Priests in Love (11 of 11): Negotiation.

From Jane Anderson’s “Priest in Love: Roman Catholic Clergy and Their Intimate Friendships” (a book of interviews with Australian priests) (p. 189):

Fr. Jordan and Tabatha also negotiate the situation that presents itself after he finishes celebrating the Eucharist.  “Every one wants to talk to me after Eucharist, so I make sure she has the car keys, and she just goes and sits in the car.  She sees my priesthood as my profession, and it’s as if I were a company director, she wouldn’t want to be on the board.”

. . .

Priests in Love (10 of 11): Chance Encounter.

From Jane Anderson’s “Priest in Love: Roman Catholic Clergy and Their Intimate Friendships” (a book of interviews with Australian priests) (p. 186):

Fr. David also recounts a situation where he and his friend, Ruth, had been walking together late one night and encountered his bishop in the company of “a lady friend.”  The bishop just looked ahead stony faced and neither priest nor bishop acknowledged each other: “we were like ships passing in the night!”

. . .

Priests in Love (9 of 11): Cruising Difficulties.

From Jane Anderson’s “Priest in Love: Roman Catholic Clergy and Their Intimate Friendships” (a book of interviews with Australian priests) (p. 173):

“Lydia was this ex-religious who was working with the homeless.  I would contact her if I found someone who needed help.  Sometimes I met these people near the [city] toilets [where I cruised].”  Occasionally, she would pop into the presbytery.

“One night when she visited, I was in a terrible state, almost on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  Everything was building up.  I just felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness, frustration, isolation.  I felt like I was falling apart.  Nothing made sense anymore.  Lydia saw that I was a bit strained and asked if I felt well.  Then I burst into the longest, deepest spell of sobbing.  I really felt I would crack in two.  The months went by, and she visited me several times, trying to get some idea of what to do...

“Lydia and I talked about it, and she said, ‘Look I have tried to think of what to do.  It seems to me that you desperately need a personal friend.  I know you are getting help, but that doesn’t seem to be enough.  Look, I’m willing to be that friend; I’m willing to commit myself to be there for you as a friend.’

“I remember sitting there in a kind of numbed misery.  Then she came over to me.  She said that she was about to make a gesture to reassure me that she would not abandon me.  Something in me knew she meant well, that I could trust her.

“She hugged me and kissed me with great feeling.  Then she asked if she could touch me.  I said yes.  So she loosened my clothing, and fondled me intimately.”

. . .

(The book goes on to specify that that was the beginning of a journey of healing, since for the priest it made sex less impersonal, and part of his humanity.)

Priests in Love (8 of 11): Gay Priests.

From Jane Anderson’s “Priest in Love: Roman Catholic Clergy and Their Intimate Friendships” (a book of interviews with Australian priests) (p. 159):

“About eighteen months before I left, one of my ordination classmates decided to reveal to us that he was gay...

“But beyond his own revelation, he went on to tell me another story which further expanded my understanding of how priests around me were struggling with their own particular problems.  He said that during what he called a down period of his life he was out on the streets looking for companions when he came across another member of our ordination class doing the same...  I had always presumed that this other fellow had the question of women and celibacy under better control than I.  Now I realised that it simply was not his concern.”

. . .

Priests in Love (7 of 11): More John Paul II.

From Jane Anderson’s “Priest in Love: Roman Catholic Clergy and Their Intimate Friendships” (a book of interviews with Australian priests) (p. 133):

“A friend of mine had just finished a six-year term as full-time vocations director for his diocese.  He’s a believer in married clergy and says celibacy isn’t working.  His moment of glory was last year at a conference of German-speaking vocation directors in Rome.  They had a meeting with the Pope who asked them what was their solution to the priest crisis in Western Europe.

“By coincidence, my friend was next to Pope John Paul and said to him that one of the answers was relaxation of celibacy and the use of married priests.  The Pope reacted immediately, threw his arms in the air and shouted, ‘Impossible, impossible’ – and then gave them a strong defense of celibacy.”

Five weeks after the conference, this priest was removed from his position because his archbishop had been pressured by Rome “to get rid of him.”

. . .

Priests in Love (6 of 11): John Paul II.

From Jane Anderson’s “Priest in Love: Roman Catholic Clergy and Their Intimate Friendships” (a book of interviews with Australian priests) (p. 107):

Later [Fr. Barnabas] commented: “If the pope [John Paul II] had had sex he wouldn’t be so concerned, but the trouble is he has only known sexual fantasy, masturbation, and struggle.  So, we too are forced to live out our sexuality like that.”

. . .