EVANGELISMO. — This is a movement of Catholic reform from the first half of the sixteenth century. The name, however, is of recent origin and was coined by Pierre Imbert de la Tour to designate French reformist tendencies. Hubert Jedin subsequently applied it to the parallel Italian currents. The term is intended to emphasize the movement’s fundamental tendency: the reform of Christian life through a return to the spirit of the Gospel, distinguishing it both from the Protestantism contemporary with it and from the so-called Counter-Reformation that followed II. E. was chronologically the last among the attempts at pre-Tridentine Catholic reform, which aspired to reform the Church in its members. The roots of e. lay, on the one hand, in the devotio moderna and Erasmus, and, on the other, in Ficino’s Neoplatonism, Savonarola’s mysticism of the Cross, the ethics of the Company of Divine Love, and even the heterodox Spanish mysticism of the Alumbados.
E. was not the original creation of any particular religious reformer, but arose spontaneously from the inspirations and needs of the age, and in different places. The center of e. in France was Meaux under Bishop Briçonnet and Lefèvre. In Italy e. lasted barely ten years, beginning when, in 1534, the Spanish humanist Juan de Valdés settled in Naples and gathered around himself a circle of like-minded people. Soon afterward, other similar groups were formed in Venice around Cardinal Contarini; in Lucca around Vermigli, prior of the Canons Regular; in Viterbo around Cardinal Pole; and in Rome around the Marchioness of Pescara, Vittoria Colonna. They had neither a particular organization nor a defined program, but were bound together by shared aspirations. This elevated devotion, shaped in the humanistic spirit, was disseminated and propagated among the wider public by preachers such as Bernardino Ochino and by anonymous writings such as the Trattato utilissimo del beneficio di Gesù Cristo crocifisso verso i cristiani. The followers of e. formed the moderate current of reformers within the college of cardinals (Cervini, Contarini, Pole, Sforone, Ercole Gonzaga, Sadoleto, etc.). An expression of their spirit is the Consilium de emendanda Ecclesia (1537). They still hoped to avoid a rupture by responding sympathetically to the demands of the Protestants. When, at the Diet of Regensburg, Contarini presented the thesis of the duplex insistita (1541), it seemed for a moment that the triumphant hour of e. had arrived, and hope was held for a reconciliation of the Protestants with Catholic doctrine. The failure of the negotiations brought with it the failure of e. itself. In the following year Contarini died, Ochino apostatized, and the Inquisition was established.
And when it seemed that e. might once again rise and even gain the papal throne in the Conclave of 1549, Cardinal Pole lacked a single vote—that of Pietro Carafa, who then, under the name of Paul IV, began the so-called Counter-Reformation. The heretical tendencies of e. separated from the orthodox ones (Ochino,
Vergerio, and Vermigli fled) or merged with other sects, especially Anabaptism and Socinianism. Few were executed (e.g., Carnesecchi); many remained faithful to the Church, within which they brought about a profound spiritual renewal (Morone, Pole, Seripando, etc.).
E. is by no means a theological system, but rather a very serious and noble religious attitude, though uncertain and divided within itself. Characteristic of this irresolute attitude is Pole’s advice to Vittoria Colonna: she should believe as though justification depended on faith, but act as though eternal salvation depended solely on good works. Reduced to a formula, the fundamental principle of e. would be the following: justification through Faith, without nevertheless excluding good works. Its followers, however, refrained from any definition that was too demanding or precise, pending the forthcoming definitions of the council.
Without doubt, e. shared a number of features with Protestantism, such as Paulinism, extreme Augustinianism (the pessimism of its conception of the world and of man), aversion to all scholastic speculation and juridical formalism, the aspiration toward a spiritualized Church and a simple, Christocentric piety in the spirit of the Gospels, the study of the Bible, and the participation of the laity in the investigation of religious problems.
There was, however, a substantial difference between e. and Protestantism: e. did not protest, nor did it wish to reform the Church through violence, but rather the individual faithful through Faith. E. may sometimes seem close to heresy, but it was never schismatic. It lacked both a revolutionary and a dogmatic character. It was a transient phenomenon, nor did it claim to be anything else. It was an aristocratic movement and, as such, did not at all aim to win over the great masses. To a soul struggling with spiritual and religious problems, e. offered nothing more than a mysticism of spiritual interiority, somewhat tinged with a gentle resignation.