Fact or legend? An event at the Tridentine Council...

The Sabbath and the Council of Trent

According to www.immaculateheart.com:

It was upon this very point that the Reformation was condemned by the Council of Trent. The Reformers had constantly charged, as here stated, that the Catholic Church had "apostatized from the truth as contained in the written word. "The written word," "The Bible and the Bible only," "Thus saith the Lord," these were their constant watchwords; and "the Scripture, as in the written word, the sole standard of appeal," this was the proclaimed platform of the Reformation and of Protestantism. "The Scripture and tradition." The Bible as interpreted by the Church and according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers," this was the position and claim of the Catholic Church. This was the main issue in the Council of Trent, which was called especially to consider the questions that had been raised and forced upon the attention of Europe by the Reformers. The very first question concerning faith that was considered by the council was the question involved in this issue. There was a strong party even of the Catholics within the council who were in favor of abandoning tradition and adopting the Scriptures only, as the standard of authority. This view was so decidedly held in the debates in the council that the Pope's legates actually wrote to him that there was "a strong tendency to set aside tradition altogether and to make Scripture the sole standard of appeal." But to do this would manifestly be to go a long way toward justifying the claims of the Protestants. By this crisis there was developed upon the ultra-Catholic portion of the council the task of convincing the others that "Scripture and tradition" were the only sure ground to stand upon. If this could be done, the Council could be carried to issue a decree condemning the Reformation, otherwise not. The question was debated day after day, until the Council was fairly brought to a standstill. Finally, after a long and intensive mental strain, the Archbishop of Reggio came into the Council with substantially the following argument to the party who held for Scripture alone:

"The Protestants claim to stand upon the written word only. They profess to hold the Scripture alone as the standard of faith. They justify their revolt by the plea that the Church has apostatized from the written word and follows tradition. Now the Protestants claim, that they stand upon the written word only, is not true. Their profession of holding the Scripture alone as the standard of faith, is false. PROOF: The written word explicitly enjoins the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath. They do not observe the seventh day, but reject it. If they do truly hold the scripture alone as their standard, they would be observing the seventh day as is enjoined in the Scripture throughout. Yet they not only reject the observance of the Sabbath enjoined in the written word, but they have adopted and do practice the observance of Sunday, for which they have only the tradition of the Church. Consequently the claim of 'Scripture alone as the standard,' fails; and the doctrine of 'Scripture and tradition' as essential, is fully established, the Protestants themselves being judges."

Archbishop Reggio of Calabra made his speech at the last opening session of Trent, on the 18th of January, 1562. -- Heinrich Julius Holzmann, Kanon und Tradition (Canon and Tradition), published in Ludwigsburg, Germany, in 1859, page 263.

There was no getting around this, for the Protestants' own statement of faith -- the Augsburg Confession, 1530 -- had clearly admitted that "the observation of the Lord's day" had been appointed by "the Church" only.

The argument was hailed in the Council as of Inspiration only; the party for "Scripture alone," surrendered; and the council at once unanimously condemned Protestantism and the whole Reformation as only an unwarranted revolt from the communion and authority of the Catholic Church; and proceeded, April 8, 1546, "to the promulgation of two decrees, the first of which, enacts under anathema, that Scripture and tradition are to be received and venerated equally, and that the deutero-canonical [the apocryphal] books are part of the canon of Scripture. The second decree declares the Vulgate to be the sole authentic and standard Latin version, and gives it such authority as to supersede the original texts; forbids the interpretation of Scripture contrary to the sense received by the Church, 'or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers,'" etc.

This was the inconsistency of the Protestant practice with the Protestant profession that gave to the Catholic Church her long-sought and anxiously desired ground upon which to condemn Protestantism and the whole Reformation movement as only a selfishly ambitious rebellion against the Church authority. And in this vital controversy the key, the chiefest and culminative expression, of the Protestant inconsistency was in the rejection of the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, enjoined in the Scriptures, and the adoption and observance of the Sunday as enjoined by the Catholic Church.

And this is today the position of the respective parties to this controversy. Today, as this document shows, this is the vital issue upon which the Catholic Church arraigns Protestantism, and upon which she condemns the course of popular Protestantism as being "indefensible", self-contradictory, and suicidal." What will these Protestants, what will this Protestantism, do?

Fact or Legend?

Holzmann indeed attributes to the Archbishop of Reggio the statement that the church "changed Sabbath into Sunday"in a speech on 18th January, 1562.

But, in the text of the speech by R. D. Gaspare de Fosso, archbishop of Reggio on January 18, 1562, there is no mention of this. The speech is recorded in Section 217. Session XVII. Concilium Tridentinum. Diariorum, Actorum, Epistularum, Tractuum. Nova Collectio. Tomus Octavus. Actorum Pars Quinta. Freiburg: B. Herder, 1919, p. 293-299.

Researchers, please refer to your sources. Students, please ask your Professors. Tell us whether this is fact or legend!


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