Page - 312 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 7312 ought to be targeted, while the Portuguese, Spanish–Neapolitan, and French practices vis-à-vis individual members, such as incarceration or expulsion, were inhuman and ought to be avoided.11 The position of the main decision- makers on the suppression of the Society of Jesus can be described as one of pragmatic aloofness, aptly summarized in a letter of 1768 by Joseph ii to his brother, Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany (1747–92, r. as grand duke 1765–90, as emperor 1790–92): “We have not been ready to involve ourselves either for or against, having insufficient reason to desire their destruction, but not regard- ing their existence as so necessary that we must protect them.”12 These were the principles actually followed by the Habsburg government upon the issuance of Clement xiv’s breve Dominus ac redemptor noster on July 21, 1773, announcing the suppression of the Society of Jesus on the grounds that it had not only ceased to produce the desired benefits but even gave rise to re- sentment and strife among the peoples of Christendom, and therefore support must be withdrawn from it. Once the papal decision had been made—and it must be borne in mind that the pope was the sovereign ruler over the Society of Jesus as an international order—the only issue for the Habsburg govern- ment was not the dissolution of the 192 houses in Austria and Hungary, but the future of Jesuit property and of individual Jesuits. On both points, the ap- proach of Joseph ii, supported by both his mother and Kaunitz, prevailed. The emperor opposed the curia’s original plan to transfer the property to the ad- ministration of bishops and insisted that it should be taken over by the state, and—again contrary to the wishes of the pope—the Jesuitenfond created out of it was to be turned not only to religious purposes but to re-employing Jesuits as professors, paying pensions to those for whom no suitable job was found, and other educational purposes as well. A broadly similar pattern of implementation, albeit on a much larger scale, was followed in the more radical steps taken immediately after Joseph had become sole ruler in 1780. Unlike previously, when the justification for the measures against the religious orders and for ecclesiastical reform altogether was based chiefly on the (real or alleged) abuses found in particular houses, the general principle of “usefulness” now became paramount. The Patent of 11 Ferdinand Maas, “Die österreichischen Jesuiten zwischen Josephinismus und Liberalis- mus,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 80 (1958): 66–100, here 66–67. 12 Cited in Derek Beales, “Maria Theresa, Joseph ii, and the Suppression of the Jesuits,” in Beales, Enlightenment and Reform, 206–26, here 206. Cf. Beales, Joseph ii, 1:460–64. The summary in the whole of this paragraph and the next largely follows Beales’s analysis. Cf. also Helmut Kröll, “Die Auswirkungen der Aufhebung des Jesuitenordens in Wien und Niederösterreich: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Josephinismus in Österreich,” Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 34 (1971): 547–617.