Attacks on the Catholic Church came from within. Misguided heretic priests and other lead millions of souls into grave error. From the first protest in 1517 to our present day the world has seen the establishment of over 28,000 churches. Jesus said many will come in My name and Do Not believe them! In this century other Christian churches were founded; before this century the only Christians were the Catholics. A Christian is one who believes and accepts the Holy Trinity. The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ, God Himself, and it is still here! See Jeremiah 6:16; Matthew 16:18-20; and 28:20.

1501
Martin Luther becomes Master of Philosophy at Erfurt.

Prince Arthur of England is betrothed (nominally married), to Princess Catherine of Aragon on November 14. King Henry VII received 100,000 Scudos from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain as the first installment of the dowry.

1502
Martin Luther took his Baccalaureate at the University of Erfurt.

Death of Prince Arthur of England. Catherine is nominally a widow. King Henry VII offered to marry the girl, to keep the dowry no doubt, however Isabella would have nothing to do with that idea; so Henry VII’s younger son, Henry VIII was betrothed to Catherine.

1503
Nicholas Copernicus receives a Degree in Canon Law from the University of Ferrara. Copernicus at this time lived in his uncle’s Bishopric Palace in Lidzbark Warminski and assisted his uncle in the administration of the Diocese and in the conflict with the Teutonic Knights. It was here that he published his first book, a Latin translation of letters on morals by a 7th Century Byzantine writer, Theophylactus of Simocatta.

Pius III become Pope. His reign lasted a little less than one month. He was Cardinal Francesco Todeschini, the nephew of Pope Pius II.

Julius II becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Giuliano Della Rovere. He was born of poor parents and educated by the Franciscans under the influence of his uncle, Francesco. He was also nephew to Pope Sixtus IV. Pope Julius II is referred to as the Art Pope, because of his passion for fine art. He was a forceful ruler, and strove with all diplomatic and military means available to restore and extend the Papal State, which the Borgia’s had alienated.

Erasmus publishes his Handbook of a Christian Soldier.

Birth of Michel De Notredame, better known as, Nostradamus.

Leonardo Da Vinci paints his masterpiece, The Mona Lisa.

1504
Raphael paints his famous Marriage of the Virgin.

Death of Queen Isabella of Spain.

Isabel was born to the purple in no ordinary sense. She was the daughter of King Juan II of Castile and his second wife, Dona Isabel of Portugal. She came into this world on April 22, 1451. She was called the Infanta. She was Baptized a few days later in the Church of St. Nicholas.

She was a beautiful woman, sporting red hair, freckles, and blue eyes. The above picture does not do her justice. She raised five children and taught her daughters Latin and the Catholic Faith, of which she was deeply devoted. Her only son is buried in the Aquin, a building architected by Fray Tomas De Torquemada. Isabel is known as the Last Crusader.

1505
The Swiss Guards are organized with 110 men and 6 officers.

On July 17, Martin Luther entered the Augustinian Monastery as candidate.

1506
Pope Julius II lays the foundation stone of the New St. Peter’s. He commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to carve his tomb and decorate the Sistine Chapel.

Erasmus published in association with St. Thomas More, a Latin translation of some of the satirical dialogues of Lucian.

Martin Luther took his Novitiate vows.

Pope Julius II, the art Pope, authorized public veneration of the Holy Shroud, still housed in the Chapel at Chambery. The Pontiff approved a special Liturgy, consisting of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Divine Office.

Raphael finished his masterpiece, that he started the year before, The Madonna of the Goldfinch. The painting is oil on wood and depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary with the infants, Jesus and St. John the Baptist.

1507
Father Thomas Wolsey becomes Chaplain to King Henry VII of England.

Martin Luther was ordained a Catholic priest, barely 9 months after his profession!

Bishop Francesco Ximenes De Cisneros is elevated to the College of Cardinals.

1508
Michelangelo begins painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Raphael begins his work at the Vatican.

