Vatican: ‘Irresponsible’ Timing, Not Homosexuality, Cause For Firing Priest Who Just Came Out As Gay

The Vatican is reacting to a high-ranking priest’s announcement that he is gay and in a relationship, by firing him for the timing of his announcement.

In a YouTube video that has garnered almost one hundred thousand views in about 24 hours, a high-ranking Polish priest on Friday announced he is gay, in a relationship, and called for changes in the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality and same-sex families. The Vatican fired Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa immediately, and issued a statement insisting the termination was not due to the Father’s announcement, but rather, its timing. Bishops are gathering in Rome for a synod on the family that begins Sunday, and the Vatican is embarrassed by the news.

Father Charamsa’s “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,” the Vatican’s spokesperson, Father Federico Lombardi, said in a statement on Saturday.

In his video (below), the Monsignor, in Polish, says, “My name is Krzysztof Charamsa, Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa. I am an officer of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the second secretary of the International Theological Commission, a theologian, philosopher, bioethics lecturer at the Pontifical Gregorian University. I’m gay.” 

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In an interview with an Italian newspaper, Charamsa said, “I want the Church and my community to know who I am: a gay priest who is happy, and proud of his identity,” Buzzfeed reports.

“I’m prepared to pay the consequences,” he said, “but it’s time the Church opened its eyes, and realized that offering gay believers total abstinence from a life of love is inhuman.”

Charamsa says he knows he “will have to give up the ministry, even though it is my whole life.”

In a news conference, Reuters reports, “Charamsa said he wanted to make ‘an enormous noise for the good of the Church’ and apply ‘good Christian pressure’ on the synod not to forget homosexual believers.”

“This decision of mine to come out was a very personal one taken in a Catholic Church that is homophobic and very difficult and harsh” towards gay people, he said.

The Vatican this week was forced to deal with the revelation by an anti-gay hate group that the Pope had met Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That news caused a huge scandal for the Holy See, especially after, as NCRM in an exclusive report revealed, American Catholic Bishops were responsible for arranging the meeting.

 

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Image: Screenshot via YouTube