CITI's International Connection-- Chapter Eight

If you are new to this blog, you may wish to read the archived blogs first since the story is being written somewhat chronologically. What is posted below is the most recent. Thank you. CITI's first "live" introduction to the international movement of married priests occurred at a 1993 U.S. married priest conference where I happen to be seated next to the Rev. Dr. Heinz-Jurgen Vogels of Germany. Heinz was president of the German married priest movement and he and Lambert Van Gelder of The Netherlands had helped Paolo Camellini found the International Federation of Married Priests (see previous chapter), which first meeting was held in Ariccia just outside of Rome. Theologian and author Heinz saw the value of CITI's mission, and suggested that I attend August's Madrid conference of the International Federation. My French pretty much forgotten (I didn't speak English 'til I turned seven), I invited my sister Pauline who was both fluent in French and Spanish to come along, promising some touring after the conference since attending a religious conference was not enough of an incentive for her to travel to Spain with me in the middle of the summer. Though she had been supportive of my work thus far, she was accustomed to first class hotels and wasn't excited about committing to five days in a convent in the outskirts of Madrid during the hottest month of the year when everyone in Spain is at the beach. "Outskirts" is putting it mildly. We took a plane to Madrid, a train as far as it could reach, then a bus as far as it would go, and finally had to awaken the only taxi driver in a village from his siesta so that he could drive us the rest of the distance. We were dragging big suitcases across dirt paths in this little town in a 100 degree/100% humidity climate, following someone who spoke only Spanish and hoping he was taking us to the right place. Pauline remembers explaining to the taxi driver that we were traveling to attend a married priest conference. He stopped the car, turned to us and said, "There's no such thing as 'married' priests." And, so began my education through her translation, and in three or four days she was able to explain CITI's mission in both Spanish and French without my assistance. The convent itself was 15th century vintage with obviously no air conditioning except in the auditorium and the bedrooms were probably designed for cloistered nuns of that era--10 x 12, a small lavatory and two wire spring beds with just sheets and a bathroom down the hall. It was too hot for blankets. In fact, everyone on our floor left their room doors open to catch the slightest breeze, nonexistent for five days. The dining room reminded us of the eating scene in the movie, "Oliver." Unaccustomed to European meal habits, it seemed we were hungry all the time and of course, there were no vending machines. But, like other married priest conferences I had attended, the joy of the gathering was in the beautiful sacred people we met daily and experiencing the international flavor of talks and presentations in different languages. Because of the meekness I had previously witnessed among the beautiful gentle and spiritual married priests and their spouses, the strength that I saw in the global gathering enlightened me to the power and courage they had in numbers, especially with their colleagues across the waters. Neither individual organizations, nor individual married priest groups, nor individual convents nor retreat houses would ever stand up to the Vatican by themselves. Collectively, however, they had "chutzpah." Apparently, a few months before the conference when it became public that the International Federation of Married Priests would be meeting at the Dominican House of Studies in Madrid, the Papal Nuncio contacted the Convent Director threatening to "permanently close down [his] entire operation if he allowed married priests to meet there." The Convent Director responded to the Papal Nuncio that he "wanted that in writing, explaining which law he was breaking; otherwise the Congress would be held as planned." No letter came and the meeting was held without incident. Rent A Priest was met with mixed emotions by the various countries. Though the French booed me off the stage, others like England, Australia, India, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Ireland and some in Spain were supportive. The people from the Philippines called CITI the Number One married priest movement in the world, this after only one year in existence. What made CITI different as a new organization was that it was started and run by lay people and our mission was to serve those among the public who needed sacramental and pastoral care, defying any church law that opposed the ministry of married priests. All other married priest organizations at the time were founded and run by married priests and the mission of most was to engage or attempt to engage in dialogue with the hierarchy to try to get the church to change the law of mandatory celibacy. These priests obeyed their promise to their respective bishops that they would not celebrate Mass. The European movement, with the exception of CITI's three new allies Paolo Camellini, Heinz-Jurgen Vogels and Lambert Van Gelder, never accepted CITI as one of its affiliate members. We were too different and they especially didn't like the name Rentapriest. We were later contacted by Kirche Intern, Austria's Catholic magazine who subsequently ran a three page story on CITI/Rentapriest, leading to two new Rentapriest-type movements in Austria and Switzerland. They did not survive, however, because they used a less catchy name and the organizations were run by married priests rather than lay people who could stand up to the hierarchy if need be. There were splits between Camellini and the International Federation during the next year and Paolo and Heinz scheduled their own international synod similar to the original (Arricia), in Assisi in 1995 and then another in Atlanta, Georgia USA in 1999, the latter at which I was invited to preside. The international synods were profound gatherings of married priests and other interesting parties from throughout the world. Without a specific agenda, something the left-brainers were not understanding especially in Atlanta, everyone came to the meetings with inspirations/papers that arrived at a common goal--almost like the people had been hand-picked by the Holy Spirit. At the Assisi meeting for instance, the majority of profound papers presented from several countries spoke of the future of the Catholic Church in the form of small faith communities--like the early days of the church. Former Carmelite contemplative, Donna Amy Podobinski and her Holy Ghost Father and husband William presented a related paper on Freedom-Unity-Integrity, now a new blog, accessible through the rentapriest website. A retired Venetian judge presented a paper on the corruption in the Vatican; and I, on clergy sexual abuse being a rampant international problem, something I would later study from a scientific basis. (See The Bingo Report: Mandatory celibacy and clergy sexual abuse available on Amazon.com). #30

