A closer look
The Catholic Church eventually got absolutely sick of competing with the stars for authority. In 1586, Pope Sixtus V released a fiery papal bull specifically outlawing all forms of divination, taking a particularly hard stance against judicial astrology. He was furious that people were using planetary alignments to predict the deaths of popes and kings, which he viewed as stealing God's proprietary information. Apparently, the only acceptable massive, unquestionable authority in sixteenth-century Europe was the Pope himself.
