Future Opportunities. In 1517, the future of the Catholic Church seemed brighter than it had been for some time. Christian humanists were working to reform the Church without badly disrupting it. The reconquista of the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims had recently been completed. The Medici Pope, Leo X, was a brilliant diplomat and patron of art and humanism who was successfully defusing the long-standing political issues between the papacy and the monarchies. Most significantly, the voyages of exploration by European sailors had opened new opportunities for bringing Christianity to millions of unbelieving souls and offered the promise of outflanking Islam, the great nemesis of medieval Christendom. Christopher Columbus was motivated by ambition and greed but also by orders from Ferdinand and Isabella to Christianize the nonbelievers he might find in the "Indies," and the same was true of the Portuguese captains in...