PROTESTANTESIMO

PROTESTANTISM. - The term “p.” entered history on 19 April 1529, when the Diet of Speyer confirmed the decree of the Diet of Worms against Luther and strictly forbade the suppression of the Mass and the use of force under the pretext of religion (an implicit condemnation of the Pack affair). The states that had already adopted Lutheranism then presented a solemn “protest,” which on the 25th was transformed into a “protestation.” The signatures of the “protesters” included five princes: John the Steadfast, Elector of Saxony; Philip, Landgrave of Hesse; George of Brandenburg-Ansbach; the dukes Ernest and Francis of Luneburg (together); Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt; and fourteen cities: Nördlingen, Strasbourg, Nuremberg, Ulm, Constance, Lindau, Memmingen, Kempten, Heilbronn, Reutlingen, Isny, St. Gall, Weißenburg, and Windsheim. As early as 22 April a secret league gathered a number of those who were thenceforth called “Protestants.”

I. CURRENT MEANING OF THE TERM AND CHARACTERISTICS

In time the term took on a very different meaning. Bossuet, in his Histoire des variations des Églises protestantes (Paris 1688), applied it to all the churches formed after Luther’s rebellion outside the Catholic Church, distinguishing four main groups: Lutheran, Calvinist, Zwinglian, and Anglican. Today Zwinglianism may be regarded as almost entirely absorbed into Calvinism, leaving a threefold division. Yet many Anglicans refuse the label “Protestant,” while in the United States alone more than 250 distinct Protestant denominations have proliferated. In practice, today “Protestant” is taken to mean anyone who, while in some way linked to Christ, does not belong to the Catholic Church or to the separated Eastern Churches, thus forming one of the three great branches of Christianity in the world. The common points of all Protestant branches may be reduced to three main features: the “Reformation,” especially in Calvinist circles, was a) anti-papal, b) biblical, and c) mystical-fideist.

1. The anti-papal “Reformation.” - It violently attacked the primacy of the Pope, “the Antichrist in person,” and of Rome, “the harlot of Babylon.” On this point there is no difference in tone or acerbity between Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. Yet the decline of the papacy—through the Boniface VIII–Philip the Fair conflict, the “Babylonian Captivity” in Avignon, the Great Schism, the struggle between Pope and Council, and above all the “secularization” of Renaissance popes from Sixtus IV to Leo X—undeniably contributed to the Protestant revolt. Too much politics, too much luxury, excessive fiscalism, worldly excess, and bad examples in the Roman Curia came at the very moment when, with the concentration of power in monarchs, the weakening of feudalism, the rise of commerce, the emergence of banking capitalism, and the flowering of art and letters in the Renaissance, nationalism was on the rise and shattering Christian unity.

2. The biblical “Reformation.” - An unassailable authority had to be set against that of the pope, and this could only be the Bible. The reformers looked back to the origins of Christianity to carry out the “Reformation” of which Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin aspired to be the protagonists. They also skilfully brandished an explosive slogan: “Reformation,” accusing the Church not only of corrupting discipline but of having altered doctrine as well. Hence arose the misunderstanding from which it has not yet been possible to escape. As early as 1515, Luther, speaking of abuses, told the prior of the Premonstratensians of Leitzkau in a prepared discourse: “There are indeed great scandals; they must be denounced and remedied, but the vices you speak of are visible to all. Unfortunately there is a greater, incomparably more harmful and cruel plague: the organized silence about the Word of truth or its adulteration... of this evil no one is aware, it is not feared, its terror is not felt” (Luthers Werke, ed. Weimar, I, 10-17, with the incorrect date 1512). Here the crucial point of opposition between Protestantism and Catholicism is identified. Protestantism rejects the Church’s authority to define and impose infallibly, in God’s name, dogmas of faith, and systematically claims to prove by Scripture that the Catholic Church has fallen into error and that the Holy Spirit has entrusted the primitive mission precisely to the men of the “Reformation.”

In its countless divisions over the true meaning of the Bible, Protestantism is unanimous in declaring that the Bible alone is the rule of faith and that, even though Scripture was transmitted to the Church, it is not the Church that guarantees its truth. For the Protestant, the Bible says everything, contains everything, explains everything; it is clear in all that is necessary for salvation and, in a word, is sufficient unto itself. Calvin stated this thesis in uncompromising terms in his Institution chrétienne (I, 7, § 3): “As to the objection that those Catholic scoundrels throw at us—from whom, whence, and how we derive the persuasion that Scripture comes from God—it is as if someone were to ask whence we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter. Scripture, indeed, has its own way of manifesting itself, indeed in a manner so obvious and infallible that white and black can show their colours and sweet and bitter their taste.” In the next paragraph he explained his thought further: “This Word will not produce faith in men’s hearts unless it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit.” In the final analysis, Protestantism gives to each individual what it denies to the Church. The consequences are: 1) the visible, hierarchical Church of Jesus Christ can err; its teaching is not guaranteed by the promises of Jesus Christ, its Founder, but may corrupt the deposit of faith entrusted to it; 2) it falls to any individual, even if assisted by the testimonium Spiritus Sancti, to rediscover the Word of God lost by the Church; 3) once the pure doctrine of Christ is rediscovered, it can be preserved in its reclaimed perfection, shielded from the variations of individual interpretation. The continual “variations” among Protestants show that their very principle appears false when judged by its fruits.

