In the old days, they always said “Behind every successful man there is a woman”; and that makes sense because a wife would not only manage the resources of house and hearth but also encourage and berate her husband to success; thus, bringing home more money for her and the children.
But what about Roman Catholic Priests; they are celibate, so who is behind their success? Who helps them climb the ecclesiastical ladder? Who eggs them on to obtain better parishes or even to become bishops, cardinals or even saints? Here in Arles at the Church of St. Trophime, I think I have found the answer.
This old church, built in the 11th century is decorated by many sculptures; but the most fascinating are the ones to the left of the main entrance. There are of course a couple of apostles, St. Bartholomew and St. James, but next to them is St. Trophimus. You can clearly see, with his hat and mitre, that he is a bishop; and according to history he became the first bishop of Arles, France in 250 AD.
He looks very sad and you know he is holy, because angels are putting his bishop’s hat on him; but if you look over his left shoulder, you will see a face peeking out. A face that seems angry and not in awe of the saint at all. This man isn’t religious, has no religious trappings, only a cold, hard sneer immortalized in stone.
There are no answers chiseled on the stone about this man, no entries found in Wikipedia either, so I have to make my own interpretation. In any mystery, you always follow the money to find an answer; and it is the same in this case; to build a beautiful, ornate church, you need lots and lots of money.
Though Saint Trophimus died 900 years before the church was built, someone must have found the relics of an obscure bishop; someone must have bullied the congregation to ignore his shortcomings and then pulled the strings for Trophimus’ successful elevation from a humble bishop to a celebrated, super star saint, worthy of a beautifully ornate cathedral.
Creating the vision of an ornate church for a new saint however, is only the first small step; to finally achieve this vision requires someone to do the “heavy lifting”. Day in, day out, someone needs to encourage and berate the local peasants to contribute more money. Someone needs to manage and miserly dispense those resources over the many decades it takes to build it. The only way a project like this can succeed, is through careful bookkeeping.
So, I think we can start a new saying: “Behind every successful saint with a church, there is an accountant.”
Author’s Note: I want to thank my “Shut Up and Write” Meet Up group for the great feedback that helped improve this story.