Dropped letter with a singular outcome

MAY I offer the following in response to your editorial headlined ‘Priesthood in Ireland — signs of a new era for the church’ (August 25).

A young priest arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other priest in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.

He notices, however, that all of the priests are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript.

So the new priest goes to the head priest to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up. In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies

The head priest says “we have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son”.

He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn’t been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old priest. So the young priest gets worried and goes down to look for him.

He sees the old man banging his head against the wall and wailing: “We missed the ‘R’. We missed the ‘R’. We missed the ‘R’. ”

His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.

The young priest asks the old priest, “what’s wrong, father?”

With a choking voice, the old priest replies: “The word was ... CELEBRATE!

Kevin Devitte

Mill Street

Westport

Co Mayo