Counter Reformation

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Counter Reformation 16th-century reformation that arose largely in answer to the Protestant Reformation; sometimes called the Catholic Reformation. Although the Roman Catholic reformers shared the Protestants' revulsion at the corrupt conditions in the church, there was present none of the tradition breaking that characterized Protestantism. The Counter Reformation was led by conservative forces whose aim was both to reform the church and to secure the its traditions against the innovations of Protestant theology and against the more liberalizing effects of the Renaissance.

Origins of the Counter Reformation

Since the time of St. Catherine of Siena (14th cent.) there had been a growing demand for reform—of the clergy, of Christian life, and of ecclesiastical administration. Probably the Great Schism did more than anything else to prevent change, for in its duration ecclesiastical politics preoccupied those who might have been busy with reform. In the 15th cent. the papacy was too weak to lead any movement, much less a drastic reform of the kind called for by Girolamo Savonarola . A key factor in the stagnation in Christendom was the general worldliness and negligence of the prelates who—with their kings and princes—really ran the church. Such was their power that in the only vigorous papal effort at reform of the century, the mission of Nicholas of Cusa in Germany (1451), the papal legate dared not touch the bishops. At the time the most publicized scandal was the immoral Renaissance papal court.

Of all the evils the papal scandal proved to be the easiest remedied, once it was attacked by Paul IV . Before he became pope, Paul was (as Cardinal Carafa), with St. Cajetan (1480–1547) and others, a member of a small reform party at Rome. The nucleus was a society of priests and laymen, the Oratory of Divine Love, founded (1497) at Genoa for charitable work and then extended as a spiritual movement in the Curia itself. The reformers in Rome were helped from abroad by men of the prestige of St. Thomas More, Erasmus, St. John Fisher, and Cardinal Jiménez.

However, the first major reform efforts failed; these were the Fifth Lateran Council (see Lateran Council, Fifth ) and the election of Adrian VI, who died too soon to accomplish anything. In the next pontificate (Clement VII, 1523–34) the reform party worked on quietly, forming the core of resistance to Lutheranism; they founded the Theatines (1524) and the Capuchins (1525), religious orders to evangelize the common people. Meanwhile Protestantism expanded, and the sack of Rome (1527) convinced even the most complacent cardinals that political gambling was a danger to the church. The influence of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V weighed on the side of reform.

Phases of the Counter Reformation

In 1534, Paul III became pope, and St. Ignatius of Loyola and his friends took the vows that founded the Jesuits (see Jesus, Society of ). Thus simultaneously (but quite independently) the reformers finally won the papacy, and the pope was provided with a resolute band of helpers. In 1545, after delay and miscarriage, the Council of Trent (see Trent, Council of ) was convened by Paul III. This council (1545–47, 1551–52, 1562–63) was the central event of the Counter Reformation. The popes of the council were Paul III, Julius III, and Pius IV . The reign of Pius's predecessor, Paul IV, an interlude in the council, was devoted to the purge of the papal court; from Paul's work dates the quasi-monastic air that has ever since characterized the Vatican.

The end of the council (1563) opened the second period of the reformation, lasting until 1590, with the pontificates of St. Pius V , Gregory XIII , and Sixtus V . The work of the council was given effect. The chief evil in church life, simony in many forms, including the preaching of some indulgences, was uprooted. Worship was standardized; the law of the church and the government of the Holy See were reorganized; new educational requirements for parish priests were introduced and provided for (by diocesan seminaries); religious orders were reformed; and the life of the clergy was scrutinized. A new spirit began to breathe in the church, as seen in the work of St. Charles Borromeo . In the Papal States and in a few other lands the new Inquisition was extended.

A far-reaching local movement in the reformation was the Oratory (see Oratory, Congregation of the ) of St. Philip Neri . Catholicism took the offensive in Europe, and the Jesuits and Capuchins helped win Austria, Poland, the S Netherlands, and parts of Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia back to the Roman Catholic Church. The Jesuits led in foreign missions; in America it was the spirit of the Counter Reformation that led the missionaries to work for the Native Americans, often in opposition to the secular authorities. Spanish religion was deepened by the Carmelite reforms of St. Theresa of Ávila and by St. John of the Cross .

In France the Counter Reformation took root later, after the accession and conversion to Catholicism of Henry IV; the great French figures were St. Francis de Sales and St. Vincent de Paul . In England the Counter Reformation took effect less in the restoration of the Roman Catholic Church under Queen Mary (although Cardinal Pole was a reformer) than in the mission of the Jesuits (1580), led by St. Edmund Campion and Robert Persons . Diverse figures showing effects of the Counter Reformation are Caesar Baronius, St. Robert Bellarmine, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Richard Crashaw, St. Francis Borgia, Robert Southwell, and Torquato Tasso.

