I know they have their own country in italy, Vatican city, but I also know that their influence spread all around the world. Was there a point in modern times ( early pre or post colonization of the americas) that they still wielded any power?
Softtouchmale
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The Roman Catholic Church for the most part became a theocracy once Emperor Constantine placed the royal stamp of approval on Christianity.
From there, they created an entire liturgy of governmental concepts. They filled major cabinet positions, ministries and magistrate positions.
From Neo-Roman times until very recently, virtually every monarchy in Europe had to rule through two things (1) divine right and (2) in consort with the "mother church".
The eventual splits came with the Great Schism of 1054, dividing Eastern provinces from Western provinces; and later with the Protestant Reformation movement beginning in 1517 at Wittenberg, Germany when Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis to the church door.
Notably this schism in Christianity broke off a branch that became sub-branches which were earlier preceded by several other protestant denominations which went against the Church.
Waldensians (who rebelled against institutionalized marriage as well as papal rule); the Avignon Papacy (where 7 French Popes serving first the French monarchy then the rest of Christendom, eschewing Rome completely); Jean (John, Johan) Wycliffe (also known as the Lollard or Morningstar) who rose at the same time as the Avignon Papcy as an anti-papacy advocate, preaching fellowship rather than theocracy.
Jahn Hus and the Hussite Wars that carried through to the Renaissance. There, Hus, a Czechoslovakian cleric railed against the Church and increasingly persuaded monarchs in the Balkan regions of Christendom to eschew Rome and to assert independence from the theocracies and political web-spinning of Rome and Avignon. The Roman Catholic Church waged crusades against the Czechs in an attempt to re-impose Papal rule and they failed at the task. Czechoslovakia had succeeded in its protestations and was free of Rome.
The Hussite wars, bolstered by the Renaissance that eventually protruded from Italy into France, Poland, and the Nordic countries spawned question after question about the Papal chokehold that engulfed Europe and its crowned heads in wars and political intrigues.
Calvin, Knox, Luther, Menno, and so many others began to openly rebel against Church theology and theocracy, disagreeing over many finer points in the Catholic cosmology and christology.
King Henry the VIIIth himself abolished the Roman Catholic Church as a "state religion" replacing it with the Anglican Church or Church of England, completing a separation which had been foretold; to which all monarchs have since sworn to be the keepers of that faith.
William of Orange, having lost his life in his quest to gain religious freedom, tolerance and separation of the Netherlands from Spain and Rome, paid a heavy price as well. He was assassinated.
The beginning of the end was the Treaty of Westphalia which ended Rome's crusades against European peoples and monarchs who chose to walk away from Rome and establish their own independent church's.
Since that time, Victor Emanuel united the Italian City-States into a nation, with himself being made Italy's monarch; thereafter Mussolini made the Papal city-state Vaticano an official nation-state within Italy's borders.
However, since that time, the Vatican has lost much of its political pull, especially with monarchies around the world. What it has lost there, it has gained through popular grass-roots causes in poor countries, notably Africa, South America, Central America and parts of Asia and the Pacific.
It is no longer a theocracy other than within its own city state in Rome. So I would say that the Roman Catholic Church lost much of its theocratic power beginning around 1200 with the rise of pre-protestant reformation schisms, to the Renaissance, and post 1517 Protestant Reformation period.
I would suggest the first monarchs to reject the Roman Catholic Church were the French monarchs beginning with the Avignon Papcy, then moving forward through the European protests to the Protestant Reformation in 1517, thereafter King Henry the VIIIth separating the Roman Catholic Church from the Church of England, to the Treaty of Westphalia ending all the crusades against the rebellious churches and denominations that split from Rome, too; and finally to the rise of Victor Emanuel who united Italy making it his own sovereign and eventually carving out Italy's19th Century empire.
I could write a book about it. The Roman Catholic Church had so many internecine intrigues going on all over the globe, that it would be damn near impossible to spell it all out.
However, I will say that it was responsible for a lot of loss of human life, lots of crusades, a bunch of inquisitions; torture, plundering, sacking, and assassinations.
Hope that gives you some idea. But the above is only a thimble-full compared to some of the things the Church was up to in the bad old days.
Anonymous
I have to agree with Marry. Just because they deliberately perpetrate a lot of religious myths, such as that they reconstituted the biblical kingdom of David, and used them in the service of their colonialism doesn't make it a theocracy. Note: the religion practiced by David was pretty far from modern Judaism, it wasn't even monotheistic. All evidence says the bible was written several hundred years later, and much of the religious parts edited. Palestinians are more likely to be descended from the ancient Hebrews than most Jews, who are largely derived from converts to Judaism elsewhere in the world. Which leads to other issues: The religious belief that some supreme deity gave certain plots of land to Jews leads to all kinds of questions - the Jews of Roman times mostly converted to Christianity by 400 C.E. (most of them were peasants who continued to inhabit the land throughout Roman rule). Does converting to another religion cause a person to automatically lose his property rights? Remember, both religions claim they follow the proper teachings of the supreme deity, so if followers of one religion should lose their property rights, should it be the followers of Christianity or the followers of Judaism? Or Islam? Another question, if the land was given to Jews way back, just which Jew is the heir to the land? It was a kingdom back then, the King owned everything. So which Jew can prove his lineal descent from the last Jewish king? I don't think it can be called a theocracy just because people worship it and hold some religious belief that its existence is based on statements made by a supreme deity. True, they have a lot of rules and practices favoring Jews, and a habit of confiscating land solely from non-Jews and giving it to Jews for Jewish-only use, and allowing discrimination based on religion. That might make a theocracy of sorts but I don't think so.
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