The Council of Trent (1545-1563)

The context of crisis (1517-1545)

Between the posting of Luther's 95 Theses (31 October 1517) and the opening of the council (13 December 1545), twenty-eight years elapse — nearly three decades.

Attempts at reconciliation (Diets of Worms 1521, Augsburg 1530, Regensburg 1541) all fail. The rupture widens: Luther, excommunicated in 1521, founds a German Reformed Church; Zwingli in Zurich (1523-1531), Calvin in Geneva (from 1536), Henry VIII in England (Act of Supremacy, 1534) follow. Germany is crossed by growing confessional tensions — the Peasants' War of 1524-1525 remains close at hand and armed conflicts between Protestant princes and the emperor loom (the Schmalkaldic War will break out in 1546). The need for a general council becomes compelling, but Charles V (favourable) and Francis I (hostile, through alliance with the Protestant princes against Charles) block any convocation for years.

Paul III convenes (1544)

Elected pope in 1534, Alessandro Farnese (Paul III) takes the decisive initiative.

The bull of convocation Laetare Jerusalem of 19 November 1544 announces the opening for 15 March 1545 at Trent — an Italo-German city, on the road to the Empire, in the prince-bishopric — a territory governed by its own bishop as a prince of the Empire — of Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo. The opening is postponed to 13 December 1545 (3rd Sunday of Advent, Gaudete) owing to delays among the bishops. Three pontifical legates preside over the council: Cardinals Giovanni Maria del Monte (future Julius III), Marcello Cervini (future Marcellus II) and Reginald Pole (English cardinal)^[1].

The choice of the city is itself a political compromise. Trent is technically an Imperial city (the prince-bishopric falls under the Holy Roman Empire), which satisfies Charles V, who wants a council "in Germany"; but it is also an Italian-speaking and Catholic city, which reassures Rome, which fears an assembly under imperial control, conciliarist in spirit, capable of limiting pontifical power. Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo (1512-1578), Prince-Bishop of Trent, then plays an essential mediating role between the Roman legates and the imperial court: his hospitality and diplomacy are decisive for holding the council at Trent^[2].

The bishops by nation

The composition by nation varies considerably according to the periods. In the first period (1545-1547), the council remains modest: Session III of 4 February 1546 counts only 34 bishops (28 Italians, 4 Spaniards, 1 German, 1 Frenchman)^[3], which fuels the Reformed criticism of a merely "Italian" council. The third period (1562-1563) is of quite another scale: the final session of 4 December 1563 gathers 228 conciliar Fathers including 187 bishops, 7 cardinals, 7 generals of orders, 19 procurators and 8 mitred abbots^[4]. The Italian proportion remains in the majority (132 Italians), but the French deputation sent by Charles IX (under the impetus of Cardinal Charles of Lorraine) and the Spaniards introduce a decisive rebalancing. French participation, long reluctant, becomes in 1562-1563 a balancing factor: the French Fathers demand and obtain that the council truly deal with disciplinary reform, and not only with dogmatic doctrine.

Theologians of the council

The bishops vote; the theologians advise. The council innovates by clearly distinguishing theologi votandi (bishops with the right to vote) from theologi consulendi (theologian-experts presenting reports and arguments) — a model Vatican II will take up four centuries later. Six theological figures leave a lasting mark on Trent — including one, Cardinal Hosius, who sits there as pontifical legate and not as a mere consulting expert:

• Diego Laínez S.J. (1512-1565), pontifical theologian, architect of the decree on justification;
• Alfonso Salmerón S.J. (1515-1585), Jesuit exegete and theologian, present in all three periods;
• Domingo de Soto O.P. (1494-1560), Dominican of Salamanca, De natura et gratia (1547), pillar of the Session VI decree;
• Melchor Cano O.P. (1509-1560), Salamanca Dominican, De locis theologicis (published posthumously, 1563) — the theological method founding post-Tridentine theology;
• Girolamo Seripando O.E.S.A. (1493-1563), General of the Augustinians, defender of duplex iustitia — "double justice", that is, counting for salvation both on the justice God places within us and on that of Christ reckoned to our account — a thesis ultimately set aside but which marks the debate;
• Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579), Polish cardinal, appointed among the pontifical legates presiding over the third period (10 March 1561), author of the Confessio fidei catholicae christianae (1553)^[5].

