A lesson for Mary Sue.

Although the term has been corrupted terribly, the basic concept of the Mary Sue is the character who is good and loving who wins out in the story by her goodness and overall wonderfulness (and is clearly an imaginary stand-in for the author). Everyone loves and admires her except for the bad people, who must be defeated.

Readers who think that this character type only exists in fan fiction need to read more novels directed at their teenage daughters.

Well, I thought about the real-life Mary Sues, people with invincible belief in their own goodness who often find that the world is much more resistant to their charms and their fantastic ideas than they had expected. I can think of several politicians who fit this mold. They don't always work in government, but they seem to gravitate toward it.

Let's take them at their word for the nonce, or even two nonces, that they really do intend good, that it's not just a cover for their egotism and thirst for power.

Over the weekend I had cause to consider the case of a literal saint, a beloved figure whose life is an object lesson to anyone who thinks goodness alone suffices.

On May 19, the Catholic church celebrates the feast of Pope St. Celestine V, a figure of towering goodness in his devotion to God and his love for others. As someone of true humility, he never wanted to become the pope. He was chosen largely for political reasons. But he was so beloved, a crowd of some 200,000 people helped usher him into office.

He was also the first pope to ever abdicate. He only sat in the Seat of St. Peter for five months in the year 1294. "It is wonderful how many serious mistakes the simple old man crowded into five short months," according to New Advent. "We have no full register of them, because his official acts were annulled by his successor." His errors were often caused by an excess of generosity, as when he awarded the same position to several different supplicants. He was completely helpless against the machinations of European monarchs and political actors in the Church. Worse, "On the 18th of September he created twelve new cardinals, seven of whom were French, and the rest, with one possible exception, Neapolitans, thus paving the road to Avignon and the Great Schism." In such a brief period Celestine managed to set the Church on a course that nearly brought it to complete ruin, all out of the goodness of his heart.

But that goodness was legendary and deeply spiritual, and that's why the Church recognizes him as a saint.

And that's my lesson for today, for you bright young faces out there: You can be amazingly good -- a literal saint -- and deeply beloved, and still be so disastrously incompetent that people will roll their eyes 725 years later when they think of you. Goodness of heart does not guarantee competence.