gainst the church throughout the fifteenth century involved issues that were closely related to those splitting the church in half during the early Reformation. In answer to the growth of the Protestant movement, the Catholic Church instituted its own series of reforms that balanced real reform with a strident and conservative reaction to Protestantism. This movement was called the Counter-Reformation.Other aspects were conservative reactions to the criticisms against the church by Protestants and Reformers. The most important of the movements was the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits, founded by Ignatius of Loyola in the 1530's. The basis of the Jesuits was a return to the strictest and most uncompromising obedience to the authority of the church. At the start, the Jesuit movement was a small movement. The original Society of Jesus had only ten members. By 1630, it had over fifteen thousand members all over the world. the chaotic evolution of the Counter-Reformation finally forced Pope Paul III in 1545 to convene a council in order to define the church doctrines once and for all. This council, was called the Council of Trent. The reforms were very bold in many respects, but they were too little and too late. The new Protestant churches were the wave of the future, and Catholicism although it would remain a major religion, would in a few centuries cease to be the majority religion in the Western world.In spite of religious controversies the Reformation is a period of economic revolution, as mercantilism and commercial capitalism gains strength. Science and mathematics come to influence nearly every fact of life. The unity of Christianity was now broken up into the Protestants and the Catholics. Protestantism was the religious background for nationalism and, each nation became independent and the power of the rulers was increased....
