The Roman Catholic Church In Western Europe In The Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, many parts of Western Europe were falling, but the Roman Catholic Church had risen up from the darkness and influenced almost all of Western Europe. In this period of time, the Church had so much religious, political and economic power. The Church would start by “forcing” the people of Western Europe to believe and participate in Church life by giving them an opportunity to an everlasting afterlife. Then, from those who came, the Church gained wealth from donations and other reasons such as taxes and services. Finally, the Church had political power and they showed that by excommunicating the ones with many authorities. This would ban them from participating in any of the Church’s events and it would ban them from going into heaven.
These people in poverty have never heard of anything as good as everlasting life, after death, and this comforted the hopeless people. The Church gave everyone the opportunity to get to the promised land after life. One of the reasons everybody wanted this afterlife was because the class didn’t matter. From poor and bankrupt to kings and nobles, they were all treated in the same way in Heaven no matter how different you were from others. Sacraments were one of many “necessary tasks” to follow that all Christians needed to complete in able to get to Heaven. However, the Church “forced” the society to go to Church, by revealing that there is a punishment if you do not attend in church: going to Hell instead of