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Showing posts from November, 2014

The priests, 3

What thoughts ran through my mind as I sat through the virtual videoke night cum bikini festival with the priests?   I’m certainly no prude—being an erstwhile fashion editor, I can accept fashion as self-expression, but I also acknowledge certain limitations to that kind of exercise.   My mother, queen of tolerance herself, surprised me one day I was to have a beach outing with my staff—a jeepney load of male and female 20-somethings.   With us was a priest, our moderator.   She said, almost shyly, “Pag maliligo kayo kasama ng pari, magsosoot kayo ng shorts.”   Shorts, over our swimsuits?   “Yes.”   But what for?   “Huwag ninyong ipapakita mga singit ninyo sa mga pari; hindi maganda iyon,” she continued.   I didn’t get her drift, but I did honor my mother’s concern by telling the girls about her reminder.   On the way home from the same outing, during a “CR” stop at a gasoline station, I caught two of the boys snickering as they came out of the toilet.   “What’s so funny,” I

The priests, 2

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--> In his reflection on the priesthood at Casa Marta last January, Pope Francis cautioned priests against becoming “smarmy.”   Now that sounds like something British teenagers say all the time, but given his style and personality, the pope couldn’t have chosen a more precise word, because “smarmy” means “ingratiating and wheedling in a way that is perceived as insincere or excessive.”   Tell me if “smarmy” applies to the following priests (whose identities we will hide under fictitious names): His most available parishioners claim that “Fr. Trek is okay except for one weakness—he is under the saya of a rich matron in our parish.”   They note that he is normally easy to get along with until conflicts arise, in the parish council, for example.   Viewpoints and personalities clash but fair or unfair, rain or shine, the rich matron prevails.   Her ideas may not be the best, they may even be “corny” or “baduy” but she gets her way because Fr. Trek supports her, even again