Negotiating The Trials Of Life
Sermons On The First Readings
"In the seventh year of his reign, two days before his sixty-fifth birthday, in the presence of a full consistory of cardinals, Jean Marie Barette, Pope Gregory XVII, signed an instrument of abdication, took off the Fisherman's ring, handed his seal to the Cardinal Camerlengo and made a curt speech of farewell." So begins the power novel The Clowns of God, the second volume of a trilogy of tales about popes and faith written by Morris West, the Australian-born author. In the story the Pope has seen a vision of the Second Coming.