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There are many rules a priest can’t break. A priest cannot marry. A priest cannot abandon his flock. A priest cannot harm the sacred trust his parish has put in him.
Priests can marry and nowhere in the Bible does it say they can't
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Meesh 📚
Several months ago, I broke my vow of celibacy on the altar of my own church, and God help me, I would do it again. I am a priest and this is my confession.
oh my
Ten thousand more dollars, and we would be able to renovate St. Margaret’s of Weston, Missouri, into something resembling a modern church.
oh geez not in Missouri
No more red carpet—admittedly good for hiding wine stains but terrible for the atmosphere.
LMFAO
I had drifted. One of my flaws, I’ll admit. One I prayed daily to change (when I remembered to).
ope
While I knew some clergy still followed the old rules for penance, I wasn’t the “say two Hail Marys and call me in the morning” type. Rowan’s sins came from his restlessness, his stagnation, and no amount of rosary-clutching would change anything if he didn’t address the root cause.
ohhh
“Stop,” I said and then was shocked at myself. I never gave orders like that. Well, not anymore.
WTF DO YOU MEAN NOT ANYMORE
“Oh. Well, there goes my mental image. What are you wearing, then?”
WHAT AN OPENING
“Good. I’m glad they don’t put you in a crisper between Sundays or something.” “They tried that. Too much condensation.” I paused. “And if it helps, I normally wear slacks.”
“I don’t know if everything will be okay. It may not be. You may think you are at the lowest point now and then look up one day and see that it’s gotten so much worse.” I looked down at my hands, the hands that had pulled my oldest sister from a rope after she hung herself in my parents’ garage.
awe that's sad and beyond traumatic
“You may not ever be able to get out of bed in the morning with that security. That moment of okay may never come. All you can do is try to find a new balance, a new starting point. Find whatever love is left in your life and hold on to it tightly. And one day, things will have gotten less gray, less dull. One day, you might find that you have a life again. A life that makes you happy.”
Oh, and I spend a lot of time on The Walking Dead Reddit. Too much time. Last night I stayed up until two a.m. arguing with some neckbeard about whether or not you could kill a zombie with another zombie’s spinal column. Which you can’t, obviously, given the rate of bone decay among the walkers.
🤣 wow
“And what about an unbelievably hot priest? Is that a sound reason for exploring the Church?”
WHAT A WILD THING TO SAY
“Relax,” she said. “I was joking. I mean, you are hot, but it’s not the reason I’m interested. At least”—she gave me another up and down look that made my skin feel like it was covered in flames—“it’s not the only reason.”
MISS MA'AM
And then the light changed, and she jogged away with a small wave. I was so fucked.
Yep
I wanted to erase the marks made on God’s name by awful men.
ummm
“Better me than Mr. Celibacy over here. Tell me, Tyler, you got carpal tunnel in your right hand yet?”
Wtf is their problem with him being a Priest?!
Lizzy’s death had nearly killed me. But it had killed Mom. And every day after that, it was like we kept Mom artificially alive with hugs and jokes and visits now that we were older, but every now and again, you could see that a part of her had never fully healed, never really resurrected, and our church had been a huge part of that, first driving Lizzy to kill herself and then turning their backs on us when the story went public.
Sometimes I felt like I was fighting for the wrong side. But who would make it better if I didn’t?
God isn't the wrong side and I hope you aren't insinuating that this was his fault cause it sounds like it was people in the church being ungodly
“I would have fallen if it wasn’t for you.” “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been at risk of falling at all.” “And yet I still wouldn’t change a thing.”
oho
Poppy was one minute early, and the easy but precise way she walked through the door told me that she was accustomed to being prompt, took pleasure in it, was the kind of person who could never understand why other people weren’t on time. Whereas three years of waking up at seven o’clock had still not transformed me into a morning person and, more often than not, Mass started at 8:10 rather than 8:00.
lol
Ancient Booth of Death.
lol this moniker is funny af
like watching a ballerina lace up her slippers.
Lmfao I have watched ballerinas do this and it's not elegant or graceful 🤣
“And if there’s not? Will you refer me to the Methodists?” “I would never,” I said with mock gravity. “I always refer to the Lutherans first.”
☺️
“My day is a praxis of liturgical laws that date from the Middle Ages. I can handle boring. Promise.”
🤣🤣 damn
She was all those things. She was indeed the perfect package on the surface…but below it, I sensed she was so much more. Messy and passionate and raw and creative—a cyclone forced into an eggshell. Small wonder the shell had broken.
“She left a note, with the names of other children he’d hurt. We were able to stop him, and he was put on trial and sentenced to ten years in prison.”
JUST 10 FUCKING YEARS?!
