vatican-assassins-by-eric-jon-phelps

Vatican Assassinsfrom which I have just returned, has given me a new idea of ourformidable power. For . . . it is Rome which is the culminating point,overlooking the fairest and broadest quarters of the globe, made so bycustom, by tradition, or by faith. Thence can our workings be embracedin their full extent. It is an uncommon view to see from its height themyriad tools, whose personality is continually absorbed into theimmovable personality of our Order. What a might we possess! Verily, Iam always swayed with admiration, aye almost frightened, that manonce thinks, wishes, believes, and acts as he alone lists, until, soon ours,he becomes but a human shell; its kernel of intelligence, mind, reason,conscience, and free will, shriveled within him, dry and withered by thehabit of mutely, fearingly bowing under mysterious tasks, which shatterand slay everything spontaneous in the human soul! Then do we infusein such spiritless clay, speechless, cold, and motionless as corpses, thebreath of our Order, and, lo! the dry bones stand up and walk; actingand executing, though only within the limits which are circled roundthem evermore. Thus do they become mere limbs of the gigantic trunk,whose impulses they mechanically carry out, while ignorant of thedesign, like the stonecutter who shapes out a stone, unaware if it be forcathedral or bagnio [brothel] . . .But now, in spite of the misfortunes which have befallen our Order, Ifeel myself a thousand times more ready for action, more authoritative,more strong and more daring, at the head of our mute and black-robedmilitia, who only think or wish, or move and obey, mechanically,according to my will. On a sign they scatter over the surface of theglobe, gliding stealthily into households under the guise of confessingthe wife or teaching the children, into family affairs by hearing thedying avowals, – up to the throne through the quaking conscience of acredulous crowned coward; – aye, even to the chair of the Pope, himself,living manifesto of the Godhead though he is, by the services,rendered him or imposed by him. Is not this secret rule, made to kindleor glut the wildest ambition, as it reaches from the cradle to the grave,from the laborer’s hovel to the royal palace, from the palace to the papalchair?” {2} [Emphasis added]Having fired the soul of the French, The Wandering Jew,“ . . . caused such a storm of indignation that the [Jesuit] novitiate wasmoved from Avignon to Nice on orders from General Roothaan. Jesuitsin Paris were hastily redistributed, and in other danger spots there was athinning and scattering of members . . . ” {3}The Jesuits – 1844