In a letter to Pope Francis this month, Krzysztof Charamsa accused
the Church of making the lives of millions of gay Catholics globally "a
hell".
He criticised what he called the Vatican's hypocrisy in
banning gay priests, even though he said the clergy was "full of
homosexuals".
Pope Francis has yet to respond.
Until 3
October, Monsignor Charamsa held a senior post at the Vatican at the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department that upholds
Roman Catholic doctrine.
The Vatican immediately stripped him of
his post after he held a news conference in a restaurant in Rome to
announce that he was both gay and in a relationship. Roman Catholic
priests are meant to be celibate.
At the time, the Holy See said
the priest's decision to come out on the eve of the Vatican's synod on
the family had been "irresponsible, since it aims to subject the synod
assembly to undue media pressure".
'Rights denied'
The
Polish priest has released to the BBC a copy of the letter he sent to
the Pope, written the same day as the announcement, in which he
criticises the Church for "persecuting" and causing "immeasurable
suffering" to homosexual Catholics and their families.
He
says that after a "long and tormented period of discernment and
prayer", he had taken the decision to "publicly reject the violence of
the Church towards homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and
intersexual people".
The 43-year-old says that while the Roman Catholic clergy is "full of
homosexuals", it is also "frequently violently homophobic", and he
calls on "all gay cardinals, gay bishops and gay priests [to] have the
courage to abandon this insensitive, unfair and brutal Church".
He
says he can no longer bear the "homophobic hate of the Church, the
exclusion, the marginalisation and the stigmatisation of people like
me", whose "human rights are denied" by the Church.
Church attitude unchanged
The
priest goes on to thank Pope Francis - who is thought to have a more
lenient attitude on homosexuality than some of his predecessors - for
some of his words and gestures towards gay people.
The Pope
recently met a gay former student of his during his recent visit to the
US, and has previously said that gay people should not be marginalised
in society.
But Krzysztof Charamsa says that the pontiff's words
will only be worthwhile when all the statements from the Holy See that
are offensive and violent against homosexuals are withdrawn.
He
also urged the Church to annul a decision taken by his predecessor, Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI, to sign a document in 2005 that forbid men with
deep-rooted homosexual tendencies from becoming priests.
The Polish priest
terms "diabolical" Pope Benedict's statement that homosexuality was "a
strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil".
The priest writes that LGBT Catholics have a right to family life, "even if the Church does not want to bless it".
He later criticises the Vatican for putting pressure on states which have legalised equal or same-sex marriage.
He
also expresses his fears about the impact his coming out may have on
the treatment of his mother in Poland, "a woman of unshakeable faith",
saying she bears no responsibility for his actions.
The synod ended on Sunday, but made no change to its pastoral attitude to gay Catholics.
The
final document agreed by the Synod Fathers reiterated Church teaching
that gay Catholics should be welcomed with "respect" and "dignity". But
it restated that there was "no basis for any comparison, however remote,
between homosexual unions and God's design for marriage and the
family".
The synod voted through a paragraph saying that it was
unacceptable for pressure to be put upon local churches over their
attitude towards same-sex unions, or for international organisations to
make financial help contingent on poor countries introducing laws to
"allow or institutionalise" marriage between people of the same sex.
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