“
My grief and my despair are at their height, when I see the Eastern Church separated by the craft of the devil from the Catholic faith; and if I turn my looks to the West, to the South, or to the North, I find scarcely any who are lawful bishops, whether as regards their conduct in their high office, or the manner in which they attained it. They govern their flocks, not for the love of Jesus, but through a profane ambition; and among secular princes, I find not one to prefer the honor of God to his own, or justice to his interest. The Romans, Lombards, and Normans, among whom I live, will soon be (and I often tell them so) more execrable than Jews and pagans. And when I turn my looks upon myself, I see that my vast enterprise is beyond my strength, so that I should lose every hope of ever securing the safety of the Church, did not the mercy of Jesus Christ come to my assistance; for if I hoped not for a better life, and were it not for the safety of the holy Church, I take God to witness that I would stay no longer at Rome, where I have already 'lived twenty years in spite of myself. I am even as if struck with a thousand bolts, like a man suffering from a never-ending malady, and all whose hopes, unhappily, are only soo far distant.
— POPE GREGORY VII