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Sure, and then there was the Protestant Reformation and centuries of religious wars. Eventually 1/3rd of the population of Germany died in the Thirty Years War.
But it gets worse. The Protestant Reformation led to the Protestant work ethic and a large increase in surplus capital. That caused the Industrial Revolution which in turn triggered the unprecedented increase in material wealth we are enjoying now. With sufficient wealth, society was free to develop feminism and shortly afterwards came the demographic transition. Our species now awaits a barren childless heat death if AI doesn't kill us first. And all because some selfish Medieval popes didn't take their religion seriously.
So let's not have Francis head down the path of the Medieval popes. It saves us all lot of trouble in the long run.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the College Football realignment.
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I'm not sure if "wealth" per se is the reason we developed feminism. I'm more of a fan of the idea that we whittled away at the traditional role of women with labor-saving technologies in the house, and separated sex from most of its consequences with birth control, contraception and antibiotics, and these two facts combined at a certain point in history to create a class of upper class women trying to fill the traditional role with almost nothing meaningful or challenging to do day after day (which was thus incredibly unsatisfying), and little friction to them experimenting with very different roles that might actually meaningfully contribute to society in the day-to-day.
Feminism wasn't inevitable after those technological and medical developments, but it does seem like the vast majority of cultures which come into contact with them end up having an expanded role for women in the public sphere and lower birth rates.
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