Protestant Reformation
In many countries, Christians put the needed reforms listed by Luther into practice. People began to read the Bible in their own language, and many could see for themselves how the Catholic Church had let the Christian faith become corrupted. Many who stayed in the Catholic Church adopted some of Luther's ideas. The Pope reestablished the Inquisition to combat heresy. The Catholic Church responded to the Protestant reformation with the counter-reformation. Between 1545 and 1563 the Council of Trent met to decide what to do. Some of the worst abuses were eliminated but many of the old teachings were kept. The Inquisition tried to force people to keep those ideas. Finding force not very successful, the Pope created new religious orders like the Jesuits. These new religious orders were told to combat Protestantism by educating the population to Catholicism. The Pope made the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of banned books. It had a big influence in its first centuries and was not ended until the 1960s. The Catholic Church used baroque art to touch the religious feeling of the faithful and bring them to the Catholic religion.