Answer:
a. The church demanded strict obedience and persecuted those who questioned its doctrines.
Explanation:
The other options are either false or absurd. The Catholic Church giving up power voluntarily? It never happened. After the plague, the terrible and fearsome institution of the Inquisition was consolidated. Witch-hunting and burning of heretics and those accused of witchcraft or satanic practices increased and reached even massive levels in some countries in the last centuries of the Middle Ages.