(CARLO DELLA TORRE REZZONICO).
Born at Venice, 7 March, 1693; died at Rome, 2 February, 1769. He was
educated by the Jesuits at Bologna, took his degrees in law at Padua, and in
1716 was appointed at Rome referendary of the two departments known as the "Signatura
Justitiæ" and the "Signatura Gratiæ". He was made governor of
Rieti in 1716, of Fano in 1721, and Auditor of the Rota for Venice in 1725. In
1737 he was made cardinal-deacon, and in 1743 Bishop of Padua, where he
distinguished himself by his zeal for the formation and sanctification of his
clergy, to promote which he held a synod in 1746, and published a very
remarkable pastoral on the priestly state. His personal life was in keeping with
his teaching, and the Jansenist Abbé Clément, a grudging witness, tells us
that "he was called the saint (by his people), and was an exemplary man
who, notwithstanding the immense revenues of his diocese and his private estate,
was always without money owing to the lavishness of his alms-deeds, and would
give away even his linen". In 1747 he became cardinal-priest, and on 6
July, 1758, he was elected pope to succeed Benedict XIV. It was with tears that
he submitted to the will of the electors, for he gauged well the force and
direction of the storm which was gathering on the political horizon.
Regalism and Jansenism were the traditional enemies of the Holy See in its
government of the Church, but a still more formidable foe was rising into power
and using the other two as its instruments. This was the party of Voltaire and
the Encyclopedists, the "Philosophers" as they liked to call
themselves. They were men of talent and highly educated, and by means of these
gifts had drawn over to themselves many admirers and adherents from among the
ruling classes, with the result that by the time of Clement XIII, they had their
representatives in power in the Portuguese and in all the five Bourbon Courts.
Their enmity was radically against the Christian religion itself, as putting a
restraint on their license of thought and action. In their private
correspondence they called it the Infâme (the infamous one), and looked
forward to its speedy extinction through the success of their policy; but they
felt that in their relations with the public, and especially with the
sovereigns, it was necessary to feign some kind of Catholic belief. In planning
this war against the Church, they were agreed that the first step must be the
destruction of the Jesuits. "When we have destroyed the Jesuits",
wrote Voltaire to Helvétius in 1761, "we shall have easy work with the Infâme."
And their method was to persuade the sovereigns that the Jesuits were the chief
obstacle to their Regalist pretensions, and thereby a danger to the peace of
their realms; and to support this view by the diffusion of defamatory
literature, likewise by inviting the co-operation of those who, whilst blind to
the character of their ulterior ends, stood with them for doctrinal or other
reasons in their antipathy to the Society of Jesus. Such was the political
situation with which Clement XIII saw himself confronted when he began his
pontificate.
PORTUGAL
His attention was called in the first instance to Portugal, where the attack
on the Society had already commenced. Joseph I, a weak and voluptuous prince,
was a mere puppet in the hands of his minister, Sebastião Carvalho, afterwards
Marquis de Pombal, a secret adherent of the Voltairian opinions, and bent on the
destruction of the Society. A rebellion of the Indians in the Uruguay Reductions
gave him his first opportunity. The cause of the rebellion was obvious, for the
natives had been ordered to abandon forthwith their cultivated lands and migrate
into the virgin forest. But, as they were under the care of the Jesuit
missionaries, Carvalho declared that those must have instigated the natives.
Moreover, on 3 September, 1758, Joseph I was shot at, apparently by the injured
husband of a lady he had seduced. Pombal held a secret trial in which he
pronounced the whole Tavora family guilty, and with them three Jesuit Fathers,
against whom the sole evidence was that they had been friends of the Tavoras.
Then, on the pretext that all Jesuits thought alike, he imprisoned their
superiors, some hundred in number, in his subterranean dungeons, and wrote in
the king's name to Rome for permission from the Holy See to punish the guilty
clerics. Clement did not see his way to refuse a request backed by the king's
assurances that he had good grounds for his charges, but he begged that the
accused might have a careful trial, and that the innocent might not be included
in a punishment they had not deserved. The pope's letter was written with
exquisite courtesy and consideration, but Pombal pronounced it insulting to his
master and returned it to the sender. Then he shipped off all the Jesuits from
Portugal and its colonies, save the superiors who were still detained in their
prisons, and sent them to Civitavecchia, "as a present to the pope",
without a penny from their confiscated funds left to them for their maintenance.
