The Council of Trent was a group of church leaders that reformed the Catholic Church. Even though it seemed as though the tension between Protestants and Catholics was low, some leaders saw Protestants as heretics and wanted them to be punished. The pope then created religious courts to punish Protestants in Italy.

During the mid-1200s, missionaries(people who spread religion), had traveled to China and had different countries convert to Catholicism. Some new missionaries were Jesuit priests, just like Francis Xavier. Xavier traveled to Asia, India, and Japan, convincing people from these areas to become Catholics.