A priest and his own stolen plates. Folklore?

August 16, 2009 3:05 PM

Have heard a story told to me as a "true" story that someone supposedly has personal knowledge of, but I could swear I've heard this before, either as urban legend, or maybe from the plot of a movie or book. Does anyone recognize this story?

It's been a while since I heard the story, but here it is in broad strokes:

A good-hearted priest goes to work in a poor community. Everyone tells him to beware of this community because they are beggars and thieves, but he brushes off the warnings, and goes ahead to work with them and live among them. He embraces them and does not judge them harshly, and treats them very well. One day the community decide to have a party for him, to thank him for all the good and kind things he's done for them. He goes to the party, and they serve him a cake they have made in his honor, but they serve the cake to him on his own plates -- which they have stolen from him.

When this was told to me, it just felt so familiar. I am almost sure this is either something from a story or fable, or just an urban legend that might be told about any looked-down-upon community in any culture. However, I don't have the first idea how I could possibly search for this online.

Does this story sound at all familiar to anyone?

Thanks in advance!

posted by leticia to Society & Culture (8 answers total)

I've heard a couple of variations on the theme of police investigating a minor theft go round to suspect's house and are offered a cup of tea made with the stolen kettle. One of them was a kettle nicked from a surgery I worked at, which still had the NHS electrical testing sticker on it when tea was offered to the police (so I'm fairly sure that one's true, at least!).

Not the same, but thematically similar.
posted by Coobeastie at 3:15 PM on August 16, 2009

Best answer: It sounds similar to the early chapters of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. In his version, it is the Bishop of Digne, who invites a ticket-of-leave criminal Jean Valjean to dinner with him. Valjean makes off with the plates, and is picked up by the police, who bring him back to the bishop to return the plates. The bishop rescues Valjean by saying that he gave him the plates and also some silver candlesticks which Valjean 'forgot' to take with him. He hands over the candlesticks and Valjean is set on the path to being a reformed man (and that path is the remaining 1000 or so pages of the the book).

I suspect that it's probably a long-standing fable that shows up in various forms around the place, either as a warning of the dangers of being too 'good' to 'bad' people, or about the way that 'goodness' can be used to shame 'bad' people into changing.
posted by girlgenius at 3:22 PM on August 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Sounds a lot like this story to me, the moral of which is that trying to do good unto the bad never ends well.
posted by bricoleur at 4:01 PM on August 16, 2009

I've talked to a priest who had a similar tale (pretty much everything he brought to NYC in the seventies was stolen and he would see the items in the possession of people he visited while ministering). He can't be lying, right? He worked for Covenant House and continued to devote his life to the poor.
posted by saucysault at 4:48 PM on August 16, 2009

This "joke" is on a similar theme:

Nolan went into the confessional at Saint Faith's with a turkey under his arms, saying "Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I stole this turkey to feed my family on Christmas Day. Would you please take it off me and so ease my guilt?"
"Certainly not!" said Father Murphy. "You must return it to the one from whom you stole it!"
"I tried to return it!" wailed Nolan. "But he refused to take it! Oh, Father, what should I do?!"
"Well... If what you say is the truth, then I am sure it is all right for you to keep it for your family. Say three Hail Marys for the stealing, though."
"Thank you Father, thank you!" said Nolan, and hurried off.
When confessions were over, Father Murphy returned to his house across the road. When he got there, he found someone had stolen his turkey.
posted by hnnrs at 4:53 PM on August 16, 2009 [3 favorites]

While not an exact match, it made me think of Les Miserables, too. That said, it could be a variation of a fable, or it could be true. I think the only way to determine what you believe is to consider your source and how much you trust them.
posted by katemcd at 5:37 PM on August 16, 2009

The vast number of people and experiences in the world compared with the broad, general nature of a lot of fables and parables means that (with some frequency) events will happen that come close enough to the story's facts that cognitive biases can carry us over what differences between he two might exist.

Or, to put it another way: something being a fable doesn't preclude it from actually happening or: the fables/parables/etc exist for a reason.
posted by toomuchpete at 6:39 PM on August 16, 2009

There's another episode of Les Miserables wherein the Bishop Bienvenu passes through a region claimed by a bandit named Cravatte, and is asked to perform some ceremony (I remember it as "Te Deum", but Wikipedia says that's a song) requiring some sort of decoration. The village is too poor, but just in time two horsemen deliver the appropriate furnishings, stolen from another church earlier, with a note by Cravatte himself.
posted by d. z. wang at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2009