WI: No Protestant Reformation In Europe

katchen

Banned
If there wasn't a Reformation, there could not be a Counter-Reformation. The Church would not be motivated to clean up it's act until it was too late. Too late for what, you might ask?

Scientific knowledge was continuing to advance in Europe, often under the guise of magic. The Catholic Church was becoming more and more corrupt and more and more riven by factions based in countries, specifically at the time between France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. And classical knowledge, including knowledge of neo-Platonism and gnosticism was increasing and out of control because of printing. Ship captains were even bringing back exotic texts such as Hindu Vedas and Upanishads and Buddhist Sutras, although there was a lag in translating them into European languages.

If Orthodox Christianity was not reformed, literate and educated people (who were a larger and larger fraction of the population each year in Europe) would look for religious answers outside of orthodox Christianity altogether in areas that would be considered heresy. As they say about guns, if thinking is heretical, only heretics will think. Illuminism (thinking like that of the Bavarian Illuminati) will flourish and be relevant in a way that it never was ITTL. Albigensianism might be rediscovered, as might Luciferianism. And a lot of these ideas might get real political patronage by kings and nobility who are on the outs with the powers that be in the Catholic Church and are looking for a new set of ideas to motivate their people. Eventually, a new set of religious wars.
 

Emperor Constantine

Pericles said:
I'm thinking that Alexander VI is never elected and so the butterflies prevent the Reformation.
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Alexander VI was just the most obvious example of the Church's corruption. Every Renaissance Pope had bastards and promoted them to high positions in the Church and State. I fail to see how no Alexander VI would butterfly the Reformation. The other major candidates were the future Julius II and Ascanio Sforza, brother of Duke Ludovico Sforza. Either one of them would have been corrupt.

Edit: Also, by the time of the Reformation, the Church was deeply in debt. Selling offices and indulgences were necessary for the Papacy to keep its head above the water.
 

wietze

sooner or later a reforming movement will re-appear as the problems in the church become more obvious every day.

the cathars were suppressed, and if in this case, luther doesn't end up in a thunderstorm, so he never becomes a monk, some other movement will pop up.
 

Andrew Hudson

katchen said:
If there wasn't a Reformation, there could not be a Counter-Reformation. The Church would not be motivated to clean up it's act until it was too late. Too late for what, you might ask?

Scientific knowledge was continuing to advance in Europe, often under the guise of magic. The Catholic Church was becoming more and more corrupt and more and more riven by factions based in countries, specifically at the time between France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. And classical knowledge, including knowledge of neo-Platonism and gnosticism was increasing and out of control because of printing. Ship captains were even bringing back exotic texts such as Hindu Vedas and Upanishads and Buddhist Sutras, although there was a lag in translating them into European languages.

If Orthodox Christianity was not reformed, literate and educated people (who were a larger and larger fraction of the population each year in Europe) would look for religious answers outside of orthodox Christianity altogether in areas that would be considered heresy. As they say about guns, if thinking is heretical, only heretics will think. Illuminism (thinking like that of the Bavarian Illuminati) will flourish and be relevant in a way that it never was ITTL. Albigensianism might be rediscovered, as might Luciferianism. And a lot of these ideas might get real political patronage by kings and nobility who are on the outs with the powers that be in the Catholic Church and are looking for a new set of ideas to motivate their people. Eventually, a new set of religious wars.
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Maybe it wouldn't be too late one reasion for no reformation would be if the Catholic Church cleaned up its act so that there was no need for one. Instead of splitting perhaps the POD would be that the authorities vlisten to Martin Luther and he becomes pope as in the Alteration
 

aktarian

Andrew Hudson said:
Maybe it wouldn't be too late one reasion for no reformation would be if the Catholic Church cleaned up its act so that there was no need for one. Instead of splitting perhaps the POD would be that the authorities vlisten to Martin Luther and he becomes pope as in the Alteration
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But if there is no pressure to clean up its act why would it?

Ketchen is right, if RCC continues with its attitudes and you just remove OTL reformation sooner or later something else would come along.
 

VictorLaszlo

Without a reformation and thus counter-reformation to rally catholic monarchs around, it would be much more likely that in times of dispute between a monarch and the Holy See national churches would arise, that, while still considering themselves catholic would deny their subserviance towards the bishop of Rome. I could easily see an iberic, a gallic, an english, an irish, a kalmarian etc. catholic church being established in the course of the 15th through 18th century with the influence of the pope being limited to Italy and the HRE.
 
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