menu_book Chapter 54

Section 54 of A History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 4. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A History of the Inquisition of Spain, Volume 4, by Henry Charles Lee. Book 8, Chapter 11, Part 2.

Spheres of Action, Jansenism. Benedict seems to have passed over in dignified silence this indecent threat, that he might be anathematized for heresy, but the breach was wider than ever. In the spring of 1750, the affair was taken out of the hands of Porto Carrero and was confided to Manuel Ventura Figueroa, an auditor of the Rota,

who skillfully induced Benedict to drop the matter, while with equal skill and unlimited bribery, he negotiated the Concordat of 1753, which virtually gave to the crown the patronage of the Spanish Church. Then, in 1755, came the dismissal of Rabago, for his share in exciting the resistance of the Jesuits of Paraguay

to the Treaty of 1750, transferring that colony to Portugal. He was succeeded as confessor by Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, who in that same year had become inquisitor general on the death of Prado y Cuesta. Benedict had never ceased to claim the fulfillment of an offer once made by Fernando to remove Norris's name from the index, and in 1757 he urged the king to afford him that satisfaction

before his death in return for the many favors bestowed. Jesuit influence was no longer supreme, and Fernando ordered an investigation. The documents were collected and were submitted to Bonifaz, who, in December, presented a consulta, dwelling upon the care habitually bestowed by the Inquisition, before condemning the most insignificant book, while, in this case, Cassani and Carrasco had included in the index the works of Norris, without any preliminary examination, and without the knowledge of the Inquisitor General, which was a foul abuse of the confidence reposed in them. Norris's book had been printed in Spain in 1698,

dedicated to Inquisitor General Rocaberti, and had undisputed circulation until these two padres discovered in it traces of Jansenism. Bonifaz therefore concluded that the Pope had just cause of complaint, and that the royal promise should be fulfilled. Accordingly, on January 28, 1758, an edict was issued reciting the prohibition and ending with,

But, having since considered the matter with the mature and serious reflection befitting its importance, we order the removal of the said work from the index, and declare that both it and its most eminent author remain in the same repute and honor as before. For this, the good old Pope expressed his gratification in warm terms to Fernando. This may be assumed as the last struggle over what were conceived to be the doctrinal errors of Jansenism,

and subsequent persecution was directed against it as the opponent of ultramontanism and Jesuitism, and as the supporter of the royal prerogative. There had been, under Philip II, a strong tendency in the Spanish Church to the Gallicanism, which became known as Jansenism. In 1598, Agostino Zanni, the Venetian envoy, says that the Spanish clergy depend on the king first and then on the pope. There was talk of separation from the Holy See and forming under Toledo a national church in imitation of the Gallican.

The Concordat of 1753, which concentrated patronage in the crown, could only strengthen this dependence of the clergy, while the second half of the 18th century witnessed an ominous tendency throughout Europe to throw off subjection to Rome. The celebrated work of Febronius in 1763 boldly attacked the papal autocracy and encouraged the assertion of the regalias. The claims of the Holy See in both spiritual and temporal matters were called in question with a freedom unknown since the great councils of the 15th century, while the reforms of Joseph II and of his brother Leopold of Tuscany and the punctation of the Congress of Ems were disquieting manifestations of the spirit of revolt. It was convenient to stigmatize this spirit as heresy under the name of Jansenism, which thenceforth became the object of the bitterest papal animadversion.

Fray Migeles informs us that Bonifaz, for his share in the vindication of Norris, was reproached with Jansenism, and that thenceforth the Inquisition became a mere instrument in the hands of a court bitterly hostile to Rome, that instead of being a terrible repressor of heresy, it was the defender of the regalias

and persecutor of ultramontanism, in other words, that it was Jansenist, and that it was used in an attempt to lay the foundations in Spain of a schismatic church like that of Utrecht.

