"Benedict IX, a boy of less than twelve years, was raised to the apostolic throne. One of his successors, Victor III, declared that the life of Benedict was so shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. The people, unable longer to bear his adulteries, homicides and abominations, rose against him, and in despair of maintaining his position, he put up the papacy at auction and it was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory the VI. These are but a part of the crimes and irregularities of which some of the popes were guilty." "I don't believe all that. I never heard of it before. Where's your proof?" demanded McBryan. "My dear sir, these things are a matter of history. Everything I have said of these popes and much more is recorded in Draper's 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe' and can be substantiated by other historians." "Aren't there a lot of Protestant ministers who are guilty of immorality?" McBryan asked. "There are some Protestant ministers who are guilty of immorality, but when it is discovered that a Protestant minister has gone wrong he is expelled from the ministry. A big difference between the relation of a Protestant minister and his congregation and the pope and the Catholic church is that Protestants do not hold their ministers or any ecclesiastic to be infallible, while the Catholics do hold the pope to be infallible. I do not doubt that many of the popes were good men, and I do not claim that because some of them were bad that all of them are to be condemned, but the point I am making is that one must be very credulous to believe that Christ would recognize as His direct representatives men who had committed such gross immoralities and outraged every human right--men who were among the greatest reprobates and degenerates the world has ever produced. I cannot understand how men who are not controlled by superstitious fear can believe that these men were the successors of St. Peter and that through them Christ passed down the office of pontiff, including all of the prerogatives of his vicarage, to the present incumbent." "I believe He did," said McBryan. "I suppose you believe that Christ authorized the sale of the papacy at auction by Benedict IX. Well, I don't believe it." "It don't make any difference to Catholics what damn Protestants think of their pope."