Protestant Reformation Research Paper

The Protestant reformation was a religious movement during the early 16th century. It was a reaction to the vices of the Catholic church. Vices such as, priests getting wives, drinking, gambling, and most importantly, the selling of indulgences. This meant that the Catholic church could sell the common man an indulgence of sin, also known as a get into heaven free* card. *(not free). The friar Johann Tetzel came to Wittenberg and began selling indulgences to the populace. The monk Martin Luther was fed up with the luxury of the Catholic Church and wrote the 95 theses. He took these complaints and nailed them to the church door. The recent invention of the printing press helped the spreading of his theses. Many German princes joined up with …show more content…
However, Martin Luther taught that a normal Christian can speak to Christ, no Pope needed. Catholics were taught that heaven came after a life of good deeds and by faith. Luther taught that one can get to heaven on faith alone. The Catholic church has little or no denominations other than the famous Roman Catholic. Meanwhile, Protestantism has hundreds of different types of denominations all with their own views and customs. Protestantism gets its name from the Diet of Speyer, in which the empire denounced all new reformation. Six princes and 14 leaders of cities signed a protest of this imperial proclamation, thus being called Protestant. The Catholic Church also used this as an opportunity of self-reflection and started the Counter-Reformation movement in the late 1500’s. It helped restart the Church’s long reign of being the largest denomination of Christianity. The English king, King Henry the VIII wanted to divorce his wife for the use of getting a new one. He wanted to have a son and his current wife was past childbearing age. He asked the Pope and the Pope said no, and that he was bad. So Henry heard of Lutheranism and decided to go with Protestantism. Well kind of, he adopted some Catholic policies, and some Protestant policies. He helped start the Anglican Church of England, the Church in which the monarch of England is the leader. Queen Mary reverted the country back to Catholicism and after her Elizabeth changed it back to

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