The Unfinished Reformation: Spain, the Americas, and the Shadow of Trent

Written by RUBÉN VIDEIRA-SOENGAS

By Rubén Videira-Soengas

In Spain, the Counter-Reformation posed a serious challenge to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the effects of the Roman Catholic response to Protestantism still linger in the Hispanic world.

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Introduction

In sixteenth-century Spain, the Counter-Reformation posed a serious challenge to the testimony of Scripture about Jesus Christ.1 Yet the influence of the Counter-Reformation extended from Spain to the Americas and other territories, where its dark shadow still looms. By reviewing the spread of this threat worldwide, this article shows the profound and remaining need for Reformation in Spain and in the countries formerly under its rule.

Between Two Worlds

From the beginning, Spain’s unifying element was Catholicism. It played a crucial role in forming the modern nation of Spain from the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile (1492). A non-Catholic Spain was inconceivable during the Reformation. In 1495, sheltered by a papal bull, Spain’s shrewdly Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I (joint sovereigns, 1479–1516) appointed for themselves Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros archbishop of Toledo. In 1507 he became Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. The sole purpose of Cisneros’s office was to transform and protect against “new doctrines” in the Roman Church of Spain. In return, he embodied the spirit of the monarchs’ revitalization efforts, devoting his life to the religious tyranny of the Inquisition.2

Shortly before this turmoil, Christopher Columbus discovered “the New World” on October 12, 1492, a discovery that would forever change the “Old World.” In 1493, Ferdinand convinced the papacy to legitimize his possession and colonization of the Americas.3 This political stratagem indirectly cleared the way for Catholicism to enter the new continent. Both Spain and Rome needed one another. Spain needed the papacy’s backing to assure its domain over the Americas, and Rome—a hitherto unarmed empire—needed an army to rule the New World.4

Colonization of the New World was effectively an extension of the Spanish Reconquista, the war launched by the Spanish kingdoms in the high Middle Ages to reconquer the Iberian Peninsula from old invaders, the Muslim Moors.5 It was concluded, then, that just as Jerusalem and Spain had needed to be delivered from their unlawful overlords, so the Americas had to be rescued from illegitimate indwellers. Spanish conquistadors forced the natives to embrace the Catholic faith as they swore loyalty to Spain’s crown.

Spain’s religious approach to colonization also gave the Counter-Reformation wings to reach the New World. That is, it restrained the Reformation’s influence in the Americas because of the intolerance that Spain exported to its colonies. The stability that the Roman Catholic Church achieved in the Americas, closing all doors to Protestantism, is the direct result of this extended Reconquista.6

Counter-Reformation in Europe

On the other side of the Atlantic, the year 1517 saw Martin Luther spark a fire that rapidly consumed Europe. Charles I sat on Spain’s throne (1516–1556) and within two years was elected Holy Roman Emperor as Charles V (1519–1556). But the Reformation weakened the empire and seemed as though it would soon change the European political landscape. This instability was the final catalyst behind launching the Counter-Reformation, a movement defined by three elements: the Spanish Inquisition, the Society of Jesus, and the Council of Trent.7

First, the Spanish Inquisition (distinct from its Roman counterpart) terrified Spain and the Americas. Its reign developed over three escalating phases: finding Protestant literature that had been forbidden, eradicating humanism, and annihilating the largest Protestant congregations in Spain. The Inquisition gained control over the religious state of the country by 1573.8

Second, the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit Order) was established by Ignacio de Loyola and approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. Loyola founded Society of Jesus with a twofold purpose: to challenge the spread of the Reformation and to Catholicize the nations, especially the natives in the new continent.9 The Society became so influential in the New World that out of envy, they were banished by monarchs from Portugal, Spain, France, and the Americas, but not without first extending the fear of the Inquisition and Catholicism on both sides of the Atlantic.10

The third defining element of the Counter-Reformation, and arguably the most important council of the Roman Catholic Church, was the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Meeting under three distinct pontificates over twenty-five sessions, it represented the sustained, definitive Catholic response to the Reformation as well as, partly, the attempt of Charles V to reunify Europe.11 The Council formulated the decrees that reshaped the Church of Rome into what it has become today.12

Exporting a Fatal Error

In particular, the Council denied the biblical view that the Lord’s Supper was a memorial of Christ’s death (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24), as argued by the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531).13 The Council instead affirmed with renewed vigor the view adopted by Rome in 1059, that the Eucharist was an “unbloody” sacrifice, and its elements became Christ’s literal flesh and blood (transubstantiation). This held open the door to a fatal distortion in Catholic theology that continues today. For even though Catholicism claims to uphold an orthodox Christology, its reperformance of Christ’s sacrifice in the “Holy Mass” opposes His once-for-all propitiation on the cross and His hypostatic nature.14 Roman Catholics believe in an insufficient sacrifice of a Christ whose nature is likewise insufficient to finally save (cf. Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27; 10:10; 1 Pet 3:18).