Procedure and votes

Trent votes per capita (one bishop, one vote), unlike the medieval councils voting per nationes (by national blocs). This innovation, defended by the pontifical legates from 1545 onwards, neutralises the Imperial-French national argument and guarantees the majority to the Italian bishops, loyal to the Holy See. Dogmatic decrees are structured in two parts: doctrinal chapters (positive exposition of the Catholic faith) and canons (short anathematic formulas, "si quis dixerit… anathema sit", condemning point by point a specifically targeted erroneous thesis). This binary format — doctrinal chapters then anathematic canons — remained until the 20th century the model of solemn dogmatic definitions: Vatican II (1962-1965), while confirming Tridentine doctrine, adopts a pastoral style without anathemas^[6].

First period under Paul III (1545-1547), Sessions I-X

The first sessions deal essentially with procedure, the profession of faith, then tackle the fundamental doctrinal questions:

• Session III (4 February 1546): Niceno-Constantinopolitan profession of faith
• Session IV (8 April 1546): Scripture and Tradition — decree Sacrosancta
• Session V (17 June 1546): original sin
• Session VI (13 January 1547): justification — 16 chapters, 33 canons
• Session VII (3 March 1547): sacraments in general — affirmation of the seven sacraments

In March 1547, a typhus epidemic pushes the legates to transfer the council to Bologna (pontifical territory). Charles V, disagreeing, refuses to recognise the Bolognese sessions (IX and X). The council is suspended by Paul III in September 1549.

Second period under Julius III (1551-1552), Sessions XI-XVI

The successor of Paul III, Julius III, reopens the council at Trent on 1 May 1551. The sessions deal with the sacraments:

• Session XIII (11 October 1551): Eucharist — transubstantiation, real presence
• Session XIV (25 November 1551): penance and extreme unction

But the about-face of Maurice of Saxony — who, after the Treaty of Chambord (January 1552) concluded with Henry II, raises the Protestant princes against Charles V (revolt of the princes, Fürstenaufstand) — forces the council to be suspended in April 1552. For ten years, the council remains interrupted (under Marcellus II, who dies after 22 days of pontificate, then under the radical reformer Paul IV, hostile to the council, who prefers to govern by curial decrees rather than by council).

Third period under Pius IV (1562-1563), Sessions XVII-XXV

Elected in 1559, Pius IV (Gian Angelo Medici) reopens the council on 18 January 1562. The legates who preside over it successively are Ercole Gonzaga, Girolamo Seripando, Stanislaus Hosius and Ludovico Simonetta, then Giovanni Morone; from Rome, the pope's nephew and Secretary of State Charles Borromeo effectively steers the work. The final sessions are the most dogmatically dense:

• Session XXI (16 July 1562): communion under both kinds — the decree defines the dogma (communion under one kind alone is whole; little children are not bound to it) and refers to the pope the decision to grant the chalice to the laity (concession granted by Pius IV in 1564)
• Session XXII (17 September 1562): sacrifice of the Mass — affirmation of the sacrificial character
• Session XXIII (15 July 1563): holy orders and creation of seminaries
• Session XXIV (11 November 1563): marriage — decree Tametsi ("although"): a marriage is valid only before the parish priest and witnesses
• Session XXV (3-4 December 1563): purgatory, invocation of the saints, holy images, indulgences, general reform decrees

Overview of the 25 sessions

The table below summarises, for each session, the date, the reigning pope and the main content (reform decree or dogmatic decree). The sessions highlighted in bold are the major dogmatic sessions to which the Church still refers in the 21st century when citing Trent.

