There were many causes that brought along the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. The main cause for the Reformation came from religion and the belief of corruption in the Catholic Church. Church officials were becoming selfish and had self-interest and not for the church. So this caused most Christians to fight for the equality they believed they deserved in the church.
The fact that basically all catholic churches at the time were corrupt is one of the main factors that caused people like Martin Luther to rise up and rebel against the church. He’s the one that with the help of the printing press was able to expose the bad deeds of the church. He referred to the church as an insidious devil that perverts the Scriptures. He gave examples of how past Popes have shed blood, and taken absolute power over the church as if it were theirs to begin with. He made it clear, and was very firm in saying these actions of the church will no longer be tolerated. (Doc7) Metaphors were made to help people understand the true corruption of the church. For example, when they call the pastors shepherds only in name because all they care about is the money they make. And the more people sin the richer they get. (Doc4) Ulrich Zwingli states the fact the throughout the years, the Word of God was been dimmed by human ambitions, and those who call themselves Christian don’t really live for God. They’ve invented their own rules in how to worship and serve God. He says these laws are founded upon human customs and laws, and not by God himself. (Doc5)
Another cause to the Reformation was the church officials’ self interest and greed. This goes together with the fact that the entire church was corrupt at this time. In Erasmus’ play entitled Julius Excluded! Some people have a conversation on how a pope could be deposed. They agreed that only if he did a good deed, since popes aren’t to be punished for their bad deeds. If a pope was convicted they could cancel any verdict they did not like in order to stay as pope; instead of admitting their sin. (Doc2) Popes and chief priests would declare things that weren’t true in order to boost their ego and pride. Just as Pope Boniface VII said, “It is altogether necessary for salvation for every human being to be subject to the Roman pontiff.” (Doc11) Another example of Erasmus as he says in The Annotations on