Catholic Church Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Age of Discovery=== {{Main|Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery}} The [[Age of Discovery]] beginning in the 15th century saw the expansion of Western Europe's political and cultural influence worldwide. Because of the prominent role the strongly Catholic nations of Spain and Portugal played in Western colonialism, Catholicism was spread to the Americas, Asia and Oceania by explorers, conquistadors, and missionaries, as well as by the transformation of societies through the socio-political mechanisms of colonial rule. [[Pope Alexander VI]] had awarded colonial rights over most of the newly discovered lands to [[Spanish Empire|Spain]] and [[Portuguese Empire|Portugal]]<ref name="Koschorke13">Koschorke, pp. 13, 283</ref> and the ensuing ''[[Patronato real|patronato]]'' system allowed state authorities, not the Vatican, to control all clerical appointments in the new colonies.<ref>Hastings (1994), p. 72</ref> In 1521 the Portuguese explorer [[Ferdinand Magellan]] made the first Catholic converts in the [[Spanish East Indies|Philippines]].<ref name="Koschorke21">Koschorke, p. 21</ref> Elsewhere, Portuguese missionaries under the Spanish Jesuit [[Francis Xavier]] evangelized in India, China, and Japan.<ref name="Koschorke3">Koschorke, pp. 3, 17</ref> The [[French colonization of the Americas]] beginning in the 16th century established a Catholic [[French language|francophone]] population and forbade non-Catholics to settle in [[Quebec]].<ref>Lyons (2013), p. 17</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page