Response to the Reformation: The Council of Trent

The Council of Trent was an Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church convened as a response to the Protestant Reformation. The Council met in twenty-five sessions between 1545 and 1563 and clarified, through decrees, the Church's teaching on many of the key areas of dispute between Rome and the Reformers. In addition to this clarification, the Council also issued canons, which were condemnations (or anathemas) of the Reformers' positions, which it considered heresy.

Among the key issues addressed by the canons and decrees were justification, the sacraments, purgatory, the Bible, and indulgences. Interestingly, the only issue on which the Church and the Reformers agreed was the sale of indulgences. This practice had been critical to Martin Luther's break with the Catholic Church, and one result of the Council of Trent was the banning of the sale of indulgences, although the validity of indulgences themselves was upheld. With regard to every other matter under consideration the Council condemned the Reformers' views.

With regard to the Scriptures, the Council reaffirmed that the Vulgate (Latin) translation was the only authoritative text, and that translation into other languages was forbidden. It also stated that the Church alone could interpret the Bible and that any Christian who substituted his own interpretation was a heretic. By the time the decree was issued the point was moot. Luther had printed a German New Testament in 1522 and his complete German Bible in 1534, and William Tyndale's English New Testament had been published in 1526. Once the people had access to the Scriptures in their own language no decree of the Church would deter them from reading and interpreting the Bible themselves.