Local Catholic parish sued over priest's affair with 38 year old unmarried woman

yea who would sue

i guess a tithing member pissed about what might be construed as a fraud.

thats still lame though to sue over it.
i bet the church would just move him to a monastery for awhile. idk

interesting.

Ridiculous.

He should just quit the stupid job and marry her.

Then start his own church right down the street.

The pope would rather have these guys fucking ten year old alter boys in the ass, than let them live like normal human beings.

He talked to the bishop last year and has been kept as priest, so they aren't even removing him.

I feel sorry for them all.

It's a cool little community. It's a cool little school. My folks love it.

A grown, single woman.

suing

ugh

He might would have had she not done this and exploded the whole thing that parish had going on ... which was a pretty bright spot in a lot of people's lives.

I want to blame him too but come on.

He obv was a cool, hetero guy. People liked him, and they loved what was going on there.

Not a predator.

How are you gonna have an affair with a priest as a grown woman, then sue the parish?

In the past Catholic priests married.

The Norman bishops married for sure .

Then it was stopped .

It was a terrible mistake .

It was done through the deadly sin of greed ...

A while ago ,here Church of England priests became Catholic because of some fuss about doctrine and some were married .

So the Catholic Church does have some married priests .

I believe they should be allowed to marry again if they wish .

I wonder if the problem was the upkeep of their children .

It is much better than abusing children under their care which is disgusting and vile .

That's what it is.

The upkeep of families versus these lawsuits.

I've always had what I thought was an interesting perspective, having tutored young (mostly international) seminarians. I KNOW those guys liked women. And they were also wonderful, scholarly assets for the church.

It's a big reason why I went my own way and shed religion. I feel like I know these guys, and they have expectations placed on them as very young men ... if there is even an expression of interest in the priesthood they are herded right into that.

I can't believe in this day and age some woman would screw a priest. And then sue.

The whole system is screwed up.

If I was father Rob, a canon lawyer, I'd tell them all to go fuck themselves. But he can't because he gave his whole life to canon law rather than actual law ... he could have been a real lawyer he's smart as a whip.

Sad.

hell hath no fury...

I can't believe I'm even the least bit emotionally involved in this but here we are.

This guy ... who in their right mind ?!?!? but then ... how are you going to do that to all these people who care ...

so mad.

This guy is bright. Sharp. Good. Still a priest, so I get a little funny like why not start a non profit and do good there but whatever ... they all love him. He obviously wasn't doing much else except what all men do.

can't win for losing.

You can't be a 38 year old woman in the world and not understand how men operate, no matter what your experiences.

If that school has to suffer for this ... so sad.

A few years ago I was in his office on an errand for my mom ... the priest was trying to convince me to get my divorce fixed so I could "come back" but I'm not interested ... no matter wat mom says to him, that's not the "problem" ...

I got home and told my boyfriend "He's not gay. He's a figgin' brilliant canon lawyer. But he's definitely not gay or weird - just a religious studies dork like me."

So from what I remember Priests could marry once upon a time. But a King thought that a Priest's offspring might threaten the King’s rule if he executed their Priest father. This ban has carried forward til today. Let them marry and have sex and kids.

In my experience, that would be what is best.

I have known many priests and nuns on a friend level. PArtied with them. College. They were normal kids with a weird vocation.

I, myself, had to literally major in it at a prestigious Catholic university to get it all sorted out to my own satisfaction. I could have majored in anything and that would have been better, but it was the thing that bugged me and I had to sort it out. Not because of ME. Because of THEM and their intellectual hoola hoops.

Studying Catholicism in the context of a high end university education is GLORIOUS. There is so much there. Meat. So much to explore. It's really a beautiful thing.

How can I say that yet still be non-religious, agnostic?

That's how good the education is.

It's a SIN to waste that education.

This guy is top-notch. Really, his skills were wasted at the parish level. He should have been in Rome, and left some doofus to get sued by a grown woman.

The parish can counter-sue and call all previous sexual partners of both the woman and the priest. The comparative volume of testimony could be used to argue that in the matter of seduction and sexual relations with others, the woman was in a position of authority and used said authority to seduce and engage in an unpermitted sexual relationship with the priest, damaging his efficacy within the parish.


In the end, though, the church will settle the lawsuit with a non-disclosure clause and no one will speak of the truth of the matter.

