Ponderable Quote from “The Great Heresies” by Hilaire Belloc

There was no united Italy, and such effort as was being made to create one was being made by anti-Catholics. Indeed, it is one of the most amusing ironies of history that the great power which Italy has now become was largely called into being by the sympathy Protestant Europe felt for the original Italian rebellions against the Catholic King of Naples and the authority of the Papal States.

Reprinted from “What was the Reformation?,” chapter 6 of The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc. TAN Books, 2012, p. 133. Originally published in 1938 by Sheed & Ward, London.