Catholic Reformation

The Counter-Reformation by the Catholic choice led to the conversion of many non-Christians as well as the halting or slowing down of many Protestant movements and reformations. This was accomplished when the Church focused on taking the best ideas of the medieval Church and forcing those ideas to adapt to present circumstances. Many new religious orders were founded and older orders were reformed to be more beneficial. Also a non-tolerance policy was adopted by the papacy to alienate arguments and possible consents between Catholics and Protestants on important dogmatic issues.The Church created an effective arsenal of spiritual weapondry to combat the threat of Protestants to their ranks.

The Protestant Reformation started by Luther showed many flaws in the reasoning and systems of the Catholic Church. The Church's clergy were more corrupt than innocent, and their ideas of transubstantian as well as other sacraments were challenged by more than one influential Protestant. Seeing their flaws, the Church combined the best of their old medieval practices and took new practices like mysticism and monasticism to create stronger faith communities and better values. Mysticism, as taught by the Carmelite nuns, focused on an active life of good works which would increase faith in God and his will. Monasticism created monastic orders who would live simpler lives and dedicate their lives to God like the Capuchins who were known to preach directly and well against Protestantism.

The main focus of the Catholic Reformation became to stop the rise of Protestantism and to convert non-Christians much more effectively than before and the main weapon for the Church were the Jesuits. Known also as the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits were founded by an ex-soldier named Ignatius of Loyola who pursued service as a 'soldier of God' rather than a worldy soldier because of his injuries in battle. His lifework led to The Spiritual Exercises which outlined exercises to practice that would focus one's will in service to God. The Jesuits who were founded by Loyola gave complete obediance to the papacy which increased papal power and gave the Jesuits credibility. The Jesuits instructed and instilled Catholic values to children of young ages in rigorous school systems which produced enough scholars to make Jesuit education famous by the 1600s. Xavier Francis and Mattee Ricci who combined converted thousands of Japanese and Chinese were testaments to the Jesuit determination to reach out to non-Christian nations. Other Jesuit missionaries restored Catholicism to many Protestant parts of Europe such as Poland which became Catholic mainly because of Jesuit