The woman will get the money she's after and you'll be able to identify her as the parishioner who no longer attends church that the unknown whereabouts of are lied about poorly.

You are right. That is exactly what will go down. I don't think the dude was in any way naïve, either. That was always my impression ... normal, heterosexual man. All men get stupid when it comes to that, my man included.

We had a death over the weekend that calls for a mass card, and I'm the one in my family who runs that errand.

This is a typical occurrence and the only reason I go in there. Typically, it is just me, the priest and his dog in the office. The dog is a nut, and sometimes has to be shut in another office when visitors come.

It has to be hard to tell a congregation you were stupid and fucked up.

I'm feeling for the guy. I can understand having to suppress all your regular desires for a goal, and then eventually letting go and getting caught due to your own stupidity. There were probably a thousand other women who would have been etter choices for a discreet affair - dude was tall, not unattractive and smart.

I wouldn't be the least surprised if I found him sitting at his desk this afternoon still doing all the mass cards himself. Sucks he's in the damn news for something every man either does or wants to do.

I hope he's not sorry.

I'm hoping for a glimmer of "not sorry" in his eyes.

We'll see.

Reading into the story, I'm not so sure a discreet affair was what he was looking for, or that you'll get your wish of him not being sorry. He reported the affair to his bishop after ending it, and that bishop met with the woman in July of 2019. Then, in December of 2020, she filed suit.


I almost remarked in my previous reply about taking care of what doors you open in the arguments you make, but now it's twice that you've commented on the actions of all men.

Shall we take this topic into the realm of it being proof of what all women do?


Like I said, hell hath no fury...


I bet that priest could not be more sorry about anything else in his life than those few months he put trust in a woman he shared affections with.

I'm talking about on a human level, and from my general experience. I'm sure father Rob, the dude who we all like, is very sorry for the whole mess.

I'm sure he is very very sorry ... but I hope he is not sorry for being attracted to a single woman in his age range. That's such a human thing.

Yes, there is a place for celibacy. That is usually in a monastery. From what I understand it can be the most rewarding thing. It sucks for these men who have normal hormonal situations to have to be celibate to do a day job. Deal with people and families.

I know men and I am a woman and I know we all have hormonally driven behaviors.

It was very weird to me being a secular student in the religious education context where I met all the seminarians and priests.

I was really good at languages ... I became a computer programmer ... but at the time I was employed by the university as a tutor in latin and greek, and especially as a tutor in English, to assist foreign seminarians and priests with speaking conversational English.

My favorite gig was not an undergraduate, and he had to pay me out of pocket because he was already an ordained priest. I got paid 30 bucks an hour in the 90s to speak English with a French priest and to review his papers written in English, which were always near flawless.

We'd sit and talk and he always brought wine.

I think that was the most "normal" interaction he had with a woman since he left France as a kid. He was so smart. So polite and kind. I didn't deserve to get paid to help him, he was incredibly gifted.

But if he wanted to, he never made a move other than the wine. He knew that was not allowed.

He, his name was Marcel, and the others routinely wanted to socialize. I never did. They couldn't handle the socialization I was into at that time. There was no place for them where I socialized ... but I was the only connection to that world that they had there. And I could not bring my priest tutees to a frat party.

I was not going to take a guy on track to be a priest and explode his world with a weekend of debauchery in NYC. But they all wanted me to. They wanted a legit reason to not keep going as a priest.

They were so smart, and so sweet ... the Catholic scandals of the past few decades did not apply to these guys. They were fleeing Africa and South America mostly. They were the best at school, so they got to come over and train as priests.

I just have a soft spot for these priests because I knew so many who were just boys. They were boys. I'm sure most are fine priests now, or they found a girl along the way and dropped out. They were regular guys, just restrained when it came to the sex stuff.

And in my experience, they all had above average academic skill. That's why they were where they were, getting the education they all did without paying.

Anyway.

I'm sure he's sorry, but I hope he holds tight to his own spark. I hope that if he does not feel intense guilt or remorse. He is a good priest. Thousands of people love huim.

True!!!

What exactly are the grounds for a lawsuit?

"Abuse of power" is all that's being reported. Sexual assault ... bc abuse of power.


I'm using all my google fu and can't find the documents.