Description: Parsons are more imaginative sinners than politicians, Times columnist Matthew Parris has discovered. Runaway Bishops and naughty vicars are a staple of today's tabloid newspapers, but as he reveals in The Great Unfrocked, they're only part of the tradition of colorful clerics dating back centuries. From Judas Iscariot to St. George, currently patron Saint of England, but formerly bacon seller to the Egyptian army, and Pope Joan, exposed as a woman before a crowd of thousands when she gave birth riding a horse. Matthew Parris's funny and well-researched study draws heavily an many previously unpublished sources and offers engaging proof that people don't always practice what they preach.

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