St. Chad

[Rudolph C Troike]

This response from one of my oft-quoted colleagues, Carl Berkhout:


Rudy--

Bishop Chad as patron saint of disputed elections looks good indeed to my eye,
though neither humility nor post-adolescent learning is something much to be
hoped for in American presidential candidates these days.  Chad's exact words
were, according to Bede, "Si me nosti episcopatum non rite suscepisse,
libenter ab officio discedo" ["If my claim to office isn't cool with you,
then, okay, I'm outta here"].  If someone could teach either Bush or Gore
(or Buchanan or Nader) to understand at least some two or three of
Chad's words, it would be an easy matter to declare the other guy the loser.
But that won't happen.  Blessed Chad leaves us back to where we were unless
we all pray to him very hard--preferably in Latin or in seventh-century English.

c