0 the position or authority of the Pope (= the leader of the Roman Catholic Church), or the length of time that a particular person is Pope --
1 the position of the pope (= leader of the Roman Catholic Church) --
This situation prompted the papacy to support the bishopric more actively.
In 1689, the popular belief was that our country could have been subverted by a foreign power—in this case, the papacy—and could have been undermined.
Was it to our sovereign monarch and sovereign state, or to something or someone beyond, which at the time was the papacy?
However, it is also directly related to two other contemporary factors : the relationships of bishops with regular clergy residing and operating within their dioceses and with the papacy.
In the fierce controversies between empire and papacy, he sided unambiguously with the latter.
None the less, the petitioners had as important a role in creating the system of provisions to lesser benefices as the papacy itself.
They were corrupt, accumulated bribes and gifts, and opposed major reforms in the operation of the papacy.
The debates regarding the papacy's role, in all their complexity and acrimony, are part of a wider reality of shame and disorientation.
