The world is bigger than Europe, in fact the world is bigger than even all the European colonies at their height. Now if you would like to argue that the UK (which owned a quarter of the world at their peak), the US, Canada, Australia, China, Japan, Thailand, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Indonesia, or for that matter even Latin America whose revolutions were often anti-clerical, were taking their orders from the Pope feel free. Or in other words, feel free to have your arguments quashed.
I still "stand by what I stated, there was no time in history up to the present 'to the tune of several centuries when the popes of Rome essentially ruled the rulers of the world'."
Do you own a globe? If not perhaps now is a good time to look into it.
ABE - Also you are wrong about the papacy ruling
all of Europe for any 1260 years as most vikings did not convert until around 1000 AD and the pagan Prussians and Lithuanians were not conquered by the Teutonic Knights until the 1200s. Plus you still have that problem with the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire and Russia splitting from Rome and any papacy in 1054 AD.
Edited by anglagard, : No reason given.
Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis Bacon
The more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza