He was sacked because he has a boyfriend and not because he’s gay

Talk about misleading headlines: priests don’t get fired for being gay. But they do get fired for announcing that they are in a sexual relationship, whoever and whatever that relationship is with.

Do people – especially the writer of this headline – honestly imagine that if a priest were to announce that he has a girlfriend that he would not be fired too?

Roman Catholicism does not allow its priests to be in sexual relationships, and it does not allow sex outside marriage. This priest is therefore provocatively flaunting his flouting of both religious laws, and adding the ‘gay’ bit to confuse issues and make it seem that he is the victim of homophobia.

My own view is that if he wants to be in a sexual relationship with somebody other than himself, he should do what countless priests have done already when they have fallen in love, including several I know in Malta: leave the priesthood for the woman (or in this case, man) you love.

Try to have your cake and eat it is so creepy. It just leaves me with the feeling that the boyfriend gets some kind of kinky kick out of sleeping with a Vatican priest, and that the relationship might lose its glamorous attraction if he is defrocked or leaves the priesthood of his own volition.