34. Chapter 31: The Roman Church Undertakes Reform, 1545-1563

CHAPTER 31 The Roman Church Undertakes Reform, 1545-1563

1. Reform Is Universally Desired The disgrace of the Babylonian Captivity (ch. 21, sec. 3), the scandal of the Great Schism (ch. 21, sec. 4), and the many and gross abuses which disfigured the life of the Church had been a sore grief to all true Christians. From every country of western Europe there arose loud and insistent cries for a thoroughgoing reform. The answer to these cries for reform had been the three general councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel (ch. 22, sec. 9). These gen­eral councils were a bitter disap­pointment to all upright Chris­tians. They accomplished nothing in the way of reform. On the con­trary, the situation became worse.

All the evils and abuses that afflicted the Church were centered in the curia, that is, the papal gov­ernment. Soon after the Baby­lonian Captivity and the Great Schism, the papacy came under the influence of the paganizing Renaissance. The popes became worldly Italian princes, patrons of art and literature (ch. 22, sec. 10). Pope Leo X was an elegant gentle­man, highly polished, deeply inter­ested in the paganizing culture of the Renaissance. Leo was a man of blameless moral life, but he was thoroughly worldly, without inter­est in religion. After he had been ordained pope he said, "Now let us enjoy the papacy." His great project was the building of the splendid St. Peter’s Church in Rome. The project required im­mense sums of money. To raise that money he organized the sale of indulgences on a huge scale. One of his agents in Germany was Tet­zel (ch. 23, sec. 4 and 7).

It was at this time that Luther lifted up his mighty voice. And it was because of the widespread and passionate desire for reform that Luther’s action met with such tre­mendous and instantaneous re­sponse. For more than two hundred years the desire for reform had been rising like the waters of a flood. For all that long time Rome had been successful in casting up a dam to hold that flood in check. The higher the popes built the dam, the higher the waters rose. At last Luther broke the dike and the mighty waters of the Reforma­tion flooded western Europe.

2. Ximenes Works a Reform in Spain A generation before Luther started the Reformation in Ger­many, Ximenes had accomplished a reform in Spain. For seven hundred years the Christians in Spain fought to drive out the Mohammedan Arabs, or Moors. Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, was finally taken from them in 1492 (ch. 9, sec. 6). This centuries-long struggle of the Spanish Christians against the Mohammedans had bred in them a spirit fanatically religious and patriotic. This spirit was particularly strong in Ferdi­nand and Isabella, by whose mar­riage Spain had been united into one kingdom.

Queen Isabella undertook to bring about a reform in the Church in Spain. She entrusted this work to the three leading churchmen. One of these was Ximenes, a Fran­ciscan monk who later became archbishop of Toledo. He it was who really planned the reform and carried it to a successful con­clusion. The reform was a reform of the clergy and of the monks. In all the monasteries Ximenes enforced strict discipline. The priests were likewise forced ’to live up to high moral standards. Those who lacked ability or were hopelessly ignorant were removed from office. For the others he established new schools for the study of theology. All those who opposed Ximenes were swept out of his way by the secu­lar power of the queen. Isabella also protected Ximenes from inter­ference by the pope. The outcome was that the Church in Spain ac­quired a devoted and able clergy. But for the rest everything re­mained the same in the Church in Spain. The pope continued to be acknowledged as the head of the Church. The hierarchy remained. The Catholic conceptions of priest­hood and sacraments remained. The sacred ceremonies, decrees, ordinances, and sacred usages were left untouched. Catholic doctrine was left unchanged. The monasteries did not dissolve as in Ger­many, nor were they suppressed as in England. They remained.

Abuses had been abolished but the Catholic system in all its essen­tials remained. Catholicism in Spain had not been changed one whit. It had been intensified.

What Ximenes had brought about in Spain was a reform, not a reformation.

3. Charles V Chooses between Luther and Aleander At the Diet in Worms in 1521 (ch. 24, sec. 15) the three out­standing persons were Charles V, Luther, and Aleander.

Charles was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella. He had been brought up in the strict Ca­tholicism of his grandmother. He was king of Spain and emperor of Germany.

Aleander was the representative of the unreformed papacy. For a short time Charles hoped to use Luther to bring about a re­form in the entire Church, as his grandmother Isabella had used Ximenes to bring about reform in the Church in Spain. Charles knew that Luther, in his fight against the abuses in the Church, had vio­lently attacked the papacy as an institution, and had ruthlessly torn to pieces the Catholic system of priests and sacraments (ch. 23, sec. 13; ch. 24, sec. 11). Charles hoped that Luther would forsake this extreme position. But at the Diet of Worms, Luther repeated with even greater force what he had said to Eck in the Leipzig De­bate (ch. 24, sec. 6 and 7). He maintained that church councils could err and had erred, and that he could prove it. Upon hearing this Charles waved his hand as a sign that the session of the Diet was closed. Luther had chosen. His break with Rome was beyond repair. From that moment on Charles set his face like flint against Luther and the Reformation. He made up his mind to ally himself with Aleander as the representative of the papacy. His first move would be to crush Luther and the Ref­ormation. Then, having crushed Luther and the Reformation with the help of the papacy, he would turn against his ally, make him­self master of it, and impose the Spanish reform upon the entire Church.

