Yet a radical purification of society seemed of less importance to her than the conservation of Catholic orthodoxy and the inculcation of obedience to ecclesiastical authority.

When we analyze the Jesuits' system of education, and their method of conducting the care of souls, we shall see to what extent the deeply seated hypocrisy of the Counter-Reformation had penetrated the most vital parts of the Catholic system.

It will suffice, at the close of this chapter, to touch upon one other repressive measure adopted by the Church in its panic.

Magistrates received strict injunctions to impede the journeys of Italian subjects into foreign countries where heresies were known to be rife, or where the rites of the Roman Church were not regularly administered.[155] In 1595 Clement VIII.

reduced these admonitions to Pontifical law in a Bull, whereby he forbade Italians to travel without permission from the Holy Office, or to reside abroad without annually remitting a certificate of confession and communion to the Inquisitors.