A History of the Reformation (Vol. 2 of 2)

by Thomas M. Lindsay

The second and third sections of the decree treating of the increase of Justification and of its renewal in the Sacrament of Penance, were drafted still more emphatically in an anti-evangelical spirit, though here and there they show concessions to the Augustinian feeling in the Church. The result was that the Pope obtained what he wanted, a definition which made reconciliation with the Protestants impossible. The New Thomists were able to secure a sufficient amount of Augustinian theology in the decree to render Jansenism possible in the future; while the prevailing Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism foreshadowed its overthrow by Jesuit theology.

While these theological definitions were being discussed and framed, the Council also occupied itself with matters of reform. They began to make regulations about preaching and catechising, and this led them insensibly to the question of exemptions from episcopal control. The Popes had for some centuries been trying to weaken the authority of the Bishops, by placing the regular clergy or monks beyond the control of the Bishops within whose diocese their convents stood, and this exemption had been the occasion of many ecclesiastical disorders. The discussion was long and excited. It ended in a compromise.

When the decree on Justification was settled, the Council, guided by the Legates, proceeded to discuss the doctrine of the Sacraments, with the intention of still more thoroughly preventing any doctrinal reconciliation with the Protestants. This action called forth remonstrances from the Emperor, whose successes at the time in Germany were alarming the Pope, and making him anxious to withdraw the Council from Germany altogether. He sent orders to the Legates to endeavour to persuade the members at Trent to vote for a transfer to Bologna, where the papal influence would be stronger, and where it would be easier to pack the Synod with a pliant Italian majority. A pretext was found in the appearance of the plague at Trent; and although a strong minority, headed by Madruzzo of Trent, opposed the scheme, the majority (38 to 14) decided that they must leave Trent and establish themselves at the Italian city. The Spanish Bishops, however, remained at Trent awaiting the Emperor’s orders.

Charles V. had suffered many disappointments from the Council he had laboured to summon, and this action made him lose all patience. He ordered the Spanish Bishops not to leave Trent; the Diet of Augsburg refused to recognise the prelates who had gone to Bologna as the General Council. After much hesitation, Pope Paul III. felt compelled to suspend the proceedings of the Council at Bologna (September 17th, 1549). This ended the first part of the sittings of the Council.

§ 4. Second Meeting of the Council.

Pope Paul III. died November 10th, 1549. At the Conclave which followed, the Cardinal del Monte, the senior Legate of the Council, was chosen Pope, and took the title of Julius III. (February 7th, 1550). He and the Emperor soon came to an agreement that the Council should return to Trent. It accordingly reopened there on May 1st, 1551. The Cardinal Marcello Crescentio was appointed sole Legate, and two assistants, the Archbishop of Siponto and the Bishop of Verona, were entitled Nuncios. The second meeting of the Council did not promise well. The Pope had agreed that something was to be done to conciliate the Protestants, and that it should be left an open question whether the preceding decisions of the Council might not be revised. But before its assembly the policy of the Pope again ran counter to that of the Emperor, and the Protestants had ceased to expect much. The delegates themselves showed little eagerness to come to the place of meeting. The Council was forced to adjourn, and it was not until the 1st of September that it began its work.

The earlier proceedings showed that there was little hope of conciliatory measures. There was no attempt to revise these former decisions, and the Council began its work of codifying doctrine and reformation at the place where it had dropped it.

During the later months of the first meeting, the question of the Sacraments had been under discussion, and so far as the second meeting is concerned it may be said that the whole of its theological work was confined to this subject.

Little pains were taken to conciliate the Protestants. The decisions arrived at pass over in contemptuous silence all the Protestant contendings. The relations of the Sacraments to the Word and Promises of God, and to the faith of the recipient, are not explained. The thirteen Canons which sum up the doctrine of the Sacraments in general, and the anathemas with which they conclude, are the protest of the Council against the whole Protestant movement.

This did not prevent the Council being confronted with great difficulties in their definitions—difficulties which arose from the opposition between the earlier and more Evangelical Thomist and the later Scotist and Nominalist theology. It would almost appear that the fathers of Trent despaired of harmonising the multitude of Scholastic theories on the nature of the Sacraments in general. They did not venture on constructing a decree, but contented themselves for the most part with merely negative definitions. They declare that there are seven Sacraments, neither more nor fewer, all positively instituted by Christ. They sever the intimate connection between faith and the Sacraments, attributing to them a secret and mysterious power. They practically deny the universal priesthood of believers (Can. 10). Perhaps the most important Canon is the last: “If any one shall say that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, commonly used in the solemn administration of the Sacraments, may be contemned, or without sin omitted at pleasure by the ministrants, or be changed by any pastor of the churches into other new ones: let him be anathema” (Can. 13). It enables us to see how, while not going beyond the verbal limits of the definitions of the Thomist theology, the Council provided room for subsequent aberrations of doctrine by raising the use and wont of the Roman Church to the level of dogma.