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9 Things You Should Know About the Council of Trent

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With so many smokescreens its hard to stay focused on the great commission...

1. The Council of Trent was the most important movement of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s first significant reply to the growing Protestants Reformation. The primary purpose of the council was to condemn and refute the beliefs of the Protestants, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, and also to make the set of beliefs in Catholicism even clearer. Approximately forty clergymen, mainly Catholic bishops, were in attendance during the twenty-five times over the next eighteen years that the Council convened.

2. Protestants endorse justification by faith alone (sola fide) apart from anything (including good works), a position the Catholic Church condemned as heresy. During the the sixth session, the Council issued a decree saying that, “If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.”

3. The Protestant Reformers rejected the Apocrypha as part of the biblical canon. (The term Apocrypha (Gr., hidden) is a collection of ancient Jewish writings and is the title given to these books, which were written between 300 and 30 B.C., in the era between the Old and New Testaments.) During the the fourth session, the Council issued a decree damning anyone who rejected these books:

. . . if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.

Many doctrines unique to Catholicism, such as the teachings of purgatory, prayers for the dead, and salvation by works, are found in these books.

4. During the Protestant Reformation, the doctrine of transubstantiation was heavily criticized as an Aristotelian “pseudophilosophy.” The 13th session reaffirmed and defined transubstantiation as “that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood - the species only of the bread and wine remaining - which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation.”

5. Protestants claimed that the only source and norm for the Christian faith was Holy Scripture (the canonical Bible without the Apocrypha). The doctrine of Sola Scriptura was rejected at Trent. The Council affirmed two sources of special revelation: Holy Scripture (e.g., all the books included in the Latin Vulgate version) and traditions of the church (including the “unwritten traditions”).

6. In Catholic theology, an indulgence is a remission of temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven. Under Catholic teaching, every sin must be purified either here on earth or after death in a state called purgatory. The selling of indulgences was not part of official Catholic teaching, though in Martin Luther’s era, the practice had become common. (Luther was appalled by the sermon of an indulgence vendor named John Tetzel who said, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”) The Council called for the reform of the practice, yet damned those who “say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them.”

7. In Catholic theology, purgatory is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who denied yet were not free from “venial” sins (a lesser sin that does not result in a complete separation from God and eternal damnation in hell). The council affirmed the doctrine of purgatory and damned anyone who claimed “that after the grace of justification has been received the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out for any repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid.”

8. In the 24 session, the council issued decrees on marriage which affirmed the excellence of celibacy, condemned concubinage, and made the validity of marriage dependent upon the wedding taking place before a priest and two witnesses. In the case of a divorce, the right of the innocent party to marry again was denied so long as the other party was alive, even if the other party had committed adultery.

9. At the request of Pope Gregory XIII, the Council approved a plan to correct the errors to the Julian calendar that would allow for a more consistent and accurate scheduling of the feast of Easter. The reform included reducing the number of leap years in four centuries from 100 to 97. Although Protestant countries in Europe initially refused to adopt the “Gregorian calendar” (also known as the Western or Christian calendar), it eventually became the most widely accepted and used civil calendar in the world.

(Note: The declarations and anathemas of the Council of Trent have never been revoked. The decrees of the Council of Trent are confirmed by both the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the official “Catechism of the Catholic Church” (1992).)

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-you-should-know-about-the-council-of-trent
 
33 Canons of the Council..

CANON I.-If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.


CANON II.-If any one saith, that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly, and to merit eternal life, as if, by free will without grace, he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty; let him be anathema.


CANON III.-If any one saith, that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without his help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so as that the grace of Justification may be bestowed upon him; let him be anathema.


CANON IV. If any one shall affirm, that man’s freewill, moved and excited by God, does not, by consenting, cooperate with God, the mover and exciter, so as to prepare and dispose itself for the attainment of justification; if moreover, anyone shall say, that the human will cannot refuse complying, if it pleases, but that it is inactive, and merely passive; let such an one be accursed"!


CANON V.- If anyone shall affirm, that since the fall of Adam, man’s freewill is lost and extinguished; or, that it is a thing titular, yea a name, without a thing, and a fiction introduced by Satan into the Church; let such an one be accursed"!


CANON VI.-If any one saith, that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil God worketh as well as those that are good, not permissively only, but properly, and of Himself, in such wise that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of Paul; let him be anathema.


