I had an Protestant Episcopalian friend years ago who was criticizing the church for a whole bunch of things in the past, naming a whole list of characters like Cardinal
Richelieu. He also made a comparison of the pre-reformation Catholic church with the movie
The Name of the Rose (book by Unberto Ecco). The monks were an unsavory bunch in the film (although Sean Connery played an admirable Franciscan), and represented for him the superstition and hypocrisy of medieval Catholics. Sean Connery’s part symbolised for him the Protestant enlightenment and rationality creeping into the church (it was actually representative of scholastic learning coming into full flower).
It was a long conversation but basically, I told contended that a lot of the problems of the church in the past were due to the long, slow martyrdom of being under the control of various monarchs and princes who meddled in appointments to episcopal sees compromised the church, while in every generation God raises up saints in the most unlikely places. I stated that the church was nailed to the tree like Christ, and with the help of the Holy Spirit survived those dreadful times. This naturally connected his own church’s background to the problem, not the solution.
He yielded in frustration and said I should have been a Jesuit, thinking I would take that as a compliment. It was rather a veiled insult on his part.
The Society of Jesus was suppressed for political reasons, the Portuguese and Catholic monarchies wanted them out of the way because the Reductions were obstructing the exploitation of the American native peoples. This is major evidence of how much control of the church was in the hands of monarchs and princes across Europe.
The movie
The Mission, starring Robert DeNiro is a well made film of that story, although I am sure that they took some artistic liberties in the making of the film.
+T+
Michael