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Counter-Reformation

Adolphus Ward

The Counter-Reformation, also called the Catholic Reformation, and remembered for its infamous Inquisition, was the period of Catholic resurgence which was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. Adolphus Ward writes, that it was "a movement pursuing two objects...the regeneration of the Church of Rome, and the recovery of the losses inflicted upon her by the early successes of Protestantism...The onset of the combat is marked by the formal establishment of the Jesuit Order as a militant agency devoted alike to both of the purposes of the Counter-Reformation, and the meeting of the Council of Trent [1545-1563] under conditions excluding from its programme the task of conciliation." It largely ended in 1648, when the Peace of Westphalia brought an end to the Thirty Years' War. (Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.)