Virtually, all of Europe belonged to the Catholic Church until Martin Luther, a professor of theology, wrote 95 theses that resulted in heated debates. All of his theses had a unifying factor, in that they described corruption in the church at that time. After a short while, he started getting some little audience. Eventually, Luther’s critique of the existing church became a denomination in its own right. Thus, the Catholic Church was forced to respond. Protestantism is a word originally referring to the Lutherans who “protested” against the Roman Catholic.
Luther set the preset that others who had differing biblical opinions followed. For instance, Ulrich Zwingli, a training catholic priest, varied in his opinion about having a hierarchy of church and images used in church. However, he did not start questioning the authority of the Catholic Church until 1522 when Luther gave out his reforms. After the occurrence of the black death during the medieval ages, people were more receptive to things which rendered them godly disciplined in their lives. Hence, this became a catalyst for the religious reforms.
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There are reasons as to why the Catholic Church reacted as they did towards Luther. Basically, they had found his writings offensive to the church. For instance, in 1535, Martin Luther attacked the practice of celibacy. According to him, celibacy was equivalent to denying man food to eat, and water to drink, or keeping nature from happening since procreating is an urge that has been planted deep in us right from the beginning of time. In response to this kind of views made by Protestants like Luther, Canons who later arose from1963 outlined most importantly that if anyone says that the state of being married is better than the state of celibacy, let him be anathema. Their defense, basically, revolved around the fact that God did not allow anyone to be tempted beyond what they can handle. However, after the attack, nunneries and monasteries were emptied as it led to a married clergy.
Following Martin Luther’s 95-theses, alongside other critiques from other Protestants, the Catholic Church excommunicated him from the church after he refused to recant. This course of action, however, may have seemed harsh, instead, the series of commissions should have given Martin Luther a chance to work together with the church rather than excommunicating him. In spite of their action against Martin Luther, the Catholic Church recognized some of the critiques to be valid and thus, formed new organizations that would focus on developing the spirituality of its members in their effort to reform. This included creating catholic schools and colleges across the world to bring people together.
As a result of the reformation, a modern view of politics and of church laws was affected. Before the reformation, the church was the one that governed politics by controlling the emperors and the kings, which contributed to the corruption of the church. Hence, the Catholic Church redefined its position in the society. Martin Luther had succeeded in fractionalizing the Catholic Church and sparking the protestant revolution. It is because of his writings that there was a significant religious reformation and division.
In conclusion, the Catholic Church took most of the critiques positively and chose to reform in order to suit the society although the acceptance did not occur in an instant. Her response to Martin Luther was communicated effectively and the changes that came along with the reformations impacted on the Church as a whole. Moreover, some of the rituals that were changed or abolished by the Protestantism such as the sacraments challenged the social meaning of the rituals altogether.
