Vermont's Catholic Bishop Drank With Frat Boys

Now that the "statute of limitations" has passed, this story can be told.

Robert Francis Joyce, Catholic bishop of Vermont from February 26, 1956 to December 14, 1971, lived in a house in the state's largest city near the University of Vermont's Sigma Nu fraternity.

Being the friendly sort that he was, Bishop Joyce would stop by the frat now and then to chat with the frat brothers.

So one thing led to another and one day the boys invited the bishop to have dinner with them.

It became a weekly affair. Once a week the bishop would stop by the frat house and join the boys for dinner.

Then at one point, one of the frat brothers said to the bishop after dinner "why don't you join us for an aperitif?"

An after-dinner drink between the bishop of Vermont and a bunch of fraternity brothers became its own tradition.

Until...

One day, a woman stopped by the fraternity and identified herself as the house maid at the bishop's residence.

"You can't be giving the bishop alcohol," she sternly told the fraternity members.

Whether it was because of course there were underaged men at the fraternity house and they couldn't legally have alcohol or because the bishop had a drinking problem was never determined.

Whichever it was, the next time the bishop stopped by for dinner he told one of the fraternity brothers, "now can we have our drink?"

One of the brothers told the bishop, "your maid said you can't be drinking over here."

"The heck with her," the bishop of Vermont replied.

And his after-dinner tradition continued...

Meanwhile, one night neighbors called the police because they were upset with the noise coming from a party at the frat house.

After the cops arrived at the frat house and began talking to the fraternity brothers about the noise complaint, a man in his pajamas came out of his nearby residence, walked up to the frat house and told the cops assembled on the front lawn "these are good boys, leave them alone."

Bishop Robert Francis Joyce was born on 7 October 1896, in Proctor, Vermont. He died on 2 September 1990, in Burlington, at the age of 93.