"What a depravity!" William walked into a Roman church and saw the group of Italian priests and nuns who were fleeing in a hurry, all of them flushed, unclothed, and flustered, and looked lavishly decorated in the place where they played, with tables full of delicate delicacies and food, and delicious high points hung in the air, and it was evident that the monks and nuns had been indulging in the feast, trying to bite off the cakes that hung in the air.

"Is this what the Holy One is called in the Church? Their stupidity and conceit, combined with the depravity of their lives, are no longer able to shoulder the burden of communicating between God and the believers, and I, as the Roman Emperor, cannot sit idly by! William, after seeing the corruption and depravity of the Church of Rome with his own eyes, made up his mind.

The scene in front of William was only the corrupt life of ordinary clergy, and the Pope and Cardinal were even more poor and extravagant, and the luxury was unimaginable to William.

Every year, the Holy See receives tithes, religious taxes, tributes from monasteries and bishops, and donations from feudal lords from all over Europe, totaling more than two million pounds of silver, of which the tithes in the Holy Roman Empire alone can harvest more than 300,000 pounds of silver, which is even three or four times more than the annual income of William's royal family and the financial income of the Norman kingdom combined.

But even so, the Pope of Rome was particularly inadequate, and for this reason he even bought and sold the priesthood, sold icons and relics of saints to loot the people's wealth, what straw Jesus slept on when he was alive, what kind of donkey reins used by ancient saints, etc., all kinds of strange things.

Of course, the biggest part of this is the income from the purchase and sale of the Holy See's priesthood, which can be sold by bishops, regional archbishops, priests, etc., and many people who have bought higher thrones with money will also sell the lower seats under their jurisdiction in order to get back the money they have to buy them.

This is why there has been a centuries-old struggle between the Holy See and the Holy Roman Empire for the right to appoint bishops, and why a few years ago, when William tried to take control of the Church in his country and massively recover church assets and religious taxes such as tithes, the then Cluni Pope Leo IX would do whatever it took to encourage the HRE Emperor Henry III and many other countries to launch a siege against William.

Because once the income of the church in England and France is completely lost, the financial revenue of the Holy See will be reduced by more than one-third in an instant, and the financial resources of the Holy See will become more and more stretched, and it will no longer be able to supply enough gold coins for the pope, bishops, and clergy to squander.

Of course, the victor in that war was William, who won control of the church in his country through that battle, and pocketed all the church's revenues.

This is an important reason why the power of the Holy See has plummeted since then, because since then the Church's finances have not been able to support a large army, and it has to rely on the power of countries such as the Holy Roman Empire, Sicily, and Croatia.

However, these forces are not their own after all, once these countries are too busy to take care of themselves, or half-hearted, then once William leads his troops south to Rome, the Holy See will have no power to fight back, which is why William was able to take Rome so easily.

At first, William thought that the military operation to Rome would be very difficult, but what he did not expect was that the resistance of the Holy See would be so weak that before he could do his best, the Holy See was already prostrate at his feet.

"Hamelin, how is the investigation into the Holy See? It's very corrupt and debaucherous. William said to the new Pope John IX beside him.

Although Hamelin is now the Pope, his attitude towards William is still very respectful, and he is not annoyed by William's name, but is somewhat cordial.

"Your Majesty, in addition to corruption and extravagance among the clergy of the Holy See, it is also very common for the clergy of the Holy See to keep concubines.

According to the rules of the Holy See, the clergy must be chaste and are not allowed to marry, but these clergy, from the popes of the past generations to the ordinary clergy, do not marry on the surface, but behind the scenes they have concubines, keep mistresses, and live a life of spending and drinking.

The city of Rome was full of brothels and prostitutes, where the clergy were frequent visitors, and the monasteries became places of filth and filth, and women who had no means of living had to study in monasteries, which were very promiscuous, and even the bones of babies were found in the courtyards of some churches. John X was heartbroken to report to William what he had discovered.

As he put it, the Holy See has become a place of filth and filth, and has degenerated into a group of interests full of benevolence and morality, full of men and women and prostitutes. Christianity has seen a serious divergence between theory and practice, between slogans and reality.

The contrast between the spiritualist ideals sung by the Holy See and the despicable actions of the clergy, who sang the high tune of saving souls and demanded how others should be, and judged others with the authority of religion, while on the other hand, their tyranny, cruelty, greed, corruption, and hypocrisy, which had run counter to the high profile they propagated, made William feel extremely disgusted and angry.

William's opponents, the Cluny, held high the banner of the corruption of the Reformed Church and demanded that teachers abide by celibacy, but everyone knew what their internal situation was, for example, the former Pope Leo IX, as a representative of the Cluny faction, in fact his private life was not much better than that of other clergy, but only a cleaner one on the surface.

Even with the most noble aims, once they have power, the speed of their corruption and degeneration is astonishing, because there is no limit to their power.

Absolute power without limits will lead to absolute corruption, this is an unbreakable truth. Roman Catholicism has very skillfully built three walls around them, which is why the whole of Christianity is horribly corrupt.

One is that they issued decrees declaring that the secular powers had no right to govern them, but that the clergy was superior to the secular powers. Second, they hold the right to interpret the Bible, claiming that only the Pope can interpret the Bible, thus controlling the right to speak. Thirdly, if someone threatens to convene an ecumenical council, they can lie and reply that only the Pope can convene a council.

The Ecumenical Council, or the Ecumenical Council, lied and legislated that only the Pope could convene it, because the Ecumenical Council had the supreme judicial power and the relationship between the judges, and the Holy See and the Pope had the supreme authority.

These clergy of the Holy See stole the three scepters and built tall walls to protect their interests, protecting them once and for all from their impregnable cities.

Such an unsightly situation is what William and Pope Hamelin, as well as all the people of insight want to change.