Bibliography

See M. R. O'Connell, The Counter Reformation 1559–1610 (1974); J. C. Olin, Catholic Reform (1990).

Counter‐Reformation. The revival of Catholicism in Ireland, as elsewhere in western Europe, was not just a reaction to Protestantism, but the continuation of a movement already visible before the Reformation. The impact of the 15th‐century Observant movement on the religious orders had enabled the Franciscans and to a lesser extent the Dominicans to present real opposition to Henry VIII's reformation. The continuity provided by these friars, together with the political alienation wrought by the Tudor conquest and the overwhelmingly colonial nature of the new Church of Ireland, meant that the failure of the militant Counter‐Reformation in Ireland did not matter. As early as 1561 the visiting Jesuit, David Wolfe, emphasized the need to combat vice not heresy. Likewise the devotional literature produced at the Irish College in Louvain in the early 17th century saw no need to counter Protestant doctrine.

The militant approach, coinciding with European religious wars, had its basis in papal policy towards England. In 1570 Pius V issued the ex‐communication of Queen Elizabeth, demanding that Catholics forsake their allegiance to a heretic. James Fitzmaurice, sent to Ireland by Pius's successor Gregory XIII, declared a holy war and helped provoke the second Desmond revolt. Papal reinforcements were massacred at Smerwick (1580). The high point was Rome's backing for the Spanish Armada of 1588. By the time of Hugh O'Neill's revolt, the papacy under Clement VIII (1592–1607) had, unluckily for the Ulsterman, entered a conciliatory phase. Clement hoped to win over Protestant princes by persuasion rather than excommunication and to consolidate the position of Catholics as loyal subjects by disengaging Catholic clergy from any involvement in politics. The militant approach briefly reappeared under Rinuccini in the 1640s.

The institutional developments of the 1590s were of more importance. Diocesan seminaries to train priests were a specific Counter‐Reformation innovation. In Ireland's case these had to be established abroad, beginning with the Irish college at Salamanca in 1592 (see irish colleges). A second major development came in 1598 with the establishment of a permanent Jesuit mission in Ireland, headed by Palesmen Richard Field and Christopher Holywood, with explicit instructions to avoid politics. The third major development was the appointment from the 1590s of vicars apostolic to take care of dioceses in the absence of resident bishops. However, this policy quickly gave way to the establishment of a full episcopal hierarchy under Peter Lombard and David Rothe. By 1630, with seventeen bishops and thirteen vicars apostolic, each of the country's dioceses had a resident ecclesiastical authority.

A resident episcopacy to instil clerical discipline and provide spiritual leadership was a keynote of the Counter‐Reformation. Its achievement in Ireland was unique in a Protestant‐controlled country. Synods of bishops met regularly, political circumstances permitting. Their diocesan authority was strengthened because the dissolution of the monasteries and the destruction of Gaelic ecclesiastical tenures simplified parochical structures. By 1623 there were 1,100 Catholic clergy in Ireland, about 30 per cent of whom had been trained in continental colleges. The custom of clerical marriage had been largely suppressed outside Ulster. The Jesuits provided ‘workshops’ for diocesan clergy and even ran a ‘university’ for a time in Dublin's liberties.

Behind the glowing annual Jesuit reports, it is hard to gauge the actual success of the Counter‐Reformation. At the popular level this entailed the enforcement of a code of religious observance—mass and the sacraments—within a parish structure. Mass attendance seems to have remained high, despite poor facilities and adverse political conditions. Priests were to teach catechism on Sundays but this depended on their preaching ability, the availability of catechisms, and the literacy level of their parishioners. The Counter‐Reformation attempted to remove the political, pagan, and promiscuous aspects of communal religion, by reforming christenings and wakes, controlling pilgrimages and gatherings at holy wells, and preventing veneration of sheela‐na‐gigs. The church also set its face firmly against divorce, hitherto not uncommon in Gaelic Ireland.

The Counter‐Reformation had produced a clandestine church in Ireland. There were occasional religious processions and public manifestations of religious zeal, but most religious services happened in a domestic setting or in backstreet mass‐houses. Although Catholics re‐occupied churches in many parts of the country in the 1640s, no colourful, ornate baroque churches were ever built. Assessments of overall success at a popular level vary, but on balance it seems right to argue that the full ‘Christianization’ of the lower classes had to await the ‘devotional revolution’ of the 19th century. Nevertheless the Catholic church in the 1640s was confident enough to move into power as a driving force behind the Confederate Catholics and resilient enough to survive Cromwell, despite the execution, transportation, and flight of many clergy and the transplantation of supporting gentry to Connacht.

