It's a famous English bishop, Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253). Here is an article from a RC. website about him, bringing shame to our own churchmen for not keeping his memory nearly as well. He appears to be a strong instance of the classic Anglican claim, that even in the middle ages, the English church was only partially, and only in some respects, under the yoke of the church of Rome. Here is the RC article: In 1250, at the age of 80, he made a journey to the papal court at Lyon and confronted the Pope in person. “He stood up alone, attended by nobody but his official Robert Marsh…Pope Innocent IV sat there with his cardinals and the members of his household to hear the most thorough and vehement attack that any great Pope can ever have heard at the height of his power”. The gist of his accusation was that the Church was suffering because of the decline in pastoral care. “The pastoral office is straitened. And the source of the evil is to be found in the papal Curia, not merely in its indifference but in its dispensations and provisions of the pastoral care. It provides bad shepherds for the flock. What is the pastoral office? Its duties are numerous, and in particular they include the duty of visitation…”. How an absentee pastor could visit his flock was something beyond even the Pope’s power to explain? It is worth noting that, as in all things, Bishop Grosseteste taught by example as well as by precept, and in an unprecedented act had resigned all his own pretends except for the one in his own Cathedral church of Lincoln, a step which evoked ridicule rather than respect from his more worldly contemporaries. “If I am more despicable in the eyes of the world,” he wrote, “I am more acceptable to the citizens of Heaven.” Unfortunately, his heroic visit to Lyon was to no avail, and it was heroic not simply for the manner in which he pointed out the failings of the Pope and his court to their faces, but for the very fact that a man of his age even undertook such an arduous journey under 13th-century conditions. The priorities of the Pope differed from those of the Bishop. Innocent IV had become dependent upon the system of papal provisions to maintain his Curia and to bribe allies to fight in his interminable wars with the Emperor Frederick II. His political ambitions took precedence over the care of souls. In 1253 the Pope nominated his own nephew, Frederick of Lavagna, to a vacant canonry in Lincoln Cathedral! The mandate ordering Bishop Grosseteste to appoint him was something of a legal masterpiece in which the careful use of non obstane clauses ruled out every legal ground for refusal or delay. This, then, was the Bishop’s dilemma: He was faced with a perfectly legal command from the Sovereign Pontiff, which apparently must be obeyed, and yet the demand, though legal, was obviously immoral, a clear abuse of power. The Pope was using his office as Vicar of Christ in a sense quite contrary to the purpose for which it had been entrusted to him. The Bishop saw clearly that there is an important distinction between what a Pope has a legal right to do and what he has a moral right to do. His response was a direct refusal to obey an order which constituted an abuse of authority. The Pope was acting ultra vires, beyond the limits of his authority, and hence his subjects were not bound to obey him in this. ... In his reply to the papal command, Bishop Grosseteste accused Pope Innocent IV of disobedience to Christ and the destruction of the care of souls. “No faithful subject of the Holy See,” he wrote, “no man who is not cut away by schism from the Body of Christ and the same Holy See, can submit to mandates, precepts, or any other demonstrations of this kind, no, not even if the authors were the most high body of angels. He must needs repudiate them and rebel against them with all his strength. Because of the obedience by which I am bound, and of my love of my union with the Holy See in the Body of Christ, as an obedient son I disobey, I contradict, I rebel. You cannot take action against me, for my every word and act is not rebellion but the filial honour due by God’s command to father and mother. As I have said, the Apostolic See in its holiness cannot destroy, it can only build. This is what the plenitude of power means; it can do all things to edification. But these co-called provisions do not build up, they destroy. They cannot be the work of the blessed Apostolic See, for ‘flesh and blood’ which do not possess the Kingdom of God ‘hath revealed them’, not ‘our Father which is in heaven’.” ... Innocent IV was beside himself with fury when he first received the Bishop’s letter. His first impulse was to order his “vassal the king” to imprison the old prelate – but his Cardinals persuaded him to take no action. “You must do nothing. It is true. We cannot condemn him. He is a Catholic and a holy man, a better man then we are. He has not got his equal among the prelates. All the French and English clergy know this and our contradiction would be of no avail. The truth of this letter, which is probably known to many, might move many against us. He is esteemed as a great philosopher, learned in Greek and Latin literature, zealous for justice, a reader in the schools of theology, a preacher to the people, an active enemy of abuses.” This account was written by a man who had no love for the Bishop – Mathew Paris, executor of the mandate which the Bishop had refused to implement. But Mathew recognized the greatness and sincerity of Robert Grosseteste and was stirred by it. Innocent IV decided that the most prudent course would be to take no action, and in that same year the aged Bishop of Lincoln died. Robert Grosseteste was a great scholar, a great Englishman, and universal genius, perhaps the greatest son of Oxford, and above all one of the greatest of all Catholic bishops, a true bonus pastor who would willingly have laid down his life for his flock. “He knew everybody and feared nobody. At King Henry’s request, he instructed him on the nature of an anointed king, and in so doing courteously reminded him of his responsibility for the maintenance of his subjects in peace and justice, and his duty to refrain from any interference with the care of souls. He would allow no compromise on matters of principle. The common law of the Church should be applied in the light of equity, the dictate of conscience, and the teaching of the natural law, as revealed in the Scriptures, implicit in the working of a Divine Providence, and conformable to the teaching and guidance of Christ in the Church militant on earth.” (https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/in...e-and-resist-yet-another-example-from-history)
Sounds like a great servant of The Lord. I wonder if John Wycliffe 1330-1384, admired his pluck? He certainly followed his example.
Seems like this Bishop also has a way of speaking to power that may have been discomforting to some in the audience.