Brock, Martinez 1

Margaret Brock and Yohanna Martinez

Mrs. Bennett
Humanities 2-6
31 January 2016
The Effects of the Protestant Reformation on the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church has been, and still is, a dominant power in world history.
Yet, there can be no doubt that with this power, corruption within the Church manifested
to the point where people diverged in order to establish their own purer form of
Christianity. This revolution was not surprising seeing as many people had begun to
notice the abuse of the Church, and started to publicly oppose the exploitation done by
Church officials. One such individual sparked the revolt by pinning accusations on a door
of a church claiming that a reformation was needed to return to a pristine practice. Out of
this conflict grew a denomination of protestant churches where, unlike the Catholic
Church, salvation was through the grace of God, not works. Thus, the Catholic Church
was left with a corrupt state and a divided community. Now, there is no denying that the
Protestant Revolution left the Catholic Church in disarray, but one cannot solely focus on
the loss of unity as the effect of the Reformation. The same reformation that brought
chaos into the Catholic Church stimulated a counter-reformation that corrected abuses
and reaffirmed the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church
benefitted as a whole because of the Protestant Reformation, whose positive effect
inspired a more relevant, purer form of Catholicism.
The reformation of the Catholic Churchs frauds happened because of the
Protestant Reformation. Because of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church

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launched what is called the Counter-Reformation. This retaliation was highly beneficial
to the Catholic Church, for it established order within the Church and mended the trust
between church authorities and its followers. The Catholic Church retaining the loyalty
of the Christian people, after its flaws had been exposed, was crucial for remaining an
influential power, and with the push given by the Protestants departure, the Council of
Trent was founded. This council, in an effort to prevent the spread of Protestantism and to
eliminate the corruption within the Church, emphasized the education of priests through
seminaries and prescribed regular visitations of churches by bishops to ensure that
preachers were teaching the Catholic doctrines correctly and werent misusing their
influence (Bireley 237). Without these supervisions of church authorities, the corruption
within Catholicism wouldn't have been lessened and its people would have been opposed
to following church leaders and their decrees. Instead, because of the reforms initiated by
the Protestant reformation, people found a restoration of faith. The Council of Trent was
not the only good thing to come out of the Protestant Reformation; the development of
the Catechism of the Council of Trent was also created as a result of the CounterReformation. This Catechism, in a series of questions and answers, provided an official
teaching of catholic beliefs for the benefit of priests (Bireley 238). Catechisms thus
benefitted the whole Church, as priests now had instructions that hindered an abuse of
power. Before the Protestants, the Catholic Church had sold indulgences, claimed the
Pope infallible, and sold church offices. Hence, the Protestant Reformation was in fact
constructive for it inspired the Catholic Church to initiate reforms that better
accommodated its members and that helped fix the corruption among the Church
authorities.

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Catholicism's renewed doctrines and faith were directly related to the splitting off
of Protestantism. With Protestant churches gaining support, the Catholic Church realized
they had to do something to keep up. That something was a renewal of faith. In an effort
to keep their current followers, and regain the support of some converted Protestants, the
Catholic Church fought the Protestant movements radical ideas with reformations of
their own (Questier 33). These reformations improved the Catholic Church greatly, but
they would never have happened if the Protestants werent there to spark them. These
renewed doctrines focused on many specific things in the Catholic Church, including
clarification on controversial issues, rejection of protestant doctrines, and alignment of
doctrines with new Renaissance humanism (Bireley 62). This gave the old religion a new
feel, and had a positive impact on this religion as a whole. The whole reformation and
renewal of the Catholic religion was beneficial to the region as a whole. With less
corruption and more clarity, people were able to worship God with a new faith. This
purification was all founded because of the establishment of Protestantism; without that,
who knows what couldve become of the old Catholic Church.
Although the Protestant Reformation caused chaos and disarray in Europe by creating
two differing belief systems, which caused war and conflict, thus breaking the unification
that the Catholic Church had throughout Europe, the reformation and renewal of faith that
the Catholic Church gained from the Protestant Reformation more than makes up for
their loss. This new Catholic faith, sparked by the Protestants, led the Catholic Church
back onto the right path, away from corruption, and towards God. Without the
Protestants, the Catholic Church might still be as corrupt as it was before the reformation.
Overall, the good that came as a result of the Protestant Reformation outweigh the bad

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that it caused. We see the Protestant Reformation not as a setback and loss for the
Catholic Church, but as an inspiration for improvement and change.