Council Of Trent Quotes

With grace we can overcome it, because, as the Council of Trent says, quoting St. Augustine: “God never commands the impossible; but in giving us His precepts, He commands us to do what we can, and to ask for the grace to accomplish what we cannot do.

From such an extravegent summary, we can draw only one conclusion: either we must condemn the Second Vatican Council which authorized it, or we must condemn the Council of Trent and all the Popes who, since the sixteenth century, have declared Protestantism heretical and schismatic.

Whether it is Bach or Mozart that we hear in church, we have a sense in either case of what gloria Dei, the glory of God, means. The mystery of infinite beauty is there and enables us to experience the presence of God more truly and vividly than in many sermons. But there are already signs of danger to come. Subjective experience and passion are still held in check by the order of the musical universe, reflecting as it does the order of the divine creation itself. But there is already the threat of invasion by the virtuoso mentality, the vanity of technique, which is no longer the servant of the whole but wants to push itself to the fore. During the nineteenth century, the century of self-emancipating subjectivity, this led in many places to the obscuring of the sacred by the operatic. The dangers that had forced the Council of Trent to intervene were back again. In similar fashion, Pope Pius X tried to remove the operatic element from the liturgy and declared Gregorian chant and the great polyphony of the age of the Catholic Reformation (of which Palestrina was the outstanding representative) to be the standard for liturgical music. A clear distinction was made between liturgical music and religious music in general, just as visual art in the liturgy has to conform to different standards from those employed in religious art in general. Art in the liturgy has a very specific responsibility, and precisely as such does it serve as a wellspring of culture, which in the final analysis owes its existence to cult.

It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone.

The inner history of the Magian religion ends with Justinian’s time, as truly as that of the Faustian ends with Charles V and the Council of Trent. Any book on religious history shows “the”Christian religion as having had two ages of grand thought movements — 0-500 in the East and 1000-1500 in the West.61 But these are two springtimes of two Cultures, and in them are comprised also the non-Christian forms which belong to each religious development. The closing of the University of Athens by Justinian in 529 was not, as is always stated, the end of Classical philosophy — there had been no Classical philosophy for centuries. What he did, forty years before the birth of Mohammed, was to end the theology of the Pagan Church by closing this school and — as the historians forget to add — to end the Christian theology also by closing those of Antioch and Alexandria. Dogma was complete, finished — just as it was in the West with the Council of Trent (1564) and the Confession of Augsburg (1540), for with the city and intellectualism religious creative force comes to an end. So also in Jewry and in Persia, the Talmud was concluded about 500, and when Chosroes Nushirvan in 529 bloodily suppressed the Reformation of Mazdak.

Vatican II, however, moved beyond behavior modification to motivation and inspiration, and for that reason conscience, a subject that like holiness was never mentioned in previous councils, emerged as an important theme at Vatican II.

In the sixteenth century, new challenges to Eucharistic faith were presented by the various Protestant movements. In response, the Council of Trent solemnly affirmed the age-old teaching of the Church that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. The Council also declared in 1551 that Our Lord is to be adored in the Blessed Sacrament, honored with festive celebrations, carried solemnly in processions, and publicly exposed for the people’s adoration. The declarations of Trent prepared the way for a new era of Eucharistic devotion. Pope Clement VIII (reigned 1592–1605) issued a document establishing the practice of the forty hours devotion at Rome, a custom that had been popular in the city of Milan. From Rome, the devotion slowly spread throughout the Church. In

But the artistic program of the Counter Reformation, the propagation of Catholicism through the medium of art among the braod masses of the population, is frist accomplished by the baroque. It is obvious that what was in the mind of the Council of Trent was not an art which, like mannerism, appealed merely to a thin stratum of intellectuals, but a people's art, such as the baroque in fact became. At the time time of the Council, mannerism was the most widespread and the most live form of art, but it in no way represented the particular direction which was best calculated to solve the artistic problems of the Counter Reformation. The fact that it had to yield to the baroque is to be explained, above all, by its inability to master the ecclesiastical tasks committed to art by the Counter Reformation.

