Saturday, March 29, 2014

Popes vs. Potentates

"But popes do not so; when anyone has sinned and has confessed, in place of hanging him or cutting off his head, they put the gospel and cross around his neck, and imprison him, as it were, in the sacristy or treasure chamber of the sacred vessels; they put him into the part of the church reserved for the deacons and the catechumens; they prescribe for him fasting, vigils, and praise. And after they have chastened him and punished him with fasting, then they give him of the precious body of the Lord and of the holy blood. And when they have restored him as a chosen vessel, free from sin, they hand him over to the Lord pure and unspotted. Do you see now, emperor, the difference between the church and the empire?" 
~Pope St. Gregory II

Pope Gregory VII (1071-85), the leader of the momentous Papal Revolution that began during his papacy and ran its course over a span of nearly fifty years (even longer in England), minced no words when he wrote (as quoted by Harold Berman): “Who does not know that kings and princes derive their origin from men ignorant of God who raised themselves above their fellows by pride, plunder, treachery, murder—in short by every kind of crime—at the instigation of the Devil, the prince of this world, men blind with greed and intolerable in their audacity.” 
~Robert Higgs

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