There’s always a temptation for the Church to try and take on the power of the state. There are all those souls to save, don’t you know, and all those rules to pass to make sure they are. But politics, statecraft, lawmaking, power brokering — those engines all run on compromise, and compromise is the worst enemy of principle, which is, after all, what the Church is supposed to be about to be about. It’s hard to be a moral compass when you keep turning from your course.