History 2P91: Catholic Reform? Or Counter Reform? - Rome Reacts

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Here is the remainder of the lecture from 11 February 2008 on implementation of Trent and Catholic Reform efforts.

Catholic reactions to Luther's challenge were initially puzzling - many thought the controversy would 'blow over' - but it didn't.  The calls for reform eventually led to the calling of the Council of Trent, and with it discussion of what European Christians, according to traditionalists, ought to belief.  The decrees of the council were wide ranging - so much that the Roman Catholic church after 1563 and until the 20th Century would be called the 'Tridentine Church' - after the Latin name for Trent.  In these decress were contained direct assaults on reformers' doctrines and positions.  Accompanying them were also the much needed reform efforts focused on education of the clergy and organization of religious practices.  As part of these efforts the church permitted the founding of new religious societies - such as the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits - whose purpose was to educate believers, but also aimed in some respects at recapturing areas lost to Protestantism.  With the discovery of the New World, catholicism also began to believe that though it had lost many European men and women to heresy, the discovery of new populations ripe for conversion was divine compensation.  We thus see the expansion of the Roman Catholic church world wide as part of the efforts coming out of Catholic reform and with it a renewed sense of catholic piety and identity based on the decrees of the Council of Trent.

Additional Reading Lists

Secondary

• J. Bossy, 'The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe,' Past & Present no.47 (1970): 51-70.
• T.W. Casteel, 'Calvin and Trent: Calvin's Reaction to the Council of Trent in the Context of His Conciliar Thought,' Harvard Theological Review 63 no.1 (1970): 91-117.
• J. Contreras, The Impact of Protestantism in Spain: 1520-1600 (: , ).
• R. A. Crofts, 'Printing, reform and the Catholic Reformation in Germany (1521-1545),' Sixteenth Century Journal 16 (1985): .
• J. Delumeau, Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire (London: Burns and Oates, 1977).
• A.G. Dickens, The Counter Reformation (New York: Norton & Co., 1968).
• H.O. Evenett, The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation (: Cambridge University Press, ).
• E. Gleason, 'Catholic Reformation, Counter Reformation and Papal Reform in the Sixteenth Century', in Handbook of European History 1400-1600, ed. Thomas A. Brady, Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy (: , 1995), 317-430.
• S. H. Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981).
• W.V. Hudon, 'Two Instructions to Preachers from the Tridentine Reformation,' Sixteenth Century Journal 20 no.3 (1989): 457-470.
• P. Humpfrey, 'Altarpieces and Altar Dedication in Counter Reformation Venice and Veneto,' Renaissance Studies 15 no.1 (1996): 99-116.
• D. Loades, 'The Spirituality of the Restored Catholic Church (1553-1558) in the Context of the Counter Reformation', in The Reckoned Expense: Edmund Campion and the Early English Jesuits, ed. T.M. McCoog (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1996), 3-19.
• Thomas F. Mayer, The Correspondence of Reginald Pole: A Calendar, 1555-1558 Restoring the English Church (: , ).
• T.M. McCoog, ''Ignatius Loyola and Reginald Pole: A Reconsideration',' Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47 no.2 (1996): 257-273.
• J.F. McCue, 'The Doctrine of Transubstantiation from Berengar through Trent: The Point at Issue,' Harvard Theological Review 61 (1968): 385-430.
• F.J. McGuiness, 'Roma Sancta and the Saint: Eucharist, Chastity, and the Logic of Catholic Reform,' Historical Reflections 15 no.1 (1988): .
• J.C. Olin ed., The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992).
• Luc Racaut & Alec Ryrie ed., Moderate Voices in the European Reformation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).
• R.W. Richgels, 'Scholasticism Meets Humanism in the Counter-Reformation the Clash of Cultures in Robert Bellarmine's Use of Calvin in the Controversies,' Sixteenth Century Journal 6 no.1 (1975): 53-66.
• John W. Riggs, 'Emerging Ecclesiology in Calvin's Baptismal Thought,' Church History 64 no.1 (1995): 29-43.
• E. Russell, 'Marian Oxford and the Counter-Reformation', in The Church in Pre-Reformation Society, ed. C.M. Barron and C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1985), 212-227.
• M. Tausiet, 'Excluded Souls: The Wayward and Excommunicated in Counter-Reformation Spain,' (2003): 437-450.
• D.F. Wright ed., Martin Bucer: Reforming Church and Community (: , ).

Links

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