A report on Catholic Church and Counter-Reformation

The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church.

Leaders within the Roman Catholic Church responded with the Counter-Reformation, initiated by the Confutatio Augustana in 1530, the Council of Trent in 1545, the formation of the Jesuits in 1540, the Defensio Tridentinæ fidei in 1578, and also a series of wars and expulsions of Protestants that continued until the 19th century.

The Council of Trent (Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento, in northern Italy), was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church.

Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation.

Protestantism is a form of Christianity that follows the tenets of the Protestant Reformation: a major movement within Western Christianity that began in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to be errors, abuses, innovations, discrepancies, and theological novums within the medieval Catholic Church.

Some of Hus' followers founded the Unitas Fratrum—"Unity of the Brethren"—which was renewed under the leadership of Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf in Herrnhut, Saxony, in 1722 after its almost total destruction in the Thirty Years' War and the Counter-Reformation.

The pope (papa, from πάππας, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff (pontifex maximus or summus pontifex), Roman pontiff (Romanus pontifex) or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome ), head of the worldwide Catholic Church, and also serves as head of state or sovereign of the Vatican City State since the eighth century.

Popes instituted a Catholic Reformation (1560–1648), which addressed the challenges of the Protestant Reformation and instituted internal reforms.

In the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence (indulgentia, from indulgeo, 'permit') is "a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins".

Eventually the Catholic Counter-Reformation curbed the excesses, but indulgences continue to play a role in modern Catholic religious life.

Rome is generally considered to be the "cradle of Western civilization and Christian culture", and the centre of the Catholic Church.

The corruption of the Popes and the huge expenses for their building projects led, in part, to the Reformation and, in turn, the Counter-Reformation.

While it is neither the mother church of the Catholic Church nor the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome (these equivalent titles being held by the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome), St. Peter's is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic shrines.

St. Peter's has many historical associations, with the Early Christian Church, the Papacy, the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-reformation and numerous artists, especially Michelangelo.

Pope Pius V (Pio V; 17 January 1504 – 1 May 1572), born Antonio Ghislieri (from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri, O.P.), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1566 to his death in 1572.

He is chiefly notable for his role in the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, and the standardization of the Roman Rite within the Latin Church.

As the Reformation and Counter-Reformation clashed, the Northern Renaissance showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristotelean natural philosophy to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and medicine).

Much, if not most, of the new art was commissioned by or in dedication to the Church.

Calvinists broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century.

It was influential in France, Lithuania and Poland before being mostly erased during the Counter Reformation.