ENGLAND
Christian Today
December 5, 2017
By David Ison
Some recent blogging about sexual abuse and harassment in the Church of England has referred to ‘cassock chasers’. When I read it, it was a phrase new to me; but finding out what it meant was a revelation, in two ways. It’s not only that women are afraid to complain about male clergy harassment because they’ll be dismissed as ‘cassock chasers’ – women who pursue priests and look for revenge when their feelings aren’t reciprocated. But it’s also that some male clergy actually do stereotype women in this way, similar to how many men inside as well as outside the Church may see women, not as people, but as sexual stereotypes – ‘gels’, ‘slags’, ‘slappers’ or worse, to be defined by men’s desires and fears, not understood for who they really are.
Some will say, ‘It’s just a joke’, the dishonest defence of bullies everywhere. But it isn’t, is it? That the phrase even exists, that any cleric could think of a woman as a ‘cassock-chaser’, that any woman could fear being treated as one, is a symptom of how deep-rooted the problem of patriarchal control is in the Church of England. To call someone a ‘cassock chaser’ is no joke, but a shallow, stereotyped and sexualised male-centred response to a person’s pastoral need.
There are many people we encounter in pastoral work who long for love, affection and intimacy. Some may respond to the loving pastoral care of a priest or other caring person by transferring their feelings to them, perhaps projecting onto them their image of an idealised partner.
A professional and caring pastor will handle those feelings carefully, and find ways to help the person concerned, even if because of the person’s mental illness, or because of the transference taking place, they aren’t able to help the person directly.
An inadequate pastor will be flattered or frightened, or assume that it’s all about ‘me the pastor’ rather than all about them the person in need. If the pastor is also emotionally vulnerable, they can exploit the vulnerability of the person in need who is drawn to them – hence so much emotional and sexual abuse in the church and in other caring organisations. And so the need for robust pastoral structures and practice, proper supervision and the confessional, and for pastors – and men in particular – to know themselves well and be getting help for their own emotional issues. If you don’t understand what transference and projection is, you shouldn’t be in pastoral ministry – you and others will be at risk.
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