http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/Rebel/priest/to/fight/gay/accusation/elpepueng/20110707elpeng_13/TenFather Andrés García Torres, a priest in the town of Fuenlabrada, just outside Madrid, is ready to "go all the way to Rome" to prove that the Catholic Church treated him abusively over an alleged gay relationship. Despite having been removed from his post "for pastoral motives," according to bishops, García Torres took charge of a rebel mass on Thursday at the parish of San Fernando de Fátima, where attendance was much higher than usual in a show of popular support for the embattled clergyman.
Church officials deny that they forced García Torres to undergo a psychological analysis and therapy. Yet the letter they sent him on November 11 of last year literally reads: "We decree the following cautionary measures without any delay" followed by a list of points, the fourth of which consists of "designating a psychiatric expert to conduct a direct appraisal of the priest, turn in a report and
the appropriate therapy for this case."
Besides psychiatric therapy, the priest was "temporarily removed from the exercise of all presbyteral duties" and banned from living in Fuenlabrada "to avoid any scandal." These sanctions, the letter states, are due to "highly irregular actions" on the part of García Torres. The priest says that at a meeting with the Bishop of Getafe on January 24, he was told that these "irregular actions" referred to a homosexual relationship with a seminary student named Yannick Delgado.
In a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS, a bishopric spokesman said he was "not aware" that Delgado was ever a seminarian. Delgado, a 28-year-old from Cuba, says he studied at the Getafe Seminary between 2006 and 2007. In a short email message sent to this newspaper, the bishopric said that the priest's version of events "does not conform to reality."
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