To the east across the Adriatic Sea, the Ottomans threaten the Christian bastions of the Balkans, and left unchecked could march into the heart of the Holy Roman Empire itself. As the head of the Catholic faith, the Pope has a unique responsibility to protect the faith and spread the Word of God far beyond the confines of the Papal States' worldly borders.
His Holiness has far greater challenges ahead of him than upstart leaders of Italian communes, however. If the Papacy does nothing to curb these cities' autonomy, they could slip out of Rome's grasp entirely. Being a religious man, His Holiness is not able to focus all his energies on secular matters, and some of the Papal State's territories, such as Perugia and Urbino, have managed to assert a startling level of autonomy for themselves.
The Papal State is the collection of lands under the rule of Bishop of Rome, the Pope himself.
