A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.

by Carlton J. H. Hayes

THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION

We have now traced the origins of the Protestant Revolt against the Catholic Church, and have seen how, between 1520 and 1570, three major varieties of new theology—Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism— appeared on the scene and divided among themselves the nations of northern Europe. The story of how, during that critical half-century, the other civilized nations retained their loyalty to the Catholic Church virtually as it had existed throughout the middle ages, remains to be told. The preservation of the papal monarchy and Catholic doctrine in southern Europe was due alike to religious and to political circumstances.

It must not be supposed that pious critics of ecclesiastical abuses were confined to countries which subsequently became Protestant. There were many sincere Catholics in Italy, Austria, France, and Spain who complained of the scandals and worldliness that afflicted the Church at the opening of the sixteenth century: they demanded sweeping reforms in discipline and a return of the clergy to a simple apostolic life. They believed, however, that whatever change was desirable could best be achieved by means of a reformation within the Catholic Church—that is, without disturbing the unity of its organization or denying the validity of its dogmas—while the critics of northern Europe, as we have seen, preferred to put their reforms into practice by means of a revolution—an out-and-out break with century-old traditions of Catholic Christianity. Even in northern Europe some of the foremost scholars of that period desired an intellectual reformation within Catholicism rather than a dogmatic rebellion against it: with Luther's defiance of papal authority, the great Erasmus had small sympathy, and Sir Thomas More, the eminent English humanist, sacrificed his life for his belief in the divine sanction of the papal power.

Thus, while the religious energy of northern Europe went into Protestantism of various kinds, that of southern Europe fashioned a reformation of the Catholic system. And this Catholic reformation, on its religious side, was brought to a successful issue by means of the improved conditions in the papal court, the labors of a great church council, and the activity of new monastic orders. A few words must be said about each one of these religious elements in the Catholic reformation.

[Sidenote: Reforming Popes]

Mention has been made of the corruption that prevailed in papal affairs in the fifteenth century, and of the Italian and family interests which obscured to the Medici pope, Leo X (1513-1521), the importance of the Lutheran movement in Germany. And Leo's nephew, who became Clement VII (1523-1534), continued to act too much as an Italian prince and too little as the moral and religious leader of Catholicism in the contest which under him was joined with Zwinglians and Anglicans as well as with Lutherans. But under Paul III (1534-1549), a new policy was inaugurated, by which men were appointed to high church offices for their virtue and learning rather than for family relationship or financial gain. This policy was maintained by a series of upright and far-sighted popes during the second half of the sixteenth century, so that by the year 1600 a remarkable reformation had been gradually wrought in the papacy, among the cardinals, down through the prelates, even to the parish priests and monks.

[Sidenote: The Council of Trent]

The reforming zeal of individual popes was stimulated and reinforced by the work of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). The idea of effecting a "reformation in head and members" by means of a general council of the Catholic Church had been invoked several times during the century that preceded the Protestant Revolt, but, before Luther, little had been accomplished in that way.

With the widening of the breach between Protestantism and the medieval Church, what had formerly been desirable now became imperative. It seemed to pious Catholics that every effort should be made to reconcile differences and to restore the unity of the Church. The errors of the manifold new theologies which now appeared might be refuted by a clear statement of Catholic doctrine, and a reformation of discipline and morals would deprive the innovators of one of their most telling weapons against the Church.

It was no easy task, in that troublous time, to hold an ecumenical council. There was mutual distrust between Catholics and Protestants. There was uncertainty as to the relative powers and prerogatives of council and pope. There were bitter national rivalries, especially between Italians and Germans. There was actual warfare between the two chief Catholic families—the Habsburgs of Germany and Spain and the royal house of France.

Yet despite these difficulties, which long postponed its convocation and repeatedly interrupted its labors, the Council of Trent [Footnote: Trent was selected largely by reason of its geographical location, being situated on the boundary between the German-speaking and Italian- speaking peoples.] consummated a great reform in the Church and contributed materially to the preservation of the Catholic faith. The Protestants, whom the pope invited to participate, absented themselves; yet such was the number and renown of the Catholic bishops who responded to the summons that the Council of Trent easily ranked with the eighteen cumenical councils which had preceded it. [Footnote: Its decrees were signed at its close (1563) by 4 cardinal legates, 2 cardinals, 3 patriarchs, 25 archbishops, 167 bishops, 7 abbots, 7 generals of orders, and 19 proxies for 33 absent prelates.] The work of the council was twofold—dogmatic and reformatory.

