The Counter Reformation In The Roman Catholic Church

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The Counter-Reformation was a movement that took place in the Roman Catholic Church around the 16th century. The Counter-Reformation was a response to the Protestant Reformation to reestablish the power and popularity of the Roman Catholic church. After the Protestant Reformation, The Catholic Church was condemned due to the many complaints of corruption and scandals such as absenteeism and indulgences. The overall image of the catholic church was being tarnished due to priests and popes abusing their power. These problems encouraged the restoration of the Church and opposition to Protestantism resulting in many of these goals to be accomplished through the Counter-Reformation. In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation made Catholicism …show more content…

Some of these reforms consisted of eliminating abuse the rebirth of faith the restoration of the authority to Pope and the stop to the spread of Protestantism. One of the orders made through the counter reformation consisted of the Jesuit order who worked for the reformation and improvement of the Catholic Church. The religious order of the Jesuits had reformed the church through education and fought to fight Protestantism. Arthur states how well the Jesuits achieved in ridding the ideas of the Protestantism,“ The Jesuits rallied the scattered forces of the Church, disheartened by the rapid victories of the Reformers ; they disciplined them by precept and example ; they inspired them with a superhuman courage; they animated them to go forward in their victorious career until they wrested from the Reformers many of the territories which they had conquered, compelling the inhabitants, often by persecution and fire and sword, to cast in their lot with the obedient vassals of the Papacy.” The Jesuits were also considered highly intelligent with many of the school they created being prestigious schools which is described in Janz, “Jesuit educational efforts proved to be fabulously successful. Jesuits acquired professorships in established universities, and they themselves founded several new universities and

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