What Happens When Sacred And Secular Power Collide?

As a medieval historian and lead editor of “The Cambridge History of the Papacy,” I cannot help but see a familiar pattern.

For many people, Trump’s rant against the pope was shocking. But conflicts between popes and rulers are not an aberration; they’re a durable feature of Western history. Whenever political leaders cloak power in sacred language, or religious leaders publicly denounce political violence, they reenact debates that stretch back more than a millennium. These struggles are not symbolic: They concern who holds ultimate authority over people, souls – and in the end, history itself.