3. The mystical-fideist “Reformation.” - It claimed to derive from the Bible, under the pretext of restoring pure Christian doctrine, its central dogma of justification by faith alone: “Nothing can be yielded on this article,” said Luther, “not even if heaven and earth were to collapse” (Smalcald Articles, 1537). This doctrine is called mystical insofar as Luther and his followers found in it a consolation that proved an enchanting seduction for many. With Calvin, the consolatory doctrine of justification by faith alone, an exclusive work of God without any human cooperation, took the metaphysical form of predestination. To feel and know oneself predestined produces an ineffable intoxication; everything becomes unnecessary once such certainty is attained. Thus arose a simple, mystical, consolatory doctrine that set against the corruption deriving from original sin—which each person can experience within himself—the infinite goodness of a God who saves whom he wills and only whom he wills, infusing in them

PROTESTANTISM – Blessing of the table in a Protestant household. Engraving by A. Bosse (17th c.), exhibited at the exhibition held in the Bibliothèque d’histoire du protestantisme français (1952) – Paris.

faith and imputing to them justification. It is sufficient now to mention the derived characteristics of the “Reformation.” In general, it was subjected to the State to prevent the multiplication of the same proposals arising from the principle of free biblical examination; it was anti-monastic, because the principle of justification by faith alone suppressed every notion of personal merit, of the pursuit of holiness through religious vows, and the practice of ecclesiastical counsels. The princes, interested in preserving unity of belief within their states, thus found a convenient opportunity to seize the goods of the monasteries. The “Reformation” was also anti-social, because it was biblical and rejected the intrusion of human reason into the realm of religion. This did not, however, prevent the subsequent formation of a Protestant scholasticism in the 17th–19th centuries. Finally, the “Reformation” was anti-sacramental and anti-liturgical, abolishing the Mass entirely—the center of Christian liturgy—reducing the Sacraments from seven to two (Baptism and the Supper), further emptying them of their efficacy and regarding them as mere “excitatory” signs of justifying faith, suppressing the cult of the saints and images, and, among Calvinists, even the liturgical calendar.

II. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.
1. Means of Expansion.
The spread of Protestantism was facilitated by a complex of converging factors. The use of the printing press and the ever-growing habit of reading must be noted.

The printing press greatly aided the rapid diffusion of Luther’s grandiloquent works, then those of Zwingli and especially Calvin. In April 1520, Luther’s appeal *To the Nobility of the German Nation* reached 400 copies in a single week. More than the great works of the “reformers,” however, it was the small pamphlets—widely circulated in cities and countryside by clever peddlers, alongside mirrors and ribbons—that spread the new ideas. As H. Hauser remarks, one can never sufficiently appreciate the importance of the peddlers and the great book markets that operated in Frankfurt, Lyon, and even Spain, at Medina del Campo, where material from the presses of Lyon and Paris arrived by the ton (La naissance du protestantisme, Paris 1940, p. 58). Alongside the book, one must mention song—whether the Protestant MARONITI (v.). Another primary means of expansion was preaching; the painful fact to note is that many of the innovators were religious themselves—priests, preachers, often of renown. Though Calvin, destined for the priesthood and holding a parochial benefice in Picardy, never became a priest, among the “reformers,” Luther at Wittenberg, Lang at Erfurt, Henry of Zütphen at Bremen, Link at Altenburg, Güttel at Eisleben, Stiefel at Esslingen were all Augustinians; Eberlin of Günzburg at Ulm, E. of Kettenbach likewise at Ulm, Kempen at Hamburg, Briesmann at Kottbus and Königsberg, Myconius at Gotha and Weimar were all Franciscans. Among the Dominicans, Bucer “reformed” Strasbourg; Urban Rhegius, formerly a Carmelite, made converts at Augsburg; the Benedictines Ambrosius Blarer and Oecolampadius at Basel. In Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli belonged to the secular clergy; among the most illustrious preachers TONCHINO (v.), former General of the Capuchins, and the Augustinian canon Peter Martyr Vermigli, the former nuncio Pier Paolo Vergerio (v.), bishop of Capodistria, Châtillon (v.), who donned a red cassock and cardinal’s cap, and the bishop of Troyes, Caracciolo, disappointed at not being made a cardinal.

The Protestant revolt was also supported by lay princes, eager to dominate souls as well as bodies, and by ecclesiastics eager to secularize themselves in order to found a dynasty (a typical case being that of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in 1525), as well as a considerable number of German prince-bishops. Moreover, it was thanks to the notables of the cities that Lutheranism spread and Calvinism took root in Geneva and Zwinglianism in Zurich. Among the promoters of the “Reformation,” for reasons far removed from religious motives, must also be counted Gustavus Vasa in Denmark, Henry VIII (above all a schismatic), Edward VI, and, decisively, Elizabeth in England. After the Protest of 1529, one may say that the principle *cuius regio, eius religio* penetrated everywhere and imposed itself. Yet the national or established Churches, as they are called in England, are far from constituting the whole of Protestantism. Even in Protestant lands, and also in territories that remained Catholic, there arose everywhere sects that Luther called *Schwarmgeister*—the fanatics—while Calvin termed them “delirious madmen,” and in England they were called nonconformists or dissenters. Among these must be recalled the Anabaptists of Thomas Münzer (v.), the followers of Carlstadt (v.), the Schwenckfeldians, the rebels of Münster, and many others. They turned to discontented peasants, inciting them to rebellion against their lords (thus sparking the Peasants’ War [1524–1525]), or else they convulsed entire cities, as at Münster (1534) under John of Leiden and his followers. In France, and especially in England, artisans—“mechanics,” as they were called in France—such as wool carders and weavers, expressed their discontent in religious revolt. Economic, social, moral, and political factors everywhere and incessantly intersected with intellectual, theological, and mystical ones.

2. Wars of Religion.
This tendentious expression was coined in the 18th century, when the philosophers felt the need to make it appear that revealed religions served only to set men against one another, to unleash civil or international wars, and to conclude that for the peace of humanity one should adhere to natural religion alone—or better still, to no religion at all—finally practicing a tolerance tantamount to total religious indifferentism. The wars of religion in Germany at the time were called the Smalcald War: the first (1546–47), ending in the Emperor’s victory and the dissolution of the League of Smalcald; the second (1551–52), resulting in the defeat of Emperor Charles V himself. They culminated in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), which legalized the coexistence in Germany of Catholicism and Lutheranism. The wars of religion in France, from the Amboise Conspiracy in 1560 to the Edict of Nantes (v. 1598), were commonly called in contemporary documents “wars” or “revolts.” There were eight in all. The Edict of Nantes put an end to them, granting Calvinism a status of political-legal tolerance.

