2.4 The Catholic Reformation, 1545-1600

            A second feature of the Catholic Reformation was a renewed offensive of Catholic missionary activity.  In 1540 Paul III gave papal approval to the Society of Jesus, a new monastic missionary and teaching order that had been founded by Ignatius Loyola.  Loyola (1491 - 1556) was a Spanish nobleman who had been severely wounded in battle.  During a most painful convalescence, he experienced a religious conversion that led him to a new life dedicated to the service of God through obedience to the Pope.  Over years of study, devotion, and pilgrimage, Loyola built a small group of loyal followers dedicated to spreading the word of God and educating children and "ignorant persons in Christianity."  Calling themselves the Society of Jesus, the "Jesuits," as they have come to be known, organized themselves as a spiritual army in the service of the pope, whom they recognize as their commander-in-chief.  When Paul III authorized Loyola's Jesuits as an order of the Church, he created a valuable ally in the Church's offensive against Protestantism. 

            The Jesuits were, and still are, a disciplined, highly educated and trained monastic order dedicated to the spread of the true faith as revealed by God through the Catholic Church.  In his book, Spiritual Exercises (1548), Loyola wrote that a Jesuit must accept the truth of faith as the Church defined it without doubt or question even if it seemed to defy logic.  A soldier obeys orders.  He does not question his superior officers.

             The Jesuits pursued their objectives through education and foreign missions.  As educators they founded schools that became models for quality education throughout Europe.  Their curriculum included the Greco-Roman humanities as well as religious and moral training.  As missionaries they founded missions in China, Japan, and in the Americas.  Often at great risk to their personal safety and lives, the Jesuits converted hundreds of thousands of souls to Catholicism.  In Europe they also worked to restore Protestant souls to the Catholic Church.  In Poland and Hungary the Jesuits were successful in reconverting those regions to Catholicism. 

            Among the more influential of the original Jesuits was Francis Xavier, who did missionary work in Asia.  He founded missions in India and the East Indies and in 1549 convinced Japanese authorities to allow a Jesuit mission in Nagasaki.  In Germany Peter Canisius worked tirelessly to restore Catholicism in the German states. 

            As the spiritual "shocktroops" of the Catholic Reformation, the Jesuits actively involved themselves in the "war" against Protestantism.  They served as counselors, advisors, and confessors for Catholic monarchs.  In Protestant countries they secretly encouraged political subversion against the governments by organizing Catholic conspiracies or rebellions.

            The third major feature of the Catholic Reformation was the work done by the Council of Trent.  Called by Pope Paul III, the Council met periodically over a span of eighteen years (1545 - 1563).  Church leaders and theological scholars from all over Catholic Europe subjected Catholic and Protestant doctrine to intensive examination.  Their goal was to establish the correct position of the Church on all matters of Catholic faith, practice, doctrine, and liturgy.

            On the basis of its deliberations, the Council of Trent concluded that the Church's doctrines were spiritually correct and that the Protestants were in error.  The Council reaffirmed the Church's position on salvation, maintaining that salvation was possible only through faith and good works.  Contrary to the Protestant position on the validity of the sacraments, the Council asserted that all seven sacraments were valid means through which one received God's grace.  The doctrine of transubstantiation in relation to the celebration of Christian communion was upheld as spiritually correct.  The Council reaffirmed that the priesthood was a divinely ordained special estate vital to salvation as spiritual intermediaries between man and God.  No individual, the Council maintained, had the right to private interpretation of scripture.  Both scripture and Church tradition were confirmed as equal sources of faith.  The Church's Latin Bible was confirmed as the only version of the Bible upon which authoritative Church teaching could be based.  Latin would remain the language of Catholic liturgy.  The clergy would remain celibate (unmarried).  The existence of purgatory as a spiritual condition was upheld.  The use of indulgences to lessen time in purgatory was ruled theoretically correct.  The sale of indulgences, however, was to be ended.  The veneration (worship) of the Virgin Mary and of the saints, the use of images, relics, pilgrimages, and fasting were confirmed as spiritually useful and pious actions.

            In an effort to eliminate ignorance among the clergy, the Council ruled that the bishops of the Church were to establish seminaries (theological schools) in their dioceses for the education and training of priests.  In order to reduce corruption, the practice of simony (the buying of positions within the Church hierarchy) was forbidden. 

            The Council also established (1559) an Index of Prohibited Books, a listing of those books Catholics would be forbidden to read.  The purpose of the Index was to protect Catholic souls from heretical ideas.  The works of Luther, Calvin, and other influential Protestant figures were immediately placed on the Index.  The Index was ended in 1966, although the Church to this day still advises on books seen threatening to the spiritual well-being of Catholic souls.

            The calling of a general Church council was seen by supporters of the reformist papacy as potentially dangerous.  Suppose the Council acted in such a way as to weaken the authority of the Pope and give greater power over Church matters to future councils of bishops?  Paul III wisely anticipated this concern and saw to it that the Council's working sessions were dominated by Jesuits and Italian bishops sympathetic to the Pope's goals for the Church.  The result was the Council's reaffirming the unquestioned spiritual supremacy of the Pope over the Church.

            A fourth factor underlying the success of the Catholic Reformation was outside the Catholic Church.  The late sixteenth century saw active political and military opposition to the spread of Protestantism, particularly by the Hapsburg monarchs of Austria and Spain (namely, Philip II of Spain).   A brief summary should serve to illustrate the militant nature of this opposition to the Protestant heresy.

            In 1567 King Philip II of Spain sent Spanish armies to subdue a Calvinist rebellion against his rule in the Dutch Netherlands.  The result was a long and bitter war that lasted until 1609.

             On St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572 on the orders of King Charles IX of France, Catholic forces, attacking by surprise and at night, massacred some three thousand French Huguenots in Paris.  Within ten days some ten thousand Huguenots had been slaughtered throughout France.  On learning of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the pope issued a commemorative medal and Spain's dour King Philip was said to have smiled.

            In 1586 a Spanish and Jesuit-inspired Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and put her Catholic cousin Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne was discovered and foiled.  Elizabeth ordered the hapless Mary beheaded.

            In 1588 Philip of Spain ordered a massive naval force, the Spanish Armada, to sail against England, invade and overthrow Elizabeth and restore England to the Catholic Church.  Elizabeth's captains defeated the Armada, but the state of war between England and Spain lasted until 1604. (See chapter 4, section 4 "The Defeat of the Spanish Armada.")

            In conclusion, the year 1600 found a resurgent Catholicism on the offensive against Protestantism.  Battered and stunned by the initial impact of the Protestant attack, the Catholic Church finally undertook what the northern humanists had so long urged it to do, reform itself.  Under the leadership of Pope Paul III and his successors, the Church experienced an intensive self-examination and reassessment of its spiritual role in the life of Christian Europe.  Under its reformist papacy the Church reasserted its commitment to moral leadership.  The new Jesuit order "took to the field" with a spiritual enthusiasm that rivaled and surpassed that of the most zealous Calvinists.  The Council of Trent reaffirmed the spiritual correctness of Church doctrine.  And, inspired by the Church's renewed sense of purpose, Catholic monarchs utilized the resources of their treasuries and military in an attempt to eradicate Protestantism. 

            The Catholic Reformation saved the Catholic Church and gave it a renewed sense of spiritual purpose.  Although Protestantism would not be destroyed, its spread would be checked and it would gain no new territories.  The conflict of the faiths, however, was not over.  Europe would experience another century of religious disturbance before Catholicism and Protestantism would be willing to live in peace with each other.  That peace would come only because changing economic, social, and political conditions reduced the importance of religion in national life.