At Trent, Weigel explains, the Protestant Reformation was the greatest challenge to the Faith, and the council fathers prescribed a response that emphasized theological orthodoxy, personal piety, and the establishment of distinctively Catholic institutions. That formula worked wonderfully for generations, unleashing the power of the Counter-Reformation and bringing new vigor to the life of the Church. But over the centuries, the movement lost its initial energy and purpose. The reforms begun by the leaders of the Counter-Reformation became settled patterns, a familiar way of life, which could easily become a routine.

When did the church become involved in marriage, anyway? It wasn’t until the Council of Trent in the year 1563, that the Catholic Church declared marriage a spiritual sacrament. Marriage existed in non-Judaic cultures long before Christianity. It

There are no marks in these books which would attest a divine origin. . . . both Judith and Tobit contain historical, chronological and geographical errors. The books justify falsehood and deception and make salvation to depend upon works of merit. . . . Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon inculcate a morality based upon expediency. Wisdom teaches the creation of the world out of pre-existent matter (11:17). Ecclesiasticus teaches that the giving of alms makes atonement for sin (3:30). In Baruch it is said that God hears the prayers of the dead (3:4), and in I Maccabees there are historical and geographical errors.17 It was not until 1546, at the Council of Trent, that the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the Apocrypha to be part of the canon (with the exception of 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh). It is significant that the Council of Trent was the response of the Roman Catholic Church to the teachings of Martin Luther and the rapidly spreading Protestant Reformation, and the books of the Apocrypha contain support for the Catholic teaching of prayers for the dead and justification by faith plus works, not by faith alone

Cardinal Hosius, President of the Council of Trent. ‘If the truth of religion were to be judged of by the readiness and cheerfulness which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinion and persuasion of no sect can be truer or surer that that of the Anabaptists; since there have been none, for these twelve hundred years past, that have been more grievously punished, or that have more cheerfully and steadfastly undergone, and even offered themselves to, the most cruel sorts of punishment, than these people.’ ‘The Anabaptists are a pernicious sect, of which kind the Waldensian brethren seem also to have been. Nor is this heresy a modern thing; for it existed in the time of Augustine.’ In Rees’ Reply to Walker, p. 220; and apud Schyn Hist. Mennonit. p. 135.

Finally the faithful are to admonished to acquiesce in the simple and absolute will of God. Let him, who thinks that he occupies a place in society inferior to his desserts, bear his lot with patient resignation; let him not abandon his proper sphere, but abide in the vocation to which he has been called. Let him subject his own judgement to the will of God, who provides better for our interests that we can even desire ourselves. If troubled by poverty, by sickness, by persecution, or afflictions and anxieties of any sort, let us be convinced that none of these things can happen to us without the permission of God, who is the supreme Arbiter of all things.

Nothing that precedes justification, neither faith nor works, would merit the grace of justification; for “if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom 11:6). —Council of Trent

In preparing and instructing men in the teachings of Christ the Lord, the Fathers began by explaining the meaning of faith. Following their example, we have thought it well to treat first what pertains to that virtue.

This is why, back in 1554, a priest carrying the eucharist (the little Jesus cookie) could stand before a family of Christians in Scotland, tied to posts with dried brush up to their waists. He’d hold that piece of bread before them and ask if what he held in his hand was actually the body, blood and deity of Jesus Christ. When they said, “No, it is only a symbol,” the priest’s assistant placed his flaming torch into the brush and set those Bible-believers on fire. As the victims screamed in agony, the priest held up his crucifix and said, “All this is for the greater glory of God.” It holds firm, just as strong today, as it did in the time of the Middle Ages, that anyone who ridicules it, or says that it only represents Christ, is damned. The Vatican II Council re-affirmed this. Pope John XXIII said, “I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent.