Yet it must be emphasized that the religious factor, though present, was in the main of secondary importance in these wars. In Germany, the issue was above all the independence of the princes vis-à-vis imperial authority, as shown especially by the fact that in the first war a Lutheran prince, Maurice of Saxony, was allied with the Catholic Emperor Charles V, while in the second, betraying the Emperor, he allied himself with the Catholic king of France. As for the eight revolts in France between 1560 and 1598, it is no less evident that they were wars of sovereigns too young to impose their authority against the great feuding families: the Guises on one side, the Châtillons and Bourbons on the other. All the more so, the long and disastrous Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) was, in origin, a war of imperial hegemony against the Lutheran princes, and after Richelieu came to power, a war of rivalry between the houses of France and Austria. In England, the civil wars under Charles I were waged against the absolutism of the king and for the legal supremacy of Parliament.

### 3. Theological Evolution

The entire theological development of Protestantism is dominated by the exercise of private judgment. However, something not sufficiently noted is that private judgment was consistently rejected by all the leading figures of the Reformation. According to their conception, human reason, completely corrupted by original sin, could only remain in error. In any case, it could say nothing about the construction of Christian doctrine. Everything had to come from Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit. But the facts contradicted the words. Luther said: the Bible affirms such-and-such a thing, but I know the Bible only through the Holy Spirit, not through my reason. Likewise, Carlostadio, then Müntzer, Zwingli, Schwenckfeld, Farel, Calvin expressed themselves in the same way as Luther. It followed that on certain essential points the Holy Spirit did not say the same thing to one as to another. Each wanted to read the Bible in his own way, yet each explained it as he pleased. The appeal to the Holy Spirit was nothing but a pretext, a subjective conviction in fact, and nothing remained but private judgment for each individual (for the principal doctrinal conflicts determined by private judgment V. LUTERO, MARTIN, V). In all the disputes, the lack of an authority capable of resolving problems in the name of Jesus Christ and restoring unity was keenly felt, leading even to the creation of separate confessions, breaking any union between Lutheranism and Calvinism, and even more so with Zwinglianism. Yet other sects, far more distant from the Augsburg Confession (1530), proliferated and found common refuge in Poland, Transylvania, and later in Holland: the Baptists (v.), the Socinians or anti-Trinitarians. Within Calvinism itself, similar divisions occurred. The question of the “supralapsarians” (Gomarists) and “infralapsarians” (Arminians [v.]) regarding predestination was particularly bitter. From the Puritans and Presbyterians in Scotland and England emerged the Independents and Congregationalists. Groups of fleeting existence succeeded one another over a century or two, such as the Family of Love of Niclaes (1570), the Chiliasts, who later reappeared in America under the names of Irvingians (v.), Adventists (v.), Mormons (v.). After the Thirty Years' War, the Latitudinarians and

1. **Anglicanism**. It numbers about 35,000,000 adherents, distributed as follows: 20,000,000 in England, 10,000,000 in the Dominions (Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.), 5,000,000 in the United States (New York and especially Pennsylvania). Within it, the three traditional tendencies continue: High Church, Broad Church, Low Church. A recent development (1951) is the fact that about 2,000 Anglican ministers accept the authority of the pope but wish to return to the Roman Church only collectively.

2. **Lutheranism**: It is credited with the figure—doubtless exaggerated—of 84,000,000 adherents: about 40,000,000 in Germany, 6,000,000 in Sweden, 2,500,000 in Norway, 3,000,000 in Denmark, 3,000,000 in Finland, 250,000 in Alsace (France), with the rest in the United States or mission lands.

3. **The Reformed (Calvinist) Church**. It numbers between 40 and 45,000,000 members, of whom 3,000,000 in Switzerland (including Zwinglians), the rest in Scotland, England, the United States, mission lands, and about 750,000 in France.

4. **The Methodists or Wesleyans**. They claim 35,000,000 adherents, residing partly in England, partly in the United States and mission lands.

5. **The Presbyterians**. They number 15,000,000 members, spread between Scotland, the United States, and mission fields.

6. **The Baptists**. They number 13,000,000, but if children excluded from their statistics are added, they reach 35,000,000.

7. **The Congregationalists**. They number between 6 and 7,000,000, including children. To these must be added the very considerable multitude of small sects, some of which, such as Christian Science or the Mormons, can scarcely be called Christian.

Adding up the figures given, one would arrive at a total of 256,000,000—a figure doubtless exaggerated, since the number of Protestants does not in reality exceed 200,000,000, of which 120,000,000 in Europe, 60,000,000 in the United States, 7,000,000 in Asia, 6,000,000 in Australia and Oceania, 4,000,000 in Africa, and 1,500,000 in South America.

By comparison, the most recent Catholic statistics, those compiled by Canon Rupp in 1949, recognize 422,000,000 faithful for the Roman Church, even though a certain number of these are Catholics in name and by baptism only, without regular practice of the faith. But the same applies to Protestants, many of whom do not practice at all. The Orthodox Church would have about 200 million members, also more or less practicing. The Jesuit Father Naideoff, after a thorough study, reduced the number of effective Christians to 350 million (instead of the nominal 800 million), of whom 200 million Catholics, 50–60 million practicing Orthodox, and 60–70 million faithful Protestants.

