Council of Trent

The Council of Trent (Italian: Trento) was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church held in discontinuous sessions between 1545 and 1563 in response to the Protestant Reformation. The Council should have been held in Vicenza (20 miles west of Venice), but the aristocratic family that promoted the event was considered to be too fond of the Emperor, so the council was moved to Trent.

Objects and general results

The object of the council was twofold:

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• To condemn the principles and doctrines of Protestantism, and to define the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church on all disputed points. It is true the emperor intended it to be a strictly general or truly ecumenical council, at which the Protestants should have a fair hearing. He secured, during the council's second period, 1551-52, an invitation, twice given, to the Protestants to be present, and the council issued a letter of safe-conduct (thirteenth session) and offered them the right of discussion, but denied them a vote. Melanchthon and Johann Brenz, with some other German Lutherans, actually started in 1552 on the journey to Trent. Brenz offered a confession, and Melanchthon, who got no farther than Nuremberg, took with him the ironic statement known as the Confessio Saxonica. But the refusal to give to the Protestants the right to vote and the consternation produced by the success of Maurice in his campaign against Charles V. in 1552 effectually put an end to Protestant cooperation.
• To effect a reformation in discipline or administration. This object had been one of the causes calling forth the reformatory councils, and had been lightly touched upon by the Fifth Council of the Lateran under Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X. The corrupt administration of the Church was one of the secondary causes of the Reformation. Twenty-five public sessions were held, but nearly half of them were spent in solemn formalities. The chief work was done in committees or congregations. The entire management was in the hands of the papal legate. The liberal elements lost out in the debates and voting. The council abolished some of the most notorious abuses, and introduced or recommended disciplinary reforms affecting the sale of indulgences, the morals of convents, the education of the clergy, the non-residence of bishops (also bishops having plurality of benefices which was fairly common), and the careless fulmination of censures, and forbade dueling. Although liberal evangelical sentiments were uttered by some of the ablest members in favor of the supreme authority of the Scriptures, and justification by faith, no concession whatever was made to Protestantism.

The doctrinal decisions of the council are divided into decrees (decreta), which contain the positive statement of the Roman dogmas, and into short canons (canones), which condemn the dissenting Protestant views with the concluding "anathema sit." They are stated with great clearness and precision. The decree on justification betrays special ability and theological circumspection. The Protestant doctrines, however, are almost always exhibited in an exaggerated form, and sometimes mixed up with heresies that the Protestants also condemn emphatically.

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