Mary Kenny
Retired Irish Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway, pictured in an undated photo, died March 13 at age 89. Bishop Casey was known for his social justice work in Ireland, Britain and the Third World, but in 1992 he fled Ireland after it was revealed he had fathered a child with an American woman. Photo: CNS/The Irish Catholic. When it comes to love affairs, or romantic entanglements, the question of who is luring whom can be a complex one.
A Kenyan bishop, Hieronymus Emusugut Joya, has asked women to respect the celibacy of Catholic priests and not to tempt or “force them into affairs”. He has banned overnight guests at priests’ residences, and even imposed a 7pm curfew.
An old-style bishop, it would seem! He’s also had a bit of trouble on this front, having had to remove seven priests for breaking Canon Law.
Responsibility
Fr Roy Donovan of Co. Limerick and of the Association of Catholic Priests says the Kenyan ecclesiastical leader is on the wrong track if he’s “blaming women”, while men were “not taking responsibility for their sexuality.”
Fr Roy even thinks such attitudes play into the “church’s medieval view of women as temptress.”
Yet if men and women are equal, it follows that a woman can be a “temptress”, just as a man can be a seducer.
And in any adult, consensual relationship it can be difficult to tell who holds the more dominant psychological cards.
There have always been bounders who ‘took advantage’ of young girls, often with the assistance of alcohol”
There are obvious cases of sexual exploitation in which a powerful man compels the favours of more vulnerable young women: the late boss of Harrods, Mohamed Al-Fayed, (and Princess Diana’s friend) is now emerging as a creep who drew young women into his employment, and then sexually abused them.
There have always been bounders who “took advantage” of young girls, often with the assistance of alcohol, and then abandoned them.
Latin societies provided young women with chaperones and duennas as protection from these Don Juans.
Villans
But between consenting adults, a woman can be the dominant person in a relationship, and the man can be the one who is smitten, and emotionally helpless.
Spymasters know this well: one of the tried and tested methods bad regimes use is the “honeytrap”, in which an attractive young woman is set up to lure an unsuspecting male into a compromising situation. Men have fallen for this repeatedly, and paid the price in blackmail or career ruination.
Men can be vulnerable to female charms, just as young women can be exploited by cads and rotters.
In the famous case of the late Bishop Casey and his affair with Annie Murphy, it’s generally taken that he was to blame, and he certainly broke his vows. Yet in her autobiography, Ms Murphy wrote that she was very much in love with Casey and wanted his child. Who “lured” whom? Perhaps it was just a mutual attraction, which obviously also occurs.
The Kenyan bishop could have phrased his plea with a little more nuance”
Yes, in past times women were sometimes portrayed as “the temptress”, and that could be misogynistic. (Sometimes the mothers of sons viewed every young woman as a Machiavellian schemer trying to lure the innocent lad away from his Ma.)
The pendulum has now swung the other way, and men are seen as the exploiters.
The Kenyan bishop could have phrased his plea with a little more nuance, but his anxieties are not so much “medieval” as a classic situation which has existed through the ages.
The dead deserve dignity
People have been shocked, in Britain and Ireland, by the case of Robert Bush, the Yorkshire funeral director who has been jailed for 67 offences associated with failing to respect the dead.
More than 37 corpses, in various stages of decay, and in filthy circumstances, were found in his premises, along with bags of cremated ashes whose identities were unknown.
Special odium was expressed that the remains of a baby boy, stillborn at 20 weeks, named Sunny Beverley-Conlin, had been kept in a brown paper bag, to the extreme distress of the infant’s mother.
Dishonouring the dead really does appal the general public.
I have alluded to this experience before but it is relevant to revisit it in the context: my sister’s remains were stolen and sold by a corrupt undertaker, who cut up cadavers, traded in bone and muscle, and returned unidentifiable ashes to us.
Ursula died in New York City in 2003, having chosen a funeral parlour which offered a budget deal. After the ceremony, a box of unidentified ashes was handed back to me, purporting to be my late sister’s. But the NYPD were already on the track of the ex-dentist who was running this fake funeral service, selling body parts all over South America and Asia. He was nabbed and duly incarcerated.
I still have some of the remains of the anonymous ashes returned to me. My sister’s beautiful soul, I know, is elsewhere.
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Will President Trump meet with protests when he comes to Ireland next month? Undoubtedly so. As did Ronnie Reagan in 1984, when demonstrations against his visit were led by Michael D. Higgins and the aforementioned Bishop Casey.
Ronnie took these hostilities with impeccable courtesy and sunny responses. With The Donald, we are faced with a very different character!