Confused - the Pope used to exercise authority over Kings who themselves ruled by 'divine' mandate. Under this form of government it was possible to kill apostates, call religious wars, burn those afflicted by the devil, it was required to pay church tax, trade in glebe territory was controlled by the church meaning amongst other things you couldn't trade at the market until the monastery goods were sold, education was almost exclusively run by monasteries and the laws were written with ecclesiastical oversight. These things are no longer accepted and our society is secular.
Shrugs my uncle is a professor of middle age British history and I'm studying it at the moment. Hope that's enough to show I know what I'm talking about.