"He's having an affair!"

Really?

The recent story about Prince-about-to-be-king Frederik of Denmark annoyed me. Here was the media making a big thing about someone doing something that was none of our business to begin with - and might just be absolutely innocent.

It was juicy stuff for the media of course. Someone who would one day be the king of Denmark was seen with a woman who was not his wife. He apparently spent the night with her! Shock! Horror! 

There was no evidence any of it was true except that they had apparently been seen together publicly and without the prince's wife. Soon the rumour mills were grinding twenty-four hours a day. There were analyses. Photos were produced as "proof" and "anonymous" sources were quoted. The abdication of the Queen in favour of her allegedly philandering son was presented as further "proof"  and the public has lapped it all up.

In reality it is much more likely that the Prince and socialite are "just friends" as she says they are. Like everyone else a Prince is surely allowed to have friends? And, while the abdication may have seemed timed to suggest it was a way of keeping the Prince under control, the reality is much more likely to be that it has been months in the planning and due to the health of the Queen. We have been told she had "back surgery".

I thought of all this again this morning when there was another story in the paper about an Anglican bishop and his bride. The Anglican bishop in question was once the curate at the church my parents attended for many years. Prior to entering the priesthood he was a sub-mariner, a disciplined man. When I knew him he was married to a woman who was pleasant but ineffectual. Instead of being what has been described to me as a "committees, tea and cucumber sandwiches" sort of person the parish was giving her a lot of support. They had four children. I knew the children and they were "nice" and "lively".  Tragedy struck when, after a short illness, one of the children died. The funeral is an occasion which will remain forever in my mind because I went up to the church and, while the service was taking place, I stood in the kitchen keeping an eye on the urns and trying to comfort one of the men from the funeral director's firm. He had a son that age and the occasion proved too much for him. 

I wonder what people would have made of me with my arms around that stranger as he wept on my shoulder?

I wonder too at the insensitivity and the lack of Christianity in those who have demanded that the Bishop now stand down because, his first marriage having failed, he has remarried. When there is a loss of a child marriages often do fail. Bishops are human. They are not saints. Yes, perhaps the newly wed couple should have announced their intention to marry but they had the right to marry. They say there was nothing improper about their relationship prior to marriage. That may well be the case too because he man I knew was a very disciplined man.

No, the real reason is much more likely to be that the heavily conservative elements in the diocese in question are opposed to women in the priesthood and the Bishop's second wife is a priest.

I know several women priests. They all seem to be more than competent and able to me. We all know that it was the social circumstances of the day which caused the "disciples" to be male rather than female. We also know that women have ministered for thousands of years.

Is it just possible that some of those "wicked" women are not wicked at all. They are simply caring for others?