- The Catholic Church was alarmed at the spread of Protestantism and realised that if it did not act to limit the damage, the Church could collapse.
- It would use both force and persuasion to keep people inside the Church.
The Courts of Inquisition
The Church set up the Courts of Inquisition to arrest, try and punish anyone who they thought was a threat to Church teachings. The Inquisition used imprisonment and torture to get people accused of heresy to recant their views. People found guilty of the most serious offences could be burned at the stake. These burnings were done in public to remind people of the danger they faced if they challenged the Church. Other punishments included fines, confiscation of property, expulsion or the wearing of a yellow cloak. The Inquisition was quite successful in limiting the spread of the Reformation, especially in Italy or Spain.
New Religious Orders
The Church saw that it needed to reconnect with the faithful, and several new religious orders were founded to do this. They set up schools and hospitals around Europe to help the poor. The most important was the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1534. They quickly gained a reputation as being highly educated and very successful in their two main tasks:
- Travelling the world, especially the newly discovered lands in America and Asia, as missionaries.
- Setting up schools to educate sons of the nobility or of wealthy families.
The Council of Trent
The Council of Trent was the Church's response on its teachings by the Reformers. The Council attempted to deal with the Church's existing problems and to impose discipline:
- It published a list of books that Catholics were forbidden to read.
- Seminaries were set up in every diocese to train priests.
- Priests were to be celibate and could not marry.
It also clarified Catholic teachings and defended them against the arguments of Reformers:
- Faith and good works were required to get into heaven.
- There were 7 sacraments.
- Mass and the Bible must be in Latin.