The dismemberance of Fr Mal O'Prop!

A malapropism, from French mal a propos, 'ill to purpose', is an incorrect usage of a word by substituting a similar-sounding word with different meaning, usually with comic effect (Wikipedia). The term comes from the name of Mrs Malaprop, a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's comedy , The Rivals (1775) whose name was in turned derived from the existing word malapropos, meaning 'inappropriately'. Today we have pleasure in bringing you Bishop Laughlin O'Scusemegh's homily celebrating the 'dismembering' of a famous clerical expert in the art, the late Father Mal O'Prop.

We are here today, as Father Mal O'Prop would put it, for the dismembering of the dear departed.

Now I won't say there's something wrong with this microphone, because I know you Catholic faithful will respond with, 'And also with you'.

I am Bishop Laughlin O'Scusemegh, late of County Cork.

You've probably noticed that I am in mufti today, and I have abandoned the magna cappa, the cart drawn by white horses, and all the other paraphenalia we used at the recent Catholica Festival of Faith, I have come aggiornamento, so to speak, to honour a man with the gift of words, the late Father Mal O'Prop, a fellow countryman.

He took the name of not an Irish, but a Greek saint, namely Saint Erroneous Malapropos, whose unusual use of the vocabulary encouraged people to rise 'to the very pineapple of faith'.

There's a legend that he swam the Hellespont.

I remember Father Mal O'Prop telling us in Maynooth College, 'It was a miracle, because the sea was infatuated with sharks.'

At the beginning of one class he told the students 'All right gentlemen take out your new testicles'.

'I want you to conjugate over there.'

He would urge us to consecrate on our studies, and when we became priests to stand up against the effluent society.

Another time he was asked to 'kick off' at a footy match between the seminaries and in his speech thanked them for the honour and said 'Whenever you want your balls kicked just let me know'.

In a homily at St Pat's on the evils of contraception he told women they should not take the pill or use UFO's.

He played golf with a parishioner friend, who was away on holidays when the priest actually hit a hole in one. The priest couldn't wait for his friend to return to brag about it. When his friend returned the priest saw him approaching in the communion line on Sunday and said "Body of Christ", "Body Of Christ", "Body of Christ" to all until his friend reached the front and as he held up the host he said "Hole in one".

Many stories about him are false legends such as his supposed speech on Christ's erection.

I do remember, however, him saying at one lecture, 'I have new glasses today. Can you still see me from down the back?'

I am glad to see we are well provided for at today's function of dismembering the departed, as he would say, and 'There's enough food here to sink a rattlesnake.'

I went back with him to Cork a few years ago. After we landed, his first words were, 'It's good to be back on the old terra cotta.'

He gave a lecture to the new breed of seminarians, warning them against 'vagrant disregard for religious law' and reminding them 'the Pope is inflammable.'

Father Mal O'Prop was not with faults, and we could never get him to attend ecumenical functions.

When we asked him why, he said, 'I feel like a social piranha.'

I think that dates from an unfortunate episode when he engaged in a debate on Roman history with an Anglican bishop and told him, 'I think it's a moo point whether Hannibal rode elephants into Cartilage'.

When the bishop challenged him, he said, 'What are you incinerating?'

He said later that although the bishop had a rapist's wit, he was 'as slippery as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.'

Cliff would welcome further suggestions of eccentric and loveable characters who should be dismembered and honoured in his menagerie.

©2006 Clifford Baxter

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