INTRODUCTION TO THE REFORMATION

New Churches break away from the Catholic Church

California HSS State Standard: 7.9.1

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Students will be able to list reasons for the weakening of the Catholic Church in the 1500s.

Key terms: indulgences, simony, reform, Protestant, Reformation.

What IF? Think/Pair/Share

• What if the school Principal suddenly told you that people can raise their grades by paying money to their teachers? What would be good and bad about this?

• How might this make you feel if you were already getting good grades?

• Would this be a fair policy for students from poor families?

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Just like the “what if” scenario, in the 1500’s some people in Europe felt that the practices of the Catholic Church at that time were incorrect and unfair. Here are 2 things the Catholic Church was doing in the Middle Ages that people thought were unfair:

INDULGENCES

A release from punishment from your sins in exchange for $.

This made it seem as if people could buy forgiveness of their sins and buy their way into heaven. This made the poor distrust the church.

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SIMONY The selling of leadership

positions in the church to the person with the most money.

Instead of being chosen based on their accomplishments, people could buy their way into controlling church lands and then collected taxes from the poor.

This led to a lot of corruption within the Church.

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Whiteboard Question

• The selling of indulgences troubled many people because:

A. The church was in economic trouble.B. Anyone could be in a leadership position.C. People could buy forgiveness of their sins.D. The government had lost its authority.

Whiteboard Question

• The selling of indulgences troubled many people because:

C. People could buy forgiveness of their sins.

Think/Pair/Share …Write

Simony was a troubling practice of the church because….

ALL OF THIS LED TO …. The Protestant Reformation

the reforming (changing) of the Catholic Church that led to the start of many new Christian churches (1500s-1600s).

OTHER KEY TERMS TO KNOW

The word Reformation comes from the word reform, which means change. Reform especially means changing something you think is wrong.

The word Protestant comes from the word protest, or argue against.

Pretty soon, countless new types of churches were started. The Roman Catholic church was no longer alone in Europe.

Protestant Christians

were people who broke away from (“protested against”) the Catholic Church and started new Christian churches.

COPY THE CHART

Christian= Someone who believes Jesus Christ is the son of God.

Catholics

Examples: Lutheran, Baptist, Adventist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, etc

Whiteboard Questions

• Another word for change is ______________.• A word that means “argue against” is

___________________.• We call the time period from the 1500-1600s

when many new Christian churches were formed the ___________ ____________.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? The results of the

Protestant Reformation are still with us.

We have many different churches in our communities that are results of this time of reform.

OTHER EVENTS THAT WEAKENED THE CHURCHPolitical Conflicts

Monarchs and Popes argued over who had the authority to control church property. This often led to scandals and damaged the church’s reputation.

Example: In 1301, King Philip IV of France tried to tax the clergy. The pope threatened to excommunicate him, so King Philip had the Pope kidnapped. The elderly pope was soon released, but he died a few weeks later.

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OTHER EVENTS THAT WEAKENED THE CHURCHThe Great Schism

A disagreement in the Catholic Church that resulted in the Church being ruled by two competing popes.

One pope ruled from France and the other from Italy. This was an effect of the King of France wanting to control the clergy.

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