By 1614, the Eucharist’s corruption of Christ’s atonement was widespread in both the New and Old Worlds.15 The Jesuits laid the religious path for this corruption, ensuring that the doors to “mother Church” were opened only to those who adhered to the Tridentine decrees. That is, the Church taught that in order to be saved, one had to internalize a corrupted view of Christ in the Eucharist.

But Christ’s blessed work was likewise denigrated by politically motivated factors. Charles’s son, Philip II of Spain (1527–1598), was fiercely Catholic, embraced the decrees of Trent, and applied them in his lands, hoping to achieve political unity.16 Moreover, he spent vast amounts of Spanish money and Spanish blood warring against Protestants in rival lands: England, France, and the Netherlands. Thus, the Counter-Reformation at Trent cemented a false view of Christ and His gospel in the Catholic Church, which false view was straightaway exported across the world for religious and political reasons.

Legacy: Reformation Needed

The legacy of the Counter-Reformation and its extension through sixteenth-century Spain’s political influence is devastating. It has redefined the work of Christ and taught Catholic converts to embrace a non-saving Savior. Not only the Iberian Peninsula but the entire Spanish-speaking world have been held captive in spiritual darkness that still dominates those territories today. They are still under the same urgent need of the Reformation and of pastors, missionaries, and church planters who will proclaim the true Christ who truly saves.

Rubén serves as Academic Dean and professor for Berea Seminary, a TMAI training center that trains men for ministry for both Spain and Portugal. He also serves as a local church minister in León, Spain.

  1. 1.  For extended discussion see Rubén Videira, “Catholicism, Postmodernism, and Inerrancy in Southern Europe,” in God’s Perfect Word: The Implications of Inerrancy for the Global Church, ed. Mark Tatlock (Los Angeles: Xulon, The Master’s Academy International, 2015), 217–33.

  2. 2.  Adolfo De Castro, Examen filosófico sobre las principales causas de la decadencia de España (Cádiz: D. Francisco Pantoja, 1852), 20.

  3. 3.  César Vidal, El legado del cristianismo en la cultura occidental los desafíos del siglo XXI (Pozuelo de Alarcón: Espasa, 2000), 212.

  4. 4.  Felipe Pérez Valencia, “Catolicismo y conquista del nuevo mundo. Función, apogeo y decadencia,” Teología y Cultura 11, no 16 (December 2014), 22.

  5. 5.  Francisco García Fitz, “La reconquista: un estado de la cuestión,” Clio y Crimen 6 (2009): 142.

  6. 6.  Richard S. Dunn, The Age of Religious Wars: 1559–1715, 2nd ed. (London: Norton, 1979), 24.

  7. 7.  César Vidal, Pontífices: De las persecuciones al papa Francisco (Barcelona: Ediciones Península, 2014), 159–60.

  8. 8.  A. H. De Mora, La iglesia de Jesu-Cristo en España (Nueva York: Sociedad Americana de Tratados, n.d.), 147–49.

  9. 9.  Vidal, Pontífices, 159; Enrique Dussel, Historia de la iglesia en América Latina: Medio milenio de coloniaje y liberación (1492–1992), 6th ed. (Madrid: Mundo Negro, 1992), 89.

  10. 10.  Dussel, Historia de la iglesia en América Latina, 89, 114, 170–73.

  11. 11.  Javier Gonzaga, Concilios (Grand Rapids: International Publications, 1966), 2:557.

  12. 12.  Pío Moa, Nueva historia de España. De la II Guerra Púnica al siglo XXI (Madrid: La Esfera de Los Libros, 2010), 496.

  13. 13.  Council of Trent, Session 22, The Council of Trent: The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical Council of Trent, ed. and trans. J. Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848), 152–62, accessed online August 24, 2023, https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/trent/twenty-second-session.htm.

  14. 14.  The simplicity and immutability of the divine nature of Christ demands that any alteration or change (e.g., Phil 2:7) must be added to the Person but never the divine nature. Thus, at His Incarnation, the second Person of the Trinity assumed (added to His Person) a human nature, without separation or division from His divine nature and yet as distinct. This means that if the bread and wine of the Mass become the literal flesh of the same Person known as the Christ, then both natures, divine and human, need to be partake of the nature of that bread and that wine. For this to take place, since the divine nature cannot mutate or vary, Christ must also add the nature of these objects to His Person. This will result in either a modified human nature, or four natures in the same Person: divine, human, bread, and wine!

  15. 15.  Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith. Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007), 43.

  16. 16.  César Vidal, La historia secreta de la iglesia católica en España (Barcelona: Ediciones B, 2014), 227–38.

RUBÉN VIDEIRA-SOENGAS
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