Church Reformation in the 16th and 17th Century - Research Paper Example

? CHURCH REFORMATION IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURY Church Reformation in the 16th and 17th century The 16th and 17th century is the period when church reformation for catholic and Protestants churches took place. It is a period for the catholic and protestant reformation, which was a powerful influence of western Christians. Calvin John, King Luther and other earlier Christians initiated the Protestant reformation. The second wave of the reformation, which became more popular, is the Anabaptists, who are the protestant Christians. Although some scholars consider Anabaptists as a distinctive movement from Protestantism, it created radical reformation in 16th century in Europe1 (Renwick 143). This group rejected to live the previous ways; thus believed that the Judgment Day was near. They formed new societies and much confusion in the social order. The reformation contributed to issues such as the dead of the blacks, western rupture and eroding faith of people in the catholic churches. The fall of the Roman Emperor contributed to the reformation and circulation of protestant churches. Under the Roman Emperor Christianity spread and many churches evolved. The Roman Catholic Church, which became one of the most prominent churches to the councils evolved. It organized in Trent, which is an education centre for church teachings especially in the tradition and scripture issues. Council of the Trent is a convention of cathedral councils or theological professionals whose purpose is to resolve church policy matters or practices. The councils provide teaching programs for the community priests in order to augment pastoral care. This was initiated by the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Paul 1112 (Becchio and Johannes 98). The council of the Tent provided teachings, reasserted traditional practices and articulated dogmatic of the Catholic Church doctrines. These doctrines include the seven sacraments, celibacy, belief of taking wine and bread during the mass services, which they translated as the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Other doctrines included worship of remnants and saints whom they referred as the Holy Virgin Mary. Others included the significant of having faith and working towards achieving salvation. Moreover, the ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic Church made a significant reform on dogmatic issues in the 16th and 17th century. The transformation known as the catholic reformation was the restoration era for the Catholics and it began with the Council of Trent. Some scholars consider the council of Trent as being responsible for Protestant Reformation. They laid strict issues, which the protestant minster nearly disputed. Pope Paul 111 reformed the Roman Catholicism in many European areas. In the first period of the Roman Catholicism, they church accepted the 3Nicene Creed as the basis for the catholic conviction (Queen, Prothero and Shattuck 76). They set the old and New Testament canons and fixed seven sacraments. However, this dogmatic ruled out the doctrines of Martin Luther’s beliefs of faith jurisdiction. The general council established the transubstantiation of doctrines and offered Episcopal authority verdict and other doctrine issues. However, many issues that contributed to protestant reformation started disappearing, and the church began to reclaim many of its followers by the end of the 16th century. The council of the Trent focused so much on education of the clergy because of varied reasons. First, they wanted to eradicate the mistreatments of the 4Catholic cathedral such as alms treats in order to advance the superiority of bishops. This was seen essential to the Catholics because they protestant churches criticized their teachings. Hence, they emphasized on the importance of the church teachings and created new rules that clergies were to follow. They followed the teachings of Martin Luther and Calvin and rejected any other reformation leaders. The council of Trent played considerable roles in renewing the catholic cathedral5 of Europe (Roest 54). The research indicates that the council of Trent was the most conservative councils in the church history. They followed the Catholic Church rules, followed the catholic orders and reaffirmed constant Christian training against the protestant heretics who tried to bring invented ideas that would mislead people. The main role of the council was to stop the church abuses; thus upgrade educational requirements through the seminaries system. For instance, the modern seminaries carried out in the catholic churches whereby the priests of bishops are trained are rooted from the council of Trent. Moreover, even the contemporary practices of praying and fasting as well as other charitable work in the society are all rooted from the council of Trent. Secondly, the cathedral made obvious alterations in order to respond to the grievances that the catholic reformations were justifiable. They wanted to solve the increasing separation between the clergies and priests. Several clergies especially those in the countryside areas were poorly skilled. In most case, the rural priest did not understand Latin language, thus lacked effective opportunities for proper theological training. Therefore, education was the only means of helping the clergies in remote parishes to understand the meaning of the catholic conviction and improve