I Probably Shouldn’t Be Telling You This But….
My future mother-in-law has found a Catholic priest willing to fudge me the appropriate paperwork for a small fee so that my marriage to Alba can go ahead. Being Colombian, Alba of course is Catholic and I am Protestant and her desire is a church wedding. I can understand this, I am a reasonable guy, not overly religious, but, I stop short of having to be baptized a Catholic and then spend my weekends taking a catechism course, being confirmed and all the rest of the bumph that the Vatican requires.
Before I hear the more religious and upstanding amongst you holler, this is not a criticism of religion, either of the two, nor do I feel that it is a slap in the face to this the most holy of institutions. It is just a reality. Where am I going to find the time?
And, I was feeling bad about this too, to the point that I even considered a Tony Blair style volte face and becoming a Catholic. However, I hasten to add that I shall not be launching an attack on any nation. Anyhow, I may actually even be a Catholic, I am not even sure, I was after all baptized in the predominantly Catholic country of Portugal, but there’s no way of knowing where this document, if it exists, may be.
So, somewhere in the interior of the country, there’s a Priest willing to provide the paperwork. It will of course appear incongruous, why would a Brit have his paperwork from here a town deep in alien abduction territory? But, this worries me not, papers in hand I am getting wed.
Driving the six hours from the coastal city of Santa Marta back to the town of Mompós where my hotel is located the other week I had the good fortune of giving a lift to two Irish friends. Both Jim and Berry are Catholics and I put my doubts to them. It didn’t take long before Berry came forth with her confession.
She admitted that she had never been confirmed and that in order to get married the church required this of her. The search for the family priest who had baptized her began in earnest. Once found a meeting was convened. What resulted was that the Priest decided that it would not be worth Berry getting officially confirmed as it would not be a decision based on religion but solely one of convenience in order to get married to Jim.
Berry calmly explained that my decision to do nothing more than obtain the papers via the Priest in question was remaining true to my one desire, to get married to Alba.
And with that, I am fine.
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