MY SEXUALLY TURBULENT PRIEST
Ruth Rees on her personal experience with
women who set out to entrap members of the Roman Catholic clergy
I FIRST encountered the species in Africa soon after I became a Catholic in the mid- 1950s, and their stalking habits became increasingly familiar to me as I watched them move in on their prey. They were not confined to one specific habitat, anywhere would do: a social event, religious retreat weekends, anything which provided an opportunity for that propinquity essential to what they were. They were priest-hunters.
Some were brazen and would flirt open- ly with their selected victims before going in for the kill. Others, more self-deluding perhaps, would encourage a close relation- ship with the priest of their choice because he offered a kindliness, warmth and under- standing they weren't getting at home. So some priests fell into the trap — there were at least four I knew about in those years: one was the priest who had instruct- ed and baptised me, the prior of a famous monastic preaching order, a truly good man who carried his formidable intellect with lightness and simplicity. I'll call him Father Gregory, though that was not his real name.
In the fairly small Catholic community of Cape Town everyone knew everyone else, and I soon became aware of a small group of women who hung around Father Gregory and treated him with a provoca- tive over-familiarity. He gave no sign of minding, probably because as a rather plain man he was particularly vulnerable to feminine wiles. During the searingly hot Christmas season when we were both guests at a festive party, these women teased him with suggestive undertones and, giggling, insisted he join them for kisses under the mistletoe. I couldn't com- plain to the hostess because she was one of them, a middle-aged woman who, I was to discover, made up in determination what she lacked in beauty.
The following month, when I was a few hundred miles away at a Cape harbour recording interviews for a radio pro- gramme of mine, I bumped into this woman and Father Gregory sitting on the harbour steps in lovey-dovey mode. I don't know who had the greater shock, but a few weeks later he rang and asked if he could pop round for a chat as he had something to tell me. When we met he said he didn't want me to hear it first from anyone else: he was leaving his order. Not only that, he was leaving the priesthood, the Church, the lot. He had lost his faith. I asked him if he had believed when he baptised me. His chilling reply was: 'No, I don't think I did.' This was disconcerting information for a new con- vert, so I was greatly relieved when my parish priest later assured me that the quali- ty of a priest's personal faith has no bearing whatsoever on any sacrament he adminis- ters. So my baptism was still kosher.
Around the time Father Gregory disap- peared from view, I returned to England, but I often wondered where and how he was. Then in 1987, during a working visit to South Africa, I asked a Catholic pal if there was news of him. 'Oh, didn't you know?' he said. 'He got married, but eventually came back to the Church fully reconciled and returned to his religious order. Not as prior, of course, but as a humble lay broth- er. He died peacefully a few years ago.'
He came to mind for obvious reasons recently as I read about the priest-hunters in Scotland, different accents, same breed. They knew exactly what they were getting themselves into, and the fact that dear old lovable Roddy has been exposed as a cal- lous womanising rotter is beside the point. It takes two to do that particular Highland fling, and none of the women (I won't say neither, because the count may still be going on) deserves sympathy. It maddened me to hear priests appealing for prayers and sympathy for the bishop and his women with little mention — until much later — of the real victims, the four chil- dren, especially the 15-year-old daughter abandoned by her mother, Mrs Macphee, who was indignant at reports that she had left a note on the table for her family. 'That was all lies,' she said. 'I wrote to them all.' Oh well, that's all right then.
But there has been a curious contrast between the shock-horror expressed by the hierarchy and the comparative calm of most Catholics. There seems to be a greater acceptance by lay people of the basic truth that the Church is made up of sinners, and a sigh of relief that this time it has not been covered up, because the one vital lesson that has still not got through to all members of the hierarchy is that sooner or later the truth will out. One priest said to me a few days ago that the matter should have been kept under wraps, dealt with, as it were, in-house. But he is wrong. Lasting harm has been done to the Church in the past few decades by cover-ups, and whether the scandal is about paedophilia, financial dishonesty, womanising or — far more serious — priests who are preaching heresy and sacrilege, yet are allowed to continue in their posts, it should be the hierarchy who take the initiative in expos- ing the evil and dealing with it openly. Father Andrew Wadsworth, a priest at St James's Spanish Place in central Lon- don, believes that the fundamental prob- lem is that since the 1960s the theology taught in Britain's Catholic seminaries has not supported the Church's under- standing of the priesthood and has pro- duced several generations of priests who are consequently confused about the real- ities of priestly celibacy. 'This is absolute- ly contrary to the declarations about the priesthood in the documents of Vatican II,' he said. Strangely enough, while Scot- land's besieged Cardinal Winning staunchly defended priestly celibacy, as did Archbishop Foley, the Vatican's head of communications, Cardinal Hume was less robust. His comment that celibacy was a manmade rule rather than a divine one may be accurate but unfortunately it gave fodder to the anti-celibacy lobby, who appear to be ignorant of the very sound practical reasons for celibacy.
Priests are being undermined in many ways. Politically correct feminists both reli- gious and secular have infiltrated the deci- sion-making process, and have contributed to a Worlockian-inspired document on so- called 'collaborative ministry' which, much to the alarm of many priests, has been taken on board by the Bishops' Confer- ence. The tenor of the controversial docu- ment can be gauged by a typically patronising passage on the subject of pos- sible barriers to the scheme, such as `. fear among priests or lay people that col- laboration will undermine priests or leave them with little to do. This may combine with a sense of loss of identity, especially as qualified lay people may be more suc- cessful in animating some aspects of pas- toral life than priests.' The source of the document is a misunderstood papal decla- ration on the priesthood of the laity which has been taken literally as putting the per- son in the pew on the same level as the priest who uniquely celebrates the sacri- fice of the Mass. In fact, however fiercely the authors may deny it, the document's sub-text is to diminish the priesthood.
Short of organising a Society for the Protection of Real Priests, what else can be done to defend them and nurture their self-respect which, among other things, would help them to fend off priest- hunters? Father Wadsworth said, 'I believe it is more than coincidence that the growing lack of respect for priests has emerged during a period when an increas- ing number of priests, and consequently And some news just in . . lay people, are showing a lack of reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament at Mass. We need fewer committees and confer- ences and a greater, better informed spiri- tuality.' In brief, more prayer, less prattle.
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