Fallen Order: Intrigue, Heresy & Scandal in the Rome of Galileo & Caravaggio

by Karen Liebreich

For hundreds of years the Piarist Order of priests has been known for its history of important contributions to education, science, and culture. Throughout Italy, Spain, and central Europe, the order’s schools evolved from shelters created to educate poor children into exclusive private academies. Thousands of children were educated at Piarist schools, including Mozart, Goya, Schubert, Victor Hugo, Johann Mendel, and a host of astronomers, kings, emperors, presidents, even a pope. Yet in 1646, the Piarist Order was abruptly abolished by Pope Innocent X, an unprecedented step not seen since the Knights of Templar were suppressed for heresy in the fourteenth century. Fallen Order is the stunning story of the scandal that led to the Piarists’ collapse. Karen Liebreich spent several years researching in the order’s archives and in the Vatican Secret Archive, discovering a chain of complicity that went as far as Pope Innocent X himself. Although the Piarist Order was suppressed when the scandal eventually became public, it was later revived and is still in existence today, its turbulent past ignored. Fallen Order is a brilliant portrait of seventeenth-century Rome and the politics, personal rivalries, and Byzantine workings of the Vatican and the Catholic Church.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Christianity, Historical

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Believing One's Own Press

Almost novelistically written, this is worthwhile both historically and as a tale of how institutions become corrupt, particularly those which claim to be spiritually immune from corruption. There is a saying in my family: "Big in front, Big in back." In other words, those who proclaim sanctity most strenuously are hiding something significant.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have made some textual corrections to grammar but changed nothing else - March 2024

This is an exceptionally fine and interesting history of the foundation of the Piarist order, the first specifically catholic teaching order and the first which concentrated on providing education to the poor (other orders like the Jesuits were involved in education but only for boys of noble families) and later physically and mentally handicapped children and although almost unknown in English speaking countries they had an extraordinary impact in countries, aside from Italy, such as Spain, the Czech lands, Hungary and Poland and taught everyone from Goya, Schubert, Gregor Mendel and Victor Hugo. This is a history of a religious order, the Catholic Church, and Rome in the pontificates of Popes Gregory XV, Innocent X and Urban VIII, it is the baroque counter-reformation Rome of Bernini, Galileo and Caravaggio (though none of them have more then very tiny walk on parts). It is a story of idealism and worthy deeds but also of the systematic avoidance of tackling sexual abuse. This book recounts one of the few cases which has escaped the archives and the 'DNA' of how it was handled in the 17th century has so many parallels with the Catholic Church's abysmal record in the 20th century that you can not but think that the almost complete absence of any stories before the 17th century or between then and the 20th century avalanche of revelations speaks only of the extent and success of the church at concealment.

In the 20th century scandals one of the most upsetting, for loyal Catholics, was the uniformity of the response of the Church authorities to the scandals - it was always, in country after country the default position of bishops, the leaders of religious orders, institutions and schools to hide the problem to transfer the offender, and protect the church as institution. There was a complete absence of concern for victims (see my footnote *1 below). Over the centuries it was one of the most extraordinarily successful accomplishments of the Catholic Church to convince everyone that it was an all male institution which throughout history was staffed by heterosexual men of whom only a few ever deviated from their vocations and those were all with women. What is really surprising is how surprised and how disbelieving most people were when the skeletons started falling out of the closets in one country after another.

What happened in the newly formed Piarist order was almost textbook, it was discovered that a priest of the order was abusing boys but because he had powerful connections in the Vatican, and to preserve the good name of the Piarist order and the Catholic Church, it was decided to ignore and cover up and promote the offending priest and allow him to continue to have contact with boys. At no point were the children he molested or the children he might molest in the future mentioned or thought of. It led to the suppression of the order but outside of Italy the schools and the work the Piarists did was valued so highly by the Kings of Spain, Poland and the Holy Roman Emperor that they continued to operate and within ten years the order was reestablished. Its founder Joseph Calasanz was beatified in 1748 and canonised in 1767 and in 1948 made "Universal Patron of all the Christian popular schools in the world" by Pope Pius XII.

