Protestant Reformation

Do Now

In your opinion, how should a priest/minister/reverend live and behave?

Problems in the Catholic Church

Remember the acronym BICEBehavior

IndulgencesCorruption

Extravagance

Behavior

Popes and cardinals often engaged in behaviors they were supposed to abstain from

Pope Alexander VI (Borgia) fathered 7 children by 2 mistresses Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia

Engaged in gambling as well.

Indulgences

Buying a pardon of sins from “God”. Men would go around promising salvation

from eternal damnation for a monetary fee.

Corruption

Sale of indulgences went towards funding the Crusades and building projects. Pope Leo X offered indulgences for men who worked on rebuilding St. Peter’s. Under Sixtus IV, indulgences started to be sold for dead people furthering revenue.

Extravagance

People disliked that the church cared more about wealth and luxury than its own people.

Were afraid that the focus had turned away from God and towards worldly things.

Inside St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican, Italy.

Other Examples of Extravagance

The beginnings of the Reformation

Started in what is today Germany Made up of over 300 independent states which

made it difficult to prevent abuses and the spreading of new ideas.

Martin Luther was a monk in constant fear of damnation.

Felt that the Catholic Church did nothing to help overcoming sin which gave him no comfort.

This in addition to BICE led to Luther leading the Reformation.

95 Theses

Luther wrote the 95 Theses (statements) which outlined his problems w/the church. Posted them on a door of a church. Church leaders denounced him b/c he challenged the church. However news had spread fast about Luther and his ideas gained popularity.

But how did news spread?The Printing Press

Up until Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, all books had to be written by hand.

This made them expensive and time consuming to create.

Printing press made it much easier for materials to be printed and machines could produce 3,600 pages per workday.

Allowed books to be accessed by anyone and information and knowledge spread much faster.

Diet of Worms

Holy Roman Emporer Charles V called Luther to a meeting of the empire’s rulers. Diet (meeting) of Worms (a city in Germany). Charles commanded the Luther abandon his ideas and the printing of his ideas. However, because of 300+ states, he couldn’t really enforce it.

Frederick the Wise

Meanwhile, the Elector of Saxony (Frederick the Wise) whisked Luther away and gave him a safe place to stay.

While there, Luther translated the Bible in German (previously was in Latin). Now all literate Germans could read the Bible for themselves.

Twitter homework

Choose either Martin Luther, John Calvin, or Henry VIII and create ten 140 character tweets for that person. The tweets must be specific to the Reformation, their problems with the Catholic Church, or their views to fix it. Feel free to get creative and use hashtags. Please make sure they are appropriate.