CANON VII.-If any one saith, that all works done before Justification, in whatsoever way they be done, are truly sins, or merit the hatred of God; or that the more earnestly one strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins: let him be anathema.


CANON VIII.-If any one saith, that the fear of hell,-whereby, by grieving for our sins, we flee unto the mercy of God, or refrain from sinning,-is a sin, or makes sinners worse; let him be anathema.


CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.


CANON X.-If any one saith, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema.


CANON XI.-If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favour of God; let him be anathema.


CANON XII.-If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified; let him be anathema.


CANON XIII.-If any one saith, that it is necessary for every one, for the obtaining the remission of sins, that he believe for certain, and without any wavering arising from his own infirmity and disposition, that his sins are forgiven him; let him be anathema.


CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema.


CANON XV.-If any one saith, that a man, who is born again and justified, is bound of faith to believe that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate; let him be anathema.

CANON XVI.-If any one saith, that he will for certain, of an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance unto the end,-unless he have learned this by special revelation; let him be anathema.


CANON XVII.-If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.


CANON XVIII.-If any one saith, that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep; let him be anathema.


CANON XIX.-If any one saith, that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel; that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor prohibited, but free; or, that the ten commandments nowise appertain to Christians; let him be anathema.


CANON XX.-If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ; let him be anathema.


CANON XXI.-If any one saith, that Christ Jesus was given of God to men, as a redeemer in whom to trust, and not also as a legislator whom to obey; let him be anathema.


CANON XXII.-If any one saith, that the justified, either is able to persevere, without the special help of God, in the justice received; or that, with that help, he is not able; let him be anathema.


CANON XXIII.-lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the other hand, that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial,-except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema.


CANON XXIV.-If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.


CANON XXV.-If any one saith, that, in every good work, the just sins venially at least, or-which is more intolerable still-mortally, and consequently deserves eternal punishments; and that for this cause only he is not damned, that God does not impute those works unto damnation; let him be anathema.


CANON XXVI.-If any one saith, that the just ought not, for their good works done in God, to expect and hope for an eternal recompense from God, through His mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, if so be that they persevere to the end in well doing and in keeping the divine commandments; let him be anathema.


CANON XXVII.-If any one saith, that there is no mortal sin but that of infidelity; or, that grace once received is not lost by any other sin, however grievous and enormous, save by that of infidelity ; let him be anathema.


CANON XXVIII.-If any one saith, that, grace being lost through sin, faith also is always lost with it; or, that the faith which remains, though it be not a lively faith, is not a true faith; or, that he, who has faith without charity, is not as Christ taught; let him be anathema.


CANON XXIX.-If any one saith, that he, who has fallen after baptism, is not able by the grace of God to rise again; or, that he is able indeed to recover the justice which he has lost, but by faith alone without the sacrament of Penance, contrary to what the holy Roman and universal Church-instructed by Christ and his Apostles-has hitherto professed, observed, and taugh; let him be anathema.


CANON XXX.-If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to him); let him be anathema.


CANON XXXI.-If any one saith, that the justified sins when he performs good works with a view to an eternal recompense; let him be anathema.


CANON XXXII.-If any one saith, that the good works of one that is justified are in such manner the gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life,-if so be, however, that he depart in grace,-and also an increase of
glory; let him be anathema.


CANON XXXIII.-If any one saith, that by the Catholic doctrine touching Justification, by this holy Synod inset forth in this present decree, the glory of God, or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ are in any way derogated from, and not rather that the truth of our faith, and the glory in fine of God and of Jesus Christ are rendered (more) illustrious; let him be anathema.
 
With so many smokescreens its hard to stay focused on the great commission...

1. The Council of Trent was the most important movement of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s first significant reply to the growing Protestants Reformation. The primary purpose of the council was to condemn and refute the beliefs of the Protestants, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, and also to make the set of beliefs in Catholicism even clearer. Approximately forty clergymen, mainly Catholic bishops, were in attendance during the twenty-five times over the next eighteen years that the Council convened.

2. Protestants endorse justification by faith alone (sola fide) apart from anything (including good works), a position the Catholic Church condemned as heresy. During the the sixth session, the Council issued a decree saying that, “If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.”

3. The Protestant Reformers rejected the Apocrypha as part of the biblical canon. (The term Apocrypha (Gr., hidden) is a collection of ancient Jewish writings and is the title given to these books, which were written between 300 and 30 B.C., in the era between the Old and New Testaments.) During the the fourth session, the Council issued a decree damning anyone who rejected these books:

. . . if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.

