The most famous apology in history was made to a much maligned, though far from innocent, cleric: Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. He had become involved in what is known as the Investiture Dispute, a fierce Church-State Kulturkampf, revolving round the appointment of bishops. His chief opponent, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV — not a nice man but not a monster either — had called him an impostor, an antipope, an Antichrist and I know not what, but had got the worst of it in the armed struggle that followed. Henry decided to purge his excommunication and get the interdict on his territories withdrawn by apologising and doing penance. The Pope had sought the protection of Countess Matilda of Tuscany, then the world's richest woman, and princess of startling beauty, taste and wisdom. He was sheltering at her stupendous mountain stronghold of Canossa, not far from Modena, and the Emperor had to climb there barefoot, in the depths of winter, to make his kowtow. Why has this amazing story not been the subject of a great opera? Perhaps it has. Needless to say, the apology was insincere and the tragic story ended in tears on both sides, the Pope's bitter last words being: "I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile." But the fact that the Church was slow to canonise this remarkable man suggests that to begin with it did not accept his version of events. A century later. Henry II of England was locked in mortal struggle over the same issue with Becket, and also apologised after he caused the archbishop's murder. This, too, was in some degree insincere, and trouble broke out afresh soon after Henry had donned sackcloth. Becket was at least as intemperate as Hildebrand, but he not only got his halo but did so in the fastest time on record. But then he was a martyr, and they always move to canonisation faster than any other category of saint.
歷最為有名的“道歉”是向一位神職人士所致：此公乃是希爾得布蘭德，即教皇格列高利七世，他被人詆毀多多，然而也并非無辜。他卷入了史書所記載的“授職爭議”，即一次圍繞教會與國家之間有關(guān)任命主教問題的激烈的“文化沖突”。他的主要對手就是神圣羅馬帝國的皇帝亨利四世——他算不上是個(gè)好人，但也不是什么魔鬼——他稱教皇是個(gè)騙子、偽教皇、假耶穌，還有一些不知道是什么樣的罵名，但是在隨后的武裝沖突中，他卻為此一敗涂地。亨利四世決定向教皇請罪，表示誨意，以此希冀教皇解除將其逐出教門的懲罰，并撤回在其領(lǐng)土上的授權(quán)禁令。教皇尋求托斯坎尼區(qū)的瑪?shù)贍栠_(dá)伯爵夫人的庇佑，這位伯爵夫人是當(dāng)時(shí)世界上最富有的女人，一位傾國傾城，睿智聰穎，極有品味的郡主。教皇躲進(jìn)了她那氣勢恢宏的山間城堡，它建在離摩德納市不遠(yuǎn)的卡諾薩?；实鄄坏貌辉诼《竟?jié)赤腳攀上城堡，前去叩頭謝罪。 這樣一個(gè)令人拍案叫絕的故事卻不曾成為一個(gè)大歌劇的主題，未知何也?或許已經(jīng)有了。毋庸贅言，這次道歉并非真心實(shí)意，而悲劇則是以雙方眼淚洗面告終。教皇臨終時(shí)痛楚地說：“吾愛正義而惡不公：故而吾死于流放?！钡?，教會遲遲不將這位杰出的人封為圣人，此事表明他們從一開始就未曾接受他對事件的說法。一個(gè)世紀(jì)之后，英格蘭的亨利二世與貝克特大主教在同一問題上打得你死我活，不可開交;在他指使謀殺大主教之后，也做了道歉。這在某種程度上也并非誠心誠意，在亨利二世披上麻衣去懺悔之后，麻煩再度出現(xiàn)。貝克特主教至少也和希爾得布蘭德一樣放縱無度，然而他不但得到了光環(huán)，而且是以有史記載以來最快的速度得到的。再說啦，他算是個(gè)殉道者，這些殉道者比起其他類圣人，其被封圣的速度要快得多。