The idea of counter-reform is used to refer to an action that is opposed to a reform that was carried out previously. Renovations, on the other hand, are changes that are made with the intention of improving or updating something .
Let's look at some example sentences: "The new government intends to develop a counter-reform of the educational system after the modifications established by the previous administration" , "The opposition presented a draft counter-reform of the retirement law" , "According to various surveys , the counter-reform of the prepaid medicine market is rejected by a large part of the population.”
A counter-reform, therefore, is developed with the objective of reversing a series of modifications that have been carried out previously. The president of a country, to cite one case, can carry out a tax reform, promoting changes that benefit certain sectors and, simultaneously, affect the interests of others. When said president leaves power and is succeeded by a leader of another political party, the new president decides to implement a counter-reform, changing the tax laws again to once again alter the scheme of beneficiaries/losers.
If the concept of counter-reformation appears written with an initial capital letter ( Counter-Reforma ), it alludes to the movement that confronted the Reformation . It should be remembered that the Reformation was the initiative that began in the 16th century , being promoted by Martin Luther in Germany , and that led to the creation of the Protestant Churches.
The Counter-Reformation , therefore, was the response that the Catholic Church developed to minimize the impact of Protestantism. Through this movement, an ecclesiastical restructuring took place and changes were introduced in the liturgy of this religion .
The Church had been weakened by Martin Luther's Reformation, and for this reason it decided to carry out its Counter-Reformation. It all began in 1545 with the Ecumenical Council of Trent and lasted until the Thirty Years' War ended in 1648; any act developed to confront Protestantism since then falls into the category of anti-Protestantism .
The Counter-Reformation had the purpose of giving the image of the Church a "breath of fresh air", and for this it had to reduce by all means the influence of Protestant doctrines. It is possible to notice five fundamental aspects on which the Church focused to carry out its plan:
* the doctrine . What better way to fight a current of thought than with an opposite one? In fact, it is precisely what the Protestants had done in the first place;
* They founded several seminaries, houses in which they provided training to people of all ages, as part of a restructuring plan for the Catholic Church;
* they modified the religious orders so that they returned to their traditional forms;
* They began to monitor spiritual movements, trying to make them focus on piety as the basis of life and on a close relationship with Christ through the mediation of a priest ;
* They created and managed the Roman Inquisition , an organization that had the objective of persecuting the conduct of Protestantism.
According to the point of view, the Counter-Reformation was not substantially different from the objectives that the Protestant Reformation had pursued, at least if we focus on the fact that both had the purpose of renewing the Church . Of course, if we look at the purely theological aspects, it is undeniable that these are opposite movements.
The Counter-Reformation divided, so to speak, the Catholic faith into two well-defined paths: the idea promoted by Paul IV that God related to us through punishment and that we should fear him; which was spread by people like Teresa of Jesus, Ignatius of Loyola and John of the Cross , among others, who lived their religious experience based on piety.