The Universal Pope

There was a Montreal eccentric in the seventies and eighties who claimed that he was the Universal Pope. In fact, he had two personae based on the two costumes his aged mother had made for him.

The first was that of an admiral of some sort - a white uniform which might have passed for the get-up of a hotel bellhop were it not for the military peaked cap and the chest full of medals. He was a regular fixture at hockey games at the old Montreal Forum in this uniform - strolling around as "the admiral". Everybody knew him and largely ignored him.

The other uniform was rather better-made and considerably more splendid: A purple cassock with stripes and tassels, a colourful cape and a red skull cap. In this uniform he would wander around in front of the Anglican Cathedral (and other religious establishments as well) and tell the tourists out front that he was the Universal Pope. Once in a while they'd take his picture and have their pictures taken with him.

He would show up at Synod Eucharists and other events, milling around at the front of the cathedral. Al, the Cathedral's verger, would inevitably lose patience with him and show him off the property where he'd wander about on the sidewalk just outside of Al's grasp. A game of "cat and mouse" would then ensue, for an hour or so, between the Universal Pope and Al the verger. Al tended to be "mercurial" and could be hot tempered. It was best not to mess with him.

When the Synod of the Diocese of Montreal elected the Dean of the Cathedral, Andrew Hutchison, to be its new bishop after the retirement of Reginald Hollis, the enthronement was a very grand affair with television cameras in the choir loft, the mayor and other city officials in the front pews and ecclesiastical dignitaries of various sorts in procession. The usual flurry of activity took place with clergy, both greater and lesser, being assigned to their various place in the procession. When the first notes of the Processional Hymn began the procession began snaking in the back door of the cathedral.

No one knows exactly at which point the Universal Pope found his place in the procession but he was in the middle of it, for a short time, bestowing blessings upon those to his left and his right. He never made it farther than about ten paces inside the cathedral, though, because at this point Al the verger waded in and hauled him out bodily.

The most memorable moment of the day was actually not the ejection of the Universal Pope from the procession. It was the rather alarmed look on the faces of the two visiting officials from an "Eastern" church in their full robes and box-like headgear who were clearly trying to figure out what the prelate, ahead of them in procession, had done wrong so that they could avoid a similar fate.