Editing Church of Sanctaria (section)

===Height of the Church (1580—1865)===
====Temporal sovereignty====
Procedures for acceding to the Papal States of Sanctaria were established by Patriarch Aequitas II in 1538. Chief among them was that the nation in question must profess the Sanctarian Catholic faith as the "one and only true faith" of its jurisdiction, and secondly that the nation's leaders must submit to the rule of the Patriarch, both temporally and spiritually. In most cases, such as that of [[Buckingham]], nations that voluntarily joined the Papal States did so for financial and security reasons. Buckingham was a highly agrarian society and had recently been severely affected by a great famine of their corn corp, a crop most of their most indigent population relied on for basic sustenance. Though it was true most of the population had become devout Catholics thanks to the missionaries of the Church of Sanctaria in previous decades, it was only when Patriarch Simon VII promised the nation in 1544 that he would ensure food and medicine reached the devastated communities that the nation applied to join the growing theocratic empire.
[[File:Massacre of Clan Nich.jpg|thumb|''The Massacre at Clan Nich'' - artist unknown]]
Right by conquest, however, was the most common way that the Papal States incorporated new lands and nations as colonies or constituent states. The Blessed Army, which by 1580 had grown to be a standing army of over 100,000 men-at-arms, as well as a growing number of battleships, very often went unmatched in clashes with native farmsmen or sellswords in the invaded lands. While scholars have documented countless numbers of atrocities, and what would now be considered war crimes, committed by the Blessed Army in many of its conquests, it was the invasion of [[Clan Nich]] in 1609 that counts as the most bloody. Clan Nich, a small island community located in a different region than the [[International Democratic Union|IDU]] lay in the middle of a favoured trade route of the Papal States - and lay on top of rich salt mines too; salt, a rare commodity in the Papal States at this point, was used to preserve foods. The inhabitants of Clan Nich were primarily fisherman and were not adherents in any way to the Church of Sanctaria. After they refused to allow the Papal States to access their resources, Patriarch Paul VII ordered the papal army to take what they needed by force. The inhabitants of the island of Clan Nich were unable to put up any significant fight and, of the roughly 50,000 male inhabitants of the island, only 4000 were reported to have survived. It was also documented that many soldiers within the Blessed Army raped and imprisoned many women from the island, with priests travelling with the army permitting it as a form of "forced conversion". Soon after the Massacre at Clan Nich, as it has become known amongst modern-day inhabitants of the island - and the name by which the Divine Republic of Sanctaria in 1993 apologised on behalf of its previous iteration - Paul VII appointed a governor, or doge, as his representative on the island, and Clan Nich was formally entered into the Papal States on 01 October 1610.

Adherence to the Church of Sanctaria, however, wasn't always the red line issue some patriarchs had made it out to be. One notable nation that was a part of the Papal States but was permitted to retain its native religion was [[Holy Thebes]]. While they were required to accept the Patriarch of the Church of Sanctaria to be their sovereign, the then-Patriarch Stephan VI allowed them to continue practicing their animalistic religion. The Thebans harvested leaves from local plants and brewed them into a form of hot drink, like a tea, but the plants they picked from very often had hallucinogenic properties. This tea proved very popular with the upper classes, not only in Sanctaria and the Papal States, but around the [[International Democratic Union]] too. The wealthy elite back in mainland Sanctaria lobbied the papal office hard to allow the Thebans to continue producing and harvesting these leaves, which they only were able to do after working themselves up into a frenzy as part of their religious ceremonies. Stephan VI, and his successors, all allowed the native Thebans to continue worshiping their native religion, well after Holy Thebes joined the Papal States in 1598; modern religious scholars use this as a primary example of where the Church's dedication to religion was allowed to come second to its profits and standing amongst the elite.

At its absolute height in 1800, the Papal States had, either through right of conquest, voluntary accession, or accession via duress, [[Constituent States of the Papal States of Sanctaria|thirty eight nations]] constituting its theocratic empire, not including the original, and mother country, Sanctaria itself.

