Tom McMahon sent us this sensitively written commentary exploring the importance of relationship in our lives. Tom was laicised many years ago over differences of opinion he had with the institution on the matter of celibacy but it could be said that throughout his life he has brought to his work a very "priestly" view. It still comes through in what he is writing from the comfort of his retirement in San Jose, California.

Relationships … Just plain old relationships:
some thoughts from a not-so-innocent bystander…

A few days ago I noticed in the newspaper a name that caught my eye; my sister knew the woman having worked with her in Oakland, Ca. in Midge's work of giving decent burial to forgotten babies. Subsequent articles followed as Oregon authorities attempted to find a man and a woman missing from their hotel; today's paper reports the finding on a deserted road of a crashed auto in which there were two dead bodies. The accident and deaths would not promote me to write this piece; it was the bold black headers with the word "priest" that prompt me to put these words on paper.

The Roman Catholic institution has a paranoia about relationships, an erroneous and heavily judgmental outlook on male and female relationships in particular, an attitude that is easily bought into by the news media and thus assumed by the public at large. Any and all relationships between a man and a woman are silently assumed to be genital; the Catholic clergy thinks twistedly of a man being a companion of a woman, a by-product of clerical immaturity and imposed celibacy. At the time of my ordination in 1954 it was called "solus cum sola" , or "a male alone with a women" . The label "priest" separates the person from society, few having an understanding that the priest is basically human. In 1954 as I returned to my childhood home from my ordination Joe Higgins, venerable and close to 70, knelt in the middle of 15th St. and asked my blessing; I realized with horror that I was now seen as no longer one of them; even after my marriage and parenting of two sons the label of "priest" has stayed hauntily with me. I know I am human; will the people accept this reality.

In the Acts of the Apostles (Ch 6) the early Christian community recognizes that widows warrant attention and deacons are appointed to see to their needs; being a trained mental health therapist I read into this biblical passage more than just food and shelter, aware that the need to be touched and recognized as female and human are as important to early First Century persons as persons of the 21st Century. I have the privilege today of teaching history at our local Senior Center and eating weekly at the Almaden Café, a senior lunch; I am keenly aware of the healing value of knowing a first name and "reaching out and touching someone" with my gentle hand on his or her back and/or making smiling eye contact. My wonderful mother, widowed in 1931 and dead at 87, enjoyed a male hug and when in hospital relished a back massage. The word companion is two Latin words , with (co) and bread (pan) , one who eats with another . Skin is the largest body organ and craves to be touched. Christian theology speaks of love being one way of experiencing the presence of God.

By now I suspect some reader is saying … but they were alone, one man, one woman. This is the paranoia that has been created, for centuries the human fixation on the mystery of human sexuality; society has a surface appreciation of the human body, its instincts and needs. I am convinced that 20th/21st Century Hollywood and commercial advertisements have duped the man/woman on the street into thinking that a skinny, half-naked, bust-implanted female at the Oscars is the height of feminine sexuality. Such childish nonsense distorts the beauty and wholesomeness of human sexuality, while woefully limiting the attractiveness and power of the female to the reproductive.

Subsequent reports on the accident and deaths have mentioned the platonic relationship that this man and woman had. My purpose here is not to make a court battle out of "did they or did they not". I myself having been a genuine celibate for over 20 years willingly share that I enjoyed the respect and love of a number of women in my six parish assignments; I hold dear my relationship to my seminary classmates and to fellow priests as well as friends, young and old and I know the human value of their trust and love. I suffer at times from the scars of seminary fears and that damnable idea that was implanted in me years ago that one is close to God when one is distant from humans. People have a long way to go in appreciating the power of God's love in a man and woman.

t-mcmahon July 4, 2007 …. a freedom day

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Tom McMahon, a former priest now married, lives a very fulfilled life in San Jose and continues to contribute voraciously to several Catholic discussion lists in the States. He has been an enthusiastic supporter and encourager of the Catholica Australia initiative from the very beginning.

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©2007 Tom McMahon

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