While not the same level of sway it held in previous years, the church has a lot of influence in the world. As the most clearly God-instituted body on earth, people look to it for standards of morality, even if their copy of Holy Writ sports a layer of dust as thick as the lunar surface (actually, usually because of it – too lazy to look for themselves). In recent years, of course, the church's ethical high-bar has served as a robust target for hypocrisy-nigglers, but it is only because of its position as the "arbiter" of morality in society...