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Women are speaking up to the Pope about priestly celibacy. And who are these forty women who sent an open letter to Pope Benedict? They are the Italian mistresses of priests.
This was kept quiet for a couple of months, then leaked to the "outside world." Why does this matter? Because it is part of a growing cry for the Vatican to re-examine the idea of priestly celibacy.
Here is one paragraph of the entire letter, written after the Pope spoke in affirmation of celibacy as a sacred state:
Ours is a voice that can no longer continue to be ignored, from the moment we heard the reaffirmation of the sacredness of what is not sacred in the least, of a law that is being maintained without addressing the fundamental rights of people. The contempt with which they have attempted for centuries and in recent statements to silence the cry of men and women who have suffered in the already tattered shroud of mandatory celibacy hurts us.
Three of the women decided to go public, as their relationships were over. The remainder (about 37 of them) were anonymous to protect current ongoing relationships. Here is Luisa's story. She is 38.
They met six years ago and had a relationship and a child (who is now almost two).
"He came to live with me," Luisa said. "He told his family that he was living in his parish and his parish that he was living with his family."
Ultimately it was too hard on the priest to maintain this fiction, and he left Louisa before their baby was born and has not acknowledged his paternity in any way. "It was very hard," she said. "His family sent him to an exorcist and accused me of being a witch. As for the bishop, he told me to have my child adopted."
A few years ago, in my opinion at least, this kind of letter would never have been written. The women would not have dared. However, in a world that is grappling with priestly pedophilia, the issue of celibacy has been raised many times.
Some say that celibacy causes priests to develop twisted outlets for their sexuality. (I don't believe that.) Others suggest that celibacy deters men with healthy and expressed sexualities from considering the priesthood. It becomes a hurdle over which many faithful men wish not to leap. Still others believe that celibacy creates men who are unable to relate to the real day-to-day issues facing modern families. Others might add that celibacy is entered into by young men in seminaries, who have yet to taste the freedoms (and the lonliness) of the real world.
Proponents of celibacy (beyond espousing theological reasons -- and we'll address that in a few paragraphs) will say that celibacy is a gift, a calling, and it allows the person to focus more intently on God and His work than on affairs of the heart or demands of a family.
But what happens when celibacy falls apart?
When I was in my 30s, I knew a man whose brother was a priest from an order with a large missionary presence in the sparsely populated areas in South America. While it is surely hearsay, his brother had told him that many of the priests on missionary assignment from his order took "temporary wives." I recall being shocked at the time. Now I am not.
NPR quotes Stefania Salomone, one of the authors of the letter to the Pope, a former mistress of five years' duration.
"There is a lot of suffering around the world due to this rule," she
