Jesus apparently thought that defending truth did not require force. (I'll give you one money-changer-temple episode if you'll give me an overall thrust of eschewing coercion.)
The simple historical principle is that the church's departures from His attitude correspond to the wax and wane of her persuasive power.
Shades and tints of inquisitorial force are probably needed to correct the caricature. So by all means correct. But the original portrait to correct TO is the Nazerene, not some other, even papal, stop along the way.
Yep. And exaggerating the mistakes of the past is not very helpful. The Church being too strong is not a practical concern at the moment.
At this stage, we have Catholic politicians who lecture the bishops on what is proper Catholic teaching. The danger of a gov't being dictated to by the Church is nonexistent.
SD