Most of the nonsense you hear about the church dates back to the 18th and 19th century when The Church of England was trying to discredit the pope and remove the political power of the Vatican (no surprise there, all roads lead to politics). A good example is the Spanish Inquisition. The first mentions of torture and Iron Maidens come from this era and was completely fabricated. Then the infamous Galileo story which is insanely misrepresented. The church funded Galileo’s research in the first place, he was friends with the pope at the time and got into an argument with him, then wrote a very public story where he ridiculed him. This was a political issue for which Galileo ended up on house arrest for a little over a year in an Italian villa complete with all his research equipment and was allowed to continue his work (side note: Johannes Kepler was the one who actually did the math proving heliocentricity. Not that Galileo couldn’t have, but he was an obstinate man and, again, was feuding with the political powers of the time). Then there’s the crusade which I hope you’re already aware is also completely misrepresented. They were a retaliation for centuries of Muslim invasions into Europe and the holy land. This is just the prominent examples but history is widely controlled in the same way the news is, by people with suspect motivations.