CITI-The Formative Years: Getting to know you--Chapter Seven

If you are new to this blog, you may wish to read the archived posts first since these are written chronologically with the following being the most recent. Thank you. The first two to three years of CITI's existence were spent becoming educated about church reform and connecting with the reformers themselves. I am still amazed today at the opportunities that were afforded me so that I could become fully engrossed--a crash course so to speak--in church reform. Those who are sports professionals or are in the academic or medical arena or politics will understand the subculture climate to which I am referring. It is literally like stepping onto the threshhold of another world. I was never aware of this quiet revolution among people who were dissatisfied with the way the Catholic institution was run at its highest level, with particular groups well seasoned in the issues--and had been for as much as 10 or 15 years at that point. I soon discovered that my reading material would henceforth begin with National Catholic Reporter's weekly independent newspaper, religious academic studies and the myriad nonfiction books that had been written by theologians, mystical theologians and especially resigned/retired priests and nuns. I needed to catch up on so much, beginning with the Vatican II Synod. It is amazing what Catholics in the pews don't know, even today. It took me a few years of reading plus attending "church reform" conferences of every sort in order to be brought up to date and understand the innuendos especially at the church reform round table meetings. I guess it was also important for me to know personally founders of these various organizations because the Holy Spirit seemed to put them all in my path--either via personal meetings or in witnessing their presentations. Besides the thousands of married priests I met, memorable people include Joseph Girzone, author of the Joshua series of spiritual books; Margaret Starbird who researched Mary Magdalene and Jesus as husband and wife; Edwina Gately, another saintly lay woman whose inspirations led her to open safe havens for Chicago's prostitutes; German theologian Hans Kung; Frances Kissling whose work to protect "choice" in America will go down in history...and many others. Even though CITI was just getting its feet wet, the Holy Spirit was also making sure that our own existence was being recognized around the reform movement as well. Perhaps the most phenomenal experience during the early years was attending the International Federation of Married Priests' Conference in Madrid, in August, 1993 a year and a half after CITI's founding. Backing up just a bit, in the spring of 1992, I had been given a copy of "Shattered Vows" by David Rice, an award-winning journalist and married priest now living in Ireland. The book featured several transitional stories of married priests from various countries and talked of their mistreatment by several bishops because of their new status. It was heart-wrenching to read what they and their spouses endured because of their decisions. For instance, German theologian Heinz-Jurgen Vogels was excommunicated when he married Renata and lost his Church editing job, helping edit the complete works of Albert the Great. The Pope lifted the excommunication once Heinz divorced Renata, an annuled Catholic, but Heinz never regained his job with the Church or elsewhere. He and Renata are still living together, however. One particular priest's story was profound. Paolo Camellini who lived in a remote Italian town had been approached by Carla, a woman who had previously been confirmed a mystic by several among the Catholic hierarchy. Carla had been married and had a revelation to approach Paolo, a parish priest, and relay the message that they were to be married and dedicate themselves to the cause of married priests. "Jesus had told her that he wanted married priests, but only in holiness, "holy as priests and holy as spouses." Paolo wrote to his bishop and was dispensed from his celibacy vow within weeks so they could marry. I was particularly moved by that story because I too believed I was called to the mission of married priests in the United States and like Carla, felt a special closeness to St. Teresa of Avila though I didn't know why at the time. When I read the story of the Camellinis, indeed when I finished reading "Shattered Vows," I contacted David Rice in Ireland. I wanted to talk to David and I wanted to meet the Camellinis. David discouraged me because of the language barrier and the remoteness of their home in Italy. (Note: "Shattered Vows" had been published in Ireland and became a best seller in eight languages throughout Europe. When it was first published in the U.S., however, 89 pages implicating the bishops were eliminated. An unabridged paperback version was later released and its U.S. publisher immediately purchased by the Catholic institution. The unabridged version never made it to the U.S. book shelves.) On our second day in Madrid just as the International Conference was starting, I was setting up my little exhibit table with materials on CITI when a reporter approached me to ask if I knew where Paolo Camellini was--he had an interview appointment. I said, "Camellini is here?????????????" The next hour was spent looking for him--I had no idea what he even looked like. When Paolo was finally pointed out to me, my sister and travelling companion Pauline said, "Why he was sitting right next to you at last night's general session." There were 700 people in attendance!

