Gonzalez's Response To Corruption In The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church during the early 16th Century was rooted throughout Europe. The Church influenced every country and its respective monarchs through the Church’s wealth and power. The Catholic Church placed a tight hold on the general populace with individuals who went against the Church being branded as heretics and excommunicated. The wealth and power of the Church eventually caused the quality of the clergy to deteriorate. Priests became corrupt and subjected to their physical desires. They frequented taverns, gambled and kept mistresses. The reputation of the clergy were horrid as the general populace was relieved that “their priest [kept] a mistress” because it “[secured] their wives from seduction” The knowledge of the clergy degenerated as well as they were no longer required to learn and teach the Holy Scriptures because the Church dictated their actions. The pinnacle of the Church’s corruption was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was the “extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment” sold by priests as a temporary relief from sins. The indulgences were then sold to the general populace for money as the monetization of a priest’s services. Johannes Tetzel was a prominent preacher of indulgences who relied on the money from the sales to subsidize the rebuilding of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. The corrupt sales did not go unnoticed as Martin Luther, in an effort to stop the corruption of the Church, posted the 95 Theses on the door of a Castle

There were many causes of Reformation, some go as far back as the fourteenth century. One of the main ones was that the papal authority and credibility were damaged. This was done through, Avignon papacy, - a time where the headquarters of the Holy See had to be moved from Rome to Avignon, it brought uncertainty to the people,

The Catholic Reformation was the response of the Protestant movement in the sixteenth century. By the sixteenth century, many people lost the trust for the Catholic Church because it was corrupt. Popes and Cardinals became involved in politics and were more like kings than spiritual leaders and Nepotism was rampant. This loss of trust led people to moved on into other branches of Christianity which includes, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anabaptism. Catholic Church’s realized it needed to re-establish itself, thus beginning the Catholic Reformation. The Catholic Reformation was successful because it triggered the start of The Society of Jesus and The Council of Trent which helped resolve the church’s corruption through education,

The protestant reformation happened at the moment that it did because the Catholic Church was very a powerful force in Europe. It controlled people lives both spiritually and temporally. The church had so much power that it maintained political control over a large portion of Italy. The fact that the church held so much control over countries and governments became a point of contention among European countries such as the Holy Roman Empire, Italian city-states outside of Rome, England, France and Spain. The power of the rulers of these areas had greatly increased in the 14th century and they were eager to take the chances offered by a Reformation to weaken the grip of the Catholic Church in Europe and also to develop their own powers across the European continent. For quite some time the Catholic Church had been an institution rampant with internal struggles. Such as the Avignon Papacy from 1309 to 1377 when seven popes opted to live in Avignon, France and not reside in Rome which was and is the traditional home of the Papacy. The Pope and other high ranking church officials often lived opulent lifestyles rather than a more austere lifestyle that should befit a spiritual leader. Many church leaders and Popes maintained political powers. They led armies, waged wars and made many political decisions. Church offices were sold, and many Popes and bishops practiced nepotism to fill church offices. With all of these worldly issues for the Pope

With newfound challenges of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the increase in the Enlightenment’s rationalism and liberalism, an undermining of the Church began to set forth a new era and problems for the Church that they tried to come back from. Reorganizing at Trent set a new grim determination for the Church that catapulted their morale against ideas of modern culture. The last of these increasing troubles being the French Revolution, after which an immense religious revival manifested into the conversion of the elite in Europe, and extended their reach to every corner of the world, but mostly focusing on the moral problems taking place in the 19th century influenced by the Industrial Revolution. In the 20th century, the Church’s opposition to modernism came to an end when Pope John XXIII, with extreme boldness, turned its back on four centuries of extreme

However, the Catholic Church at the time the indulgence system was coming onto the scene, the Catholic Church was becoming a political force that needed a stream of revenue. Secondly, since the Catholic Church was the only institution that granted salvation in Western Europe, the Church acted as a monopoly which led to corruption in the central religious authority. The indulgences provided wealth to the Vatican which used it to enhance their prestige and clamped down on any pushback over the immorality of the system. The Protestant Reformation was a means of providing competition to the Catholic Church in terms of the providing of the spiritual goods demanded by the public. The indulgence system contributed as being the visible force that anger could be directed to speak against the Catholic