Many doctrines unique to Catholicism, such as the teachings of purgatory, prayers for the dead, and salvation by works, are found in these books.

4. During the Protestant Reformation, the doctrine of transubstantiation was heavily criticized as an Aristotelian “pseudophilosophy.” The 13th session reaffirmed and defined transubstantiation as “that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood - the species only of the bread and wine remaining - which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation.”

5. Protestants claimed that the only source and norm for the Christian faith was Holy Scripture (the canonical Bible without the Apocrypha). The doctrine of Sola Scriptura was rejected at Trent. The Council affirmed two sources of special revelation: Holy Scripture (e.g., all the books included in the Latin Vulgate version) and traditions of the church (including the “unwritten traditions”).

6. In Catholic theology, an indulgence is a remission of temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven. Under Catholic teaching, every sin must be purified either here on earth or after death in a state called purgatory. The selling of indulgences was not part of official Catholic teaching, though in Martin Luther’s era, the practice had become common. (Luther was appalled by the sermon of an indulgence vendor named John Tetzel who said, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”) The Council called for the reform of the practice, yet damned those who “say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them.”

7. In Catholic theology, purgatory is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who denied yet were not free from “venial” sins (a lesser sin that does not result in a complete separation from God and eternal damnation in hell). The council affirmed the doctrine of purgatory and damned anyone who claimed “that after the grace of justification has been received the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out for any repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid.”

8. In the 24 session, the council issued decrees on marriage which affirmed the excellence of celibacy, condemned concubinage, and made the validity of marriage dependent upon the wedding taking place before a priest and two witnesses. In the case of a divorce, the right of the innocent party to marry again was denied so long as the other party was alive, even if the other party had committed adultery.

9. At the request of Pope Gregory XIII, the Council approved a plan to correct the errors to the Julian calendar that would allow for a more consistent and accurate scheduling of the feast of Easter. The reform included reducing the number of leap years in four centuries from 100 to 97. Although Protestant countries in Europe initially refused to adopt the “Gregorian calendar” (also known as the Western or Christian calendar), it eventually became the most widely accepted and used civil calendar in the world.

(Note: The declarations and anathemas of the Council of Trent have never been revoked. The decrees of the Council of Trent are confirmed by both the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the official “Catechism of the Catholic Church” (1992).)

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-you-should-know-about-the-council-of-trent
What an unscriptural crock of manure.
 
The Council of Trent: 1545–1563

Background


The Catholic Church had faced a great many threats and challenges in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Protestant reformers (considered heretics by the church) questioned Catholic doctrine, some offering translations of the Bible or encouraging salvation through faith and a direct relationship with God rather than through the clergy. Mystics in the Late Middle Ages (c. 1300–1500) also sought a deeply personal relationship with God, although most did it from within the structure of the church. Renaissance scholars focused on classical philosophy and thought as a source of learning and morality that often conflicted directly with church teachings. Although the church worked to eliminate heresy and limit the impact of mysticism on the general population, it offered no effective response to the changing needs of the community of believers.

The Protestant Reformation officially began on October 31, 1517, when German theologian Martin Luther (1483–1546) nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther’s complaints included corruption within the church, but his ninety-five theses went far beyond just concern over lax morality and wealth. He questioned fundamental doctrines of the church.
Good works were an essential element of salvation in the Roman Catholic Church. In earlier years, good works included serving the poor, donating to charity, and tithing to the church. By the early sixteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church relied on a system of indulgences, or purchased pardons from sin, to support church building, monasteries, and the clergy. An indulgence could forgive sin or reduce time in purgatory, helping the buyer to reach heaven.

Luther, however, believed that salvation came through faith alone, rather than through good works or the purchase of indulgences. Cardinal Thomas Cajetan (1469–1534) was sent to Germany in 1519 to speak with Luther, whose Ninety-Five Theses had circulated and reached church leaders in Rome. The two did not come to a resolution. Luther, for his part, denied the authority of the papacy over the church. As early as 1530 Cardinal Cajetan recommended that the mass be performed in the vernacular local language rather than Latin and that priests be permitted to marry. These changes, the cardinal hoped, would help to reduce the division between the reformers and the church.
The Protestant Reformation grew quickly, spreading throughout much of Europe, particularly in the north. Other reformers soon appeared, including French theologian John Calvin (1509–1564), offering other paths to salvation and doctrinal challenges for the church.

