Take two horrible stories and mash them together and you get something worse. Much worse.

Priest admits to sexual relationship with a woman. That’s a bad story.

Man had affair with his own cousin. That’s a bad story.

Priest had an affair with his own cousin. I don’t even have words for how bad that is.

SAN BERNARDINO – A Roman Catholic priest with a worldwide television ministry based here has admitted to having a sexual relationship with his cousin, a county schools superintendent on California’s Central Coast.

The Rev. Michael Manning confirmed by phone that he had the relationship with Monterey County Superintendent of Schools Nancy Kotowski, when questioned about copies of correspondence sent to this newspaper that appeared to point to the two breaking off the relationship more than two years ago.

Usually I am morbidly relieved when I hear that a priest had an affair to find out it was with a woman. It is bad, real bad, but at least I can understand it. This is NOT one of those times.