He encouraged many new religious communities and gave papal approbation of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1540 and of the Ursulines in 1544. Paul's greatest encouragement to the Catholic reform was the opening of an ecumenical council which he tried to inaugurate as early as 1537 at Mantua.
The fourth pope during the period of the Reformation, Paul III became the first to take proactive reform measures in response to Protestantism. His reforms help shape Roman Catholicism for centuries thereafter, chiefly by bringing about a doctrinal response to Protestant theology
