Council of Trent

Overview

The Council of Trent was a council convened by the Catholic Church in response to the Reformation. A council is an assembly of bishops from the whole Church that decides matters of doctrine and discipline. The council takes its name from its venue, Trent, a city of the Holy Roman Empire (present-day Trento, Italy). The Catholic Church counts it as the nineteenth ecumenical council.

Background

After Martin Luther issued his Ninety-five Theses in 1517, the Reformation spread through Germany and Switzerland and on to many other parts of Europe. The reformers and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V called for a council to resolve the division in the Church. However, political conflict between the papacy and France, along with disagreements over the location, repeatedly delayed its opening. Pope Paul III finally convened the council.

Proceedings

The council met in three periods spanning eighteen years.

• First period (1545–1547): The council opened in December 1545. It adopted decrees on Scripture and tradition in 1546 and on justification in early 1547. In 1547 it moved to Bologna on account of an epidemic and was subsequently suspended.
• Second period (1551–1552): The council reconvened at Trent under Pope Julius III and adopted a decree on the Eucharist. Some Lutheran envoys attended, but no substantive dialogue resulted, and the council was suspended again when war broke out in Germany.
• Third period (1562–1563): The council met under Pope Pius IV. It addressed the sacraments, the Mass, and the training of clergy, and it closed in December 1563. Its decisions received papal approval the following year.

Principal Decisions

• Scripture and tradition: The council accepted both written Scripture and the traditions handed down by the Church as foundations of faith. It fixed a list of the canon that included the books Protestants call the Apocrypha (called the deuterocanonical books in Catholic usage). It declared the Latin Vulgate to be the "authentic" (authentica) text for public use.
• Justification: Regarding justification (the act by which a sinner is declared righteous before God), the council affirmed that God's grace comes first. At the same time, it held that human beings cooperate with that grace. It condemned, in canons carrying anathemas, the claim that one is justified "by faith alone."
• Sacraments and the Mass: The council affirmed the seven sacraments. It defined transubstantiation, the doctrine that the substance of the bread and wine of the Eucharist is changed into the body and blood of Christ, and affirmed the sacrificial character of the Mass.
• Church reform: The council required bishops to reside in their own dioceses. It mandated the establishment of seminaries for the training of priests and regulated abuses connected with the sale of indulgences.

Outcomes and Influence

The council was followed by the Roman Catechism (1566) and a revised Missal (1570). A revised edition of the Vulgate was also published in 1590 and 1592. The "Tridentine Mass" thus established remained the standard of Catholic worship until the Second Vatican Council in the twentieth century. The council sharpened the doctrinal boundary between Catholicism and Protestantism and set the framework for relations between the two for centuries afterward.

The question of the canon is still reflected in the Bibles used by churches in Korea today. The Revised Korean Version, used by Korean Protestants, does not include the Apocrypha, whereas the Korean Common Translation Bible, which Catholics also use, is available in an edition that includes the deuterocanonical books.

Assessment

The Catholic Church regards the Council of Trent as the central event of the "Catholic Reformation," which clarified the Church's faith and restored discipline among the clergy.

Protestants view the council as having officially rejected the core claims of the Reformation, namely "Scripture alone" and "faith alone," as summarized in the Five Solas. John Calvin published a rebuttal of the early decrees in 1547. The Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz wrote the Examination of the Council of Trent, a critical review of all the council's decrees.

Since the late twentieth century, dialogue has also taken place. In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church issued the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The declaration stated that the mutual condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to the teaching of each side as presented in it. The World Methodist Council and others later joined the declaration. Nevertheless, assessments of the declaration differ even among Protestants, depending on denomination and theological position.