The Deacon's Bench
They had not planned on falling in love, but they did.
They did not want to become the objects of malicious gossip, but they are. They had not imagined living a life of furtive affections and secret rendezvous, but that is what has happened since the woman and the priest defied a Roman Catholic Church taboo and became romantically involved.
“Some people see me as a devil, something dirty,” said the woman, who, along with the priest she is involved with, agreed to discuss their situation, sitting for an interview at a hotel in a city far from his parish.
They asked to remain anonymous, fearing further disapproval from their parents, who know, and the disdain of friends and parishioners, who already suspect that their friendship is more than platonic.
“I risk losing everything if it were to come out into the open,” the priest said. Yet they agreed to speak, his partner said, “because suffering pushes you to do something, to try and change this injustice.”
An online search using “in love with a priest” produces blog after blog about church-crossed lovers, in any number of languages. There are support groups on social media, including Facebook groups for women. One group of 26 women even petitioned Pope Francis to change the church’s requirement of celibacy for priests, and relieve their suffering.
“It’s really hard to explain this relationship to someone who hasn’t gone through it,” said one of the women who signed the letter to the pope but did not want her name printed because she, too, is romantically involved with a priest. “We wanted to let the pope know that the suffering is widespread.”
There’s more. Read it all.
A few observations:
- I sympathize with the problems these couples face, but Church teaching isn’t exactly ambiguous. I think the rules are pretty clear. At ordination, these guys knew what they were getting into when they were lying face down on the floor of the cathedral. Unmarried men make a promise of celibacy at the time they are ordained priests; among other things, it signifies that they are betrothed to the Church. Breaking that promise is, effectively, an act of infidelity. Complaining about some “injustice,” after choosing to engage in that infidelity, is at best a little disingenuous. So is the self-pitying tone of victimhood. Which party has been wronged here?
- Women who fall in love with priests, and priests who let it happen, both know that what they’re doing is wrong. More than wrong: sinful. Hey, we’re all weak. We stumble. But to put yourself in that position, and even allow it to happen, is just foolish— and these people are just compounding the sin by seeking approval and justification for it. It’s not the Church’s fault they find themselves in these circumstances. (Regarding his own notorious infidelity, Woody Allen once famously explained his helplessness in the face of it by saying, “The heart wants what it wants.” I suspect he had his organs confused.)
- Anyone advocating for priests to get married doesn’t understand the history of the Church. It’s never happened. And it likely never will. Married men have been ordained priests, but ordained priests have never been allowed to marry. It’s a subtle distinction— but it’s significant.
- The article paints a compassionate portrait of men who may soon find themselves unemployed because they fell in love. Priests who face the possibility of having to leave the priesthood because of an affair, and have no idea how they’ll make a living, should ponder that prospect a little more deeply before making that first date.
- Pray for our priests. Now, more than ever.
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