THE EQUALITY Tribunal has rejected a claim made by a parish secretary that a priest had subjected her to discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
The priest, known as Fr B in the ruling, said the woman, Ms A, had told him in a card that she loved him and that she had used a photograph of him playing golf as her screensaver.
He said she once gave him a card depicting a man naked apart from a chef’s hat and apron, with the legend: “I like a man with a bit [of] spice”. On another occasion she took his house keys from the parish safe and left some gifts in his home when he was abroad.
The Equality Tribunal heard that the woman began working as a parish secretary in August 2001. Fr B took over as parish priest in September 2002. The woman said they worked well as a team and attended social events with others.
She acknowledged that she bought small gifts for Fr B, but said she also did this for other priests in the parish. “She submits that there never was a romantic agenda and that her relationship with Fr B was strictly professional,” the ruling noted.
The priest had been supportive of her during her marriage separation and her gifts to him were an acknowledgment of that, she told the tribunal. “On a number of occasions he asked the complainant to desist from giving him gifts, but she continued to give them,” the tribunal noted. “He did not want to embarrass the complainant so he accepted the gifts.” Fr B gave her a gift of a “Madonna and child” statue from Lourdes, and a ceramic tile with a dove on it.
The priest told the tribunal that after Ms A told him for the second time she loved him, he wrote to her expressing concern about her behaviour and suggesting that she undergo an assessment.
She was suspended on full pay while a psychiatric assessment was conducted. It found she suffered from “morbid infatuation” and her employment was terminated on the grounds of incapacity in 2006.
The tribunal said that when she was no longer working in the office, she stood outside it reading a book for three hours a day and refused to leave. It said she also sat at the front at Mass and left if another priest arrived on the altar.
The complaint of sexual harassment arose because of the behaviour of another male colleague who allegedly made suggestive comments and sent “risqué e-mails” to a female friend from the parish office. “Inappropriate” material of the colleague was found in a filing cabinet.
The tribunal ruled that Fr B did not discriminate against Ms A in relation to her conditions of employment. It also found she was not harassed on the ground of gender or marital status, nor was she sexually harassed or victimised. Her claims of discriminatory dismissal were not addressed by the Equality Tribunal because that was being dealt with by the Employment Appeals Tribunal.