their skills that will enable them to spread the gospel. Addressing the priest education needs as one the fundamental core for the humanist reformers in the 16th century. Therefore, the parish priests and bishop were to receive better training programs in apologetics and theological subjects. Thirdly, educating people on the importance of faith was the reason behind the focus on the education of the clergies. Since many of the parish priests had poor education, the Papal authorities wanted to train them in order to help them get a better education. This would help them to be able to educate the faithful ones to follow the catholic creed. The Papal authorities wanted to teach people with faith to stand firm and understand the meaning or value of liturgy especially in the monastic churches (Pereira and Fastiggi 122). Therefore, notebooks and other reading materials became widely spread, and these notebooks revealed the way decent priests and believers were supposed to behave. The priests used the reading materials to help them understand the requirements of exemplary leaders; thus enabling them to serve as exemplary leaders to the followers. The teaching had significant doctrines of the Catholic Church that they were supposed to preach to new converts and the faithful ones. However, the most significant measures that the council took into considerations in regard to the education of the clergy included religious orders, spiritual movements, political dimension and ecclesiastical reconfigurations6. These restructuring included the organization of seminaries for guiding priests in order to convert their saintly life and instruct them on the theological minster traditions. They also wanted to reform their religious way of life through returning orders to their spiritual establishments. The aim of training the priests was to produce new spiritual priests who could devote their entire life to Christ. This could enable them build a strong relationship with God. Therefore, education of the clergies was significant because it was one way through which the catholic authorities could be able to spread the gospel across the globe, hence contributing to spiritual movements. 7Wright (134) argues that the catholic reformers wanted to improve the authority and management of the church. Therefore, they focused on education programs of the clergies in order to help them create change. The education evolved around many issues involving the new religious orders, political dimensions and spiritual movements. Educating the clergies was the only means that could help the church to respond to reform campaign, inspire others, and devote themselves towards creating change enabled observe the traditions for the church. For instance, new religious orders were among the fundamentals of the catholic reforms, hence education programs were the only way for creating new religious orders. The parish priests were taught about these new religious orders including the Carmelites, Capuchins, Jesuits, Barnabites, Theatines and many others. These religious orders were spread by parish priests in the rural areas; thus, the orders set examples for the catholic revitalization. Each order had significant roles in the catholic reformation process. For instance, the Theatines played the role of checking the expansion of heretical doctrines. The Capuchins order was meant for creating new changes through sermons and care for the unfortunate and helping the ill people. This order grew rapidly and many people especially the poor, and the sick benefited from this new religious order. The member of the orders became active in the preaching and church mission arrangements, in overseas. This order expressed the need of expanding the missionaries by the parish priests to Christians across the Asian and American regions. Moreover, other new religious orders such as Ursulines focused on the significant and special activities of educating the girl child. This is because the educations for the girls were not taken into consideration in the society during the earlier16th to 17th century8. Therefore, this order was meant for devoting the traditional tasks of mercy as exemplified in the reaffirmation in the counter-reformation. The reaffirmation was about the salvation through faith; hence accomplishing the work of God. This was through educating others as well as helping the needy. Another religious order, which became common and effective catholic order, is the Jesuits. Jesuits devoted themselves and they became the confessors, preachers and human educators as well as put their efforts in preventing Protestantism in areas including Netherlands, Frances, Poland and other areas. Jesuits contributed to expansion of the catholic churches across the Asian and Pacific regions through organizing missionary activities. They emphasized on widespread faithfulness or holiness that warned under opinionated, catholic leaders such Alexander VI and others. The Jesuits believed that the cathedral councils were the legislative body who presented God on the world rather than the pope. Therefore, they viewed Pope as the absolute leader; thus, the Jesuits worked hard towards counter-reformation of the Catholic Church. The need to improve the spiritual movement is another issue that contributed to the focus of the education of the clergies. The catholic leaders emphasized on the importance of teaching the clergies in order to create catholic reformation through spiritual movements. The counter-reformation was not