The Bishop’s Test
A high-ranking Bishop decided to make an unannounced inspection of a tiny church in a remote rural area to see how the local priests were teaching catechism to the children.
He walked into a classroom of 10-year-old boys. To test the students, the Bishop stood strictly in front of the class, crossed his arms, and asked in a powerful voice, “Who among you can tell me: Who knocked down the famous walls of Jericho in the Bible?”
The entire classroom instantly fell de@d silent. The boys looked at each other in sheer terror. Suddenly, a little boy sitting in the front row raised his hand tremblingly, crying, “Sir… I swear it wasn’t me! Yesterday I stayed home all day to help my mom cook dinner!”
The Bishop was completely shocked and angered by this lack of knowledge. He immediately stormed off to find the head priest of the parish and barked, “Look at the education here! I asked a child who knocked down the walls of Jericho, and he actually swore to me that he didn’t do it!”
The old priest sighed, patted the Bishop’s shoulder sympathetically, and said, “Calm down, your Excellency, calm down. I know that boy’s family very well. They are poor but he is a good kid, he never lies. If he said he didn’t do it, then he didn’t do it! Tell you what, let me call the parish construction team to check if another kid did it, and we’ll make his parents pay for the damages later!”
