All men who, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, have become priests (or bishops) participate in Christ's priesthood. He’s from a different country with a different culture so I’m really hoping this is a cultural misunderstanding but good grief… I think it’s inappropriate for a priest to offer to come to a woman’s home when she’s alone UNLESS in the case of an emergency. Campaigners have gathered in Rome to call for the lifting of a ban on female priests that would “save the Catholic Church” where it is failing to ordain enough men. Speaking to journalists on Feb. 17, Pope Francis said he himself valued the advice of women since they often "look at things in a different way," adding that the church has not understood "the good a woman can do for the life of a priest and the church." Yet there were hints of personal jealousy, too. If she does, it will deprive the church of rich insights into the human sensitivities of a saint, provided more recently by the BBC's investigations into the much-neglected Tymieniecka. A priest needs good close friends he can rely on. Being alone with one is right out. With FriendMatch, you can find new friendships from your own city or from around the world. If a priest is telling things to non peers (women, lay men, teens and such) what normal priests would only tell to their confessor or spiritual director, he is being very very bad. But it is completely wrong for a priest and any person other then his peers to have a intimate relationship. I wouldn’t allow anyone to threaten my vocation and I wouldn’t threaten anyone else’s. She and her husband, Andrzej, became members of a new Pontifical Council for the Family in 1983, while she also joined the Pontifical Academy for Life and worked with the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. I think priests need all the good friends they can get, or at least a good handful of people they can trust and count on. My opinion: no! He … You can. If you are going to have alone time- it should be under the professional boundaries of his priestly duties such as confession or a meeting about spiritual matters. This is a remarkable, rich book that surveys sexual/spiritual landscape between priests and women ranging from absolute fear to close, intimate friendships and everything in-between. In subsequent correspondence, Wojtyla told Tymieniecka he would "not have dared act like this" had he not believed divine grace was guiding their relationship. Given that, he may have felt it necessary to end his relationship with you, rather than hurt you deeper by allowing himself to sin with you. They are here to serve, but they don’t belong to us. It boils down to a moral code of just never putting oneself in danger. 'The gift of a person' One papal relationship that was certainly genuine, and came close to rivalling Tymieniecka's, was with Wanda Poltawska, a Krakow psychiatrist who advised John Paul on health and family matters. As a cardinal, he continued to exchange prayers and meditations with her, recounting over breakfast during a 1978 mountain holiday that he had dreamed he saw the late Pope Paul VI "beckoning to me." Activists in the Catholic Church are pushing for the Vatican to allow women to be ordained as priests. Italian writer and politician Rocco Buttiglione acknowledged Tymieniecka's influence on the pope's thinking 30 years ago, while George Huntston Williams of Harvard's Divinity School highlighted their close links as early as 1981 in The Mind of John Paul II. Are there not enough scandals already, that you would risk others being scandalized? But it also threw light on the realities of clerical celibacy -- and on the kind of relationships Catholic clergy can and should have with women. "It seems that, at some point in the months that followed, Anna-Teresa declared her love for him," Stourton told Britain's Daily Telegraph. Meanwhile, in numerous letters, affectionately signed "Brat" ("Brother"), the future pope told Poltawska about his spiritual development, crediting her with nurturing his thoughts on family values and the "theology of the body." Adam Boniecki, agrees it was "quite possible" Tymieniecka was in love with the pope, telling Agence France-Presse that she was "most likely not alone." Pope Hints That Catholic Priests May Be Allowed To Have Sex Someday. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled, : The views and opinions expressed in these forums do not necessarily reflect those of Catholic Answers. This ensures that there is never any false impressions for the man and anyone who might catch wind of such an encounter. 2 weeks ago I went to lunch with a priest friend who helped me with some theology work. For official apologetics resources please visit. Look at St Francis and “Brother Jacoba”. They camped and skied together; and by the autumn 1974, when he was in Rome for a Synod of Bishops, Wojtyla was telling Tymieniecka that he found her letters "so meaningful and deeply personal," but also raising issues that "are too difficult for me to write about." Many priests have left the priesthood to become husbands and (true) fathers, men of faith and family. 