The Different Types of State in the Catholic Church

I think it's important to treat the state as being continuous with other kinds of groups. And so, the Catholic Church is not prone to the same dysfunctions as the state is. But there is something distinctive about this particular kind of group that's developed over the course of European modernity since the 1500s or so. It extends to significant bureaucratization and a push toward universalism and uniformity within it in a way that isn't mirrored in even very large other groups.