Bishop Keane admits that one of the causes for the decline and overthrow of the society was its marked tendency toward lax moral teaching.  There can be but little doubt that the Jesuits have ever been indulgent toward many forms of sin and even crime, when committed under certain circumstances and for the good of the order or “the greater glory of God.”

To enable the reader to form some sort of an independent judgment on this question, it is necessary to say a few words on the subject of casuistry and the doctrine of probabilism.

Casuistry is the application of general moral rules to given cases, especially to doubtful ones.  The medieval churchmen were much given to inventing fanciful moral distinctions and to prescribing rules to govern supposable problems of conscience.  They were not willing to trust the individual conscience or to encourage personal responsibility.  The individual was taught to lean his whole weight on his spiritual adviser, in other words, to make the conscience of the church his own.  As a result there grew up a confused mass of precepts to guide the perplexed conscience.  The Jesuits carried this system to its farthest extreme.  As Charles C. Starbuck says:  “They have heaped possibility upon possibility in their endeavors to make out how far there can be subjective innocence in objective error, until they have, in more than one fundamental point, hopelessly confused their own perceptions of both[H].”

[Footnote H:  Appendix, Note H.]

The doctrine of probabilism is founded upon the distinctions between opinions that are sure, less sure, or more sure.  There are several schools of probabilists, but the doctrine itself practically amounts to this:  Since uncertainty attaches to many of our decisions in moral affairs, one must follow the more probable rule, but not always, cases often arising when it is permissible to follow a rule contrary to the more probable one.  Furthermore, as the Jesuits made war upon individual authority, which was the key-note of the Reformation, and contended for the authority of the church, the teaching naturally followed, that the opinion of “a grave doctor” may be looked upon “as possessing a fair amount of probability, and may, therefore, be safely followed, even though one’s conscience insist upon the opposite course.”  It is easy to see that this opens a convenient door to those who are seeking justification for conduct which their consciences condemn.  No doubt one can find plausible excuses for the basest crimes, if he stills the voice of conscience and trusts himself to confusing sophistry.  The glory of God, the gravity of circumstances, necessity, the good of the church or of the order, and numerous other practical reasons can be urged to remove scruples and make a bad act seem to be a good one.  But crime, even “for the glory of God,” is crime still.