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, who were often accused by their enemies due to the intellectual and political influence which members of the Society of Jesus exerted.
History
The earliest recorded Jesuit conspiracy theory is found from 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 would appear. The zealous Dominican, Melchor Cano, who had publicized a letter two days before his death, stated the following:
Later these claims would find its proofs in the Monita secreta, a document detailing the supposed illicit ways that inducted members of the Society were using to gain both temporal and spiritual ascendancy over all. First published in Krakow, 1612, edited and published by the 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, who 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.
The 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".