Father Thomas Wolsey is made Dean of York, Master of the Rolls, Bishop of Durham, then Archbishop of York.

Martin Luther was transferred to the Augustinian House in Wittenburg.

1509
Bishop Thomas Wolsey is made Dean of Lincoln by King Henry VII.

Juan Borgia marries Juana of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabell.

Martin Luther takes his first Bachelor’s Degree.

Death of King Henry VII.

Henry VIII becomes King of England and marries his nominal sister-in-law, Catherine of Aragon. The marriage had to have a Papal dispensation before it could take place. The dispensation granted permission for the wedding to take place. The reason being, Catherine was betrothed to Henry’s brother Arthur.

1510
St. Jerome Emilian converted to the Catholic Faith.

Martin Luther journeys to Rome.

Birth of St. Francis Borgia. He was the son of Juan Borgia, the Third Duke of Gandia, and Juana of Aragon, she was the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. St. Francis Borgia was the grandson of Juan Borgia, the second son of Pope Alexander VI.

Raphael paints the School of Athens at the Vatican.

1511
King Henry VIII names Bishop Wolsey as Canon of Windsor.

Martin Luther returns to Wittenburg.

Erasmus publishes In Praise of Folly. In this work he shows it is the fool who wins in the end.

The first Diocese is established in the Americas, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Cardinal Giovanni De Medici, the future Pope Leo X, was appointed Legate of Bologna, with charge of the Papal army.

Michelangelo completes the scene of God creating the sun, moon, and the planets on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo also painted the famous scene of God creating Adam on the ceiling. The artist created these beautiful works of art while lying his back on a scaffold. Truly amazing!

1512-1517
The Ecumenical Lateran Council V. The one hundred and twenty Bishops and representatives of Kings and Princes condemned the Averros philosophy of Neo-Aristotelians, the soul of man is not mortal, and pronouced the Dogmatic Constitution that the soul of man is indeed mortal. The Council also Abolished Pragmatic Sanction in France, and Condemned the Council of Pisa.

1512
King Louis VII is driven out of Italy after claiming Milan.

King Ferdinand V seized the Kingdom of Navarre, completing the unification of Spain.

Martin Luther becomes Sub-Prior, second in command, at the Augustinian House. He was also made responsible for preaching in the Monastery Church.

Michelangelo completes his task of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

1513
Leo X becomes Pope. He was the first Medici Pope. He was 37 year old, Cardinal Giovanni De Medici. He studied Canon law and theology at Pisa.

Battle of Spurs. King Henry VIII defeated France under the leadership of Louis VII.

1514
Bishop Thomas Wolsey is named Bishop of Lincoln.

1515
Birth of St. Philip Neri, July 22.

Michelangelo begins working for the Medici family.

Francis I becomes King of France. He succeeded Louis XII who was both cousin and father-in-law. He began his reign with the great victory of Marignano.

Bishop Thomas Wolsey is elevated to the College of Cardinals.

1516
Erasmus publishes his Greek New Testament and a critical edition of the letters of St. Jerome.

Erasmus also publishes his Order of Study.

Belgium becomes a Spanish possession.

The Ottoman Turks conquered Syria.

Death of Ferdinand V The Catholic King of Castile and Aragon.

1517
The Lateran Council V was convoked by the Art Pope, Julius II, and ratified by Pope Leo X.

Pope Leo X turns the tables on some disaffected Cardinals who tried to poison him by executing the leader, Alfonso Petrucci, and imprisoning several others and packing the Sacred College by creating thirty-one new Cardinals.

The Ottoman Turks conquered Egypt.

