TTSOML #33: Br. Ansgar Calls Me

After Br. Ansgar took my phone number, I assumed we would be discussing dogmas still. Instead, Br. Ansgar called me at my house, and asked me not to go out with other men, telling me he cared for me. He didn't want me to go out on the weekends.

It was right at that time that I first began to "go out". Someone new had shown up at my old church, which I went back to briefly, inbetween mass (but not working on staff) and I could tell she and her family were new to the church. She asked me to go out with her and befriended me at a couple of church functions, and then she invited me to go out "on the town" for a drink. Prior to meeting her, I didn't drink at all. I also didn't go out at all. I had abandoned my family and all my old friends, after Fr. Joachim made this recommendation. I thought my best friends were Br. Ansgar and Fr. Joachim. I talked to both of these monks almost every single day, and I also was still working for Josef, putting his fairytales into an index form. I had known them almost an entire year and no one had ever said they thought I was mentally ill or unstable or unbalanced. No one made this claim until after I made some discoveries and talked to a Catholic attorney about them.

Then I also met Christa, and I thought she was becoming my female best friend. The monks knew where I was going and which church I went to. She showed up with her family and I never would have suspected her of being connected to them, or to the RCC. I didn't make a connection for years. Unfortunately.

When Br. Ansgar called me and asked me not to see other men, I asked him what was going on and told him I was confused. He sounded like he was about to cry, and blurted out, "I love you" and then he hung up.

I called my parents. I hadn't been in touch with my family, but I didn't know who else to talk to. A monk who I had thought might be interested in me (and no one believed me then, without "proof") had not only called me his "rose in my desert" and said "love causes pain" in letters to me, but was now calling me at my house, asking me not to date other men, and had just said "I love you."

I was an emotional wreck at that point. I remember I cried and cried. What in the world was I supposed to do with my feelings? because I did have feelings for him, at that point, but I didn't know why, and if it was really intellectual and formed frmo a mentor relationship and connection, or if it was something more...I wasn't sure, and what did he expect ME to do? I was supposed to do what? with him?

My father got angry. He said, "He has no right to tell you he loves you." He was also mad that I was being asked not to see other men and said he wanted the phone number for Br. Ansgar and that he'd call him himself. I said no. I wasn't a child, I just wanted to know what they thought about this.

I asked Fr. Joachim if I could meet with him and burst into tears and told him everything. Fr. Joachim said he would talk to Br. Ansgar. After that, I got a letter from Br. Ansgar that said he couldn't leave his vows, and that he could be a religious mentor and nothing more. The way he wrote the letter made it sound as though I had asked him to leave vows. I hadn't. I hadn't even known what "vows" there were to leave.

Then Br. Ansgar called again after this and we talked and I asked him to explain to me what he was imagining between us. Over the phone he contradicted what he wrote in letters and said he wanted a spiritual marriage between the two of us. He said he couldn't ask me to forsake others, and he even said he had no right to ask, but he said what would make him happy would be for us to devote ourselves to eachother. He wanted me to be his exclusive girlfriend, or I guess, as he put it, spouse. He didn't say this would mean anything sexual. Yet based on his actions around me in person, I wondered if he was thinking it would or should lead to this.

I said I would have to think about it and I didn't know. Fr. Joachim had told me he didn't think I was cut out to be a nun. He said a lot of the guys who could make it as monks were ex-military, because they understood structure and the discipline. Fr. Joachim said, "You'd be climbing the walls, you have too much to give and to offer." Fr. Joachim said maybe I could be an oblate, which is sort of like making a dedication to church work and prayer, but one can be married and doesn't take the same vows. Fr. Joachim encouraged me to be an oblate. Br. Ansgar wanted me to be his wife. I asked Br. Ansgar how long he wanted me to not see others or be in this relationship with him and he said I would always be free to leave but he hoped I never would.

Later, Br. Ansgar talked to me, and wrote to me about Abelard and Heloise, and made it sound like he wanted a primarily intellectual devotion and affectionate relationship. It sounded more spiritual. But I knew something else had to be involved, because after I talked to Fr. Joachim, Br. Ansgar cooled towards me almost immediately and started writing kind of cover up letters, or "clarification" letters. So I started to wonder what was going on. I started to think more and more about the "exquisite little chapel in the woods" and wonder how far away it actually was. I started to question whether there was any chapel out there at all, if he was only leading me to a far end of the property and then into the woods.

The librarian at the Mt. Angel Library told me they had to have my name and address on a library volunteer list, after I first told Fr. Joachim abuot my contact with Ansgar. They said my work for Josef was considered to be volunteer library work and that I needed to sign their form. It seemed to me that they just wanted information on me, and I just gave them my name and address.

After I told Fr. Joachim about Br. Ansgar calling me, Fr. Joachim wanted my resume. He said he wanted me to give him a resume of all my past work experience and references, because he was going to put it under his pillow and sleep on it and pray for a good career move for me. I completely believed him. He also said he wanted to give me a blessing and he recited a prayer over me and annointed me with oil from a flask, and gave me 2 St. Benedict medals, telling me to put one under my pillow.

I didn't really think about any of these things, at the time. I still believed we were all great, best even, friends. But when I started seeing some cover up lines, I really began to question what had been going on.

I couldn't get any answers from the Abbey about what monks could or couldn't do in romantic relationships, so I ended up going to Catholic chatrooms through AOL. Usually I tossed around my ideas and questions about Catholic theology and doctrine, but then I also asked questions about monks and clergy and relationships. One evening, a gentleman who happened to be both Catholic and a lawyer (so he said) responded to my questions. Out of the blue he said he believed I had been exploited.

Exploited? Huh? Why? What did exploited mean? This lawyer said I had been in what amounted to counseling relationships with these clergy and monk, and they were exploiting their positions and ability to gain my trust for their own self-interest.

I had never heard of such a thing before. I knew I felt distressed all the time and confused, and was crying a lot, but I didn't know if I was to blame or not, and I was honestly trying to figure things out.

I guess the child sex abuse allegations had already made news, but I hadn't noticed because I didn't have a t.v. or even go to movies until after 9/11. My entire life was centered around religious research, these monks, and volunteer work. I wasn't even in college at the time, having taken a break after being raped by someone I worked with at the campus. I had never heard of exploitation or abuse by clergy, for either children or adults who were counseled by clergy. I was then perplexed at what this Catholic lawyer had said to me online, because he told me I should get an attorney. I didn't know why, so I told Fr. Joachim. I thought Fr. Joachim could help me to understand.

I didn't once think they had already consulted their lawyers about ME, or that they would. I wasn't threatening anyone, or talking about suing. I only said a Catholic lawyer told me I had been exploited or was being exploited, and I wondered what that meant and if Br. Ansgar was doing something inappropriate that I didn't know was inappropriate.