1 decade ago . I don’t know why you can’t be friends with a priest. John Paul had not been the only religious leader with close friendships with women, Francis pointed out. I’m kind of old school in that I still hold priests to a higher standard generally and personally have a great reverence for them. Meanwhile, a Catholic presenter with Polish Radio predicted the BBC's "beautiful, moving film" could even "change for the better" the way many Poles viewed the pope. However Wojtyla interpreted it, the relationship with Tymieniecka has long been known. There are signs, even in Poland, that some Catholic prelates may concur. Since I haven’t seen a pic of the luncheon, I have to go along with the OP’s description of the situation. Just wondering what your thoughts are…. But personally I think it would be a good idea for priests to avoid (for the sake of avoiding scandal) being alone with a Women. The advice of women Would the Diocese or church frown on this friendship, ie having lunch together, talking about books, movies, etc? Dating is for the purpose of finding a spouse. Reuters. This attitude is what John Paul calls “master of suspicion”. Since my daughter is stubborn — just like me — and pushes me repeatedly to visit with our priests, she has developed a friendship with both of them that is a great blessing to her and to my husband and me. This doesn’t mean that priests and women can’t be friends. Meanwhile, she was not even mentioned in A Life With Karol, a 2007 memoir by the pope's former secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who observed the relationship at close quarters, or in He Liked Tuesdays Best, a book of reminiscences by another ex-secretary, Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki. I still don’t know quite how to handle the suggestion. Priests can’t absolve their own sins. Priests and nuns who left their vows to get married, however, had an incredibly high divorce rate. Wrote about spiritual friendships. Priests are just as subject to temptation as everyone else. This is agony for both of us, but is necessary to prevent impurity. "After his final trip to Poland in 2002, he wrote to her of 'our mutual homeland, so many places where we met, where we had conversations so important to us, where we experienced the beauty of God's presence.' But it seems clear she wished the long friendship to be recorded and known. A female reader, anonymous, writes (19 July 2008): I have been in love with a priest for two years. Tymieniecka had studied Polish literature, like Wojtyla, at Krakow's Jagiellonian University after the wartime Nazi occupation. "He was a free and transparent person, who had no complexes because he was chaste and respected every person in every situation of his life." . "The way Cardinal Wojtyla responded provides an important insight into his providential view of his own destiny. In the final pages, Poltawska describes how she read to the dying pope at his bedside in Rome's Gemelli Clinic, listing the classic Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz and parts of John Paul's own Memory and Identity. I hope and pray that you and the priest both will consider others spiritual welfare and faith by avoiding all action that sooner or later will, will, lead to discovery by others and to scandal; and also avoiding any unwise personal relationship that prevents you both from finding more wholesome solutions to your social and intellectual needs, and that are more inclusive of other people. If woman is happily married, hubby knows about all meetings, and priest is happy and enjoying his vocation but just enjoys spending time with the woman as friends and there’s no sexual tension, or should this relationship be avoided? Unfortunately, priests don’t have a secret superpower that allows them to forgive their own sins. "These innocent, beautifully crafted letters are a sublimation of the love that is possible between a priest and a woman in an acceptable and genuine attitude. When i was in college, i had heard of research saying married women with a priest-confidant usually have happier marriages. This had proved difficult, since evidence suggests powerful figures in the Vatican and Polish church have sought to expunge Tymieniecka from John Paul II's life story. What size town do you live in? Yes, priests are busy, but they want to engage with their parishioners, especially children. Kingston, Ontario, Cardinal Thomas Weld (1773-1837) had also been married before ordination, and buried his own daughter, Mary Lucy, in his Rome church, San Marcello al Corso, when she died in 1831. While seeming open to a change in policy, the pope has also exhorted priests to take their celibacy seriously, and to leave the church if they can’t, in particular if they have fathered a child. It’s called a “priest-confidante”. Only if she is at least twenty-five years older than he is. 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