The story of the lady who fell in love with a Catholic priest reminded me of my own experience with a Priest. Unlike her, I didn’t fall in love with this priest but I want to share my story anyway.

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Years ago, I found myself chatting with a seminarian on Facebook Messenger. I don’t recall who sent the friend request, but he would send me a Bible verse every day.

It felt like an honor to be friends with a soon-to-be parish priest, even though I wasn’t Catholic. So I often engaged him. We didn’t talk about much except Biblical stuff. It was a nice experience.

As time passed, we exchanged numbers, and the Bible verses started coming straight to my WhatsApp. I didn’t mind. If anything it gave me the opportunity to ask him questions about the Bible just to get another perspective.

He often spoke about how he had been preparing to become a Reverend Father from infancy. “This is my mother’s dream. And she is so proud of me for doing this.”

I also felt proud of him. Especially whenever he posted a photo on Facebook and people praised him for his journey. I’d read the comments and tell myself, “I am connected to a priest.”

However, the nature of our conversations started changing at some point. Instead of Bible verses, he began sending me pictures of himself.

Then he started talking about visiting me. He said he had been to my town before we met on Facebook so he was familiar with the place. For some reason, I wasn’t enthused about this request to visit.

It didn’t make sense to me that a man in the seminary would visit a woman he met on Facebook. So every time he brought it up I asked him, “Why would you want to do that?”

He was coy at first but eventually, he told me point blank that he wanted us to be in a relationship. “If possible I want us to have children together.”

I was confused. Why would you make a vow of celibacy and not stick to it? I honestly didn’t want to get into the Why’s with him. I felt it was not necessary to ask him a lot of questions about it, considering I was not interested. So I just told him, “This kind of talk is not appropriate. Let’s never mention it again.”

He apologized and we carried on. In hindsight, I should have blocked him then but for some reason, I didn’t.

Another time, this guy brought up the whole baby conversation again. When I confided in a Catholic friend about it she said, “Remind him of the vow he took.”

Oh, I did but he responded, “I made that vow to God. Not you. So if I break it, it’s between me and Him.”

When he persisted, I stopped answering his calls and replying to his messages until he disappeared from my life completely.

I was dealing with life and its shenanigans when this man resurfaced a year after his disappearance. This time, he had toned down the relationship talk, so we became friendly again. But he never stopped telling me how much he wished to be intimate with me.

Then along the line, I was transferred to another town within the same municipality for work. Coincidentally, that was where he had been posted as well. You should have seen how happy he was.

He called me, shouting for joy, thrilled that he would finally get to see me. “Even if you won’t invite me to your house, visit my office at the mission house.”

Knowing his intentions, I refused. I thought he would get the message but this guy showed up at my workplace unannounced one afternoon.

After that visit, he resumed talking about building an intimate relationship with me but I didn’t mind him.

At a point, he even sent me his nudes and demanded I send him mine. I never did.

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He spent years in that town, but I only saw him at a burial service I attended at his church. That day, I watched him perform his role as a priest, and it was beautiful. It left me wondering why he wanted to throw all that away.

When I asked him one day he said, “The priesthood is my mother’s dream, not mine. I do it because it brings her joy.”

That Is The Craziest Thing I’ve Ever Done In The Name Of Love

When he said this I felt sad for him but not sad enough to throw my morals away and get into bed with him. I kept him at arm’s length till he got transferred to another town.

Even with the distance, he still called to tell me he wanted me. I knew then that as long as he remained in my life, he would never be okay with friendship. So I finally blocked him. Sometimes when I think about him I pray he finds peace so he doesn’t break his vow to God along the way.

—Kukua

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