There were reports that priests, monks and nuns did not behave as well as they should. Some felt that the Catholic Church was more interested in money and power than in saving souls. For example, the church sold 'indulgences' for those who had committed sins. On November 9, 1518 the pope condemned Luther's writings as conflicting with the teachings of the Church. Luther refused to recant, and on January 3, 1521 Pope Leo excommunicated Martin Luther from the Catholic Church. On April 17, 1521 Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms in Germany. How was the Catholic Church corrupt in the period of The Decameron and the Renaissance? During the Renaissance and the time period of The Decameron, the Catholic Church was rife with corruption. Clergy often misbehaved sexually and lived lavishly, despite vows to do otherwise. The Jesuits helped carry out two major objectives of the Counter-Reformation: Catholic education and missionary work. The Jesuits established numerous schools and universities throughout Europe, helping to maintain the relevance of the Catholic church in increasingly secular and Protestant societies. The first effort to stop the spread of protestantism was to declare the effort to reform the Catholic Church a heresy. In 1408 The Catholic Church declared the Lollards heretics and encouraged their persecutions, loss of wealth and even death. By 1438 the Lollard movement was dead.