This was not the case, but as Jansenism was now merely a doctrinal misnomer for a principle, partly political and partly disciplinary, the Inquisition had a narrow and difficult path to tread. Carlos III was fully convinced of the extent of the regalias. He was involved in constant struggles with the Roman court,

and had little hesitation in dictating to the Inquisition. It did not dare to interfere with the royal prerogatives, but, insofar as it could, it favored ultramontanism by persecuting those against whom it could formulate charges under the guise of Jansenism. The ministers of Carlos III, who survived into the earlier years of Carlos IV, were animated with this spirit of revolt, and there was an active propaganda. The Book of Febronius was secretly printed in Madrid,

and was largely circulated for, although condemned, the Inquisition was compelled prudently to close its eyes. The acts of the Synod of Pistoja were translated into Spanish, and persistent efforts were made to obtain license for their publication, until Pius VI intervened with a letter to the king and frustrated the attempt. When the bull Octorum Fidei, condemning in 1794 the errors of the Synod reached Spain, the Council of Castile reported

against its admission. The University of Salamanca was regarded as a Jansenist hotbed. Jovallanos tells us that all who were trained there were port royalists of the Pistoja sect. The works of Obstrate, Zwola, and Tamburini were in everybody's hands. More than 3,000 copies were in circulation before the Edict of Prohibition appeared, and then only a single volume was surrendered. We hear of the Marquis of Roda, one of the most influential ministers of Carlos III,

uttering warm praises of Port Royal and of the great men connected with it. Naturally, episcopal vacancies were filled with bishops of the same persuasion, and one of them, Joseph Clement of Barcelona, had trouble with the Inquisition for lauding the schismatic Church of Utrecht. In 1792, Augustin Abad I la Sierra, Bishop of Barbastro, was denounced to the Saragossa Tribunal as a Jansenist who favored the French Revolution, but soon afterwards his brother Manuel

was appointed Inquisitor General, and the prosecution was suspended. But when the latter in 1794 was ordered by Carlos IV to resign, he was immediately denounced in his turn. The Inquisition, in fact, could not but be opposed to Jansenism, for one of the objects of the Jansenistic movement was the restoration of episcopal rights and privileges so seriously curtailed by the Holy Office, and the remodeling of its organization was regarded as essential

to the overthrow of ultramontanism. The Jesuits were, therefore, inevitably the allies of the Inquisition. They had conceived a strong hostility to Carlos III, who, since his accession in 1759, had diminished their influence by dismissing from office those who were devoted to them. Their disaffection culminated in the tumults and disturbances of April 1766, which spread through the kingdom from Guipuscoa to Andalusia, and humiliated Carlos to the last degree.

These were evidently the result of concerted action, intelligently directed and supported by ample funds, working on popular discontent caused by scarcity and high prices. Prolonged investigation convinced the king that the company of Jesus was responsible for the troubles, thus explaining the rigor with which the expulsion was executed in 1767, and the implacable determination of Carlos in demanding of Clement XIII and Clement XIV the suppression

of the order. The elimination of the Jesuits was a triumph for so-called Jansenism. It left the educational system of Spain in confusion, and advantage was taken of this to reconstruct it on lines which should train the rising generation in Gallican ideas as to the relations of church and state, and should replace medievalism by modern science. Yet the Inquisition continued the struggle, and its jealous watchfulness is indicated when, in 1773, some chance expressions

of a student led to the denunciation to the Barcelona Tribunal of the teaching of the great Catalan University of Cervera as infected with Bionism and Jansenism, in conformity to the Theologie de Lyon, a book condemned in Rome for its Gallican principles, a denunciation which was duly followed by the prosecution of one of the professors, a Dominican named Pierre. A reaction in the policy of the court came with the rise to power of the infamous royal favorite Godoy.

By a decree of October 19, 1797, Carlos IV permitted the repatriation of the survivors among the Jesuits expelled in 1767. The occupation of the Papal States by Napoleon had deprived them of their Bolognese refuge, and they found themselves ill at ease in the Ligurian Republic to which they had gone. They were therefore compassionately allowed to return, under precautions that should scatter them where they should not trouble the public peace, but they speedily made their influence felt, and were busy in denouncing to the Inquisition, as Jansenists, all who did not share their blind devotion to the Holy See. Still more threatening was the reception in 1800 of the bull,

