Talk:Council of Trent

Objectives

Two as promised or six as presented?

Parental Consent

There is a claim in the article that " although the lack of a requirement for parental consent ended a debate that had proceeded from the 12th century. ", but reading page 102 of this book seems to assert that the council of Trent introduced a requirement of parental consent;

" and also it was only with the council of Trent, thus in the second half of the sixteenth century, that the consent of parents became necessary for the marriage of children ".

Just doing a quick google found this which claims;

" While parental consent was not made mandatory for a marriage to be valid at Trent, post-Tridentine church administrators promoted parental involvement by acknowledging dowry exchange as a vital component of social reproduction. After Trent, applicants had to specify a reason for their intended violation of kinship prohibitions; the most often quoted obstacle to an exogamous union was the bride's lack of a competitive dowry. "

but then this book claims that;

" In granting parents control over young heiresses' marriages, this law broke new ground. Why Then? Queen Mary who was in power in 1558, was Catholic. This law actually coincided with the Catholic Church's deliberations at the Council of Trent over Marital issues "

and also

" In an attempt to bring the Church of England more in line with both the Catholic Church (since the Council of Trent) and with Puritan concern about parental consent to marriage, in 1604 the Church of England encouraged its ministers, under threat of suspension for three years, to gain parental consent to each marriage that involved a son or daughter under the age of twenty-one before posting banns. ".

And again this book asserts that reverse again, that the council of Trent removed the strict necessity of Parental consent that had been the practice previously, or perhaps, looking at that again, that the Church's authority was made to supercede parental consent, making the latter not technically necessary in that sense? I also note that the passage from the first book I mentioned is being used to support an assertion in the Marriage article, that " and starting in the second half of the 16th century parental consent along with the church's consent was required for marriage "Number36 (talk) 22:31, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Anyone have views on the situation with the above?Number36 (talk) 21:17, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I know this is years later, but in case anyone still cares as best as I know the article is right and the book you cite is basically wrong. Possibly the book is trying to put the best face on things and hoping that the priest will not marry without parental consent. I speculate, but have no evidence for, that in the face of criticism from Protestants over this issue that the Catholic marriage/betrothal without parental consent phenomenon was put in check somewhat. Maybe that is what the book is referring to.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 07:55, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Today (2022-04-30) the article reads "... although the lack of a requirement for consent given from the parents of themselves that ended a debate that had proceeded from the 12th century." This is ungrammatical, so I'm reverting to the text given above. Wgrommel (talk) 13:43, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Marriage

I believe the current wording on marriage In the decrees on marriage (twenty-fourth session) ... the validity of marriage made dependent upon the wedding taking place before a priest and two witnesses is quite wrong. If you read Session XXIV http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch24.htm you can see there is no mention of witnesses etc.

In fact, the relevant material is at the twenty-third session, where it says it is not to be doubted, that clandestine marriages, made with the free consent of the contracting parties, are valid and true marriages. http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch23.htm Chapter 1.

These marriages are valid even without parental agreement: as also those who falsely affirm that marriages contracted by the children of a family, without the consent of their parents, are invalid, and that parents can make such marriages either valid or invalid; nevertheless, the holy Church of God has, for reasons most just, at all times detested and prohibited such marriages.

So the prohibition of rash and secret marriages does not affect their validity.

Furthermore, the final sentence in this paragraph lso gives the wrong impression, IMHO. That sentence is However the council "refused … to assert the necessity or usefulness of clerical celibacy". But Session 24 says "CANON IX.-If any one saith, that clerics constituted in sacred orders, or Regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, are able to contract marriage, and that being contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law, or vow; ... let him be anathema

I believe the relevant paragraph should be correct to:

In the decrees on marriage (twenty-fourth session) the excellence of the celibate state was reaffirmed, concubinage condemned, the validity of clandestine marriages made with consent was affirmed, the validity of marriages made without the consent of parents was affirmed, but public marriages now required the wedding taking place before a priest and two witnesses and after banns were read. In the case of a divorce, the right of the innocent party to marry again was denied so long as the other party was alive,[11] even if the other party had committed adultery.

With that last sentence replaced. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 07:26, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

The source for the statement that "the council refused … to assert the necessity or usefulness of clerical celibacy" is O'Malley, which I haven't consulted. But I'll offer a guess that, if the council dodged this question, they did so because they didn't want to offend the Orthodox churches (who of course allow priests to be married). Haven't made any changes to the text. Wgrommel (talk) 13:58, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

protestant “exclusion”

I believe it is generally inaccurate to say that the protestants excluded the apocrypha from the canon, as protestant bibles still carried the apocrypha (labeled appropriately) for the next 2 centuries. A better word might be “Marginalized”, which I have seen Dr. Dan Mcclellan use. 2600:1700:BF10:22B0:CD7:DB7:E1EF:E6BA (talk) 10:05, 12 June 2022 (UTC)