CATHOLIC REFORM. - The Catholic Reform of the 16th century is the Church's return to an ideal of Christian life through intimate renewal. It is the premise of the Catholic restoration, with which the intimately renewed Church turns to the outside world, in order to sustain itself against Protestantism and regain the ground lost because of it. The Protestant Reformation did not produce the Catholic Reform, but indirectly favored it against its own will.
I. ORIGIN OF THE CATHOLIC REFORM
After the various attempts of the Councils of Constance and Basel to bring about the reform of the Church, long held to be necessary, by changing its constitution and especially by holding general councils periodically that would have superiority over the papacy, several pontiffs of the 15th century — Pius II, Sixtus IV, Alexander VI — arranged a reform of the Roman Curia and of the Church in general, but without effect. The true Catholic Reform did not begin in capite but in membris, therefore not from above but from below, that is, through the self-reform of its members. Especially the Mendicant Orders worked to restore the severity of the Rule in their convents, and since they were the great curators of souls, they acted upon the masses with their great preachers. From the Franciscan Order came Bernardino da Siena, Giovanni da Capestrano and Giacomo della Marca; moreover Francis of Paola founded the Minims; from the Dominican Congregation of St. Mark came Antonino da Firenze and Savonarola; among the Germans of the same Order the popular writers Nider and Herold had great effectiveness; among the Augustinians arose the Congregations for Reform at Lecceto, at S. Giovanni a Carbonara and the Lombard Congregation; among the Carmelites the Mantuan Congregation. Within the Benedictine Order were formed the Congregations of S. Giustina, Valladolid, Chézal-Benoît and Bursfelde; among the Augustinian Canons the Congregation of Windesheim, from which came Standonck, the reformer of St. Victor in Paris. All these reforms of the Orders of the late Middle Ages were very important for the preservation of the true Christian spirit both within the convents and outside them. In particular the Charterhouse of Cologne was the starting point of the Catholic Reform in Germany.
There was no lack of zealous bishops who labored with all their strength in their dioceses against the most deep-rooted abuses. The Italian episcopate presents men such as Lorenzo Giustiniani, Antonino da Firenze, Bertini of Foligno, Barozzi of Padua; in France the provincial synods of Sens in 1485 and the reformed convent of Tours in 1493 began the reform of the secular clergy. From the acts of the visitations of the English dioceses it emerges that even there religious life was by no means languishing; the German episcopate presents a long line of reforming bishops, such as Hewen and Randegg at Constance, Ramung at Speyer, Scherenberg at Würzburg, Zollern at Augsburg; and some German princes used papal privileges to favor the reform of the Church, as, for example, the dukes of Saxony for the reform of the convents in 1485. The 15th century was by no means a period of religious decadence as early Protestantism wished to represent it, but rather a religiously alive, indeed restless, epoch. And the Protestant Reformation used that restlessness for its own purposes.
The devotio moderna founded in the Low Countries by G. Groote tended to model religious life on the example of Christ, and from it came the Fratres vitae communis, communities of laymen without vows, which spread through the Low Countries and northern Germany.
The renewal therefore had its origins in the supernatural foundations of the Church itself. The decisive impulse set out from Italy and Spain. The terrible end of Savonarola did not prevent his call to penance from being heard by many. Independently of him there were formed in Italy centers of reform: Bernardino da Feltre founded the oratory of St. Jerome at Vicenza in 1494. At Genoa the layman Ettore Vernazza followed him with the oratory of the Divine Love (v. COMPAGNIA DEL DIVINO AMORE).
The Oratory at the beginning of the 16th century established itself in Rome, and from it came Gaetano da Thiene and Gian Pietro Carafa, founders of the Order of the Theatines. At Venice a group of young nobles, almost all laymen, devoted themselves to a severely religious life; two of them, Quirini and Giustiniani, entered Camaldoli, and in 1513 they drew up for Leo X a vast memorial on reform, the most important of the period preceding the Catholic Reform properly so called. To that group also belonged Gasparo Contarini (v.) who, in 1516, still a layman, wrote the De officio episcopi, which presented the ideal of the bishop as apostle. At the inauguration of the Fifth Lateran Council, the Augustinian general Egidio da Viterbo maintained as the basis of the Catholic Reform that: Homines per sacra immutari fas est, non sacra per homines.
