But for their exertions it is probable that the Bishop of Rome would have been merely the honorary president of a vast aristocracy of prelates.

It was by the aid of the Benedictines that Gregory the Seventh was enabled to contend at once against the Franconian Caesars and against the secular priesthood.

It was by the aid of the Dominicans and Franciscans that Innocent the Third crushed the Albigensian sectaries.
In the sixteenth century the Pontificate exposed to new dangers more formidable than had ever before threatened it, was saved by a new religious order, which was animated by intense enthusiasm and organized with exquisite skill.

When the Jesuits came to the rescue of the Papacy, they found it in extreme peril: but from that moment the tide of battle turned.

Protestantism, which had, during a whole generation, carried all before it, was stopped in its progress, and rapidly beaten back from the foot of the Alps to the shores of the Baltic.