Sources: Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo, EDB, Bologna, 3rd ed. 1991, p. 657-799; Denzinger-Hünermann, §§ 1500-1835^[7].

Session IV — Scripture and Tradition (1546)

The decree Sacrosancta of 8 April 1546 establishes the fundamental Catholic position, in response to the Lutheran sola scriptura:

"Veritatem et disciplinam contineri in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus, quae ab ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae, aut ab ipsis Apostolis, Spiritu Sancto dictante, quasi per manus traditae, ad nos usque pervenerunt." ("Truth and discipline are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions which, received by the apostles from the very mouth of Christ, or transmitted by the apostles themselves under the dictation of the Holy Spirit, have come down to us as from hand to hand.") — Council of Trent, Session IV, Decretum de canonicis Scripturis, Denzinger § 1501^[8]

The same decree fixes the biblical canon (46 books for the OT — deuterocanonicals included —, 27 for the NT) and recognises the Latin Vulgate of Saint Jerome as the authentic edition for public use. Trent does not say that the Vulgate is the only acceptable translation, nor that it is without critical defect: it is "authentica", that is, it carries authority in public controversies of doctrine, without prejudice to later critical editions — which explains why Sixtus V and then Clement VIII will produce in 1592 the revised Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, and why Pius XII will reopen in 1943 through the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu the right to the scholarly use of the original texts^[9].

Four confessional positions on the major points

To situate the scope of Trent, it is useful to place side by side the Catholic position defined in 1545-1563 and the three great Reformed positions that provoked it. The table below summarises the five major axes on which the Tridentine decree decides directly against a precise Protestant thesis — Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Eucharist, ecclesial authority and cult of the saints.

Reading key: Trent does not content itself with refusing the five solas; it positively reformulates the Catholic faith on each point, giving both a doctrinal exposition (chapters) and anonymous anathemas (canons). See the specialised articles Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus and Soli Deo Gloria for the point-by-point refutation^[10].

Session VI — Justification (1547)

Against the Lutheran thesis of justification by faith alone — the sinner declared just without infused grace or works contributing to it — the decree of 13 January 1547, treated in detail in the article Sola Fide, answers point by point. It comprises sixteen doctrinal chapters and thirty-three anathematic canons (Denzinger §§ 1520-1583): justification by faith which is "the beginning, the foundation and the root" (chapter 8), but which implies the cooperation of the will prepared by prevenient grace (canon 9), infused sanctifying grace (canon 11), the merit of the works of the just (canon 32).

Session VII — The seven sacraments (1547)

Against the Reformed reduction to baptism and Supper alone — or even to mere signs without efficacy — the decree of 3 March 1547 affirms that the seven sacraments were all instituted by Jesus Christ and are truly and properly sacraments. Canon 1:

"Si quis dixerit, sacramenta novae legis non fuisse omnia a Iesu Christo Domino nostro instituta ; aut esse plura vel pauciora, quam septem, videlicet baptismum, confirmationem, eucharistiam, poenitentiam, extremam unctionem, ordinem et matrimonium ; aut etiam aliquod horum septem non esse vere et proprie sacramentum : anathema sit." ("If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law were not all instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord; or that there are more or fewer than seven, namely baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders and matrimony; or again that any one of these seven is not truly and properly a sacrament: let him be anathema.") — Council of Trent, Session VII, canon 1 on the sacraments, Denzinger § 1601^[11]

The same decree then defines baptism and confirmation, before the later decrees on the Eucharist, penance and orders (Denzinger §§ 1601-1630).

