OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS PEOPLE HAVE BEEN REMINISCING OVER PAST ENGLISH CATHOLIC BISHOPS
One of the few past bishops I came across was Cyril Cowderoy of Southwark.
He used to visit St John’s Seminary in Waterford when I was there.
One the day I was ordained deacon in 1975 a fellow ordinand and I went for dinner in the Tower Hotel, Waterford.
There was suddenly a great flurry at the dining room door. We spotted a number of clerics and flashes of episcopal purple.
The head waiter brought the clerics to the next table to us and said to the most senior: “Would your grace like to see the wine list”?
A big voice boomed back: ‘His grace would like a pint of bass”.
It was Cowderoy and a gaggle of priests and monsignors.
I was later told that Cowderoy used to go out in the afternoon to post his own letters, dressed like a 19th century prelate.
