Council of Trent

Council of Trent, 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, held in three parts from 1545 to 1563. Prompted by the Reformation, the Council of Trent responded emphatically to the issues at hand and enacted the formal Roman Catholic reply to the doctrinal challenges of the Protestants. It thus represents the official adjudication of many questions about which there had been continuing ambiguity throughout the early church and the Middle Ages. The council was highly important for its sweeping decrees on self-reform and for its dogmatic definitions that clarified virtually every doctrine contested by the Protestants. Despite internal strife and two lengthy interruptions, the council was a key part of the Counter-Reformation and played a vital role in revitalizing the Roman Catholic Church in many parts of Europe. What emerged from the Council of Trent was a chastened but consolidated church and papacy, the Roman Catholicism of modern history.

Period I: 1545–47

Early calls for reform grew out of criticism of the worldly attitudes and policies of the Renaissance popes and many of the clergy, but there was little significant papal reaction to the Protestants or to demands for reform from within the Roman Catholic Church before mid-century. Though Germany demanded a general council following the excommunication of the German Reformation leader Martin Luther, Pope Clement VII held back for fear of renewed attacks on his supremacy. France, too, preferred inaction, afraid of increasing German power. Clement’s successor, Paul III, however, was convinced that Christian unity and effective church reform could come only through a council, which he originally scheduled to open on May 23, 1537, at Mantua. With infinite patience, Paul sought to overcome the opposition of the emperor, kings, prelates, and princes, proroguing and postponing the council’s opening again and again over the course of nine years, but finally he succeeded in having it inaugurated by his legate, Cardinal Giovanni del Monte, at Trent (northern Italy) on December 13, 1545. Pope Paul III is considered to be the first pope of the Counter-Reformation, and the Council of Trent is commonly hailed as the most important single event in the Roman Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation.

As the council opened, some bishops urged for immediate reform, and others sought clarification of Catholic doctrines; a compromise was reached whereby both topics were to be treated simultaneously. The council then laid the groundwork for a number of future declarations. The ecumenical Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed was accepted as the basis of Catholic faith; it is also accepted as authoritative by Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and major Protestant churches. The canon of Old and New Testament books was definitely fixed, and the Latin Vulgate was declared adequate for doctrinal proofs, a stance against Protestant insistence upon the original Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture. The number of sacraments was fixed at seven, and the nature and consequences of original sin were defined. After months of intense debate, the council ruled against Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone: a person, the council said, was inwardly justified by cooperating with divine grace that God bestows gratuitously. Indeed, both of the “either/or” doctrines of the Protestant reformers—justification by faith alone, the authority of Scripture alone—were anathematized, in the name of a “both/and” doctrine of justification by both faith and works on the basis of the authority of both Scripture and tradition. By enjoining on bishops an obligation to reside in their respective sees, the church effectively abolished plurality of bishoprics.

Fears of the plague and the menace of an attack by armed Protestant forces induced Pope Paul III to accept the council’s transfer to Bologna in February 1548. But the emperor forbade the Spanish and German prelates to go to Bologna, and the pope had to suspend the unfinished council on September 17, 1549. Nevertheless, this first phase of the Council of Trent had achieved a substantial step forward, leading to a thorough reform of the church’s teaching and discipline.