Beginning in the 16th Century a movement started in Europe against the Roman Catholic Church that was primarily a religious event, not an economic one. This religious event was the Protestant Reformation that was started by Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses. Although there were several economic motives that enabled the Protestant Reformation to spread, such as the confiscation of the church lands, these however were unimportant in view of the other motives. There are political causes also but they can also be religious because they involved the Roman Catholic Church.
The rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church was a political cause of the reformation because the church convinced many states to join the reformation, and the Anglican Reformation was nearly as a whole based on the political motives. The issues of the Protestant Reformation were based on religious problems however. The sales of indulgences and the whole concept of supposedly buying your family or yourself less time in Purgatory was a problem. Other problems were the arguments over the validity of each of the sacraments and the debate over who had the authority in religious issues. The Reformation was sparked because of the issues of faith, not the money or the power. If the starting of the Reformation would have been the money and power issues then the Reformation would have ended at Luther and wouldn’t have continued past him.
There were certain economic issues that allowed the Protestant Reformation to grab hold and begin. One of the very first complaints with the Roman Catholic Church was the indulgences and their sale to fund the goals of the Pope, specifically construction of the St. Peter’s Basilica. The states were eager to align themselves with the Protestants though because they supported the state confiscation and the control over the church lands. They also supported all of the profits that the confiscation had received. The spread of the Reformation itself was supported...