Sublime

The great institutional renewal of the Roman Church, though, began when Pope Paul III (1468–1549) convoked the Council of Trent in 1545. This council continued (with occasional interruptions) under a number of popes until 1563. It instituted a massive reform and regularization of the Western liturgy, dealt systematically with a number of clerical

In Italy, as elsewhere in Europe, anticlericalism was rife. Arnold of Brescia’s campaigns against the pope only ended with Arnold’s execution in 1155, but stability did not return to the Italian peninsula. The papacy remained locked in conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor, the formidable Frederick Barbarossa, and a series of imperially sponsored

deacons,

Therefore the chosen people of God is one: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5). There is the common dignity of the members from their regeneration in Christ; they share in common the grace of being heirs, the call to perfection, one salvation, one hope and one undivided charity. There is, therefore, no inequality in Christ and in the

Altissimi…” Receive his soul and present it in the presence of the Most High… The words buzzed in Lomeli’s head without meaning. It was happening more and more often. I cry out to You, God, but You do not answer. Some kind of spiritual insomnia, a kind of noisy interference, had crept over him during the past year, denying him that communion with

The Church faces the same temptation today: the temptation to be a Church other than the one willed by the Father by accepting people’s criteria of what a proper church should be.