Roland Bainton in his effort to make the best of Luther declared that Luther's view of the Jews "was entirely religious and by no means racial."'`' True; the crackpot version of social Darwinism that gave rise to "racial" anti-Semitism was a creation of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Luther hated the Jews because they rejected Christ. But his fury was no less cruel and vicious because its underlying motives were different or because his suggestions for carrying his cruelty to some final solution were less comprehensive and efficient. His fury culminated in his vicious book of 1543, On the Jews and Their Lies. In late 1542 Pope Paul III had issued a call for the great reforming council to assemble at Trent beginning in 1545. It was to become a Catholic and papal triumph. What Trent would become was unclear in 1542, but Luther could see clearly enough that it represented a defeat for the evangelical cause. Through these years his attacks on foes of all kinds became even more vulgar and inflammatory because, as Heiko Oberman has said, he felt his work threatened on every Personal issues may also have been an influence. His beloved daughter Magdalena died in his arms on September 20, 1542. Afterward his grief was intense, and he spoke feelingly of the terror before death while affirming his trust in Christ.-'' This combination of woes may have driven him to lash out at someone, and the Jews were there, testifying to his worst fear, that Jesus had not risen from the dead, and that Chrisitians would enjoy no victory over the grave. Whatever the cause, his outrageous attack in On the Jews and Their Lies represents one of those rhetorical horrors that may be explained in the various ways that we explain the cruelties that human beings inflict on others when the tormentors feel their own place in the universe threatened with annihilation. Yet explanation cannot finally excuse the horror. After raging against the Jews for dozens of pages of tedious vehemence, Luther recommended what should be done with them: Their synagogues should be burned down; their books should be taken from them, "not leaving them one leaf"; they should be "forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country"; and they should "be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing."22 Christians were guilty for not taking vengeance against the Jews for having killed Christ and for having killed innocent Christians for three hundred years after the Crucifixion, for not "striking them to death."23

Those who protest against changes brought about since Vatican II, insinuating that the Church has abandoned its tradition, obviously take a rather shortsighted view of tradition. They have in mind only the traditions of the past 400 years or so and overlook changes that actually occurred in the Church during the centuries following the Council of Trent. More importantly, they lose sight of the 2,000-year history of growth and renewal in the Church, which is the great tradition of Catholicism

Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (1890-1979) “It is rather strong to claim that the New Mass is contrary to the Council of Trent but, displeasing as it is, it is true.

If anyone says that a man once justified cannot lose grace and therefore that he who falls and sins never was truly justified, let him be accursed” (Council of Trent: 6/23).

 The Laity Prohibited To Touch The Sacred Vessels   To safeguard in every possible way the dignity of so august a Sacrament, not only is the power of its administration entrusted exclusively to priests, but the Church has also prohibited by law any but consecrated persons, unless some case of great necessity intervene, to dare handle or touch the sacred vessels, the linen, or other instruments necessary to its completion.   Priests themselves and the rest of the faithful may hence understand how great should be the piety and holiness of those who approach to consecrate, administer or receive the Eucharist.

Nudity in art was rarely contested by the church until recently. It was not explicitly condemned until the anti-Protestant Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, and even after the Reformation, the Protestant church continued to support artistic uses of nudity, especially when depicting biblical scenes that might demand it for accuracy.

The Council of Trent declares: " If anyone saith that the Sacrifice of the Mass casts a blasphemy upon the most holy Sacrifice of Christ consummated on the Cross, or that it derogates from it, let him be anathema." 13 The Mass is not independent of the Sacrifice of the Cross; nor does it pretend to add new power or efficacy to that Sacri fice. The two Sacrifices are essentially identical, 14 and the Mass derives its entire virtue from the Sacrifice of the Cross. The infinite value of the latter can be neither increased nor diminished. The Sacrifice of the Cross, to employ a metaphor, filled the infinite reser voirs to overflowing with healing waters, from which the Mass merely draws for the purpose of distributing copi ous draughts to the faithful. The Protestant view of the Mass as " a denial of the one Sacrifice of Christ" is wrong; for the Mass does, and can do, no more than convey the merits of Christ to mankind by means of a sac rifice (applicatio per modum sacrificii), and hence is no independent sacrifice superadded to that of the Cross, whereby the latter would be completed or enhanced in value.

