The Counter-Reformation

Today's Reading

The Reformation did not go unanswered. The Catholic Church responded with what historians call the Counter-Reformation — a combination of genuine internal reform and firm rejection of Protestant theology. Its centerpiece was the Council of Trent, which met in three sessions between 1545 and 1563.

Trent addressed many of the abuses that had fueled the Reformation. The sale of indulgences was curtailed. Seminaries were established to improve the education of priests. Bishops were required to reside in their dioceses. The moral reform of the clergy was taken seriously. In these respects, the Catholic reformers agreed with the Protestants that something had gone badly wrong.

But on the central theological question — justification — Trent drew a clear line. Against Luther's sola fide, the Council declared: "If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified, let him be anathema" (Decree on Justification, Session 6, Canon 12, 1547). Rome insisted that justification involves not only God's grace and human faith but also human cooperation — good works, the sacraments, and the ongoing transformation of the believer.

Biblical Connection

The Counter-Reformation had its own biblical arguments. James had written: "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?... So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead" (James 2:14, 17). Catholic theologians argued that James directly contradicted the Protestant reading of Paul.

The Reformers responded that James and Paul address different questions. Paul asks: How is a sinner justified before God? Answer: by faith alone. James asks: How can you tell if someone's faith is genuine? Answer: by its fruit. Faith without works is not a different kind of faith — it is not faith at all.

Paul himself held the two together: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6). The faith that justifies is never inert. It works — through love.

Going Deeper

The Counter-Reformation also produced extraordinary figures of genuine holiness: Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits; Teresa of Avila, the great mystic and reformer of the Carmelite order; Francis Xavier, who carried the gospel to India, Japan, and the edges of China. These were not defenders of corruption. They were men and women deeply devoted to Christ, who chose to reform the church from within.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, the twentieth-century Catholic theologian, captured the paradox: "The church is always in need of reform, and sometimes the best reformers are the ones who stay inside" (Razing the Bastions, Chapter 1).

The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation left Western Christianity permanently divided. But the questions they debated — about grace and works, faith and obedience, Scripture and tradition — are not antiquarian curiosities. They are the questions every serious Christian must still answer.