Reform from Within
Consequently, Italy's claim was that reform should take place "inside" the Church; and in truth, for centuries sincere churchmen had acknowledged, indeed proclaimed, the Church's need for internal reform. The rise and progress of the Reformation increased the need to meet that demand. "A vast flood of criticism, in hundreds and thousands of tracts and caricatures, rushed upon the clergy." The sack of Rome struck a great blow at the conscience and income of the cardinals and terrified the people, and hundreds of priests took the event as a sign of God's wrath. In 1528 Bishop Staffileo explained, in language close to the Protestants' own, why God had struck the capital of Christendom: "Because we have all sunk in the corruption of the flesh; we are no longer citizens of holy Rome but inhabitants of Babylon, the city of ruin and corruption," exactly as if Luther had spoken.
The Oratory of Divine Love and the Theatines
At an uncertain date shortly before 1517, Giovanni Pietro Carafa and Count Gaetano da Thiene founded the "Little Oratory of Divine Love" in Rome, where members might devote themselves to prayer and self-improvement. Nearly fifty distinguished men took part, including Jacopo Sadoleto, Gian Matteo Giberti and Giuliano Dati (the last name as the source gives it). In 1524 Gaetano formed an order of "obligated servants," an association of secular priests who all lived like monks and bound their lives by a vow. After the sack of Rome the Oratory was abandoned, but Carafa and others joined the new order, afterward known as the Theatines, a name taken from Teate (Chieti), the seat of Carafa's bishopric. Later men of rank joined the group, such as Pietro Bembo, Marcantonio Flaminio, Luigi Priuli, Gasparo Contarini and Reginald Pole. All devoted their goods and their lives to helping the destitute and nursing the sick and lived under strict moral discipline, in order, in the words of their first historian, "to make up for what the clergy lack, the very clergy who, by their corruption, shame and ignorance, drag the people to ruin."
The members of this order spread through Italy, and their self-sacrificing conduct, together with reforms carried out by the pope and church councils and the example of the Capuchins and Jesuits, improved the moral condition of the Catholic clergy and even of the popes themselves. Carafa, giving up all his income and distributing his great wealth among the poor, became the true leader of the group. Giberti, in both character and career, was an embodiment of the Catholic reform.
Giberti, Neri and Borromeo
Giberti was leader of the humanists at the court of Leo X and under Clement VII became head of the papal administration. After the Roman disaster (1527), he went to his bishopric of Verona and, while governing his diocese, adopted an ascetic life. There he was deeply troubled to see religion in decay: churches falling into ruin, preaching rare, priests without Latin and so unable to say Mass, and people who rarely went to a priest to confess. By example, effective counsel and strict discipline he retrained the clergy of his diocese, and, as a Catholic historian reports, "soon priests who kept concubines filled the dungeons." Giberti revived the "Brotherhood of Charity," first founded by Cardinal Giuliano de' Medici in 1519 (he re-established it in 1531), built orphanages, and opened cooperative banks to free borrowers from the harassment of usurers. Similar reforms were carried out by Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga (son of Isabella d'Este) at Mantua, by Marco Vida at Alba, by Fabio Vigili at Spoleto and by a number of other bishops who knew that the Church must either reform or perish.
Many heroes of authentic reform who rescued the Church from decline were made saints after death. St. Philip Neri, a Florentine gentleman, founded the "Confraternity of the Trinity of Pilgrims" with certain rules (about 1540): twelve laymen, after attending Mass on Sunday, would go on pilgrimage to one of the old churches or to a country meadow, where they spoke and listened to faith-strengthening words and sang sacred hymns. Many members became priests and called themselves the "Fathers of the Oratory." Because the members always sang sacred songs in chorus, and in view of the Latin word oratorium, meaning small chapel, church choral works came afterward to be called oratorios. St. Charles Borromeo, nephew of Pope Pius IV, resigned a cardinalate at Rome to reform and purify religious affairs at Milan. There, as archbishop, he established order and rules among the clergy and, by practicing austerity and self-sacrifice, showed them the way of piety and duty. But in one respect he met resistance: the members of the order called the "Humiliati," who had once been proud of their humility, had sunk into decay and corruption, indulging in laziness and even lust. Cardinal Borromeo ordered them to imitate him and his followers; one of the "Humiliati" made an attempt on his life while the cardinal was praying in the chapel; and as a result the people's dread of the man who held that the best way to prevent a reformation was to carry out the Church's own internal reforms turned into worshipful respect for a saint. Within his archdiocese and in his lifetime, courtesy and gravity became customary among all classes, clergy and laity. His influence spread across Italy and had a considerable effect in transforming cardinals from worldly aristocrats into devoted priests.
Paul III and the Report of the Cardinals
The popes too, moved by the example of such men, turned special attention to church reform. At the start of Paul III's pontificate the noted jurist Giovanni Battista Caccia presented him with a treatise on reform of the Church. In his preface the author said: "I plainly see that our holy mother the Church ... has so changed her nature that she shows no longer any marks of her evangelical character; no trace is left in her of the humility, moderation, self-restraint and moral force of the apostles." By accepting the dedication, Paul disclosed his inward agreement with the author's views. On 20 November 1534 he commissioned three cardinals, Piccolomini, Sanseverino and Cesi (the names as the source gives them), to draw up a plan for reviving church morals; and on 15 January 1535 he ordered that the reform decrees of Leo X, issued in 1513, be strictly enforced. But Paul, now caught in the snares of papal and state politics and feeling threatened by the advance of the Ottoman Turks in Europe, thought it unwise in such a crisis to upset the working of his administration with radical changes, and so kept postponing serious reform of the Church. Even so, the men he raised to the cardinalate were all known for honesty and conscientiousness.
