The Council of Trent, The Spiritual Exercises and The Catholic Reform

Bibliographic Data

ID3382255
AuthorsRobert E Mcnally (corresponding author)
Year1965
Volume34
Issue1
Pages36-49
Publication date1965-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueChurch History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3162870
OpenAlexW2026594430
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited5

Four hundred years ago, on December 4, 1563, the Council of Trent held its twenty-fifth and last solemn session. During eighteen difficult years it dominated the ecclesiastical affairs of Europe and its influence was felt far and wide even in the temporal order. No one in Christendom was indifferent to its proceedings, for the issues involved in this Council touched in one way or another the lives of all. In the course of the years it was supported and resisted in turn by their Catholic majesties, Charles V and Francis I, as well as by the Protestant Estates of Germany. Vituperated by Luther and Calvin and avoided by the evangelical theologians it became a wall of separation between the old and the new orders. United Christendom, which witnessed its convocation in 1545, had vanished as a reality before its closure in 1563. Assembled under trying conditions it was almost doomed to failure before it commenced; the task, which confronted this reform council, was gigantic. For it was asked to revitalize and renew the Church weighed down with the burden of the centuries. In effect, the reform, which the Fathers of this Council achieved, initiated the transformation of the medieval into the modern Church

Closure (psychology) · Order (exchange) · Political science · Protestantism · Theology · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies

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