Reformation and Counter Reformation

Review of the Eastern Hemisphere

Review of the Western Hemisphere

When Martin Luther began passing out printed copies of his Ninety-Five Theses all over Europe, people began to think the Catholic Church was wrong.

Martin Luther was telling followers that every man could be his own priest, and they didn’t need the Catholic Church or the pope.

Martin Luther’s followers were called Reformers, because they wanted the church to change, or reform.

The Catholic Church was worried, because if every man was his own priest, then he would come to his own conclusions about God. It would splinter into hundreds of pieces, and then no one would know which “church” had the truth about God.

The Catholic Church was also worried about all the bibles being printed in different languages. How would anyone know if they were being translated correctly?

The church spoke strongly against the Reformation, and the pope condemned many Reformers as heretics, but it continued. One of Martin Luther’s followers, Philip Melanchthon, wrote down the teachings of the Reformers in a documents called the Augsburg Confession.

This confession, or statement of faith, gave Reformers a chance to think of themselves as one group. They became known as Protestants, because they protested against the practices of the Catholic Church.

Protestant teaching also spread for reasons that didn’t have to do with obeying God. Renaissance people didn’t like the idea of someone else’s teachings without question. In addition, countries didn’t like the idea that a pope who lived in Italy could tell English, German, and French Christians what to do.

When King Henry VIII became a Protestant by setting up his own English church, he wasn’t trying to obey God. The disagreement between Catholics and Protestants also had to do with politics. Sometimes these disagreements caused wars between countries, and in the same country, civil wars.

The Council of Trent

Twenty-eight years after Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the church door in Germany, the pope had a council, or a meeting, with all the bishops in the Italian city of Trent.

The bishops of the Catholic church wanted to write out a statement that would tell everyone exactly what the church taught about every important area of belief. The Council of Trent went on for 18 years.

They discussed forgiveness of sins, the Bible, penance, the authority of the pope, and hundreds of other issues. According to one story, two bishops were arguing, and one grabbed the other by the beard and shook him. The king of Spain threatened to throw a few bishops into the river to cool them off.

Finally, after 18 years, the Council of Trent wrote down a number of statements that became Catholic doctrine. They insisted that the teachings of the Church had been correct, but that priests and bishops had sometimes acted wrongly. My bad.

With great power comes great responsibility! In the Middle Ages, the church had built many schools, cathedrals, and bought a lot of land. It owned more land than any king or emperor. Some leaders became more interested in money and ruling an area of land than in spirituality. There were some people that even bought the Bishop position! This way of behavior is what brought on the schism of the Catholic Church. With great power comes great responsibility!

The Council of Trent agreed that now anyone who wanted to be a priest had to go to a special school, called seminary, to be taught and trained in all the Church’s doctrines.

The Council of Trent reformed the Catholic church so that it would be even stronger. We call it the Counter Reformation, because the Church changed some of its practices that Martin Luther and the other Reformers criticized. Reformation! Counter Reformation!

Unfortunately, the Counter Reformation didn’t bring peace between Catholics and Protestants. They still fought with each other, and Protestant kings and queens would often arrest and kill Catholics. Catholic kings and queens would do the same to Protestants.