Recently recently attended a personal development session in New Zealand designed for diocesan priests, where the person leading the training said that in every relationship, the priest has power over everyone else.
Grayland thinks the analysis is a little limiting.
“I actually thought it was a little bit clericalist list as well.
“But apparently, even if I go to my dentist, and if the dentist fiddles inappropriately with me, I’m still to blame,” Grayland told Flashes of Insight.
The reason given is that I’m either the dentist’s parish priest and therefore I have that authority or I’m just a priest, and “as a priest, I trump a dentist,” he said.
Finding the training analysis a little bit bewildering he asked Tom O’Loughlin, James Alison and Sande Ramage about who they thought had the power while the priest was in the dentist’s chair.