The Catholic Church did not expect the spread of Protestantism, nor was it prepared to handle it. Although reform appealed to the poor, it also drew many among the wealthy merchant classes and nobility. The wealthy may have been drawn to Luther’s theology, which became known as Lutheranism in 1519, as a protest against the Holy Roman Empire and its emperor, or they may have sought individual salvation themselves.

In the first years of the Reformation, the church relied on tools already at its disposal in an attempt to curb the spread of Protestantism. In Spain, Protestants could be persecuted and tried as heretics under the rules of the Spanish Inquisition. Because Protestantism spread through the printed word, during the 1520s the Catholic Church undertook a stringent policy of censorship, burning books that questioned church doctrine. In regions where Protestantism was accepted or was the official state religion—as was the case in Scotland, England, Germany, and Scandinavia—Catholics were often subject to the same religious intolerance and persecution that Protestants had experienced in Spain.

http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/suic/ReferenceDetailsPage/DocumentToolsPortletWindow?displayGroupName=Reference&jsid=db5769671ab2529781787f89e1456039&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE|FYKHWP716664979&u=atla97524&zid=2e724a54a388b52731e71bedab490e7a
 
The Event

In 1545 the Roman Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent on the orders of Pope Paul III (1468–1549). Paul was an unlikely reformer for the church. Made a bishop at age eighteen and a cardinal at twenty-five, his rapid promotion in the church was the result of favoritism rather than merit. During his youth he was not a particularly holy man nor one driven by faith. His desire to reform the church and call for an ecumenical council for this purpose was opposed by his own curia (cabinet of advisors) as well as key political figures in Europe, including the kings of France and Spain. Paul tried twice to convene a council before he succeeded in gathering even a small group of bishops.
Thirty-four bishops originally gathered in Trent, Italy. They were faced with several distinct issues in the face of the Reformation, including corruption within the church and the need to respond to the doctrinal challenges of the reformers. Charles V (1500–1558), king of Spain and the Holy Roman emperor, wanted the abuses of the church addressed. Pope Paul was more concerned with the correction and clarification of church doctrine. The council agreed to meet daily, deciding the agenda each day, so one day would be devoted to doctrine and the next day devoted to correcting the abuses of the church.

The Council of Trent met on three separate occasions over eighteen years. In total, the bishops sat in meetings for approximately forty months. Although only the bishops could vote, experts in theology and canon law played a critical role in the discussions. The official teachings of the council would become canon law. Before these decrees could be issued, however, the bishops had to agree on them. A unanimous vote was not required, but moral unanimity was, with only very minimal disagreement. The Council of Trent clarified and supported the doctrine of original sin and salvation through good works, in opposition to the reformers. To address the abuses of the church, new laws were put into place requiring priests to tend to their congregations and banning absenteeism. Although indulgences were not condemned morally, they were banned to eliminate the potential of abuse.

The Council of Trent also revised and authorized the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of prohibited books. These books were considered a threat to the Catholic faith. The list included not only books by reformers such as Luther, but also humanist works, such as those by Dutch scholar Erasmus (1466–1536). Books on the list were considered either as immoral or as containing theological errors. Many Protestant scholars were on the list, regardless of the subject of their texts. Catholics were prohibited from reading the books, which were also banned from being printed on presses in Catholic lands. Lists of banned books had circulated since the 1520s, following the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 and the invention of the printing press, but the first printed index of prohibited books appeared in 1544. The index that resulted from the Council of Trent, published in 1564, is noteworthy in that it became the basis of Catholic censorship policy for the entire modern era.

In addition, the Council of Trent created the Roman Inquisition to punish a broad range of heresies, including Protestantism. Local inquisitors had the power of life and death in Catholic countries. Even confession and repentance would not necessarily provide salvation or escape from condemnation.

The reforms, doctrines, and policies that emerged from the Council of Trent revived a spirit of Catholicism in Europe that became known as the Counter-Reformation, considered the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation. A single religious order spread the message of the Counter-Reformation more than any other: the Society of Jesus. This Jesuit order was founded in 1540 by Spanish priest Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556). Loyola, a former soldier, established the order based on military-style obedience. Unlike priests and other religious orders, the Jesuits answered only to the pope rather than to a bishop or an archbishop. The Jesuits took an active role in education. Jesuit seminaries and universities provided an excellent education, and Jesuit missionaries helped to spread Catholic teaching and even restore Catholicism in some regions. Although the Jesuit order did not, on the whole, support the Inquisition, it used social pressures, including the threat of exile, to encourage individuals to reconvert.
 
