Transcript The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation
Events that contributed to the
decline of Catholicism’s prestige
• Crusades:
– Lost 6 of every 7 battles; not successful
– Sacked Constantinople: consequences, split between
Catholic and Orthodox churches
• Black Death
– 33-40% mortality in Europe
– Good churchmen had highest mortality because last rites,
caring for sick
• Babylonian Captivity/Great Schism
– Avignon 1305-1377
– Multiple popes (Italian and French)
– Conciliar Movement
Church practices that lead to
dissatisfaction among people:
• Inquisition
– Originally to weed out people who preach or believe
false doctrine, but became anyone who questions
church authority
• Relics Chaucer’s pardoner: bones and scraps
•
for GAIN
Indulgences
– Originally only remission of temporal penalty given
by priests to “pay” for your sin ( prayers, alms,
retreats, pilgrimages, etc) as reward for going on
Crusades
– Expanded to get the soul out of purgatory, future sins
– Again, became a source of INCOME
• Benefices
– Particular church office with income from lands and church tithes
that go with the office
– Simony selling church offices, often to the highest bidder;
• Higher offices to aristocracy, not by ability or “calling” from God
• Used for material, not spiritual gain by those who took the offices
– Nepotism
• rewarded relatives with the most lucrative church positions
– Pluralism
• One person held several benefices
• Got very rich, with little, if any, real service or spirituality
– Absenteeism
• Benefices given or sold to people who had no connection to the
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local parish
Wealth and intrigue drew many of clergy to Rome
– Illiteracy/ignorance of clergy
• Many of local clergy actually doing the work of the parishes could
•
not read or write
Many of local clergy just there as relatives of lord who controlled
benefice; true concerns were hunting, carousing, business
– All around corruption
Worldliness of the clergy: popes as
secular monarchs
• Machiavelli: “We Italians are irreligious
and corrupt above others because the
church and her representatives set us the
worst example
Popes noted for their corruption
• Innocent VIII (1484-92) Medici
– Papal court became a model of luxury and scandal
• Alexander VI Borgia
– Bought votes to gain election in the first place
– Diplomacy and war to get Romagna for son, Cesare
(Machiavelli’s model for The Prince)
• Julius II (1503-13)
– Acknowledgement of mistresses and illegitimate children
– Warrior pope who personally lead troops vs France in N.
Italy
– Hired Michaelangelo to make 40 statues for his tomb; then
to paint Sistine Chapel ceiling
Renaissance Thought: forerunner
and foundation
• Secularism
– Growth of town and trade made life not as miserable any more
– Disillusionment with the church; felt they could not rely on religion for
consolation
• Individualism
– Instead of church authority, middle classes seeing themselves as able to
judge on matters of life, religion
• Humanism
– Worth of the individual as God’s #1 creation, gifted with reason to apply
to living
– Northern humanists still religious, but return to simple, original
Christianity and original teachings of Bible
– Printing press: more books available; people not dependant on church
for interpretation of scriptures
Look who is parallel to whom in
teachings, concerns and beliefs:
Humanists
Reformationists
• Rabelais (French)
– Condemned church
corruption
– Pointed out priests
were no longer models
of virtue, disregarded
vows of chastity and
poverty
– Condemned simony
• Luther
– Condemned church
corruption
– Believed priests should
practice what they
preached
– Against simony and
commercialism of
indulgences
• Sir Thomas More (Br)
– Utopia showed the
communal ideal with no
class distinctions
– All live and work together
as equals
– Stood up for his beliefs
against Henry VIII and
killed for that
• John Calvin (Fr)
– Since God has already
decided who is saved
(predestination), all equal
in honor and status
– Should live the communal
ideal with no class
distinctions
– Religious should be
superior to secular
authorities. Escaped
persecution rather than to
bow to civil authority
– Geneva theocracy: actually
practiced ideals
– Hard work, no leisure time
= success; earthly success
= God’s pleasure, heavenly
status (beginning of
capitalistic ethics)
• Erasmus
– True religion is inward
conviction, sincerity
and pious devotion;
not outward symbols,
ceremonies and rituals
– Moral reforms, not
ritual
• Luther
– Bible describes true
Gospel way of life
– Didn’t believe in
church ceremonies
and pomp
– Clergy not important;
everyone needs to
speak to God directly,
not through clergy or
saints.
Rise of New Monarchies
• Power and authority are more and more
centralized in the monarchy of each
nation, not in the inter-national Church
• Conflict between secular governmental
authority and church authority, especially
embodied in papal power
Social Classes’ Views: Why the
Reformation Succeeded
• Lower
– Upset with church wealth, luxury-loving clergy
– Tithes, etc even in time of famine, drought, plague
– Saw church as part of oppressive class
• Middle
– Wanted to manage own affairs; individual worldly success,
not communal, concerned with church and heaven
– church too tied to feudal obligations and aristocracy; in way
of ambitions of merchants and artisans to rise to top
• Kings/Aristocrats
– Dispute over taxation of clergy, taxation of church lands
– Resented parallel government and judiciary of church
Longing for meaning = growth of
mysticism
• Gerard Groote: very early Dutch religious
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•
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reformer (1300’s), once a secular teacher,
who founded the Brethren of the Common
Life, an order where members worked for
their living, then spent the rest of their lives
contemplating the mysteries of God, living
austerely, serving others.