Session XIII — Eucharist (1551)

The decree De SS. Eucharistia of 11 October 1551 is one of the most solemn of the council (Denzinger §§ 1635-1661). Canon 1:

"Si quis negaverit, in sanctissimae Eucharistiae sacramento contineri vere, realiter et substantialiter corpus et sanguinem una cum anima et divinitate Domini nostri Iesu Christi, ac proinde totum Christum ; sed dixerit, tantummodo esse in eo ut in signo vel figura aut virtute: anathema sit." ("If anyone denies that, in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, are contained truly, really and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but says that He is therein only as in a sign, a figure or a power: let him be anathema.") — Council of Trent, Session XIII, canon 1, Denzinger § 1651^[12]

Canon 2 consecrates the term transubstantiation as the proper designation of the conversion of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

Session XXII — The sacrifice of the Mass (1562)

The decree De sanctissimo Missae sacrificio of 17 September 1562 completes the eucharistic doctrine of Session XIII by addressing sacrifice. Against Luther, who denounced the Mass as an abominable idolatry, on the grounds that one cannot offer to God what Christ has already offered once for all (cf. Letter to the Hebrews 9:25-28), the council distinguishes two modes of the one sacrifice:

"In divino hoc sacrificio, quod in Missa peragitur, idem ille Christus continetur et incruente immolatur, qui in ara crucis semel se ipsum cruente obtulit." ("In this divine sacrifice which is accomplished in the Mass, it is the same Christ who is contained and offered in an unbloody manner, who offered Himself once for all in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross.") — Council of Trent, Session XXII, De sanctissimo Missae sacrificio, ch. 2, Denzinger § 1743^[13]

The Mass is therefore, for Trent, the same offering as that of the Cross — Christ is at once priest and victim — but renewed sacramentally, without repetition or addition. The fruits of Calvary are "applied" to the living and the dead through the Mass. The decree cites Hebrews 5:6 (Christ priest according to the order of Melchizedek) to ground the priesthood of Christ under the species of bread and wine. Canon 1 anathematises whoever denies the sacrificial character of the Mass; canon 3 anathematises whoever rejects Masses for the dead; canon 9 anathematises whoever condemns the Roman rite according to which part of the canon and the words of consecration are pronounced in a low voice, or maintains that Mass must be celebrated in the vernacular only, or that water must not be mixed with the wine offered in the chalice (Denzinger § 1759). The decree theologically grounds the Roman Missal of Pius V (1570) and remains the sole systematic conciliar exposition of the eucharistic sacrifice down to Vatican II.

Session XXIII — Holy orders and residence (1563)

The decree of 15 July 1563 settles two decisive matters. On the sacrament of Orders, Trent lists the seven orders of the hierarchy (chapter 2) and affirms the apostolic succession of bishops by divine institution (chapter 4), and anathematises whoever denies that ordination imprints an indelible sacramental character (canon 4, Denzinger § 1774). On the residence of bishops, the council puts an end to centuries of accumulated benefices (a bishop often absent from his diocese): every bishop must reside personally in his diocese, except for grave and brief cause^[14].

Session XXV — Purgatory, saints, images (1563)

Against the Reformed negation of purgatory as an invention without scriptural foundation, the decree of 3-4 December 1563 affirms the existence of purgatory and the efficacy of suffrages for the dead (Denzinger § 1820), as well as the legitimacy of the invocation of the saints (§§ 1821-1822) and the veneration of holy images (§ 1823) — answering the accusation of idolatry —, carefully distinguished from the adoration due to God alone. On images:

"Per imagines, quas osculamur, et coram quibus caput aperimus et procumbimus, Christum adoremus, et sanctos, quorum illae similitudinem gerunt, veneremur." ("Through the images which we kiss and before which we uncover our heads and prostrate ourselves, let us adore Christ, and venerate the saints whose likeness they bear.") — Council of Trent, Session XXV, Denzinger § 1823^[15]

Diocesan seminaries (1563)

The decree of Session XXIII (15 July 1563), chapter 18, entitled Cum adolescentium aetas, orders the creation of a diocesan seminary in each cathedral or in a major church of the diocese. The text specifies the arrangements: minimum age 12, priority to poor young men endowed with the requisite dispositions, curriculum covering grammar, ecclesiastical chant, reckoning, Sacred Scripture, moral theology and sacramental ritual, funding from episcopal and canonical revenues^[16]. This decision structured Catholic clerical formation for four centuries, until the post-conciliar reform of Vatican II (Optatam Totius, 1965).