### IV. Current Trends

As has been observed, for the past 40 years a profound change has been manifesting itself in the various branches of Protestantism. The days of liberalism seem to be over. Just as the Roman Church, obeying Bl. Pius X, eliminated Modernism (v.), so—perhaps under its influence—the rationalism of Protestant circles has been combated with unequal but undoubted results. A double movement is observed within Protestantism today, one internal and one external. The former is regarded by Protestants themselves as a return to the 16th century, from the triple viewpoint of dogma, liturgy, and discipline. The latter, commonly called the ecumenical movement or the movement toward unity, might be described in opposition to the former as a renunciation or retraction of the 16th century.

1. Return to the 16th Century

This expression is due to the French pastor George Casalis (*Positions protestantes*, Paris 1947). He first denounces, in the course of the 19th century and up to the war of 1914, all forms of individualism, rationalism, sentimentalism, and the embodiment of this spiritual anarchy in a number of theological schools and factions opposed to the Church. So it was in the past; but, he adds, within this disintegration and these mortal uncertainties, a precise doctrinal and spiritual movement has now manifested itself since the last war (1914–18) and is asserting itself day by day as the fresh and dominant current of our Church (ibid., p. 23). The initiator of this renewal of Protestantism in France and Switzerland was Prof. Auguste Lecerf. The decisive factor, however, was the creation of neo-Calvinism, which occurred around 1930 through the work of Karl Barth, a resolute and combative theologian who oriented the Reformed Churches toward a restoration of pure Calvinist doctrine, including predestination, which had been abandoned by Calvinists for more than a century (cf. H. Roux, in *Protestantisme français*, Paris 1945, pp. 189–97). Among the most prominent representatives of this restoration, mention must be made of the preacher Pierre Maury, the liturgist de Saussure (Cluny movement), the pastors Casalis, Chapal, Bosc, Jousselin, Yann Roullet, Hébert Roux, M. Goguel, and above all Marc Boegner, president of the Federation of Protestant Churches of France. The organs of the movement are the journals *Foi et Vie*, *Hic et Nunc*, *Le Semeur*, and the editions *Se sers*. One of the most striking expressions of the new trends was the convocation, held in Lyon in April 1938, of a “constituent assembly,” which included delegates from four churches: Reformed, Evangelical Reformed, Free, and Methodist. These four Churches adopted the name “Reformed Church of France.” The assembly published a declaration in which, according to Pastor Casalis, one could deplore “a certain pietistic pathos,” “a certain abuse of Christian-social formulas,” and a preamble from which there emerged an aversion to any “doctrinal conformism,” that is, to theological laxity. But the declaration accepted nothing less than: a) the supreme authority of Scripture as the rule of faith and life; b) the Apostles’ Creed, the ecumenical symbols, and the La Rochelle Confession of Faith (1570). For Pastor Casalis, the free examination of Scripture must be nothing other than total submission to the Word of God contained in Scripture (*Positions prot.*, pp. 35–38). In 1934, Karl Barth gave a widely noted lecture entitled *The Misery and Greatness of the Evangelical Church*. In 1946, Pastor Casalis echoed him: “Our Church, like every Church in France, gathers only a very limited number of men and women; the majority of the people eludes it” (*op. cit.*, p. 49).

2. Ecumenism or the Repudiation of the 16th Century

The second characteristic of all modern Protestantism is an unacknowledged repudiation of the 16th century, however much this may not be openly confessed. Ecumenism is in fact precisely this (v. ECUMENISM).

To measure the scope of the movement, it is sufficient to glance at the members who constituted the World Council of Churches, which met in France from January 30 to February 1, 1951. Among those present were Dr. G. Bell, Anglican Bishop of Chichester and president of the Executive Committee; Dr. G. Fry, president of the Lutheran Church in the United States; Dr. E. Berggrav, former Lutheran Bishop of Oslo; Dr. Marc Boegner, president of the Federation of Protestant Churches of France; Dr. B. Oxman, Bishop of the Methodist Church in the United States; Mlle S. Chacko, of the Syrian Orthodox Church in India; the Rev. L.E. Cooke, general secretary of the Congregational Union of England; the Rev. N. Goodall, Congregationalist; M. K. G. Grubb, Anglican; M. M. Karabinis, Archimandrite of the Greek Church in Paris; M. A. Koechlin, president of the Federation of Protestant Churches of Switzerland; M. M. Niemöller, president of the Lutheran Church of Hesse-Nassau; M. Panteleimon, Metropolitan of Edessa (Patriarchate of Constantinople); the Rev. G. Sisco, general secretary of the United Church of Canada; Mrs. Leslie Swain, former president of the Baptist Convention of the United States; M. C. Taft, of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States; and Prof. T. M. Taylor, of the Church of Scotland.

Altogether, in February 1951, the ecumenical movement for union embraced 158 Churches (spread across 43 countries on five continents) that belong to the Anglican, Orthodox, Old Catholic, and Protestant confessions, namely: Reformed, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist, etc.

Leone Cristiani

V. IN ITALY

3. Period of Origins

The political-religious conditions in Italy were not the same with regard to Protestant propaganda, and it must be noted that although abuses in religious life and discipline were no less than elsewhere, there were greater and better elements that could counter them and sustain the Catholic spirit (v. RIFORMA CATTOLICA). In any case, the influence exerted on the public mind by the spirit of novelty characteristic of the age and the reaction against the evils commonly lamented throughout Christian Europe could not fail to make themselves felt. If Luther initially had admirers, as later did Calvin, Italian reformism nevertheless claimed to proceed along its own path, without entirely estranging itself from the common currents.

