Martin Luther

The chruch was too rich:

The church owned about one third of all of the land in England. An ordinary peasant had to give 10% of their harvest ( a tithe) to the priest every year. Some felt that the bishops, priests and monks lived in luxury whilst the poor suffered.

The priest didn't lead a very holy life:

Soem priests had a few jobs and neglected their work. Villagers once told the Bishop of Hereford.

'The priest put his horses and sheep in the churchyard... he was away for 6 weeks and made no arrangement for a substitute. Sir John (the priest) spends his time in the taverns (pubs) and there his tongue is loosened to the scande of everyone. He is living with a woman Margaret and he cannot read nor write and so cannot look after the parishers' souls'

Ordinary people did not think soem priests were setting a very good example to the people living in the village or town.

Ordinary people couldn't understand church services:

The Bible was written in Latin and the church services were held in this language as well. People said they found it difficult to feel close to God if they couldn't understand what was being said in church.

Poor People couldn't afford indulgences:

When a person died, they went to heaven or hell. It was thought you passed through a place called purgatory on the way. In purgatory, people believed you were punished for any sins you may of commited whilst you were alive. It wasn't meant to be a nice place to stay very long. When you were alive, you could buy indulgences from a bishop. This meant that you travelled through purgatory quicker. Rich people could buy lots of indulgences. Poor people didn't think it was fair. They thought that they were being punished for being poor.

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from Radio Replies, by Fathers Rumble and Carty, 1942

221 The power of Romanism was shattered by Martin Luther, of immortal memory.

Martin Luther is undoubtedly an outstanding figure in history. But the immortal memory of Luther will become less and less pleasant as the facts concerning him become known. Those who idealize Luther can do so only by ignoring an immense amount of inconvenient information. He was a priest of the Catholic Church, but one who was not faithful to his obligations even as a Christian. On his own admissions he was a victim of both immorality and drunkenness; and he was the most intolerant of men. Far from granting liberty of conscience, he refused to allow anyone to think differently from himself, and coolly said, "Whoever teaches otherwise than I teach is a child of hell.

The beginning of the "Protestant movement" is more commonly known as The Reformation, or The Protestant Reformation.

It's not easy to say exactly when Protestantism began (or when the Reformation began), because several things contributed to it, and they didn't all happen at the same time. The most common dating begins in 1517 when an Augustinian monk called Martin Luther brought things to a head by publishing his Ninety-Five Theses (Wikipedia link).

He was protesting against (among other things) the Roman Catholic Church's selling of indulgences. Indulgences were a way of paying money to have sins forgiven, and in 1517 the then pope, Leo X, started selling indulgences to raise money to rebuild St Peter's Basilica (cathedral) in Rome.

Luther reacted against this blatant abuse with his 95 Theses, which he nailed to the church door, as an invitation to start a debate. The church had a big problem with this, because the as indulgences were authorised by the Pope, Luther was effectively challenging the Pope's authority, and saying that the Pope could not forgive sins, only God could. This did not go down well! When Luther repeatedly stuck to his position the church excommunicated him, and he was outlawed by the emperor. He would have been killed, but was abducted and protected by the Frederick 3rd, Elector of Saxony.

The Reformation took some years to get going, and happened at slightly different times in different countries and cities. For example, the English reformation took place between 1529 and 1536.

Protestantism's two most important doctrines or beliefs were (and still are):

1. "sola scriptura" - the Bible, and only the bible, is Christians' final authority in all things. (The Catholic Church believed in the ultimate authority of the Bible AND of the Church. That's why the protestants used the term "sola scriptura" - ONLY scripture, not the church's authority too).

2. "sola fide" - justification by faith alone - which means that we can be forgiven by God and considered righteous by Him not because we deserve it (we don't), but ONLY by faith in Jesus Christ's death on the cross, where he took the punishment we deserved. This belief contrasted with the Catholic belief that our good deeds are also necessary for us to be 'justified' (considered righteous) before God, implying that Jesus Christ's death for us on the cross was not enough.

For further reading, there are several articles on Wikipedia, e.g. see link below:

There are also more easily readable accounts on the internet and in print, e.g. an encyclopeadia should have one.

Of course, King Henry VIII and Martin Luther were instrumental in the formation of the Protestant churches. This would not necessarily change the parent, Catholic Church but it did, in a way they could not have anticipated.

