What were the causes and results of the Reformation?

Answer 1

One of the long term causes of the Reformation Movement was corruption in the Church. The thing about papal indulgences was part of it. The Roman Catholic Church considered Mary to be like a deity since Pope Pius the 9th. When you see references to an "immaculate birth," it is not the birth of Christ in question, but the birth of Mary. She supposedly was so flawless that she had so much goodness left over. So when someone sins, they could supposedly borrow some of her righteousness. Now, do you see the possibility of a scam in this? All you would have to do in that environment is to sell "sin passes." So do what you want, and if the Church doesn't like it, you buy a sin pass from them. That is basically what papal indulgences were all about. This notion of purchasing righteousness made the Church seem like a joke.

Another part of the Reformation was when people got tired of not having a Bible in their own language. Supposedly, that was only the domain of learned scholars who were ordained into the clergy, and the common people had to take their word for it. The people wanted to read and study for themselves. The Church basically had some of the translators killed. Wycliffe was one of those. He translated a lot and was put to death for it. However, King James later ordered that The Bible be translated into English, and Wycliffe's previous work made up a large portion of the final work.

Answer 2

Another answer from our community:

The causes of the reformation (or the revolt from the Catholic Church) in every case can be traced back to sin. Both the sin of individual clergy, the sin of rulers, and the sin of individuals, all of whom wanted to do it their way instead of God's way. Henry VIII did not want to live his marriage vows thinking that he knew better than God what needed to be done. Martin Luther had extreme emotional problems from his early family life and never thought he was good enough for God, so he invented a religion where he didn't have to repent and change, he just needed to "accept Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior" and all his sins would be ignored. Other "reformers" came up with other reasons. They mutilated the Bible to agree with their views and wrote all kinds of documents pointing out the sins of Catholics thinking people would ignore their personal sins and blame everything on the Church.

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The results? Thousands of people, and their descendants lost access to the sacraments that Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, had established through His Church to give them grace so that they would be able to work out their salvation. This problem has only worsened over the centuries until in the early 21st century there are nearly 40,000 different denominations each claiming to know what Jesus REALLY taught.

Answer 3

Even before Martin Luther, there were those who doubted the teachings of the Catholic Church unless they were firmly based on the foundation of scripture, and there were those brave souls who were concerned about corruption and simony in the Church. Martin Luther, who is regarded as the founder of the Reformation movement, was the right person at the right time. The Reformation needed a well-educated and respected priest and theologian such as Luther, and access to the printing press to enable information about the Reformation to circulate widely.

Over the centuries, there was no greater prize than to become pope, since the vast income of the papacy was at the disposal of the incumbent pope for his luxury and pleasure. Pope Leo X had not only squandered the treasury he had inherited from his predecessor but had even managed to achieve a lifestyle that exceeded his income. As a result, he found himself unable to complete the construction of St Peter's basilica in Rome. One of the income sources available to the pope was the sale of bishoprics, and Albert, Archbishop of Mainz, had purchased the sees of Magdeburg and Halberstadt, borrowing at interest to pay for the purchase, with the intention of selling indulgences to help meet the repayments on that loan. Pope Leo X agreed that Albert would keep one-half the proceeds from the sale of indulgences in his sees, with the remainder going to the Vatican to pay for completion of St Peter's basilica. The purchases of the dioceses and the sale of indulgences were both instances of simony but attracted little attention, apart from Martin Luther, because the practices were so widespread in the Church at the time. At first, Luther did not seek to prevent the sale of indulgences, but did seek to reform their use. Soon he realised that only a total ban on the sale of indulgences would eliminate the corruption associated with them. He was on a collision course with the Church.

In England, King Henry VIII believed he needed a son to ensure the succession to the crown, as there was no strong precedent for female successors. He knew that the Church's rules on annulment were somewhat elastic and so petitioned Pope Clement VII for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. His grounds would be that her prior marriage with his brother had been consummated and therefore her marriage with Henry was technically incestuous. Clement desperately wanted to please Henry but vacillated for too long. When Pope Clement had unsuccessfully engaged the armies of Emperor Charles in battle, he was no longer a free agent and realised that as Catherine was the aunt of the emperor he could do no other than to refuse the annulment. Henry, in turn, broke ties with the pope and ordered the English bishops to annul his marriage. The Reformation had spread all the way to England.

For better or worse, the Reformation means that many Christians are now outside the Catholic Church. They believe they are on the path to salvation, but the Catholic Church has reservations about this. Meanwhile, the Reformation did more good than harm to the Catholic Church itself. Eventually, and under great pressure from the emperor himself, the Catholic Church began the counter-reformation, or Catholic Reformation, creating a better trained clergy, higher ethical standards and elimination of much of the corruption that had marked the Church in earlier years.

Answer 4

fish and chips

fish and chips

I would have to say...

fish and chips.