a) The currents. – It is difficult to classify the Italian Protestants of the first century, yet several currents can be noted. One formed around the Spaniard Juan de Valdés (v.); the Trattato utilissimo del Beneficio di Gesù Cristo Crocifisso by Fra’ Benedetto da Mantova, written FLAMINI (v.), draws on his teachings. The Beneficio spread Valdés’s ideas through print, just as L’Occhio spread them through preaching. Lutheranism burst into Italy from Venice, where Baldassare Altieri and Baldo Lupetino (uncle of Flaccio Ilirico) maintained ties with the leaders of the “Reformation.” The Franciscan friar Girolamo Galateo (1530) and Bartolomeo Fonzio (1538)—a translator of Luther—were condemned. The movement spread to Padua with German students, to Istria, where it won over Pier Paolo Vergerio (v.), and to Bassano, where it provoked the apostasy of Francesco Negri, author of the Tragedia del libero arbitrio. Together with the Paleario (v.) and the Pasquillus extaticus of Curione, Negri disseminated Luther’s polemical themes in Italy. For the most part, however, Italian Protestants soon made Geneva their spiritual capital, where they took refuge when danger arose. Calvinism inspired Giacomo Aconcio in works such as Il dialogo nel quale si scuoprono le astuzie che usano i lutherani and the Somma brevissima della dottrina cristiana. Under the influence of Michael Servetus, Anabaptism spread in Italy—especially among artisans—and its followers could be found in Piedmont, Lombardy, Tuscany, and the Veneto. They held meetings in Vicenza (1549) and Venice (1550).

b) The means of propaganda. – In many Italian cities there was a Protestant cell. Although cases in Brescia, Bergamo, Vicenza, and the Valtellina revealed a thoroughgoing propaganda among the people, there were numerous defections among ecclesiastics and educated persons. The very means of dissemination reveal its aristocratic character. The first means was print, which clandestinely circulated the works of foreign heresiarchs in Italy; Venice became one of the principal emporia of Protestant books, as Girolamo Querini the liar and Luther himself wrote to Zwingli. Books were even sent to those who had not requested them, such as the Jesuits of Santa Maria in Strada, who received two crates containing, beneath some Catholic books, nothing but Protestant volumes. In the first half of the sixteenth century, decrees against heretical printing multiplied in Italy until, in 1549, a first Index was compiled; there were also public book burnings. Yet such measures were not always effective, for books continued to circulate under different titles, authors, covers, and shipments, so that discovering their error required reading at least part of them. A second means was conversation and circles. At the head of these, whether clandestine or nearly so, there was always a very skilled secret heretic. The attendees were always people of restless character, critical dispositions, demolishers, systematic opponents—and thus persons of immature critical capacity, sentimental and extreme by temperament. The third means was preaching, by which an attempt was made to inoculate the masses with the new spirit. The most celebrated preachers were: Girolamo Galateo, Pietro Martire Vermigli, Bartolomeo Della Pergola, Baldo Lupetino, Giulio Terenziano, Gian Battista Pallavicini, Giuliano da Colle, Agostino Mainardi, and above all Bernardino Ochino. The austerity of their lives, their distinguished intellects, and their skill in not revealing themselves enabled some to preach for a long time throughout Italy.

c) The principal centers. – The most important center was that of Naples. In his house on the Riviera di Chiaia, Valdés formed a group of enthusiastic disciples or sympathizers: Scipione Capece, Galeazzo Caracciolo di Vico, Don Ferrante Brancaccio, Pietro Agosto of Caserta, Giovanni Berardino Bonifazio of Oria, Scipione and Giovanni Antonio Lentulo of Lecce, Valentino Gentile, Giulio Cesare Pascale, Matteo and Alessandro Cardoni, Bernardino Ochino, Pietro Carnesecchi, Pietro Martinez Vermigli, Jacopo Bonfadio, Marcantonio Flaminio, and among the high-born women Giulia Gonzaga, Duchess of Fondi; Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara; Costanza d’Avalos, Duchess of Amalfi; Dorotea Gonzaga, Marchioness of Bitonto; Roberta Carafa, Princess of Maddaloni; Maria of Aragon, wife of Prince Ascanio Colonna; Isabella Colonna, Princess of Bisignano; Maria Cardona, Princess of Sulmona; Isabella Villamari, Princess of Molfetta; Caterina Cybo, Duchess of Camerino; and Isabella Briseña Manrique, a Spaniard.

Among those who later recanted were the Marchioness Colonna and Flaminio. In Modena, a circle formed around Ludovico Castelvetro and Valentino Filippo Giovanni Grillenzoni, Gabriele Faloppi, and Francesco da Porto. In 1553, an accusation by Annibal Caro provoked Castelvetro’s flight. In Ferrara, Duchess Renée of France hosted Calvin, Luigi Du Tillet, and the poet Clément Marot at her court in 1536; she defended the Novellist Fausto Faino, financed L’Occhio, and kept the daughters of Olimpia Morata in her household. After the death of her husband, Ercole II, she became suspect to the Inquisition, returned to France, and in her castle at Montargis (Loiret) openly professed Huguenot beliefs. In Lucca, Pietro Martire Vermigli stood out as a canon regular who, in 1541 upon becoming prior of San Frediano in Lucca, organized a school there by inviting secret heretics: Paolo Lazise (for Latin), Celso Martinengo (for Greek), and Emmanuel Tremellius (for Hebrew). He won over eighteen religious, who on Sundays spread abroad in the countryside the ideas Vermigli taught from the pulpit of the cathedral.

