Note 1 — EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1841–1872

A royal decree of Jan. 22, 1784, by Carlos III, declared the ex-Jesuits competent to acquire and hold property; and, in the case of those secular coadjutors who had married, to bequeath their property to their heirs. That monarch died in 1788; and was succeeded by his eldest son, as Carlos IV. In Oct. 1797, the government learned that the Spanish ex-Jesuits were determined to return to Spain, on account of the persecutions and even death which menaced them in the Genoese territories, owing to a change in the government there, and that some of them had already reached the Spanish ports; it therefore decided that they should be allowed to remain in the country, but must live in certain abandoned convents. The Jesuits objected to this, and finally the government permitted them (1798) to retire freely to the homes of their families or into any convents they might choose, save that they were not allowed to reside in Madrid or other royal seats. “Many ex-Jesuits returned to their fatherland, and others decided to remain in Italia; but this situation did not last long, for in the year 1801 another decree was issued condemning them anew to proscription.” Orders were given that within one week all Jesuits should leave their homes and present themselves at Alicante or Barcelona, where new orders would be given them. Some fathers advanced in years were allowed to remain in Spain; but all the rest were for the second time shipped to Italy, where they suffered great hardship. In 1808 the Spanish government felt more leniently toward these unfortunate exiles, considering, moreover, the difficulty of furnishing their pensions, and the fact that all those moneys were thus taken out of Spain to foreign countries, to find their way ultimately into the hands of her enemies; and a royal decree by Fernando VII, dated Nov. 15, 1808, granted permission to those Jesuits who desired to return to Spain, with the same pension which they had been receiving. After the war between Spain and France was ended, urgent requests were made to Fernando VII by various personages prominent in ecclesiastical, educational, and municipal affairs that he would reëstablish in his dominions the Society of Jesus; and permission was given by a royal decree dated May 9, 1815, for the Jesuits to have houses in the towns and cities which had asked for them. A year later, after various preparations for this change had been made by the government, another decree extended the reëstablishment to all the towns where the Jesuits had formerly had their institutions. “In virtue of this, all the Spanish Jesuits who were residing in Italy returned to España, at the expense of the court. All these decisions were adopted in España in fulfilment of the bull of Pius VII dated Aug. 7, 1814, Solicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, by which the Jesuits were reëstablished in all the Catholic countries—that of Clement XIV, which decreed the extinction of the order, being thereby annulled.2 Not five years had passed after the reëstablishment of the Society of Jesus in España when, the revolution of 1820 having been successful, the Cortes assembled; and the Spanish monarch, by decree of September 6 in that same year, again suppressed the [Jesuit] institute, together with the other monastic orders, allowing the Jesuits, however, liberty to reside in España. Fernando communicated to his Holiness the above decision, and Pius VII replied in a letter of September 15, expressing the displeasure with which he had received the tidings; but in 1823, the constitutional government having been destroyed, the regency issued a decree on June 11, reëstablishing the Society and the rest of the regular orders in the same condition in which they were before March 7, 1820. Fernando VII died on Sept. 29, 1833, and the civil war began; and on July 17, 1834, occurred the lamentable massacre3 of the Jesuits and other religious. By royal decree of July 4, 1835, the Society of Jesus was anew declared extinguished; and its property was ordered to be sold, in order to apply the product thereof to the extinction of the public debt. In spite of this decision, the Jesuits remained established in España; and it was necessary, in the last revolutionary period, to issue the decree of Oct. 12, 1868, suppressing the Society of Jesus in the Peninsula and the adjacent islands; and commanding that within the space of three days all their colleges and institutions should be closed, and possession be taken of their temporalities in the form provided on this point by the royal decree of July 4, 1835. To these provisions were added this, that the individuals of the suppressed Society might not again reunite in a body or a community, nor wear the garb of the order, nor be in any way subordinate to the superiors of the order who existed either within or without España, those who were not ordained in sacris remaining subject in all matters to the ordinary civil jurisdiction. But the realization of this measure was ephemeral; for when the constitution of June 5, 1869, was published, the right of every person was declared—and repeated in the constitution of June 30, 1876—to associate with others for all the purposes in human life which are not opposed to public morals; and, by favor of this liberty, the individuals of the Society of Jesus considered themselves authorized to form an association and found anew colleges and houses in the Spanish dominions.”

A brief of Pope Leo XIII, dated July 13, 1886, finally reëstablished the Society of Jesus throughout the world, and abrogated that of Clement XIV which in 1773 suppressed the order. The pope took occasion to express this permission in the warmest and most forcible terms; and “the rehabilitation of the Society of Jesus could not have been more complete or more satisfactory.” “It is pleasant to observe that, after three centuries of strife, the principle of authority has triumphed.” (Danvila, Reinado de Carlos III, iii, pp. 613–625.) ↑