While it is possible for the con fessor in some cases to obtain such knowledge without confession, this is not the rule, because the confessor, not the penitent, is the competent judge of the latter's state of conscience and without a close insight into the number and gravity of the sins submitted he cannot decide whether to give or to withhold absolution. 14 Conse- 14 Cfr. St. Jerome, In Matth., 16, varietates, scit qui ligandus sit 29: " Quum peccatorum audierit quive solvendus." igo THE THREE ACTS OF THE PENITENT quently the confessor has the right and the duty to de mand an accurate and circumstantial description of the penitent's state of conscience, i. e. a complete confes sion of his sins. But the office of the penitential judge does not end here. Even if the penitent has the right disposition, the priest may not absolve him without at the same time enjoining an appropriate penance* This again cannot be justly determined without a com plete knowledge of the facts, because a penance must correspond to the number and gravity of the sins for which it is imposed. " It is manifest," says the Council of Trent, " that priests could not have exercised this judgment without knowledge of the cause; neither indeed could they have observed equity in enjoining punishments, if the faithful should have declared their sins in general only, and not rather specifically, and one by one." 15

We are here dealing with ordinary punishments,— of which the Council of Trent says that they may be blotted out by means of good works performed " through Jesus Christ," that they " have their efficacy from Him," and " by Him are offered to the Father, and through Him accepted by the Father." 27 The ordinary temporal punishments due to sin may be blotted out in two ways: either actively by perform ing penitential works in this life (satisfactio), or passively by suffering in purgatory (satispassio).'8 It is an article of faith that satisfaction may be made for them in this life by performing penitential works, either at

—Baptism is administered by means of washing, i. e. applying the water to the subject. This application must be a true ablu tion (ablutio vera), i. e. it must involve a contact that is both physical and successive. In other words, the baptismal water must actually touch the body and flow over it. This twofold contact can be effected by immersion, effusion, and aspersion. The validity of the present practice of effusion has been indirectly defined against the schismatic Greeks by the Council of Trent: " If any one saith that in the Roman Church, which is the mother and mistress of all churches, there is not the true doctrine concerning the Sacrament of Baptism, let him be anathema.

According to the con stant teaching of the Church, the Sacrament of Baptism remits not only the eternal penalties of sin,—the remission of which seems to be an es sential part of the forgiveness of sin itself,—but likewise all temporal punishments, so that, were one to die immediately after receiving Baptism, he would go straightway to Heaven. 20 "In those who are born again/' says the Council of Trent, "there is nothing that God hates, because there is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by Baptism into death; . . . so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into Heaven/

Up to the time of the Council of Trent, she thus prayed on Easter Eve, at the blessing of the Easter candles: "Calling upon thee in thy works, this holy Eve of Easter, we offer most humbly unto thy Majesty this sacrifice; namely, a fire not defiled with the fat of flesh, nor polluted with unholy oil or ointment, nor attainted with any profane fire; but we offer unto thee with obedience, proceeding from perfect devotion, a fire of wrought WAX and wick, kindled and made to burn in honour of thy name. This so great a MYSTERY therefore, and the marvellous sacrament of this holy eve, must needs be extolled with due and deserved praises." That there was some occult "Mystery," as is here declared, couched under the "wax-candles," in the original system of idolatry,

Do we Catholics adore bread when we pay adoration to the Blessed Sacrament? No; we do not adore bread, for no bread is there, but the most sacred Body and Blood of Christ, and wherever Christ is, adoration is due Him by man and angels. St. Augustine says: "No one partakes of the Body until he has first adored and we not only do not sin when we adore It, but would sin if we did not adore It." The Council of Trent excommunicates those who assert that it is not allowable to adore Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, in the Blessed Sacrament. How unjust are those unbelievers who sneer at this adoration, when it has never entered into the mind of any Catholic to adore the external appearance of this Sacrament, but the Savior hidden under the appearances; and how grievously do those indifferent Catholics sin who show Christ so little veneration in this Sacrament, and seldom adore Him if at all!

