Priest asking girl for her number

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iamheartilysorr said:
Now I realize I am working one more day before he officially goes back so may have to see him and explain why I ignored him! I feel uncomfortable keeping in touch with him for some reason, even though by all accounts he seems like a holy guy… Has good homilies, never exchanged more than pleasantries with me, etc. He is a foreign priest so maybe to some extent he is naive to all the suspicion caused by the sexual abuse scandals… Any thoughts?
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Just explain you can’t keep in touch with him without it going through your parents, as it is against the rules protecting youth that apply to priests and other people who work for the Church and you don’t want to get him into trouble.

Having said that, I have had experience with this in a case when it was a priest going through at least a period when he was at best confused about how to have appropriate relationships with women and girls. It is very important to draw those boundaries, for his own welfare. This case I have in mind all happened before the Archdiocese of Portland has the policies it has now. Had that kind of rules been followed, though, he’d either have been taken out of ministry and prevented from doing harm sooner than he was or else he’d have learned how to observe the boundaries in place and would not have been removed later. (I can’t say which would have happened.)

This is also something you ought to mention to whomever his supervisor was, such as your pastor. As others have noted, it is not an accusation. It is necessary to make a note of boundary violations and to notify the person committing them that they need to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. This both protects the innocent and denies the cover of secrecy to those few who have bad intentions.
 
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Please remember you don’t owe him or any other stranger any explanation as to why you won’t share personal info with them. Even after you stop being a minor you are entitled to your own privacy and protection.
Since you already gave him your phone # please tell your parents about the whole situation.
 
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Bus driver teen girl Catholic Living
I am a 17 year old girl. I take a yellow school bus to and from my high school, since it is considerably far away. The other day I took the city bus home since I had to stay 15 minutes later after school. I got lost and when I got out of the bus, the man who drives my yellow school bus every morning saw me. I was on the phone with my dad but he asked “is everything okay?” Stupidly I asked “would you give me a ride?” I asked my dad who was on the phone “is it okay? My school bus driver is here. H…
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and with this thread, I feel you really need to speak to your parents.

They need to identify what is going on or why it is going on or how it is going on, and deal with it.
 
@OurLadyofSorrows At this point I guess OP is either a girl with a lack of personal boundaries or a troll
 
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That is unkind. I don’t have a lack of personal boundaries. The only thing I had ever said to the bus driver before was “good morning” at the beginning of the stop and “thank you” at the end of the stop. The only thing I had ever said to the priest was “hi, father” and “how was your week”. He would ask me the same and the answers never were more in-depth than "good " I posted this to see if this was normal, but also did bring it up with my parents. My dad was uninterested and my mom said it was probably because I was the only connection he made here. She said, “Oh, we should invite him to dinner!” I think a better person to talk to would be the pastor, but if I didn’t have to see him again than I would feel perfectly comfortable not replying to his initial text. He has not followed up after my no reply. Thank you all for your advice. I was simply looking for confirmation that this was abnormal.
 
Seriously, don’t you see a pattern in both your posts? In both cases you start a contact with an older guy (in both cases a guy in some ‘institutional’ role, a guy in a work line that usually requires mandatory training about contact with minors), in both cases there is an ‘uncomfortable’ feeling that brings you to post here questions about ‘how good’ is the situation. In both cases it looks like you are in a situation at the edge between innocent flirting and getting in troubles.
 
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I feel so sorry for priests, sometimes. They are allowed to develop friendships. Some of the above responses seem to indicate that priests are wrong for even desiring friendships. Priests are humans, too. They need friendship and community just as we all do. His desire for friendship Isn’t the problem here.

The problem is that the OP is only 17 AND isn’t comfortable with this level of friendship.

OP simply tell him the truth. That you are uncomfortable. Also, tell your parents so that they know what has happened and how you feel about it since you are still a minor.
 
It’s entirely possible that she is simply meeting men who have a poor sense of boundaries or, in the worst case, chose jobs that would bring them into contact with teenage girls.

Nevertheless, assuming these are both true stories, I agree a discussion with parents would be a good idea. Parents can sometimes encourage a daughter to be more assertive or to remove herself from questionable situations more quickly.
 
mrsdizzyd said:
I feel so sorry for priests, sometimes. They are allowed to develop friendships. Some of the above responses seem to indicate that priests are wrong for even desiring friendships. Priests are humans, too. They need friendship and community just as we all do. His desire for friendship Isn’t the problem here.
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I’m not seeing any post in the thread that says it’s wrong for the priest to want to make a friend.

One poster suggested that the priest should be making friends his own age at his own seminary. I said that it is difficult for a priest to have a close friendship with a woman who is of an age to suggest she might be a romantic partner, although it is possible if the woman is a mature person who the priest works with regularly (so they share an interest and have good reason to be in each other’s company beyond just social hanging out as a twosome).

Nobody expects priests to be living in social isolation. The priests I know mostly spend their social time with other priests and with their family members.
 
This is definitely creepy. It’s good that you recognize that. If you have to talk to the priest again, don’t worry about sparing his feelings (don’t worry about “being nice”); even if his intentions are innocent – which means he is ignorant, another problem — he needs to realize how inappropriate this is. God bless you.

Pray for priests.
 
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