What were the goals of the Catholic Reformation and did it succeed?

Answer 1

Catholic Answer It was the Catholic response to the protestant reformation (also called the Counter-Reformation), although the Catholic Reform actually started before the protestant revolt. It involved greater emphasis on the central power of the papacy, the clarification of a number of core doctrines and the refutation of Protestant beliefs at the Council of Trent, and the growth of popular religious movements at grass-roots levels such as the Society of Jesus to promote Catholic doctrines and root out heretical beliefs. To a large extent it did succeed but it failed in bringing many of those back to the church who had been lost, and the generations that followed who have been denied access to the sacraments.

from A Catholic Dictionary, edited by Donald Attwater, Second edition, revised 1957

The Counter-Reformation is the name given to the Catholic movement of reform and activity which lasted for about one hundred years from the beginning of the Council of Trent (q.v., 1545), and was the belated answer to the threatening confusion and increasing attacks of the previous years. It was the work principally of the Popes St. Pius V and Gregory XIII and the Council itself in the sphere of authority, of SS. Philip Neri and Charles Borromeo in the reform of the clergy and of life, of St. Ignatius and the Jesuits in apostolic activity of St. Francis Xavier in foreign missions, and of St. Teresa in the purely contemplative life which lies behind them all. But these were not the only names nor was it a movement of a few only; the whole Church emerged from the 15th century purified and revivified. On the other hand, it was a reformation rather than a restoration; the unity of western Christendom was destroyed; the Church militant (those still on earth) led by the Company of Jesus adopted offence as the best means of defence and, though she gained as much as she lost in some sense, the Church did not recover the exercise of her former spiritual supremacy in actuality.

Answer 2

Catholic AnswerPartially, the Catholic Church's reformation was very successful in getting the Church back on track, on education of the clergy, on growth of religious Orders, on the catechesis of the faithful; it was pretty much a failure in rescuing souls from the protestant revolt. For the most part, the laity in the areas where the princes turned against the Church did not have enough Christianity to move or fight for their priests and sacraments. In England, many of them did and paid for it with their lives.