As explorers chart the unknown corners of the globe, missionaries can follow, spreading the faith to such far-flung regions as China and Japan. New crusades can be called, and if they succeed then Christianity can at last be restored in Jerusalem. With all the power and prestige of the Church supporting him, His Holiness could construct a great Holy League to tackle the Ottoman menace. Most worrying of all, dark murmurs are beginning to spread, speaking ill not just of the Pope, but of the entire structure of the Catholic Church! These muttered calls for some sort of Reformation, left unchecked, could spell disaster for the Papacy.Īll the diplomatic skills of the Pope should not be used purely in reaction to events, of course. Far to the north, the venerable monastic states of the Teutonic Order and Livonian Order, tasked by the Church with serving as Christendom's bulwarks in the Baltic, are being torn apart by envious princes, and left unsupported could be extinguished entirely. To the east across the Adriatic Sea, the Ottomans threaten the Christian bastions of the Balkans, and left unchecked could march into the heart of the Holy Roman Empire itself. As the head of the Catholic faith, the Pope has a unique responsibility to protect the faith and spread the Word of God far beyond the confines of the Papal States' worldly borders. His Holiness has far greater challenges ahead of him than upstart leaders of Italian communes, however. If the Papacy does nothing to curb these cities' autonomy, they could slip out of Rome's grasp entirely. Being a religious man, His Holiness is not able to focus all his energies on secular matters, and some of the Papal State's territories, such as Perugia and Urbino, have managed to assert a startling level of autonomy for themselves.
The Papal State is the collection of lands under the rule of Bishop of Rome, the Pope himself.
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