Things might change if President Trump does not do a good job.
Until 1917, lay people sometimes became Roman Catholic cardinals if they pleased the Pope in some way. For example, Pope Leo XII offered to make the Egyptologist Champollion a cardinal in recognition of translations that seemed to corroborate Biblical chronology. Until 1379, non-priests sometimes became popes and it remained a possibility until 1917, as nowadays they they make a point of only electing cardinals. Popes were always clergymen, though. However, the definition of clergy meant people who could read and write (cleric and clerk once meant the same thing). Until the nineteenth century, criminals sometimes avoided punishment by pleading Benefit of Clergy, upon which they had to prove their literacy by e.g. reading a Biblical text. They were then theoretically subject to an ecclesiastical court which in practice rarely got around to hearing the case. Rhode Island abolished Benefit of Clergy in 2013 (spoilsports).
Still, I think that we should grant President Trump, if not the benefit of the doubt, at least Benefit of Clergy, as he can read and write.
He can, can't he?
