La reforma protestante (version en ingles)

Sandra Rodac

The Protestant Reformation

November 17,2008

Table of contents
Introduction 3
Background of Protestant Reformation 3
Accomplishments of Protestant Reformation 5
The Counter Reformation 6
References 7

Introduction
The Protestant Reformation was a religious movement in the 16th century within Western Christianity led by many Catholicswho were dissatisfied with the abuses and malpractices of the church such as the sale of indulgences. This Reformation led to a separation between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants.
The purpose of my investigation is:
* Understand the factors that led to the Protestant Reformation.
Background
During the Middle Ages, territories in central Europe including the kingdom ofGermany, Italy and Burgundy (now territories of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, France, and Italy among others) were called the Holy Roman Empire.
The first Holy Roman Emperor was Otto in 962; in this time, popes and emperors were constantly fighting for the supremacy of the empire and usually the victory was for the popes, but German nationalism sentiment grew, and this antagonism betweenpopes and emperors augmented.
In the 14th century, John Wycliffe attacked the papacy for the sale of indulgences and the excessive veneration of saints. Indulgences were remissions of sins granted by the church after sinners had done good works and prayers; they had a special spiritual meaning based on the true repentance of the sinner. It was also a way to avoid staying in the purgatory, which inthe Catholic religion is a stage between Heaven and Hell where people purged their sins. The selling of indulgences began with Johann Tetzel, a Dominican priest, with the purpose of raising money to renovate St. Peter`s Basilica in Rome.
Wycliffe made his attack by translating the Bible to English that up to that time had always been in Latin which gave him more followers such as Jon Huss inBohemia. Huss began spreading Wycliffe ideas and he proposed to reform the church in Bohemia as well. He was accused of being a heretic and was executed. Heretics were persons who expressed beliefs in opposition to what the authority, in this case the church, had established. This execution of Huss led to the Hussite wars that were suppressed by the Holy Roman Empire.
The papacy became thenvulnerable to attacks because of the greed (they already had a lot of money and power but they wanted more), immorality of their acts such as the sale of religious positions, and above all the suppression of people such as Wycliffe who were realizing about these facts and were trying to change them. Laypersons raised their level of education and critical thinking by studying ancient literature which madethem question the way popes were interpreting the Bible for their convenience for example by selling indulgences, dispensations that were exemptions from rules, and objects that were supposed to have healing powers called relics.
With the invention of the printing press by Guttenberg, spreading new ideas with different documents and books was easier. Examples of these ideas are documentswritten by different humanists such as Lorenzo Valla in Italy and John Colet in England who made new interpretations of the Scriptures and criticized church practices.
The Protestant Reformation started with Martin Luther. Luther was a German monk in the Augustinian friary, always praying, fasting and trying to please God. Not being successful in finding inner peace and spiritual relief, he became atheology professor at the University of Wittenberg. He finally found spiritual relief when reading St Paul`s Epistle, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38). He believed that having true faith in God was enough to find salvation and that people shouldn’t rely upon works such as veneration of saints or pilgrimages.
Luther published his 95 Theses on the...