This Week in Christian History: Jesuit Suppression, Papal Infallibility
Pope Dissolves Jesuit Order – July 21, 1773
This week marks the anniversary of when Pope Clement XIV issued a papal bull dissolving the Order of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits.
By the late eighteenth century, there was a growing contempt for the Catholic Church in Western Europe, with some nations viewing the Jesuits as the worst representatives of the papacy.
"The Protestant states of Europe had shaken off papal control; the Catholic monarchies of France, Spain, Portugal, Naples and Sicily longed to do the same," noted ucanews.com.
"So the Society not only faced the hatred of governments hostile to the papacy, who saw the Jesuits as the Pope's 'sword arm', but also of a weak papacy under Clement XIV, who finally capitulated to the demands of the monarchies of Spain, France and Portugal to suppress the Jesuits."
As a way of placating these countries, on July 21 1773, Pope Clement XIV issued a brief, or papal bull, titled "Dominus ac Redemptor" that officially suppressed the Jesuit Order.
"We declare all, and all kind of authority, the General, the provincials, the visitors, and other superiors of the said Society to be FOR EVER ANNULLED AND EXTINGUISHED, of what nature soever the said authority may be, as well in things spiritual as temporal," read the brief in part.
The suppression of the Jesuits would continue until 1814. Nearly two hundred years after the Jesuits were restored, one of their own became Pope Francis.
