Silence Exile and Crumpets

Also, of course, because he rejects modern philosophical thought, he cannot work his way out of this system by reflecting that, after all, he needs to be sceptical of something which so totally reinforces his own position. If you are infallible, then you are infallible about your own infallibility - unless you reflect that this is too convenient to be reliably true. Of course, he could get there through the Gospels and reflect that he is more likely, in the circumstances, to be the Pharisee of the parable than he is to be the Publican. One of the paradoxes of the papacy is that it is, almost by definition, a temptation to gross spiritual pride, one of the worst of sins.