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The Wrongs of Thomas More

A lengthy digression into the life of a saint

But these dialogues most consist of him explaining, with forced patience, to an obvious straw man, that the Roman Catholic Church is infallible, that judges—civil or ecclesiastical—are wise and incorruptible, and that anyone who persistently argues to the contrary is either childish, or so deeply steeped in heresy that burning them alive in public is a perfectly reasonable corrective measure. So, his words in the above passage have to be read both as a general, abstract statement about the importance of a clear and specific legal code to the maintenance of a fair and trusted judiciary, and a way of preparing himself to hear the screams of heretics dying at the stake as punishment for their thought crimes. All I wanted was to track down a particularly delicious play on “wrong” and “wring” cited in the OED, and in no time I found myself embroiled in a minor detective story that completely destroyed any illusions I might ever have entertained about the character of Thomas More.

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