We do not, at the most basic of all levels, need explicit confession to a priest to have our sins forgiven—that is an unequivocal truth taught in scripture, by the church fathers, in Christian theology of every kind, in dogmatic tradition (even in the Council of Trent and the theology and catechisms that ensued from it), in church tradition, and especially in the lived practice of the faith. 12 The essential sacrament of reconciliation has always been sincerity and contrition as one approaches Eucharist and touches the Christian community. But that does not say that confession is unnecessary and unimportant.

In its fourth session, the Council of Trent decided that no man has the right to distort the Scriptures by private interpretation

The Popish prohibition of free enquiry and private judgement in religion is, if possible, still more fatal to the mind. The Council of Trent ordained no one should presume to understand the Scriptures, except according to the doctrines of Rome and the unanimous consent of her Fathers. Rome enjoins her children an implicit faith, which believes on the authority without evidence. The faith of the Protestant is an intelligent conviction, the result of the free and manly exercise of the faculties God gave him, guided by divine fear and help. The papist collects the dicta of the Fathers and Councils, only to wear them as shackles on his understanding. The Protestant brings all the dicta to the test of reason, and still more, of that Word, to which his reason has spontaneously bowed as the supreme and infallible truth. Rome bids us listen to her authority and blindly submit; Protestantism commands: 'Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good..' Happily, the prohibition of private judgement is as impossible to be obeyed as it is absurd.

Trent Meyer @meyer_the_fire No he didn’t. Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody has seriously believed the earth is flat for the last 2,500 years. Not until you lot started drinking the Kool-Aid RT 3 L 41 Dennster @true_earth_matters Please. It’s a documented fact that Columbus had to try and persuade the Council of Salamanca that the earth was round, but they didn’t buy it. And none of his sailors wanted to go on the voyage because they thought he was a globularist nutter RT 9 L 124 Trent Meyer @meyer_the_fire It’s not documented fact. It’s pure fiction. It was made up by the writer Washington Irving in the 1820s to create an origin story for the United States. The Council of Salamanca was never even a thing RT 1 L 27 Dennster @true_earth_matters Washington Irving? Right. Another white guy RT 3 L 46 Mekell King @pointymekell I’m black. It doesn’t upset me if anyone says the earth is round. I’m comfortable with basic facts RT 5 L 64 Dennster @true_earth_matters Have you ever heard of internalised racism? RT 0 L 14 Mekell King @pointymekell Seriously? You’re going there? You, a white dude, are actually calling me, a black woman, racist?? RT 7 L 89 Dennster @true_earth_matters How do you know I’m white? RT 0 L 65 Mekell King @pointymekell You are, though, aren’t you? RT 1 L 75 Dennster blocked Mekell King

