The Council of Trent, which was held between "1545 and 1563 in Trento (Trent), northern Italy, was
an ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. Prompted by the
Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the
Counter-Reformation."
Some have described this not as a "Counter-Reformation," but a Catholic Reformation. But by either name, the point is that the Reformation prompted the Catholic Church to reconsider, or at least more clearly define, some of its ideas and decrees.
For the first time, for example, the Church was forced to grapple with the question of "justification." Were we saved by "faith alone," as Luther argued, or by "faith through works"? At Trent, the Catholic Church decides that we are justified by "faith working in love."
That the larger object of the "work" being done in love through faith may be an ultimate act of evil - such as soldiers fighting in one bogus war after another, from Crusades to World Wars, or Christian missions helping Columbus slaughter Native Americans with the alchemy of sowing God and reaping gold - is irrelevant to the individual, of course.
And this is because the individual is too limited in their ability to understand the "mysterious ways of God" (or their governments, especially their Church), and so must content themselves with the idea that they are doing good, at least in their own mind, even if some more powerful person is using that good for evil purposes. In fact, this idea pretty much sums up the entire argument about the Viet Nam War.
Aside from this, however, the Council of Trent established the idea that Tradition, with a capital "T," while not being on par with the authority of the Bible itself, is nevertheless as important as anything else in correctly "interpreting" the Bible messages. The cornerstone upon which such an idea necessarily rests, of course, is that people must therefore depend upon, and place their complete trust in, the Church's ability to not only decipher the Bible correctly using Tradition, but always use and apply that "interpretation" in ways that serve only God, not necessarily itself.
In other words, the Church must be willing to, like Christ himself, sacrifice itself for the sake of the "truth" it derives from scripture using that tradition. Only it has NEVER done so. Instead, the Church has only ever equated it's interpretations with Scripture as necessarily serving it's own survival first - which is no different from what any trade union, corporation, or government has ever done - and only secondarily on how it serves the people. And it always serves the people, much like the Sanhedrin had done with its own interpretations of the Torah, by making those people only every more dependent upon the Church itself.
This is why Christ's teaching that "the law was made to serve man, not man to serve the law," which so threatened this habit the Sanhedrin had of always giving interpretations that only forced their flock to depend every more upon their intercession, was seen as such a threat. And it was seen as such as threat because it served as a kind of "magna carta," suggesting that the Sanhedrin derived its power from the governed, even as it pretended to draw it's power from God.
For in the same way that King Sol and his son David, usurped power unto themselves from the 12 tribes of Israel, so to the Sanhedrin had vested itself with the same 'divine authority' to rule over the descendants of those tribes.
And like King David and the Sanhedrin, the Catholic Church used that power to not only commit it's atrocities agaisnt all those it deemed "enemies" and heretics of society, that Catholics all dismiss as just being nothing more than a sign of the times (proving once again that the Church is NOT guided by a "god" but by humans acting like god), but to hide its own criminals who preyed upon the children of those who accepted the belief that their Church was, despite its human failing, always being guided by a 'god.'
And by so doing, the Church, like the boy who cried wolf, forever forfeited it's right to claim it has any authority to declare itself the moral compass of God (unless their "god" is Satan).
Some have described this not as a "Counter-Reformation," but a Catholic Reformation. But by either name, the point is that the Reformation prompted the Catholic Church to reconsider, or at least more clearly define, some of its ideas and decrees.
For the first time, for example, the Church was forced to grapple with the question of "justification." Were we saved by "faith alone," as Luther argued, or by "faith through works"? At Trent, the Catholic Church decides that we are justified by "faith working in love."
That the larger object of the "work" being done in love through faith may be an ultimate act of evil - such as soldiers fighting in one bogus war after another, from Crusades to World Wars, or Christian missions helping Columbus slaughter Native Americans with the alchemy of sowing God and reaping gold - is irrelevant to the individual, of course.
And this is because the individual is too limited in their ability to understand the "mysterious ways of God" (or their governments, especially their Church), and so must content themselves with the idea that they are doing good, at least in their own mind, even if some more powerful person is using that good for evil purposes. In fact, this idea pretty much sums up the entire argument about the Viet Nam War.
Aside from this, however, the Council of Trent established the idea that Tradition, with a capital "T," while not being on par with the authority of the Bible itself, is nevertheless as important as anything else in correctly "interpreting" the Bible messages. The cornerstone upon which such an idea necessarily rests, of course, is that people must therefore depend upon, and place their complete trust in, the Church's ability to not only decipher the Bible correctly using Tradition, but always use and apply that "interpretation" in ways that serve only God, not necessarily itself.
In other words, the Church must be willing to, like Christ himself, sacrifice itself for the sake of the "truth" it derives from scripture using that tradition. Only it has NEVER done so. Instead, the Church has only ever equated it's interpretations with Scripture as necessarily serving it's own survival first - which is no different from what any trade union, corporation, or government has ever done - and only secondarily on how it serves the people. And it always serves the people, much like the Sanhedrin had done with its own interpretations of the Torah, by making those people only every more dependent upon the Church itself.
This is why Christ's teaching that "the law was made to serve man, not man to serve the law," which so threatened this habit the Sanhedrin had of always giving interpretations that only forced their flock to depend every more upon their intercession, was seen as such a threat. And it was seen as such as threat because it served as a kind of "magna carta," suggesting that the Sanhedrin derived its power from the governed, even as it pretended to draw it's power from God.
For in the same way that King Sol and his son David, usurped power unto themselves from the 12 tribes of Israel, so to the Sanhedrin had vested itself with the same 'divine authority' to rule over the descendants of those tribes.
And like King David and the Sanhedrin, the Catholic Church used that power to not only commit it's atrocities agaisnt all those it deemed "enemies" and heretics of society, that Catholics all dismiss as just being nothing more than a sign of the times (proving once again that the Church is NOT guided by a "god" but by humans acting like god), but to hide its own criminals who preyed upon the children of those who accepted the belief that their Church was, despite its human failing, always being guided by a 'god.'
And by so doing, the Church, like the boy who cried wolf, forever forfeited it's right to claim it has any authority to declare itself the moral compass of God (unless their "god" is Satan).
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