Protestantism

==Catholic responses==
{{Main|Anti-Protestantism|Counter-Reformation#Politics|Council of Trent|Criticism of Protestantism}}
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|image1=Matanzas Inlet Aerial view.jpg
|caption1=[[Matanzas Inlet]], Florida, where Protestant shipwreck [[Spanish assault on French Florida#Massacre at Matanzas Inlet|survivors were executed]] by [[Pedro Menéndez de Avilés|Menéndez]] "because they had built it there without Your Majesty's permission, and were disseminating the Lutheran religion"
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|caption2=[[St. Bartholomew's Day massacre]] of French Protestants, 1572.}}

The view of the [[Catholic Church]] is that Protestant denominations cannot be considered churches but rather that they are ''ecclesial communities'' or ''specific faith-believing communities'' because their ordinances and doctrines are not historically the same as the Catholic sacraments and dogmas, and the Protestant communities have no sacramental ministerial priesthood{{efn|this varies among Protestants today. In Sweden, the bishops switched to Lutheranism during the Reformation and there was no break in ordinations. See [[Apostolic succession#Lutheran claims to apostolic succession|Apostolic succession in Sweden]] for more on this. Today, as a result of shared ordinations, the entire [[Porvoo Communion]] can trace an unbroken chain of Archbishop-level ordinations going back to before the Reformation through the Swedish line. However, today Rome does not accept these ordinations as valid not because there was a break in the chain, but rather because the occurred apart from papal permission.}} and therefore lack true [[apostolic succession]].<ref>Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church, 29 June 2007, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.</ref><ref name=AFAC>{{cite book|last1=Stuard-will|first1=Kelly|title=A Faraway Ancient Country|year=2007|publisher=Gardners Books|location=United States|isbn=978-0-615-15801-3|page=216|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q469xc7mbksC&pg=PP1|author2=Emissary|editor=Karitas Publishing|access-date=30 December 2019|archive-date=23 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200523003149/https://books.google.com/books?id=q469xc7mbksC&pg=PP1|url-status=live}}</ref> According to Bishop [[Hilarion (Alfeyev)]] the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]] shares the same view on the subject.<ref>{{cite web |author=OrthodoxEurope.org |url=http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/14/124.aspx#2 |title=Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria: The Vatican Document Brings Nothing New |publisher=Orthodoxeurope.org |access-date=14 May 2014 |archive-date=25 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181025084339/http://www.orthodoxeurope.org/page/14/124.aspx#2 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Contrary to how the Protestant Reformers were often characterized, the concept of a ''catholic'' or universal Church was not brushed aside during the Protestant Reformation. On the contrary, the visible unity of the ''catholic'' or ''universal church'' was seen by the Protestant reformers as an important and essential doctrine of the Reformation. The Magisterial reformers, such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Huldrych Zwingli, believed that they were reforming the Catholic Church, which they viewed as having become corrupted.{{efn|For more on this, see [[crypto-paganism]] and the [[Great Apostasy#Overview|Great Apostasy]]. In some areas, pagan Europeans were forced to adopt Christianity at least outwardly, such as after being defeated in battle by Christians. However, outlawing their paganism did not just make it go away. Rather, it persisted as crypto-paganism. For example, [[Philip Melanchthon]], in his 1537 [[Apology of the Augsburg Confession]] identified the mechanical character of [[ex opere operato]] sacraments as being a form of pagan [[Deterministic system (philosophy)|deterministic philosophy]].}} Each of them took very seriously the charges of schism and innovation, denying these charges and maintaining that it was the Catholic Church that had left them. The Protestant Reformers formed a new and radically different theological opinion on ecclesiology, that the visible Church is "catholic" (lower-case "c") rather than "Catholic" (upper-case "C"). Accordingly, there is not an indefinite number of parochial, congregational or national churches, constituting, as it were, so many ecclesiastical individualities, but one great spiritual republic of which these various organizations form a part,{{efn|This is the position of the Protestants who believe the church is visible. For those who think the church is invisible, organizations are irrelevant, as only individual sinners can be saved.}} although they each have very different opinions. This was markedly far-removed from the traditional and historic Catholic understanding that the Roman Catholic Church was the one true Church of Christ.{{efn|See [[Augustine of Hippo#Ecclesiology|Ecclesiology of Augustine of Hippo]] for an example of a church father who discussed the invisible church.}}