Global Effect

The changes and reforms established by the Council of Trent affected the Roman Catholic Church for centuries to come, until Vatican II in the early 1960s. The Roman Inquisition would try many of the great minds of the seventeenth century, including Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). The list of prohibited books remained in force through much of the twentieth century.

The Counter-Reformation effectively stopped the Reformation in the southern regions of Europe, including Italy and Spain. It reversed the Reformation in Poland and preserved Catholicism in some parts of Germany and France. The Reformation had, however, taken hold in northern Europe, with the exception of Ireland. In Catholic countries and regions, grand new churches were built and elaborately decorated, standing in clear opposition to the plain and unadorned churches of the reformers. Catholic texts, including the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, offered a hands-on application of Catholic faith that could appeal to the individual in a post-Reformation world.

Eventually the Reformation and Counter-Reformation led to several wars, including the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which divided the Holy Roman Empire into Catholic and Protestant factions. The 1555 Peace of Augsburg allowed each prince to decide the faith of his region, and Protestantism continued to spread, splitting the empire by 1609. Religion also fueled social revolutions in the Low Countries and Scotland. England was racked by religious change and chaos during the reigns of Henry VIII (1491–1547), Mary I (1516–1558), and Elizabeth I (1533–1603). Smaller outbreaks of civil war and persecution were common during the sixteenth century. In 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia would end the era of the Holy Roman Empire, dividing it into hundreds of small, independent states.

The Jesuit order founded during the Counter-Reformation would find its greatest success outside Europe. Jesuits brought Catholicism to the New World and the rest of the globe. Jesuit missionaries adapted local customs and worked to assist indigenous peoples, even during times of conquest. The Jesuits continued their work until the order was suppressed in 1773. The order was reinstated in 1814 and still exists today.

http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/suic/Ref...tla97524&zid=2e724a54a388b52731e71bedab490e7a
 
The Council of Trent: 1545–1563

The Council of Trent, the 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic church, was held at Trent in northern Italy between 1545 and 1563. It marked a major turning point in the efforts of the Catholic church to respond to the challenge of the Protestant Reformation and formed a key part of the Counter-Reformation. The need for such a council had long been perceived by certain church leaders, but initial attempts to organize it were opposed by Francis I of France, who feared it would strengthen Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and by the popes themselves, who feared a revival of Conciliarism. The council eventually met during three separate periods (1545-47, 1551-52, 1562-63) under the leadership of three different popes (Paul III, Julius III, Pius IV). All of its decrees were formally confirmed by Pope Pius IV in 1564.

In the area of religious doctrine, the council refused any concessions to the Protestants and, in the process, crystallized and codified Catholic dogma far more than ever before. It directly opposed Protestantism by reaffirming the existence of seven sacraments, transubstantiation, purgatory, the necessity of the priesthood, and justification by works as well as by faith. Clerical celibacy and monasticism were maintained, and decrees were issued in favor of the efficacy of relics, indulgences, and the veneration of the Virgin Mary and the saints. Tradition was declared coequal to Scripture as a source of spiritual knowledge, and the sole right of the Church to interpret the Bible was asserted.

At the same time, the council took steps to reform many of the major abuses within the church that had partly incited the Reformation: decrees were issued requiring episcopal residence and a limitation on the plurality of benefices, and movements were instigated to reform certain monastic orders and to provide for the education of the clergy through the creation of a seminary in every diocese.

Attendance at the council was often relatively meager, and it was dominated by Italian and Spanish prelates. Several European monarchs kept their distance from the council's decrees, only partially enforcing them or, in the case of the French kings, never officially accepting them at all. The Council of Trent helped, however, to catalyze a movement within the Catholic clergy and laity for widespread religious renewal and reform, a movement that yielded substantial results in the 17th century.

http://mb-soft.com/believe/txs/trent.htm
 
Good work taking the emotion out of this and presenting the facts.

You have obviously done your homework.

What would be interesting is comparing Trent to the Council of Orange.

I'm inclined to think that the force behind the council of Trent is the same force we find in...

Revelation 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
 
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