only meant for an opinionated and cathedral strategy oriented association, but it also included some key figures. These contributed to the religious progress of the Catholic cathedral restoration. Among them is the John and Teresa of Avila9, the catholic restructuring of the Carmelite religious order whose ministry work focused on the inner conversion of people to Christ (Jaroslav, Hotchkiss and Pelikan 201). They committed themselves towards committing God’s will through prayers. Teresa developed and wrote many reading materials about her perfection with the love of God. However, John was considered the utmost mystical theologians of the theologians of the time. The significant clarification is the mystical theologians thus John of the cross-served both as the spiritual and confessor leader. John and Teresa worked vigorously in order to establish and convert the majority of faithfulness. They mentored people spiritually during the catholic reformation era. The Council of the Trent focused on the Talmud study with an aim of instilling doctrinal acts most of which are written in the deuterocanonical books. This is part of the canonical books with doctrines revealing the way the Christians should maintain the laws of God. The councils wanted to coordinate church practices with the scriptures with the aim of maintaining faith. The councils emphasized on faith; therefore, the Talmud classes enabled the parish priests to teach people on the importance of having faith in Christ. Moreover, the teachings meant to imprint an ineffaceable character on the psyche. In this case, the teaching based upon the celibate state. The clerical celibacy in the Catholic Church is a disciplinary approach whereby the priest men were required to remain unmarried. This is because celibacy was seen as the only way through which the priests could commit themselves to the work of God. These teachings are still practices even in the contemporary society especially to the catholic believers. This doctrine can be traced back to the council of Trent whereby the clergies were taught on the importance of abstaining from sexual intercourse. Therefore, the catholic believers believed that the 10clerical celibacy is an exceptional God given gift through which scared ministers could remain lose and devote their work to God (Bellitto and Louis 177). The Council of the Trent marked the beginning or the turning point for new changes in the Catholic Church; thus giving rise to a new way of life because of the teachings and new church practices. In concussion, the Council of Trent focused on the education of the clergies because of varied reasons. First, they wanted to get rid of the mistreatments of the Catholic cathedral such as alms indulgence in order to advance the superiority of priests. The councils offer learning programs for the community priests in order to augment pastoral care. Education of the clergy enabled the cathedral to make modifications in order to respond to the grievances that the catholic restoration were justifiable. Educating people on the importance of faith was the reason behind the focus on the education of the clergies. The most significant measures that the council took into considerations in regard to the education of the clergy included religious orders, spiritual movements, political dimension and ecclesiastical reconfigurations. The rural priest were taught about these new religious orders including the Carmelites, Capuchins, Jesuits, Barnabites, Theatines and many others. The need to improve the spiritual movement is another issue that contributed to the focus of the education of the clergies. They emphasized on clerical celibacy as a way of commitment to God’s work. Thus, the education of the clergies contributed to varied changes in the earlier Catholic Church, which are still used in the contemporary catholic churches. Bibliography Becchio, Bruno, and Johannes P. Schade. 2006. Encyclopedia of world religions. [Franklin Park, NJ]: Concord Pub. Bellitto, Christopher M., and Louis I. Hamilton. 2005. Reforming the church before modernity: patterns, problems, and approaches. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate Pub. Council of Trent, and James Waterworth. 2000. The canons and decrees of the sacred and Ecumenical Council of Trent: celebrated under the sovereign pontiffs, Paul III, Julius III and Pius IV. [Whitefish, MT]: Kessinger. Pereira, Jose, and Robert L. Fastiggi. 2006. The mystical theology of the Catholic Reformation: an overview of Baroque spirituality. Lanham, Md: University Press of America. Pelikan, Jaroslav, Valerie R. Hotchkiss, and Jaroslav Pelikan. 2003. Creeds & confessions of faith in the Christian tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Renwick, John. 2004. Reformation to Restoration: the restoration ideal in Europe from the 16th to the 19th century and the rise of New Testament churches in Britain and America. Kirkcaldy, Scotland: Hayfield Publications. Reid, Steven J. 2011. Humanism and Calvinism: Andrew Melville and the universities of Scotland, 1560-1625. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate Pub. Co. Roest, Bert. 2004. Franciscan literature of religious instruction before the Council of Trent. Leiden: Brill. Queen, Edward L., Stephen R. Prothero, and Gardiner H. Shattuck. 2001. Encyclopedia of American religious history. New York. Wright, A. D. 2000. The early modern papacy: from the Council of Trent to the French Revolution, 1564-1789. Harlow, England: Longman. Read More