Dogmatically, the fathers at Trent offered no compromise to the Protestants. They confirmed with inexorable frankness the main points in Catholic theology which had been worked out in the thirteenth century by Thomas Aquinas and which before the appearance of Protestantism had been received everywhere in central and western Europe. They declared that the tradition of the Church as well as the Bible was to be taken as the basis of the Christian religion, and that the interpretation of the Holy Scripture belonged only to the Church. The Protestant teachings about grace and justification by faith were condemned, and the seven sacraments were pronounced indispensable. The miraculous and sacrificial character of the Lord's Supper (Mass) was reaffirmed. Belief in the invocation of saints, in the veneration of images and of relics, in purgatory and indulgences was explicitly stated, but precautions were taken to clear some of the doctrines of the pernicious practices which at times had been connected with them. The spiritual authority of the Roman See was confirmed over all Catholicism: the pope was recognized as supreme interpreter of the canons and incontestable chief of bishops.

[Sidenote: Reformatory Canons of the Council of Trent ]

A volume of disciplinary statutes constituted the second achievement of the Tridentine Council. The sale of church offices was condemned. Bishops and other prelates were to reside in their respective dioceses, abandon worldly pursuits, and give themselves entirely to spiritual labors. Seminaries were to be established for the proper education and training of priests.

While Latin was retained as the official and liturgical language, frequent sermons were to be preached in the vernacular. Indulgences were not to be issued for money, and no charge should be made for conferring the sacraments.

[Sidenote: Index and inquisition ]

The seed sown by the council bore abundant fruit during several succeeding pontificates. The central government was completely reorganized. A definite catechism was prepared at Rome and every layman instructed in the tenets and obligations of his religion. Revisions were made in the service books of the Church, and a new standard edition of the Latin Bible, the Vulgate, was issued. A list, called the Index, was prepared of dangerous and heretical books, which good Catholics were prohibited from reading. By these methods, discipline was in fact confirmed, morals purified, and the scandal of the immense riches and the worldly life of the clergy restrained. From an unusually strict law of faith and conduct, lapses were to be punishable by the ancient ecclesiastical court of the Inquisition, which now zealously redoubled its activity, especially in Italy and in Spain.

A very important factor in the Catholic revival—not only in preserving all southern Europe to the Church but also in preventing a complete triumph of Protestantism in the North—was the formation of several new religious orders, which sought to purify the life of the people and to bulwark the position of the Church. The most celebrated of these orders, both for its labors in the sixteenth century and for its subsequent history, is the Society of Jesus, whose members are known commonly as Jesuits. The society was founded by Ignatius Loyola [Footnote: Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556).] in 1534 and its constitution was formally approved by the pope six years later.

[Sidenote: Ignatius Loyola]

In his earlier years, Ignatius followed the profession of arms, and as a patriotic Spaniard fought valiantly in the armies of Emperor Charles V against the French. But while he was in a hospital, suffering from a wound, he chanced to read a Life of Christ and biographies of several saints, which, he tells us, worked a great change within him. From being a soldier of an earthly king, he would now become a knight of Christ and of the Church. Instead of fighting for the glory of Spain and of himself, he would henceforth strive for the greater glory of God. Thus in the very year in which the German monk, Martin Luther, became the leading and avowed adversary of the Catholic Church, this Spanish soldier was starting on that remarkable career which was to make him Catholicism's chief champion.

After a few years' trial of his new life and several rather footless efforts to serve the Church, Ignatius determined, at the age of thirty- three, to perfect his scanty education. It was while he was studying Latin, philosophy, and theology at the University of Paris that he made the acquaintance of the group of scholarly and saintly men who became the first members of the Society of Jesus. Intended at first primarily for missionary labors among the Mohammedans, the order was speedily turned to other and greater ends.