Self-sanctification and the apostolate were the basic principles on which, in years of war and misery, Girolamo Miani (v.) and Anton Marin Zaccaria (v.), both still laymen, founded the Orders of the Somaschi and the Barnabites.
The Catholic Reform flourished in Spain from the enthusiasm of the whole people, who had fought victoriously for the liberation of the country from the Moors, a victory crowned by the conquest of Granada under Ferdinand and Isabella. With Isabella's support Ximenes de Cisneros and Talavera displayed their zeal for reform; at Valladolid, at Alcalá and at Salamanca religious studies and especially scholastic studies flourished; from the school of Francisco de Vitoria came the great theologians whom Spain sent to Trent. The conversion of the Basque gentleman Iñigo de Loyola at Manresa and his Exercitia Spiritualia were destined to give the greatest impulse to the Catholic Reform.
II. BEGINNINGS OF THE CATHOLIC REFORM IN ROME (1534-63)
The individual reforms may be compared to little streams which, flowing from various sides and tending toward the same goal, could not be gathered into a single river until the Papacy, reached by them, coordinated them. On the Catholic side reform was desired even before the apostasy began in the north. Yet it is undeniable that the latter contributed to ensuring that the necessity of a radical reform of the Church in its very heart, in Rome, was not only recognized in theory but also put into practice. Adrian VI, full of zeal, reigned too briefly for his pontificate to bring about an effective change. Clement VII, although personally blameless, did nothing serious for the Catholic Reform and the Council. Only Paul III framed reform within his program and began to realize it by calling into the Sacred College certain inflexible supporters of the reform party, such as Contarini, Carafa, Pole, Sadoleto, and later Cervini, Morone, Cortese and others, thus initiating the transformation of the College itself. Since the Council was slow to assemble for especially political reasons, the Pontiff, influenced by the deputation for the Catholic Reform convoked at the end of 1536, and by its Consilium de emendanda Ecclesia, reformed the curial authorities: although he did not achieve the results desired by the best, he gradually eliminated the major abuses with greater severity, first of all in the choice of cardinals and bishops. The activity of Gian Matteo Giberti at Verona was taken as an example by other bishops; it was now felt how grave the abuses were of the neglect of the obligation of residence and the cumulatio beneficiorum; and if full abolition was not immediately obtained, it was nonetheless recognized as indispensable. The increase given to the Catholic Reform in the Mendicant Order by superiors such as Seripando and Audet, and especially the approval of the Society of Jesus, were further steps toward the Catholic Reform.
The decrees of the Council of Trent subsequently came to accelerate the Catholic Reformation; in particular the one on the obligation of residence of bishops and parish priests (sess. VI) combated a series of grave abuses, but their effect was at first limited, because they did not enter into force for lack of pontifical validation. And the attempts of the bishops of Spain and Portugal to apply individual decrees spontaneously, such as the one on the reform of exempt chapters, led Julius III to consider giving effect to the decrees of the Council of Trent by a great bull on the Catholic Reformation; and consequently as papal laws on the Catholic Reformation. However, Julius III died before the publication of the bull Licei ab initio.
The pontificate of Paul IV gave a decisive impulse to the Catholic Reformation in the city of Rome and in the Roman Curia: the reformist element in the College of Cardinals was strengthened by the election of deeply religious men such as Ghislieri, Scotti and Reumano; the practice of dispensations was more rigidly regulated, and severe measures were taken against the "apostates" from the religious Orders and against outrages against religion.
The reaction to the Carafa regime under Pius IV no longer endangered the victory of the ideas of reform. Pius IV continued the directives of Paul III, convoking the Council of Trent for the third time in 1561-63.
The Catholic Reformation was favored not only by the promulgation of the decrees at Trent, but by the papacy itself having seen to the execution of the decrees, preventing what had happened at the Fifth Lateran Council, namely that they should remain a dead letter.
