new vehemence. In 1302, for example, Pope Boniface VIII declared in Unam sanctam that “it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” The rhetoric of the Catholic Church and its popes today is much less strident. The Second Vatican Council, meeting in the 1960s, essentially nullified Boniface’s claims, and Pope John Paul II publicly repented on behalf of the papacy for the sometimes overblown claims that had been made by his predecessors.2 Still,