Vatican sacks Polish priest who comes out alongside his boyfriend revealing he is gay

VATICAN officials have sacked senior Polish priest Krzysztof Charamsa for publicly coming out and declaring that was gay on the eve of a major meeting of church leaders to discuss homosexuality.

 

Catholic Church leaders are planning to meet to discuss the vexed issue of homosexuality and debate measures aimed at dropping the church's hardline stance against gays. Pope Francis has been very liberal on the matter and urged Catholics to embrace homosexuals as they are also Gods children.

 

Despite this, however, the church is yet to formally accept gay priests unlike the Anglican Church which ordains homosexual clergymen. On the eve of the summit, however, Father Charamsa came out to reveal that he is gay, forcing the church hierarchy to terminate his employment.

 

Father Charamsa, who is a mid-level official in the Vatican bureaucracy’s had come out flanked by his Spanish boyfriend while donning his priest’s collar to state that he was compelled to speak out against the hypocrisy and paranoia that he said had shaped the Catholic Church’s attitude to sexual minorities. A spokesman for Pope Francis described the Polish priest’s action as very serious and irresponsible, adding that he would be immediately sacked from his post as a theologian in the Vatican.

 

He said: “The decision to make such a pointed statement on the eve of the opening of the synod appears very serious and irresponsible, since it aims to subject the synod assembly to undue media pressure.”

 

However, Father Charasma, 43, said: “I’m out of the closet and I’m very happy about that. I want to be an advocate for all sexual minorities and their families who have suffered in silence.”

 

He then presented a 10-point liberation manifesto against institutionalised homophobia in the church, which he said particularly oppressed the gay men who, according to him, make up the majority of priests. He also revealed plans for a book about his 12 years at the heart of a Vatican bureaucracy, only just recovering from a scandal under previous Pope Benedict XVI over the influence of a gay lobby among senior clergy.