Once described by Trygve Lie as the "most impossible job on earth," the position of UN Secretary-General is as frustratingly constrained as it is prestigious. The Secretary-General's ability to influence global affairs often depends on how the international community regards his moral authority. In relation to such moral authority, past office-holders have drawn on their own ethics and religious backgrounds--as diverse as Lutheranism, Catholicism, Buddhism, and Coptic Christianity--to guide the role that they played in addressing the UN's goals in the international arena, such as the...