Sin and Grace

Matthew Lundin in Books & Culture reviews The Reformation of the Keys: Confession, Conscience, and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Germany by Ronald K. Rittgers.

... The City Council had long striven for full control of the city's church life and now, thanks to the Reformation, had final say in all religious matters.

This happens when the average Catholic has less confidence in the average bishop than in the average alderman.