Summary: This episode is titled Point – Counter Point: The Catholic Reformation. We’ve spent the last several episodes considering the Protestant Reformation of the 16th C. The tendency is to assume the Roman Church just dug in its heels in an obdurate opposition to the Protestants. While the 17th C will indeed see much blood shed between the religious factions of Europe, it would be wrong to assume the Roman Church of the early decades of the Reformation was immediately adversarial. Don’t forget that all the early Reformers were Roman Catholics. And reform was something many had been calling for in the Roman church for a long time prior to Martin Luther’s break. The Conciliar Movement we talked about many episodes back was an attempt at reform, at least of the hierarchy of the church, if not some of its doctrine. Spain was a center of the call for Reform within the church. But Luther’s rift with Rome, and the floodgate it opened put the Roman Church on the defensive and caused it to respond aggressively. That response was what’s called the Catholic Counter-Reformation. But that title can be misleading if one assumes the Catholic Church became only more hide-bound in reaction to the Protestants. Several important reforms were made in the way the Church was run. And Protestant theology urged Catholic theologians to tighten up some of theirs. (more…)
