I want to begin with a fascinating story from the Middle Ages. It is about a pope named Gregory and a king named Henry IV of Germany. In those days popes not only had ecclesiastical power but political power as well. In a dramatic move, Pope Gregory excommunicated King Henry IV when he insisted on divorcing his wife Bertha of Savoy. This was not only devastating to Henry spiritually, but politically, for this made Henry ineligible to sit on the throne of Germany.

The king, who well knew what the pope expected out of him, came to Rome to do penance and to seek absolution. He found that the pope was away in the mountains. And so, during the harsh winter of 1077, King Henry IV and his servants made a long and dangerous journey through the snowy mountains of northern Italy to meet with the Po…