James E. Kelly (Durham University) is an ideal scholar to have as our trustworthy guide to the developments in Roman Catholicism which arose in the 16th century, and The Catholic Reformation: A Very Short Introduction is a welcome and reliable introduction to this theme.
All things being equal, I tend to like my historians to write sympathetically, and Kelly endeavors to put his subjects in the best light whenever possible. This inclination means that readers tend to get fleshed-out case studies of admirable Catholics balanced by brief disclaimers: “Of course, not all missionary behaviour was what we would term enlightened” (61). My Protestant soul sometimes wanted to post a thesis or two presenting the other side. As if almost a century of Protestant witness had never happened, Francis de Sales is credited with advancing, in a 1609 publication, the insight “that a person did not have to retreat to a monastic house to live a Christian life, but could do so in the world” (106). The term “Counter Reformation” is rightly abandoned, but the sensible “Catholic Reformation,” nevertheless, permits Kelly to sometimes dismiss some Catholic developments on the grounds that they do not truly belong to the reform movement. Even the Inquisition, readers are invited to reflect, might better be viewed as an “enemy” of the Catholic Reformation rather than an expression of it (90). Mary I of England is never mentioned. Antiprotestant efforts are sometimes referred to with somersault circumlocutions such as “plays that responded to Protestant anti-Catholic dramas” (109).
Nevertheless, there is much here that this scholar of Protestantism needed badly to have someone explain to him. I am grateful to Kelly for having done so with admirable lucidity. To wit, here is a crisp, cogent explanation of why the council met at Trent, a point I had hitherto somehow never grasped: “The location was a compromise as it lay in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire but on the Italian side of the Alps” (18). I aspire to memorize that sentence and throw it into my lectures henceforth.
Or to take another example, I have always seen Henry VIII’s insistence that he was the Head of the Church of England to be a bit of outrageous hutzpah. I now realize that this aspiration was much more of a piece with what other rulers of major powers were also saying and doing. To wit, “In many ways, given his power over the Church, Philip acted as a mini-pope. Indeed in 1572 the Spanish government declared null and void all appeals to Rome from the ecclesiastical courts, an act not dissimilar to those passed in Protestant states” (34). Portugal likewise asserted its autonomy and power in striking ways. As did France: “the decrees of the Council of Trent were never officially accepted in France as they were considered to infringe upon the Gallican rights” (40).
I was already aware, to evoke a common phrase used in other contexts, of the revolution’s tendency to turn on its own – treating some of its finest sons and daughters such as Ignatius Loyola and Teresa of Avila with suspicion – but I did not realize the degree to which it seemed like no one was completely safe. In 1559, the Spanish Inquisition arrested the archbishop of Toledo (who was a Dominican, no less): “Even the pope lobbied for his release” (89). Giovanni Morone, though he became cardinal-president of the council of Trent, had likewise had his season of suspicion when he had been accused of heresy and imprisoned. On the other hand, the resistance to the revolution was also more heated than I had imagined. A mob burnt down the office building of the Roman Inquisition. A friar in the anti-reform Humiliati Order became so worked up about Charles Borromeo (who is the clear hero of Kelly’s book) that he tried to assassinate him while he was celebrating Mass.
The Catholic Reformation is generally well written, but there are a few lapses. Kelly has a regrettable fondness for the annoying phrase “cannot be underestimated” (13, 84). Writers everywhere, I appeal to you: please opt for either “should not be underestimated” or “cannot be overestimated.” Kelly also leans on the metaphor of the Catholic Reformation as “a belt-tightening exercise” (10, 107), but that phrase does not seem to mean to him what it conjures up for me, making it an image that confuses rather than clarifies. Kelly is a superb scholar who is on top of the literature. I do regret, however, that he did not incorporate into this study any reference to Carlos Eire’s influential and thought-provoking intervention, They Flew: A History of the Impossible (2023).
Although Catholic Reformation is a short survey, rather than merely summarizing views developed by others in more detailed works, Kelly convincingly makes some distinctive points of his own. Notably, he argues spiritedly that the Jesuits have been hogging the limelight at the expense of the Capuchins. Kelly partly attempts to readjust the balance by giving the Capuchins lead billing whenever both orders were active in a particular region or endeavor. Most of all, Kelly rightly challenges past attempts to tell this story which have been thoroughly centered on Europe, asserting compellingly: “The Church truly went global in the Catholic Reformation” (70).
If you are reading this review to decide whether or not you should assign this book – unless you teach at a stridently Protestant institution which only wants textbooks which are cheering for the home team – the answer is yes.