St. Joseph Calasanz was neither an abuser, nor a bad man, he dreamed of bringing education to children that were ignored and despised by the other religious orders. He created a teaching order that has done wonderful things in education but we can only judge him as a man deeply, morally, compromised by his decisions which ignored the welfare of individual children and sacrificed them to greater good of his order and the church and as such he is no different to all the shady disreputable and compromised 20th century church figures. Having him as a patron of catholic education can't but taint it.

Are there other scandals like this waiting to emerge from the archives? Possibly, Karen Liebrich only discovered this tale by accident, it was lying there in plain sight in dusty unread documents in an unfashionable archive, but while such revelations are not impossible I have my doubts. The Piarist story of foundation, suppression and re-foundation is unusual, though not unique, and the story of abuse was inextricably linked to the orders complex suppression making its exepungement from the archives impossible. But other cases would have been easier - when the Nazi's were attacking the Catholic Church and launched prosecutions of various members of religious orders Pius XII ordered the German bishops to destroy all documents relating to clergy who were under investigation for sexual misdemeanours least they be seized and used to discredit the church. Again it is only the institutional church that is of concern. There are other stories, tales, rumours, etc. I doubt we can ever know everything but some of it maybe - some of it already is but only within the context of other events.

This is not a history of clerical sexual abuse, it is a history of the foundation of an extraordinary religious order, of the Roman counter-reformation, of Rome and the Papacy in one of its final apogees of real power and brilliant artistic and intellectual fervour and as such a wonderful and captivating history. Caravaggio, Bernini and Galileo may not be directly present but this is the story of their Rome and their world.

*1 Nobody within the church likes to discuss the whole theological basis of this lack of concern, but there were a number:
1. If the boy didn't resist enough he was complicit and even seen as allowing or encouraging a priest to commit a sin.
2. If he became erect and had an 'emission' as they were always referred to in my Catholic schooldays, then he was also complicit, being unconscious, asleep or under duress didn't excuse you from sin, every emission was a sin. If your body responded to the priests manipulations then it showed you welcomed or allowed them.
3. Just being a boy was seen as being a creature of sin and temptation, everyone carried the sin of Adam and Eve, original sin, no one was innocent, ever.

[ltcomdata · Rating 2 out of 5]

Historical account of the suppression (but not the rehabilitation) of the Piarists (a children's teaching order) in the 1600s. The author makes it plain that a whole slew of factors were in play, with European politics, institutional pride, and inter-order jealousy carrying the day. The author claims as a major factor for the order's downfall the promotion and relocation of sexually abusive priests. From the narrative, it seems a contributing factor, but not a decisive one. The Piarists would probably still have been suppressed had not the sexual abuse been a factor. What really did them in were rebellious personalities within the order who also happened to be sexual predators: but one can surmise from the narrative that those same people without this blackest of blemishes would still bring about the order's downfall.

Finally, almost as an afterthought, the author links the sexual abuse scandal in the 1600s with the current sexual abuse scandal in the Church. There is much truth in the author's conclusion that the institutional Church behaved the same way in both cases: promote the criminal, or relocate him, all in order to avoid the scandal.

This book is not about Galileo nor Caravaggio. They are in the background, with the spotlight shined most precisely upon the Piarist order.

[Rick Harrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ran a school which bore the sainted name of this order's founder (Calasanctius), so I read it with the interest of one tracing his family genealogy (in which I have scant interest). Even ostensibly, it purports to reveal some genetic code regarding the modern Church. As unnerving as it is to find then Cardinal Ratzinger at the gates to what used to be called the Inquisition (waterboarding anyone?), these genetic tracings reveal little - except when the narrative shapes have been passed down as well. If slightly better written, it would make hotter intrigue than the DaVinci code, with (female!!) investigator penetrating texts to find a secret still relevant today, and glancing past such luminaries as Galileo along the way. That struggle to reconcile competing abstractions should gain the foreground ahead of pederastic fallings short from natural and clerical orders. Inhumanity scales as well. They let a woman in, and the rest of us should pay attention. The Body is always subject to temptation.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I selected this book based on the title, and sub-title. I thought it was about arts and science and their controversial role in the 17th century Catholic Church ... silly me. Actually, this is to the credit of the publisher. This could have been marketed as a Grove Press sensational something.

This is an early history of the Piarist Order which was the first provider of public education. Unfortunately it's also a story of a pedophile who is connected to a powerful family who was essentially kicked upstairs. There is a lot more to the story than this, but this action wormed its way through the system such that at an advanced age the founder who made this personnel decision saw the almost total demise of his schools.

