Quotes About Benefices

the Pope replied, "What can you preach to the people? If on humility, you yourselves are the proudest of the world, puffed up, pompous and sumptuous in luxuries. If on poverty, you are so covetous that all the benefices in the world are not enough for you. If on chastity—but we will be silent on this, for God knoweth what each man does and how many of you satisfy your lusts.

The English were increasingly resentful of the papal appointment of foreigners to English benefices, with its accompanying drain of English money outside the country. In their growing spirit of independence, they were already moving toward a Church of England without being aware of it.