Ok, Im just finishing up an English campaighn. This time round I managed to set a really good bloodline up, my princes were rolling out at min 6 stars normally, so I had some kick ass generals on hand all the time and when the king reached c55 y/o Id have my assasin enclave (another thing I concentrated on that I normally dont bother with) cull the weaker ones so that the best of the best reached the throne.
Thing is, about 50 years ago, I noticed Id had not trouble with the Papacy in centuries, and sure enough my current king and heir were really pious, as were an awful lot of my generals.
This is great as Im just coming into conflict with the Catholics now and popey isnt hastling me too much about killing them.

My problem is, I have no idea how I managed to trawl out all these pious devils, and since the benifits are pretty damn good, (popey not annoying me and I might be imagining it but my catholic holdings havent rebelled in decades, and I stripped their garrisons completley when I was running into the Byz)

Is it just linked to influence generally or am I doning something else to get theses stats?

Thanks