Octorum Fidei, brought about by the influence of Godoy, and enforced by a royal decree of December 10th, charging the bishops to punish all opinions contrary to the definitions of the bull, while the Inquisition was ordered to suppress all writings in support of the condemned propositions, and the king promised to employ all the power given to him by God,

to enforce these commands the triumph of ultramontanism was complete and godoy richly earned the grotesquely incongruous title bestowed on him by pious the sixth of pillar of the faith the charge was one easy to bring and the intelligent classes in spain were kept in a state of unrest and apprehension an illustrative case was that of two brothers geronimo and antonio de la cuesta one penitentiary and the other archdeacon in the church of avila They incurred the enmity of their bishop, Raphael de Musquiz, confessor of Queen Maria Luisa de Parma. He organized a formidable conspiracy against them,

and they were denounced as Jansenists in 1801 to the tribunal of Valladolid. Musquiz was promoted to the arch-episcopal see of Compostela, but there was no slackening in the energy of the prosecution. Antonio escaped to Paris, but Geronimo was thrown into the secret prison where he lay for five years. In spite of the mass of testimony accumulated against him, he was acquitted by the tribunal,

but the Suprema refused to accept the decision and removed the inquisitors. The brothers had powerful friends at court, who prevailed on Carlos to intervene. when he had all the papers submitted to him and decided the case himself, an assumption of royal jurisdiction for which it would be difficult to find a precedent. By royal decrees of May 7, 1806, he ordered that the Valladolid inquisitors

should be in no way prejudiced by their removal, but should be capable of promotion. Geronimo was restored to his dignity in the Church of Avila, with ceremonies galling to his adversaries, he was to receive all the arrears of his pre-bend. His trial and imprisonment were not to inflict any disability on him or his kindred, and his name was to be erased from the record, so that no trace of it should remain. The papers in the case

against the fugitive brother Antonio were to be sealed up and delivered to the Secretaria di gracia e justicia. Heavy fines, moreover, were levied on all concerned in the prosecution, to defray the expenses of the trial, and any excess was to be paid to Geronimo. They amounted in all to 11,455 ducats, assessed upon 21 persons, all clerics except one or two officials, and in addition to these, there were nine regulars, Carmelites, Benedictines,

Franciscans and Dominicans, who were banished for thirty leagues around Madrid and royal residences. Two of them were calificadors, and one a notary of a commissioner, who were incapacitated for their functions. Archbishop Muzquiz did not wholly escape. Geronimo's defense placed him in the position of a calumniator, and in his efforts at extrication, he accused the inquisitors of Valladolid and the inquisitor general Arceirenosso of partiality.

This exposed him to prosecution under the bull Si di Protegendis. His episcopal dignity protected him from arrest, but he was fined in 8,000 ducats, and the bishop of Valladolid, who, when canon of Avila, had joined in the conspiracy, was fined in 4,000. They would not have escaped so easily but for the influence with Godoy of a lady who was popularly reputed to have received a million of reals for her services. As we have seen, in Jansenism the doctrinal points involved

were of interest only to the sublimated theologian, and they were virtually lost to view at an early period. Being thus incapable of precise theological definition, it was a favorite weapon for the gratification of enmity, as it could be charged against all opponents of whatever character. Even as the French Jacobins were stigmatized as Jansenists, so those Spaniards who submitted to the intrusive government of Joseph Bonaparte were classed as Jansenists, and so were their most

active antagonists, the liberal members of the Cortez of Cadiz. The fact is that the French revolution, which Orthodox writers represent as the triumph of Jansenism, was in reality its death blow, for in that cataclysm disappeared the powerful and well-organized hierarchy, which alone could struggle within the Church against the advance of ultramontanism and its attendant probabilism. We hear little of Jansenism under the Restoration, though it is sometimes included

subordinately in the charges of anti-political opinions. The bitterness still felt towards it, however, is well expressed by Vélez, Archbishop of Santiago, as late as 1825, when he ignorantly declares that Jansen caused the rebellion of the Low Countries against Spain in the Assembly of 1633, while his disciples, uniting in Bourg-Fontaine and Portugal, conspired against the lives of all princes. Janssen supported the doctrines of the Calvinists and Lutherans against the faith,

and his followers promulgated the greatest errors against the Church and its discipline.