Recent Important Literature Regarding the Catholic Church During the Late Renaissance Period, 1500–1648

Abstract

In evaluating recent literature pertaining to the Catholic Renaissance regard must be taken rather to choice selection than complete coverage; furthermore, the period must be strictly defined, for the number of books that have been written is veritably immense. I shall therefore first of all restrict myself to the late rather than to the early Renaissance, i. e.,roughlyspeaking from the beginning of the Protestant Reformation to the Peace of Westphalia (1500–1648); or to put it in another ecclesiastico-historical way, from the pontificate of Julius II (1503–1513) to Innocent X (1644–1655). I shall further restrict myself to the Catholic controversies arising from, and following in, the immediate wake of Protestantism; reaction taken to the Protestant Reformation by the Catholic or Counter-Reformation, e. g., by the Council of Trent with its re-affirmation and re-definition of traditional Catholic dogmas and practices, with corresponding condemnation of all new teachings opposed to such traditional doctrines; to certain controversies among Catholic scholars occasioned by thecapitulaandcanonesof the Council of Trent, e. g., those referring to the compatibility between the necessity of grace for every supernatural act and the required co-operation of man's free will for a meritorious act (Congregatio de auxiliis gratiae) under Clement VIII and Paul V, etc.