Times occur in history when mortal dangers are clearly perceived
but nothing is done to avoid or minimize them. The Reformation
was such a time for the Roman Catholic Church. One cannot but
wonder why no shift was made to meet the heresy spreading like
wildfire across the North. Past experience had not fitted the
Renaissance Papacy to meet the challenge. Its concerns were local.
Rome badly needed beautification and Italian politics were all-absorbing;
the civil arm could extirpate the heretics.
Such confidence was misplace, for while the Emperor was a devoted
Catholic, in the last resort he would rather close and bar the
doors of Milan to the French than disperse the Lutherans. Politics,
to the politician, came first; the semblance of power was holier
than holy faith.
Confidence in the powers that be was also misplaced because any
political counter-thrust to the Reformation needed to be girded
with righteousness. Troops alone could never conquer; they needed
the reinforcement of a thorough reexamination of doctrine and
church administration. This need was deeply felt by some pious
souls, if not by the popes.
Even before Luther had attacked the sale of indulgences, a
mystical and moral revival was beginning to develop in the south.
Savonarola of Florence is a striking example. He came as a notable
Dominican preacher to St. Mark Cathedral in 1491 and quickly established
himself as a visionary, a prophet of deaths and destructions,
and also as a dedicated defender of the liberties of the citizens
against the Medici. After the defeat of Pietro de Medici by Charles
VIII and that French king's withdrawal from the city, in 1494,
Savonarola became the lawgiver and virtual dictator of Florence.
His doctrines, his unbending rigidity and strictness, and his
bold denunciations of Rome.s and the Pope's corruptions brought
down a bull of excommunication upon his head. Yet he continued
to organize the youth and to encourage the citizenry in various
religious austerities and celebrations.
On one occasion, in 1497, under the influence of his intense charisma,
the townspeople disgorged their ''vanities''--dice, trinkets,
ornaments, cosmetics, false hair, and lewd literature--for public
burning. This carnival was repeated just before his fall in 1498.
Although the Medici faction desired and the Pope contrived his
destruction, it was the fickle mob who stormed his convent and
carried him off from the church to an intimidated and hostile
signory. Fearfully tortured, subjected to a mockery of a trial
by commissioners who had been ordered by the Pope to sentence
him to death, ''even were he a second John the Baptist,'' he was
ceremonially degraded then hung on a cross between two disciples.
Crosses and bodies were then burned to the delight of the crowd.
Tired of purity and moral earnestness the populace had found that
Savonarola too, like a vanity, was expendable. Meanwhile, in a
Parthian shot just before his death the monk prophesied the calamities
that would befall the city under Pope Clement. To this day, flowers
are strewn on the day and on the spot that he died.
However, Florence had but a brief flurry of piety under Savonarola.
His movement did not rekindle the zeal of the Dominican order,
nor, indeed, make any lasting impact outside the city. More lasting
and more effective was the forming of a non-monastic devotional
group called the Oratory of Divine Love (founded in 1497). It
included laymen as well as priests, and from its numbers in Rome
came a clutch of outstanding cardinals. The Oratory spread spontaneously
throughout the length and breadth of Italy, taking hold amongst
the cultured, and weaning them away from cynicism. Paul III, himself
a nepotist, had the vision to ask members of this group to prepare
for him a report of the state of the Church in 1538. The report
did not mince words; it lashed the papacy by naming every vice
and scandal, even to the prostitutes who milled about st. Peter's
attended by clerics--presumably not for the care of their souls.
Protestants made great sport of it.
One outgrowth of the Oratory was a new order that lived under
a rule though not in a monastery. In 1524 the Pope sanctioned
the Order of the Theatines who were dedicated to maintaining high
standards among ordinary clergy. Another new group--the Capuchins--tried
to recapture the pure idealism and evangelistic fervor of St.
Francis of Assisi. By 1619 they numbered 1500 houses.
These and lesser orders were responses to the Renaissance and
not counters to the Reformation. Similarly, the rise of mysticism
in Spain was an indigenous development owing nothing to the growth
of Protestantism elsewhere. Many of the more enthusiastic mystics,
alight and afire with their dreams, fell under the suspicion of
the Inquisition. The most famous of them was st. Theresa of Avila
(1515-1582), a shrewd organizer whose deep religious experiences
were so affecting that they made her ill. She founded a number
of monasteries and nunneries in obedience to her visions, and
her young disciple, St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), reformed
others. His poetry expressed the quintessence of the mystic spirit
in lofty cadence and sublime imagery. These saints belong to the
long tradition of those who have heightened the spirituality of
the Church, and owe little or nothing of their drive to the pressure
of Protestantism.
