|| Counter-Reformation ||

The Early Roots of the Counter-Reformation 

                 With the waning of the Catholic Middle Ages and the dawn of an increasingly secular and political modern age in the 14th century, the Catholic Church found herself affected by trends in the broader culture. Through a series of reforms of religious orders, such as the Benedictines, Cistercians, and Franciscans, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Church tried to elevate the preaching of the gospel and to call laypeople back to Catholic morality. 
                  Many problems, however, had deeper roots that affected the very structure of the Church. In 1512, the Fifth Lateran Council attempted a series of reforms for what are known as secular priests that is, clergy who belong to a regular diocese rather than to a religious order. The council had a very limited effect, though it did make one very important convert Alexander Farnese, a cardinal who would become Pope Paul III in 1534. 
                   Before the Fifth Lateran Council, Cardinal Farnese had a longtime mistress, with whom he had four children. But the council pricked his conscience, and he reformed his life in the years immediately before a German monk by the name of Martin Luther set out to reform the Catholic Church and ended up sparking the Protestant Reformation.

 The Catholic Response to the Protestant Reformation 

Martin Luther's 95 Theses set the Catholic world on fire in 1517, and nearly 25 years after the Catholic Church condemned Luther's theological errors at the Diet of Worms (1521), Pope Paul III attempted to put out the flames by convening the Council of Trent (1545-63). 
                   The Council of Trent defended important Church doctrines that Luther and later Protestants attacked, such as transubstantiation (the belief that, during the Mass, the bread and wine become the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, which Catholics then receive in Communion); that both faith and the works that flow from that faith are necessary for salvation; that there are seven sacraments (some Protestants had insisted that only Baptism and Communion were sacraments, and others had denied that there were any sacraments); and that the pope is the successor of Saint Peter, and exercises authority over all Christians.               
                Through the council's reforms, the practice of appointing secular rulers as bishops came to an end, as did the sale of indulgences, which Martin Luther had used as a reason to attack the Church's teaching on the existence of, and need for, Purgatory. The Council of Trent ordered the writing and publishing of a new catechism to make it clear what the Catholic Church taught, and called for reforms in the Mass, which were made by Pius V, who became pope in 1566 (three years after the council ended). 
                  The Mass of Pope Pius V (1570), often regarded as the crown jewel of the Counter-Reformation, is today known as the Traditional Latin Mass or (since the release of Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum) the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. 

Other Chief Figures of the Counter-Reformation 

                  While there are many important figures who left their mark on the Counter-Reformation, four in particular bear mentioning. St. Charles Borromeo (1538-84), the cardinal-archbishop of Milan, found himself on the front lines as Protestantism descended from Northern Europe. 
                    He founded seminaries and schools throughout Northern Italy, and traveled throughout the area under his authority, visiting parishes, preaching, and calling his priests to a life of holiness. St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), the bishop of Geneva, in the very heart of Calvinism, won many Calvinists back to the Catholic Faith through his example of "preaching the Truth in charity." Just as importantly, he worked hard to keep Catholics in the Church, not only by teaching them sound doctrine but by calling them to the "devout life," making prayer, meditation, and the reading of Scripture a daily practice. 
                          St. Teresa of Avila (1515-82) and St. John of the Cross (1542-91), both Spanish mystics and Doctors of the Church, reformed the Carmelite order and called Catholics to a greater life of interior prayer and commitment to the will of God.