I’m generally ignorant of the Protestant Reformation and subsequent events, but I’ve been wondering about the plausibility of the Catholic Church collapsing as a coherent entity. Basically was it ever possible for the Reformation to completely supplant Catholicism throughout Western/Central Europe, even it happened a couple centuries down the line? Is it possible for the organized Catholic Church (Vatican, priest hierarchy) to disappear at some point after the Reformation?
Plausibility of Catholic Collapse During Reformation
- Thread starter Jito
- Start date
The only way I could see this happening if ALL the monarchs in Europe had pulled a Henry VIII- setting
up a church for their own countries completely independent of anyone else, and/or seizing all of the
Church’s lands & properties in their countries. This simply wasn’t going to happen.
a Pope (... or more, competing popes), making even more of a mess of it, specially up through the 15th century so it's still actively disputed by the time reformation rolls around, could possibly push towards a more decentralized Church, but whether it would raise to the point where the Catholic Church could be said to have disappeared I highly doubt. Specially since enough nations still have enough of an interest to prop up a organized church at least within their own domains, so they'll be Catholic in all but perhaps name.
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Martin Luther of course, didn't want to split Christianity, he just wanted to fully reform the Catholic church- I think in the scenario that he does, it'll still be the Catholic church with its head in rome, but having undergone reforms comparable in scale with the Gregorian reforms