Oh, the sordid greed of those who abuse their sacred commission! What punishment is mete for such as exploit these lowly folk in the name of religion! Josè strode off to consult the Alcalde.
“Don Mario, the men in Simití who are living with women have got to be married to them! It is shameful! I shall make a canvass of the town at once!”
The Alcalde laughed. “Costumbre, Padre. You can’t change it.”
Costumbre del país! It is a final answer all through South America. No matter how unreasonable a thing may be, if it is the custom of the country it is a Medean law.
“But you know this is subversive of Church discipline!” Josè retorted warmly. “Look you, Don Mario,” he added suggestively, “you and I are to work together, are we not?”
The Alcalde blinked his pig eyes, but thought hard about La Libertad. “Cierto, Señor Padre!” he hastened to exclaim.
“Then I demand that you summon before me every man and woman who are living together unmarried.”
With a thought single to his own future advantage, the wary Alcalde complied. Within the week following this interview Josè married twenty couples, and without charge. Some offered him a few pesos. These he took and immediately turned over to Don Mario as treasurer of the parish. Those couples who refused to be married were forced by the Alcalde to separate. But of these there were few. Among them was one Julio Gomez. Packing his few household effects upon his back, and muttering imprecations against the priest, Gomez set out for the hills, still followed by his woman, with a babe slung over her shoulders and two naked children toddling at her bare heels.
Verily, the ancient town was being profoundly stirred by the man who had sought to find his tomb there. Gradually the people lost their suspicions and distrust, bred of former bitter experience with priests, and joined heartily with Josè to ameliorate the social status of the place. His sincere love for them, and his utter selflessness, secured their confidence, and ere his first month among them closed, he had won them, almost to a man.