The story is told without sensation and provides lessons for today. By an incomplete browse through the cover jacket I stumbled upon it. If you read it, look for just a mention of Caravaggio and a tiny cameo for Galileo. I recommend it for church historians who are interested in this topic.

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine example of there being nothing new under the sun.

Karen Liebreich is one of those people who finds something interesting and decides that it really needs further digging, rather like many historians I know. In this she doccuments her finding of a Renaisance Child-Abuse Scandal involving a teaching order. It shows how trying to keep appearances caused the information to be suppressed and the people who did evil to prosper due to connections and low cunning.

It's the last chapter that really strikes home the lesson, when she ennumerates some of the child-abuse scandals that have errupted, and where the response to these abuses have been to cover things up and move the priests out of "harms way" or to promote them in order to try to try to keep them away from temptation.

It's a sad indictement of the system and the problem, that it's been going on for years is a sad truth, that it hasn't been deal with is a sadder truth.

[Rebecca Huston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A disturbing look at a religious order and the children that they took in -- it's too eerily similar to today's scandals about pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. I guess that things never do really change.

[Eric_W]

Apparently Catholic pedophile scandals are hardly of recent vintage. More like 1643? Anyway, I'm off and running with this book I happened to see at the library. (I have got to stop going there.)

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Order of Poor Clerks Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, the Piarists, are the oldest order of the Catholic Church to have offered a free education to the children of the poor. Founded in 1617, they were suppressed in 1646 and restored in 1669. They exist today in several countries.

The reasons for the suppression were several. One was the association of some of its members with Galileo and his "new science", but Liebreich's book, while discussing this and other political reasons for the suppression, focuses especially on the apparent widespread child abuse practiced by some of its members--abuses which were substantially covered up in many of the same ways practiced by the Church today.

This is not a scandalous page-turner. Although Liebreich makes her case, so many of the records were destroyed and so much euphemism was employed by the principals that very little of the particulars of such cases of abuse are detailed. The book is therefore primarily a history of the Order from its foundation until its suppression, with an emphasis on the politics of the Church of the time as it applied to the Order's functioning.

The one thing that I learned from the book which seems of relevance to understanding Church practice today was that the concern of the inquisitors was with the abusers not with the abused. The reasons for this would appear to be that the latter, if raped or if so young as to not yet be considered rational agents, were not at fault, while the former, the priests, were in a state of sin. Although Liebreich does not make the connection, I was reminded of Augustine's arguments in his The City of God. There, in dealing with the virgins raped by Alaric's men, he argued that the virgins were still virgins, spiritually and morally speaking, and not sinners. At the time, because some condemned them for breaking their vows of chastity, this was actually a charitable--not to mention commonsensical--position (although any praise for Augustine's liberality is mitigated by the fact that his position on this matter was entirely in keeping with his quite unliberal position as regards the Donatists whom he actively had exterminated).

The Catholic Church, perhaps the oldest continuously existing corporation in the world, moves very, very slowly. While one can see the point of being concerned for the sinner, one hopes that the Church will effectively concern itself much more with the sinned-against once the current reactionary pope is gone.

[☘Tara Sheehan☘ · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an Irish Catholic I was vastly curious to read this and learn about Liebrech’s take on what has happened in the church. She was able to discover from YEARS of research which group of priests more than likely could be considered responsible for the downfall by immoral sexual conduct of the Church. These men were given the duty and trust to educate future generations and they betrayed their calling and the innocence of an untold number of children but what is worse is knowing this scandal is not something that just hit the church from a few decades of looking the other way but it is allegedly been an issue for centuries.
Liebreich thankfully offers an extremely logical, well-thought out look at this group from their rise, through its history, growth and spread across the world. By examining how they grew she was able to discover a fundamental flaw in that not everyone that can teach should particularly when they only get the position via misconduct of other church members. Unfortunately she is able to show the church is not immune to greed and that old adage “money talks” which allowed those with wealthy connections essentially sanctioned access to a never ending group of innocents from which to choose.
In the Catholic Church the practice of bestowing ‘sainthood’ is well known as is the idea that these saints are assigned jobs for a lack of better word. Some are the patron saints of countries, places or ideas to whom we are given have a more unique access or insight to God to help with particular areas. It is without a doubt heartbreaking to learn that the man who is the patron saint of Catholic schools, a man who should take his job most seriously and be of the purest heart, was a man with intimate knowledge of the severe trauma students at these schools were suffering to which he did nothing about.
The average reader may have difficulty with this book though, not because of the material which we all have unfortunately become accustomed to, but the way in which it was written as it seems to be intended for a historian than the layman.

