Question

1. The Roman Catholic Church responded to the spread of Protestantism in the sixteenth century in several ways. Three of those responses are listed below. Describe two, using specific facts.

Answer 1

The Inquisition was created in the Middle Ages (13th century) and was directed by the Roman Catholic Church. It was made up of courts that judged all those considered a threat to the doctrines (set of laws) of this institution. All suspects were persecuted and tried, and those who were convicted served sentences ranging from temporary or life imprisonment to death at the stake, where the convicts were burned alive in the public square.

The Society of Jesus was founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the Counter-Reformation in the year 1534. He, together with a group of students from the University of Paris, made vows of obedience to the doctrine of the Catholic Church and was recognized by papal bull in 1540.

They soon spread to Portugal, having been requested by D. J. III as missionaries, and acquired great influence in the social environment, between the 16th and 17th centuries. The Jesuits, as they were called the members of the Society of Jesus, were dedicated to missionary and educational work, being mostly educators or confessors of the kings of the time, one of them was D. Sebastião de Portugal.