Meister Eckhart: German neoplatonist mystic
of the 15th C who died before they could burn
him
Thomas a Kempis: Dominican who followed
the Brothers of the Common Life, wrote
Imitation of Christ– live an austere, holy life
of contemplation, mysticism
All these emphasized the duty of the
individual in spiritual manners; people had
no reason for communal worship directed by
priests and sects
No need of intercessor between individual
and God
Precursors of the Reformation
• John Wycliff (1320-84) English; 200 years before Luther
– attacked church abuses; his followers preached his
reforms, followed them: called Lollards
– translator of Bible into English; later combined with
printing press, formidable power of individual vs church
– Tried, but not condemned in lifetime, but 44 years later
exhumed, body hung, then burned and ashes scattered
John Huss (1369-1415)
– Czech reformer who questioned why so much church money
was sent to Rome instead of local parish where people
needed it.
– Criticized appointments of bishops according to who is
richer
– Huss denounced the custom in the Eucharist of giving the
bread to all Christians, but restricting the chalice (wine) to
the priest alone as contrary to Holy Scripture.
– held that Church officials should
seek spiritual, not be earthly
governors.
– Questioned why the pope
needed an army
– guaranteed safety if answered
charges against him the Council
of Constance, but once there,
condemned by pope, burned
Differences in Doctrine
Catholic
• Salvation
– Faith + good works
– Sacraments necessary along
with fasts, giving of alms,
pilgrimages, etc
• Indulgences
– Needed to negate sins so do
not have to spend time in
Purgatory
Protestant
• Salvation
– Faith alone
– Given salvation by God’s grace
– Never good enough to earn
salvation by own works
• Indulgences
– Unnecessary
– Do no good
– Invalid anyway
• Sacraments
– 7: baptism, penance,
eucharist,
confirmation,
marriage, holy orders,
extreme unction
– Absolutely necessary
for salvation
– Administered by the
church, priests
• Eucharist
– Transubstantiation
Wine only to priests;
wafer after confession
and absolution
Actually turn to blood
and body of Christ
• Sacraments
– Luther: only two are
Biblical, baptism and
eucharist
– Though administered
through church,
questionable whether
absolutely necessary
for salvation; only
operable through
participants’ faith
• Eucharist
– Luther:
consubstantiation,
Christ is mysteriously
involved, but not literal
– Calvin: only symbolic
• Celibacy/Marriage
• Celibacy/Marriage
• Church/State
• Church/State
• Church/Individual
• Church/Individual
– Celibacy is the higher law
– Priests forbidden to marry
– Church higher authority than
state
– Fasts/Pilgrimages/Sai
nts/Ceremonies
• Clergy hear confession, grant
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absolution for sins
Bible: only trained clergy
should read, can interpret
Mary and Saints intercessors
between man and God
(man unworthy to approach
God directly)
Fasts, pilgrimages, etc
important to earn heaven.
Ceremonies involve cathedrals,
in Latin, with candles, other
symbols
– Marriage ok
– Clergy allowed to marry (Luther
married Katy, ex nun; had kids)
– State more authority than church
over temporal
– Calvin: church IS state (theocracy)
– Fasts/Pilgrimages/Saints/C
eremonies
• No need for clergy between
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•
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man and God. “Priesthood of
all believers”
Clergy = servants, helpers,
guides, comforters
Bible: only authority for
doctrine, but each believer
reads and interprets for self;
trained clergy can HELP
Salvation between God and
individual; no one can tell you
what you need to do to be
forgiven for sins. No need for
cathedrals, Latin ceremonies,
symbols
Counter-reformation:
•
Reform process of the Catholic church to answer objections
and criticisms of the Protestant Reformation
Council of Trent, called by Pope Paul III:
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Catholicism’s major move to answer Luther and other Reformation
figures’ major criticisms
A council of cardinals charged with considering the following
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Doctrinal Reform: the council reaffirmed (refused to change) all criticized
doctrines, including transubstantiation, 7 sacraments, indulgences, role of
saints and ceremonies
Ecclesiastical (organizational) Reform: in this area came the most
meaningful reforms:
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Emphasized making sure parish priests were literate, knowledgeable, and able
to perform their duties: handbooks were written to insure uniformity and
competency
Forbade practices of corruption: absenteeism, simony, etc
Political Reform—criticized appointing bishops and others for political
reasons
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Higher officials should be more involved in local worship
Paul IV reemphasized the Inquisition and list of Interdicted Books to try to keep
the people orthodox, away from Protestantism
The Council of Trent:
Religious Orders
• New religious orders strengthened rural
•
parishes, improved popular spirituality,
helped to curb corruption, and set
examples for cleansing of corruption.
Capuchins—offshoot of Franciscans
– Order based on imitating the life of Christ
– Austere lifestyles, noted for preaching and
caring for the poor, sick, etc
• Jesuits—”Society of Jesus” founded by
Ignatius of Loyola (Sp)
– Military organization, strict discipline
following Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises
– Noted for missionary work, strict education
• Others
– Theatines: reformed and rejuvenated parish
priests
– Ursulines: devoted to educating girls, doing
traditional works of mercy
• Spiritual Movements:
– Reformation by reforming each
individual
– Emphasis on personal spiritual
experience that goes beyond
every day reality to the
spiritual reality
– St. John of the Cross and Sta.
Teresa of Avila, both Spanish