Almost 300 years ago, a minor French playwright by the cumbersome name of Léonor-Jean-Christine Soulas d’Allainval – he mockingly referred to himself as the “Abbé d’Allainval”, which one historian described as a “proto-punk poke in the eye of the Catholic Church” – debuted a work titled L’Embarras des richesses, which, fairly obviously, translates into English as “embarrassment of riches”.
While the comedy itself has been largely forgotten, the phrase has become immortal as a metaphor for too much of a good thing. That bit of history is relevant for Catholicism today, because on 30 September, Pope Francis will stage a consistory – the event in which a pontiff creates new cardinals – the net effect of which may be to create an embarras de richesses for all those hoping that the next papal election will produce a new pope much like the present one.
