Whats the deal with the counter Reformation?

Answer 1

The Counter Reformation

The Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation was a movement within the Roman Catholic Church to reform itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Reformation was comprehensive and comprised five major elements:

Doctrine
Ecclesiastical or Structural Reconfiguration
Religious Orders
Spiritual Movements
Political Dimensions
Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life to returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focus on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality.

The Protestant Reformation was a movement in the 16th century to reform the Catholic Church in Western Europe. The Reformation was started by Martin Luther with his 95 Theses on the practice of indulgences. In late October of 1517 he posted these theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, commonly used to post notices to the University community. In November he mailed them to various religious authorities of the day. The reformation ended in division and the establishment of new institutions: most importantly Lutheranism, the Reformed churches, the Calvinists the Anabaptists, and Anglicanism. It also led to the Catholic or Counter Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church through a variety of new spiritual movements, reforms of religious communities, the founding of seminaries, the clarification of Catholic theology as well as structural changes in the institution of the Church.

Answer 2

Well, this is of course quite a broad topic but the main message is very simple. Throughout Europe there was a rebirth of ideas and many new and different avenues of thinking. Either through the renaisance or through the reformation new ideas were coming together which were threating the dominant organization, the roman catholic church. In order to combat the newer influences from especially the reformation, there was a movement by catholic leadership to find a common ground and sure up some of the areas that the reformers were devling into. There was a strong desire to turn away and punish those who were being driven away from the catholics as a result of these new leaders and their teaching. The role of the church was beginning to change anyway as a result of the renaissance at large but the catholic church was looking to bring back the people leaving the church and fight the new ideas being proposed by those who found flaw within the church.