Council of Trent

The Council of Trent was a series of religious meetings between 1545 and 1563 attended by bishops and cardinals from across Europe. These church leaders wanted to reaffirm doctrine and establish reforms for the Catholic Church. Were they successful? What happened at the Council of Trent?

Fig. 1 The Council of Trent

The Council of Trent and The Wars of Religion

The Protestant Reformation began a firestorm of criticism for the established Catholic Church.

Martin Luther's 95 theses, nailed to All Saints Church in Wittenberg in 1517, directly called out the Church's perceived excesses and corruption, which led Luther and many others to a crisis of faith. Chief among Luther's criticisms was the practice of priests selling what were known as indulgences, or certificates that somehow reduced the amount of time a loved one might spend in Purgatory before entering Heaven.

Fig. 2 Martin Luther's 95 theses

Many Protestant reformers believed that the Catholic priesthood was ripe with corruption. Propaganda pictures that circulated widely among the European populace during the sixteenth century frequently featured priests taking lovers, bribing or taking bribes, and indulging in excess and gluttony.

Fig. 3 Gluttony Illustration 1498

Council of Trent Definition

A byproduct of the Protestant Reformation and the 19^th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, the Council of Trent was key in the revitalization of the Roman Catholic Church across Europe. Several reforms were made by the Council of Trent in its attempts to cleanse the Catholic Church of its corruption.

Council of Trent Purpose

Pope Paul III called the Council of Trent in 1545 to reform the Catholic Church and find a way to heal the divide between the Catholics and Protestants brought on by the Protestant Reformation. Not all of these aims were successful, however. Reconciling with the Protestants proved an impossible task for the Council. Regardless, the Council initiated the changes in Catholic Church practices known as the Counter-Reformation.

Council of Trent Reforms

The first two sessions of the Council of Trent focused on reaffirming central aspects of Catholic Church doctrine, such as the Nicene Creed and the Seven Sacraments. The third session focused on reforms to answer the many criticisms leveled against the Church by the Protestant Reformation.

The Council of Trent First Session

1545- 1549: The Council of Trent opened in the Italian city of Trent under Pope Paul III. Decree's during this first session included the following...

• The Council reaffirming the Nicene Creed as the Church's declaration of faith.

• Catholic discipline and authority could be found both in scripture and in "unwritten traditions," such as receiving instructions from the Holy Spirit. This decree responded to the Lutheran idea that religious truth was only found in scripture alone.

• The decree of Justification stated that "God necessarily takes the initiative in salvation through grace,"¹ but humans also have free will. In other words, God reserves the right to bestow grace, and no one knows who gets it, but people also have control over their own lives.

• The Council reaffirmed the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.

The Council of Trent Second Session

1551-1552: The Second Session of the Council opened under Pope Julius III. It issued one decree:

• Communion service transformed the wafer and wine into the body and blood of Christ, called transubstantiation.

Council of Trent Third Session

From 1562-1563, the third and final session of the Council took place under Pope Pius IV. These sessions set out the crucial reforms within the Church that would determine the Catholic practice of faith for generations to come. Many of these reforms are still in place today.

• Bishops could grant holy orders and take them away, marry people, close and maintain parish churches, and visit monasteries and churches to ensure they are not corrupt.

• The mass must be said in Latin and not the vernacular.

• Bishops must establish seminaries in their region for the education and training of priests, and only those who passed would become priests. This reform intended to address the Lutheran accusation that priests were ignorant.

• Only those aged 25 and older could become priests.

• Priests must shun excess luxury and refrain from gambling or other unsavory behaviors, including having sex with or keeping women in extramarital relationships. This reform intended to root out the corrupt priests mentioned by Lutherans in their anti-Catholic messaging.

• Selling church offices was outlawed.

• Marriages were only valid if they included vows before a priest and witnesses.

Fig. 5 Pasquale Cati Da Iesi, The Council of Trent

Results of the Council of Trent

The Council of Trent initiated reforms for the Catholic Church that were the basis of the Catholic Reformation (or Counter-Reformation) in Europe. It established foundations in faith, religious practice, and disciplinary procedures for Church members not abiding by its reforms. It acknowledged internal abuses pointed out by Protestants because of corrupt priests and bishops and addressed how to remove those issues from the Church. Many of the decisions made at the Council of Trent are still in practice in the modern Catholic Church.

The Council of Trent Significance

Importantly, the Council did introduce regulations that effectively abolished the sale of indulgences, one of the primary criticisms of the Catholic Church by Martin Luther and Protestant reformers. While the Church asserted its right to grant such indulgences, it decreed "that all evil gains for the obtaining thereof, --whence a most prolific cause of abuses among the Christian people has been derived, --be wholly abolished." Unfortunately, this concession was too little, too late, and did not stem the tide of anti-Catholic sentiment that was a central feature of the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther always said that the doctrinal differences between Protestantism and Catholicism were more important than the criticism of Church corruption. The two most important differences were justification by faith alone and the individual's ability to read the Bible personally and in their own language, not Latin. The Catholic Church reasserted its position on the need for trained priests to interpret scripture instead of letting the populace make their own spiritual interpretations from their readings at the Council of Trent and insisted that the Bible and the Mass remain in Latin.