Anniversary of the Councils

We Catholics sure seem to enjoy coincidental dates, or at least doing things on specific days that have specific meanings.

This past year, the Church has made a big deal out of the 50th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Benedict XVI even proclaimed it a “Year of Faith“.

Indeed, today marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Council’s first document, the glorious Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Perhaps more impressively, though, today marks the 450th anniversary of the last session of the Council of Trent.

There’s a good introductory article on the significance of the Council over at the Register.

Trent addressed some of the most fundamental questions of Christianity, such as the relationship between Scripture and Tradition and the nature and number of the sacraments.

“One was the question of: how are we saved? Are we saved by grace alone or are we saved by works alone — good works alone? Or are we saved by some combination of grace and good works? Of course, the Lutherans said by grace alone,” said Jesuit Father John O’Malley, a Georgetown University historian and author of Trent: What Happened at the Council. “The Council of Trent wrestled with this problem and said we’re primarily saved by grace. We do not save ourselves, yet, in some limited way, some small way, with the help of grace, we do contribute to our salvation. We’re not puppets of grace. We have to cooperate in some way.”

In addition to the debate over salvation, Trent confirmed the sevenfold number of the sacraments, set the canon of Old and New Testaments, declared that Scripture and Tradition are both authoritative, affirmed the sacrificial nature of the Mass and unhesitatingly renewed its commitment to the doctrine of transubstantiation, which holds that the substance of bread and wine in the Eucharist is wholly changed over into the substance of Christ’s body and blood.

The Council Fathers of Trent did what a Council usually does: it defined doctrine that had never been defined before, because nobody disagreed about it before.

But Trent also launched a sweeping reform of Church life that affected everything from how people become married to how they learn about the faith, laying the foundation for institutions and practices that Catholics today take for granted, historians say.

These reforms eclipsed anything promulgated by the Council Fathers of Vatican II.

Trent created the seminaries. Trent codified and standardized the liturgical life of the Church. Trent published the first universal Catechism.

It is a mistake to set the Council of Trent against the Second Vatican Council – they are both very much products of their time and circumstance.

It is however useful, I think, to read the actual documents of both Councils and realize that they were fundamentally trying to do the same thing: to save the tried and true, and to reform what wasn’t working.

And to do all of it without changing the ancient teaching of the Church, which we received from Christ through the Apostles.

The problem comes when people try to read into these Councils things that they never said.

Through trial and error and many false starts, it took the Church fifty years to fully begin implementing the reforms of Trent. Fifty years on from Vatican II, we are only now doing the same with that Council.

It is ever thus.