Counter-Reformation And Religion

Religious and spiritual belief systems have existed for nearly as long as humans have and those systems have, in turn, held a power over most humans since its creation. So where does a worshiper go to practice their religion? For most, the hub of religious practice is a physical space, like a shrine, church, temple, or mosque or some other house of worship. When a belief system has a physical place and gains religious “administrators”—priests, the Pope, Imams, Rabbis—suddenly it’s the middlemen and middle-space between the worshiper and the divine figure that holds the earthly power over humans. This text will study the Roman Catholic Church’s use of Baroque and Tridentine art and architecture in their churches, originating around the time of the Counter-Reformation, in order to depict the ideals of spirituality and worship of the Catholic Renewal in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. This is not simply to provide a space of moral and spiritual virtue—as Catholicism promises to do for its followers—but in the interest of creating a space that suppresses their congregants, providing those in the ecclesiastical hierarchy with great wealth and authority. …show more content…
Instead of a house of worship, the system of the past and present Catholic Church system allows for corruption, makings its space one of advertising through business mongering, hypocrisy through ignoring their own religious rule, and subjugation through astonishment and deception, all of which is made possible by the creation—not the earning—of