Read Online The Poor Mouth by Flann O’Brien, Patrick C. Power - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Flann O’Brien, Patrick C. Power
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Humorous, Social Science, Family Life, Satire, Poverty, Ireland, Poor, Poor in Literature, Ireland - Fiction, Poor - Fiction
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–You never said a truer word, Father.
–Aren’t we the stupid and presumptuous pair to be talking in this loose way about the Order of men such as Ignatius and Francis Xavier?
–Hold on a moment now.
–Xavier was the evangelist of Japan. Jesuit evangelists preached the Gospel, often in face of persecution and martyrdom, to the Indians of North America, to the natives of the Philippines and the countries of South America, even to the English when the Catholic Church was proscribed there. They went everywhere. Nothing stopped them.
–Hold on a moment now, Father. Whisht now for a minute and listen to me. It is true that the Jesuits were everywhere and had a finger in every pie. They were cute hawks. They were far too powerful, not only in the Church itself but in the world. They made all sorts of kings and queens and captains take to themselves a Jesuit chaplain. Can you imagine Parnell with a Jesuit chaplain?
–Parnell was not a Catholic, and I don’t believe he was a real Irishman. It is an English name.
–Those devout priests infested the courts of Europe and had the same courts in their pockets. They were sacerdotal politicians and that’s what they were. Those ignorant and drunken princes and emperors were no match for them. Sure they’d excommunicate you as soon as they’d look at you.
–Nonsense. A priest has no power of excommunication.
–Maybe so. But hadn’t they the bishop in their pockets as well. The bishop had to do as they ordered him.
–You’re annoying me, Collopy. Here, play with this glass.
–Certaintly. But there were two very great men in France, Pascal and Voltaire. That pair had no time for the Jesuits at all, and neither had the Jansenist crowd. Am I right?
–Yes, reasonably so.
–The Jesuits had rows with the Sorbonne, with the Franciscans and the Dominicans on questions of doctrine. A lot of pious and intelligent men thought the Jesuits were heretics or schismatics. Faith now and there was no smoke without fire—hell-fire, maybe. Onwards from 1760 or so, they were given their marching orders in Portugal, France and parts of Italy itself. Messengers and runners and wren-boys were dispatched wholesale by several states in Europe to Rome to try to bully the Pope into suppressing the Order. And fair enough, they weren’t wasting their time. The Pope of that fine day was Clemens XIV. Lo and behold, in 1773 he issued a Bull suppressing the Order because it could no longer carry out the work for which it was founded.
–Yes, Father Fahrt said, Dominus ac Redemptor Noster.
–Excuse me, I said.
It was brazenly cheeky on my part to try to emulate the brother as interlocutor. But my labours at school on Schuster’s Church History were not to be denied.
–Yes? Mr Collopy said rather grumpily.
– Dominus ac Redemptor Noster was not a Bull. It was a Brief. There is a difference.
–The boy is perfectly right, Father Fahrt said.
Mr Collopy did not like the pedantic intrusion.
–Call the thing what you like, he said crankily, the fact remains that the Holy Father suppressed the Society. That was a matter of faith and morals and in doing that the Pope was infallible.
–Collopy, Father Fahrt said sharply, that merely proves again that you do not know what you are talking about. It was not till 1870, when Pius IX was pontiff, that the Vatican Council proclaimed the dogma of papal infallibility. You are almost one hundred years out. Furthermore, the suppression of a religious order has nothing to do with faith and morals in the universal church.
–You are being technical as usual, Father, Mr Collopy said in a bantering tone. Hand over your glass like a good man.
–Thanks. Not much now.
–One of the bitterest objections to the machinations of the Jesuits was this. Some of the priests mixed up their missionary work with trading and money-making and speculation. A French Jesuit named Father La Valette was up to his ears in buying and selling. Mendicant order
–You never said a truer word, Father.
–Aren’t we the stupid and presumptuous pair to be talking in this loose way about the Order of men such as Ignatius and Francis Xavier?
–Hold on a moment now.
–Xavier was the evangelist of Japan. Jesuit evangelists preached the Gospel, often in face of persecution and martyrdom, to the Indians of North America, to the natives of the Philippines and the countries of South America, even to the English when the Catholic Church was proscribed there. They went everywhere. Nothing stopped them.
–Hold on a moment now, Father. Whisht now for a minute and listen to me. It is true that the Jesuits were everywhere and had a finger in every pie. They were cute hawks. They were far too powerful, not only in the Church itself but in the world. They made all sorts of kings and queens and captains take to themselves a Jesuit chaplain. Can you imagine Parnell with a Jesuit chaplain?
–Parnell was not a Catholic, and I don’t believe he was a real Irishman. It is an English name.
–Those devout priests infested the courts of Europe and had the same courts in their pockets. They were sacerdotal politicians and that’s what they were. Those ignorant and drunken princes and emperors were no match for them. Sure they’d excommunicate you as soon as they’d look at you.
–Nonsense. A priest has no power of excommunication.
–Maybe so. But hadn’t they the bishop in their pockets as well. The bishop had to do as they ordered him.
–You’re annoying me, Collopy. Here, play with this glass.
–Certaintly. But there were two very great men in France, Pascal and Voltaire. That pair had no time for the Jesuits at all, and neither had the Jansenist crowd. Am I right?
–Yes, reasonably so.
–The Jesuits had rows with the Sorbonne, with the Franciscans and the Dominicans on questions of doctrine. A lot of pious and intelligent men thought the Jesuits were heretics or schismatics. Faith now and there was no smoke without fire—hell-fire, maybe. Onwards from 1760 or so, they were given their marching orders in Portugal, France and parts of Italy itself. Messengers and runners and wren-boys were dispatched wholesale by several states in Europe to Rome to try to bully the Pope into suppressing the Order. And fair enough, they weren’t wasting their time. The Pope of that fine day was Clemens XIV. Lo and behold, in 1773 he issued a Bull suppressing the Order because it could no longer carry out the work for which it was founded.
–Yes, Father Fahrt said, Dominus ac Redemptor Noster.
–Excuse me, I said.
It was brazenly cheeky on my part to try to emulate the brother as interlocutor. But my labours at school on Schuster’s Church History were not to be denied.
–Yes? Mr Collopy said rather grumpily.
– Dominus ac Redemptor Noster was not a Bull. It was a Brief. There is a difference.
–The boy is perfectly right, Father Fahrt said.
Mr Collopy did not like the pedantic intrusion.
–Call the thing what you like, he said crankily, the fact remains that the Holy Father suppressed the Society. That was a matter of faith and morals and in doing that the Pope was infallible.
–Collopy, Father Fahrt said sharply, that merely proves again that you do not know what you are talking about. It was not till 1870, when Pius IX was pontiff, that the Vatican Council proclaimed the dogma of papal infallibility. You are almost one hundred years out. Furthermore, the suppression of a religious order has nothing to do with faith and morals in the universal church.
–You are being technical as usual, Father, Mr Collopy said in a bantering tone. Hand over your glass like a good man.
–Thanks. Not much now.
–One of the bitterest objections to the machinations of the Jesuits was this. Some of the priests mixed up their missionary work with trading and money-making and speculation. A French Jesuit named Father La Valette was up to his ears in buying and selling. Mendicant order
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