[Sidenote: The Jesuits]

The organization of the Jesuits showed the military instincts of their founder. To the three usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, was added a fourth vow of special allegiance to the pope. The members were to be carefully trained during a long novitiate and were to be under the personal direction of a general, resident in Rome. Authority and obedience were stressed by the society. Then, too, St. Ignatius Loyola understood that the Church was now confronted with conditions of war rather than of peace: accordingly he directed that his brothers should not content themselves with prayer and works of peace, with charity and local benevolence, but should adapt themselves to new circumstances and should strive in a multiplicity of ways to restore all things in the Catholic Church.

Thus it happened that the Jesuits, from the very year of their establishment, rushed to the front in the religious conflict of the sixteenth century. In the first place, they sought to enlighten and educate the young. As schoolmasters they had no equals in Europe for many years. No less a scholar and scientist than Lord Francis Bacon said of the Jesuit teaching that "nothing better has been put in practice." Again, by their wide learning and culture, no less than by the unimpeachable purity of their lives, they won back a considerable respect for the Catholic clergy. As preachers, too, they earned a high esteem by the clearness and simplicity of their sermons and instruction.

It was in the mission field, however, that the Jesuits achieved the most considerable results. They were mainly responsible for the recovery of Poland after that country had almost become Lutheran. They similarly conserved the Catholic faith in Bavaria and in the southern Netherlands. They insured a respectable Catholic party in Bohemia and in Hungary. They aided considerably in maintaining Catholicism in Ireland. At the hourly risk of their lives, they ministered to their fellow-Catholics in England under Elizabeth and the Stuarts. And what the Catholic Church lost in numbers through the defection of the greater part of northern Europe was compensated for by Jesuit missions among the teeming millions in India and China, among the Huron and Iroquois tribes of North America, and among the aborigines of Brazil and Paraguay. No means of influence, no source of power, was neglected that would win men to religion and to the authority of the bishop of Rome. Politics and agriculture were utilized as well as literature and science. The Jesuits were confessors of kings in Europe and apostles of the faith in Asia and America.

[Sidenote: Political and Economic Factors in the Catholic Reformation]

It has been pointed out already that the rapid diffusion of Protestantism was due to economic and political causes as well as to those narrowly religious. It may be said with equal truth that political and economic causes co-operated with the religious developments that we have just noted in maintaining the supremacy of the Catholic Church in at least half the countries over which she had exercised her sway in 1500. For one thing, it is doubtful whether financial abuses had flourished as long or as vigorously in southern as in northern Europe. For another, the political conditions in the states of southern Europe help to explain the interesting situation.

[Sidebar: Italy]

In Italy was the pope's residence and See. He had bestowed many favors on important Italian families. He had often exploited foreign countries in behalf of Italian patronage. He had taken advantage of the political disunity of the peninsula to divide his local enemies and thereby to assure the victory of his own cause. Two popes of the sixteenth century belonged to the powerful Florentine family of the Medici—Florence remained loyal. The hearty support of the Emperor Charles V preserved the orthodoxy of Naples, and that of Philip II stamped out heresy in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

[Sidenote: France]

In France, the concordat of 1516 between pope and king had peacefully secured for the French monarch appointment of bishops and control of benefices within his country,—powers which the German princes and the English sovereigns secured by revolutionary change. Moreover, French Protestantism, by its political activities in behalf of effective checks upon the royal power, drove the king into Catholic arms: the cause of absolutism in France became the cause of Catholicism, and the latter was bound up with French patriotism to quite the same extent as English patriotism became linked with the fortunes of Anglicanism.

[Sidenote: Spain and Portugal]

In Spain and Portugal, the monarchs obtained concessions from the pope like those accorded the French sovereigns. They gained control of the Catholic Church within their countries and found it a most valuable ally in forwarding their absolutist tendencies. Moreover, the centuries-long struggle with Mohammedanism had endeared Catholic Christianity alike to Spaniards and to Portuguese and rendered it an integral part of their national life. Spain and Portugal now remained fiercely Catholic.

[Sidenote: Austria]

Somewhat similar was the case of Austria. Terrifying fear of the advancing Turk, joined with the political exigencies of the Habsburg rulers, threw that duchy with most of its dependencies into the hands of the pope. If the bishop of Rome, by favoring the Habsburgs, had lost England, he had at least saved Austria.

[Sidenote: Poland and Ireland]

Ireland and Poland—those two extreme outposts of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe—found their religion to be the most effectual safeguard of their nationality, the most valuable weapon against aggression or assimilation by powerful neighbors.