Chieri, with the reformed jurist Matteo Gribaldi Mofa, became a center of propaganda in Piedmont; Celio Secondo Curione was initiated into heresy by the Carmelite preacher Giambattista Pallavicino, a secret Protestant, and religious discussions had long been held there, earning Chieri the title of “little Geneva.” At times, even forty Chieresi who had escaped the Inquisition found refuge with Calvin. In Bergamo, artisans won over to the new doctrines gathered on Sundays

They taught it vainly to the peasants. In Brescia in 1528 an inquiry was organized to discover the adherents of the Lutheran circle in the city. Brescians who turned to Protestantism included Celso Martinengo, Count of Barco, Vincenzo de’ Conti Maggi, Francesco Stella, nephew of the physician Bartolomeo, Girolamo Donzelino, Ippolito Chizzola, and the historian Jacopo Bonfadio. Even in the surrounding territory there must have been no few heretics, since Baldassare Altieri, secretary of Havel, took refuge in Brescian territory to escape arrest, and since Vergerio was able to ride from village to village in the diocese of Brescia, followed by a hundred “humiliati” all on horseback. An active group was also that of Vicenza, where Curione influenced Moreto, who had been running a school there since 1536. Before 1536 much had been said about reform in the village of Gian Giorgio Trissino. In Vicenza in 1546 and the following years Tizzano, Valentino Gentile, Gribaldi, Alciati, Ochino, Biandrata, Camillo Renato, Francesco Negri, Niccolò Paruta, Giulio Ghirlanda, Francesco di Rovigo, Lello Socini, and a Pigafetta of Vicenza met, so that it was suspected that the gatherings were held in the latter’s house. In 1550 there were still numerous secret Anabaptist gatherings. In 1551 one of the group, Manelfi, revealed in a *Costituto* of 12 November the gatherings in Vicenza, and the most prominent fled to the Grisons canton. But the Anabaptists did not disappear entirely, for in 1552 Gribaldi sent to the “brothers of Vicenza” the news of Servetus’s execution. Traces of Italian Anabaptists appear later, in 1560 and 1573; then nothing more.

d) The exodus of Italian heretics. — At first they thought of remaining in their homeland, living outwardly as Catholics, in order to prepare the hoped-for Italian apostasy and to draw souls to the Reformation “by oblique artifice” (the phrase is Ochino’s). It can be said, however, that almost all remained in Italy until 1542. In that year two of the most notable figures left Italy: Bernardino Ochino and Pier Martire Vermigli, together with two of his closest collaborators, Celso Martinengo and Tremellio. In 1546 Valentino Gentile departed; in 1549 Pier Paolo Vergerio, bishop of Capodistria; in 1551 the Marquis Caracciolo and the Manrique; in 1555 Gribaldi and the Marquis of Oria; in 1557 Castelvetro; in 1558 Renata of France; in 1574 Fausto Socino and others. In many foreign cities they formed Italian communities, at the head of which were placed former friars and former priests, whose pastoral abilities, the fruit of a Catholic upbringing, enabled them to exercise a “pastorate” sometimes remarkable for duration and influence, such as that of Mainardi at Chiavenna.

e) The sojourn of Italian Protestants abroad. — Within the Italian Protestant communities frequent quarrels broke out, caused by religious radicalism, intolerance of discipline and ties, the inevitable discontents, and the unavoidable needs of all exiles at all times. The fugitive Italian heretics, strangers above all, without a homeland, without a church of their own, almost all ended miserably: without disciples, intolerant of every imposition, they emigrated from Switzerland to Poland and Hungary, forming groups of Italian Anabaptists; others, led by Vermigli and Ochino, made their way to England. Hidden in their homeland and wandering abroad, they were poorly tolerated by the Reformed because of their insubordination. Among the Italian episcopate some were suspected of heresy and, like Cardinal Morone, were even unjustly subjected to trial. Deposed from office were a Centanni or Zantani, bishop of Limassus in Cyprus, and Vittore Soranzo, bishop of Bergamo, and, better known than all, Pier Paolo Vergerio, already mentioned. After his apostasy he claimed to exercise a predominance over the Italians abroad. The attempt failed because the Italians did not want another pope and because Vergerio, proud and unstable, lacked the qualities of a leader. After the Council of Trent no Protestant movement can be spoken of in Italy. Of the Italian heretics who remained in their homeland, many converted, like Fra Sisto da Siena of the Franciscans, who returned sincerely to the faith and wrote many works in the service of the Church. None of the Italian heretics abroad converted, except Biandrata in Hungary. In the final analysis the Italian heretics achieved nothing, neither as dogmatizers nor as reformers.

4. Protestantism in Italy in the 1600s and 1700s

With the end of the second Protestant generation, the spread of Protestantism was over. Because of the proven reaction of the Catholic Reformation and internal exhaustion, no more was heard in Italy of Protestant propaganda. Only a few episodes document the presence of innovators in Italy. The Waldensians, in their valleys of Savoy and Piedmont, strove to maintain and spread themselves. The disturbances in the Valtellina, in the first two decades of the 1600s, represent the attempt of the Swiss Reformed to conquer the valley, which remained definitively Catholic because of the lively reaction of its inhabitants. In the 1700s the influence of the Italian version of the Bible by Diodati was felt in Italy, without achieving wide resonance. Only toward the end of the 1700s, with a change in Protestant tactics, did new proselytism appear, and Protestant missions were even established in Italy.

5. Protestantism in Italy in the 1800s and 1900s

The British and Foreign Bible Society began to distribute Protestant Bibles from Malta in 1812. Christian Bunsen (1817–23), secretary of the Prussian ambassador Niebuhr in Rome, who succeeded him from 1823 to 1838, was the first to organize Lutherans and foreign Evangelicals in Italy and to make converts among Italians. In 1837 the American Robert Baird, visiting Protestants in Italy, found there 25 ministers, reduced to 17 in 1840. To promote the spread of Protestantism in Italy, the Christian Alliance was formed in New York in 1839, condemned by Gregory XVI in 1844.

In reply to the vaunted and claimed superiority of Protestant over Catholic countries, Pius IX from Gaeta (8 Dec. 1849), Balmes, Huallelle, and Giacomo Margotti with *Roma e Londra* spoke out. The Italian Protestants expected much from the fall of the temporal power, as De Sanctis attested in the book *Il papa* (1864). Instead, after the Law of Guarantees, they remained always in the condition of tolerated cults.

Following the Lateran Pacts, non-Catholic cults are no longer considered tolerated but admitted. Despite the new favorable juridical situation, Italian Protestantism is of no importance in the religious evolution of Italy, because of its negligible number of followers, the traditional doctrinal disagreement, the unavoidable anti-Catholic polemic that offends Italians, and the strength of the Catholic Church (v. ITALIAN PROTESTANT CHURCHES).