Finally mastering myself again, I went on. “The other families in the parish—I don’t know if they didn’t want to believe it or were humiliated that they’d trusted him, but whatever it was, they were furious with us for calling for his arrest, furious with Lizzy for being the victim, for having the gall to leave a note outlining in sick detail what had happened and who else it was happening to. The deacons tried to block her having a Catholic funeral and burial, and even the new priest ignored us.
Why would she lie?! She wrote in DETAIL and they still wanted to disbelieve?! Also wtf kimda Priests would do that?! Why protect a fucking Pedophile?! Yes I know it's cause they are Catholic but not even one thought hmm this ain't right?!
The whole family stopped going to church then—my dad and brothers stopped believing in God altogether.
So they are blaming the wrong person here...typical
She didn’t seem to expect an answer and kept going. “The sad thing was that I was actually starved for sex while I was turning down all these offers. I’m sure you know the feeling, Father, like the slightest breeze is enough to send you over the edge, like your skin itself is combustible.” God, did I know that feeling. I was feeling it right now. I offered her a weak smile, which she returned. “I was so combustible, Father Bell. I would get wet watching the men stroking themselves through their custom-tailored trousers. In the private rooms, I’d pull my thong to the side and let them watch as
...more
“But it wasn’t the same, getting myself off,” she said. “I wanted to be fucked, fucked and used. I wanted to be filled with someone’s dick. I wanted to have fingers in my mouth and in my cunt. In my ass.” She took a breath.
um ma'am
Luckily, she took the chair opposite me before I lost all control and broke my vows in front of everyone in the coffee shop.
🤣
“I was usually busy in the other kind of sheets.” I’d meant it as a lighthearted quip, but it came out lower than I’d intended, more intense. It came out like a warning.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her words and her breath near my ear, and then she bit her lip and turned away, walking toward her house.
“Yes, I know. But right now, ‘everyone’ includes me and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”
“Poppy,” I said dangerously, “did you come here without underwear?” My hand was still on her back, my fingers resting against her neck, and she nodded. “Was that on purpose?” A pause. Then another nod.
I knelt down behind her and spread her legs, spread them so that her cunt was gloriously bared to me. “My little lamb,” I whispered. “You are so very, very wet right now.”
“That’s a shame, little lamb,” I said, and I couldn’t stop myself, I pressed my covered erection into her ass. “No one’s taken care of you properly before.” I dropped a hand down and around to find her clit again, groaning inwardly when I found that it was still a swollen, hot button of need. “But I won’t lie. It makes me hard as fuck knowing that I was the first man to taste you.”
“Are you telling me,” I asked, “that you were masturbating in the booth next to me?” She nodded fearfully. “You make me so wet,” she said. “I can’t stand it.”
“Will it drive you wild,” she asked after a moment, “knowing that I’ll be touching myself, just inches from you, every time I come in to confess?”
She’d also adopted me as a sort of project when I moved up here, new to town and new to living anyplace other than a trendy Midtown apartment in walking distance to a Chipotle. She’d clucked her tongue at my age and my appearance (her nickname for me was “Father What-a-Waste”) and showing up once a week with food (even though I’d protested a thousand times that I could cook for myself [mostly ramen noodles, but still]). And after she’d met my mother and they’d spent an hour talking about the best temperature of water to use in piecrust dough, it was all over. Millie adopted my mother as well,
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AWEEEEE
I’d be accountable.
You're accountable either way lol
“I’ve always said that you were too young and too handsome to lock your life away. ‘Trouble will come of it,’ I said. ‘Mark my words.’ And nobody marked my words.”
Moses got a burning bush, and I get the air-conditioning,
Why was God so willing to leave bad cups all over the place?
Bad?! Did you ever think God is trying to tell you she's foe you idiot?!
It was a recipe for falling in love.
“Are you training for a marathon?” she asked. “If so, it doesn’t look like you’re doing a very good job.”
She dug the toe of her purple pump into my ribs before stepping easily over me. “I’m going to the church now to help them mix the batter. I’ll be sure to help Miss Danforth get settled if I see her before you get there.”
Tsk tsk tsk...get it!!!
I offered her the scotch. “Sorry about the mugs.” She grinned. “But they’re so classy.”
“I shouldn’t put you over my lap and spank your ass for being a brazen little slut and coming here without a bra,” I growled in her ear. “I shouldn’t twist ropes around your wrists and ankles until your cunt is exposed and then screw you until you can’t walk anymore. I shouldn’t flip you over and fuck your ass until your eyes water. I shouldn’t drive you down to the strip club and fuck you in the back room, so that you’ll forget all about Sterling and the only name you’ll remember to say is mine.” I lightly bit her nipple again. “Or God’s.”
