Jesus Sacred Heart, Society of

Jesus' Sacred Heart, Society of.

In the beginning of the 18th century, the Jesuits, fearing the suppression of their own order, actively engaged in the establishment of other orders likely to continue the same peculiar work. More particularly these were the Societies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which they formed in nearly every part of the world where Roman Catholicism, especially Jesuitism, had a foothold. Ostensibly they were to be societies of a purely religious character, but in reality they proved to be nothing more nor less than the society of the Baccanarists — an asylum for the ex-Jesuits, a society in the Church of Rome advocating the doctrines of the Jesuits under a new name and form. Stuch was evidently the aim of this society in 1794, when the ex- Jesuit abbes Charles de Broglie, Pey, Tournely, and others of lesser note, organized it at. a country retreat near Lowen, in Belgium, with Tournely (q.v.) as superior. After the battle of Fleurus (June 26, 1794), not only the fate of Belgium seemed determined, but also that of this society, and it was post haste removed to more congenial climes. They found a protector in the elector Clemens Wenceslaus, and settled at Treves. "The Jesuits who dwelt there," says a Roman Catholic writer, "would gladly have welcomed them as of their own number if these Frenchmen had only been masters of the German language." They flourished at Treves for more than two years, when the approach of the victorious French army obliged them again to pull up stakes, and they settled first at Passau, next at Vienna, and, when driven from the imperial city, removed to its very shades, entering, even after this (1797), quite frequently the limits of Vienna. In 1799 the order was merged into that of the Baccanarists (q.v.).

A female order of like name with the above, whose origin is also attributed to the Jesuits, was founded in 1800 at Paris. The first leader of it was the maiden Barat, and it was approved by Leo XII December 22, 1826. As they engage in the education of young females, they enjoy, not only in Roman Catholic countries, a favorable reputation, but are in a flourishing condition in many Protestant countries also. They have in Europe alone more than a hundred establishments. They exist also in America and Africa. Their private aims, no doubt, are those of the Jesuitical order. See Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 5, 116; Wetzer und Welte, Kirchen-Lex. 4, 485 sq.; Henrian-Fehr, Mönchsorden, 2, 62 sq.; Schlör, Die Frauen v. heil. Herzen Jesu (Grätz, 1846, 8vo). SEE SACRED HEART.