We know that since the low middle age, the Catholic Church, both in terms of its institutional structure and its set of dogmas, faced criticism and discussions that called into question its religious legitimacy. However, only at the time of the cultural renaissance, such criticisms reached a saturation point, which ended up causing a split in the so-called Christianity. This split was caused by the Protestant Reformations. THE reactioncatholic such reforms became known under the name of Counter-Reform.
As the name implies, the Catholic Counter-Reform was aimed at to ponder Protestant criticisms, retaining from them what would be important for the internal transformations in the Church, but, at the same time, to reject what they believed to be against tradition and dogmas.
The Church, as well as the political institutions of Europe at the beginning of Modernity, was going through a controversial period, in which the spiritual power (that of governing souls and guide them towards eternal salvation) was confused with the temporal power (the one responsible for the earthly government, that is, politics itself said).
Thus, in regions such as Germany and the northernmost countries of Europe, many bishops who were invested in caring for their faithful barely knew their ecclesial domains. They only occupied themselves with the political procedures that were conferred on them by higher-ranking kings and clerics. Figures like Luther and after, Calvin they launched their criticisms of these and other problems in which the Church was involved.
One of the measures that were adopted by the Catholic Church was the convening of the CouncilinTrent, which took place between the 1540s and 1560s. A council consists of a meeting of the members of the Church to deliberate on questions concerning the foundations that support the Catholic faith. The council held in Trento (Italian city) reaffirmed the main Catholic dogmas and kept the mass (prayed in Latin) as being the rite of sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of men and the remission of sins, among several other actions important.
Another important point of the counter-reformist process was the creation of the Society of Jesus by the former soldier of the army of Navarre (Spain), IgnatiusinLoyola (see image at top), who became a saint. The company of Jesus had a very well-structured organization with great expansion capacity, given that its members managed to make numerous expeditions through the “New World”, the American Continent, during the period of colonization. In addition, St. Ignatius of Loyola also wrote a small book that exposed a method of spiritual exercises, a book that was fundamental in the context of restraining Protestantism.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes