>The Church is always reformed, but always in need of reform.
>Therefore everyone has the right to call for the authentic reform of the Church.
>And nobody has the right to call for the deformation of the Church.
Does that mean that nobody has the right to stop the reform of the Church, if needed?
Hmmm. So then Trent was wrong to kick out those that were attempting what is needed?
You will note that the Reformers wanted to be back with the RCC, and were, much like Athenasius calling for the reform needed within, until Trent kicked them out... Trent was a door slammed in the reformers faces, a firm rebuke to those doctrines that were fine just a decade prior to Luther, though Hus might argue that the debate was getting rather heated, pardon the pun. That was the cause of the schism, not the call for reform.
Athanasius, like the reformers, was not just fighting one diocese, but the majority of the church was Arian, and after the Pope Honorius signed, maybe coerced, an Arian creed, then (according to Vatican I) the whole of the Church was against him. Athanasius Contra Mundum.
Should Athanasius have submitted to the Pope and, now, the whole of the church on this, a central tenet of the small o orthodox faith? With the reformers, there was a movement, with Athanasius, there was only him. Even after Athanasius, and after Nicea the point was not settled (which makes the reaction of the church to the early popes not quite the same as the church gave to later popes.) It took many many years of convincing through the scriptures to kill that heresy.
Note that prior to the reformation, those that held to reformational ideas were happily within the RCC, with hardy debate, but nothing worth a Foxes Book of Martyrs entry, oh, except for Hus and a few others (so much for separated brethren being an unchanging teaching of the Church.) The Reformation did not come out of whole cloth, thus those of the Protestant ilk can truthfully claim that what we believe was held by those within the church prior to Trent.
Note that during Trent, a plurality, not a majority, actually voted for the canonization of the deuterocanonical books, thus even within the scholars and doctors of the faith, had they stuck with their pre-Trent beliefs, they too would be outside the body of Catholic believers. But unlike Athanasius, they did not stick with their beliefs, and just submitted to something which they did not hold. Not that this is a HUGE issue with Protestants, it might have led to a firmer grip on the scriptures.
Just saying...
You wrote:
“Note that during Trent, a plurality, not a majority, actually voted for the canonization of the deuterocanonical books,...”
No. You are probably making reference to the so called 44% vote that Swan and later White have trotted out as if they know what they’re talking about. Since you are currently cutting and pasting an article from Swan posted at White’s site that’s a good guess on my part. In reality the vote was about attaching an anathema to the statement and not about the canon itself:
http://www.handsonapologetics.com/44percent.htm
Don’t feel bad. Your mistake is apparently made by professional anti-Catholics as well. Then again, the more claims - no matter how false - that they can pile up, the more money they make.
>> Does that mean that nobody has the right to stop the reform of the Church, if needed? <<
Absolutely not! The greatest of Catholic saints were all reformers: Ignatius of Loyola, Francis of Assissi, Catherine of Siena, and, yes, Athanasius.
The author uses a straw man. The Catholic Church is most certainly NOT majoritarian, nor did Athanasius practice the kind of radical anti-authoritarianism attributed to him. More importantly, the Protestant Reformers weren’t reformers, they were destroyers. True, they sought the destruction of the Catholic Church because they thought it was wrong, and they had something better they would replace it with.
For instance:
At the Council of Worms, the Catholic Church replied to Luther’s arguments within the parameters of Luther’s heresy of sola scriptura. They provided scriptural references supporting the facts that the souls of the saints who departed pray on the behalf of the living, that the living can participate in the atonement of other sinners, that those who die in grace but with the stain of sin suffer temporal punishment in the afterlife (purgatory), etc. Luther’s response was to declare that all of the cited books were diabolical forgeries, including the books of Hebrews, Revelation, and James. For this, he cited the authority of the 2nd-century Jews who had rejected Christ, and his own feelings that no loving God would ever inspire such writings. The author’s assertion that Athanasius was some sort of role model for such wickedness is bizarre and warped.