Part 116 (2/2)

The break with Rome did not introduce religious liberty into Europe.

Nothing was further from the minds of Luther, Calvin, and other reformers than the toleration of Reformation beliefs unlike their own. The early Protestant sects punished dissenters as zealously as the Roman Church punished heretics. Lutherans burned the followers of Zwingli in Germany, Calvin put Servetus to death, and the English government, in the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, executed many Roman Catholics. Complete freedom of conscience and the right of private judgment in religion have been secured in most European countries only within the last hundred years.

THE REFORMATION AND MORALS

The Reformation, however, did deepen the moral life of European peoples.

The faithful Protestant or Roman Catholic vied with his neighbor in trying to show that his particular belief made for better living than any other.

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in consequence, were more earnest and serious, if also more bigoted, than the centuries of the Renaissance.

235. THE CATHOLIC COUNTER REFORMATION

THE REFORMING POPES

The rapid spread of Protestantism soon brought about a Catholic Counter Reformation in those parts of Europe which remained faithful to Rome. The popes now turned from the cultivation of Renaissance art and literature to the defense of their threatened faith. They made needed changes in the papal court and appointed to ecclesiastical offices men distinguished for virtue and learning. This reform of the Papacy dates from the time of Paul III, who became pope in 1534 A.D. He opened the college of cardinals to Roman Catholic reformers, even offering a seat in it to Erasmus. Still more important was his support of the famous Society of Jesus, which had been established in the year of his accession to the papal throne.

ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA, 1491-1556 A.D.

The founder of the new society was a Spanish n.o.bleman, Ignatius Loyola. He had seen a good deal of service in the wars of Charles V against the French. While in a hospital recovering from a wound Loyola read devotional books, and these produced a profound change within him. He now decided to abandon the career of arms and to become, instead, the knight of Christ.

So Loyola donned a beggar's robe, practiced all the kinds of asceticism which his books described, and went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The turning-point of his career came with his visit to Paris to study theology. Here Loyola met the six devout and talented men who became the first members of his society. They intended to work as missionaries among the Moslems, but, when this plan fell through, they visited Rome and placed their energy and enthusiasm at the disposal of the pope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA]

THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

Loyola's military training deeply affected the character of the new order.

The Jesuits, as their Protestant opponents styled them, were to be an army of spiritual soldiers, living under the strictest obedience to their head, or general. Like soldiers, again, they were to remain in the world, and there fight manfully for the Church and against heretics. The society grew rapidly; before Loyola's death it included over a thousand members; and in the seventeenth century it became the most influential of all the religious orders. [21] The activity of the Jesuits as preachers, confessors, teachers, and missionaries did much to roll back the rising tide of Protestantism in Europe.

JESUIT SCHOOLS

The Jesuits gave special attention to education, for they realized the importance of winning over the young people to the Church. Their schools were so good that even Protestant children often attended them. The popularity of Jesuit teachers arose partly from the fact that they always tried to lead, not drive their pupils. Light punishments, short lessons, many holidays, and a liberal use of prizes and other distinctions formed some of the attractive features of their system of training. It is not surprising that the Jesuits became the instructors of the Roman Catholic world. They called their colleges the ”fortresses of the faith.”

JESUIT MISSIONS

The missions of the Jesuits were not less important than their schools.

The Jesuits worked in Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and other countries where Protestantism threatened to become dominant. Then they invaded all the lands which the great maritime discoveries of the preceding age had laid open to European enterprise. In India, China, the East Indies, j.a.pan, the Philippines, Africa, and the two Americas their converts from heathenism were numbered by hundreds of thousands.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, 1506-1552 A.D.

The most eminent of all Jesuit missionaries, St. Francis Xavier, had belonged to Loyola's original band. He was a little, blue-eyed man, an engaging preacher, an excellent organizer, and possessed of so attractive a personality that even the ruffians and pirates with whom he had to a.s.sociate on his voyages became his friends. Xavier labored with such devotion and success in the Portuguese colonies of the Far East as to gain the t.i.tle of ”Apostle to the Indies.” He also introduced Christianity in j.a.pan, where it flourished until a persecuting emperor extinguished it with fire and sword.

COUNCIL OF TRENT, 1545-1563 A.D.

Another agency in the Counter Reformation was the great Church Council summoned by Pope Paul III. The council met at Trent, on the borders of Germany and Italy. It continued, with intermissions, for nearly twenty years. The Protestants, though invited to partic.i.p.ate, did not attend, and hence nothing could be done to bring them back within the Roman Catholic fold. This was the last general council of the Church for over three hundred years. [22]

WORK OF THE COUNCIL

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