That's a common approach for the Holy See, said Rooney, author of "The Global Vatican, " a study of 1, 200 years of statecraft by Catholicpopes and priests.
For reasons having nothing to do with the autonomy of cathedral schools or medieval cities and towns, the Catholicpopes of the high middle ages enlisted their clerics to organize a body of law, drawing from the old Roman law as well as Scripture, that could be applied throughout Europe, and allow them to centralize authority in Rome.