Watercolor, charcoal and plaster on paper

A 14th century missionary writer said, “The worst man, if he be a priest, is more worthy than the holiest of laymen.” Some said the priests of Rome were given to drunkenness and robbery with no one to stop them. The local presbyter insisted that Christians must honor even wicked priests. St. Bernard, who couldn’t stand the Church’s greed, asked: “Whom can you show me among the prelates who does not seek rather to empty the pockets of his flock then to subdue their vices?”

-- Walker, Barbara G., The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1983. Page 437.