4. Pope Adrian VI Attempts to Re­form the Church

Soon after the close of the Diet of Worms the opportunity pre­sented itself to Charles to try to work out his plan. Pope Leo X died. The cardinals who met to elect a new pope were deadlocked for a long time. It appeared that the only way to break the dead­lock was to accept the candidate offered by the emperor Charles. This they finally did, and the em­peror’s man became pope under the title of Adrian VI. Charles hoped to work out his reform plan through this new pope.

Pope Adrian was a Dutchman from Utrecht in the Netherlands and had been Charles’ tutor. He was a pious and strict Catholic, in thorough agreement with Ximenes and in full sympathy with his re­form activities. He became known as the Dutch Ximenes.

Pope Adrian tried, according to the emperor’s wishes and his own ardent desire, to introduce the Spanish reform in Rome. But he failed miserably in his attempt. There were several reasons for his failure. He did not feel at home among the Italians, did not know their ways, and did not understand their language. They in turn did not understand him. Adrian was a good but simple man. He thought it would be easy to introduce the Spanish reform in Rome. Until he came to Rome he had no idea how deep-seated and far-spread the cor­ruption of the papacy actually was. To do away with the abuses con­nected with the sale of indulgences would cut off millions every year from the pope’s revenue. The papal court was a vast machine with thousands of employees and hang­ers-on. To introduce the Spanish reform would deprive all these thousands of their jobs and income. Had Adrian understood the situa­tion, he would have expected strong opposition.

Pope Adrian found himself in what could be likened to a narrow enclosure surrounded by high walls of rough stone. Scale those walls or break through them he could not. At every turn he made, he faced unexpected obstacles and sly opposition. The smooth Italian papal courtiers laughed behind his back at the pious but simple Dutch­man. In Rome there was no Isa­bella to sweep away opponents as there had been for Ximenes in Spain (sec. 2). After a brief rule of twenty months Adrian, ex­hausted by his fruitless struggles, sank into his grave. On his tombstone the cardinals caused these words to be chiseled: "Here lies Adrian VI whose su­preme misfortune in life was that he was called upon to rule."

5. Adrian’s Rule Was Not without Influence

Luther’s onslaught had been so sudden and so furious that it had left the Roman Church dazed. When he exposed the papal govern­ment as the source of corruption in the Church, the worldly Renais­sance popes tried to cover things up, and they dismissed from their minds the significance of Luther’s protests. These Renaissance popes, Leo X and Clement VII, did not realize the seriousness of the situ­ation. They were pre-occupied with the new art and literature, with their magnificent building projects, and with petty Italian politics.

Pope Adrian VI, whose rule fell between that of these two popes, tried to bring the Roman Church out of its daze and reform it, but his time in office was too short, and the indifference he met with was too great. It seemed that he had accomplished nothing. However, his efforts were not to be entirely in vain.

Pope Adrian did something un­usual during his tenure. He com­missioned one of his messengers to go to Germany and admit that the papal government in Rome was the chief source of corruption in the Church. As could be expected, this admission was ridiculed by the papal court at Rome. But it was a great act on the part of the honest and simple Dutch Adrian. And it was important, because it was done by him in his official capacity as pope. This act of Adrian went unno­ticed at the time, and history re­corded his rule as a total failure. Nevertheless it marks the begin­ning of a reform in the Roman Church. There were at that time a few spiritually minded men occu­pying high positions in the papal court. The example of Pope Adrian VI and his efforts to reform the Roman Church awakened in them a new zeal for reform. This desire for reform began to bear fruit at the time of the Council of Trent, as we shall see in the next section.

6. The Council of Trent Attempts an Inner Reform

Meanwhile, abuses continued to flourish in the Roman Church, and the Reformation spread. It spread from Germany into Denmark, Nor­way, Sweden, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland, and even into Poland, Hungary, Italy, and Spain.

Emperor Charles was anxious to reunite the Protestants and the Catholics. He arranged a number of conferences in which leading Protestant and Catholic theolo­gians took part. They discussed their differences, but could not reach an agreement. Earnest Christians in the Roman Church continued to clamor for reform.

Finally Pope Paul III sum­moned a council. It met in Trent from 1545 to 1563. This council did not meet continuously. There were two interruptions of several years. The Council of Trent is a milestone in the history of the Ro­man Catholic Church, for it marks a triumph for the papacy. The Protestant churches in Ger­many, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, England, and Scot­land had formulated creeds in which they declared their faith. Now the Council which met in Trent formulated a creed for the Roman Church. A catechism was also adopted. Many of the abuses that had caused so much trouble were corrected. Provision was made for the better education of the Roman clergy. The supremacy of the papacy was established more firmly than ever. A great reform had been brought about in the Roman Church, but that Church had not changed its essential character. Over against Protestantism the Roman Church in the Council of Trent had defi­nitely and strongly upheld and re­asserted its Catholic system. This self-reform of the Roman Church is often called the Counter Ref or­mation. For a number of years the heat of the Reformation had rendered the religious condition of the Church fluid. Now it had become solidified, and the lines were hard set. The churches of the Reformation now found arrayed against them a reformed and revived Roman Church. A terrific struggle was about to take place between Prot­estantism and Catholicism.