History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution - Volume 1 by James MacCaffrey (books for 9th graders TXT) 📖

Scotland to the bitter rivalry of two factions one of which favoured an alliance with France, the other, a union with England. In all these countries the hope of sharing in the plunder of the Church had a much greater influence in determining the attitude of both rulers and nobles than their zeal for reform, as the leaders of the so-called Reformation had soon good reason to recognise and to deplore.

Protestantism had reached the zenith of its power on the Continent in 1555. At that time everything seemed to indicate its permanent success, but soon under the Providence of God the tide began to turn, and instead of being able to make further conquests it found it impossible to retain those that had been made. The few traces of heresy that might have been detected in Italy, Spain, and Portugal disappeared. France, thanks largely to the energy of the League and the political schemes of Cardinal Richelieu, put an end to the Calvinist domination. Hungary and Poland were wrested to a great extent from the influence of the Protestant preachers by the labours of the Jesuits. Belgium was retained for Spain and for Catholicity more by the prudence and diplomacy of Farnese than by the violence of Alva; and in the German Empire the courageous stand made by some of the princes, notably Maximilian of Bavaria, delivered Austria, Bohemia, Bavaria and the greater part of Southern Germany from Protestantism.

Many causes helped to bring about this striking reaction towards Catholicism. Amongst the principal of these were the reforms initiated by the Council of Trent, the rise of zealous ecclesiastics and above all of zealous popes, the establishment of new religious orders, especially the establishment of the Society of Jesus, and finally the determination of some of the Catholic princes to meet force by force. Mention should be made too of the wonderful outburst of missionary zeal that helped to win over new races and new peoples in the East and the West at a time when so many of the favoured nations of Europe had renounced or were threatening to renounce their allegiance to the Church of Rome.
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[1] Chap. I.


(a) The Council of Trent.

Le Plat, /Monumentorum ad historiam concilii Tridentini
spectantium amplissima collectio/, 7 vols., 1781-5. Theiner, /Acta
genuina S. oecumenici Concilii Tridentini/, etc., 1874. /Concilium
Tridentinum Diariorum, Actorum, Epistularum, Tractatuum Nova
Collectio Edidit Societas Goerresiana/, vols. i., ii., iii.
(/Diariorum/), iv., v. (/Actorum/), 1901-14. Pallavicino, /Istoria
del Concilio di Trento/, 3 vols., 1664. Maynier, /Etude historique
sur le concile de Trent/, 1874. Mendham, /Memoirs of the Council
of Trent/, 1834. Marchese, /La riforma del clero secondo il
concilio de Trento/, 1883. Deslandres, /Le concile de Trente, et
la reforme du clerge/, 1906. /Canones et decreta sacrosancti
oecumenici concilii Tridentini/.

For more than a century and a half reform of the Church "in its head and members" was the watchword both of the friends and the enemies of religion. Earnest men looked forward to this as the sole means of stemming the tide of neo-paganism that threatened to engulf the Christian world, while wicked men hoped to find in the movement for reform an opportunity of wrecking the divine constitution that Christ had given to His Church. Popes and Councils had failed hitherto to accomplish this work. The bishops had met at Constance and Basle, at Florence and at Rome (5th Lateran Council), and had parted leaving the root of the evil untouched. Notwithstanding all these failures the feeling was practically universal that in a General Council lay the only hope of reform, and that for one reason or another the Roman Curia looked with an unfavourable eye on the convocation of such an assembly. Whether the charge was true or false it was highly prejudicial to the authority of the Holy See, and as a consequence of it, when Luther and his followers appealed from the verdict of Leo X. to the verdict of a General Council, they evoked the open or secret sympathy of many, who had nothing but contempt for their religious innovations. Charles V., believing in the sincerity of their offer to submit themselves to the judgment of such a body, supported strongly the idea of a council, as did also the Diets held at Nurnberg in 1523 and 1524.

The hesitation of Adrian VI. (1522-3) and of Clement VII. (1523-34) to yield to these demands was due neither to their inability to appreciate the magnitude of the abuses nor of their desire to oppose any and every proposal of reform. The disturbed condition of the times, when so many individuals had fallen away from the faith and when whole nations formerly noted for their loyalty to the Pope threatened to follow in their footsteps, made it difficult to decide whether the suggested remedy might not prove worse than the disease. The memory, too, of the scenes that took place at Constance and Basle and of the revolutionary proposals put forward in these assemblies, made the Popes less anxious to try a similar experiment with the possibility of even worse results, particularly at a time when the unfriendly relations existing between the Empire, France, and England held out but little hope for the success of a General Council. As events showed the delay was providential. It afforded an opportunity for excitement and passion to die away; it helped to secure moderation in the views both of the radical and conservative elements in the Church; and it allowed the issues in dispute to shape themselves more clearly and to be narrowed down to their true proportions, thereby enabling the Catholic theologians to formulate precisely the doctrines of the Church in opposition to the opinions of the Lutherans.

