CIGARETTE PAPERS

Southland Times, Issue 21887, 13 December 1932, Page 6

CIGARETTE PAPERS

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. The Council of Trent, summoned by the Roman Catholic Church by Paul IH., was formally operated on December 3, 1545, and lasted, with various prorogations for eighteen years, closing on December 4, 1563. The sittings extended through five pontificates. The requisition to convoke the Council was first made to Clement VII. and was seconded, with all his influence, by the Emperor Charles V. Clement put off the summoning of the Council, but his successor acceded to the request and, sifter much disputation, the Council was finally fixed to meet at Trent in the Tyrol. At first the Protestant reformers were to have attended, but after abortive attempts to reconcile preliminary differences, the Protestants declined .to attend or recognize the Council which was left wholly to the direction of the Catholics. One of the first points determined dealt with the books known as Apocryphal, which were declared, to be “of equal authority with those which were received by the Jews and primitive Christians into the sacred canon.” The Latin translation of the Scriptures made and revised by St. Jerome and known by the name of the Vulgate translation was ordered to be read in churches and “appealed to in the schools as authentic and canonical.” It was at Trent that the ancient formula prefixed by ecclesiastical councils to thejr deliverances —“It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us” —was changed to “In the presence of the Holy Ghost it has seemed good to us.” The decrees of the Council of Trent, while antagonistic to Protestant views, are generally regarded as one of the principal standards and completed digests of the Roman Catholic faith, —CRITICUS.