Clement, however, received them kindly, and provided for their needs. It was to
be expected that diplomatic relations would not long continue after these
events; they were severed in 1760 by Pombal, who sent back the nuncio,
Acciajuoli, and recalled his own ambassador; nor were these relations restored
till the next pontificate. Pombal had seen the necessity of supporting his
administrative measures by an endeavour to destroy the good name of his victims
with the public. For this purpose he caused various defamatory publications to
be written, chief among which was the "Brief Relation", in which the
American Jesuits were represented as having set up an independent kingdom in
South America under their own sovereignty, and of tyrannizing over the Indians,
all in the interest of an insatiable ambition and avarice. These libels were
spread broadcast, especially through Portugal and Spain, and many bishops from
Spain and elsewhere wrote to the pope protesting against charges so improbable
in themselves, and so incompatible with their experience of the order in their
own jurisdictions. The text of many of their letters and of Clement XIII's
approving replies may be seen in the "Appendices" to Père de
Ravignan's "Clément XIII et Clément XIV".
FRANCE
It was to be expected that the Society's many enemies in France would be
stimulated to follow in the footsteps of Pombal. The attack was opened by the
Parlement, which was predominantly Jansenist in its composition, in the spring
of 1761. Taking advantage of the financial difficulties into which the French
Jesuits had been driven over the affair of Father Lavalette, they proceeded to
examine the constitutions of the Society in which they professed to find grave
improprieties, and to demand that, if the Jesuits were to remain in the country,
these constitutions should be remodelled on the principle of reducing the power
of the general and practically substituting for him a commisioner appointed by
the Crown. They also drew up a famous document, named the "Extraits des
assertions", made up entirely of garbled extracts from Jesuit writers, and
tending to show that their method was to establish their own domination by
justifying almost every form of crime and licentiousness, particularly
tyrannicide. Louis XV, like Joseph I, had a will enervated by lust, but unlike
him, was by no means a fool, and had besides an underlying respect for religion.
Thus he sought, in the first instance, to save a body of men whom he judged to
be innocent, and for that purpose he referred their constitutions to the French
bishops assembled at Paris in December, 1761. Forty-five of these bishops
reported in favour of the constitutions, and of the Jesuits being left as they
were, twenty-seven or more, not then in Paris, sending in their adhesion; but
the king was being drawn the other way by his Voltairian statesmen and Madame de
Pompadour, and accordingly preferred the advice of the one bishop who sided with
the Parlement, Bishop FitzJames of Soissons. He therefore issued an edict in
March, 1762, which allowed the Society to remain in the kingdom, but prescribed
some essential changes in their institute with the view of satisfying the
Parlement.
Clement XIII intervened in various ways in this crisis of the French Jesuits.
He wrote to the king in June, 1761, and again in January, 1762, on the former
occasion to implore him to stay the proceedings of his Parlement, on the latter
to protest against the scheme of setting a French vicar- general, independent of
the general in Rome, over the French provinces; it was likewise on this latter
occasion that, whilst blaming their general for the compliance of some of his
French subjects, he used the famous words "Sint ut sint aut non sint".
To the French bishops who wrote to him protesting against the doings of the
Parlement, he replied in words of thankfulness and approval, e.g. to the Bishop
of Grenoble on 4 April, 1762, and to the Bishop of Sarlat (with special
reference to the "Extraits des assertions") on 14 November. 1764; and
to the bishops collectively in June, 1762, exhorting them to use all their
influence with the king to induce him to resist his evil counsellors. To the arrét
of 2 August, 1762, by which the Parlement suppressed the Society in France, and
imposed impossible conditions on any of its members wishing to remain in the
country, Clement replied by an Allocution of 3 September, in which he protested
against the invasion of the Church's rights, and annulled the arréts of
the Parlement against the Society. Finally, when the king, weakly yielding to
the pressure of his entourage, suppressed the French provinces by his edict of
November, 1764, the Holy Father felt it his duty, besought as he was by so many
bishops from all parts, to publish the Bull "Apostolicum", of 9
January, 1765. Its object was to oppose to the current misrepresentations of the
Society's institute, spiritual exercises, preaching missions, and theology, a
solemn and formal approbation, and to declare that the Church herself was
assailed in these condemnations of what she sanctioned in so many ways.
SPAIN
The statesmen who had the ear of Charles III were in regular correspondence
with the French Encyclopedists, and had for some years previously been
projecting a proscription of the Society on the same lines as in Portugal and
France. But this was not known to the public, or to the Jesuits, who believed
themselves to have a warm friend in their sovereign. It came then as a surprise
to all when, on the night of 2-3 April, 1767, all the Jesuit houses were
suddenly surrounded, the inmates arrested and transferred to vehicles ordered to
take them to the coast, thence to be shipped off for some unknown
destination–forbidden to take anything with them beyond the clothes which they
wore. Nor was any other explanation vouchsafed to the outer world save that
contained in the king's letter to Clement XIII, dated 31 March. There it was
stated that the king had found it necessary to expel all his Jesuit subjects for
reasons which he intended to reserve for ever in his royal breast, but that he
was sending them all to Civitavecchia that they might be under the pope's care,
and he would allow them a maintenance of 100 piastres (i.e. Spanish dollars) a
year–a maintenance, however, which would be withdrawn for the whole body,
should any one of them venture at any time to write anything in self-defence or
in criticism of the motives for the expulsion. The pope wrote back on 16 April a
very touching letter in which he declared that this was the cruelest blow of all
to his paternal heart, beseeching the king to see that if any were accused they
should not be condemned without proper trial, and assuring him that the charges
current against the institute and the whole body of its members were
misrepresentations due to the malice of the Church's enemies. But nothingh could
be extracted from the king, and it is now known that this idea of a royal secret
was merely a pretext devised in order to prevent the Holy See from having any
say in the matter.
