I didn't see the Sydney Morning Herald article '500 women in secret affairs with priests'. A friend of mine did. My friend is not a Christian, just a fellow worker in the city. But he kind of knows me as a 'priest', and so wondered if I'd ever thought of the clerical collar as a 'bird catcher'.

A what?

So, I read the article. It is about Catholic priests in Ireland. Bishop Buckley, who runs Bethany (an organisation 'set up to support those in love affairs with the clergy') claims that 'one in 10 of the 5000 priests enjoyed regular sex with women and some even referred to their clerical collar as the “bird catcher”'.

The article, if true, speaks of a dark and sinful world. It speaks about clergy abuse, infidelity, and other terrible acts. Please keep the victims and perpetrators in your prayers. Maranatha.

What about us?

The good men and women in the Professional Standards Unit work diligently, and we need to uphold them in prayers. We need the PSU in place, and we need them working towards compassion and justice. 'Faithfulness in Service' is worth taking to heart again.

But in the end, we know that no PSU can ensure that the human heart will do the right thing. We need God. We need to know his redemptive love (that we might love as he does), we need to know his justice (that we may fear a God who will 'judge the secret thoughts of all'), and we need the Holy Spirit at work transforming our lives. We need to know 'the power of his resurrection'. We need 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 embedded into our hearts.

At an MTS Training Day once, a counselor make a very astute observation. She said that clergy are 'at risk' when it comes to misconduct because of two realities.  Most likely, she said, clergy were not particular 'cool' as younger men. Maybe even geeky. And underappreciated. And yet in their current jobs, they have become what she called 'enhancers', by which I believe she meant that clergy are often listeners, carers and defenders. A potential recipe for misconduct.

The Father in Proverbs 5, speaking to his sons about faithfulness, assumes that, ultimately, there is no such thing as a 'secret affair'.  He is very positive about love with 'the wife of your youth', but shows the madness of any 'secret affair'. He predicts these words on the lips of the one who strays:

I have come to the brink of utter ruin
in the midst of the whole assembly.”

What, then, are the Father's wise words to his sons?

Keep to a path far from her,
  do not go near the door of her house,

That is, there is always a set of choices that lead to sin and utter ruin. I thought we could have a discussion about what things can be put in place to maintain righteousness, and to avoid the pain caused by sin and infidelity.

Thoughts?

(This is a public blog. If this post raises issues that are better left offline, then an option is to contact the PSU here.)