Sublime

That heresy seems to have died down almost completely in the second half of the eleventh century is possibly related to the fact that the Church was starting a programme of reform that had been initiated by Pope Leo IX (1049–54). The greatest of the reforming pontiffs of this period – and indeed one of the most significant of all mediaeval popes –

Values are a set of ideas about how you want to live your life, the kind of person you want to be and the principles you want to stand for.

The Church found a way of living with the unexplained delay, because

In other words, the key to the leader's public usefulness is his inner, unseen life. Character is what we are when no one is looking. The leader is leading all the time and, for the most part, unconsciously. Your holiness matters greatly to those you have been entrusted to lead.

If the need for holiness is one challenge I shall take from this book,

With the Reformation, the situation changed. Many of the most earnest Protestants were business men, to whom lending money at interest was essential. Consequently first Calvin, and then other Protestant divines, sanctioned interest. At last the Catholic Church was compelled to follow suit, because the old prohibitions did not suit the modern world.

sanest guide through the turbulence and hatred of human politics is a humorous and self-deprecating pessimism.