I located an interpreter and asked Paolo if I could meet with him privately. I needed to share my CITI vision with him. Paolo said during our discussion that the "message/vision/inspiration/revelation" we each received was the same: 1. We must pray that priests be allowed to freely choose between celibacy and marriage so that the sinfulness in the priesthood can stop. 2. Vite, vite, vite! (Hurry, hurry, hurry!) Too much time has been wasted--too much damage has been done. Over the next few days, I would sometimes sense that someone was staring at me. I remember piercing eyes, stares that would say, "Who are you?" And perhaps what others had already said, "You're not what I envisioned God would send to help us." I had been told by many that married priests prophesied that someone from the "pews" would someday come to their rescue. Of course, they probably expected a clone, not some mainstream Catholic lay woman. It was obvious that Paolo wanted to communicate directly with me; the language barrier was very frustrating. We didn't know if we would ever see one another again. (Ironically, I was scheduled to live in Rome for a year back in the 1960s. The office job, however, was cancelled the day before my trunk would be shipped. Had I gone, I would be fluent in Italian.)

Some award winning ads and ABC-TV 20/20--Chapter Six

The responses from the February 6th ad in National Catholic Reporter in 1992 inspired me to reach out to more people, but I needed to find a way to get to the people on the street, not just priests, religious, and the new subculture I discovered in the process--"church reformers"--people who had spent years trying to get the church to change their rules regarding birth control, married priests, women priests, abortion, gays and other issues in the church that they felt were antiquated. In fact, I was invited to attend the second meeting of a new coalition of these organizations, 25 or 30 individual groups later to be named Catholics for Renewal or COR. Run by mostly resigned priests and nuns (only two of us around the table were lay folk), their strategy was public statements of protest about the way things are, that would be signed on by various organizations supporting the particular issue in question. Since CITI's work became more of a ministry to the public rather than an advocacy to the institutional leaders, the decision was made to drop out after a few years.

With $10,000 in the bank and a background in advertising/marketing, it was obvious to me that I needed to begin creating awareness among the Catholic on the street regarding mandatory celibacy, shortage of priests and the fact that there were 20,000 priests who married, somewhere out there in the U.S.  Since regular news releases on mandatory celibacy were getting nowhere, I became inspired to write a few ads, something I had never done in my thirteen years with a major Boston advertising agency. I had done some media buying and was their first female account executive back in the early 1970s--more the business end than the creative side of advertising.

I hired a media-buying service to research the best publications for CITI's consumer ads. My needs: small space, regional, quick turnaround as oppose to long due dates for copy. While the media-buying service was reviewing the market, I was doing my own research: finding which dioceses had the worst shortages combined with the highest percentage of Catholics. The top media recommendation was TV Guide Magazine, pocket size in those days. It was also a good buy because their 30% discount for nonprofit organizations and placing space as a "house" agency made the ads more affordable.

One-quarter-page ads were scheduled in 7 out of 106 U.S. TV Guide markets during the spring of 1992. Copy was geared toward the general public, asking for comments and letters regarding mandatory celibacy that would be sent to the bishops. At the same time, I wrote a series of corresponding small space ads that were directed to the bishops and would run in NCR. These poked fun at the silliness of the law of mandatory celibacy, perhaps the first time anyone publicly made wisecrack comments about anything in the church.

