The Church bell curve

Bill Keller reviews Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, by John Julius Norwich, in The New York Times. Among 265 popes over almost 2,000 years, "The popes who achieved greatness ... were outnumbered by the corrupt, the inept, the venal, the lecherous, the ruthless, the mediocre and those who didn’t last long enough to make a mark."