Pere Roquet: a banker who is paying something back

ANDORRA LAVELLA, Andorra — Pere Roquet has to be an unusual man: a banker who collects Bibles.

Not all Bibles, he points out, and not ancient Bibles, but contemporary Bibles in as many different languages as possible.

“In the beginning,” he says, “collectors explained to me that if you want to make a good collection, you have to be very, very precise: either all Bibles or different languages. My speciality is the languages of all the world!”

Currently some 600 are represented in his collection.

“Books I have more of,” he says, “because in some languages I have two or three Bibles.”

Strictly speaking, he retired from Andorra’s Caixa Bank in 1998, though he remains its president and is on the board of another bank in the same group. He began his collection in 1994, prompted by an Italian missionary friend in Kenya whom he was talking to about his approaching retirement.

“He asked me ‘What are you going to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, I hope to collect some things, perhaps Bibles and New Testaments in different languages.’ He said, ‘Wait a moment.’ He went into a room and returned with a New Testament in Turkana. That was the first book in my collection!”

His friend also suggested that if he were serious about starting a collection, he should go to see the Bible Society of Kenya. He took the advice and once there, in his own words he “emptied the house!”

Monastery

Normally the collection resides in his home but next year, its 10th anniversary, he is lending it out for an exhibition in the spectacular and celebrated Benedictine monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia, near Barcelona. One of the greatest religious shrines of Spain, it boasts a valuable collection of paintings, a library and a museum. 

This will not be the first occasion his Bibles have been put on public display, however, and he takes special delight in recounting the story of the earlier occasion.

“When I had only 150 Bibles, I organised an exhibition in my bank in Andorra.
“Andorra is, let’s say, a very mercantile country. I thought it would be interesting to make an exhibition. My objective was to demonstrate that Andorra was not only interested in money but that somebody has other objectives. An exhibition of Bibles in a bank: I think it was the first time in history.”

It made, he says, quite an impression on the banking community.

Develop 

Nowadays he tries to develop his collection in any way he can: he keeps in touch with the UBS through Dr Phil Noss whom he met as UBS Africa Regional Translation Coordinator in Kenya five or six years ago. He is also in contact with the Bible Society of Spain and makes visits to other national Bible Societies when he is abroad on business.

He recalls a trip he made to the Philippine Bible Society when he was in Hong Kong.

“The woman there was extremely kind. She even came out to the Bible Society on a Saturday morning when it was closed. We came back with quite a lot – 40 languages!”

Collecting Bibles is not Mr Roquet’s only pursuit in his retirement. At his age, he says, it is time to help others.

So in Kenya he helps to provide a four-wheel-drive vehicle equipped as a mobile health clinic. A team of five health workers plus a driver take it out to rural villages every day. Also in Kenya, he is involved with a sponsored education project which currently has 55 young people receiving their education from Italian missionaries. The two projects reflect his perception of the priorities for people in Africa.

“One is to survive,” he says, “and another one is to be educated.”

He is associated with other projects, too: he is a member of the advisory board of a charity in India dedicated to eradicating blindness, has funded a factory in the Peruvian Andes and supports a hospital boat serving the islands in the Ganges delta.

He is, if anything, shy of publicity for this side of his life. In Andorra, he says, he is well known – but only as a banker, and he is content with that.

“I am following the system of the Gospel, you see: the left hand and right hand.”

He gives the distinct impression that he doesn’t mind whether his support for these causes is widely known or understood. He doesn’t feel the need to justify it to others.