Just for the heck of it, I entered a batch of ads in the prestigious New England Hatch Awards advertising competition. CITI's series of the following five ads were among the few hundred chosen out of 2,300 entries for public exhibition at the Prudential Center in Boston (as did other CITI ads for the following two years). This creative work was being recognized alongside topnotch print ads for such nonprofit advertising clients as the Archdiocese of Boston. What a rush!

More importantly, the response to the TV Guide advertising was overwhelming. These ads reached people like myself--those who had never heard about the impact of mandatory celibacy on priests and nuns. (At this point, I had heard that many priests had married nuns.) TV Guide later wrote that they had not received this many comments on any advertising in 13 years...and we had run ads in only 7 out of 106 TV markets. One woman wrote TV Guide, "To whoever has charge of ads in TV Guide: Will someone please send me a copy of the TV Guide that had an ad in it about an organization trying to get people to try and get permission for priests to marry. I lost this copy and I want to send for this literature...I am 93 years old and I'd love to see this problem solved before my days are over. P.S. Mother of 10, Grandmother of 40 Great grandmother of 32."

The overall public response was 90% in favor of optional celibacy in the priesthood with the most popular comment from people who couldn't understand how priests were counseling about marriage if they themselves were not married and had not even lived at home with their parents since they were 12 or 13.

One of the ads ran in the New York City edition of TV Guide and caught the attention of the producers of ABC-TV's 20/20. They subsequently interviewed various people and produced a 20 minute segment on mandatory celibacy that ran the following December, the first of its kind on national television.

No response ever came from the hierarchy of the church regarding the above ads that had been running every other week in National Catholic Reporter, though I did meet an Archbishop at the annual November bishops conference in Washington D.C. My one question to him was, "How can the church justify throwing out the front door, priests who marry when they bring in the back door, married priests with families from other denominations and ordain them into the Roman Catholic priesthood?" He replied, "When a priest is trying to decide whether or not to leave, there is a lot of love and understanding on the part of the institution; but when he walks out that door, resentment sets in." That this comment would come from a man of God confirmed what I had read in books like Shattered Vows (Rice, David) about the shabby treatment of priests who marry.

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CITI founded--Chapter Five

In December 1991, nine months after Mom's death, I read an article in Time Magazine (12/31/91) about the Blessed Virgin. There was a paragraph in which her virginity was compared to mandatory celibacy in the priesthood. A quote from a Vatican official read, "The church doesn't have a problem with sex. The world does." Having become newly enlightened about the secret sexual world in the priesthood, I found the Vatican statement somewhat strange specially since I also had just read a 15-page story in Vanity Fair (12/91) about a clergy sexual abuse problem in New Orleans, LA. The abuse had been hidden for two years from the courts because the district attorney (Harry Connick, Sr) was a friend of the priest and he "didn't want to embarrass Mother Church."

I suddenly became curious, went to the library and plugged in the word, "celibacy."

Over the next few weeks in early 1992, I did some cursory research and found the following that I had never known about American priests:

• Jesus' disciples were married men, except for John (too young).
• Mandatory celibacy was a manmade law, passed in 1139.
• In the first twelve hundred years of the church's history, popes, bishops and priests were married.
• 20,000+ priests had left clerical ministry in the United States (110,000 throughout the world) since late 1970s, 90% to marry.
• There was a 90% drop in seminarians.
• Over 2,000 parishes had no resident priest (5,300 parishes in the 2000s)

When I read, however, that since the early 1980s, the Catholic hierarchy had been ordaining into the Roman Catholic priesthood, married Protestant ministers and in some instances, placing them in the same parishes where priests were being defrocked because they married, I saw such an injustice toward cradle Catholic priests that something snapped inside my soul. I couldn't believe that I had never learned any of these things, either in church or parochial school or among the many priests and nuns whom I had befriended over the years as an adult church-going Catholic. (I later discovered that this was a program under the direction and jurisdiction of Bernard Cardinal Law, a key figure in the 2002 clergy sexual abuse revelations.)

Had I been living in a vacuum? Did other mainstream Catholics know this? How could it have been going on so quietly? Is the world of religion different from the "secular" world, I thought? What is going on here?

