools and other property. Jesuits in this era emerged as vocal defenders of papal rights and privileges, as relentless promoters of international papal authority, as laborers working behind the scene to draft encyclicals and other documents for popes, and as everything from papal astronomers and journalists to professors at a growing number of pontifical faculties.
In recent decades there has been an enormous increase in the number and variety of publications on Jesuit history, in English and many other languages, and increasingly by persons other than Jesuits. O’M. himself has played a major role in inspiring and mentoring generations of younger scholars working on Jesuit themes. Most of this work has been on the old Society, that is, pre-1773. But if the restoration bicentennial has brought new attention to what followed the suppression, the election of a Jesuit pope in 2013 has added another dimension to how scholars think about and carry out research in Jesuit history. O’M. is reluctant to predict how much difference Pope Francis will make to the history of the relationship between popes and Jesuits, and to how Jesuit history is pursued. Rightly pointing out that anti-Jesuit words and actions rebounded in the decades following the restoration, he might have given more attention to the abundant criticism of Pope Francis, mainly from right-wing Catholics, and to how their criticism echoes (plagiarizes?) earlier centuries of anti-Jesuit polemic.
Some twenty illustrations add to the value and interest of this sketch. So, too, do some passages where the content and tone of O’M.’s account of major events in the Society’s relatively recent history suggest that O’M. was present for that occasion. One of these is Fr. Pedro Arrupe’s resignation as superior general, at the 33rd General Congregation in 1983. This fascinating book could well prove seminal for detailed studies of the complexities of relations between the papacy and the Society of Jesus.