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You must remember that the Catholic Church does not call it reformation, that is a Protestant term that makes little sense, as it involved formation and not reformation.
The schism was caused by Martin Luther, a Catholic Monk, accusing the Church of corruption. He was in fact correct about the corruption. Several decades earlier the plague had all but wiped out the Catholic priesthood This caused the Church to have to hire priests without the luxury of time, which could have allowed for assessment of character and criminal behavior. The superstitious people of the time had also blamed the Church for the plague, feeling that God did not protect them. This combined with the evident corruption of selling indulgences (freedom from penance for sins) had made many people ripe for leaving the Church.
Although the printing press had been invented 100 years before it was of little use since over 90% of the population was unable to read. This left the door open for less scrupulous men than Luther, educated elitists like John Calvin (Puritans / Southern Baptists, etc.) to use their interpretation of scripture to influence people to follow their false doctrine. Calvin murdered any Catholic priests sent to speak with him and became known as the Pope of Geneva. Other men followed his quest for power and caused the chaos that exists today. There are over 30,000 different Protestant religions and new ones are formed regularly as another person claims to understand scripture better. They have been cast into chaos where there is no authority. Forgetting that the Church is the pillar and the Truth, as stated by Jesus Christ. Luther did contribute to the chaos by adding one word to the Bible, he added "only" to "will be saved by faith". He would never withdraw this decision.
As corruption was present it took a few years for the right pressures to force change in the Catholic Church to conform to Luther's findings of corruption, but by then it was too late to stop the schism. Injustices and atrocities on both sides only widened the divide. However as time heals, the power of the Church is evident today with a membership nearly equal to the population of China, or India. The church formed by Luther (Lutheran) has now undergone a schism and many have returned to the Catholic Church as many members of the Church of England are doing, because of their own schism.
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what was the roman catholic response to reformation?
