The Catholic Reformation 1 17deaths of the faithful, which in recent times have provided historians with
extraordinarily useful demographic information. Some monastic houses
undertook reforms. The infusion of better educated clergy in the southern
German states and Austria aided the Church’s efforts to maintain its influ
ence there.
The papacy emerged from the Council of Trent much more centralized,
better organized and administered, and more aggressive, like the most
powerful European states themselves. Gradually a series of more able
popes helped restore the prestige of the papacy within the Church.
Putting Its House in Order
“The best way,” one churchman advised, “to fight the heretics is not to
deserve their criticisms.” Some leaders within the Catholic Church reasoned
that the Church should put its own house in order and seek to reconvert peo
ple who had joined the reformed religions. Pius V (pope 1566-1572)
declared war on venality, luxury, and ostentation in Rome. But abuses still
seemed rampant. In 1569, the Venetian ambassador to France reported that
the French “deal in bishoprics and abbeys as merchants trade in pepper and
cinnamon.” Pius V sent some bishops living in Roman luxury packing to
their sees, putting those who refused to leave in prison.
Reformers wanted to bring order and discipline to members of religious
orders and the secular clergy. “No wonder the Church is as it is, when the
religious live as they do [in monasteries and convents],” Teresa of Avila
(1515—1582) exclaimed in response to the demeaning battles between reli
gious houses in Spain, struggles that she tried to end. Some churchmen,
however, now rejected monastic life as irrelevant to the activist missionary
tasks of the Church, another sign of the influence of Protestant reform.
New orders, such as the Capuchins—an offshoot of the Franciscans—
and the female order of the Ursulines, worked to bring faith to the poor and
the sick. The missionary work of Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) also helped
restore faith among the poor. Seeing the success Reformation preachers
had with mass-produced pamphlets, the Catholic Church also produced
catechisms that spread Church teachings, along with accounts of the lives
of the saints. The Catholic Reformation encouraged other new devo
tional confraternities (religious brotherhoods of people who heard Mass
together), some bringing together laymen of various social classes. The cult
of the Virgin Mary became more popular. The Protestant Reformation had
emphasized the religious life of the individual and the development of his
or her personal piety through Bible study and personal reflection. The
Catholic Reformation, too, now encouraged individual forms of devotion
and spirituality.