Letter: Toeing the papal line

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Eric Garcia

Washington Bureau Chief

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Sir: The shoe has sometimes been on (or off?) the other foot. During the Jacobite uprising of 1745 a Whig nobleman was asked if he would be prepared to kiss the Prince's hand, and retorted, to Bonnie Prince Charlie's great amusement, that he would rather kiss the Pope's toe.

Charles Edward Stewart, long after he had ceased to be Bonnie, was humiliated in precisely this way himself when Pope Clement XIII insisted that his foot be kissed at an Audience in 1767 and later led into false optimism by Clement XIV's magnanimous refusal to let him kiss his foot in 1769.

Yours sincerely,

RONALD FRANKENBERG

Newcastle-under-Lyme,

Staffordshire

25 August