By the 1400s, the Catholic Church had been the center of the Western European Christian world for nearly 15 hundred years. That unity shattered when a Christian priest named Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) revolted against what he viewed as the corruption of the Church. His revolt launched the Protestant Reformation. This reformation would reshape Europe as Catholics and Protestant Christian groups fought & power & influence across the continent and the world.

The 1500s began a period of rapid Christian expansion. Over the next five centuries, Christianity would arrive in the Americas and forcibly convert two entire continents. Christianity would also spread to new Areas in Asia & Oceania & coastal portions of West Africa & across the southern half of the African continent.

December 12, is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, or Virgin of Guadalupe, celebrating The Virgin Mary’s appearances to a native American peasant, named Juan Diego, in 1531. An image of her miraculous appeared on his tilma [cloak], which is shown below.