The Catholic World, Vol. 10, October, 1869 to March, 1870Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 10, October, 1869 to March, 1870
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
"The decrees of the Council of Trent were received by the
spiritual princes of the empire in 1566, 'and from this moment,'
says the excellent historian who has thrown most light on this
subject, 'began a new life for the Catholic Church in Germany.'...
Every method was adopted to revive an attachment to the ancient
religion, insuperable by the love of novelty or the force of
argument. A stricter discipline and subordination was introduced
among the clergy; they were early trained in seminaries, apart
from the sentiments and habits, the vices and the virtues of the
world. The monastic orders resumed their rigid observances."[4]
Luther, anticipating his condemnation by Pope Leo X., appealed in
1518 to a general council, a course, we may remark, frequently
taken by heretics, if for nothing else, at least to gain time to
enroll followers, and thus increase in importance, before the
final condemnation. The diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, in answer to
the conciliatory and truly apostolic communication of Pope Adrian
VI., through his nuncio, Cheregat, requested his holiness to call a
council in some city of Germany, with the double object of a thorough
reformation, and of devising means of resistance to the menacing
advances of the Turkish power. Adrian died before he could take any
action on the subject, and the new pontiff, Clement VII., did not
receive the proposal with favor. According to Pallavicini, he feared
that under the actual circumstances the council would only aggravate
the evil, especially if the fathers should revive the pretensions
of their predecessors of Constance and Basle, an apprehension very
prevalent at that time at Rome, and, it must be admitted, not
altogether groundless; besides, the war then raging between Charles
V. and Francis I., from whose dominions most of the bishops were to
come, rendered the possibility of a successful convocation almost
hopeless; and, lastly, the demand was for a council which would
satisfy Luther and his party; namely, one in which any one that
might choose, even laymen, should be allowed to take part, and the
pontiff should lay aside his high prerogatives, and sit as a simple
bishop. He consequently instructed his legate, Campeggi, that it was
impossible to call a council until the conclusion of peace between
the two great princes of Europe, offering, at the same time, to carry
out the measures of reform decreed by the council of Lateran, held
not long before by Leo X., and to provide by his own authority proper
remedies on other points. The unfortunate war in which Clement became
afterward involved with Charles V. delayed for some time all question
of holding a council; but, with the return of peace, the negotiations
were resumed, and at a consultation held in Bologna, in 1533, between
the pontiff and the emperor, the former agreed to convoke the council
within six months from the acceptation of certain very equitable
conditions by all interested.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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