In January, 1992, I felt that God was calling me to a mission when I heard the following at Sunday Mass:
"See my servant whom I uphold; My Chosen One in whom I delight. I have put my Spirit upon (her); (she) will reveal justice to the nations of the world. (She) will be gentle--(she) will not shout nor quarrel in the streets. (She) will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the dimly burning flame. (She) will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. (She) will see full justice given to all who have been wronged. (She) won't be satisfied until truth and righteousness prevail throughout the earth, nor until even distant lands beyond the seas have put their trust in (her)." (Isaiah 42:1-4)

I had never felt so singled out by any passage heard in church before and I knew God was calling me to do something very important. I just didn't know what!

In my research on mandatory celibacy, I discovered an independent Catholic publication, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR). I decided to run a small ad in NCR just to see what kind of response it would draw.
The following ad ran on February 6*, 1992:

*It's a little freaky that as I write this today, it is February 6.

Expecting to hear from other mainstream Catholics like myself, imagine my surprise when the letters I received over the next two weeks came from priests and married priests thanking me for "being involved," some including money without even knowing who I was. Some of the responses:

From a priest in New Jersey, "...you've touched many (perhaps more than you realize) individuals and given them healing and hope."
From a priest in New York: "...those of us who are interested in getting involved in this cause are given caution signs or veiled warnings by the hierarchy...for these reasons there are probably more priests interested, but who find themselves unable to say much about the matter...My fervent prayers are that someone in authority listens to the voice of the people...The unfortunate situation is the silence of the American bishops and Rome. The official policy is that, we've seen this all before (in the last 8 centuries) and if we hold out in silence it will all go away..."
From a priest in Pennsylvania: "...Many good men are lost to the priesthood through Celibacy; plus the very high degree of effeminacy indirectly caused by Celibacy."
From a priest in Africa: "...I saw your ad in National Catholic Reporter...Here in Africa, Celibacy is absurd. To me it seems obvious that the first, and essential, step to forming an African Christianity is to eliminate mandatory celibacy."
From a former seminarian in Ohio: "I am a former seminarian who would be a current seminarian if it weren't for this issue."
And from a seminary director (by phone): "...Priests are not human. They are divine."

Having experienced the loss of my parents, especially Mom with whom I was so close, reconnecting with my friend and learning about her priest lover, reading Time and Vanity Fair, feeling called by God to a mission and finally receiving these responses to the ad, I decided that I needed to get involved. Just then, my husband Dick and I received a major sales bonus from our previous year's sales achievements (we had been partners in a sales firm for seventeen years). Dick bought himself a member at the local golf and country club and I put my share in the bank and founded Celibacy Is the Issue (CITI), having no idea what I would do next, only that I didn't want anyone's senior parent like mine to die without seeing a priest.
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My Story -- Chapter Four

