In those cases in which the State is interested as well as Religion, your apprehension of man's justice has induced you to divide your decisions into two shares. To the first of these you give the name of speculation; under which category crimes, considered in themselves, without regard to society, but merely to the law of God, you [the Jesuits] have permitted, without the least scruple, and in the way of trampling on the divine law which condemns them.
The second you rank under the denomination of practice, and here, considering the injury which may be done to society, and the presence of magistrates who look after the public peace, you take care, in order to keep yourselves on the safe side of the law, not to approve always in practice the murders and other crimes which you have sanctioned in speculation. ... Such is the style in which your opinions begin to develop themselves, under the shelter of this distinction [between speculation and practice], in virtue of which, without doing any sensible injury to society, you only ruin religion. In acting thus, you consider yourselves quite safe. You suppose that, on the one hand, the influence you have in the Church will effectually shield from punishment your assaults on truth; and that, on the other, the precautions you have taken against too easily reducing your permissions to practice will save you on the part of the civil powers, who, not being judges in cases of conscience, are properly concerned only with the outward practice. Thus an opinion which would be condemned under the name of practice, comes out quite safe under the name of speculation.
Blaise Pascal
Provincial Letter n. XIII
September 30, 1656
[Today, Francis published an Apostolic Letter on the 400th anniversary of the Birth of Pascal -- and he mentions Pascal's criticism of the Jesuits as if it applied only to the disciples of Molina. But the criticism was to all Jesuits, and it was enduring. It indicated a Jesuit error that persists to our own age, stronger than ever. If only Pascal had been heard on the Jesuits in his own time!]
