NEW FRANKEN, WI — When long-time church organist and choir director Linette Servais learned that she had survived her bout with cancer, she was glad to be alive, although disappointed to realize that her sexuality had been damaged by the disease. Determined to help other, similarly afflicted, women recover their sensual side, she began hosting Pure Romance partners. After 35 years of faithful service to the St. Joseph Catholic Parish, she received a summons from the parish priest that rocked her world: she was fired.According to Father Dean Dombroski, Servais’ part-time work selling edible lip and nipple balm, creamy scented body wash, feather teasers, sensitivity enhancement creams, sexy lingerie, fuzzy handcuffs, light-hearted instructional guides, and g-spotters was incompatible with the Catholic church’s view of morally justifiable sexuality.
“Father Dean made it sound so sinful,” 50-year-old Servais confessed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “There is so much more to this business than toys,” she continued.
Nonetheless, Father Dean, whom Servais says has not been willing to discuss the matter, apparently saw only the toys and what might be done with them – a vision that presumably offended him to the point of action.
Instead of an office visit with a message of gracious thanks for nearly four decades of dedication to the church choir as organist and director for the rural parish, the priest gave his parishioner a choice: quit her paying job with Pure Romance or lose the until recently purely volunteer position that had been the center of her world for more than half of her life.
“After I got over the initial shock,” Servais retells, “I prayed over this for a long time. I feel that Pure Romance is my ministry.”
The “ministry” that Servais feels divinely called to pursue involves helping other women. Her empathy concerning cancer’s potentially destructive affect upon a woman’s sense of sexuality inspires a particular urgency about the importance of Christian outreach to others. She does not consider her work as a consultant for Pure Romance to be at odds with her Catholicism.
No woman, including Servais, is in charge of a Catholic parish, however. Father Dombrosky is. Thus a letter was sent from the parish office to the congregation stating that “Linette is a consultant for a firm which sells products of a sexual nature that are not consistent with Church teachings. Because parish leaders are expected to model the teachings of our faith, once this matter became public she and I met and she was given a choice. Either she could stay on as the choir director/organist or she could continue to be a consultant but she could not do both.”
Perhaps unaware of an international pedophile priest scandal, Dombrosky did not indicate whether Servais specifically sold items of possible offence to the Catholic Church or whether the company merely carried such items in its general stock.
The shock of decision making likely was not as severe as it could have been, given that Father Dombrosky had been chipping away at the woman’s volunteer responsibilities for a while. Just prior to Thanksgiving, she was relieved of her duties with the choir; then other small responsibilities were taken away over time, including the right to take photos during First Communion, lead the summer picnic committee — or even sing with the choir she once led.
Of course, there’s not as much of a choir to lead, given that most members quit in protest. They gather in her home occasionally to sing hymns as a group once again.
Upon making her decision to continue ministering to other women, Servais sent out a three-page letter to the same people who had previously read about her private life thanks to Father Dombrosky. In her letter, the woman who survived brain cancer explained how important she feels empowering women and helping them to develop strong relationship ties is, and how doing so can contribute to the health and wellbeing of a marriage. Servais concedes that some of the Pure Romance items make her uneasy – and she’s still not entirely comfortable talking about sex, but when she learned that a close friend, who ultimately succumbed to breast cancer, had suffered some of the same injuries to her sexuality, “for the first time, I realized it wasn’t just me who was broken.”
If a married woman’s ability to enjoy sexual health and satisfaction is not in keeping with the values of the Roman Catholic Church, then perhaps there is more that is “broken” than an ill woman’s sexuality.
“I ask that you keep everyone in your prayers and pray for healing here at St. Joseph Parish,” Father Dombrosky asked the congregation in his letter.
Amen.
