Angela Merici Catholic Reformation Essay

With the rise of the reformation in the 16th century, Roman Catholics had a difficult time defending their religion but they did so through different means. The protestant reformation's rise was a cause of the Babylonian Captivity of the 14th century, the Great Schism from 1377 to 1417, and the Conciliar Movement to reform. As a result, Catholic women began to criticize heresy, institutional changes condemned protestant thought, and catholicism remained strong through influential Baroque arts. Angela Merici was a catholic woman who was alive during the reformation and was highly against it. She founded the Ursuline Order of Nuns in the 1530's to empower women through education and religious training. In this institution, she trained young girls to be future wives and mothers to re-Christianize society. She also taught them to combat heresy through this Christian education. The Ursuline Order of Nuns would eventually spread to France and North America with it's spiritual ideas of the Catholic Reformation. Angela Merici defended her faith through the reformation by forming this new

Initiated by Pope Paul III to condemn and refute protestant beliefs, it would eventually lay the principles of catholicism for four centuries. They were able to condemn the reformation by approving the Index of Forbidden Books, which would punish anyone who possessed a list of books that supported Protestantism or were critical of the church in Catholic Countries. They defended their religion through scriptures and other traditions. It would eventually acknowledge and curtail the abuses in sale of indulgences, sale of church offices, give bishops more power from clergy, and establish seminaries to train priests. The Council of Trent existed to condemn protestants in order to protect their faith, but in turn would have to decrease some of their