Martin Luther's Response To Reformation

4. What were the responses of the Catholic authorities in the 16th century to the challenges posed by the Lutheran Reformation?

The demand to reform the Roman Catholic Church stretched on for ages. Many people, such as Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, and Jan Hus criticized the church for its worldliness and believed that one didn’t need direction from the Church, but just needed to read the Bible for guidance. It was from these men that Martin Luther came to the conclusion that faith alone would lead to salvation and you didn’t need to work for it. Martin Luther appealed to Pope Leo X to correct the abuses of the Church. When that didn’t work, he rallied the people to follow him. His beliefs spread through German states and most of Northern
The Church also established the Jesuits, who spread the Catholic teachings during the Lutheran Reformation. Finally, the Church employed many policing tactics against the Lutheran Reformation. These responses kept Catholicism a major religion in Europe.

Although the conciliar movement was ended by Pope Pius II around the 1450s, the people during the Lutheran Reformation were calling for a general council of the church. Charles the V, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Spain, tried to persuade the Pope to assemble a council because he hope that the church would fix some of the abuses, thus stop people from converting to Lutheranism. However, Francis I, King of France, actively promoted the Protestants in Germany, even though France is a Catholic country. He did this because
There was much hatred toward the Roman clergy, as shown by the sack of Rome in 1527, where German and Spanish soldiers looted Rome, killed thousands, captured the Pope. Moralist began to speak and there words were heard. New popes, starting with Pope Paul III, regarded his office as a religious force to reform the church. New religious orders were founded on the basis of the new Catholic faith. The Jesuits, the most famous of these orders; it was founded by a Spaniard named St. Ignatius Loyola. He had a religious experience in 1521, when he was a child before hearing of Luther, and wanted to become a soldier of the church. On this experience, he founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Authorized by Pope Paul III in 1540, the Jesuits were an order less attached to the clergy and more actively involved in the affairs of the world. They believe the Roman Church was a divine institution, and all members had to take a pledge to obey the Pope. The Jesuits were some of the most famous educators of the Catholic world, with around 500 schools in the upper and middle classes. They combined the faith and religious teachings of the Catholic Church with the etiquette teachings that a gentleman should have. The Jesuits also brought into their teachings the Renaissance humanism found in the Latin classics. The Jesuits were not only teachers of the