VI. PROTESTANTISM AND MISSIONS

At the outset, Protestantism, both in theory and practice, scarcely concerned itself with spreading its doctrines among the unbelievers. Only later did it attempt an activity, termed missionary, which, by its very nature, is quite distinct from the true Catholic missions.

Martin Luther and his closest disciples offer very few elements from which one might speak of a Protestant missiology. Only John Calvin presents a positive teaching on the subject, for according to his doctrine the glory of God and His majesty demand that they be sought and proclaimed always and everywhere through the mission entrusted to the elect. The concept of national Churches, moreover, prevented attention from being directed beyond one’s own borders, as did the theory of predestination. Added to these were the divisions among the so-called Reformers and the lack of a central organization.

One of the first missionary attempts was made by some Huguenots who set out for Brazil (1555), led by N. D. de Villegagnon, whose return to the Catholic Church caused the expedition to fail, even though Calvin himself had taken an interest in II. Within the same Reformed Church, mention must be made of the missions of the Dutch East India Company and those of the Dutch West India Company. In order to coordinate the commercial, military, and religious activities of the various companies, a governor-general was appointed in 1613. For this reason, the names of the various governors-general are recorded in the missionary documents of the time. The first charter, dated 1602, makes no mention of religion or the Church. The second, however, dated 22 December 1622, recommends the preservation of public faith in the spirit of the Dutch confession. Indeed, pastors were always carried on the ships of the Company, who began their work in the various localities of present-day Indonesia. At the same time, efforts were made to organize missionary collaboration in Holland, including the Seminarium Indicum of Antonio Walaeus, and even in mission work, the education of pastor-missionaries was not neglected.

The missions of the Dutch West India Company are not as significant as those of the East India Company. They began in 1624 under Basstiaan Jansz Krol and lasted until 1664. England began to take an interest in the fate of the peoples of the West Indies after the destruction of the Armada in 1588 and was aided by the emigrations of the Scots and English Puritans after 1620. In 1628, Charles I granted the Massachusetts Company a charter in favor of spreading religion among the natives. It was at this time that the work of the Pilgrim Fathers began. Special mention must be made of the mission of John Eliot among the Indians. Slowly, however, formalism and doctrinal disputes cooled the little enthusiasm that had existed, and as a result, the expeditions became sporadic and occasional, without lasting efficacy. It is true that John Knox (v.) had foreseen missionary work in 1560, but his voice cried out in the wilderness, as did that of Erasmus (1536). Some missionary information is found in the travels of Hakluyt and in the histories of the Reformed and Episcopal Churches in the United States of America. Yet the rare discoveries that have been made demonstrate that the official churches, with the exception of the Dutch, generally displayed a rather feeble missionary spirit.

It is interesting to highlight the methods employed by their pastors, who took care of Europeans and much less of pagans or blacks, as they called the indigenous peoples. They criticized the Portuguese for baptizing without sufficient preparation, and they acted in the same way. They did not concern themselves with the ethnological and psychological elements of the peoples to be evangelized, nor did they make much effort to learn their language. At times they even defended the practice of pagan and Muslim religions. Instruction was not given much attention, and religious literature was little distributed. Since colonial missions had not proven to be very favorable ground for missionary expansion, a reaction arose from elements outside the Reformed Churches. First among these was Pietism, represented by Jakob Philipp Spener (1635–1705) and August Hermann Francke (1663–1727). The latter, in 1701, published a plan for a universal seminary and became the founder of the German Evangelical Mission. Halle became the center of the missionary movement and of men such as Ziegenbalg, B. Schulze, C. F. Schwartz, J. Ph. Fabricius, and C. F. Guericke, capable and zealous figures, several of whom gave rise to the Tranquebar Mission. From Pietism also sprang the missions of the Moravian Brethren, who, according to G. Warneck, in twenty years produced more missionaries than the rest of Protestantism had in two hundred years. Meanwhile, the Church in England was passing through a period of rationalism, but thanks to the influence of Zinzendorf on the leaders of Methodism, John Wesley and George Whitefield, the missionary idea gained ground. In England, the first missionary societies were founded, often in opposition to official Protestantism, from which they abandoned not a few fundamental principles. The first was established in 1691 under the name of the “Christian Faith Society for the West Indies.” It was followed by many others in Germany, Denmark, Holland, and other Protestant European and American countries. They multiplied to such an extent that it is almost impossible to provide a chronological list or indicate their denominational origins. Their first effect was to awaken, albeit slowly, the missionary interest of the official churches. Meanwhile, the societies continued their advance into Asia, Oceania, America, and Africa, with the aid of enormous capital from the Anglo-Saxon and American countries, and in some territories of Oceania and Africa, they preceded the apostolate of Catholic missionaries.

In such a multiplicity of initiatives and activities, a lack of unity and coordination was soon felt, and attempts were made to remedy this through interdenominational meetings. General missionary conferences were held in Liverpool (1860), London (1878 and 1888), New York (1900). That of Edinburgh (1910) was one of the most important; and also those of Jerusalem (1928), Tambaram (1938), and more recently that of Amsterdam. In the other conferences promoted by the ecumenical movement, missions were not forgotten. In this way, Protestant missions succeeded in forming an enormous bloc of cooperation, according to common norms and principles. They have left in the shade many doctrinal oppositions, so that their preaching has increasingly emptied itself of any theological content. Consequently, health assistance activities have been greatly developed, also because Protestants have ample financial means at their disposal. Works of secondary and university education have also been promoted both to influence the masses and to form an elite in various social fields.