Prior to the Reformation, the Catholic Church had a spiritual monopoly in western Europe and could demand absolute allegiance. The creation of new and sustainable Churches protected by powerful kings and princes changed all this. There was no longer a universal monopoly, and the Catholic Church had to adapt to the new reality, which it did at an astonishingly slow pace.

The Catholic Church still held a spiritual monopoly in countries where Catholicism was the major faith, and it continued to exercise that monopoly. As recently as 1864, Pius IX published the Syllabus of Errors, stating 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.

Finally, in 1965, the Church came to the realisation that it would no longer be possible to force all people to believe and practise the one faith, even where Catholicism was the majority faith. The Second Vatican Council pronounced the right of all to religious liberty, recognising their right to worship in whatever way they wished. Almost five hundred years after the time of Henry VIII and Luther, the change was complete.

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from the Catholic Encyclopedia

The term Counter-Reformation denotes the period of Catholic revival from the pontificate of Pope Pius IV in 1560 to the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648. The name, though long in use among Protestant historians, has only recently been introduced into Catholic handbooks. The consequence is that it already has a meaning and an application, for which a word with a different nuance should perhaps have been chosen. For in the first place the name suggests that the Catholic movement came after the Protestant; whereas in truth the reform originally began in the Catholic Church, and Luther was a Catholic Reformer before he became a Protestant. By becoming a Protestant Reformer, he did indeed hinder the progress of the Catholic reformation, but he did not stop it.

from A Catholic Dictionary, edited by Donald Attwater, Second edition, revised 1957

The Counter-Reformation is the name given to the Catholic movement of reform and activity which lasted for about one hundred years from the beginning of the Council of Trent (q.v., 1545), and was the belated answer to the threatening confusion and increasing attacks of the previous years. It was the work principally of the Popes St. Pius V and Gregory XIII and the Council itself in the sphere of authority, of SS. Philip Neri and Charles Borromeo in the reform of the clergy and of life, of St. Ignatius and the Jesuits in apostolic activity of St. Francis Xavier in foreign missions, and of St. Teresa in the purely contemplative life which lies behind them all. But these were not the only names nor was it a movement of a few only; the whole Church emerged from the 15th century purified and revivified. On the other hand, it was a reformation rather than a restoration; the unity of western Christendom was destroyed; the Church militant (those still on earth) led by the Company of Jesus adopted offence as the best means of defence and, though she gained as much as she lost in some sense, the Church did not recover the exercise of her former spiritual supremacy in actuality.

from Modern Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J. Doubleday & Co., Inc. Garden City, NY 1980A period of Catholic revival from 1522 to about 1648, better know as the Catholic Reform. It was an effort to stem the tide of Protestantism by genuine reform within the Catholic Church. There were political movements pressured by civil rules, and ecclesiastical movements carried out by churchmen in an attempt to restore genuine Catholic life by establishing new religious orders such as the Society of Jesus and restoring old orders to their original observances, such as the Carmelites under St. Teresa of Avila (1515-98). The main factors responsible for the Counter Reformation, however, were the papacy and the council of Trent (1545-63). Among church leaders St. Charles Borromeo (1538-84), Archbishop of Milan, enforced the reforms decreed by the council, and St. Francis de Sales of Geneva (1567-1622) spent his best energies in restoring genuine Catholic doctrine and piety. Among civil rulers sponsoring the needed reform were Philip II of Spain (1527-98) and Mary Tudor (1516-58), his wife, in England. Unfortunately this aspect of the reformation led to embitterment between England and Scotland, England and Spain, Poland and Sweden, and to almost two centuries of religious wars. As a result of the Counter Reformation, the Catholic Church became stronger in her institutional structure, more dedicated to the work of evangelization, and more influential in world affairs.

There were (and are) abuses of power by the Catholic church, such as the selling of indulgences and immorality on the part of the church hierarchy.

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from

Radio Replies, by Fathers Rumble and Carty, 1942

221 The power of Romanism was shattered by Martin Luther, of immortal memory.

Martin Luther is undoubtedly an outstanding figure in history. But the immortal memory of Luther will become less and less pleasant as the facts concerning him become known. Those who idealize Luther can do so only by ignoring an immense amount of inconvenient information. He was a priest of the Catholic Church, but one who was not faithful to his obligations even as a Christian. On his own admissions he was a victim of both immorality and drunkenness; and he was the most intolerant of men. Far from granting liberty of conscience, he refused to allow anyone to think differently from himself, and coolly said, "Whoever teaches otherwise than I teach is a child of hell."