CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Reformation of the Catholic Church

The Reformation of the Catholic Church

Introduction

The Reformation was a religious and political movement in 16th century Europe, inspired by a wish to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulting in the establishment of Protestant churches in several countries. In England and Wales, dissatisfaction with the pre-Reformation church facilitated the break with Rome, itself the outcome of the refusal of Pope Clement VII to allow Henry VIII to divorce Catherine of Aragon. The king, desperate for a male heir and in love with Anne Boleyn, made a series of abortive representations to Clement, whose own hands were tied by his subjection to Catherine's nephew, the emperor Charles V. In 1529 Henry summoned parliament, and in a series of statutes, which were largely the work of ThomasCromwell, papal authority in England was destroyed.

Discussion

A heightened sense of spiritual anxiety and a profound fear about the coming of the Apocalypse in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries seem to have sparked the Reformation. Christians throughout Europe were concerned about clerical abuses, Episcopal inattentiveness, and papal failings. The conciliar movement attempted to address the problems of the church administration, but ultimately failed. Other Christians stressed the importance of piety and spiritual renewal. These movements for religious change, often referred to as the Catholic Reformation, sought to revive universal Christianity and to prepare believers for the approaching Apocalypse (Cameron, 125).

John Calvin

Like the other reformers, Calvin had considered only as sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. This is an effective sign. In it Christ through the Holy Spirit is present and effective. The sermon has a sacramental character, because it makes the believers of fellowship with God sharers faith comes from hearing. Calvin could not prevail with the proposal to celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday. Then it was celebrated in Geneva four times a year. The interior of the church was kept emphasizes simple, about people not of the essence - the reading of Scripture, preaching, prayer, singing together distract Calvin promoted the hymn, mainly psalms, which were brought into verse and verse and set to music so he gave in 1539 for the first time. Calvin's doctrine of predestination emphasizes that faith is God's undeserved gift (grace alone, grace alone). God's free grace of election is his secret. Certainty is the election of the man is not in itself, but only in relation to Jesus Christ. Despite his own warning against speculation about God's will, but Calvin succumbed to this temptation, by a logical counterpart to the election of a man taught the damnation of others double predestination .

The church is for Calvin, as the "mother" of believers because they meet in the church, the preaching of the Word of God and the sacraments. Calvin, it was important that the church independent of secular governments is. In his Church Ordinance of 1541, he led after the model of the early Christian communities, the Office of the elder's one. These elders were also members of the Council of ...