Lunch with a bishop is always an interesting experience. Today I’ve sat at table with an emeritus Caribbean bishop on his way through Madrid. I’ve realised he was a bishop by the golden mitre-shaped ring on his finger. He’s told us quite a few interesting things from his Cuban diocese.

A poor man who daily sold trinkets on a trolley for a living would every day attend the 5 o’clock Mass, but never took Communion. That went on for years. The bishop, who was then the parish priest, approached him gently and asked him about his life. He lived with his wife, had seven children, but had never married because his wife didn’t want. The parish priest understood and told him he could receive Holy Communion with a good conscience. The man answered him: “I know the rules. I know I’m not entitled, and I keep my place. But I know that God loves me and nourishes my soul in his own way.” That is faith.

One day the parish priest (now bishop) saw a barefoot man enter the church and offer and light a large candle before the altar. He approached the man, placed some money in his hand and told him: “Take these fifteen pesos. Jesus has accepted your candle and he is giving you back the money for you to buy shoes. You cannot go barefoot in this weather.” The man answered him: “I cannot take the money, father. What I have given Jesus is not a candle, it is a little golden tongue, the little flickering flame I’ve lit on it to tell him from me all that I don’t know how to tell him. Let it say it, father.” This is faith.

Once he had to leave his parish in an emergency in the morning, and he forgot he had to preside at a wedding that day. When he came back the next day, the assistant parish priest told him about the wedding and explained how, in the parish priest’s absence, they had asked him to marry the couple and he had done so to everybody’s satisfaction. He said it expecting the parish priest would thank him for it. But the parish priest threw up his hands in horror and exclaimed: “How can you have done that? Don’t you know that you need the parish priest’s delegation for a wedding to be valid? You had no faculties, and therefore the wedding is null and void. We have to settle this at once. Now I do delegate on you the faculty to marry them, so seek out the newly ‘weds’ as soon as possible and marry them privately to avoid a scandal.” The other man left at once, found out that the newly weds had left for their honeymoon at Varadero, a holiday resort a hundred miles from La Habana, and there he went. He explained the situation to the rather surprised couple and married them for the second time in two days. He returned satisfied and duly reported to the parish priest again. But the parish priest threw up his hands again in despair and shouted: “But don’t you know that Varadero is in another parish and my faculties are not valid there, so that my delegation to you is also invalid? They are still unmarried.” This was a little too much, and the assistant parish priest declared: “Well, let God arrange it. I’ve married them twice, and that’s enough. I’m not going to be marrying them again and again. What will they say if I tell them I have to marry them again? Let them remain in ignorance, and that will have to do.” And there the matter stood. In Canon Law class we called that situation one of “supplet Ecclesia”, that is, “let the Church make up for it”. There are many things the Church has to make up for. That was canon number 144. It was our favourite canon in our Canon Law exams. Many marriages surely hang on it.

I then told something that had happened in Spain years ago. The Roman nuncio in Madrid in those days had volunteered to marry couples from the Spanish nobility in his own chapel at the Nunciature. In that way he did marry a good many of them. But the nuncio did not know he had no faculties. He was the Vatican’s representative in Madrid, to be sure, but faculties for a wedding can only be given by the bishop of the diocese or the parish priest of bride or bridegroom. Hence, all the marriages presided over by the nuncio were null and void, though nobody knew it, least of all the nuncio himself. After some time one of the couples married by the nuncio decided to divorce. Their lawyer studied the case, suspected a “defect of form” as the nuncio by himself had no faculties, and won the case in the ecclesiastical court. There had been no wedding, and man and woman were free. All those couples were discretely traced down and privately remarried. Weddings at the Nunciature were discontinued.

Weddings went on being the topic for some time, and I told what had once happened to me. I clearly instructed bride and bridegroom at a wedding that I would gladly marry them but I needed a written delegation from their parish priest. We arrived at the church on the wedding day, but there was no parish priest and no delegation. The bride’s father got annoyed with me and said that since all the witnesses were present, that was enough. I replied that they were witnesses to what I did, and without delegation there was no wedding to be witness to, however loud they would profess their “I do”. Just as well, the envelope with the delegation appeared in a drawer at the last moment, and the wedding took place. The boy and the girl had carefully prepared and printed the whole ceremony with the rite, prayers, readings to be recited. They had chosen two Bible readings, one from the Old Testament and one from the Gospels. Fortunately I checked them in time. The Gospel was… a passage from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans! They were surprised when I told them that was no gospel. Wasn’t it in the Bible, right at the end of it, and did it not refer to Jesus? I had to explain to them that the Gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and not St Paul, however beautiful his letters may be, and at the last moment we chose an authentic Gospel passage. Liturgical adventures.

Another anecdote I told, in connection with the bishop’s first story, was about someone in India who accused himself in confession of having eaten meat on Friday. It was already after the Council, and I delicately explained to the penitent that the pope had changed the rules of fast and abstinence, that the prohibition of meat on Fridays had been abolished, and that in consequence that was not a sin any more and there was no need to mention that in confession, at least in the future. The good man answered me with a tinge of annoyance: “The pope may say whatever he wants, but eating meat on Friday is a sin as it has always been and will always be, and I did wrongly, as on Friday I was eating with some non-Christians who were eating meat and I felt ashamed to refuse on religious grounds and ate with them, and now I am sorry and ask for God’s pardon and you must give me absolution and give me my penance so that I may receive Holy Communion.”

Clergy meals are by no means boring.

The following story was not told at table, but I’ve just read it in a book and it has made me laugh. I imagine it is made up, but the fact that such jokes are told makes us think a little. A boy is going to confession while his friends wait in the queue to see how he fares. After mentioning some harmless offences, the boy says with muddle words but sufficient clarity that he has had sex with a girl. The priest asks him:

- Was it with Bridget, the one in the pub at the corner?
- No, father, not with her.
- Then was it Margaret, the one of the vegetable market the other side of the street? Do you know who I mean?
- Yes, yes, I know, but no, father, it was not that one.
- I see. Was it then with Elizabeth, the gardener’s daughter?
- No, father, not Elizabeth.
- Well, well, never mind my son. It doesn’t matter. Now say ten Our Fathers and don’t do it again.
- No, father.

The boy receives absolution, crosses himself, gets up, goes back to his friends who are waiting impatiently in the queue and ask him:
- How was it? Has he scolded you heavy? Why have you been so long?
- It was fine. He didn’t scold me at all. You can all go to him if you wish. He has only set me ten Our Fathers for my penance… and he has given me three wonderful hints!