east do not fail to
consider what history has to tell about priestly government. We do not
have to use our imaginations in the matter, for there was once a
Golden Age such as Archbishop Quigley dreams of, when the power of the
church was complete, when emperors and princes paid homage to her, and
the civil authority made haste to carry out her commands. What was the
condition of the people in those times? We are told by Lea, in his
"History of the Inquisition" that:

The moral condition of the laity was unutterably depraved.
Uniformity of faith had been enforced by the Inquisition and
its methods, and so long as faith was preserved, crime and
sin was comparatively unimportant except as a source of
revenue to those who sold absolution. As Theodoric Vrie
tersely puts it, hell and purgatory would be emptied if
enough money could be found. The artificial standard thus
created is seen in a revelation of the Virgin to St.
Birgitta, that a Pope who was free from heresy, no matter
how polluted by sin and vice, is not so wicked but that he
has the absolute power to bind and loose souls. There are
many wicked popes plunged in hell, but all their lawful acts
on earth are accepted and confirmed by God, and all priests
who are not heretics administer true sacraments, no matter
how depraved they may be. Correctness of belief was thus the
sole essential; virtue was a wholly subordinate
consideration. How completely under such a system religion
and morals came to be dissociated is seen in the remarks of
Pius II, that the Franciscans were excellent theologians,
but cared nothing about virtue.

This, in fact, was the direct result of the system of
persecution embodied in the Inquisition. Heretics who were
admitted to be patterns of virtue were ruthlessly
exterminated in the name of Christ, while in the same holy
name the orthodox could purchase absolution for the vilest
of crimes for a few coins. When the only unpardonable
offence was persistence in some trifling error of belief,
such as the poverty of Christ; when men had before them the
example of their spiritual guides as leaders in vice and
debauchery and contempt of sacred things, all the sanctions
of morality were destroyed and the confusion between right
and wrong became hopeless. The world has probably never seen