Vatican sacks priest after he comes out as gay

Vatican sacks priest after he comes out as gay

The Vatican dismissed a priest from his post in a Holy See office on Saturday after he told a newspaper he was gay and urged the Catholic Church to change its stance on homosexuality.

Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa was removed from his position at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal arm where he had worked since 2003, a statement said.

Charamsa, 43, and a Polish theologian, announced he was gay and had a partner in a long interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper on Saturday.

He later held a news conference with his partner, a Spanish man, and gay activists at a Rome restaurant. They had planned a demonstration in front of the Vatican but changed the venue several hours before it was due to have started.

“My decision to ‘come out’ is a very personal decision in the homophobic world of the Catholic church. It has been very difficult and very hard. I ask that you keep in mind this reality that is difficult to understand for anyone who has not lived through an identical passage in their own life,” Charamsa told journalists.

The Vatican said Charamsa’s dismissal had nothing to do with his comments on his personal situation, which it said “merit respect”.

But it said giving the interview and the planned demonstration was “grave and irresponsible” given their timing on the eve of a synod of bishops who will discuss family issues, including how to reach out to gays.

It said his actions would subject the synod, which Pope Francis is due to open on Sunday (October 4), to “undue media pressure”.

At the news conference, Charamsa explained the timing of his announcement.

“The timing is not intended to pressurise anyone, but maybe a good pressure, in fact a Christian participation, a Christian voice that wants to bring to the synod the response of the homosexual believers to the questioning of Pope Francis,” he said.

“Every homosexual person is a son of God and when (he) believes in God, the son of a church or of another Christian community, and the necessity… his dignity, necessity… his love and possibility to marriage, to be… to life with another person who loves (him). This is the will of God for our life, also for my life with him,” said the Polish priest with a beaming smile as he embraced his partner.

The issue of homosexuality and the Church has dominated the aftermath of the pope’s visit to the United States last week.

In Saturday’s interview, Charamsa said his partner had helped him come to terms with his sexuality and knew he would have to give up the priesthood, although the Vatican statement made no reference to this outcome.

“It’s time for the Church to open its eyes about gay Catholics and to understand that the solution it proposes to them — total abstinence from a life of love — is inhuman,” he was quoted as saying.

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is not a sin but that homosexual acts are.

The Vatican has been embarrassed by controversy over the pope’s meeting with Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who went to jail in September for refusing to honour a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and issue same-sex marriage licences.

The Vatican said on Friday that “the only real audience” the pope had during his visit to Washington was with a small group that included a gay couple.

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