The Priest who Got Married

There was a priest who got married to one of his parishioners. I asked another priest what he thought about it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I did ask him why he married her, and he told me he felt sorry for her. I told him you didn’t need to get into bed with a woman because you felt sorry for her?’

I asked another priest. He was an Irishman of the old school, the kind who kept a mercy bag on his back to tuck away anything that didn’t fit into his theology.

‘It’s like a farmer going out to get the sheep from the river when there’s a flood,’ he said. ‘He gets ninety-nine of them, but the last time he slips on a wet bank and goes under. God will have mercy on a man like that.’

I rather liked the old priest’s answer. But I happened to mention the priest who’d got married in the presence of one of the poor.

‘It’s simple enough,’ said the poor man. ‘He was the best priest in the country. He never refused anybody a loan or a bed for the night or a ride in his car. God must have decided he wanted him to look after a woman as well. Not many priests have a back broad enough to do that, brother.’

1972 (705)