Foreseeing the difficulty of so large an influx of expelled religious into
his states, Clement felt compelled to refuse them permission to land, and after
various wanderings they lhad to settle down in Corsica, where they were joined
by their brethren who had been similarly sent away from Spanish America. When, a
year and a half later, they were forced to move again, the pope's compassion
overcame his administrative prudence, and he permitted them to take refuge in
his territory. On the throne of Naples was seated a son of Charles III, and on
that of Parma his nephew. Both were minors, and both had Voltairian ministers
through whose instrumentality their policy was directed from Madrid. Accordingly
the Jesuits in their dominions were similarly banished, and their banishment
drew similar remonstrances from the pope. But in the case of Parma there was a
complication, for this state having been for centuries regarded as a fief of the
Holy See, the pope had felt himself bound to condemn by his Monitorium of
30 January, 1768, some laws passed by the duke to the detriment of the Church's
liberties. The Bourbon Courts thereupon united in demanding the withdrawal of
the Monitorium, threatening, if refused to deprive the pope by armed
force of his territories of Avignon and the Vanaissin in France, and of
Benevento and Montecorto in Italy. Finally, on 18, 20, 22 January, 1769, the
ambassadors of France, Spain, and Naples presented to him identical notes
demanding the total and entire suppression of the Society of Jesus throughout
the world. It was this that killed him. He expired under the shock on the night
of 2-3 February. In one sense, no doubt, his pontificate was a failure, and he
has been blamed for a lack of foresight which should have made him yield to the
exigencies of the times. But in a higher sense it was a splendid success. For he
had the insight to see through the plausible pretences of the Church's enemies,
and to discern the ultimate ends which they were pursuing. He viewed the course
of events ever in the light of faith, and was ever faithful to his trust. He
always took up sound positions, and knew how to defend them with language
conspicuous for its truth and justice, as well as for its moderation and
Christian tenderness. His pontificate, in short, afforded the spectacle of a
saint clad in moral strength contending alone against the powers of the world
and their physical might; and such a spectacle is an acquisition forever.
There were other aspects under which Clement XIII had to contend with the
prevailing errors of Regalism and Jansenism in France, Germany, Holland, Poland,
and Venice, but these by comparison were of minor moment. Among the pernicious
books condemned by him were the "Histoire du peuple de Dieu" of the
Jesuit Berruyer, the "Esprit" of Helvétius, the "Exposition de
la doctrine chrétienne" of Mésenguy, the "Encyclopédie" of
D'Alembert and Diderot, and the "De Statu Ecclesiæ" of Febronius. He
greatly encouraged devotion to the Sacred Heart, and ordered the Preface of the
Blessed Trinity to be recited on Sundays.
BARBERI AND SPETIA,
Bullarii Romani Continuatio (Rome, 1835); CORDARA,
Commentarii in DÖLLINGER, Beitrage zur
politischen, kirchlichen und Kulturgeschichte (1882), III; Procés-verbaux
du clergé français (1882), VIII; NOVAES, Elementi
della storia de' sommi pontefici (Rome, 1822), XV; DE
MONTOR, Histoire de souverains pontifes romains
(Paris, 1851); VON RANKE, Die römischen
Päpste, III; CRÉTINEAU-JOLY,
Clément XIV et les Jésuites (Paris, 1847); IDEM,
Histoire de la compagnie de Jésus (Paris, 1851), V; THEINER,
Histoire du Pontificat de Clément XIV (Paris, 1852); RAVIGNAN,
Clément XIII et Clément XIV (Paris, 1854); FERRER
DEL RIO, Historia del Reinado de Carlos III
(Madrid, 1857); DÁVILA Y COLLADO,
Reinado de Carlos III in CÁNOVAS DE CASTILLO,
Historia General de España (Madrid, 1893); SMITH,
The Suppression of the Society of Jesus articles in the Month
(1902, 1903); ROUSSEAU, Expulsion des Jésuites en
Espagne in the Revue des questiones historiques (Jan., 1904).
SYDNEY SMITH
Transcribed by W G Kofron
With thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IV
Copyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton Company
Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
