The Bishop - Chapter Six: Getting Ready for a Parish Visit

Chapter Six: Getting Ready for a Parish Visit

Bishop Perkins sat in his parked car in a lot just west of St. Brigid's.  Under a year ago, he was making his first parish visit. He thought about how much had changed since then. That first visit was to a tiny parish on the outskirts of the diocese, a parish to which his predecessor had regularly threatened to send clergy who misbehaved.  In truth, it was a lovely, delightful little place, that reminded him a good deal of his beloved Hampton's Corners.  It had been Mary who had suggested it as his first visit.  “The last shall be first,” she had said to him, smiling, and she was right about it. He loved little places, and they loved him. Although scattered geographically around the periphery of the Diocese, they were its heart and soul.

    Now he sat a year later in a downtown parking lot a block
away from the inner city parish of St. Brigid's. It had once been a grand place. The church, itself, was large Neo-gothic building, now quite dilapidated. The "gentry" of old were gone now and a small but faithful remnant of disciples remained who served the poorest of the poor, as their Lord before them had done.  The neighbourhood was run down. Where once the “upper set” lived their opulent lives, there were now homeless in the streets and drug dealers on the corners  It was a difficult place to exercise ministry, but the remnant who remained were faithful.  Faithful too was their priest, whom we have heard mentioned before, the Rev. Percy Poorechap.  We need not rehearse that tale yet again of how he baptized the homeless man's dog, nor how the Bishop had shown him clemency much to the chagrin of the diocesan elite.  If there was any stranger clergyman in the Diocese than old Percy, the Bishop did not know of one - and that was saying something, for the Diocese had its share of clerical characters.  Percy was always doing something offside. Baptizing a dog was only his most recent transgression.  It's not that he was a bad fellow, or even a bad priest. It's just that he was driven, perhaps too liberally, by his pastoral instincts.  Percy loved anyone who was down and out and would do anything to make them feel welcomed and included.  The homeless schizophrenic man whose dog Percy had baptized, had been moved to tears by Percy's pastoral generosity.  When that man had begged Percy to undertake the canine christening, Percy, moved to great pity acquiesced without a second thought. He lacked the faculty of the sober second thought, and this was his greatest flaw. 

    As a priest of the church, I cannot but have a little bit of sympathy for the man, and I suppose little harm was done if the deed had not been subsequently shouted from the rooftops. Unfortunately, a young reporter from the city paper who was doing a piece on the plight of mental illness amongst the homeless had caught wind of the episode and interviewed Percy to find out if it was true.  Not only did he not deny it, the hapless Percy proudly owned up to it.  The next day, a story appeared in the city paper that boldly announced ANGLICAN CHURCH NOW BAPTIZING DOGS.  Dealing with this was one of our dear Bishop's first crises.  Robbie Ready had practically demanded that he take a firm hand with Percy, but Mary had counselled compassion and the Bishop preferred the counsel of his wife over that of his new Archdeacon. “Seriously, Will,” she laughed, “he poured some water on a dog's head? How much damage could that do?” 

    One one level she was, of course, correct, but so was Robbie. A Bishop is the guardian of the faith, the upholder of tradition be the guardian, and a cohesive, coherent theology of baptismal regeneration is part of that tradition. I suppose neither Robbie nor Mary were really wrong. In the early days of his ministry, Bishop William Perkins would have been on firmly on Robbie's side but Mary had done much to soften him. The crisis passed, and although it was laughed about behind Percy's back by his fellow clergy at clericus meetings around the Diocese, over lunch and glasses of scotch, the sky never fell in.  

    So here, we return to our friend, the Bishop, who on that Sunday morning was sitting in his car gathering his thoughts as to how he would now talk to Percy about the fact that his parish was so deeply in arrears and what might be done about it.  The Bishop was pleased to be able to come to this parish, to visit its good people, to preside in worship, and even to see Percy, but he did have a pit in his stomach about the task Canon Sharpe and Robbie Ready had set before him, and he had a pit in stomach thinking about just what mischief Percy might have gotten up to since their last encounter.  What fire would he need to put out this time?  He knew there would be something, and he dreaded what that might be.  He no longer had Mary to counsel him (and console him!) and he would have to go back into the dragon's den on Monday morning and face Canon Sharpe and Robbie, and report back on Percy's latests misdeeds. “Please, Lord,” he prayed fervently, “please let him not have gotten into any trouble this week!”  But this was ridiculous; he was was sitting in his car, ruminating about something that may or may not have happened.  He talked himself into getting out of his car, his vestment bag over his arm, and walked over to St. Brigid's, all the while repeating to himself that nothing bad has happened and nothing bad is going to happen. He drew in a deep breath and prayed “...and all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” It was Mary's favourite prayer.
..."The Bishop" continues tomorrow...