Nevertheless, the issue of Catholic marriage deserves some additional theoretical and historical consideration to prevent ambiguity. Naturally in our case it is not the arguments of “free thinkers” that turn us against this kind of marriage. Earlier I mentioned the contamination between the sacred and the profane. It is worth recalling that marriage as a rite and sacrament involving indissolubility took shape late in the history of the Church, and not before the twelfth century. The obligatory nature of the religious rite for every union that wished to be considered more than mere concubinage was later still, declared at the Council of Trent (1563). For our purposes, this does not affect the concept of indissoluble marriage in itself, but its place, significance, and conditions have to be clarified. The consequence here, as in other cases regarding the sacraments, is that the Catholic Church finds itself facing a singular paradox: proposals intending to make the profane sacred have practically ended up making the sacred profane. The true, traditional significance of the marriage rite is outlined by Saint Paul, when he uses not the term “sacrament” but rather “mystery” to indicate it (“it is a great mystery,” taken verbatim—Ephesians 5:31-32). One can indeed allow a higher idea of marriage as a sacred and indissoluble union not in words, but in fact. A union of this type, however, is conceivable only in exceptional cases in which that absolute, almost heroic dedication of two people in life and beyond life is present in principle. This was known in more than one traditional civilization, with examples of wives who even found it natural not to outlive the death of their husbands. In speaking of making the sacred profane, I alluded to the fact that the concept of an indissoluble sacramental union, “written in the heavens” (as opposed to one on the naturalistic plane that is generically sentimental, and even at base merely social), has been applied to, or rather imposed on, every couple who must join themselves in church rather than in civil marriage, only to conform to their social environment. It is pretended that on this exterior and prosaic plane, on this plane of the Nietzschean “human, all too human,” the attributes of truly sacred marriage, of marriage as a “mystery,” can and must be valid. When divorce is not permitted in a society like the present, one can expect this hypocritical regime and the rise of grave personal and social problems. On the other hand, it should be noted that in Catholicism itself the theoretical absoluteness of the marriage rite bears a significant limitation. It is enough to remember that if the Church insists on the indissolubility of the marriage bond in space, denying divorce, it has ceased to observe it in time. The Church that does not allow one to divorce and remarry does permit widows and widowers to remarry, which amounts to a breach of faithfulness, and is at best conceivable within an openly materialistic premise; in other words, only if it is thought that when one who was indissolubly united by the supernatural power of the rite has died, he or she has ceased to exist. This inconsistency shows that Catholic religious law, far from truly having transcendent spiritual values in view, has made the sacrament into a simple, social convenience, an ingredient of the profane life, reducing it to a mere formality, or rather degrading it.

But the Council of Trent began by repudiating this maxim, which is comprehensive of all Protestantism.

the name Hell, says the Catechism of the Council of Trent, signifies those hidden places where the souls are detained which have not yet reached eternal beatitude. But these prisons are of different kinds. One is a dark and gloomy dungeon, where the damned are continually tormented by evil spirits, and by a fire which is never extinguished. This place, which is Hell properly so called, is also named Gehenna and abyss. There is another Hell, which contains the fire of Purgatory. There the souls of the just suffer for a certain time, that they may become entirely purified before being admitted into their heavenly fatherland, where nothing defiled can ever enter.

The Romish Church teaches the ordinary Arminian theory of perfectionism. In addition to this error, they teach, (a.) that good works subsequent to baptism merit increase of grace and eternal felicity (Council of Trent, sess vi., ch xvi., can. 24, 32); and (b.) they distinguish between the commands and the counsels of Christ. The former are binding upon all classes of the people, and their observance necessary in order to salvation. The latter, consisting of advice, not of commands — such as celibacy, voluntary poverty, obedience to monastic rule, etc. — are binding only on those who voluntarily assume them, seeking a higher degree of perfection and a more exalted reward. We have already, under chapter xiii., seen that a state of sinless perfection is never attained by Christians in this life; and it, of course, follows that much less is it possible for any to do more than is commanded.

Let us remember, therefore, that will in man is one thing, and the free choice of good and evil another: for freedom of choice having been taken away after the fall of the first man, will alone was left; but so completely captive under the tyranny of sin, that it is only inclined to evil.

Adam did not take away the will, but made it a slave where it was free. It is not only prone to sin, but is made subject to sin.

We do not become righteous by doing righteous deeds but, having been made righteous, we do righteous deeds.

It was this very impulse that caused the Council of Trent, Session 6, to declare that the righteousness with which we are infused, and which increases in believers, is “preserved and also increased before God through good works” (canon 24) and that such righteousness (iustitia) is not “merely fruits of and signs of justification obtained.”214 In effect, Rome came to agree with Paul’s critics in Romans 6:1, “Shall we sin that grace may abound?” The rationalist-moralist answer has always been to preclude anyone from thinking that it might be possible to “sin that grace may abound” by making it very clear that God justifies only good people, but any such doctrine cannot be squared with Paul’s unequivocal declaration in Romans 4:5 that God “justifies the ungodly.