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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Reformation |
 | | The ever-increasing centralization of ecclesiastical administration had brought it about that far too many ecclesiastical benefices in all parts of Christendom were conferred at Rome, while in the granting of them the personal interests of the petitioner, rather than the spiritual needs of the faithful, were too often considered. |
| | Ecclesiastical principalities, which were entrusted to the incumbents only as ecclesiastical persons for administration and usufruct, were, in defiance of actual law, by exclusion of the incumbents, transformed into secular principalities. |
| | Finally, one of the chief means employed in promoting the spread of the Reformation was the use of violence by the princes and the municipal authorities. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/12700b.htm (10509 words) |
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