Amy’s Reviews > Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church > Status Update

He (Pope John XXIII) often said that he lived by a set of rules known to all 19th century northern Italian peasants: “See everything, overlook a great deal, correct only a little.”

“I (Pope John XXIII) am grateful to the Lord for the temperament he has given me, which preserves me from anxiety and tiresome complexity. This disposition in all things, large and small, gives me, unworthy as I am, a strength of daring simplicity.”

He (Pope John XXIII) prided himself on never showing anger, never raising his voice, never making a critical comment to a subordinate. “The secret of my success may lie there - in being content to be meek and humble”, he wrote in his diary.

He (Pius X) established a network of spy agencies across Italy, known as Committees of Vigilance, to root out heretics. Its tactics included blackmail and torture. “Kindness is for fools,” the foul-tempered Pius X famously declared. The committees’ targets included a young northern priest, Angelo Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII), after he published an essay in 1909 in support of striking textile workers.

His (pope Pius IX) most famous papal decree, entitled the Syllabus of Errors, and published in 1864, condemned the concept of religious freedom, while questioning the whole idea of “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.” His successor, Pius X, stepped up the campaign of repression, ordering that all clergy swear an “oath against all modernity.”

The Holy Office (the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office - the most powerful of the 12 congregations of the Curia), however, suggested in the 1949 decree that the divisions (ref. split between Catholics & Protestants spanning ~400 yrs, & 11th century split between the Vatican & Orthodox churches) were permanent & that non-Catholic Christians could save their souls only by converting to the Catholic faith

Over time, Küng came to see how compulsory celibacy led otherwise honorable churchmen to sin - sexually, with women or men - in order to keep their sanity. Many priests came to see all women as temptresses, Küng believed. Within the Curia, it was common for a bishop or priest to go years without a single significant conversation with a woman who was not a family member or housekeeper.

(Küng, on The Gregorian) Use of the word “homosexual” was seen as scandalous and banned from conversation. Even so, students were warned repeatedly to avoid “particular friendships” with classmates; there was a prohibition on all physical contact among students, including handshakes.