Statutory-rape laws concerning voluntary intercourse would probably be taken off the books, though both young boys and young girls could still be protected against any sexual abuse by older persons.

Edmund: This is the Jane Herrington? Percy: Yes. Edmund: Jane - bury-me-in-a-Y-shaped-coffin - Herrington. Percy: I.., I think maybe there are two Jane Herringtons. Edmund: No... Tall, blond, elegant? Percy: Right, that's right. Edmund: Goes like a privy door when the plague is in town?

I have always wondered how the world, which is very large, can fit into something as small as a handbasket. To deepen my confusion, I’m not even sure I know what a handbasket is. Aren’t all baskets in fact handbaskets, and if they are, isn’t the prefix hand wholly unnecessary? We should probably say: “The world is going to hell in a basket,” although that sounds even worse, doesn’t it?

Anyone who writes on the contemporary Catholic Church is in the debt of Peter Hebblethwaite, Vaticanologist extraordinary and expert on modern Catholicism.