What steps did the Catholic Church take in Europe during medieval times to make ordinary people remain loyal?

The Catholic Church in the middle ages benefitted from being the only institution with money and infrastructure left standing after the fall of the Roman Empire. Ordinary people lived short, brutal lives during these times. Mortality rates were shockingly high, the cause of disease was still unknown, and the vast most majority of Europeans were illiterate and suffering from severe malnutrition.

The Church offered the promise of a happy afterlife, as well as an explanation and justification for the pain and suffering that was the daily routine of Europeans in medieval times. Not only did the Catholic Church offer faith and a safe place for people to gather together every week to comfort themselves and each other, but its services, which were filled with pageantry and even small amounts of wine and bread (the sacraments) were often the only source of free entertainment and distraction from the daily grind of life.

If one was not won over by the sense of hope and promise that the church offered, or the food and shelter it gave, the Church also had a very strong enforcement plan. Not only could the clergy choose to help clothe and feed the needy, but they could also order executions of the unfaithful or banish villagers who misbehaved in any way from the relative safety of their village. During that time, when each feudal village was a world into itself, and outsiders were routinely killed or left for dead, being cast out or banished from one's village was tantamount to execution.

If those threats and benefits were not enough to command an individual's loyalty to the Church, then the Inquisition usually was. The Inquisition was the enforcement mechanism for the Church, and it went around the continent looking for disbelievers or anyone who asked too many questions, or interpreted the bible differently than the Church did. The Inquisition labelled these non-conformists "heretics" and "apostates," and then burned at the stake, stoned them to death or had them drawn and quartered. The barbarism of the Inquisition knew no bounds.

During a time in which strong governments did not exist, rule of law was arbitrary or absent, the Catholic Church offered answers to life's great questions, and gave the hope of a better future (in the afterlife) to anyone who played by the rules. Additionally, the Church often helped those who were faithful to avoid starvation, and sometimes housed refugees and beggars in the relative safety of the church.

In fact, the best way for an ordinary person in the middle ages to have sufficient food and shelter (a major luxury) was to join a holy order and become a man or woman of God. The second best thing one could do was to show unerring obedience to the Church, and hope for its charity in times of need. The very last thing most people wanted to do was provoke the only entity that stood between themselves and starvation, public execution and eternal damnation.