COUNTER-REFORMATION
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COUNTER-REFORMATION
loble, as well as to mean and poor. His rigour and
ifigour were sometimes excessive, no doubt, but this
would not have seemed very reprehensible in those
laj's. There had been a popular outcry for " reform
n the head as well as in the members", but it had
seemed hopeless to expect it, considering the strong
conservative traditions of the Roman Court. Now
that the seemingly unattainable had been accom-
alished, occasional excesses in the manner of its at-
tainment were easily forgiven, if they were not
ictually relished, as signs of the thoroughness with
which the desired change had been made. Esteem
- or the papacy rose, papal nuncios and legates faced
tvith firmness the powerful sovereigns to whom they were sent, and strove with dignity for the correction jf abuses. Reforms were more easily accepted by inferiors when superiors had already embraced them. Even Protestants mentioned Pope Pius with respect. Bacon spoke of that excellent Pope Pius Quintus, whom I wonder his successors have not declared a saint" ("Of a Holy War", in his Works, ed. of 1838, [, 523; the words however are put into the mouth of mother). Though the forces against Pope St. Pius were powerful, and the general position was every- where so critical that extreme caution might have seemed the best policy, his fearless enforcement of existing church law was on the whole wonderfully successful. Thus, though his Bull excommunicating ind depriving Elizabeth (1570) was in one sense ill- timed and a failure, on the other hand its results in the spiritual sphere were admirable. It broke the English Catholics of their subservience to Elizabeth's tjTanny over their consciences in a way which no milder measure could have done.
(2) Gregory XIII became a leader of the reform movement by virtue of qualities very different from those of his predecessor. He was a kindly, sociable man, who had risen to fame as a lecturer on canon law, and his successes were due to his zeal for educa- tion, piety, and the machinery of government, rather than to anj-t hing magnetic or inspiring in his personal influence. He was bountiful in his support of the Jesuit missions, and in his grants to seminaries and colleges. The German. English, and Greek colleges, and many others owe him their foundation Bulls, and much of their funds. He sent out missionaries at his own expense to all parts of the world. Though he had no great genius for politics, he had an admirable secretan,-, Ptolomeo Galli, Cardinal of Como, whose papers remain to this day models of perspicacity and order. Standing nunciatures were now established at Catholic courts in lieu of the old special envoys (Vienna, 1581; Cologne, 1.584), and with the happiest results. Thus, when Gebhard Truchsess (q. v.) the Archbishop of Cologne, turned Protestant and tried (1 582) to carry over his electorate with him, the nuncios on all sides organized a vigorous counter- attack, which was completely successful. Since then Cologne has been a tower of strength to the Catholi- cism of North-Western Europe. The reform of the Calendar was another piece of large-mintled and far- sighted office work, if it may be so described, which reflected much credit on the pope who organized it. Gregory was also most generous in granting Indul- gences, and he encouraged works of piety on a large scale. He took an active part in the celebration of the Holy Year of Jubilee in 1.57.5, and the pilgrims, who had flocked in thousands to the Eternal City, returned to spread throughout Europe the satisfac- tion they had felt at the sight of the good pontiff performing in person the long religious ceremonies, leading processions, or tending poor pilgrims with his own hands.
(3) Sixhis V. — Like Pius V, Gregory XIII was too much of an enthusiast for abstract theories and medie- val practices to be .an ideal niler; he was aUo a poor financier, and, like many other good lawyers, was
somewhat deficient in practical judgment. It was
exactly on these points that his successor, Si.xtus V,
was strong. Where Gregory, at the end of his reign,
was crippled by debts and unable to restrain the
bandits, who dominated the country up to the gates
of Rome, Sixtus, by dint of good management, was
soon one of the richest of popes, whose word was law
in ever}' comer of his States. He finished St. Peter's,
and erected the obelisk of Nero before it. He built
the Vatican Librarj' and that wing of the palace,
which the popes have inhabited ever since, while he
practically rebuilt the Quirinal and Latcran Palaces.
He constructed the aqueduct known as the Aqua
Felice, the Via Sistina, the hospital of San Girolamo
and other buildings, though his reign only lasted five
and a half years. Sixtus w.is large-minded, strong,
and practical, a man who did not fear to grapple with
the greatest problems, and under him the delays (re-
puted to be perpetual) of the Eternal City seemed to
be changing to briskness, almost precipitation.
As the Council of Trent had given Catholics, just when they most needed it, an irrefragable testimony to the unity and catholicity of their Faith, so these three pontiffs, with their varying excellences, showed that the papacy possessed all the qualifications which the faithful expected in their leaders, virtues which afterwards repeated themselves (though not quite so often orsofreciuentlv) in succeeding popes, especially in Clement VIII, Pauf V, and Urban VIII. Now at all events, the tide of the Counter- Reformation was run- ning in full flood, and nowhere can its course and strength be better studied than in the missions.
VI. The Missions. — While persecution and war, politics and inveterate custom, hampered progress in Europe, the wide continents of America, Asia, and Africa offered a freer outlet for the spiritual energy of the new movement. Beginning with St. Francis Xavier (q. v.), there are among the Jesuits alone quite a multitude of apostles and martyrs, confessors and preachers of the first order. In India and China, Antonio Criminale, Roberto de' Nobih, Ridolfo Acqua- viva, Matteo Ricci, Adam Schall. In Japan, after Padre Valignano's great successes, ensued the terrible persecution in which there perished by heroic death almost eighty Jesuits, to say nothing of others. Abyssinia and the Congo were evangelized by Fathers Nunez, Baretto, and Sylveira. In North America there were heroic struggles to convert the Indians (see BRiiBEUF; Lallemant), and in South America St. Peter Claver's work for the slaves from Africa and the reductions of Paraguay. The Franciscan and Do- minican friars and the secular clergy were in the field before the Jesuits in Central America (where Las Casas has left an unperishing name); elsewhere also they were soon in the front rank. Later on in the period there are St. Vincent de Paul (q. v.) and his zealous apostolic followers and (1622) the Roman Congregation "De Propaganda Fide", with its organized missionaries (see Propaganda, College of).
In order to appreciate the connexion of the afore- said names with the movement under consideration, we must remember that these apostles were not only showing forth in their heroic labours and sufferings the true nature of the Counter-Refonnation; they were also winning many new converts to it by their preaching, while their letters raised to the highest pitch the enthusiasm of generous souls at home (see Cros, ".St. Francjois Xavier. Sa vie et Ses lettres", Paris, 1900; also "Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses", 34 vols., Paris, 1717, sqq.).
VII. Progress in European States. — Whilst in distant lands the new spirit found to some extent a free field, its progress in Europe was very largely dependent on the varjang fortunes of the Catholic and Protestant political powers. Here it will only be possible to indicate the chief stages in that pro-
