The Reformation
By Blanca Cerrillo
We need change !
The catholic church began to become very corrupt. Priest were beginning to break their vows by marry, gamble, and drink. Since the bible was only in Latin and only members of the church knew Latin they would say things that weren't in the bible. For example on of the biggest reason the church had become very corrupt was because of indulgence. Indulgence is when priest would grant forgiveness for people sins or pardon people from hell if the family thought their family member was in hell. Indulgence was definitely not correct and one man couldn't bare to see it go on anymore.
95 theses
Martin Luther was the main reason the reformation started. He wouldn't stand to watch priest corrupt the church. He wanted change so he so kindly wrote all the things that were wrong with the church. Ninety five theses to be exact, ninety five theses which criticized all of the church's wrong doings. He didn't mean to start a riot but with the newly invented print press by Gutenberg the word spread. Soon all of Germany knew the Catholic church was not to be trusted anymore. Later on the print press also helped to spread the translated bible.
Short term Effects
The catholic church was of course very upset over Martin Luther's actions. Luther was excommunicated and the secular books were even burned. People began to question the catholic church and were no longer loyal to the church. Many of Luther's followers were very upset about what the pope had done. They rebelled and Luther began the Lutheran church. Those who remained loyal to the catholic church though and the Lutheran church began to have religious tension. Because of the lessened power in the catholic church .
Effects on Modern society
After Luther had the courage to start a new religion many others followed . Many converted to Lutheranism and many other churches were. Today there are hundreds of different protestant churches. When King Henry the VIII converted to Protestantism he converted all of England which is why today most of England is now Anglican. Since all of these new religions were created it took away power from the catholic church it caused religious tension between Catholics and protestants till today