Angela Merici Catholic Reformation Essay

With the rise of the reformation in the 16th century, Roman Catholics had a difficult time defending their religion but they did so through different means. The protestant reformation's rise was a cause of the Babylonian Captivity of the 14th century, the Great Schism from 1377 to 1417, and the Conciliar Movement to reform. As a result, Catholic women began to criticize heresy, institutional changes condemned protestant thought, and catholicism remained strong through influential Baroque arts.

Angela Merici was a catholic woman who was alive during the reformation and was highly against it. She founded the Ursuline Order of Nuns in the 1530's to empower women through education and religious training. In this institution, she trained young girls to be future wives and mothers to re-Christianize society. She also taught them to combat heresy through this Christian education. The Ursuline Order of Nuns would eventually spread to France and North America with it's spiritual ideas of the Catholic Reformation. Angela Merici defended her faith through the reformation by forming this new

order to educate women while criticizing heresy.
The Council of Trent was the 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic church that was an important aspect of the Counter-Reformation.

Initiated by Pope Paul III to condemn and refute protestant beliefs, it would eventually lay the principles of catholicism for four centuries. They were able to condemn the reformation by approving the Index of Forbidden Books, which would punish anyone who possessed a list of books that supported Protestantism or were critical of the church in Catholic Countries. They defended their religion through scriptures and other traditions. It would eventually acknowledge and curtail the abuses in sale of indulgences, sale of church offices, give bishops more power from clergy, and establish seminaries to train priests. The Council of Trent existed to condemn protestants in order to protect their faith, but in turn would have to decrease some of their

power.
Baroque art began in Catholic Reformation countries to emphasis the glory and power of the Catholic Church through dramatic and emotional methods. It was encouraged by the papacy and Jesuits since it overwhelmed the viewer with religion in a positive way. In particular, Baroque architecture often reflected the power of monarchs and the Catholic church, and this can be said for sculptures as well. "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa" by Gianlorenzo Bernini portrayed St, Tera, a well-known Catholic against the reformation, dramatically sculptured in an emotional, religious themed setting. People held onto their faith during the reformation with Baroque art, in which sculptures portrayed anti-protestant themes that heavily emphasized religion.
Although they had a hard time doing it with the distribution of Protestantism, some Catholics were able to successfully defend their faith. Roman Catholics defended their faith against the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century through different means, which included the empowerment of new orders such as the Ursuline order of nuns that criticized heresy, condemning protestant thought through the Council of Trent, and the spread and endorsement of their religion and it's glory through Baroque sculptures.