The Douai Defence

Extract

Many of the sixteenth century Protestant reformers denied the rôle and authority of the Roman Church as a mediating instrument between Christ and believers. There was specific theological objection to the legitimacy of a sacrament of holy orders with a divinely empowered hierarchy. In consequence, much of the Catholic reaction and reform was designed to re-establish and emphasise both dogmatically and practically true authority within the Church. Seminaries therefore, as planned by the Tridentine decree of 15 July 1563, belonged to an ecclesiological context. They were seedbeds, giving protection from hostile and indifferent society, where men were set apart to sink roots in the rich soil of clerical life, and only then to emeige to feed the Church.