Don't get me wrong, the catholic church was made up of people just like any other organisation. There were good guys and there were bad guys - but there were good and bad guys in Stalin's NKVD too.
The Catholic church was an excellent organisation in terms of control. They used distributed networking, so that every leader was always close to troops loyal to the guy that commanded him. Dissension was usually punished swiftly - don't make the mistake of thinking that the church back then was like it is now, divided, stupid, leaderless and corrupt. Back then it was the closest thing to a professional army that there was, and the popes wielded secular power in excess of that wielded by most kings.
Eon
The Catholic church was an excellent organisation in terms of control. They used distributed networking, so that every leader was always close to troops loyal to the guy that commanded him. Dissension was usually punished swiftly - don't make the mistake of thinking that the church back then was like it is now, divided, stupid, leaderless and corrupt. Back then it was the closest thing to a professional army that there was, and the popes wielded secular power in excess of that wielded by most kings.
Eon