On October 31, Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the Castle door of Wittenberg and leads the Schism. He formed the Lutheran Church and Changes the Bible! The Lutheran church is an heretical sect. Luther denied Sacred Tradition; the Divine authority of the Papacy; that Councils were infallible; that original justice was a supernatural gift; that human nature remained essentially the same in its powers after the fall of Adam; that man, after the fall, can produce good works; held that man sins in whatever he does; that sins of the just are covered by Faith and not done away with; maintained that all works of sinners are sins; denied free-will; all the Sacraments except Baptism and the Eucharist; and transubstantiation. His interpretation was Consubstantiation (you and God make it happen). He denied the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, Purgatory, and the utility of praying through Mary and the Saints. He maintained that vows are made to the devil; that concupiscence is invincible; that the sensual instincts are irrepressible, and held that gratification of sexual propensities is as natural and inexorable as the performance of any of the physiological necessities of our being. He often used his Dung Heap analogy to describe man’s soul. Luther sent copies of his 95 Theses to Johann Eck. Father Eck had been professor of theology at Ingolstadt since 1510.

Death of Cardinal Ximenes De Cisneros. The pious Cardinal died while gazing at a Crucifix.

1518
In a letter to his friend, Wenceslaus Link, Luther called the Pope the anti-Christ. Luther had a distinct hatred for the priesthood and especially, the Papacy.

St. Jerome Emilian is ordained a Catholic Priest.

Death of Blessed Giles of Lorenzana.

A summary of Luther ideas reached Rome early in this year. Pope Leo X instructed the General of the Augustinian Order to silence Luther. Pope Leo X tried to win over Luther’s protector, the Elector Frederick of Saxony, but had no success.

1519
Death of Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, on January 13.

Michelangelo begins his career as an architect.

Death of Lucrezia Borgia. She was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Her brother, Cesare Borgia, killed her second husband; her first marriage was annulled. She married for a third time to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara.

Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III, was ordained a Catholic priest. He was nick-named Cardinal Petticoat, because it was his sister, Giulia, that was the mistress of Pope Alexander VI.

Pope Leo X tried to capture the town of Ferrara by surprise, but the effort failed. The Archdiocese of Ferrara is the immediate subject to the Holy See. In 1508, Duke Alfonso I D’Este continued the governorship of Azzo VI D’Este, who kept the town as a liege, hoping to cast off the overlordship of the Pope.

Charles V of Spain, the grandson of Maximilian I becomes Holy Roman Emperor on June 28.

Martin Luther declared in July of this year at Liepzig that the Papacy was a man-made office, without any Divine authority at all. This led to the debate between the heretic Luther and Father Johann Eck at Liepzig. Father Eck had wanted to debate Luther since 1517, when he sent him the 95 Theses. The first public disputation took place in June and July of this year. Father Eck first disputed with Karlstadt about Grace and Free-Will. He then debated with Luther on the Primacy of the Pope, Penance, Purgatory, Indulgences, and pinned the charge of the Hussite heresy against Luther.

1520
Michelangelo designs the Laurentian Library and its elegant entrance hall adjoining San Lorenzo.

Pope Leo X in a the Papal Bull EXURGE DOMINE, summons Luther to Rome. The Papal Bull condemned Luther of forty-one counts. Luther responded to the Bull with a riotous procession and publicly burned the Bull.

The Field of the Cloth of Gold. This was the great summer meeting between Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France.

Zwingli voluntarily renounced his Papal pension and attacked the ruinous mercenary system. Zurich alone of all the Cantons refused to enter the Alliance with France.

Reformed Protestant church formed by Zwingli. Zwinglians believe in predestination; that marriage was suited to all; that it was presumption to take a vow of chastity; denied the authority of the Pope; Free-Will; the Sacraments; good works; Purgatory; and the forgiveness of sins.

Death of Blessed Helen of Bologna.

Suleiman I, whom the Europeans referred to as the Magnificent, becomes Ruler of the Ottoman Empire.

Death of the great Italian Renaissance artist, Raphael. He was only 37 years old.

1521-1523
Death of Jeanne Le Franc Calvin. She was the mother of John Calvin. She was called Beautiful and Devout. She took her child, young John, to various Shrines and brought him up a good Catholic.

