# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 12 06_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

58

principle that, of two opinions concerning an action one wishes to perform, one may forsake the undoubtedly safe one, that is, the one by which one certainly does not sin, and prefer and adopt the opinion which leaves more freedom, even if it is not so safe, provided it only appears probable, that is, acceptable. But the Jesuits already recognize as a probable opinion that for which one can adduce any sort of ground, or even only the testimony of one or another esteemed Jesuit or other writer.*) According to this, many a Jesuit can always declare that in regard to this or that offensive doctrine of other Jesuits he is of a different opinion: the order itself permits every member, nevertheless, to prefer the immoral doctrine as an at least probable one to another, even a more probable one. Thus it is said further in the Institutum of the Jesuits already cited: "Since it had been reported to the General Assembly" (in the year 1687, under the General Gonzalez) "that many believe the order has set itself the task of holding fast, as it were with a common zeal, the opinion of those teachers who hold that it is permitted to follow the less probable opinion in one's actions when it leaves more freedom, and to let the more probable one go, which stands on the side of the commandment: the General Assembly has thought good to declare that the order has neither forbidden nor does forbid that those hold the opposite opinion to whom it should appear more acceptable." (Institut. Vol I. fol. 667) Not to pay homage to the immoral Probabilism is therefore, according to the Jesuits' own constitution, merely not forbidden!

*) We shall below communicate to the reader the Jesuits' own testimonies in which they have pronounced this their Probabilism.

The third ground why the immoral principles of so many Jesuits come, with the fullest right, upon the account of the whole order is, finally, this, that the poisonous roots from which the lax, indeed ruthless morality of those Jesuits has grown lie in the principles which are already laid down in the constitution of the order. The immoral moral doctrine set up by the Jesuits, which the world has until now read with horror, is namely nothing else than a faithful development of what is already found as a germ in their fundamental constitution. To cite only a few things, we read in the Institutum so often named the following: "We are to follow the voice of the Superior willingly, not otherwise than as if it proceeded from Christ the Lord. To this end we are to direct all our powers and all our endeavor in the Lord to this, that holy obedience may be in us always perfect in all parts, both in the execution of things and in the will and in the understanding, in that we accomplish whatever may have been enjoined upon us with great promptness, spiritual joy and perseverance; persuade ourselves that everything is just; and renounce our contrary judgment by a blind obedience of conscience. Everyone shall hold himself convinced that those who live under obedience are to let themselves be driven and governed by divine Providence through their Superiors, not otherwise than as if they were a dead body, which lets itself be turned whither one will and be dealt with in any way one pleases, or like the staff of an old man, which serves him who holds it in his hand, wherever and in whatever matter he may ever wish to use it." (Summarium constitutionum, quae ab omnibus observandae sunt. L. c. Vol. II. fol. 73. 74.) In another place Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order, writes: "In fasting, in watching, and in other severity of manner of life and of divine service we are to let ourselves be surpassed by other religious orders (!), which each adopts after its own manner and rule: but this I would, my dearest brethren, that all those who serve the Lord our God in this Society should distinguish themselves above all by true and perfect obedience and by the renunciation of will and judgment.**) That excellent simplicity of blind obedience, however, perishes if we first call in question among ourselves whether the command is right or not. "John the Abbot did not reflect on whether what had been commanded him was useful or useless, when he watered a withered stick with such great and long labor for a whole year; or whether it was possible or not, when in perfect earnest he tried to move by himself so enormous a block of rock as even many men together could not have moved." (L. c. Vol. II. fol. 161. 164.

As to obedience in matters of faith and conscience, we read, among other things, the following: "We are to be wholly of one mind with the Catholic Church and conformed to it; if it should determine that something which appears white to our eyes is black, we are bound likewise to declare that it is black." (Ignatii exercitia spiritualia L. c. fol. 430.) "He who is to be received is to be asked whether in all scruples, whether spiritual temptations or any others which he suffers or may at any time suffer, he will forsake his own judgment and rest in the opinions of others of the Society who are endowed with doctrine and uprightness." Examen general. Vol. I. fol. 344 345.)

**) Truly a remarkable confession! The Jesuit, accordingly, willingly lets others surpass him in godliness, only not in blind obedience to the order; in this he would surpass all: the order is his Christ, his God, obedience to the order his virtue, his righteousness.

It is clear: by the vow of such blind obedience a Jesuit forfeits outright the privilege of being a moral being. He is not merely, like the Negro, bodily, but even spiritually, as to his soul, with heart, conscience, will and power of judgment, a slave of the order; he is no longer a man, but, as the Institutum itself expressly says, a morally dead corpse, a lifeless tool of the order, become a stick, which may have no will of its own, no judgment of its own, no heart and conscience. In the place of all this stands the order in his Superiors. It is clear that whoever has sworn such a vow of obedience may know of no sin any more than that of having done, spoken, willed, held right or true, and thought something other than his order, his Superior, has required of him. We must not, therefore, wonder that Jesuits have taught so dreadful a morality, but rather we should have to be astonished, as at something inexplicable, if it were not so.

It is indeed true that in two or three places of the Institutum "open sin" is excepted from that in which the Jesuit must render prompt obedience to his Superior; but not only is it prudently not stated what counts as such "open sins" within the Jesuit order, (and what else can that be, after what has been cited above, than once more only sins against the order?)*), but there are also clear passages in the Institutum in which even the necessity of committing mortal sins out of obedience to the Superiors is acknowledged. It is namely said in the 5th chapter of the 6th part of the Constitutions, which make up a chief part of the Institutum of the Jesuits, literally as follows: "Since the Society desires that all its Constitutions, its declarations and its rule of living be observed, wholly in accordance with our Institutum, without the slightest deviation in any matter; since it also nevertheless desires that all who err may be secure, or at least supported, that they may not fall into the snare of any sin which may arise from the binding force of such Constitutions or rules: we have therefore resolved in the Lord that — with the exception of the express vow by which the Society is bound to the Pope for the time being

*) A Jesuit may, indeed, when he is commanded to obey, as we have heard above, not at all call in question whether what is demanded is right or not right; he has rather the duty "to persuade himself that everything is right."