You've gotta love St. Paul

I mean the person, not the city. I've never been to St. Paul, and it might be nice, but I'm talking about the person. But I digress.

We're almost done reading the Acts of the Apostles as our first readings at weekday Masses. In today's reading, he owns the Sanhedrin by causing an implosion over the question of life after death in Judaism.

Meanwhile, he owns the Romans by pulling out his "ace in the hole": Paul is a Roman citizen. And, not just one that bought their citizenship after being a slave or a soldier (that was impressive enough). He was a Roman citizen by birth, which was the "elite class" of citizen. Just before he is about to be scourged, he drops the "C- bomb" on them, which gets the soldiers to back off and treat him with a little respect. Now, instead of seeing their priority as keeping order in Jerusalem, they now see their priority as keeping Paul safe from harm.

You've gotta love St. Paul, fighting a two front war and winning both.