Sure, it was always about the money. Take the case when after St. Francis's death in 1226, his followers who attempted to continue to embrace a life of poverty were burned at the stake as heretics. The Church had no desire to encourage poverty because it had become committed to the financial power structure of Europe.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
