The Protestant Reformation started in the 1500's when the Church started giving indulgences, or pardons for their sins, when someone gave money. The Catholic Church had always taught that when people die they cannot enter heaven before suffering some form of punishment for their sins in purgatory (a place between heaven and Hell). When a person was granted an indulgence, he was freed from some of his suffering in purgatory. In Germany a monk named …showed first 75 words of 466 total…

…showed last 75 words of 466 total…Europe. It brought back into the Church some of the countries that had broken away during the Protestant Reformation. 20th century Europe bears the imprint of Reformation. Italy, France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, the south of Germany, Austria, and Hungary, Poland, and parts of the Balkans in eastern Europe, have continued to be predominantly Catholic. The rest, Scandinavia, England Scotland, Switzerland, the north and east of Germany, and parts of eastern Europe have largely remained Protestant.