In 1521 Martin Luther stood before the Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms. In that same year Ignatius Loyala entered convalescence from an injury and soon had a spiritual conversion of sorts. Loyola subsequently formed the Society of Jesus, the greatest single force in Catholicism's campaign to recapture the spiritual domains seized by Protestantism.

While the Catholic Church did not immediately respond to the Protestant challenge, when it finally did it called upon its spiritual warriors, the Jesuits. It convened a new, militant council; and it reformed the machinery of the papal office. Faced by the rebellion of almost half of Europe, Catholicism rolled back the tide of Protestantism until by the end of the sixteenth century Protestantism was limited roughly to the northern third of Europe, as it is today.

Some historians have interpreted the Catholic Reformation as a counterattack against Protestantism; others have described

The young Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, successor to Ferdinand and Isabella. Heir to the wealth of the New World. The nephew of Catherine of Aragon. In 1521 summoned Luther to the Diet of Worms to give an account of his writings, and declared Luther an outlaw. Condemned Luther to death. After 1530 he tried to quench the growing heresy, but the Lutheran princes banded together against him and out of this conflict grew the Peace of Augsburg.

[tags]BlogRodent, Catherine-of-Aragon, Charles-V, church-history, ChurchRodent, Diet-of-Worms, history, Peace-of-Augsburg[/tags]

While other influences contributed to the break with Rome, succession to the throne was the primary constitutional factor in the transformation of the Church in England into the church of England.

For centuries the Church in England had been moving toward independence from Rome. by Luther's time, most patriotic Englishmen had a sense of the distinctive character of the faith in their fatherland.

The schism in the church came over a royal problem — not over theological conflicts. Henry VIII, King of England, revolted against the pope because he passionately desired Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting of the court. Henry and Catherine of Aragon had borne no male children and Pope Clement VII would not issue them an annulment for fear of offending Catherine's nephew, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain Charles V. When Henry secretly married Anne, he had an English church court declare his marriage to Catherine

After his election to the papacy (1523-34), Clement moved the Papacy to Rome to begin the 72 year Babylonian Captivity of the papacy, it was moved to Avignon, France. When Clement VII was selected, he ruled from Avignon while Pope Urban VI ruled from Rome. This began the Great Schism of the Papacy. Clement refused to annul King Henry's marriage to Catherine because she was the Aunt of Charles V, Roman Emperor and King of Spain. Clement eventually excommunicated Henry. His alliance with Francis I, King of France, spurred the Ire of King Charles V, who marched against Rome and sacked it. Clement barely escaped with his life.

[tags]BlogRodent, Charles-V, church-history, ChurchRodent, Francis-I, Great-Schism, history, Pope-Clement-VII, Pope-Urban-VI[/tags]

A champion for the oppressed Indians, his father had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the West Indies. At first Bartholomew was as much a part of Christian imperialism as the next Spaniard, But in his mid thirties he had a spiritual conversion and was ordained to the priesthood, the first in the New World. In a sermon before the governor and leading settlers he denounced the cruelties he saw about him. He met widespread resistance, but persisted in his views. He made fourteen trips across the Atlantic to urge Spanish leaders to consider another way to win the Indians to the faith. Thanks in part to his appeals, Charles V, in 1542, issued a series of new laws, The Laws of the Indies, which softened the severity of the ecomeinda system and established the principle that Indians had human rights too.

[tags]Bartholomew-de-la-Casa, BlogRodent, Charles-V, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

After Martin Luther burned Pope Leo X's papal bull condemning him as a heretic he was excommunicated in January of 1521. Subsequently, Emperor Charles V, who was under oath to defend the church and remove heresy from the empire, summoned Luther to the imperial Diet (assembly) meeting at Worms to give an account of his writings. Before the assembly Luther once again insisted that only Biblical authority would sway him. Charles V declared Luther an outlaw and gave him 21 days safe passage to Saxon before the sentence fell. Fortunately Luther was saved from arrest and death by the prince of Saxony, Duke Frederick the Wise.

[tags]BlogRodent, Charles-V, church-history, ChurchRodent, Diet-of-Worms, Frederick-the-Wise, history, Martin-Luther[/tags]

King of France during Emperor Charles V's reign. Between him, Charles, and the popes lasted a battle for over two decades to call a General Council.

[tags]BlogRodent, Charles-V, church-history, ChurchRodent, Francis-I, history[/tags]

When the young emperor Charles V declared Luther an outlaw after the diet of Worms, Luther had 21 days for safe passage to Saxon before the sentence fell. Luther was saved from arrest and death by the prince of Saxony, Duke Frederick the Wise, whose domains included Wittenberg. The Duke gave Luther sanctuary at his lonely Wartburg Castle.

[tags]ogRodent, Charles-V, ChurchRodent, history[/tags, Frederick-the-Wise, church-history[/tags]]

King of England from 1509-1547. Under King Henry, England rejected the authority of Rome. King Henry had no son born of his queen, Catherine of Aragon, who had delivered five children (the only survivor beyond infancy was the princess Mary). England was in no mood to accept a girl as heir to the throne because of the nation's only previous queen who had occasioned bloody wars of succession. As Catherine grew older, Henry grew more troubled. In 1525 the queen was forty and Henry pondered more and more the ways of God: "Am I under some curse of God?" (Catherine had been Henry's deceased brother Arthur's wife for several months.) In his mind was Le 10:21, "If a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing, they shall be childless." The Church of Rome recognized the curse, but had granted the marriage for reasons of its own

After 1530, when Emperor Charles V attempted to quench the growing Lutheran heresy, the Lutheran princes banded together in 1532 in the Schmalking League, and between 1546 and 1555 a sporadic war was waged, eventually culminating in the compromise in 1555, the Peace of Augsburg, which allowed each prince to decide the religion of his subjects, forbade all sects of Protestantism other than Lutheranism, and ordered all Catholic bishops to give up their property if they turned Lutheran.

[tags]BlogRodent, Charles-V, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Lutheranism, Peace-of-Augsburg, Protestantism[/tags]

After 1530, the emperor, Charles V, made clear his intention to crush the growing heresy initiated by Martin Luther. In defense, the Lutheran princes banded together in 1531 in the Schmalkald League, and between 1546 and 1555 a sporadic civil war raged. The combatants reached a compromise in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), which allowed each prince to decide the religion of his subjects, forbade all sects of Protestantism other than Lutheranism, and ordered all Catholic bishops to give up their property if they turned Lutheran.

[tags]BlogRodent, Charles-V, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Lutheranism, Martin-Luther, Peace-of-Augsburg, Protestantism, Schmalkald-League[/tags]