The counter reformation developed during the mystic revival
in Spain and was led by Ignatius Loyola, a soldier before he was
a mystic. His chances of a life-long military career were ruined
by a bullet wound in the hip, and as he recuperated his enforced
idleness and his new-found reading matter--lives of the saints
and of Christ--redirected his mind and talents toward the service
of the Church. He spiritualized his earlier experience as a knight,
the Virgin became his lady; and he envisioned the Christian progress
as a continuing military campaign. His Christianity was medieval
and chivalric.
But first he became a hermit (1522) and saw a vision that confirmed
his faith. He began to write the Spiritual Exercises at this time,
though they were not published until 1548. A source of inspiration
to which Jesuits return again and again to this day, they begin
with a contemplation of man.s sinfulness move to consideration
of Christ's struggle against evil, then to the Passion and finally
to the joy of the believer joining God. To participate .n the
Exercises is an agonizing, compelling, cleansing, and spiritually
renewing experience.
After a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Ignatius decided that he needed
education to increase his influence; first he attended grammar
school with young boys, then went on to the University of Toledo.
After a time his enthusiasm earned him the suspicion of the Inquisition
and he thought it prudent to continue his studies in Paris. By
strange coincidence he arrived at the college that Calvin had
attended just months after Calvin,s departure. Already he had
five Spanish disciples and now he attracted four Frenchmen to
him. Returning to Spain for theology, the band decided on a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, but war and politics preventing them, they met in
Rome to beg for Papal approval for a new order. They won it in
1540.
The Society of Jesus was organized on quasi-military lines.
Its ranks, in ascending order, were novices, Scholastics, and
the Professed of the Four vows, who elected the General of the
Order for life. To the usual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience,
Loyola added a fourth vow of absolute obedience to the Pope. By
the Bull of 1540 Jesuits were charged to hear confession, to teach,
and to preach. Thus was formed a clerical body more disciplined
than the Calvinists, more flexible, and more highly centralized.
Like the Calvinists, the Jesuits did not shun the world, but embraced
it in order to lead it to higher truth and sanctity.
What success did they have? At first their education was restricted
to their own novices and scholastics, but they soon offered schooling
to the laity, and it was so effective that it became their enemy's
chief ground against them. Their preaching raised standards in
pulpits throughout the Church, and their catechisms instructed
millions of youngsters in the doctrines of Trent.
The reclamation of Poland from Protestantism was their signal
achievement. They had three advantages over the divided and leaderless
Protestants. Their leader, St. Peter Canisius, was in every way
remarkable. He had the ear and the heart of the king. And the
Jesuits' educational system was better than its rival's. Although
Poland's backward social structure may not have been conducive
to the growth of Calvinism, Lutheranism might have succeeded with
royal support. But it was unthinkable that Ferdinand, Charles
brother and later Emperor, would turn his back on his family's
traditional policies--the twin goals of regaining souls for the
Church and land for the Hapsburgs.
Finally Jesuit missions, led by St. Francis Xavier, revitalized
the Church's missionary endeavor. Jesuits were not the only missionaries,
of course. Carmelites pushed into Persia, and Franciscans into
California, but at this early stage the Jesuits stood in the van.
Xavier died in Japan. Others penetrated into India, China, and
Peru. By the time of Loyola's death in 1556, there were 1500 members
of the Society and they had studded the globe with enclaves of
missionaries.
Yet the church's spiritual and evangelical revival would have
lacked force without theological and administrative reform. Although
the need was obvious enough, the obstacles in the way of calling
a reforming Council were immense. Not only were clergy of laxer
habits opposed to it, but even purer souls, members of the Oratory
of Divine Love, felt that reform should come from below and from
the heart, rather than be legislated from above. Political dissension
was the prime obstacle' a Council was called in 1536 but the war
between France and Spain kept it from meeting until 1545. By then
it was too late to nip Protestantism in the bud. Secular political
rivalries were compounded by ecclesiastical politics. Since the
attempted Counciliar revolution of the 15th century the popes'
dread of Councils had not abated. So the Council was ordered in
such a fashion that papal power would not be lessened. The votes
in the Councils of the 15th century had been by national delegation;
but at Trent the abbots and theologians were excluded from power.
The vote was given to bishops and heads of orders, and their majority
was to be binding. Needless to say, there were many more Italian
than non-Italian bishops and the Italians could be counted on
to maintain papal supremacy.
The choice of Trent, too, was a political compromise between
France and the Empire. Also it was sufficiently close to Italy
to attract a full turnout of Italian bishops. Even so, the Pope
would have liked the Council to deliberate closer to home, and
he took advantage of an outbreak of plague in Trent to suggest
removing it to Bologna--in papal territory. Charles v, however
ordered his b!shops to remain in Trent and the first session of
the Council ended in deadlock. A new pope allowed the calling
of another session early in 1547, and a third session in 1562
and 1563 was called by a pope wholeheartedly dedicated to reform.
