Quote Originally Posted by Lemur
Oooh, wait, I know how to handle this one. If you've got a high-level assassin, just take out the Pope and the excommunication is over. Or you can send a diplomat and keep donating 1000 florins until your relationship is Very Good or better, at which point you can request an end to the papal ban.

The death of your faction leader will also fix things, but that's kind of not what we're looking for.
For ironical reasons, I think Bush should get his high-level Grand Inquisitor (preferably from Castile, do you suppose he could invade Spain just to train the Inkies?) and try the Pope for heresy. Come on, if he tries hard enough he'll even turn him into an atheist, and then it's sizzling time!