But it was an aggravation added upon constant harassment by the Bulgarians and Armenian Arabs. Justinian wanted Pope St. Sergius to endorse the second Trullan Council and abolish clerical celibacy. The nosed pope's moral victory over the noseless emperor was commemorated by a bust of Sergius at the Church of Santa Susanna, which was rubbed so much for good luck that the nose came off. In the 1544 conspiracy of the Kentish fanatic Sir Thomas Wyatt against Queen Mary, one of the lieutenants shot an arrow into the courtyard at Whitehall, striking off the nose of an attorney of Lincoln's Inn. The parboiled body of Wyatt was quartered and displayed in four parts of London.
Moral detachment is more to be desired than physical detachment is to be feared.
That, at least, is our gloss on the Lord's point about plucking out the eye and cutting off the hand. Language so graphic inevitably is most offensive and tasteless to those who are most carnal and vulgar. Rev. George W. Rutler is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.