From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 23-07-07 – Tribunal Update and Anniversary

July 7th, 2023

Dear Diary,

I asked Fr. Gilbert to ask Vice for the status of the Pie Town couple. Gilbert came back and chirped, “Sheila is working on it!” Sheila. The canonist gal in the tribunal. I’ve hardly seen her, but then I try to avoid the ACLU* all together. All canon lawyers are grating, but a woman telling me I’M the one doing the wrong thing “according to canon law”? The worst!

Anyway, Sheila and her secretary, old Mrs. Cifuentes been there about a thousand years – called the guy who wants to get married here. As I get it, he is civilly married but wants to get married in the Catholic Church so he and his wife can get back to the sacraments. Mrs. C dug around and found out his parish in his native village wanted to charge him the two hundred dollars for his baptismal certificate! So she went online and found a number and called the man’s childhood parish and the pastor himself answered. Mrs. C said it was a Milagrow, which I suppose is like a family name down there.  Pretty soon the pastor, Fr. Milagrow? sent a photo of the certificate front and back to her cell phone, and promised to send it by mail when he goes to the capital next week. I guess mail is unreliable there. Sheila and Mrs. C also called their diocesan tribunal and there was no answer. They found an email address. It took a couple days but someone answered back in Spanish that his first marriage was declared null but there’s a vetima sp? or something for this guy. He can’t get married again without going to counseling first.  Why our staff is handling this is beyond me. These people live in Pie Town!  Vice says the Pie Town tribunal is famous for never answering the phone. Why are my people doing Dozer’s people’s work? They say high school never ends, but let me tell you seminary never, ever ends. I was doing Dozer’s papers for him in seminary too! Serves him right cause we both nearly flunked out.  I really outta send Doz a bill for this.

*Fr. “Just Call Me Bruce” Hugalot over at the Sing A New Faith Community Into Being Faith Community calls them the “Annoying Canon Law Undesirables” and it sort of stuck in what passes for his mind.