CHAPTER XIV


UPON RESERVED CASES AND MOTIVES THAT NECESSITATE EXPULSION FROM SOCIETY.

1. To most of the cases expressed in the Constitutions, and of which only the Superior or the ordinary confessor, with permission of this, can absolve them, where there is sodomy, unseats crime, fornication, adultery, of the unchaste touch of a man, or of a woman; also if under the pretext of zeal, or whatever motive, they have done some grave thing against the Society; against its honors and its gains; these will be just causes for reason of the expulsion of the guilty.

2. If anyone confesses in the confessional of having committed some similar act, he will not be promised absolution, until he has promised to reveal to the Superior, outside of the confessional, the same or by his confessor. The Superior will operate the better for it, in the general interests of the Society; further, if there is founded hope of the careful hiding of the crime, it will be necessary to impose upon the guilty a convenient punishment; if otherwise be can be expelled much before. With all the care that is possible, the confessor will give the penitent to understand that he runs the danger of being expelled.

3. If any one of our confessors, having heard a strange person say, that he had committed a shameful thing with one of the Society, he will not absolve such a person, without his having said, outside of his confession, the name of the one with whom he has sinned; and if he so says, he will be made to swear that he will not divulge the same, without the consent of the Society.

4. If two of ourselves have sinned carnally, he who first avows it will be retained in the Society; and the other will be expelled; but he who remains permanent, will be after such mortification and bad treatment, of sorrow, and by his impatience, and if we have occasion for his expulsion, it will be necessary for the future of it that it be done directly.

5. The Society being a noble corporation and preeminent in the Church, it can dismiss those that will not be apt for the execution of our object, although giving satisfaction in the beginning; and the opportunity does not delay in presenting itself; if it procures continuous maltreatment; and if he is obliged to do contrary to his inclination; if they are gathered under the orders of gloomy Superiors; if he is separated from his studies and from the honorable functions, &c., &c., until he gets to murmuring.

6. In no manner must we retain in the Society, those that openly reveal against their Superiors, or that will complain publicly, or reservedly, of their companions, or particularly if they make them to strangers; nor to those who are among ourselves, or among persons who are on the outside, censure the conduct of the Society in regard to the acquisition or administration of temporal properties, or whatever acts of the same; for example, of crushing or oppressing many of those whom we do not wish well, or that they the same having been expelled, &c., &c. Nor yet those, that in conversation, who tolerate, or defend the Venetians, the French and others, that have driven the Society away from the territories, or that have occasioned great prejudices.

7. Before the expulsion of any we must vex and harass them in the extreme; depriving them of the functions that they have been accustomed to discharge, dedicating them to others. Although they may do well, it will be necessary to censure them, and with this pretext, apply them to another thing. Imposing by a trifling fault that they have committed the most severe penalties, that they blush in public, until they have lost all patience; and at last will be expelled as pernicious to all, for which a future opportunity will present itself when they will think less.

8. When some one of the Society has a certain hope of obtaining a bishopric, or whatever other ecclesiastical dignity, to most of the ordinary vows of the Society he will be obliged to take another; and that is, that he will always preserve good sentiments towards the Society; that he will always speak favorably of it; that he will not have a confessor that will not be to its bosom; that he will do nothing of entity without having heard the justice of the same. Because in consequence of not having observed this, the Cardinal Tolet the Society had obtained of the Holy See, that no swinish descendants of Jews or Mahometans were admitted, that he did not desire to take such vows; and that for celebrity that is out, he was expelled as a firm enemy of the Society.


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