# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 01 17_S83
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

83

really the seat of Antichrist and of Antichristendom. — *)

*) If the masked editor of the “Herold des Glaubens” published here is really no Jesuit by profession, then he too is an example confirming our assertion. For he writes: “It cannot be denied that individual Jesuits modified the doctrine of morals.” To Mr. Herold, then, the whole Jesuit theory of knavery is nothing more than a “modification” of Christian morality! Truly, a euphemism which resolves even the last doubt as to what moral principles the Herold himself is fond of.

After what has been communicated, it seems indeed a most superfluous labor to waste a word against the doubts which both the St. Louis Jesuit “Herold des Glaubens” and the New York Jesuit “Kirchenzeitung” of Mr. Oertel have raised, or rather feigned, against the Jesuit origin of the Prague letter of 1629 communicated in No. 5. Or should anyone perhaps still indulge the sweet thought that the Jesuits, though elsewhere in the whole world utter strangers to conscience, cunning schemers, yet were innocent lambs in Prague, of whom one may suspect baseness only with the greatest injustice, which is documented in that anonymous Jesuit letter? Certainly not. But in order to satisfy the “lowest hodmen” of the Jesuits here completely, we communicate to them the following further:

About the time when the letter communicated was written, the Archbishop of Prague was the Cardinal Ernest Adalbert, Count von Harrach. From him there is extant a letter in which he paints his Jesuits in such a way that one can easily form a lively idea of them. What picture, then, does this faithful subject of the Pope draw of his Prague Jesuits? *) He writes about them to Pope Urban VIII, after he had complained of the many corrupters of the Church in Bohemia, among other things as follows: “And among these in this kingdom (Bohemia) the Jesuits are the most pernicious of all, inasmuch as, with unbending spirit, even at the risk of the downfall of the Church, they strive after their power . . . A double arm is needed here, both of the King against the politicians and laymen, and of Your Holiness against the exempt religious, and were it even only against the Jesuits, who with fearful boldness and craftiness are already no longer working secretly toward this, that for them — if only they themselves grow in riches, and also strengthen in the minds of the politicians the opinion of the highest favor and power which they enjoy everywhere, and of the infallibility of their doctrine, whatever else the Church may teach, the church laws and rights ordain, the Archbishop or Pope command, and by whatever means they may achieve this, even if it must thereby come to pass that they, as they threaten, take from the Church the weapon of the thunderbolt of the ban (for even thither they extend their theology), in order that they may not, namely, perhaps be struck by it themselves some day — that for them, I say, all this be permitted, namely, ‘to that greater glory of God,’ of which they so greatly boast . . . Under the earlier emperors they made no great progress, and as the more powerful courtiers kept a watchful eye on their doings, they could win no greater favor; so in the earlier years they cowered in such a way that, since they could not move the head, they at least lashed secretly about them with the tail . . . in the hope of rising in due time with more smiling fortune. And this has indeed happily come to pass, when Emperor Ferdinand II was elected King of Bohemia, whose favor, which they had already obtained long before, they were above all intent on keeping. But when, still in the lifetime of the Emperor Matthias, the Bohemians complained that Ferdinand as King had wished to make innovations in matters of religion contrary to the treaties, not only were the royal governors ill received by the Bohemians with weapons in hand, but also the Jesuits, who were regarded as the authors of the disturbances, were banished from the kingdom by an edict of the insurgents, until, after the meanwhile ensued death of the Emperor Matthias and after the reconquest of Prague by the victorious arms of Ferdinand, elected thereafter, the Jesuits also were brought back into their colleges and houses. For since that time the Jesuits have always enjoyed the highest favor with the so good prince, who, to astonishment, yields obedience to their confessors.”

*) Harrach, it is well to note here, had himself pursued his studies in the German College at Rome under the Jesuits, and therefore knew these fine gentlemen exactly.

In what follows the Archbishop now complains that the Jesuits have drawn to themselves, almost wholly alone, the spiritual goods given back by the Protestants, through cunning and force, have wrung the University of Prague from the Emperor for themselves, and have deprived him, the Archbishop, of the dignity of a Chancellor of the University, and he continues: “It would still be easy for me to bear their hatred if only my person were attacked privately, but since the same touches both my jurisdiction and the public welfare of religion so essentially, that all who resist my jurisdiction seem thereby to be strengthened, I have thought it necessary to implore the arm of your Holiness. These good fathers hold themselves persuaded that it is of such high importance, to the greater glory of God, that they be mighty . . . they think that heaven and the Catholic faith would straightway collapse entirely, if everyone did not confess with the highest reverence, submission, and almost with an oath of homage that they are the most almighty . . . Whoever receives a judgment against him in my archiepiscopal court finds with them the sure refuge of a milder doctrine; whoever seizes church goods, does not accept church visitations, and resists my jurisdiction, finds here a sure theology and moreover friendly protection with them, who have the power; whoever is either through secret heresy an enemy of the Church or an open criminal fears no church discipline, if only he makes use of the Jesuits for it or confesses to one of them; behind such a confession he is then sheltered as behind a shield of Jupiter; and finally no act can go forth from my jurisdiction against which the Jesuits would not have at once a counter-remedy from their theology ready to hand and offer it. Yes, they see that for the maintenance and confirmation of this their power the politicians and secular lords are much more serviceable to them than the Church with her superiors is and will be. There is therefore nothing so questionable that they would not permit to the consciences of laymen, if they thereby only grow richer either in goods or in favor. In all things they wink at it. But that they may not at some time be thrust down from their power by the one weapon of the Church still remaining, they threaten in public writings that on the ground of a probable opinion of recognized teachers they will prove that even the thunderbolt of the ban, hitherto held most sacred in the Church, is no longer so much to be feared from the lords. And finally there is no doctrine so perverse and dangerous which they do not, on every occasion, in their discourses, set before the political lords, who with great eagerness are for the freedom offered, and ruinously instil into them, if only it serves for the strengthening of the secular power, to which they have wholly given themselves in favor, and for the mocking of my authority (which is that of the Church) among laymen. Meanwhile they put my servants, by the most manifest slanders, proved false, and, what is still more base, by libels also, among all sorts of people and especially at the courts of the princes, into so great contempt and so great hatred throughout the whole realm, that it is hard to find, apart from my confidants, scarcely the one or the other who still dares to serve me and to protect my authority openly in Bohemia. Even the ecclesiastical persons subject to me they incite against me, so that the Jesuits in this kingdom have the archiepiscopal respect, I but the name of this dignity. Your Holiness may therefore in good time take care that this their so highly risen power may not at last come to such a pass that it can some day be taken from them again in these parts only with the ruin of the Church. To me it is indeed so formidable that I hold it better to bear myself as though I did not notice the matter, than to proceed against them with so great danger to the commonwealth, as I indeed could and should. They seem to have made themselves unreachable by punishment