What can we say about the condition of the Catholic Church on the eve of the Protestant Reformation? According to History, the Protestant Reformation was “the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era.” A big one was that they took money from people for no reason. At the time people were also torched to death. People were very evil then.