====Clashes with science====
Though the Church had routinely put profits or warfare over its basic teachings, it also often used its doctrine and teachings as a reason to censor the growing scientific community across the Papal States. The Church believed that any questions which could not be answered by religious texts were meant to be unanswered as, it taught, "God has decided it is best we not understand". They instructed their faithful, in both religious services and through the education it provided in schools, to not question what they did not understand, and to "leave everything to faith in God". Mutual trade with other nations, however, as well as increased migration, particularly of those from nations not in the Papal States and who had more advanced knowledge of science and mathematics, made the task of not questioning the Church on routine matters much more difficult. In fact, the Church forbade the teaching of anything more scientific than basic maths and "domestic science", as they called botany and cooking, until 1675.
[[File:Stake Burning.jpg|left|thumb|242x242px|The Church of Sanctaria routinely burned heretics at the stake between 1300 and 1700.]]
Many of those who questioned the Church's position on science and maths in this period left the Papal States to further their education in these areas, later returning and attempting to covertly teach those curious about how and why the world worked as it did. Most controversially was the Baker Affair in which prominent philosopher Marcus Baker told a crowd of gathered students at the Haven Theological Society in 1670 that when one picked up a twig and let it go, it dropped to the ground because of an invisible force, which he called gravity. Religious extremists present at the demonstration were, contemporary reports say, outraged at the heresy displayed by Baker, as in truth, they claimed, the twig fell back to earth because "God did not will it to have wings". Baker was reported to the local doge, and was sentenced to death by burning, which was the standard punishment for what the Church considered heresy at the time.

The Baker Affair drove many free-thinking academics and emerging scientists underground where they produced encyclicals, or pamphlets, on everything from mathematics to human anatomy, much of which challenged the Church's teachings on many matters, and some of which claimed there were natural reasons for something occurring rather than it being by God's design. The Church attempted to find and destroy these pamphlets, and to capture those who wrote them, to limited success. Between the years 1670 and 1701, over fifty scientists were captured by the Church and executed without trial.

The actions of the Church in how they dealt with the scientists and philosophers began to anger many, not just in the educated upper class circles that had significant influence on the patriarchy, but also the less-educated but still literate and intelligent middle classes. After a series of riots by these groups in 1706, Patriarch Thomas VI declared that "science and religion are brothers, not enemies. They must find common ground". Though the ban on teaching more scientific subjects like accounting and anatomy had been lifted in 1675, Thomas VI allowed all new scientific areas like physics, chemistry, and biology to be taught in universities, and allowed scientists to publish their theories and findings openly. At a sermon at Easter 1708, Thomas VI said said "all these things scientific happen because God allows them to. God may not make the feather fall from the bird, but He allows it to. God created science, science is nothing to fear".

Relations between the Church and representatives of various fields of science, most particularly astronomy and physics, were strained for many years until July 1808 when Patriarch Mark V appointed the first official scientific advisor to the patriarchy.

====Spiritual development====
Despite the rise of science and scientific thinking across the Papal States during this period, attendance at Mass and other religious services peaked at all time highs. In nearly all states of the Papal States, it was mandatory to be raised in, and to practice, the Sanctarian Catholic faith. As started in 1444, educational facilities were established across the empire, all ran by either the Church itself or by one of its religious orders or institutes. Third level education, or universities, were primarily for theology or as training centers to join the priesthood. Though some private universities were established, like the [[Sanctus Academy of Science]] in 1742, primarily the Church's focus on educational instruction was to grow the faith of its followers.

In 1698, Patriarch Paul VIII required girls to attend religious education up until the age of 11. In the same year, he repeated the canonical instruction that the Sabbath day - for Sanctarian Catholics, Sunday - was to be "kept holy", i.e. that domestic work was not to be done. This enabled women and girls across the Papal States to attend religious services, whereas previously they often did housework or tended to the farm while the men and male children attended church on Sundays. In 1704, Thomas VI shortly after his election as Patriarch, required families with more than one male child to "entrust [the] youngest son to the Church" in exchange for reduced annual tithes. This, after a generation or so, vastly increased the ranks of priests within the Church of Sanctaria, while alleviating immediately the expenditure of impoverished families. Some critics suggest this form of bribery by the Church only artificially inflated actual devout believers, but Church historians argue that it allowed many peasant adherents of the Church to recognise the inherent beneficiality of the Church, with full belief to naturally develop after.

Religious minorities continued to be persecuted in Sanctaria in this period, also. Those who didn't attend weekly services were often admonished from the pulpit by local parish priests, and on more than one occasion priests and bishops encouraged brutal religious discrimination against immigrants with different belief systems. Devout Catholics were told their souls would be automatically entered into heaven should they be able to convert at least one "heathen" a year to the Church of Sanctaria faith, while, simultaneously, individuals were banished from their families and their communities should they marry someone who didn't attend Church of Sanctaria services, or if they married outside the faith. This shunning of family members was officially encouraged by the Sanctarian Catholic Church right up until 1958.