Is There any Word from the Lord?

p. 58

“There is a story, taken from the early years of the Protestant Reformation, of Erasmus, a great theologian and scholar of the church.  He stood one day just outside the gates of the Vatican, chatting with the pope.  A long line of horse-drawn carts creaked heavily past them, loaded with the annual income of the church—the offerings of people rich and poor from all over Christendom, as well as the fees paid for Mass and confession and absolution.  It all amounted to millions of dollars, and a regiment of soldiers guarded the carts with drawn swords and cocked crossbows.  The pope, so Erasmus told it later, turned and said, ‘No longer can Holy Church say, “I have no silver and gold.’”  Erasmus answered quietly, ‘No.  Neither can it now say to a paralyzed person, “Walk’”.