Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) was one of the most prolific authors of all time. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic, worked on Latin documents, and made himself very well-informed about Christianity, but turned against it. But he was extremely naive about Jews; bear this in mind.
Click for Detailed notes on McCabe - scroll down for selections from A Rationalist Encyclopaedia (1948).
Here's the full A Rationalist Encyclopaedia (about 1.3 MBytes; Word format; includes notes on some of its limits)
Click for Detailed notes on McCabe - scroll down for selections from A Rationalist Encyclopaedia (1948).
Here's the full A Rationalist Encyclopaedia (about 1.3 MBytes; Word format; includes notes on some of its limits)
Ignatius Loyola.
J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia
Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), founder of the Jesuit Society. A Basque of noble parents and very little education - he had laboriously to learn the elements of Latin at the age of thirty - he became a soldier, but was maimed and found the military career closed against him. Developing a religious mood in his convalescence, he determined to become a soldier of the faith and pour all the fire of his nature into the work. Catholic statements that he at once conceived the plan of a Society to fight Protestantism are false. Lutherans were at that time not a serious menace. Ignatius had a wild idea of going to convert the Turks, and his behaviour was so eccentric that he was imprisoned by the Inquisition. He then went to Paris and began to form a group of disciples in almost melodramatic secrecy. They were to serve the Pope, and when he passed to Rome he further developed the characteristic Jesuit policy of deceiving in order to get power. His followers were to pose as helpers of the sick poor while they cultivated the rich. "Let us," he said, "avoid all relations with women except those of the highest rank." The Reformers made the vices of monastic bodies one of their chief points, and the few cardinals and prelates who wanted reform urged the suppression of all Orders instead of founding more. He therefore drafted a scheme of a non-monastic body, the Society of Jesus, and, after a long period of intrigue, got it sanctioned. [See Jesuits.] From the start Ignatius himself stamped its peculiarities - deception, intrigue, and pursuit of the rich - upon the Society. He was its first General, and, while professing his reluctance to occupy the position, which he at first refused, he, when another priest received many votes in a second ballot, made his own vote blank - the first Jesuit historian Orlandini tells us - and thus in effect voted for himself. See McCabe's Candid History of the Jesuits (1913).
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