Clement VII. (1523-34), one of the de' Medici family, succeeded to the Papacy at a most critical period in the civil and religious history of Europe. The time that he spent at the court of his cousin, Leo X., and the traditions of his family and of his native city of Florence made it almost impossible for him to throw himself into the work of reform or to adopt the stern measures that the situation demanded. Instead of allying himself closely with Charles V. or Francis I. of France, or better still of preserving an attitude of strict neutrality towards both, he adopted a policy of vacillation joining now one side now the other, until the terrible sack of Rome by the infuriated and half- savage soldiery of Germany forced him to conclude an agreement with the Emperor. During the earlier years of Clement VII.'s reign the German people, Catholic as well as Lutheran, demanded the convocation of a general or at least a national council, and their demands met with the approval of Charles V. The naturally indolent temperament of the Pope, the fear that the eagerness for reform might develop into a violent revolution, and the danger that a council dominated by the Emperor might be as distasteful to France and England as dangerous to the rights and prerogatives of the Holy See, made him more willing to accept the counsels of those who suggested delay. When peace was at last concluded between the Pope and the Emperor (1529) Charles V. had changed his mind about the advisability of a General Council, having convinced himself in the meantime that more could be done for the cause of peace in his territories by private negotiations between the different parties.

It was only on the accession of Paul III. (1534-49) that a really vigorous effort was made to undertake the work of reform. The new Pope, a member of the Farnese family, was himself a brilliant Humanist, a patron of literature and art, well known for his strict and exemplary life as a priest, and deservedly popular both with the clergy and people of Rome. His one outstanding weakness was his partiality towards his own relatives, on many of whom he conferred high positions both in church and state. In justice to him it should be said, however, that the position of affairs in Rome and in Italy made such action less reprehensible than it might seem at first sight, and that he dealt severely with some of them, as for example, the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, once he discovered that they were unworthy of the confidence that had been reposed in them. He signalised his pontificate by the stern measures he took for the reform of the Roman Curia, by the appointment of learned and progressive ecclesiastics like Reginald Pole, Sadoleto, Caraffa, and Contarini to the college of cardinals, and by the establishment of special tribunals to combat heresy.

After a preliminary agreement with the Emperor, Paul III. convoked the General Council to meet at Mantua in 1537; but the refusal of the Lutheran princes to send representatives, the prohibition issued by Francis I. against the attendance of French bishops, and the unwillingness of the Duke of Mantua to make the necessary arrangements for such an assembly in his territory unless under impossible conditions, made it necessary to prorogue the council to Vicenza in 1538. As hardly any bishops had arrived at the time appointed it was adjourned at first, and later on prorogued indefinitely. Negotiations were, however, continued regarding the place of assembly. The Pope was anxious that the council should be held in an Italian city, while Charles V., believing that the Lutherans would never consent to go to Italy or to accept the decrees of an Italian assembly, insisted that a German city should be selected. In the end as a compromise Trent was agreed upon by both parties, and the council was convoked once more to meet there in 1542. The refusal of the Lutherans to take part in the proposed council, the unwillingness of Francis I. to permit any of his subjects to be present, and the threatened war between France and the Empire, made it impossible for the council to meet. Finally, on the conclusion of the Peace of Crepy (1544), which put an end to the war with France, the council was convoked to meet at Trent in March 1545, and Cardinals del Monte, Reginald Pole, and Marcello Cervini were appointed to represent the Pope. When the day fixed for the opening ceremony arrived, a further adjournment was rendered imperative owing to the very sparse attendance of bishops. The First Session was held on the 13th December 1545, and the second in January 1546. There were then present in addition to the legates and theologians only four archbishops, twenty-one bishops, and five generals of religious orders.

These two preliminary sessions were given over almost entirely to a discussion of the procedure that should be followed. In the end it was agreed that the legates should propose to the council the questions on which a decision should be given, that these questions should be examined by committees of bishops aided by theologians and jurists, that the results of these discussions should be brought before a full congregation of the bishops, and that when a decision had been agreed to the formal decrees should be promulgated in a public session. The novel method of voting by nations, introduced for the first time at Constance and Basle, was rejected in favour of individual voting, a definitive vote being allowed only to bishops, generals of religious orders and abbots (one vote to every three abbots). Procurators of absent bishops were not allowed