Krzysztof Charamsa, who was fired by the Vatican last month after he publicly announced his homosexuality says he has no regrets and is planning a book about his experience. The 43-year-old Polish priest also revealed he had a Spanish boyfriend.
"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.
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."
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.
The manifesto also suggests kick-starting 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."
The now unemployed theology professor hopes to be able to start teaching again at university and write a book about his experience as a homosexual in the Vatican. He would like all homosexual priests to come out of the closet "to show the Vatican that we exist and that we are good priests."
