c. 1999 Religion News Service
CLEVELAND _ How do you roast a Catholic bishop?
Slowly and somewhat tenderly.
At least that’s how a collection of lawyers, more used to being the butt of jokes that would have them first in line to be pushed into the eternal hot tub, decided to put the feet of Bishop A. James Quinn to the fire Oct. 12 in a fund-raiser celebrating the first anniversary of Christian Legal Services of Cleveland Inc.”We’ve never roasted a bishop before. In fact, nobody has roasted a bishop in over 1,000 years,”said master of ceremonies Dan Coughlin of WJW Channel 8.”In fact, the Romans were good at it at one time. So appropriately we’re doing it at an Italian restaurant.” It is not often lawyers get to be on the side of the angels in telling jokes about clergy for a worthy cause such as the ecumenical group providing legal services to the poor. And at the fund-raiser, they seemed to enjoy the reversal of roles in having fun with one of the Cleveland diocese’s auxiliary bishops whose job it is to save others from the everlasting roast.
Still, everyone trod lightly _ at first.
Dean Steven Steinglass of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where Quinn graduated magna cum laude in 1972, said there is no instruction book for roasting a bishop. And more generic books on the topic were no help when they suggested starting with the subject’s former girlfriends, ex-wives or the police blotter.
Attorney Edward J. Maher, former president of the Catholic Lawyers Guild, invoked humorist Will Rogers in noting that the minute you read something you can’t understand, you can be certain it was drawn up by a lawyer.
Then he turned to face Quinn, who is both a canon and a civil lawyer, and asked,”Does this tell us something about your sermons?” In the annals of religious humor, and in all four”Holy Humor”books put out by the Fellowship of Merry Christians, it is often lawyers who take the hits.
For example, you may have heard the one about St. Peter threatening to sue the devil after Satan reneged on an agreement to take turns fixing a broken-down fence between heaven and hell.”Oh, yeah?”says the devil.”Where are you going to get a lawyer?” Or the joke about the rich man who wanted to take it with him, and gave his three friends _ a doctor, a preacher and a lawyer _ sealed envelopes with $10,000 in cash to drop into his casket.
When the three friends met after the man’s death, the preacher admitted his envelope contained only $8,000 because he took out $2,000 for a new church organ, and the doctor admitted taking half out for a new clinic.
But the lawyer said his conscience was clear:”I did just what our good friend asked. I kept my envelope, picked up both of yours and dropped in a check made out for the full $30,000.” And in the end, the affable Irish bishop got in a parting shot.
Quinn said he had a sense of foreboding about the evening when he noticed a sign outside a local restaurant declaring,”New roasters are in.” But he took one look at the age of the crew giving him a hard time and he knew he had nothing to worry about.”The sign heralded new roasters,”Quinn said,”and these were old roasters.”
DEA END BRIGGS