Another notorious example of religious influence in State matters was the cardinal and duke of Richelieu (1585-1642), who exercised great power in France and also accumulated wealth that was “excessive even by the standards of the age,” states the Britannica.
They likely agree with Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, Germany, who said that the church’s wealth may have led it to give too much attention to material things and “not to take faith in Christ seriously enough.”
A recent book, Abrégé de la foi catholique (Summary of the Catholic Faith), prefaced by French Cardinal Decourtray, put the question squarely: “Is it necessary to believe in hell?”
In 1502, cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros, political and spiritual adviser to Isabella I of Spain, decided to satisfy their needs with just one publication.
In a memorandum sent in 1994 to the cardinals (which is considered by some to be the most important document of the pontificate), John Paul II proposed “a general and millennial confession of sins.”
The mighty promises referred to by Shakespeare were those of English cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who wielded great political power in England during the 16th century.
Actually, it is the same quality that is the Law’s fulfillment, that identifies Jesus’ disciples, and that is the most dominant and appealing of Jehovah’s cardinal attributes.
Obedience alone, therefore, guides the child in the way of morality and of the cardinal virtues upon existence of which his relationship to moral order depends.” —Compare Proverbs 22:15.
Interviewed in 1984, Rome’s Cardinal Ratzinger said: “Our civilization . . . focuses on mitigating circumstances and alibis in the attempt to take away people’s sense of guilt, of sin . . . , that very reality with which belief in hell and Purgatory is associated.”
12 Quebec’s Premier Maurice Duplessis, working hand in glove with Roman Catholic Cardinal Villeneuve, reacted to the tract by declaring a “war without mercy” against the Witnesses.