The Council of Trent and the Catholic Reformation
A council in the Alpine city of Trent answers the Protestant challenge, defining Catholic doctrine and launching a wave of reform, new orders and missions.
- Trent: What Happened at the Council — John W. O'Malley, Harvard University Press (2013)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
- The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd revised edition) — F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press (2005)
Called by Pope Paul III, the Council of Trent met in three periods between 1545 and 1563. On doctrine it held firm against the Protestants: Scripture and tradition together are the sources of revelation; there are seven sacraments; the bread and wine of the Mass truly become Christ’s body and blood (transubstantiation); and salvation involves both God’s grace and human cooperation. On discipline it attacked the abuses Luther had denounced, requiring bishops to live in their dioceses, banning the sale of indulgences and ordering every diocese to set up a seminary.
- Trent: What Happened at the Council — John W. O'Malley, Harvard University Press (2013)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
After the council came the Roman Catechism (1566) and a standard Roman Missal (1570), the “Tridentine” Latin Mass celebrated almost unchanged until the 1960s. A burst of new energy accompanied it: Ignatius of Loyola’s Jesuits (approved in 1540), who became great teachers and missionaries; Teresa of Ávila’s reform of the Carmelites; and Baroque art and churches designed to move the heart. There was a harder side too: the Roman Inquisition (1542), the Index of Forbidden Books (1559) and the trial of Galileo in 1633, for which John Paul II acknowledged the church’s error in 1992.
- Trent: What Happened at the Council — John W. O'Malley, Harvard University Press (2013)
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
- The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd revised edition) — F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press (2005)
Why it matters today
For four centuries Trent defined what it meant to be Catholic: the Latin Mass of 1570, seminaries to train priests, the catechism, and a confident, disciplined church. Traditionalist Catholics who love the old Latin Mass are, in a sense, loyal to Trent's church, and debates about Vatican II often turn on how it relates to Trent.