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John C. Olin, ed., The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola. Fordham UP, 1992 (rpt. 1969), xxiv + 218 pp., illus., ISBN 0-8232-1447-X (clothbound); ISBN 82321478-8 (Paperback), $17.
It is a great pleasure to see the reissuing of this essential collection of 15 documents from 1495-1540 illustrating the intellectual vitality and energy of the Catholic Reformation. Professor Olin' s commentaries highlight the leaders of a selfreforming renewal springing up within the traditional Church and distinct from the response thrust upon it by Protestant reform. Indeed, he maintains that even after 1517, when the various currents of the age of religious ferment and intellectual crisis inevitably began to cross and intermingle and the Protestant challenge gave a new urgency for regeneration, a distinction between spontaneous reforms and defensive reaction within the Church can be substantiated.
Olin' s sharp and concise introduction, «The Background of Catholic Reform» traces the tradition of reform from Pope Gregory VII through St. Francis of Assisi to Jean Gerson and Thomas à Kempis. He cites multiple clerical voices of a tradition that, recognizing the crisis within the Church, called for eradication of faults, a tradition which urged reformation to restore the Church to its original spirit. Whether arguing for institutional reform - a Church free from corrupt customs and practice - or calling for the personal reform of the individual Christian toward a pious life, vibrant voices rang out. In his analysis, Olin focuses on movements for increasing lay spirituality, the revival efforts of preachers and confraternities, using as examples St. John Capistrano, Girolamo Savonarola, the Devotio Moderna and the Oratory of Divine Love.
In his explanation of the influence of Renaissance humanism on religious renewal and reform, he stresses the special impact that Christian humanists like John Colet, Erasmus, and Lefèvre d'Etaples had on Biblical and patristic study, a part of the search ad fontes for directions to those seeking religious reform and a revivifying of Christian life. He positions Cardinal Francisco Ximénes de Cisneros as leader and exemplar of this European-wide movement because of his reform of the...