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 participate, 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]
[22] Until the Vatican Council, held at Rome in 1869-1870
A D.
WORK OF THE COUNCIL
The Council of Trent made no essential changes in the
Roman Catholic doctrines, which remained as St. Thomas Aquinas and other
theologians had set them forth in the Middle Ages. In opposition to the
Protestant view, it declared that the tradition of the Church possessed equal
authority with the Bible. It reaffirmed the supremacy of the pope over
Christendom. The council also passed important decrees forbidding the sale of
ecclesiastical offices and requiring bishops and other prelates to attend
strictly to their duties. Since the Council of Trent the Roman Church has been
distinctly a religious organization, instead of both a secular and religious
body, as was the Church in the Middle Ages.