Tametsi and the canonical form of marriage (1563)

The decree Tametsi ("although", the first Latin word of the text) of Session XXIV (11 November 1563) abolishes clandestine marriages: to be valid, a marriage now requires the presence of the parish priest (or a priest delegated by the bishop) and of two or three witnesses, under pain of nullity: this is the impedimentum clandestinatis irritans, that is, an impediment rendering the marriage null — without priest or witnesses, there is no valid marriage.

The Catechismus Romanus (1566)

Pius V publishes in 1566 the Catechism of the Council of Trent, or Catechismus Romanus, drafted by a commission chaired by Cardinals Carlo Borromeo and Guglielmo Sirleto, and styled in classical Latin by the humanists Iulius Pogianus and Paulus Manutius (son of Aldus Manutius). Intended principally for parish priests (ad parochos), it becomes the universal tool of parish catechesis down to the Catechism of the Catholic Church of 1992.

Breviary (1568) and Missal (1570)

Pius V promulgates the Roman Breviary by the bull Quod a nobis of 9 July 1568, then the Roman Missal by the bull Quo primum tempore of 14 July 1570. This Missal codifies the Roman rite of the Tridentine Mass, which will be the universal form of the Latin rite for four centuries (until the Missal of Paul VI in 1969-1970). Quo primum imposes the use of the Roman Missal "in perpetuum" on all Latin Churches unable to claim a rite more than two hundred years old — a clause preserving particular rites (Lyonnais, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Dominican, Carthusian, Premonstratensian, Carmelite)^[17]. Since the motu proprio Traditionis custodes of 16 July 2021, liturgical use of the 1962 Missal falls under the authorisation of the diocesan bishop^[18].

The obligation of residence and provincial councils

Beyond seminaries and Tametsi, Trent articulates a complete disciplinary programme to raise the quality of the clergy. Provincial councils must be held every three years in each ecclesiastical province and diocesan synods each year (Sess. XXIV, De reformatione, c. 2). The bishop is bound to the annual pastoral visitation of his diocese, to personal preaching during Advent and Lent, to effective residence and to the examination of candidates for holy orders. Simony (sale of benefices) is severely struck with anathema, and the plurality of benefices without cure of souls is forbidden. The bishop passed from feudal lord to resident pastor.

Practical application remains slow: in the aftermath of the council, only a minority of Italian bishops effectively reside in their diocese; a century later, residence and the annual pastoral visitation have become the accepted norm (works of Maurilio Guasco, John Bossy and Wietse de Boer)^[19]. The very figure of the modern Catholic bishop — pastor, theologian, visitor, preacher — is born of Trent, in successive layers, with Charles Borromeo as the heroic prototype^[20].

The Index librorum prohibitorum (1559-1564)

The Index of Forbidden Books is not a creation of Trent stricto sensu: a first Index Romanus is promulgated by Paul IV as early as 1559, judged of excessive rigour (it proscribes even certain works of Erasmus and all writings of suspect humanists). Session XVIII of the council (26 February 1562) institutes a commission of eighteen Fathers charged with revising this Index. The result, the Tridentine Index, is promulgated by Pius IV by the bull Dominici gregis custodiae of 24 March 1564, two months after Benedictus Deus. It is preceded by ten Regulae, which define the criteria of prohibition: books by heretics, unapproved vernacular translations of the Bible, immoral or sorcery books^[21].