III. REALIZATION OF THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION (1563-1620)
The will of the pontiffs to realize the Catholic Reformation was shown not only in the fact that Pius IV sanctioned the decrees of the Council of Trent without making changes to them (with the bull Benedictus Deus of 26 January 1564), but also in the establishment of a congregation of cardinals that was to supervise the execution of the decrees and give them, from 2 August 1564, the authentic interpretation in doubtful cases, something previously reserved to the Holy See. It was no less important that the nephew of the Pontiff, Charles Borromeo, in his apostolic activity as archbishop of Milan, had given the example of a reforming bishop and had provided, with the decrees of the provincial Synods of Milan of 1565 and 1569, a model of practical application of the decrees of Trent to the concrete needs of dioceses. The living example of Borromeo was no less important for the purposes of the Catholic Reformation than the decrees themselves.
The successors of Pius IV, Pius V and Gregory XIII, inflexibly saw to the carrying out of the Catholic Reformation and made it a consuetudo. Pius V especially fulfilled the tasks entrusted by the Council to the Papacy: in 1567 appeared the Catechismus Romanus, a dogmatic-moral manual for parish priests; in 1568 the reformed Breviarium Romanum, in 1570 the Missale Romanum, works all of which put an end to arbitrariness in the liturgical field and gave greater unity. Numerous provincial and diocesan synods in Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland saw to the application of the decrees of Trent: to create priests, seminaries arose, first of all that of Rieti in 1564, followed by the Seminarium Romanum in 1565; in 1584 arose the Collegium Romanum, a central university directed by the Jesuits. The apostolic nuncios increasingly saw to the advancement of the Catholic Reformation alongside their diplomatic duties: their number was increased, and the nunciatures of Cologne, Brussels and Graz were consequences of the Catholic Reformation. Alongside the regular nuncios there were extraordinary ones, such as Ninguarda and Porzia in southern Germany and Austria.
Sixtus V followed his predecessors and completed the work by reforming the ecclesiastical administration, about which at Trent nothing had been said, deliberately, and by founding 15 permanent congregations of cardinals, as supreme administrative authorities.
While the Papacy placed itself at the head of the Catholic Reformation, it at the same time gathered together and coordinated all the existing Catholic tendencies, so that they formed a single mighty river. This internal growth was useful to the very position of the papacy and increased its moral authority. In 1600, at the height of the Catholic Reformation, the Pontiff was far more influential and had far greater power than a hundred years earlier. Rome was now at the center of the Catholic world: in the late Middle Ages the hunters of prebends flocked there in search of benefices, now young men from all countries came there to prepare for the care of souls, and to study in the universities and national colleges arising one after another. A new flowering of scholasticism in Rome, Salamanca and Coimbra, with names such as Bellarmine and Suárez, is added to the first great successes of positive theology and Church history: see, for example, Melchior Cano and Baronio.
Auxiliary troops of the papacy in the execution of the Catholic Reformation are the religious Orders headed by the Society of Jesus, whose colleges invade the entire Catholic world like a dense network, and become seedbeds of zealous Catholic laymen; the Theatines, from whom many valiant bishops came; the Capuchins, who work upon the masses as missionaries; one must not forget the ancient Orders now profoundly renewed, which are not inferior to the new ones in zeal and success. The new spirit of the Catholic Reformation is manifested in a great number of spirited bishops, among whom Charles Borromeo, Thomas of Villanova and Francis de Sales rose to the honors of the altars. Alongside them the great directors of souls Philip Neri, John of Ávila and Peter Canisius; Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross unite mystical contemplation with apostolic activity. These Saints infused a life-giving spirit into the laws and gave strength to the Catholic Reformation.
The Catholic Reformation continued alive and operative until the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in the countries invaded by Protestantism. Its greatest flourishing, however, occurred in the 17th century. Strengthened inwardly, the Church counterattacked Protestantism and attempted to win back to itself the countries taken from it; from the Catholic Reformation there thus issued the Counter-Reformation, also often called the Catholic restoration.
Bibliography20 works
Hubert Jedin