Yet in the Protestant understanding, the ''visible church'' is not a genus, so to speak, with so many species under it.{{efn|This is a reference to the [[Marks of the Church (Protestantism)|Marks of the Church]] in Reformed theology. It is thus you may think of the State, but the visible church is a ''totum integrale'', it is an empire, with an ethereal emperor, rather than a visible one. The churches of the various nationalities constitute the provinces of this empire; and though they are so far independent of each other, yet they are so one, that membership in one is membership in all, and separation from one is separation from all.... This conception of the church, of which, in at least some aspects, we have practically so much lost sight, had a firm hold of the Scottish theologians of the seventeenth century. James Walker in ''The Theology of Theologians of Scotland.'' (Edinburgh: Rpt. Knox Press, 1982) Lecture iv. pp. 95–96.}} In order to justify their departure{{efn|At least at first, Protestants did not depart per se. Rather, they were excommunicated such as in the 1520 ''[[Exsurge Domine]]'' and the 1521 ''[[Edict of Worms]]''. Some Protestants avoided excommunication by living as [[crypto-Protestant]]s.}} from the Catholic Church, Protestants often posited a new argument,{{efn|Some Protestants claim the church is visible today, this is a matter of dispute.}} saying that there was no real visible Church with divine authority, only a ''spiritual, invisible, and hidden church''—this notion began in the early days of the Protestant Reformation.

Wherever the Magisterial Reformation, which received support from the ruling authorities, took place, the result was a reformed national Protestant church envisioned to be a part of the whole ''invisible church'', but disagreeing, in certain important points of doctrine and doctrine-linked practice, with what had until then been considered the normative reference point on such matters,{{efn|The assertion of papal supremacy varied through history. For example, in 381 the [[First Council of Constantinople]] recognized the sees of Rome and Constantinople as being equal in authority. Papal supremacy continued to evolve after the Reformation with the [[First Vatican Council]].}} namely the Papacy and central authority of the Catholic Church. The Reformed churches thus believed in some form of Catholicity, founded on their doctrines of the five solas and a visible [[ecclesiastical]] organization based on the 14th- and 15th-century [[Conciliarism|Conciliar movement]], rejecting the [[papacy]] and [[papal infallibility]] in favor of [[ecumenical council]]s, but rejecting the latest ecumenical council, the [[Council of Trent]].{{efn|Lutherans did not completely reject Trent. In fact, some attended it, although they were not given a vote. Instead, [[Martin Chemnitz]] on the basis that all councils are subject to examination, wrote the ''[[Examination of the Council of Trent]]'' in which some parts of Trent were accepted and others dissented from.}} Religious unity therefore became not one of doctrine and identity but one of invisible character, wherein the unity was one of faith in Jesus Christ, not common identity, doctrine, belief, and collaborative action.

There are Protestants,{{efn|In history, Catholic sympathizing Protestants were termed [[crypto-papist]]s and lived as such because Catholicism was illegal in some areas under the legal principle of ''[[cuius regio, eius religio]]''. However, outlawing Catholics did not always force them to emigrate. Instead, they remained continued to influence the dominant church in their area.}} especially of the [[Reformed tradition]], that either reject or down-play the designation ''Protestant'' because of the negative idea that the word invokes in addition to its primary meaning, preferring the designation ''Reformed'', ''Evangelical'' or even ''Reformed Catholic'' expressive of what they call a ''Reformed Catholicity'' and defending their arguments from the traditional Protestant confessions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://spindleworks.com/library/faber/008_theca.htm |title=''The Canadian Reformed Magazine'', 18 (20–27 September, 4–11 October, 18, 1, 8 November 1969) |access-date=15 May 2007 |archive-date=6 August 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070806081139/http://www.spindleworks.com/library/faber/008_theca.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>