I. The Catholic Church and its problems
             In the beginning of the 16th century Western Europe only had one religion, Catholicism. The Catholic Church was very powerful and rich. The church made practices to impose reforms and the lax practices had grown up in the church. Churchmen began to criticize the administration of the church and began to doubt some of its teaching. The church insisted that it alone had the authority to interpret the meaning of the bible for people and tell them what it meant, but an English priest, John Wycliffe, stated the people had the right to read and interpret the meaning of the bible themselves.
             The Catholic Church had too much power, and corruption began to happen. Some popes saw themselves as being in a position of more power than any king or emperor. One example of this is Pope Boniface VIII; he declared that the Church and priests were subject to no mortal and that the pope had absolute power over everything and everyone on earth. Many kings did not like this including, King Philip IV of France who imprisoned Boniface for this.
             In this time of growing and wealth, the church became greedy and corrupt in wanting wealth themselves. Popes and Priests were living like kings with all the tax money from the people, living in monstrous homes and having whatever they like. The sale of indulgences then
             came around which were said to free all sinners from their sins if they gave money to the church and bought this little piece of paper.
             This led many people to believe that the church was wrong in many ways, and caused people to leave the Catholic Church in search for a different and more truthful, less corrupted way of believing. Many branched off and formed their own churches with their own pope, like France and Italy each one clamming to be the true leader of the church.
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