THREE BULLS
I remember on occasion going to church on some special day of other when there was a Solemn High Mass and my father, seeing three vested priests on the altar, would comment snidely, “Three Bulls!” I never asked him what the hell that was supposed to mean, well aware that he and I had widely differing outlooks on church matters, and any explanation he might give would not blend smoothly into my own understanding of what it all was about
Looking back, I am sure his observation would mean something to some subgroup of men somewhere which he was addressing in his mind: his friends, or work associates, or farmers, bullfight afficianados, cattle breeders, slaughterhouse workers, whatever. I could vaguely perceive some resemblance between the studiedly independent carriages of the priests moving about the altar with an unstoppable inevitability and my limited knowledge of bull behavior.
But since I was not part of that unknown group of peers all that came across to me was that he was alienated from the Church or certain aspects of it and saw the lavish liturgy on the altar as some kind of clown trot.
