CONCLUSION
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failure, and the "heritage of Saint-Peter", instead of increasing in the East, was reduced by that much. An undeniable fact remains: the national-socialist government, "the most Catholic Germany ever had"(10), was also and by far the most abjectly cruel—without excluding from the comparison the barbarian epochs. Painful declaration indeed for many believers, but one it would be wise meditating upon. In the Order's "burgs", where the training was a copy of the Jesuitic method, the master—apparent, at least—of the Third Reich formed this "SS elite" before which, according to his wishes, the world "trembled"—but also vomited with disgust. The same causes produce the same results. "There are disciplines too heavy for the human soul to bear and which would utterly break a conscience... Crime of alienation of oneself masked by heroism... No commandment can be good if, first of all, it corrupts a soul. When one has engaged oneself fully in a society, other beings lose much of their importance".(l 1) In fact, the Nazi chiefs had no consideration for the "other beings"; we can say the same as well of the Jesuits! "They made obedience their idol".(12) And this utter obedience was invoked by the accused of Nuremberg to excuse their awful crimes. Finally, we borrow from the same author, who analysed Jesuitic fanaticism so well, this final judgment: "We reproach the Company with its skill, its politics and deceit, we ascribe to it all the calculations, all the hidden motives, all the underhand blows; we reproach her even with the intelligence of its members. Yet there isn't one country where the Society has not experienced great disappointment, where it hasn't behaved in a scandalous manner and drawn upon itself righteous anger. "If their machiavellism had the depth generally attributed to it, would these grave and thoughtful men constantly throw themselves into abysses human wisdom can foresee, into catastrophes they were bound to expect as the Order experienced similar ones in all civilized States? "The explanation is simple: a powerful genius governs the Society, a genius so powerful that it thrusts it sometimes even against stumblingblocks, as if it could break them, ad majorem Dei Gloriam". "This genius is not the one of the general, of his advice, of the provincials, nor the heads of every household... "It is the living genius of this vast body, it is the inevitable strength resulting from this gathering of sacrificed consciences, bound intelligences; it is the explosive strength and domineering fury of the Order, resulting from its nature itself. (11) and ( 1 2 Henri Petit: "L'Honneur de Dieu", pp.25, 72, 73.