Bibliography

Bossy, John , ‘The Counter‐Reformation and the People of Catholic Ireland 1596–1641’, Historical Studies, 8 (1971)
Corish, P. J. , The Catholic Community in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1981)

Hiram Morgan

Counter-Reformation A revival in the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH between the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries. It had its origins in reform movements which were independent of the Protestant REFORMATION, but it increasingly became identified with, and took its name from, efforts to ‘counter’ the Protestant Reformation. There were three main ecclesiastical aspects. First a reformed papacy, with a succession of popes who had a notably more spiritual outlook than their immediate predecessors, and a number of reforms in the church's central government initiated by them. Secondly, the foundation of new religious orders, notably the Oratorians and in 1540 the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and the reform of older orders, notably the Capuchin reform of the Franciscans. Thirdly, the Council of TRENT (1545–63), which defined and clarified Catholic doctrine on most points in dispute with Protestants and instituted important moral and disciplinary reforms within the Catholic Church, including the provision of a better education for the clergy through theological colleges called seminaries. All this led to a flowering of Catholic spirituality at the popular level, but also to an increasingly anti-Protestant mentality. The movement became political through its links with Catholic rulers, notably PHILIP II of Spain, who sought to re-establish Roman Catholicism by force. The stalemate between Catholics and Protestants was effectively recognized by the Treaty of WESTPHALIA in 1648, which brought to an end the Thirty Years War and in a sense concluded the Counter-Reformation period.

Counter-Reformation. The revival of the RC Church in Europe, usually considered as extending from the middle of the 16th cent. to the period of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48). Though stimulated by Protestant opposition, reform movements within the RC Church had begun almost simultaneously with the Lutheran schism. The new religious orders of the 1520s (Capuchins, Theatines, Barnabites) preceded the foundation of the Jesuits, who soon became the spearhead of the movement both within Europe and as a missionary force in America and the East. The definitions of doctrine and various internal reforms accomplished in the last session of the Council of Trent (1562–3) sealed the triumph of the Papacy both over those Catholics who wished for conciliation with the Protestants and over those French and Spanish bishops who had opposed Papal claims. The Popes of the later 16th cent. took advantage of the peace in Italy to improve discipline within the Curia and among the episcopate. Spain under Philip II constituted itself the secular arm of the Counter-Reformation, while the spiritual qualities of the Spanish mystics, the skilful manipulation of the machinery of the Empire, and the conversion of several important princes were among the factors making for success in the late 16th and early 17th cents. Within Europe the greatest triumph of the movement was the reconquest to the Roman obedience of S. Germany and Poland.

Counter-Reformation. Movement of revival and reform in the Roman Catholic Church during the 16th and early 17th cents. The term was used in the 19th cent. to describe that Church's response to the Reformation and the rise of Protestantism, but this is too limiting a concept. The early leaders of the Counter-Reformation (such as Cisneros in Spain, Pole or Giberti in Italy), the revival of religious orders such as the Augustinians and the Carmelites, or the foundation of new orders such as the Jesuits, owed little or nothing to the reaction to Protestantism. However, the summoning of the Council of Trent was a consequence of the spread of Lutheranism, and much of the debate at Trent, especially that on the sacraments, took place in the light of positions adopted by the Reformers. Even though the Counter-Reformation may not have owed its origin to Luther's revolt, it had the effect of hardening the schism between the two branches of W. Christianity, and it was responsible, at least in part, for the century of religious wars which ended in 1648.

Counter-Reformation Revival of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe during the 16th and early 17th centuries. It began as a reaction to the Protestant Reformation and was intended to strengthen the Church against Protestantism and the prevailing humanism of the Renaissance. The reforms were essentially conservative, trying to remove many of the abuses that had crept into the late medieval church and win new prestige for the papacy. The major impetus for reform emerged from the pontificate of Paul III and the founding of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The Council of Trent (1545–63) was the engine of the Counter-Reformation. It eradicated simony (such as the sale of indulgences), standardized Roman Catholic theology, and undertook institutional reforms. The second phase (1563–90) of the Counter-Reformation was administered by Pius V, Gregory XIII and Sixtus V. See also Campion; Vincent de Paul

Counter-Reformation the reform of the Church of Rome in the 16th and 17th centuries which was stimulated by the Protestant Reformation. Measures to oppose the spread of the Reformation were resolved on at the Council of Trent (1545–63) and the Jesuit order became the spearhead of the Counter-Reformation, both within Europe and abroad. Although most of northern Europe remained Protestant, southern Germany and Poland were brought back to the Roman Catholic Church.

Coun·ter-Ref·or·ma·tion the reform of the Church of Rome in the 16th and 17th centuries that was stimulated by the Protestant Reformation.