Pius IV (1559-1565) had been a member of the Oratory of Divine
Love. But he was not above politics. He hated the Spanish in general
and Charles V in particular, and was not prepared to concede to
the far-reaching reforms advocated by the Spanish bishops. Among
other things, they would have liked the authority of Councils
declared superior to that of popes.
Bitter controversies and intrigue permeated every session. The
political outcome, however, was assured by the predominance of
the Italians--of the 255 prelates who signed the official Acts
of the Council, 189 were Italians. Thus any revolutionary counciliar
stirrings were beaten before they had begun. The immediate result
of the Council was a tremendous boost to papal prestige. Ultimately
the outcome of Trent was the dogma of Papal Infallibility, defined
in 1870.
Theologically speaking, the Council ended all possibility of union
with Protestants and it closed the door to much of the rich theological
speculation of centuries past. While !t may be true that the Council
drew upon the best of its tradition, drawing heavily on St. Thomas
Aquinas, it !s also true that the breadth and flexibility of medieval
Catholicism were summarily abandoned. The Church became more intolerant
theologically as it grew more authoritarian politically. This,
perhaps, is in the nature of powerful institutions beset by powerful
challengers.
The Index was drafted and the Inquisition came into its own.
The Index (1558) was a list of books prohibited in whole or in
part to the ordinary Roman Catholic. At first, all of Erasmus'
works were among those condemned, but later this indiscriminate
sentence was modified. It is a tribute to the power of the printed
word that books should seem such dangerous emissaries of heresy
that they merited repression. Both the Index and the office of
Inquisitor were abolished by Vatican II in 1966.
Once the instrument of medieval Spanish rulers, the Inquisition
was also constituted in Italy as the Roman Inquisition in 1542.
That it was pathologically afraid of heresy, that it was sinister
and occasionally cruel, that its procedures were unfair, and that
it was drastically effective, none deny. It literally Italy. No
one except the Pope was free from suspicion: the Archbishop of
Toledo was swallowed up for a 17-year trial and forced to abjure
certain errors. Even St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Theresa of Avila
fell under suspicion. The Inquisition proved more powerful in
Spain than in Italy because it had firmer support from above,
from the king, and perhaps from below as well. In Italy it long
continued to function, arresting Galileo in the l7th century and
the great lover, Casanova, in the 18th century but, by then, its
main work had been accomplished.
Harsh as it may seem, the Inquisition was the Roman Catholic equivalent
to the purges of their lands by Lutheran princes, and to the unbending
discipline of Geneva Consistory and Little Council. When heresy
was considered damnable, death at the stake, or by drowning or
strangling seemed a kindness. Fire, sword, water, rope, torture,
and terror were not too drastic to root out the virus of sin.
From this point of view the Inquisitors were being cruel to incorrigible
sinners, only to be kind to the Catholic majority. In cases of
hallucination, witchcraft, and sexual perversion they showed a
good deal of restraint and common sense.
If the Index and the Inquisition were alien to the spirit of the
Renaissance, the theological settlements of the Council of Trent,
in part at least, enshrined the Renaissance philosophy of man.
On the questions of justification by faith and predestination
the council emphasized the freedom of man and his potential for
divine endeavor. He could prepare himself for faith and cooperate
with it, while being insufficient without grace for salvation.
Man lived neither in absolute freedom nor in total bondage. Thus
the Council managed to preserve human integrity and responsibility
as well as the might and mystery of grace.
The Council was equally unconciliatory to Protestantism in
other matters. Whereas Protestants revered tradition only insofar
as it conformed with scriptures, the Council distinguished scripture
and tradition and placed both on an equal footing as sources of
authority. Transubstantiation was judged to be the only permissible
doctrine of the Eucharist: no quarter was given to Protestant
views. The seven sacraments were reaffirmed, indulgences were
declared effective and a proper adjunct ha the Pope's power to
redistribute merit. Although Protestants ever so stoutly denied
it, Trent threw the weight of its authority in favor of the existence
of purgatory, and claimed that intercession and the sacrifice
of the mass helped those souls detained there. Finally, in the
Tridentine Profession of Faith of 1546, to this day recited by
all bishops and beneficed clergy and imposed on all converts,
there was a vow of obedience to the Roman Pontiff.
The dogmas of Trent reflect the wisdom that the 16th century Roman
Church found most acceptable in its past--wisdom sharpened by
the witness of what seemed to be the errors of the Protestants.
Catholics are hound to accept what this Council defined--to reject
any Tridentine dogma is heresy. so thorough and exhaustive was
its doctrinal analysis that even the recently promulgated dogmas
of the Immaculate Conception (1854) and of the bodily Assumption
of the Virgin (1954) were foreshadowed in all decree of Trent
that exempted Mary from the otherwise universal taint of original
sin. Trent, then, was all consolidation and codification of Roman
faith, expressing the conscience of the upper hierarchy of that
time and remaining all touchstone and repository of Roman Catholic
truth down to the present age.