Although the subtitle leads one to believe that art and science will play a significant part of this book which was another reason I chose to read it, the arts and sciences are hardly mentioned, more as an afterthought. I felt the subtitle was quite misleading but to the publisher’s credit including it will probably get more sales until the word is out that the book actually does not include much.
All in all, misleading subtitle aside, I felt the author did a great job bringing together verifiable facts about a heart wrenching part of the Church’s history.

Thank you to Netgalley and Endeavor Press for allowing me to review this book.

[Robert Hudder · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, what I found interesting may not be what everyone else does. I grew up in a small rural community that was largely Polish and Irish. It was very Catholic. We are one of the places that was impacted by the sex scandals of the Church.

This book is about the founding of schools for poor children. You could argue that it is the start of the Catholic school system for the general public. There was a focus on math and science and the order was associated with Galileo. In its founding years, it was known for being pretty austere.

Then, due to politics, and the desire not to harm the order, it dealt poorly with reports of one of its members molesting boys. This first school scandal and how it was dealt with and destroyed the order is the focus of this book.

It presents history in a pretty human and humane way. Of course, only so much can be gleaned from correspondence and letters but the picture painted reminds me a lot of how the Catholic Church refused to learn from mistakes from three hundred years ago.

The other part that tickled me is reading about Ratzinger as the head of the modern day Inquisition and the echoes of how that worked. It may go a long way to explaining what happened during his papacy.

[Gordon P. Bigalke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding

Well documented and presented clearly in Easy to understand historical accuracy. Illustrates that the current scandals in the church have a long standing historical basis. Also, clearly shows they are not based on anti Catholicism, but in human failings that reach through all layers of the hierarchy right to the Holy Father himself. Unless this acknowledged and dealt with properly it will certainly spell the demise of the Roman Catholic

[Anthony Ambruso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written

I thought this book was well-researched as well. The writing style was interesting, but this subject bores me to tears: nothing seems to have changed. I stopped reading about 26% of the way through. I recommend this book to anyone interested in this subject. I guess I'm not that interested.

[Linda Edmonds Cerullo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Proof that the Catholic Church has a much longer history of child sexual abuse than many would believe and of moving those abusers around so as to avoid prosecution. Author did a good job of comparing past history with current history. It is just a shame that the church never seems to learn.

[Bruce MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iluminating History

A history of early Piarists and their schools. Seems Cardinal Law and the Piarists of the time of Galileo had similar problems. Interesting so read of early discipline measures including sending problems elsewhere politics as usual.

[Alexandra French]

I got to p.168. I couldn't read anymore. Very well researched and written, just such a shameful business. Made me sick. Stopped reading.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's an interesting long-form newspaper article hidden away somewhere in the book about the parallels between the sexual abuse scandal which engulfed the 17th Century Piarist Order and the way the Catholic Church dealt with it, and other more recent scandals. Unfortunately, its buried in a book which provides, for me at least, far more tedious details about the minutae of the Order than I wanted to read. The book's inside cover promises a tale of "scandal and intrigue in the Rome of Caravaggio and Galileo" but beyond the fact that the Order's founder and Caravaggio shared lodgings for a time (and may or may not have met) there's nothing on the former, and what references there are to Galileo just left me thinking that a book about the relationship between him and the church would be a far more interesting read.

Worth noting, though, that there's nothing uniquely modern about the problem of sexual predators taking advantage of positions of power.

[Jo Lau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karen's writing style is a joy to read. This narrative historical book is an eye-opener since the order no longer exist, and most people wouldn't have heard of it, if not for Karen.

[Beatrijs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Impressively researched and well written, this book will keep you company for quite a while. It describes in the finest detail the story and history of the Piarist order and that of its founder, father Calasanz as well as the politics surrounding important events in the Catholic church of the 17th century.
In the last chapter, more recent events involving wayward priests are also discussed.