Final answer:
The Fourth Lateran Council encouraged dealing with heresy through the establishment of the Office of Papal Inquisition for centralizing persecution, where suspected heretics could face torture or execution. In the Council of Trent, the Church sturdily confirmed its own doctrines and authority, and also amplified efforts against corruption by condemning simony and enforcing celibacy.
Step-by-step explanation:
According to the longest decree of the Fourth Lateran Council, the church was encouraged to deal with heresy by instituting a formidable system for identifying, persecuting, and eliminating heretical beliefs and teachings. During the 1230s, Pope Gregory IX established the Office of Papal Inquisition to centrally manage the persecution of heresy across Western Christendom, leading to the infamous period in history known as the Inquisition.
Suspected heretics faced torture, and if they failed to prove their innocence or confess, they could be executed, often through burning at the stake. Compounding the severity of this approach was the incentive created by the policy that allowed the inquisitors to seize lands and property of the condemned.
The drive to maintain doctrinal purity continued at the Council of Trent, where the Church unequivocally affirmed its doctrines and traditions against the Lutheran ideas propounded by Martin Luther, which included rejecting the Doctrine of Merit.
The church emphasized the importance of both scripture and traditions, bolstering the authority of the church's teachings and the necessity of religious art, which played a role in the church's identity and instruction to the faithful. Furthermore, efforts to reform and strengthen the church's moral and spiritual integrity included condemning the sale of church offices (simony) and enforcing priestly celibacy.