Subscribers can listen to the audio of today’s post here.
Fifteen centuries after Jesus, in 1517, monk Martin Luther nailed 95 reasons for the Catholic Church to inhale a big bag of dog farts to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany. That shit caught on, and less than half a century later the Council of Trent said okay let’s make the split between Catholics and Protestants official.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: January 26, 1564--
I know this is an “on this day” thing, but this fucking council lasted 18 goddamn years, from 1545 to 1563. The Catholics were so fucking bent out of shape about how Protestant influence was growing, and the pope lovers were all “You’re praying to Jesus wrong, godfuckingdammit!” so they met 25 times to establish a fuck-your-Protestant-Reformation “Counter-Reformation.” Talk about having your shit wound too tight.
Trent, FYI, is a city in Northern Italy. The Protestants had a bunch of shit about Catholicism they were bitching about, so this was laying down some doctrinal laws in response to said bitching. Thing is, the Protestants had legitimate gripes. I mean, we’re talking about invisible sky daddy bullshit, so an atheist’s use of the word “legitimate” in this context requires the taking of some artistic license. It’s kinda like fighting over Star Wars canon. The Rise of Skywalker rewrites Sith history! Continues below …
I like both Star Wars and Star Trek and both fan groups are welcome to become paying subscribers. But none of you Babylon 5 folks. Jk, I’ll take your money too.
But the Catholic Church addressed pretty much everything the Protestants contested, clarifying a lot of stuff that had previously been murky, making some pretty sweeping decrees in the process. It was not an easy process, as indicated by it taking almost two fucking decades to hammer it all out. And you thought Friday afternoon meetings were bad. Things addressed included the sacraments, salvation, the Mass, veneration of saints, and original sin, to name a few.
After that shit was all done, the council said hey pope please ratify this shit, and he did so on January 26, 1564 in the papal bull Benedictus Deus. Changes were even made to the Bible, and a lot of the abuses the Catholic Church was guilty of that had so vexed the Protestants would disappear over the coming decades, although not abuses of children. That shit was too ingrained, I guess. Anyway, it wasn’t done in a let’s be friendly with Protestants now kind of way. Rather, once the pope issued the bull, he said listen up motherfuckers: You better obey. No more of this “unauthorized interpretation” bullshit. That’s for me alone cuz God chose me not you.
It worked. Despite the ramming-it-down-your-throat nature of the proclamation, which, let’s face it, is par for the course for a lot of religion, the Counter-Reformation impressed many of those who’d left the Church for Protestantism, and it won them back. But it sure as shit didn’t end the schism between the two main bodies of praying over Jesus’s crucified body. The teams were well established, and soon they would go to war, one of bloodiest in human history, with approximately eight million dead.
I doubt Jesus would have approved.
Support keeping this daily column free and get access to subscriber only content:
Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.