When did the power of Roman Catholic Church decline?

Answer 1

A:The power of the Catholic Church, both temporally and spiritually, has ebbed and waned throughout history. A high point followed the eighth-century forgery of the Donation of Constantine, which Pope Stephen II successfully used to have lands "restored" to the Church, creating the Papal States. The Church was probably at its weakest when Emperor Charles defeated the army of Pope Clement VII and entered Rome in 1527. Charles seriously considered disbanding the papacy, but was dissuaded, uncertain of the outcome if the Catholic Church found itself leaderless. Charles imposed conditions, including that Clement call a Council to reform the Church, a condition Clement was continually able to postpone until his death.

In the longer term, it was the Protestant Reformation that resulted in a decline in the absolute power of the Catholic Church, as it no longer had a monopoly on the beliefs of Christians. It was not until 1965 that the Catholic Church actually recognised this reality, when the Second Vatican Council pronounced the right of all to religious liberty, with the right to worship in whatever way they wished. Almost five hundred years after the time of King Henry VIII and Luther, the Church at last accepted its permanent loss of its previous power.

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Catholic Answer

First of all, there is no "Roman Catholic Church". It's just Catholic, not Roman Catholic. Roman is an epithet first commonly used in England after the protestant revolt to describe the Catholic Church. It is never used by the official Catholic Church. Secondly, the Catholic Church never looked at its "power" as secular power, or the power that you are asking about. Individuals within the Church, no doubt, over the centuries have sought to gain secular power, and at some points in history Bishops and Popes had a lot of secular power, but this has never been the mission of the Church, the Church's power has always been that of her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and when she gets away from that, things go awry. In that sense, the Church's "power" cannot decline, only her perceived "power" in the secular world.