16th century Europe was mainly under the control of the Catholic pope. The pope had authority over almost everything. However, renaissance Popes Alexander VI, Julius II and Leo X did not show good examples of Holy living.
The Catholic Church was weakened by Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503)for different reasons, one way that he weakened the church was through the loss of popularity, this came from his sexual nature and actions. For example, prostitutes were often in his company, such as at his own daughter’s wedding where he took pleasure viewing 150 prostitutes doing sexual acts, he had at least 8 bastard children and 3 mistresses, this went against the teachings of the church as it taught no one could have children out of wedlock and especially the pope as he was supposed to be 100% dedicated to religion, it showed that he was very lustful which is one of the deadly sins in the bible, it was dodgy …show more content…
He had been educated by humanist teachers which caused an uproar as humanists were all about retaining the classical past and believed it was an individual’s choice to follow God meaning that Pope Leo X was very ‘mankind centred’ instead of ‘God Centred’ this obviously weakened the church because it gave opportunity for people to question faith and decide themselves what they believed.
Each pope slowly contributed to the weakening of the Catholic Church as very few had a great faith and religious attitude. Their thoughts and time turned to them thinking more about worldly greatness than the salvation of souls. They turned their focus onto violence, greed, armies and wars against Christians rather than growing their own religion, doing good and being peaceful. They were very money orientated and did many things to gain more money, many going against celibacy and kusing their religious power