Page 89 - God's Church through the Ages - Student Textbook

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Council of Trent 1545-63 –

The Roman Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope Paul III had an interest in
reform and called for a council to be held in Trent. It actually was a group of several
meetings between 1545 and 1563 which was poorly attended but did result in some
minor changes and the shoring up of Catholic doctrines. Indulgences were abolished and
clergy were exhorted to avoid even the smallest of faults. Doctrinally, the council
reaffirmed the Catholic positions on the seven sacraments making them necessary for
salvation. Transubstantiation was reasserted; the Bible could only be read in Latin and
was forbidden to be translated to the language of common people. The reforms of the
Council of Trent further separated Catholic and Protestant views.

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Roberto Bellarmine, 1542-1621

Roberto Bellarmine wrote Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae Fidei
(“Disputations concerning the controversies of the Christian Faith”) in which he argued
in favor of Catholicism against Protestantism.

Bellarmine was a professor of theology and later rector of the Roman College, and in
1602 became Archbishop of Capua. He supported the reform decrees of the Council of
Trent.

In 1616, on the orders of Paul V, Bellarmine summoned Galileo, notified him of a
forthcoming decree of the Congregation of the Index condemning the Copernican doctrine of the mobility of the
Earth and the immobility of the Sun, and ordered him to abandon it. Galileo agreed to do so.

When Galileo later complained of rumors to the effect that he had been forced to abjure and do penance,
Bellarmine wrote out a certificate denying the rumors, stating that Galileo had merely been notified of the
decree and informed that, as a consequence of it, the Copernican doctrine could not be "defended or
held", Cardinal Bellarmine believed such a demonstration could not be found because it would contradict the
unanimous consent of the Fathers' scriptural exegesis, to which the Council of Trent, in 1546, defined all
Catholics must adhere.

Copernicus published his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, 1543

“On the revolutions of the heavenly bodies” set out a heliocentric view of the solar system in
contrast to the Catholic Church’s geocentric view. The interpretation of Biblical passages was
the main issue in the debate.

77 https://www.britannica.com/event/Council-of-Trent
78 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bellarmine
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