In the lines-I-wish-I'd-written category, here's Mark Silk commenting on Cardinal Burke's excellent new Maltese adventure:
Since the U.S. Senate rejected the late Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, rejected nominees are said to be borked. In the future, when the pope demotes a high-ranking prelate, we’ll say he’s been burked.
As Mark points out, Burke "once bestrode the Vatican like a bedecked colossus" trailing his resplendent scarlet cappa magna behind him and making (and breaking) bishops.
And now Malta. And that brings to mind for me that marvelous line from Robert Bolt's film "A Man for All Seasons," in which Thomas More says to his betrayer, "It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . but for Wales, Richard?"
A line I write with apologies to my Welsh relatives (since I have a few drops of Welsh blood far back in the past), who surely don't deserve scorn . . . .
