Reformation and Counter - Reformation

Religious Reformation:
At the beginning of 16th century the Catholic Church had several problems of corruption such as:
· The luxury life of the high hierarchy
· The ignorance of a part of the clergy who didn’t carry out their pastoral work correctly.
· Simony: important ecclesiastic charges were sold to people without aptitudes for being a priest who only search for economic benefits.
· Nepotism: The high hierarchy gave important charges to their relatives.
In that moment, The Pope was building a new St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican and he needed money. So, he published the Indulgences or documents that people could buy to get the pardon for their sins.
It was another big scandal and many people criticized these facts and proposed a change. One of them was Martin Luther who wrote 95 thesis against the indulgences.
Besides these, he expressed other important ideas:
F People are saved by faith
F There is a direct relation between God and Human being. People don’t need intermediaries
F Everybody can read and interpret the Bible in a free way. So, Bible has to be written in vernacular
F There are only two important sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist
F Lutherans don’t worship the virgin and saints
F Lutherans accept neither the pope nor the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
The pope excommunicated Luther from the Catholic Church, but Luther’s ideas spread quickly by Germany and the center and north of Europe. Followers of Luther were named Protestants.

The Counter – Reformation
Catholic Church had to make its own reformation.
In 1545, The Council of Trent met and adopted different resolutions:
· To stop Protestants and to spread the Catholicism,
o They created the catechism with the main ideas of the Catholic dogma.
o They open new schools for priests (seminars)
o They reformed old religious orders and created other new like The Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius of Loyola.
· To improve the conditions of the Church and its priests, they fixed rules for clergy.
The religious changes of 16th century brought important consequences in Europe:
a. It was a period of intolerance both in Catholic and Protestant countries
b. There were long and violent wars in much of Europe
c. There were lists of prohibited books and Inquisition persecuted those who didn’t practice the Catholic religion.