The Counter-Reformation

Catholic Reformation

Reformation Had Exposed Catholic Church’s Sins

• The popes in the early years of the Protestant revolt failed to appreciate its seriousness and did little to arrest it.

Bishop selling Indulgences to forgive sins

Counter-Reformation: The Catholic Response to Protestantism

• Also called the Catholic Revival lasted from the pontificate of Pope Pius IV in 1560 to the close of the Thirty Years War, 1648.

• (30 Years War: German states fight for power and religion)

It All Started in Spain!

• A new spirit had begun in Spain that called for spiritual zeal and sincerity, correction of moral abuses, enforcement of strict orthodoxy, and suppression of heresy.

Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition1478-1834

• Inquisitions had been used since the decline of the Roman Empire.

• An inquisition can be run by both civil and church authorities in order to root out non-believers from a nation or religion.

• The Spanish Inquisition was one of the most deadly inquisitions in history.

The seal of the Spanish Inquisition depicts the cross, the branch and the sword.

The Spanish Inquisition

• Used for both political and religious reasons.

• Spain is a nation-state that was born out of religious struggle between Catholics and Muslims of the Islamic Empire.

Goya, Los caprichos, 1797Trágala perro (Swallow It, Dog)

Spanish Inquisition: way to unify the country into a strong nation.

• Ferdinand and Isabella in 1478 asked permission of the pope to purify the people began by driving out Jews, Protestants and other non-believers.

The Spanish Inquisition the most notorious for three reasons:

         

 

1. Spanish Government Carried it out

It was more cruel precisely because it was administered by the secular government.

2- It was concerned, in large part, with the conversos.

• Jews who had converted either under duress or out of social convenience, and were suspected of secretly practicing the Jewish faith.

Secret Star: Conversos could wear to hide their faith from the Inquisitors and closefor a prayer meeting.

3- It has been the main target of Protestant opponents of

Catholicism

• who have fabricated — through pamphlets, “histories,” plays, and even paintings — cruelties and excesses far beyond what actually occurred.*

Those in Glass Houses…

• Many Protestants use the Inquisition as a handy stick to beat the Catholic Church, but they tend to forget the Protestant Inquisition

Spanish Inquisition famous for creative Torture

• Evisceration was a skilled job. • The abdomen was carefully slit open and the

entrails raked out. They would be placed between the victims's legs, still attached, then hot brands were then pushed into the body cavity. The innards were stuffed back into place and the belly roughly stitched up.

• This operation required the greatest skill because it was considered a terrible sin if the accused died while in the clutches of the Inquisition.

Ignatius Loyola organized the Company of Jesus (Jesuits), 1540

• Loyola led a valorous military life until convalescence from battle wounds brought him to a closer contemplation of the life of Christ and a commitment to be a knight of the Virgin (commit to a sin free life)

Loyola forms a spiritual army for Jesus

• Militant devotion to Catholicism and almost unquestioning obedience to the "general" and the pope were to characterize the Jesuits.

Counter Reformation: Missions

• There was a revival of the missionary spirit.

• Spearheaded by Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans.

• It spread Catholicism to the Americas, India, China, Japan, Philippines

Pope Paul IV (1555-1559),

• Considered the first of the Counter-Reformation popes for his resolute determination to eliminate Protestantism - and the ineffectual institutional practices of the Church that contributed to its appeal -

Pope Paul IV

• He tried to reform the Church.

• A stricter life was introduced into the papal court;; many of the grosser abuses were prohibited.

Pope Paul IV

• These measures only increased Paul's unpopularity, so that when he died, on the 18th of August 1559, the Romans vented their hatred by demolishing his statue, liberating the prisoners of the Inquisition

The Catholic Council of Trent 1545-63

• Met to address matters raised by the Reformation.

• The result was a definitive rejection of Protestantism.

• Any compromise with Protestantism was made impossible.

Council of Trent Promotes Devotionalism

• They rejected mysticism

• They advocated Meditation such as the reciting of the Rosary.

Council of Trent Denounces Growing Mysticism

• mysticism - characterized by tranquility, deep contemplation, and sometimes asceticism - also resulted from this Catholic revival.

Mystic practices

• intended to bring one to a state of ecstasy in which he experienced inner revelation and a union in divine love.

Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

• The list of prohibited books.

• The Vatican Enforcing this list

• Banned books were burned when found and their owners, or the booksellers, subject to fines

Inquisition Not Interested in Banning Science Books

• With the exception of Heliocentricism after the trial of Galileo 1636.

The 'Golden Age' of Spanish literature and arts

• Ironically the Inquisition did not have a deleterious effect on most forms of culture

• Cervantes wrote Don Quixote

• The adventures of a low class hero who lives in a fantasy world in a corrupt society.

The novel Don Quixote showed the dark side to Spanish Chivalry

El Greco• Storm Over Toledo• El Greco’s view of

Toledo is very dramatic. It is full of spiritual implications. It looks like a portrait of the heavenly Jerusalem. It surges with some mysterious, upheaval which drives all these masses of stone upward toward heaven, in the clouds of a blue disaster that foreshadows the end of the world.