The Index is then regularly updated by the Congregation of the Index (created by Pius V in 1571, merged with the Holy Office by Benedict XV in 1917 (motu proprio Alloquentes proxime), suppressed by Paul VI on 14 June 1966 by means of the notification "Post litteras apostolicas" of Cardinal Ottaviani). For four centuries, the Index will have been the major disciplinary tool of Catholic doctrinal surveillance: it will have prohibited Galileo (1633-1835 — the 1822 Settele imprimatur is not the removal: formal omission in the 1835 edition of the Index), Descartes, Pascal (Provincial Letters but not the Pensées), Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Sartre, and many others. Contemporary Catholic theology recognises that the Index had positive effects (protection of the faithful against grave errors) and questionable effects (rigidity, over-prohibition, delays in scientific reception). Its suppression in 1966 reflects the passage to a model of formed personal discernment rather than collective prohibition.

Hubert Jedin — the masterwork

The great German Catholic historian Hubert Jedin (1900-1980), professor at Bonn, devotes his life to the history of Trent. His masterwork Geschichte des Konzils von Trient appears in four volumes with Herder at Freiburg im Breisgau, from 1949 to 1975 (about 2,500 cumulative pages). French translation Histoire du Concile de Trente published by Desclée de Brouwer between 1955 and 1981. This tetralogy remains to this day the absolute reference work on the council, founded on an exhaustive sifting of the Vatican, Viennese, Simancas and Tridentine archives^[22].

John O'Malley — the contemporary synthesis

The American Jesuit John W. O'Malley publishes in 2013 Trent: What Happened at the Council (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 335 p., ISBN 978-0-674-06697-7), a rigorous factual narrative restoring the event more than the doctrine: pontifical policy, Imperial-French relations, rivalries between Spanish and Italian bishops, the internal opposition between conciliarists and papalists. This work received the John Gilmary Shea Prize of the American Catholic Historical Association^[23].

Adriano Prosperi and the Italian school

The Italian historian Adriano Prosperi proposes in Il Concilio di Trento: una introduzione storica (Einaudi, 2001) an Italian contextualist reading, attentive to social and cultural dimensions. The publisher Giuseppe Alberigo directed the great Italian critical edition Storia del concilio di Trento.

The Denzinger-Hünermann

The official collection of the dogmatic decrees of the entire history of the Catholic Church, Enchiridion Symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, known as "the Denzinger", founded by Heinrich Denzinger in 1854 and updated by Peter Hünermann in 1991 (44th Latin-German edition, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2014, ISBN 978-3-451-37804-1). The decrees of Trent occupy paragraphs §§ 1500-1835 (§ 1835, the decree of Session XXV on indulgences, is the last Tridentine text; no. 1864 already carries the profession of faith Iniunctum nobis of Pius IV, 1564).

The contemporary evaluation of Trent by Vatican II and the post-conciliar Magisterium passes through the notion of the "hermeneutic of continuity" formulated by Benedict XVI in his address to the Roman Curia of 22 December 2005:

"On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call 'a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture'; (...) On the other hand, there is the 'hermeneutic of reform', of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church, which the Lord has given us; she is a subject which grows in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the People of God on the way." — Benedict XVI, address to the Roman Curia, 22 December 2005^[24]

Vatican II does not contradict Trent: it prolongs its work in a new historical context, on an identical authority — that of the pope in communion with the College of bishops.

Catholic reforms prior to Luther (1495-1525)

The image of a Trent "provoked" by Luther is partly misleading: the Catholic Reform had begun before 1517, independently of the German crisis. Four major centres converge in the years 1495-1525:

• In Spain, Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1436-1517) reforms from 1495 onwards the episcopate of Toledo, Franciscan observance and founds the University of Alcalá de Henares (1508), from which will come the Biblia Políglota Complutense completed in 1517 — the first printed multilingual edition (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin) of the sacred text.
• In Rome, the Oratory of Divine Love is founded in 1517 under Leo X, gathering clerics and laity (among them Saint Cajetan of Thiene and the future Paul IV) for prayer, the sacraments and works of charity — a model of elite spiritual renewal.
• In 1524, Saint Cajetan of Thiene (1480-1547) and Gian Pietro Carafa found the Theatines — regular clerics living in evangelical poverty to form an exemplary clergy.
• In 1525-1528, Matteo da Bascio (1495-1552) founds the Capuchin branch of the Franciscan order to restore primitive rigour; approval by Clement VII on 3 July 1528 (brief Exponi nobis, dispatched the same day under lead in the form of the bull Religionis zelus, at Viterbo).

The humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam publishes in 1503 his Enchiridion militis christiani ("Handbook of the Christian Knight"), a call to the interior conversion of the laity — the work is translated into many European languages and prefigures the Tridentine spirit of return to the philosophia Christi^[25].

Historiographical conclusion: Trent is not a mere anti-Protestant reaction, but the institutional culmination of a Catholic reform movement already well established before 1517.

Diego Laínez S.J. — the theological architect of the decree on justification

The Spanish Jesuit Diego Laínez (1512-1565), successor of Ignatius of Loyola as Superior General of the Society of Jesus (1558-1565), is one of the most influential theologians of Trent. At Session VI, his discourse of 26 October 1546 on justification — three hours of rigorous defence of the doctrine of infused justice against the duplex iustitia ("double justice") advocated by certain conciliatory theologians — turns the debate around. On 13 January 1547, the decree is adopted almost unanimously in the sense Laínez had defended. His Disputatio de iustitia imputata, entered into the Acts of the council, nourishes the final drafting of the decree^[26].

Saint Charles Borromeo — the exemplary application of Trent

Nephew of Pope Pius IV, Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) — who was never a legate and presided over no session — steers from Rome, as Secretary of State, the work of Sessions XVII to XXV. But it is in his archdiocese of Milan (1565-1584) that he exemplarily applies the Tridentine decrees:

• Opening of the diocesan seminary of Milan in 1564 — among the very first diocesan seminaries rigorously applying Cum adolescentium aetas
• Holding of six provincial councils (1565, 1569, 1573, 1576, 1579, 1582) which "translate the general prescriptions of the Council into detailed pastoral applications"
• Systematic pastoral visitations of all the parishes of the diocese
• Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (1582) — the collection of pastoral regulations which will become a European model
• Reform of the clergy, of religious orders, foundation of charitable works during the plague of Milan (1576-1577)

Canonised by Paul V on 1 November 1610, Charles Borromeo remains the ideal type of the post-Tridentine bishop. See Giuseppe Alberigo (ed.), Carlo Borromeo e il suo tempo, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome, 1986, 2 vol., 1216 p.^[27].

Application in France — a century of Gallican resistance

Unlike Spain, Italy and Poland, which receive Trent immediately, France takes nearly a century to formally accept the Tridentine decrees. Henry II refuses in 1551 to send theologians^[28], Charles IX is too caught up in the wars of religion, and Gallican opposition (Parlement of Paris, University of the Sorbonne) systematically resists. The Ordinance of Blois (May 1579), 363 articles, incorporates certain provisions of Trent "rendered compatible with the usages of the kingdom", but the Council itself is officially accepted only in 1615 by the assembly of the clergy under Louis XIII.

The concrete spread of the Tridentine spirit in France passes principally through the French school of spirituality (Pierre de Bérulle, Vincent de Paul, Jean-Jacques Olier, Jean Eudes), which founds seminaries and renews the clergy between 1611 and 1680. See Alain Tallon, La France et le Concile de Trente (1518-1563), École française de Rome, 1997, 975 p. (BEFAR no. 295)^[29], and Paul Broutin S.J., La Réforme pastorale en France au XVIIe siècle, Desclée, Tournai, 1956, 2 vol., 939 p.^[30].

