Counter-Reformation

— Ranke [Leopold von Ranke] also popularized the term "Counter-Reformation." He initially used this term in the plural (Gegenreformationen, Counter-Reformations). Roman Catholic historians took umbrage because this implied — and frequently stated — the historical and theological priority of the Protestant Reformation to which Catholicism then reacted. "The expression seemed to interpret the recovery of the Catholic Church merely as a counteraction to the schism and seemed to imply the use of force in religious matters" (Iserloh et al. 1986: 431). The Catholic scholar John Bossy (1985:91) would just as soon drop the term Reformation altogether because "it goes along too easily with the notion that a bad form of Christianity was being replaced by a good one." Indeed, earlier Roman Catholic historians generally used the term "religious schism" (Glaubensspaltung) rather than Reformation to designate this period. In short, terms are not always innocent of values and problems. Yet without terms and periodizations it would be impossible to provide a coherent drama of complex changes.