The Catholic Church came across of a lot of challenges throughout the reformation. For example, Martin Luther’s challenge which really set the church off in a bad direction and made them look horrible to a lot of church goers. Although they came across these challenges, the church fought back by rebirthing the catholic church and sending out the Jesuits.
Martin Luther was German theologian and religious reformer who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Reformation. Luther’s ideas had a huge impact on the protestant faith. “Luther’s message appealed to different types of people for different reasons” (Textbook). Many people thought that the new religion of Protestantism would free them from their lords. …show more content…
This resulted in rebirth. This was called the “Catholic Reformation,” or in other words “Counter Reformation.” This was inspired by the urgent need to fight back against the protestants and to help strengthen the power of the roman church; hence counter-reformation. The Three main forces of fighting for the church against Protestantism were: The popes,the legislation of the council of Trent and the Jesuits. The order of the Jesuits originated as a small group of disciples who gathered around Ignatius Loyola. Saint Ignatius of Loyola was a Spanish priest and theologian, who founded the religious order called the Society of Jesus and became its first Superior General. They vowed to serve God and were constituted as clerical order by Pope Paul iii in 1540. When Loyola passed away, they found schools throughout Europe. Jesuit teachers were trained in both classical studies and theology. Second, they sent out missionaries across the world to evangelize those peoples who had not yet heard the Gospel, finding missions in different regions. Lastly, they aimed to stop Protestantism from spreading. The enthusiasm of the Jesuits overcame the movement toward Protestantism in Poland-Lithuania and southern