as events and not simply as collections of documents, constitutes an important hermeneutical key to unlock meaning.

The “drama of the Council of Trent” drives O’Malley’s explanation of “what happened at the council”. In following its twists and turns from its paltry beginnings in December 1545 to the desperate effort to complete its work in December 1563 in the face of the illness of Pope Pius IV, O’Malley vividly demolishes one of the myths about Trent. The notion of Trent as “a monolithic and single-minded gathering, untroubled by rancour, confidently poised to take the steps necessary to put the Catholic house in order” does not withstand historical scrutiny. Certainly, “nothing about the Council of Trent was ideal. It rested precariously on a bed of fragile and shifting compromises” and “lurched from major crisis to major crisis”. 

Little about the council was straightforward. O’Malley summarises its main decisions but only after taking us through the preceding debates, which were often far from placid. Debating bishops pulled beards. Accusations flew: violations of the freedom to debate, disloyalty to the pope. Almost everything could become a source of controversy, even the ­continuation of the council. Pope Paul IV (1555-59) saw Trent as “an extravagant and extremely dangerous waste of time”. The ­council did not meet during his pontificate.

Trent was a pastoral as well as a doctrinal council. Reforming pastoral ministry to make it spiritually effective was one of the council’s main objectives. The achievement of this goal was fraught with protracted, bitter tension. At stake was the absolute necessity of episcopal residence, the linchpin of all pastoral reform. Bishops had to live within a single diocese to carry out their ministry instead of enjoying the incomes of several church offices, including bishoprics, without a pastoral care in the world far from their cathedrals. The debate raged on a single question: was the residence of bishops a matter of unalterable divine law (ius divinum) or of human law, and therefore amenable to dispensation by the pope? The entrenched division caused by the dispute threatened to disrupt the council. O’Malley deftly guides readers through the complicated contours of the controversy to its solution, a disappointing compromise to the proponents of ius divinum.

O’Malley concludes with an instructive and judicious review of the council’s legacy. It powerfully enhanced the sacramental life of the Church and contributed to a proliferation of Catholic preaching. One of the great ironies of the council’s legacy is that the papacy, initially reluctant to convoke a council, emerged with a “refurbished authority … for having brought the council to conclusion”. More than any previous council, Trent insisted on the continuity of Catholic doctrine with apostolic times, and yet this “helped develop the Catholic mindset reluctant to admit change in the course of church history”. Trent’s legacy also comprised “myths, misunderstandings, and misinformation about what the council actually enacted”, such as the supposed prohibition of the vernacular in the Mass.
In exposing the myths about and elucidating the realities of Trent, O’Malley reconstructs a dramatic event in the history of Catholicism. Although the council through its decrees and canons did not comprise all of Catholicism, it still made a “big difference” in shaping the history of the Church. Anyone interested in the development of the Church’s modern history can now readily engage O’Malley as a guide to what happened not only at Vatican II but also at the Council of Trent.