Jesuit Conspiracy Theories

Jesuit conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories about the members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), a religious order in the Catholic Church. Such theories began appearing as early as 1550, just ten years after the founding of the Jesuits. They were often accused by their enemies due to the intellectual and political influence the Society of Jesus exerted against others.

History

The earliest recorded Jesuit conspiracy theory is from an Augustinian friar, George Browne, who had exclaimed from the pulpit to a crowd in 1551 the following conspiracy theory:

Less than a decade later, another widely spread libel against the society appeared. The zealous Dominican, Melchor Cano, who had publicized a letter two days before his death, stated the following:

Later these claims were supported by evidences found in the Monita secreta, a document showing details of how the inducted Society members used illicit ways to gain both temporal and spiritual ascendancy over all. This paper was first published in Krakow, 1612, edited and published by a former Jesuit, Jerome Zahorowski. He alleged that it was written by Jesuit Superior General Claudio Acquaviva, whose Regional Assistant and Admonitor, , S.J., had likewise brought scandal to the Society as visitor for the Upper German Province of the Society in 1596, when he had written the following anti-Jesuit report to the Jesuit College of Ingolstadt:

The Protestant Reformation, the English Reformation, and later the Age of Enlightenment brought new suspicions against the Jesuits. They were accused of upholding Ultramontanism, infiltrating political realms and non-Catholic churches. In England, it was forbidden to belong to the Jesuits, under grave penalties, including the death penalty. A 1689 work, ''Foxes and Firebrands'' by Robert Ware (later exposed as a forger), claimed Jesuits took a secret oath that stated:

''Jesuitism'' is the term their opponents coined for the practices of the Jesuits in the service of the Counter-Reformation.

Other conspiracy theories and criticisms relate to the role of the Jesuits in the colonization of the New World, and to their involvement with indigenous peoples. Some allege that the Jesuits, through their settlements (reductions), may willingly have contributed to the assimilation of indigenous nations, even accusing the Society of commanding them in guerrilla warfare On the other hand, the Jesuits were hated by the Catholic rulers and colonists, who saw their reductions, which were cut off from contact with European Christians, as subversive and a threat to good order, at times even believing in the worst of accusations against the Society. Étienne François, the Foreign Minister of France, who had a strong influence on France, and supposedly even on Spain's global strategy, firmly believed that the Society was a shadow government, believing that "the Society was involved in and able to influence everything." These hostile views contributed so greatly to the campaign against the Jesuits (which resulted in the suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV in 1773), that historian Hamish Scott determined Étienne as the true "destroyer of the Jesuit Order", rather than the commonly alleged arch-nemesis of the Society, Spain's King Charles III.

French Revolution

In 17th-century France, the development of Jansenism, a Catholic theological movement emphasising original sin, led to intra-church rivalries between Jesuits and Jansenists. Although the pro-papal Jesuits ultimately prevailed, it cost them dearly with regard to their reputation in the largely Gallican-influenced French Church.

Many anti-Jesuit conspiracy theories emerged in the 18th century Enlightenment, as a result of an alleged rivalry between the Freemasons and the Jesuits. Intellectual attacks on Jesuits were seen as an efficient rebuttal to the anti-masonry promoted by conservatives, and this ideological conspiracy pattern persisted into the 19th century as an important component of French anti-clericalism. It was, however, largely confined to political elites until the 1840s, when it entered the popular imagination through the writings of the historians Jules Michelet and Edgar Quinet of the Collège de France who declared , and the novelist Eugène Sue who in his best-seller depicted the Jesuits as a "secret society bent on world domination by all available means". Sue's heroine, Adrienne de Cardoville, said that she could not think about Jesuits "without ideas of darkness, of venom and of nasty black reptiles being involuntarily aroused in me".

Many, since Albert Pike's '' Morals and Dogma'' was first published in 1871, have come to view the Freemasons as the lineal heirs of the Knights Templar, but other conspiracy theorists ascribe that role to the Jesuits, citing Pike in the aforementioned work:

Others still place all three under the same umbrella, loosely or otherwise:

German attitudes toward the Jesuits

Jesuit conspiracy theories found fertile soil in Imperial Germany, where anti-Jesuits saw the order as a sinister and extremely powerful organization which was characterized by strict internal discipline, utter unscrupulousness in its choice of methods, and undeviating commitment to the creation of a universal empire which would be ruled by the Papacy. Citing historian Friedrich Heyer's metaphor of the specter of Jesuitism () and similar imagery from other authors, Róisín Healey writes: "The Jesuit of anti-Jesuit discourse had what might be called an uncanny quality: he was both subhuman and superhuman. Jesuits were allegedly so extreme in their submission to their order that they became like machines and, in their determination to achieve their goals, drew on powers unavailable to other men, through witchcraft. The peculiar location of the Jesuit, at the boundaries of humanity, unsettled the producers and consumers of anti-Jesuit discourse. In this sense, the Jesuit specter haunted imperial Germany." Healy observes that "feeling themselves haunted by the Jesuits, anti-Jesuits revealed themselves to be less rational than they believed." Their discourse, with its "skewed" perception of reality, "resembled, in certain respects, the ' paranoid style' of politics identified by the American historian, Richard Hofstadter".

