More than a month after the Vatican fired high-ranking priest Krzysztof Charamsa for his very public coming-out, he says he has no regrets and is planning a book about his experience.
The Polish priest made waves last month when he announced his homosexuality — and said he had a Spanish boyfriend — on the eve of a bishops’ synod on the family at the Vatican.
Charamsa was sacked from his post working for the Vatican office for protecting Catholic doctrine, and the 43-year-old is now unemployed.
“I now feel better gay and more of a priest than before,” he told AFP at a hotel in the heart of Barcelona, where he now lives in the gay district.
Smiling, he said he felt “liberated” and “at peace”, but still had a lot to say about the Church, which he accuses of persecuting homosexuals.
“It’s not like the Islamic State (group) that hounds homosexuals by killing them. The Catholic Church doesn’t actually kill people, but it kills them psychologically,” he said.
“It kills them with its backward stance, with its reject, contempt and constant preaching against homosexuals.”
Sporting a black suit and blue shirt, Charamsa detailed his “New manifesto for gay liberation”, which he plans to hand over to the Vatican in the hope of changing the Church’s stance on homosexuality.
“A form of new Ten Commandments to apply in this field”, it asks the Vatican to discard Church documents that are hostile towards homosexuals, such as Benedict XVI’s 2005 edict banning bishops from ordaining homosexuals into the priesthood.
As such, the manifesto calls on the Vatican to allow gays to become priests, and also to revise its interpretation of Biblical texts on this issue.
It also suggests kickstarting dialogue with Evangelists and Anglicans, whom Charamsa says are more open on gay rights, and asks for apologies from the Vatican “for its omissions and silences, persecutions and crimes against homosexuals throughout the centuries.”
AFP
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