Council of Trent

The Council of Trent (Latin: Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), in Northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the "most characteristic embodiment of the ideals of the Counter-Reformation." It was the last time a Catholic ecumenical council was organized outside the city of Rome, and the second time a council was convened in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire (the first being the Council of Constance).

The council issued key statements and clarifications of the Catholic Church's doctrine and teachings, including scripture, the biblical canon, sacred tradition, original sin, justification, salvation, the sacraments, the Mass, and the veneration of saints and also issued condemnations of what it defined to be heresies committed by proponents of Protestantism. The consequences of the council were also significant with regard to the Catholic Church's liturgy and censorship.

The council met for twenty-five sessions between 13 December 1545 and 4 December 1563. Pope Paul III, who convoked the council, oversaw the first eight sessions (1545–1547), while the twelfth to sixteenth sessions (1551–52) were overseen by Pope Julius III and the seventeenth to twenty-fifth sessions (1562–63) by Pope Pius IV. More than three hundred years passed until the next ecumenical council, the First Vatican Council, was convened in 1869.