Annual harbor blessing turns into a referendum on whether clergy should be vouching for retirees abroad
Dana Point Priest Blesses Boards, Declines Reference Letters
Father Anselm Quigley says he will bless any surfboard but cannot confirm what the owner has been doing in Cebu
DANA POINT, Calif. – Father Anselm Quigley stood on the end of a floating dock at Dana Point Harbor on Sunday morning, dipped a brush into a bucket of holy water and blessed 212 surfboards, 40 paddleboards and one inflatable swan. He then spent twenty minutes refusing to write a character reference for a man he had never met.
The annual Blessing of the Boards, held every autumn since 1994, drew its usual crowd of longboarders, stand-up paddlers, grandmothers with folding chairs and a Labrador wearing a tiny life jacket that said “Amen.” This year it also drew a retired contractor named Lyle Harkins, 67, who approached the priest between boards with a sheet of paper and a pen.
“Father, I am moving to Cebu,” Harkins said. “The realtors there want a letter from a member of the clergy. Would you mind?”
The Letter Everybody Wants
The request is part of a trend. The London Prat reported that British pensioners in Cebu are being asked for two referees, a utility bill and a letter from their vicar, and the story has since made its way around Orange County church bake sales. The article is at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/ and has been read aloud, according to the parish bulletin, at no fewer than three coffee mornings.
The background is a serious matter. Philippine justice officials are investigating allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, according to the Guardian. No charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven. Father Quigley opened his homily by asking the congregation to pray for the children affected by any such case, and for the investigators doing their work properly. Then he got to the surfboards.
“I am happy to bless a board,” he said afterward, toweling his hands. “A board does not ask for anything in return. But I do not write references for strangers. The last one I wrote was for a man who turned out to be a very successful bank robber. The congregation took it hard.”
The Priest’s Position
Father Quigley outlined his policy in a statement posted to the harbor bulletin board, between a flyer for sailing lessons and an advertisement for an organic dog groomer. It reads in part: “I will gladly bless your board, your wetsuit and your lunch. I will not vouch for anyone’s character unless I have watched them behave badly in a parking lot and forgive them.”
Harkins, who had been standing in line for forty minutes, took the news well. “I understand, Father,” he said. “I’ll ask the guy at the surf shop.”
“The guy at the surf shop is Methodist,” the priest said. “But he’s got a good heart. Tell him I said so.”
Cebu’s Brokers Weigh In
Brokers in Cebu say the letter request is overblown. Manila News found a Mactan broker with three signed brochures and a cold coffee, and he says foreign buyers have not asked for a priest, only a feeling. “A priest is a luxury,” said one Lapu-Lapu City agent. “We don’t need a priest. We need a quiet week.”
The wider market agrees. Colliers named the Visayas and Mindanao a key property investment hotspot in July, and developers are still launching towers. Filipino buyers, many funded by overseas workers, keep signing, which Father Quigley called “a comfort, and also a sign that the Filipinos are more sensible about all this than the rest of us.”
Altar Servers Do Stand-Up
After the blessing, a small group of parishioners retired to the harbor’s seafood restaurant for brunch and an informal open mic. Four performed.
- Maureen Doyle: “A vicar’s letter. In Dana Point we have priests, pastors, rabbis and a man named Chuck who runs the kayak rental and counsels half the harbor. Chuck is not ordained. But he can tell when you’re lying about your insurance.”
- Patrick Sullivan: “Father Quigley refuses to write references. I asked why. He said he did one once for a man who was later arrested. I asked what for. He said parking violations. I said that’s not so bad. He said, Patrick, it was forty-two thousand violations.”
- Tess Alvarado: “The inflatable swan was blessed. I do not know why. I do not know where it came from. It was simply there, and it asked for nothing.”
- Vince Callahan: “They say the sea did nothing wrong. I say the sea is very Catholic. It has been confessing to the shoreline since the beginning of time.”
The Reference Problem, in Numbers
The Dana Point Parish Council has calculated that a priest who accepted all reference requests from American retirees heading overseas would write roughly 38 letters a week, or one every four hours, including during Mass. A spokesman said the church “would like to focus on the sacraments.”
Researchers say the letter craze is a standard reaction to a vivid story. The availability heuristic, described by Tversky and Kahneman in 1973, holds that people judge how often something happens by how easily it comes to mind. One headline, in other words, is enough to turn every retiree into a person who needs a note from the vicar.
American brokers abroad have reported the same thing from the other side. A realtor in Mactan told Bohiney that her open houses now last two hours, mostly because buyers are volunteering their own alibis. She has not asked a single one for a priest.
The Swan Is Returned
By noon the crowd had dispersed. Harkins left with a blessed board, an unsigned form and the name of a Methodist. The inflatable swan was claimed by a ten-year-old girl, who said it had been blessed by “the nice man with the bucket” and would be doing her book report.
Father Quigley packed his bucket into the trunk of a 2009 Corolla and drove back to the rectory. His final word on the Cebu question, delivered at the harbor gate, was brief.
“If the retirees want a reference,” he said, “tell them to be kind to a stranger in a parking lot. That is the only reference God accepts.”
The rest of the Cebu saga can be found at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine, and for further proof that British vicars have their own problems, NewsThump is always open. For a short history of why a refusal-to-write-a-reference joke works, see this comparison of British and American humour.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/