What was Roman Catholic Church's reaction to the successful spreading of Protestantism throughout Europe?

Answer 1

A:

The spread of Protestantism should have demonstrated the need for reform within the Roman Catholic Church, but at first the Church was in denial about the need to reform. At least for senior clergy, it had been a good life for centuries and seemed as if it would continue indefinitely.

Emperor Charles ordered Pope Clement VII to convene a council for the reformation of the Church, and to remain politically neutral. However, Clement did everything possible to avoid calling a council. Russel Chamberlin (The Bad Popes) says that any effective council, in examining the morality and structure of the existing system, could not have failed to take into account Clement's own career and pronounce him unfit for office.

Pope Paul III set up a special committee, to prepare a report which they presented to the Pope in February 1537. It was a strongly worded document which did not mince words in accounting for the sickness of the Church, and it made radical proposals to 'restore the Church of Christ, which was crumbling down, nay had almost fallen in headlong ruin'. This set alarm bells ringing down the corridors of the curia, and endeavours were made by interested parties to suppress its findings.

In previous centuries, the Catholic Church had responded to challenges by use of spiritual and temporal force, and once again sought to use force against the Protestants. The overriding ambition of Pope Pius V was the utter extinction of all forms of heresy, including Protestantism. He commanded the extermination of the Huguenots and may have been implicated in the St Bartholomew's Day massacre, although this is unproven.

The Catholic Church refused to recognise the legitimacy of the Protestant Churches. Until the time of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, it was the Church's view that only the Catholic Church had the right to freedom from persecution. For example, the Syllabus of Errors, issued by Pius IX in 1864, stated that where Catholics are in the minority, they have the right to public worship, but where others faiths are in the minority, they have no right to public worship because only the true faith has the right to public worship.

Answer 2

Since Henry VIII had broken with the Catholic Church, or excommunicated himself, the pope just made it official and officially excommunicated him.