The pope sent a three-page letter to Austria's bishops that sharply criticized the "violent attacks on the
honorableness" of Groer and said that Christ also faced "unjust accusations." A few weeks later, Groer was installed as prior of the Benedictine monastery in Maria Roggendorf, Austria.
Each of the first three volumes in Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson features a mentor or rival whose sense of honor casts in sharp relief Johnson's alleged political amorality: Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn in The Path to Power ("There are no degrees in
honorableness," Rayburn summed up his creed; "you are or you aren't"), the popular former governor of Texas, Coke Stevenson, in Means of Ascent, lionized by Caro (despite his right-wing racist bent) as "a true cowboy" whose "extreme idealism" contrasted with Johnson's ballot-stuffing to steal a U.S.
Yet, what would a society be where conscience,
honorableness, piety, religion, and, to say it all in a phrase, Catholic sentiment no longer preserved some influence, either as ancient legislator or as present rival?