A long history of corruption caused people to view the Catholic Church as a for-profit organization rather than God’s voice on Earth. By the Renaissance, the Catholic Church had already lost much of its power over secular rulers but still held leverage over the masses. This authority naturally paved the way for corruption. The most outrageous form of corruption practiced by the Church was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence is the remission of temporal punishment still due for a sin that has been sacramentally absolved. One of the ways the Church would generate income was by selling them. The notion started off innocently enough; it stemmed from the idea that punishment for crimes could be converted to payments of money, in essence, a fine (Simon 35). However, it soon spiraled out of control as the Church used indulgences simply to gain money, as when Pope Leo X needed money for the construction of St. Peter’s basilica (Duiker and Spielvogel 429). People began to view salvation as something that could be bought; they could go out and sin on Saturday night, then simply pay for it monetarily Sunday morning. To encourage people to buy more indulgences, the Church even claimed that indulgences could be bought on behalf of those already dead and in purgatory (Sporre 378). This blatant victimization was what spurred Martin Luther to write his Ninety-Five Theses,

One of the issues of the Medieval church was that they were worried that their pastorate were not sufficiently concentrating on otherworldly matters and were concentrating a lot on material riches. This was created generally as a result of a development of riches inside of the religious communities and inside of the individual coffers of the church. With this came a rot of general ethical quality, displayed by the ascent of indecencies, for example, insatiability, lack of restraint, and savagery. The Church looked to defeat these indecencies essentially by expulsion and execution. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was not a surprise. Reformers inside of the medieval church, for example, St. Francis of Assisi, Valdes, Jan Hus, and

This essay gives a brief outline of the major developments in the role of the Papacy between the Early Church and the present day. It will cover four aspects. The development of the papacy as a temporal ruler, Papal elections, the Curia and the development of the ‘mission role’ of the Papacy. It will explore how the papacy changed from being an organisation that had the influence to appoint kings and arrange state borders to one with a billion followers. These followers see the papacy as being responsible for the administration, pastoral and spiritual care of their membership.

With the rise of the 20th century, the Roman Catholic Church faced the issue of Modernity. As a result of this, the stability of the Catholic Christian Tradition was threatened due to the church’s message of faith being not as relevant to the rapidly

The Church’s significant change known as the Counter-Reformation spanned 100 years and was a drastic challenge to the Church, which has highly shaped the modern day Catholic Religion. It is said to be one of the most defying moments in Church history that changed how thousands of Catholics viewed their religion. However, in order to understand how this event has both positively and negatively impacted the Church, it’s necessary to know why exactly the Counter-Reformation occurred.

The ancient ideal of a single church, with the pope as its visible head, was passing away and a new world was being born. Theologians were looking in new ways at all of God’s creation and there was a new understanding of being Christian. “The view of national unity liked with religious uniformity wsa at the root of the many wars of religion that shook both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Eventually …the conclusion was reached that religious agreement was not necessary for the security of the state”(Big 163) Ultimately, providing political liberty leading to a more healthy separation of the church and politics. Also see page 57 for more info

The once Rome centered papacy, was now centered in France, and the people did not like this. So in efforts to combat this problem, factions in Rome elected their own pope. So for the next thirty one years or so, there existed two popes, one in Avignon, and another in Rome. These Popes battled for control over the church. To make matters even worse, a third man was elected as pope. So from the years 1409-1415, three men struggled for power. Eventually, church resolved the situations, but at this point damages had already been done to its prestige. The people were now skeptical of the church, and they did not know who to believe anymore. They had mistrust in their religious leaders, for now, they saw that truth and goodness had been replaced by arrogance and corruption, to the people, the teachings of Christ had been abandoned, the church at this point was in desperate need of reform.

In the beginning of the tenth century the Church was in search of a spiritual revival. “Church reform began as a way to free the church from the world, but in the end the church was thoroughly involved in the new world it had helped create” (Hunt 321). The church attempted to free itself from secular entanglements. Since the beginning people believed that rulers were given the right to govern and control the churches from God himself. However, by the mid eleventh century the people preferred the church reform to be led by the papacy instead of secular power. This reform movement aimed to transform the structure of the church during the middle age and in turn influencing the history of religion and

During the 1500's, the Catholic Church established itself as not just the main religion of Europe, but a powerful, controlling, political organization. The Papacy or Pope held the highest authority, followed by Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, and Priest. Despite the power of the Catholic Church people were troubled by the depravity, corruption, and some teachings of Catholicism, which caused individuals to rebel.