1521
Riechstag or Diet of Worms also called the Edict of Worms. This Decree declared, Martin Luther, the first Protestant, a heretic and cast him and his followers outside the protection of the Feudal law.

Martin Luther was Excommunicated by Pope Leo X.

Philippe Melanchthon, Luther’s partner, and a Mason, wrote, Loci Communes (commonplace) a widely read handbook that set down Lutheran doctrines in a systematic way for easy reference.

On October 9, thirty-nine of forty Augustinian Friars formally declared their refusal to say private Mass any longer; Zwilling, one of the most rabid of them, denounced the Mass as a devilish institution; Justus Jonas stigmatized Masses for the dead as sacrilegious pestilences of the soul; Communion under both species was publicly administered.

On November 12, thirteen friars doffed their habits, and with tumultuous demonstrations fled from the monastery, with fifteen more in their immediate wake; those remaining loyal were subjected to ill-treatment and insult by an infuriated rabble led by Zwilling. Mobs prevented the saying of Holy Mass.

On December 1, King Henry VIII was named Defender of the Faith, a title he coveted, for his Defense of the Seven Sacraments against Martin Luther.

Death of Pope Leo X from malaria.

On December 4, forty students, amid derisive cheers, entered the Franciscan Monastery and demolished the altars; the windows of the house of the resident Canons were smashed, and it was threatened with pillage. Luther, who was in Wittenberg, had no words of disapproval for those proceedings.

1521-1531
Gerard Calvin, the father of John Calvin, Procurator at the Diocese of Noyon, France, is excommunicated for peculation, (embezzlement). His vented violent anger induced him to take up the anti-Catholic cause. This is what probably turned young John, who had visited the Shrines of Europe with his mother, and who was a cleric at the age of twelve, against the Catholic Church. John Calvin was never ordained. He was the Cure of Saint-Martin De Marteville in the Vermandois in 1527, at the age of eighteen. At the age of twenty, John Calvin was the Cure of Pont L’ Eveque.

1522
On January 6, at a Chapter of Augustinian friars held at Wittenberg, six resolutions, no doubt inspired by Luther, were unanimously adopted, which aimed at the subversion of the whole monastic system. Five days later, the Augustinians removed all altars but one from their church, and burnt the pictures and Holy Oils.

On January 19, Karlstadt, now 41 years old, married a young girl the age of 15, an act that called forth the hearty endorsement of Luther.

Adrian VI becomes Pope. He was Cardinal Adrian Florence Dedal. He was educated by his widowed mother and was the tutor of the child, Charles V.

Charles V gave the Austrian Throne to his brother, Ferdinand I, who was then crowned King of Austria.

In February, Justus Jonas and Johann Lange, Prior of the Augustinian Monastery followed Karlstadt’s example.

1522
Martin Luther translates the New Testament into German. It was in this translation that he changed the Bible. He added the word Alone to Romans 3:28; making it read, by faith alone we are set apart from works of the law. The verse properly translated by St. Jerome in the fourth century read, by faith, we are set apart from works of the law. Luther claimed he knew that is what St. Paul meant. As you can see, it changed the entire meaning of what the Apostle said.

William Tyndale, an Englishman, translated the Bible into English while living in Germany. Tyndale used some of Luther’s German version in his translation.

1523
Gustavus Vasa was elected King of Sweden after defeating the Danes. The country became independent.

The first public Disputation in Zurich. This brought an end to Catholic life in that city. Zwingli wrote his 67 Theses.

Gerard Calvin, a widower, remarried.

Clement VII becomes Pope. He was the second Medici Pope. He was Cardinal Giulo De Medici. He was the illegitimate son of Giuliano De Medici; after his father died, he was raised by his uncle Lorenzo. His cousin, Pope Leo X appointed him Archbishop of Florence in 1513. The following year he was elevated to the College of Cardinals.

1524
Thomas Cromwell becomes Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s assistant.

The clergy in Zurich begin to take wives; even among the nuns.