Anti-Jesuitism played an important part in the , culminating in the Jesuit Law of 1872, endorsed by Otto von Bismarck, which required Jesuits to dissolve their houses in Germany, forbade members from exercising most of their religious functions, and allowed the authorities to deny residency to individual members of the order. Some of the law's provisions were removed in 1904, but it was only repealed in 1917.

In the 1930s, Jesuit conspiracy theories were made use of by the Nazi Party with the goal of reducing the influence of the Jesuits, who ran secondary schools and engaged in youth work. A propaganda pamphlet, "The Jesuit: The Obscurantist without a Homeland" by Hubert Hermanns, warned against the Jesuits' "dark power" and "mysterious intentions". Declared "public vermin" () by the Nazis, Jesuits were persecuted, interned, and sometimes murdered.

Sinking the ''Titanic''

The Jesuits have been accused of having a role in the sinking of the ''Titanic''. This theory posits that, in the early 20th century, the Jesuits were seeking a means to fund their schemes and wars. In 1910, at a clandestine meeting which was hosted by J. P. Morgan, seven major financiers, all of whom were either controlled by or in league with the Jesuits, came to an agreement on the need to eliminate outside competition in the banking world and create a central bank which would be backed by the United States Government, a bank which would later be known as the Federal Reserve. This scheme, however, was opposed by certain influential businessmen such as Benjamin Guggenheim, Isidor Straus and John Jacob Astor IV. In order to eliminate those three powerful "enemies", the Jesuits ordered Morgan to build the ''Titanic'' and arrange for them to board it for a pre-arranged fatal maiden voyage.Bruce Beveridge and Steve Hall. ''Titanic & Olympic: The Truth Behind the Conspiracy''. Haverford, Pennsylvania: Infinity Publishing, 2004, p. i.

The theory includes the claim that Captain Edward Smith was a "Jesuit temporal coadjutor". The "accidental sinking" was arranged by having Smith's "Jesuit master", Father Francis Browne, board the ''Titanic'' and order Smith to run his ship at full speed through an ice field on a moonless night, ignoring any ice warnings including those from the lookouts, with the purpose of hitting an iceberg severely enough to cause the ship to founder and the three businessmen to drown. In other words, the ''Titanic'' was built and then sunk, and her crew and passengers sacrificed, to eliminate three men. As evidence of conspiracy on Rome's part, the conspiracy theorists cite Browne asking permission from his Jesuit superior to proceed with some potentially wealthy American benefactors, in which he received an unambiguous reply by telegram saying "GET OFF THAT SHIP – PROVINCIAL", After the sinking, all opposition to the Federal Reserve disappeared. The banking system was established in December 1913, and eight months later the Jesuits had sufficient funding to launch a European war.

In the United States

Jesuit conspiracy theories found fertile ground in the United States, and continue to be propagated there under the broader umbrella of anti-Catholicism in the United States. Anti-Jesuit literature began to be circulated in the early 19th century. In 1835, Samuel B. Morse published ''Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States,'' which accused the Jesuits of being Austrian agents sent to destabilize American democracy. A survival of Robert Ware's fabricated oath can be found in the 1851 book ''The Female Jesuit, or, The Spy in the Family,'' which revolved around the notion that Jesuits were placing Catholic girls into Protestant families to spy on them. As Catholic immigration to the United States increased, Jesuit prominence in Catholic education resulted in further conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorist Mitchell Haney Wilcoxon in 1928 alleged that the Jesuits were behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, as part of a broader conspiracy to squash American democracy. In more modern times, conspiracy theorists have claimed that Jesuits were behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

See also

* List of conspiracy theories
* Alumbrados
* Knights Templar
* Sovereign Military Order of Malta
* Fourth vow
* Anti-Catholicism
* Vatican conspiracy theories
* Pope John Paul I conspiracy theories

References

{{Conspiracy theories

Anti-Catholicism
Conspiracy theories involving Catholics
Society of Jesus