Runaway rectors

'Vicars are underpaid and undervalued. It isn't unknown for them to – well, let's say "borrow" from God. And then go on the run'

Continuing our occasional series of People With Very Unusual Jobs Indeed

NO 69: A MAN WHO RUNS A MISSING PARSONS BUREAU

"No, we're not a Missing Persons Bureau," says Edwin Lamotte. "We're a Missing Parsons Bureau. Several times a day, people notice our nameplate and come in to ask if it's not a misprint. No, it's not! We really are in the business of tracing missing clergymen."

And yet the whole thing did start as a misprint, didn't it?

"That's the extraordinary thing about it," says Edwin Lamotte, brightly. "We had decided to set up a missing persons bureau. The local paper misprinted our ad as Missing Parsons Bureau, and we were about to object when we noticed something rather odd. Business had suddenly picked up! Until then, we had been ticking over at about one or two missing persons a week, but when we inadvertently switched to clergymen, we took off!

"We were overwhelmed with inquiries. We simply had no idea how many parsons were going missing all the time, and, of course, parsons are very good at going missing!"

Why's that?

"Well, they spend most of their time in real life trying not to look too much like clergymen anyway. Dog-collar denial, we call it..."

The first parson who was ever reported missing to them was a Rev Jason Powers, who had been the priest of several parishes in Hertfordshire, and had suddenly gone Awol. "He was suffering from what we have now learnt to call 'parish panic'," says Lamotte, "which comes from the way that clergymen now have to look after so many different churches and congregations that they start to get overkill and identity confusion. Which parish is really mine? Do any of them really care? That sort of thing.

"In Jason's case, he was also suffering from merger mania – that is, he had worked out that the half a dozen small congregations he was serving could all fit nicely into one church, and couldn't see why... anyway, we found him. He had only panicked enough to go back to his mum's."

Why do most parsons vanish?

"Same reasons as most people vanish. Money troubles, emotional troubles... Plus loss of faith, of course. Most clergymen take loss of faith in their stride, but some take it pretty seriously. And, occasionally, they are fleeing the police."

Why? What sort of crime would a priest commit?

"Well, you often hear about churches being raided for their old treasures, don't you? Ancient silver plates and things. And you think that someone would have to be pretty desperate to steal from a church. What people forget is that most vicars are pretty desperate. Underpaid and undervalued. It isn't unknown for a clergyman to – well, let's say, 'borrow' from God. And then go on the run. Quite unnecessarily, in the majority of cases."

Do parsons ever run off with women, and so run the risk of being defrocked?

"It happens. We had a most unusual case the other day. This chap was moonlighting as a plumber – vicars often have second jobs – and he had been doing some plumbing round the local bishop's palace. Cut a long story short, he and the bishop's wife had fallen in love and started an affair. They ran away together. I found them, brought them back.

"The bishop wanted the vicar thrown out of the Church, but the erring vicar claimed that his adultery had been committed in his role as a plumber, not as a clergyman, which meant, so he said, that his conduct as a vicar was immaculate."

Did he get away with it?

"Yes. But only because I had some dirt on the bishop."

Do bishops ever go missing?

"Very rarely. They love being bishops too much ever to want to miss out on it."

Do vicars ever come to him and claim to be missing?

"Sometimes. Dodgy cases, as a rule. Usually bogus vicars."

And what happens if you just can't trace a missing parson?

"We try praying," admits Edwin.

And does that work?

"Sometimes, sometimes not. If it fails, it might be because the missing parson is praying harder than us not to be traced."

And because God is on his side?

"Ah, God..." smiles Edwin Lamotte. "The all-time mystery. Does He really exist? Or is He the ultimate missing-person case?"

Do you have a missing parson to report? Drop us a line and we'll forward it to Edwin Lamotte