National Churches, independent of the ancient Churches of origin, have also been formed among the new peoples. Currently, there are about 200 of them, with full freedom of action and doctrine. And from what has been said, it is clear that Protestant missionary methodology is not tied to any ecclesiastical organization and has almost exclusively individualistic aims. Today it is seeking new paths. After the two world wars, the nationalism of peoples of old culture and those in the process of progressive evangelization seeks to stifle the universalist message of the Gospel; the religious elements, which previously lay dormant in the souls to be converted, too often awaken at the contact with this or that Christian truth. Moreover, the monopolistic encroachment of governments in the fields of education and health assistance has forced Protestantism to abandon individualistic methods in favor of broader ones. This is a very arduous task, which missionary conferences will find it difficult to resolve.

All this missionary activity is supported by a series of missiological studies aimed at providing a missionary interpretation of the Bible. The various regional, national, and international conferences of Protestantism, especially those of Edinburgh (1910) and Jerusalem (1928), have been accompanied by a large number of publications that have provided the materials to form a missiology according to Protestant principles. Among the writers on the subject, mention should be made of Adriano Saravia (1531-1613), Justus Heurnius (1587-1651), Antonio Walaeus (1573-1639), Gisberto Voetius (1589-1676), Giovanni Hoornbeek (1617-1666), Gustav Warneck (1834-1910), who was the pioneer of missionary theory in Protestantism, and others. Thanks to them, Protestant missiological science can present a literature of high scientific value, which in the historical field can be very useful. It cannot be denied that their works have exerted a wide influence on many Catholic authors.

VII. PROTESTANTISM AND THE METHOD OF APPROACH

The new situation determined in the relations between Protestants and Catholics makes the possibility of a return of the separated brethren all the more urgent and consequently imposes a revision of the methods of approach of Catholics toward Protestants.

It cannot be denied that modern Protestantism has, on many points, cut its doctrinal and spiritual roots to lose itself in philosophical and religious ideologies foreign to the doctrine of the first Reformers. The re-examination of the entire *Corpus Reformatorum* has had the advantage of abandoning the polemical tone in favor of constructive doctrinal work. All this activity of revision and new studies, also conducted by Catholics, has brought about a salutary clarification on some questions of great importance.

However, the three main Reformed Churches with their numerous confessions and groups offer very little ground conducive to a mass reunion, especially when one considers the various particular Churches that have given rise to modern currents strongly influenced by rationalism, positivism, and modernism. Even the Protestants themselves recognize the difficulties involved in any possible reunion and propose a certain unity of good understanding, setting aside the profound divergences on fundamental doctrinal points, which the Catholic Church cannot tolerate. In these attempts, many approach the question from various points of view, thus forcing Catholics into a very complex study.

Indeed, for neo-Protestants, Holy Scripture is the starting point of their doctrine and constitutes its objective content. Only in it is it possible to find the elements that contribute to the edification of the Church. The principle established presents for us Catholics a formula too vague and subject to continuous variations, from which a series of profound divergences arise. In addition to these points of separation, there are many others concerning the value of merits in the work of Justification, the infallible magisterium of the Church, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the veneration of the Blessed Virgin, and the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. All these profound doctrinal differences should not lead one to consider the return of numerous denominations impossible. There are reasons for hope, arising from the desire for unity deeply felt by many Protestants, even though it has encountered strong difficulties and experienced painful failures.

A step toward unity is certainly represented by the faith in Jesus Christ, recognized as God made man, proclaimed by the Ecumenical Council. Moreover, many also admit a certain tradition. In particular, within Anglicanism, various movements have arisen, including the Oxford Movement, to promote the return to Rome. Not a few groups of chosen souls have gathered under the Benedictine and Franciscan Rule to satisfy the desire for a holier life. Unfortunately, however, these movements toward Rome are hindered by the heavy legacy of the yoke of the past and often by recent political and even racial factors that shift the problem of reunion to other fields.

In order to clarify doctrinal points, many Protestants have placed excessive confidence in direct contacts between Catholic and Protestant theologians. The Malines Conversations are a fine example of this, but they too often highlight the points that divide us. Such discussions, however, must be conducted according to the prudent norms laid down in the instruction of the Holy Office of December 20, 1949 (AAS, 48 [1950], pp. 142-47), which supplements those of the "Warning" of June 5, 1948 (ibid., 40 [1948], p. 257). The aforementioned instruction recalls the canonical prescriptions in this regard (canons 1325 § 3, 1258, 731 § 2) and indicates the conditions for legitimate and useful contacts between Catholics and other Christians. It recommends that bishops oversee the various movements toward reunion in the light of the encyclical letters of Leo XIII: *Satis cognitum* (Acta Leonis XIII, XVI, Rome 1897, p. 157 ff.), of Pius XI: *Mortalium animos* (AAS, 20 [1928], p. 193 ff.), to which may be added the recent *Humani generis* (ibid., 42 [1950], p. 561 ff.).

The integrity of Catholic doctrine must be fully safeguarded, and every danger of indifference avoided. The so-called irenic spirit must not lead to any compromise in doctrinal matters. It also requires that meetings and discussions between Catholics and non-Catholics be undertaken only when they offer all the guarantees of genuine usefulness. Ordinaries shall select for this purpose competent and prudent priests and shall not permit the admission of laypersons unless they are well instructed and firm in the faith. Interconfessional unions aimed at safeguarding the principles of natural law and social action are not prohibited.

The 1949 instruction grants Ordinaries, for a period of three years, the faculty to permit local conferences and meetings, provided that no "in sacris" communion takes place. Large public gatherings are not encouraged, and for interdiocesan, national, or international ones, authorization from the Holy See is required. In both discussions and writings, great charity must be evident, fostering mutual understanding on both sides, leaving aside the vast body of literature from the 16th, 17th, 18th, and even 19th centuries, which has not lacked tasteless invective. Moreover, as in any work of apostolate, in promoting the reunion of Protestants with the Church, Catholics must resort to prayer, supported by a life lived in holiness, to present to Protestants the image of a Church perfect in discipline and morals. V. tav. III