B. Commit themselves to personal care and growth through supervisory, collegial or therapeutic support and spiritual direction. C. Manage their personal lives, caring for body, mind and spirit, seeking appropriate assistance for their own personal problems or conflicts. D. Provide counseling, pastoral support and spiritual direction only for those problems or issues that are within the reasonable bounds of their competence. E. Establish and maintain appropriate professional relationship boundaries. While the complexity of some pastoral relationships is acknowledged, clergy are to avoid exploiting the trust and dependency of parishioners.
All humans are sexual beings.
They cannot and should not try to separate their sexuality from the rest of their being. Sexual behavior with parishioners is unethical, even when a parishioner invites or consents to such behavior or involvement. Sexual behavior is defined as but not limited to all forms of overt and covert seductive speech, gestures and actions, as well as physical contact of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment is always unethical. Harassment is defined as but not limited to repeated unwelcome comments, gestures or physical contacts of a sexual nature.