Sara B. answered • 04/26/22
English: Writing, Speaking, Reading and how they dance together
From Brittanica: The need to pay his debts to Lübeck and to strengthen the royal authority forced Gustav to impose heavy taxes, and it was essentially with a view to tapping the Roman Catholic church’s wealth that he embarked on the measures that led to the Reformation in Sweden.
Gustav had few theological interests or preferences, but he resented the presence in Sweden of any authority that challenged his own, and he had some sympathy with the idea of religious services in Swedish, for he was an indifferent Latinist himself. The move toward Lutheranism, however, was both accelerated and retarded by purely political considerations. Sweden did not become irrevocably a Lutheran country until 1544 at the earliest, and it was a long time before Protestantism was popular outside Stockholm.
The last great revolt of the reign, in 1542–43, had a strong anti-Protestant strain. Gustav’s vain attempts to become a member of the Schmalkaldic League, formed by the German Protestants, were dictated by a desire to provide himself with allies rather than by religious convictions.
My view: He was a tyrannical sort of leader who used the church for political gain and control, and to tap into it financially.
