Alpha Book

[Footnote: Its
decrees were signed at its close (1563) by 4 cardinal legates, 2
cardinals, 3 patriarchs, 25 archbishops, 167 bishops, 7 abbots, 7
generals of orders, and 19 proxies for 33 absent prelates.] The work of
the council was twofold--dogmatic and reformatory.
Dogmatically, the fathers at Trent offered no compromise to the
Protestants. They confirmed with inexorable frankness the main points
in Catholic theology which had been worked out in the thirteenth
century by Thomas Aquinas and which before the appearance of
Protestantism had been received everywhere in central and western
Europe. They declared that the tradition of the Church as well as the
Bible was to be taken as the basis of the Christian religion, and that
the interpretation of the Holy Scripture belonged only to the Church.
The Protestant teachings about grace and justification by faith were
condemned, and the seven sacraments were pronounced indispensable. The
miraculous and sacrificial character of the Lord's Supper (Mass) was
reaffirmed.


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