Immersed in the spiritual chaos generated by the Lutheran Reformationthe Catholic Church was, initiated the century XVIat a crossroads.
Catholic confessional (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Different sectors, outside and inside the Church, demanded a reform within the same institution, to face the changes that were experienced in spiritual matters throughout Europe. A counterattack, a Counter Reformation.
Who could have imagined that it would be the pope Paul III, elected in 1534, who would reform the Church? The same immensely rich pope who had built himself a sumptuous palace decorated by the Carracci with pagan allegories.
However, since the time of Lateran Councilthe cardinal Farnese little by little he had been attracted by the idea of reform. When he sat on the throne of Saint Peter under the name of Paul IIIimmediately announced his intention to convene a council on June 2, 1536.
More than 10 years had to pass for the council It shall be made. During that decade, the papacy tried to strengthen the position of the Church in contradictory ways, at the same time that a renewing spirit based on humanism and the new religious orders emerged, the archaic body of the Inquisition.
Council of Trent (17th century art). (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
In fact, the dark fame of the Holy office It is due to this period of great persecution of infidels, heretics, and Protestants. When the tortures of the Inquisition it is done thinking rather of the Inquisition of the Renaissance and the Modern Age than of the one that took place in the Middle Ages.
Finally fixed the Trento councilan ingenious choice: the city was Italian and not very far from Rome, but it was within the limits of the Germanic Roman Empire, and with this the Church hoped to be able to summon the same debate. reformistsin order to eventually be able to negotiate with the Protestants and end the religious schism.
However, when the Trento council began its sessions on December 13, 1545No Protestants were present. And it was already very clear, from the beginning, that the council would not be a council of union, but of strengthening the sector of the Church faithful to Rome.
This tempestuous assembly lasted 18 years, ending on December 4, 1563. transferred from Trent to Bologna, twice suspended (the second interruption lasted 10 years), and dependent on the chances of Renaissance politics.
The city of Trento in Italy today (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The work of Trento council it had at the same time a doctrinal character (theoretical and typical of the lawyers), and a pastoral one (carried out in practice with the believers). Already in the first sessions, the council fathers faced the arduous task of fixing the points of the dogma contested by the reformists.
The Trento council made the following points:
– The Catholic Church recognizes the value of tradition and reserves the power to interpret the scriptures (contrary to the free interpretation of the Bible outlined by Protestants).
– Although justification is the work of God’s grace, man can prepare for grace or reject it; and the good ones plays They are the necessary complement to the faith (Protestants promulgated that the salvation of the soul came from the hand of faith, and not from works such as offerings and pilgrimages).
– The 7 sacraments they are of divine institution (as opposed to the protestant rejection of the Christian sacraments)
– The mass is a true sacrifice, which actualizes that of Christ on the cross. In the EucharistChrist is really present, under the appearances of bread and wine, his body and his blood (the Protestants did not believe in this transmutation of Jesus)
– The Church is essentially hierarchical and the priesthood of divine institution (the protestants criticized the spiritual situation of privilege and the intermediation of the priests between God and the believer)
Council of Trent 1563 (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
All this doctrinal teaching raised in the Trento council was summed up in a profession of faith approved by the then pope Pius IV at the end of the sessions and thus imposed on all the clergy.
In the pastoral aspect, the Trento council it was proposed to review and reform the cases of abuses related to the life of the clergy and bishops. At least the most scandalous.
Thus, the parish priests and bishops had to reside in the place they were in charge of, the bishops they were to preach and have their priests preach (this may sound simple now, but back then bishops were nothing but landed princes with little occupation, if anything, no spiritual occupation). The convents were rigorously forced to the effective closure, the marriages they should be public, etc.
Trento: Santa Maria Maggiore Church where part of the Council took place (Credit: David Nicholls /Flickr)
It is pertinent to ask whether the movement of the Roman Church during the sixteenth century was a “catholic reform” or one “counter Reformation”.
Considering that its roots were as deep as those of the Protestantismand that they owed nothing to Luther, we must speak of Catholic reform. But if one takes into account that the pressure of the reformers was necessary for a change to finally take place, it must be recognized that it was a Counter Reformation.
Sources: Venard, M.: The Beginnings of the Modern World, The World and its History, Editorial Argos, Barcelona, 1970. / Martin Luther: Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum, 1517 / Council of Trent, Documents of the Council of Trent.