Brought up under the wing of Adrians predecessor pope Leo X he was hailed by universal acclaim as a return to the good old days of art and debauchery. One cardinal exclaimed he would be the best pope to ever hold the pontificate. Simony and nepotism were restored overnight.
They denounced the cardinals as madmen, betrayers of Christs blood, pamphleteers demanded to know why Rome had been surrendered to german fury. People demanded they be buried alive. Cardinals feared to show themselves in public, ascribing the election to the Holy Ghost.
"Your spirit is not our spirit" he told him. Melanchthon agreed; 
In the church of innocence in Paris so many newly dead sought admission that old bodies were exhumed as soon as the flesh was expected to have fallen off the bones. The bones piled indiscriminately in charnel houses that became social hubs for merchants & prostitutes. (1509) 
Famine, plague, waste and war had depleted its population, with the loss of its trade urban pop & the dole evaporated. Taxation was increasing to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy whos chief function was to tax the people. Much tax revenue was lost to corruption.
The next generation of philosophers, Rousseau (born 1712), Diderot (1713), d'Alembert (1717), Baron d'Holbach (1723), Helvétius (1715) were all less fun & less gay than Voltaire. They took things further, wanting to smash state, society and morality itself.
Voltaire is the equivalent to the first turk or soviet to leave their despotic sultanate, busy with court intrigue, opulent spending & sexual libertinism which nonetheless prides itself on being the center of the world- only to find that northern Europeans have it better.
I cannot bring myself to accept the arguments for "Based" monarchy or any form of centralized power as an end to strive for in and of itself. For if we could create any state we wanted, free of foreigners and liberals, Id find the idea of becoming subject nonetheless repulsive.
Nothing much is said here except for value signalling, 'true christianity is rests not in scripture but in my gay libtard schoolmarm teachers who dont even believe in original sin' but it can be educational to respond to the few claims made.
A liberal will ask about damnation in eternal hellfire "How is this possible if God is a loving God?" 
As some papists alleged after Luther began his reformation that he had "hatched the egg which Erasmus had lain". Humanists saw the medieval project as a failure which needed to be reimagined but reformers saw it as a moral battle between good and evil - could achieve success. 
The idea was that the parishoners were merely witnesses to a professional preparing a sacrifice, his prayers like the local relics, bestowing a blessing via proximity. Some didnt bother with the preamble and simply showed up for the eucharist and left.
He believed he was living in the end times, his predecessor had just died of the plague. The Empire he identified with and Italy in general was a wasteland. The cities were depopulated filled with ruins and roving gangs of barbarians ruled and exploited the survivors. 
Whats more striking are the new innovations these celtic monks introduced to western christianty. Extreme fasting was common as was self-flagellation known as 'the discipline'. During the medieval period extreme self-denial and self-imposed harm grew as to attain purity. 
One of the reasons I think is behind the modern upswing in interest for the era is not because its an alternative but that its so similar to ours. We recognize the social decay and corruption of the medici popes, its the vitality of reformation & enlightenment thats alien to us.
Machiavelli agreed, but being an atheist he lamented the death of Christianity as a social technology that could entice the dumb goyim to take oaths seriously, serve their state loyally & die for ZOG. 