This unprecedented comparison of the three most recent Catholic councils traverses more than 450 years and examines the church’s most pressing and consistent concerns—issues of purpose, power, and relevance. John O’Malley addresses key questions councils raised. Who was in charge of the church? And what difference did the councils make?

The second Vatican Council was convened by Pope John XXIII between 1962 and 1965. It marked a fundamental shift toward the modern Church and its far-reaching innovations replaced or radically changed many of the practices, rules, and attitudes that had dominated Catholic life and culture since the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. In this book a distinguished team of historians and theologians offers an impartial investigation of the relationship between Vatican II and Trent by examining such issues as Eucharistic theology, liturgical change, clerical reform, the laity, the role of women, marriage, confession, devotion to Mary, and interfaith understanding. As the first book to present such a comprehensive study of the connection between the two great Councils, this is an invaluable resource for students, theologians, and church historians, as well as for bishops, clergy, and religious educators.

Winner of the John Gilmary Shea Prize The Council of Trent (1545–1563), the Catholic Church’s attempt to put its house in order in response to the Protestant Reformation, has long been praised and blamed for things it never did. Now, in this first full one-volume history in modern times, John W. O’Malley brings to life the volatile issues that pushed several Holy Roman emperors, kings and queens of France, and five popes—and all of Europe with them—repeatedly to the brink of disaster. During the council’s eighteen years, war and threat of war among the key players, as well as the Ottoman Turks’ onslaught against Christendom, turned the council into a perilous enterprise. Its leaders declined to make a pronouncement on war against infidels, but Trent’s most glaring and ironic silence was on the authority of the papacy itself. The popes, who reigned as Italian monarchs while serving as pastors, did everything in their power to keep papal reform out of the council’s hands—and their power was considerable. O’Malley shows how the council pursued its contentious parallel agenda of reforming the Church while simultaneously asserting Catholic doctrine. Like What Happened at Vatican II, O’Malley’s Trent: What Happened at the Council strips mythology from historical truth while providing a clear, concise, and fascinating account of a pivotal episode in Church history. In celebration of the 450th anniversary of the council’s closing, it sets the record straight about the much misunderstood failures and achievements of this critical moment in European history.

The second Vatican Council was convened by Pope John XXIII between 1962 and 1965. It marked a fundamental shift toward the modern Church and its far-reaching innovations replaced or radically changed many of the practices, rules, and attitudes that had dominated Catholic life and culture since the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. In this book a distinguished team of historians and theologians offers an impartial investigation of the relationship between Vatican II and Trent by examining such issues as Eucharistic theology, liturgical change, clerical reform, the laity, the role of women, marriage, confession, devotion to Mary, and interfaith understanding. As the first book to present such a comprehensive study of the connection between the two great Councils, this is an invaluable resource for students, theologians, and church historians, as well as for bishops, clergy, and religious educators.

Counter Reformation, Catholic Reformation, the Baroque Age, the Tridentine Age, the Confessional Age: why does Catholicism in the early modern era go by so many names? And what political situations, what religious and cultural prejudices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave rise to this confusion? Taking up these questions, John O'Malley works out a remarkable guide to the intellectual and historical developments behind the concepts of Catholic reform, the Counter Reformation, and, in his felicitous term, Early Modern Catholicism. The result is the single best overview of scholarship on Catholicism in early modern Europe, delivered in a pithy, lucid, and entertaining style. Although its subject is fundamental to virtually all other issues relating to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, there is no other book like this in any language. More than a historiographical review, Trent and All That makes a compelling case for subsuming the present confusion of terminology under the concept of Early Modern Catholicism. The term indicates clearly what this book so eloquently demonstrates: that Early Modern Catholicism was an aspect of early modern history, which it strongly influenced and by which it was itself in large measure determined. As a reviewer commented, O'Malley's discussion of terminology opens up a different way of conceiving of the whole history of Catholicism between the Reformation and the French Revolution.

From one of our foremost church historians comes an overarching analysis of the three modern Catholic councils—an assessment of what Catholicism was and has become today. Catholic councils are meetings of bishops. In this unprecedented comparison of the three most recent meetings, John O’Malley traverses more than 450 years of Catholic history and examines the councils’ most pressing and consistent concerns: questions of purpose, power, and relevance in a changing world. By offering new, sometimes radical, even troubling perspectives on these convocations, When Bishops Meet analyzes the evolution of the church itself. The Catholic Church today is shaped by the historical arc starting from Trent in the sixteenth century to Vatican II. The roles of popes, the laity, theologians, and others have varied from the bishop-centered Trent, to Vatican I’s declaration of papal infallibility, to a new balance of power in the mid-twentieth century. At Trent, lay people had direct influence on proceedings. By Vatican II, their presence was token. At each gathering, fundamental issues recurred: the relationship between bishops and the papacy, the very purpose of a council, and doctrinal change. Can the teachings of the church, by definition a conservative institution, change over time? Councils, being ecclesiastical as well as cultural institutions, have always reflected and profoundly influenced their times. Readers familiar with John O’Malley’s earlier work as well as those with no knowledge of councils will find this volume an indispensable guide for essential questions: Who is in charge of the church? What difference did the councils make, and will there be another?

This document's purpose is to spell out the Church's understanding of the nature of revelation--the process whereby God communicates with human beings. It touches upon questions about Scripture, tradition, and the teaching authority of the Church. The major concern of the document is to proclaim a Catholic understanding of the Bible as the "word of God." Key elements include: Trinitarian structure, roles of apostles and bishops, and biblical reading in a historical context.