Clergy and the Other Woman

Yes, a big story in yesterday’s New York Times. Front page with amazing photo of a priest baptizing his own child. An article about clergy—Catholic and others—who have had sexual, romantic and intimate relationships with women who were/are parishioners. Relationships with adult women which violate vows of celibacy and perhaps vows of marriage. Trouble in Riverside City.

We react with...what? Indignation? Surprise? The worst thing we do is wonder about the women. But why are we surprised? That is our own complicity in these affairs.

I am reminded of dear Hester Prynne, heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlett Letter.” If you ask people what that book is about they will tell you that its about a woman caught in adultery or about a woman who has a child with a man while her husband is away and her penance and punishment is to wear the Scarlet “A”, and yes it is also about how she lives out that fate.

Here is the part we forget: Hester Prynne did have an intimate relationship with a man, and that affair did result in a baby—the devilish girl, Pearl. But there was a man too and that man was Hester Prynne’s pastor. Her lover, her partner, the father of baby Pearl was Hester’s minister, the man charged with her spiritual guidance and the spiritual formation of the community.

So, really, who is the sinner in that story? And why do we always think of the woman? It’s true even now. We blame the woman—both women. When a man has an affair the other woman is condemned for “taking” another woman’s man; blamed for making him stray, and for breaking up a home or family. But we also and often blame the wife too: Her man would not have strayed if she was (insert favorite adjective here: sexy, smart, pretty, attentive, supportive…) Enough. Yes, she is also blamed.

It’s a set up of women. Both women. But what about the man? For Hawthorne’s story what about The Reverend Mister Dimsdale?

Why do we do this? Is it a backhanded way to say that men are so weak they can be lured? That they can “stray” like a dog or a chicken? Or is it something more dangerous and dismaying for women. No matter what happens we blame the woman: the one who is active and the one who is passive. We blame the bad one and the good one. We blame Eve over and over and we forget that Adam came first.