In July 1536 he invited Contarini, Carafa, Sadoleto, Cortese, Aleandro, Pole, Tommaso Badia and Bishop Federico Fregoso (of Gubbio), who had devoted themselves to reform of the Catholic Church, to come to Rome for a meeting to discuss church reform, and asked each to write down what he knew of the Church's abuses and the ways he thought of to stop them. Sadoleto opened the session and in a bold speech declared that the main cause of the Church's deviation and decline was the popes themselves, who by their sins, crimes and greed had prepared its corruption. The sessions were held almost daily for three months. The guiding spirit was Gasparo Contarini, recognized as the foremost figure of the Catholic reform movement. Contarini was born at Venice of a noble family (1483), educated in the liberal city of Padua, soon rose to a high place in the Venetian state, was sent as ambassador to Charles V in Germany and went with him to England and Spain, then entered the service of the Venetian senate and for a time represented it at the papal court (1527-1530). After retiring from politics, he devoted his life to study and made his house the meeting place of Venice's most distinguished statesmen, clergymen, philosophers and humanists. Though a layman, he thought deeply about church reform and worked earnestly with Carafa, Giberti, Cortese and Pole. All Italy respected him as a rare combination of intellect and moral character. In 1535, without any request from him, Paul named him cardinal, although Contarini had not yet even met the pope.
In March 1537 the "Council of Cardinals Chosen for the Reform of the Church" presented to the pope the report of its deliberations, unanimously approved. With astonishing freedom, the report set out the abuses of the papal government and boldly traced their cause mainly to "the reckless excess in making popes powerful by false interpreters of church law." It said: "Some popes have allowed themselves the right to sell church offices to candidates, and this privilege of buying and selling has carried love of money and corruption within the Church to such a degree that it has brought that noble organization to a state of collapse, since people no longer trust its honesty and purity." The report also urged that the working of the papal court's administration be put under strict supervision and that payment of money for buying church offices be absolutely forbidden; that a higher standard of ability and piety be required in all appointments and in the fitness of those raised to the priesthood and cardinalate; and that holding several offices, or drawing income while absent from duty, be wholly banned.
The report went on: "Throughout the world almost all shepherds have left their flocks and handed them to hirelings." Monasteries should be strengthened again and convents placed under the bishops' supervision, since visits to them by monks had caused scandal and insult to sacred things. Absolution of sins should be proclaimed only once a year. The report closed with these formal assurances to the pope: "We have satisfied our consciences and set our highest hope on seeing, in your pontificate, the restoration and mending of God's Church ... You have taken the name of Paul, and we hope you will imitate his goodness. That saint was chosen as an instrument to carry the name of Christ to unbelievers; we hope you too have been chosen to revive in hearts and deeds that name, long forgotten by unbelievers and by us, the Church's servants, to heal our spiritual sickness, to gather the sheep of Christ again into one flock, and so to turn away the wrath and vengeance of God which now hangs over us."
What Followed
Paul welcomed this "golden counsel," as some called it, and sent a copy to each of the cardinals. Luther translated it into German and printed it as convincing proof for his separation from the Church of Rome, for he regarded the authors of the document as "liars ... and helpless scoundrels who want to reform the Church by flattery." On 20 April 1537 Paul commissioned four cardinals, Contarini, Carafa, Simonetta and Ghinucci, to reform the "organization for the distribution of grants and benefits," part of the papal administration, the very part of the Church accused of love of money and misconduct, since it held all authority to grant money gifts, church offices, temporary exemptions, privileges and benefices. This took great courage, for that office paid the pope 50,000 ducats a year (the book's figure), half its total income. At once a cry of distress arose from the officials and church subjects, who complained of the high cost of living in Rome and pointed out that if they had to obey the strict rules, their families would be ruined. Paul took the cautious side; even so, Aleandro wrote to Cardinal Morone (27 April 1540): "The work of reforming the Church is going forward with vigor." On 13 December Paul summoned eighty archbishops and bishops living in Rome and ordered them back to their sees. Again a thousand cries of protest rose. Morone pointed out to the pope that hurrying to enforce the order might drive out some bishops, whose dioceses had become gathering places of Protestants, and drive them to join Luther's followers; in fact this prediction came true in several cases. Before long Paul immersed himself in the political game of the state and left church reform to his successors.
The movement of internal reform reached its victory when its leader Carafa became pope as Paul IV (1555). Monks who had been absent from their monasteries without formal permission or strict necessity were ordered to return at once to their posts. On the night of 22 August 1558 the pope ordered all the gates of Rome shut at once and all vagrant monks arrested; the like was done in the other papal states, and a few offenders were even executed. Abbots and bishops who held no actual post in the administration were asked to go to their places of service or give up their yearly allowances. Holding several benefices was strictly forbidden. All departments of the papal court were asked to reduce their fees, to remove every suspicion of the sale of church offices. Having thus reduced his own income, Paul made another sacrifice: he abolished the payment that by law went to the pope on confirming each appointment to an archbishopric. Severe decrees were issued against usurers, gamblers and prostitutes, and the penalty for procurers was fixed at death. Daniele da Volterra was told to cover, with his tailor-like brush, the dazzling nudity of Michelangelo's Last Judgment, though that dark slaughterhouse of a picture, whether it stayed infernal or was saved by the measure, could hardly find a fitting place above the altar of popes. Rome now took on an unnatural air of showy piety and morality. In Italy, and less visibly beyond its borders, the Church had reformed its clergy and its morals, while keeping its doctrines proudly intact. Though internal reform of the Church had been long delayed, when it came it was sincere and serious.