Conclave

by Robert Harris

An excess of simplicity, after all, was just another form of ostentation, and pride in one’s humility a sin.

Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.

Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.

“No one who follows their conscience ever does wrong, Your Eminence. The consequences may not turn out as we intend; it may prove in time that we made a mistake. But that is not the same as being wrong. The only guide to a person’s actions can ever be their conscience, for it is in our conscience that we most clearly hear the voice of God.”