Ten years elapsed before the council reassembled for the third time in Trent. During the intervening period, the religious prob lem in Germany had received such a solution as the times ad mitted by the peace of Augsburg (1555); and the equality there guaranteed between the Protestant estates and the Catholic es tates had left the former nothing to hope from a council. The incitement to continue the council came from another quarter.
It was no longer anxiety with regard to Protestantism that exer cised the pressure, but a growing conviction of the imperative need of more stringent reforms within the Catholic Church itself.
In France and Spain—the very countries where the Protestant heresy had been most vigorously combated—a great mass of discontent had accumulated ; and France already showed a strong inclination to attempt an independent settlement of her ecclesi astical difficulties in a national council. Pius IV. therefore an nounced (Nov. 29, 1560) the convocation of the council; and on Jan. 18, 1562, it was actually reopened (sessio xvii.).
The Protestants indeed were also invited but the Evangelical princes, assembled in Naumburg, withheld their assent. To secure freedom of action, France and the emperor Ferdinand required that it should rank as a new council; Pius IV., however, desig nated it a continuation of the earlier meetings. Ferdinand, in addition to regulations for the amendment of the clergy and the monastic system, demanded above all the legalization of the marriage of the priesthood, while France and Spain laid stress on the recognition of the divine right of the episcopate, and its inde pendence with regard to the pope. In consequence of these re formatory aspirations, the position of the pope and the council was for a while full of peril. But the papal diplomacy, by conces sions, threats, and by exploiting political and ecclesiastical dis sensions, broke the force of the attack. In the third period of the council, which, as a result of these feuds, witnessed no session from September 1562 to July 1563, doctrinal resolutions were also passed concerning the Lord's Supper sub utraque specie (sessio xxi.), the sacrifice of the Mass (sessio xxii.), the sacrament of ordination (sessio xxiii.), the sacrament of marriage (sessio xxiv.), and Purgatory, the worship of saints, relics and images. On Dec. 4, 1563, the synod closed.
The dogmatic decisions of the Council of Trent make no attempt at embracing the whole doctrinal system of the Roman Catholic Church, but present a selection of the most vital doc trines, partly chosen as a counterblast to Protestantism, and f or mulated throughout with a view to that creed and its objections.
The reformatory enactments touch on numerous phases of ecclesiastical life—administration, appointment to spir itual offices, the marriage law (decretum de reformatione matri monii "Tametsi," sessio xxiv.), the duties of the clergy, and so forth. The resolutions include many that marked an advance; but the opportunity for a comprehensive and thorough reformation of the life of the Church—the necessity of which was recognized in the Catholic Church itself—was not embraced. No alteration
of the abuses which obtained in the Curia was effected, and no annulment of the customs, so lucrative to that body and deleteri ous to others, was attempted.
The Council of Trent in fact enjoyed only a certain appearance of independence. For the freedom of speech which had been accorded was exercised under the supervision of papal legates, who maintained a decisive influence over the proceedings and could count on a certain majority in consequence of the over whelming number of Italians. That the synod figured as the responsible author of its own decrees (sancta oecumenzca et gen eralis tridentina synodus in spiritu sancto legitime congregata) proves very little, since the following clause reads praesidentibus apostolicae sedis legatis; while the legates and the pope expressly refused to sanction an application of the words of the Council of Constance—universalem ecclesiam repraesentans.
The whole course of the council was determined by the pre supposition that it had no autonomous standing, and that its labours were simply transacted under the commission and guid ance of the pope. This was not merely a claim put forward by the Roman see at the time ; it was acknowledged by the attitude of the synod throughout. The legates confined the right of dis cussion to the subjects propounded by the pope, and their posi tion was that he was in no way bound by the vote of the ma jority. In difficult cases the synod itself left the decision to him, as in the question of Clandestine Marriages and the Administra tion of the Lord's Supper sub utraque specie. Further, at the close of thee, sessions a resolution was adopted, by the terms of which all the enactments of the council de morum reformatione atque ecclesiastica disciplina were subject to the limitation that the papal authority should not be prejudiced thereby (sessio xxv. cap. 21). Every doubt as to the papal supremacy is removed when we consider that the Tridentine Fathers sought for all their enactments and decisions the ratification (confirmatio) of the pope, which was conferred by Pius IV in the bull Benedictus Deus (January 26, 1564) ; and in its last meeting (sessio xxv.) the synod transferred to the pope a number of tasks for which their own time had proved inadequate. These comprised the compilation of a catalogue of forbidden books, a catechism, a short conspectus of the articles of faith and an edition of the missal and the breviary. Thus the council presented the Holy See with a further opportunity of extending its influence and diffusing its views. The ten rules de libris prohibitis were pub lished in March 1564; the Professio fidei tridentinae in November 1564; and the Catechismus a decreto cenc1li1 tridentini ad parochos, early in 1568.