Our parents both died of heart disease 5 weeks apart in February/March 1991. This was after a year of illness--angiograms, angioplasty, pacemaker, congestive heart failure, etc. My Mom was 76 and Dad was 83. My siblings and I (10 including spouses) spent the bulk of 1990 traveling to Maine from as far as California to spend one to two weeks in rotation to take care of them, offering support when one of them would be in the hospital, and generally seeing to their comfort. In December 1990, a major celebration took place over the holidays because they both seemed to be doing well and we were all together once again. But the day after Christmas while we were all still in Maine, Dad developed a blood clot in his leg and was hospitalized and died there six weeks later on February 19, 1991. Dad was basically a good man. He worked hard, played hard and made a difference in our lives. He was a self-starter, self-taught and a self-made man. With little education as a youngster (no high school), he managed to run the sales departments of one or two franchised auto agencies in my hometown. He was also a land developer and built houses. Above all, he enjoyed politics. He and his Sunday morning cronies would love it when Washington notables Edmund Muskie or George Mitchell would drop in on their discussion group. And former Senator Bill Hathaway lived on the second floor of our two-story home for a few years when he first moved to Maine to establish residency for his upcoming career in national politics. Dad ran for the local city council a couple of times and was part of the that council for one term. During the period he was in office, he noticed funny things going on with the city's books and exposed the information to the local media, cleaning up mess in Lewiston. He also enjoyed writing "letters to the editor" about various local issues. In fact, as he lay in his hospital bed in early February 1991 just before his death, he received an invitation from the Chair of the New Library Building Committee inviting him to be on that committee because he had expressed so much interest in the project via his letters to the editor. Dad did have some demons which manifested themselves in alcohol abuse. In light of recent revelations regarding clergy sexual abuse in Canadian boarding schools, some family members attribute some of his behavior to possible Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse at a Catholic boarding school he attended in the province of Quebec in his adolescence. He had also prevented my brother from becoming an altar boy or even attending any Catholic all-male religious retreats, and he did not attend church with us for as long as I can remember. Mom was a homemaker and our "angel." She was loving, caring, spiritual and an avid churchgoer who put priests on pedestals. She was also a "gatherer" in the sense that she loved being around people. I remember as a youngster how she would load up the car with all the neighborhood kids and take us to the beach on a hot day. All we needed do was ask and help pack a picnic basket. Mom too, had a limited education. She had to quit high school in her senior year in order to work and help support a houseful of 13 children. She was an avid reader and particularly enjoyed historical novels, especially books on the Civic War, and would engage in discussions and debates with her closest brother, a disabled World War II veteran who was also a voracious reader. Because my husband Dick and I lived in Massachusetts and owned property in Freeport, Maine, we spent a lot of time with my parents before they died. We typically visited them one weekend a month during the winter and they would come to Freeport in the summer. They, as we, enjoyed playing cards so we always managed to include a few games of Pinochle after a feast of lobsters. In fact, the family buried in my parents' casket, their respective little card game "dime purses." Winters can be difficult in Maine because of many snow and ice storms and Dad's hospitalization in late December 1990 presented a problem in terms of my Mom's care. Her congestive heart failure was unpredictable and she would have difficulty breathing, landing in the hospital every other week it seemed. It was especially hard during my Dad's hospital stay because she would extend beyond her own physical energy in order to visit him daily. She could no longer live alone, did not want any other relative or stranger in the house and would not leave Lewiston to come live, even temporarily, with one of us. Hence, the family decision was made to find a suitable one-bedroom apartment in a nearby assisted living facility, providing there would be no problems if we came to spend a few days with her. The facility also assured us that any of her non-breathing bouts would be attended to professionally if she were alone. In our search for the most suitable place, it did not occur to us that there may not be a weekly Mass in their non-denominational chapel. Since 90% of the facility's occupants were Roman Catholic--mostly French--certainly a priest/chaplain would come to visit every week, so we thought. When I visited Mom after the first two weeks of her five or six-week stay and discovered that there had been no priest there the entire two weeks, I decided to ask around to see if someone would visit her. One priest agreed, but never went I later discovered, and she never saw a priest again until she was nearly comatose in the hospital three days before she died in March, 1991. Living in the Boston diocese where priest shortages were either safely hidden or not yet severe, I had no idea about the dire need for priests. That it was a problem in the Midwest and other parts of the country never made New England press unless someone were to read religious newspapers and magazines. At Dad's funeral, an old parochial school chum whom I had not seen in 35 years came to visit. She had continued to live in our hometown and was now 50 years old and divorced. During our conversation, I asked, "So what does someone our age do for excitement around here?" to which she replied, "Oh, my life is quite complete. I've been involved with a priest for thirteen years." My mouth nearly dropped to the floor. I had never heard of such a thing. That my friend should talk so openly about this, especially to someone whom she had not seen in this many years was a shocking as the message itself. My friend and I reconnected over the next few months when I would come to Maine to help clean out the old homestead and get it ready for sale. It was during these lunches and dinners that my eyes were opened to what I now know is a "farce"--celibacy in the Catholic institution. She told me that many "housekeepers" who walk the malls on Saturday afternoons with their parish priest are not really "housekeepers," that many priests were secretly married, a fact that was later confirmed to me by a Pentagon official especially among priests in the military. My friend also said that 20,000 married priests had left their clerical ministry since the late 1960s mostly to marry. As a devout traditional-bordering-conservative Catholic at the time who attended church regularly and was teaching CCD (religion classes to youngsters), this information astounded me. I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a married priest! (When a parish priest was replaced in a particular parish, I like others just presumed that he had relocated to another parish, not left to marry.) In order to prove to me that there were "sexual shenanigans" going on in the church, my friend showed me a very explicit book about the male and female anatomy. Written by a Canadian priest, it educated and discussed for other priests the combination of spirituality and sexuality. The little book was so worn, it was obvious that it had seen many hands. #