1524-1525
Peasants War. The peasants rose in bloody revolts to win freedom from their feudal lords.

1525
Pope Clement VII celebrates the Holy Year Jubilee.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was last said on Holy Wednesday at the Grossmunster, in Zurich, Switzerland.

Anabaptist Protestant church formed. These heretics owe their existence to Nicholas Stork, a weaver; and Thomas Munzer, a Lutheran preacher. They made the first attacks on infant Baptism. They denied the validity of infant Baptism; practiced communism and polygamy; and condemned oaths and warfare as unlawful.

1526
Ferdinand I becomes King of Bohemia and Hungary. The Hapsburg family now consisted of two Branches. The Spanish Line was headed by Emperor Charles V’s descendants. The Austrian Line descended from Ferdinand I.

Dominican Friars said the First Mass in the Virginia Colony in the New World.

1527
Birth of Philip II of Spain. He was the son of Emperor Charles V and Juana the Mad, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Prince Philip grew up in the Alhambra.

Rome is sacked by Emperor Charles V with 40,000 Lutherans, Spaniards, and Italians.

Queen Catherine of Aragon is exiled from the Throne as a result of her inability to bear children. Henry VIII had a miserable infatuation with Ann Boleyn.

1528
St. Ignatius of Loyola travels to Paris where he spent two years improving himself in Latin.

1529
Martin Luther issues his small catechism.

Cardinal Wolsey is stripped of his political duties by King Henry VIII. Thomas Cromwell becomes Principal Secretary, Vicar General, and lord Privy Seal in England.

Philip II of Hesse brought Luther and Zwingli together at his castle in Marburg. There occurred bitter exchanges between the heretic two reformers during the course of their theological discussions.

Diet of Spires. Emperor Charles V agreed to tolerate Lutheran doctrines wherever they had been generally accepted. The introduction of Lutheran beliefs in new territories was forbidden and Catholics everywhere were permitted to practice the Faith that had began with Jesus and passed down through the ages by the Apostles.

The term Protestant was coined.

1530
Death of Cardinal Wolsey.

Pope Clement VII receives Henry VIII’s request for an annulment with Catherine of Aragon.

Philipp Melanchthon wrote the Augsburg Confession.

Portions of Tyndale’s Old Testament began to appear.

Ulrich Zwingli starts his “System of Belief,” another sect of Protestantism.

John Knox was ordained a Catholic priest.

1531
Ulrich Zwingli is killed during a battle with the Catholic forces at Kappel, Zwingli himself started the fight.

On December 9, Heinrich Bullinger was chosen as Zwingli’s successor. He was the pastor of the Grossmunster. Bullinger regarded union with Luther on the question of the Lord’s Supper as his chief task.

The First Marian apparition to a layman; Blessed Mother appears four times to Juan Diego, in Guadalupe, Mexico.

1532
Pope Clement VII denies the annulment of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and rules the Sacrament of Matrimony did in fact take place.

On December 4, a fire broke out in the Chapel at Chambery where the Holy Shroud of Turin was stored since 1453. The silver casket which contained the “folded” Holy Shroud was heated to an extremely high temperature, causing drops of molten silver to fall and burn through the folded strata of the lined. The Blood stained image miraculously survived.

1533
Thomas Cranmer is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry VIII.

Henry VIII secretly married Ann Boleyn. After numerous attempts, Henry VIII managed to spend one night with Ann Boleyn before the secret marriage. It was that night that she conceived Elizabeth. Queen Catherine of Aragon was in ill heath and had several miscarriages. Once Henry was convinced that the Queen could not bear children any longer, his eye fell upon the woman with the thin neck, flat chest, and round shoulders, Ann Boleyn. Henry had other adventures, Ann’s sister was his mistress and so was Elizabeth Blount, who bore him an illegitimate son. She was a lady who had been an old playmate of his in early youth.

1533-1681
The Martyrs of England and Wales. Over three hundred devout souls gave their lives for the veracity of the Catholic Faith.