The Church had a huge play in European society during the Middle Ages, in that period, the Church had an elaborated hierarchy that often was mixed with people with political power within the society. So, Church in that period very much influenced politics and decision making.
The Church also influenced the economy in a good way by pushing for the Crusades. The Crusades were a series of battles “for the faith” which pushed Europeans to go to the Middle East. With these series of travels for battles, commerce started to emerge since Europeans started to demand a series of goods from the Middle East. This pushed the development of many cities such as Venice and Florence.
The Catholic Church started to lose its influence with the Protestant Reformation which criticized a series of practices of the faith openly, what was not very much common until that moment and also provided people another way that was Protestantism.