The Jesuits - James Aitken Wylie

suddenly the very evening before the day appointed
for the conclave. Lorenzo Ganganelli was elevated
to the vacant chair under the title of Clement XIV.
Ganganelli was studious, learned, of pure morals,
and of genuine piety. From the schoolmen he
turned to the Fathers, forsaking the Fathers he gave
himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures, where
he learned on what Rock to fix the anchor of his
faith. Clement XIV strove for several years, with
honest but mistaken zeal, to reform the Order. Hisefforts
were fruitless. On the 21st of July, 1773, he
issued the famous bull, "Dominus ac Redemptor
noster," By which he "dissolved and for ever
annihilated the Order as a corporate body," at a
moment when it counted 22,000 members.[9]
The bull justifies itself by a long and
formidable list of charges against the Jesuits. Had
this accusation proceeded from a Protestant pen it
might have been regarded as not free from
exaggeration, but coming from the Papal chair it
must be accepted as the sober truth. The bull of
Clement charged them with raising various
insurrections and rebellions, with plotting against
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