The Council of Trent

The Catholic Reformation found formal expression and completion in the Council of Trent, which, with many interruptions, was assembled at Trent during the years 1545-1562. By this Council, in agreement with Medieval Scholasticism, the dogma of tradition, that is, of the binding power of church doctrine, as well as the dogmas of original sin, the seven sacraments, transubstantiation, penance, and extreme unction, the Host, the consecration of priests and of the hierarchy, the sacrament of holy matrimony, purgatory, the worship of saints and relics, monastic vows, etc., were maintained in their anti-Protestant sense.

What had hitherto been merely matter of scientific, that is, of scholastic, doctrinal opinion, which might have been prevalent, but could hardly have been considered binding in point of law, was now established as the doctrinal law of the Church, legally binding upon all. Modern Catholic dogma, for the first time expressed in definite terms, now arose in opposition to the Protestant doctrinal movement.

The Protestant principle of the authority of Holy Scripture as the sole rule of faith was clearly and deliberately confronted with the Catholic axiom of the authority of the Church, of its authority to decide these very questions of dogma. To the Catholic his Church is the object and the source of his faith. To believe in this visible Church, in its holiness and infallibility, to believe that alone which the Church teaches, is to be a Catholic. The principle of authority, the authority of the Church commanding the conscience and the faith of the individual, was expressed in unmistakable terms as the essence of the Catholic faith, newly confirmed by the Council of Trent.

All other doctrinal decisions were included in this principle as deductions from it. The re-establishment of dogma was accompanied by a reformation of the constitution and discipline of the Church. Many of the most crying abuses were put down; the perversion of indulgences as a source of gain was forbidden (from this time the sale of indulgences ceased), the clergy were pledged to the personal administration of their office, and so forth. The main point was that the Papacy and the clergy were filled with a new spirit. The corrupt and worldly-minded Papacy which had flourished in the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century disappeared as by a miracle.

As soon as it took in hand the work of reform, the Papacy set itself more and more clearly at the head of the vigorously ecclesiastical party. Through its conflict with Protestantism it had come to itself again. And, as it fared with the Papacy, so it fared with the Catholic clergy. The sixteenth century movement of reform was a universal one. The reformed Protestant Church was confronted by a reformed Catholic Church.

Outlines of Church History (1909)
By Rudolf Sohm, May Sinclair (translation)