The Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1534 after he was injured in a battle. Working with other like-minded Catholic men, Ignatius developed the Jesuits to be a counterbalancing force to the great success of Protestant Reformers in Europe. The Jesuits would become the "foot soldiers" of Catholicism in spreading the message to different cultures and countries.

Indulgences were sold throughout the medieval period in Europe by the Catholic church as a means to grant oneself forgiveness for sins or to gain forgiveness for someone who had died. The idea was the Catholic church was in charge of dispensing “merit” so that people could enter into heaven and that those who give financially to the church should benefit. They became extremely popular in 1517, when Pope Leo X sold indulgences to build a new St. Peter’s Basilica, as many people attempted to gain forgiveness. The selling of indulgences outraged Martin Luther, who mentioned them throughout his 95 Theses and fought against them as one of his main issues for reform. In 1567, the church outlawed the selling of indulgences.

John Wesley was an Englishman who lived from 1703 to 1791. He did not initially try to break away from the Anglican Church of England, believing that Methodism was just a part of Anglicanism. Wesley was against the idea of predestination and believed in using laypeople to spread the gospel and work for change. Wesley is credited with leading many Methodists to become advocates for important social change.

The belief that God does not exist is called “atheism;” the belief that God may or may not exist, but “I need to see proof for myself” is called “agnosticism.” Deism is the belief that God created the universe with certain permanent laws (the law of gravity and so on) and then sat back and left creation to its own devices: essentially a “watchmaker God,” who created the world and then left it alone. Deism grew in popularity during the so-called Age of Reason in Europe, when scientists and thinkers like Newton began to uncover certain seemingly perfect laws about the universe.

The Great Schism of 1378 involved a split in the Roman Catholic Church. For several years in the fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries, there were effectively two popes claiming legitimate authority over the whole of Christianity: one in France and one in Rome.

John Calvin (1509-1564) was an influential theologian whose teachings formed the basis a wide array of newly formed churches. Chief among Calvin's theological differences from the Catholic church was his belief in predestined salvation. According to Calvin, God was absolutely sovereign in all matters of salvation, meaning that works and faith by human beings are worthless, no matter how good, without being chosen by God for salvation. Rather unintuitively, this led Calvin to preach that moral rectitude in every facet of life was of the utmost importance. Surely, if one had been chosen for salvation by God, he argued, then one had to be of the highest character and ought to show it.

Under Catholic teaching, the sins of believers were forgiven upon the crucifixion of Christ; nonetheless, some sins still carry the need for some form of penance or the enduring of a punishment. The doctrine of indulgences allowed for believers to perform certain good works in order to be relieved of the need for penance. Often this meant saying special prayers or giving to charity, but in some cases, priests were open to selling indulgences outright for personal gain. This cynical form of indulgence-granting was one of the factors that led Martin Luther to write his 95 Theses in order to reform the church. Thus, indulgences contributed to the tumultuous religious reorganization of Europe known as the Reformation.

The prestige of the Papacy declined significantly in the decades leading up to the Protestant Reformation. The Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, a fourteenth-century event in which popes were held in Avignon by the French King, and the Great Schism, in which two separate popes, one in Rome and one in France, were elected for several decades, both contributed negatively to the prestige of the Papacy. The Pope’s involvement in secular politics also contributed to the declining prestige of the Papacy, as it angered the rulers of Europe and inspired disdain from intellectuals. Finally, the rise of humanism put a greater emphasis on the abilities and virtues of man and less emphasis on salvation. The Italian city states were only gaining wealth in this time period, so this answer choice cannot be said to have contributed to the declining prestige of the Papacy.

Jan Hus and John Wycliffe were both European religious reformers in the centuries leading up to the Protestant Reformation. Both men emphasized personal communion with God and diminished the significance of the Church as the only path to salvation.

The Roman Catholic Church had long held that there were seven sacraments that outwardly reflected inner faith. Luther disagreed and outlined in his published writings that only baptism and communion were legitimate sacraments within Lutheranism.