Trent and the New World — the evangelisation of the Americas

The application of the sacramental and missiological decrees of Trent in Spanish America operates under the influence of the Dominicans of the School of Salamanca. Francisco de Vitoria O.P. (c. 1483-1546), in his Relectiones de Indis (1539), lays the foundations of modern international law by defending the natural rights of the Amerindian peoples against colonial abuse. Bartolomé de Las Casas O.P. (1474-1566), first effective residential bishop of Chiapas (Mexico, 1543-1550) — after the appointments without taking possession of Juan de Urteaga (1539) and Juan de Arteaga (1540) —, publishes in 1552 his Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias denouncing the exactions of the Conquista. Under the pressure of Las Casas, carried by the School of Salamanca, Charles V promulgates the Leyes Nuevas (1542) abolishing Indian slavery and limiting the encomienda^[31].

Adriano Prosperi, in his major work Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari (Einaudi, Turin, 1996, 740 p., ISBN 978-88-06-13708-6), shows how Tridentine sacramental confession and inquisitorial practice function as two sides of one and the same enterprise of post-Tridentine Catholic unification, both in Italy and in the Americas^[32].

Post-Tridentine art — Émile Mâle

The work L'Art religieux après le Concile de Trente by Émile Mâle (Armand Colin, Paris, 1932, 2nd ed. 1951, 532 p.) remains the classic study of Tridentine iconography. Mâle shows how the decree of Session XXV on holy images (3 December 1563) — which reaffirms the doctrine of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) against Protestant iconoclasm while demanding narrative clarity and decency — profoundly shapes Catholic Baroque art (Caravaggio, Bernini, Rubens), influences the architecture of post-Tridentine churches, and structures down to the 18th century the visual imagination of Roman Catholicism^[33].

Critical edition of the acts: Concilium Tridentinum

For scholarship, the standard critical edition of the acts of the council is Concilium Tridentinum: Diariorum, actorum, epistularum, tractatuum nova collectio, edited by the Görres-Gesellschaft at Freiburg im Breisgau from 1901 to 2001 (13 volumes in 20 physical parts, about 12,000 cumulative pages). Successive editors: Sebastian Merkle, Stephan Ehses, Alois Postina, Vinzenz Schweitzer, Gottfried Buschbell, Joachim Birkner, Hubert Jedin, Klaus Ganzer^[34].

Bellarmine and the systematisation of Tridentine doctrine

The great Jesuit theologian Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), cardinal and Doctor of the Church (canonised 1930, Doctor of the Church 1931), gives Tridentine doctrine its accomplished polemical form in the Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos (Ingolstadt, 1586-1593, 4 folio volumes). No post-Tridentine manual imposed itself with the same force to explain, defend and extend the definitions of the council against Protestant theologians. Bellarmine organises systematically by controversy — Scripture, Tradition, Church, pope, councils, grace and free will, sacraments, purgatory, indulgences — and he defends the indirect supremacy of the pope over the temporal, a middle position between ultramontane absolutism and Protestant Erastianism^[35].

Pontifical confirmation: the bull Benedictus Deus (1564)

On 26 January 1564, seven weeks after the solemn closing, Pius IV officially confirms by the bull Benedictus Deus the whole of the decrees of Trent — dogmatic and disciplinary. In substance (paraphrase of § 1): all that was defined and enacted at the holy Council of Trent must be faithfully observed and received by all the faithful of Christ^[36].

The bull provides two important clauses: (1) prohibition on interpreting the decrees without the authority of the Holy See — it is this clause which will lead to the creation of the Congregation of the Council by Pius IV on 2 August 1564, by his letter called Alias nos (after its first Latin words): a small group of cardinals charged with explaining and enforcing the decisions of the council, that is, disciplinary application (direct ancestor of the present Dicastery for the Clergy); (2) prohibition on glossing through unapproved commentaries. This double clause guarantees the interpretative coherence of the Tridentine work for four centuries, until the aggiornamento of Vatican II.

• Sola Scriptura — the Lutheran doctrine refuted by Session IV
• Sola Fide — the Lutheran doctrine refuted by Session VI
• The Real Eucharistic Presence — defined by Session XIII
• Martin Luther — the reformer whose theses Trent answers