Homosexual priest suspended for defending homosexual ‘marriage’ legislation in Argentina

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

BUENOS AIRES, March 8, 2011 (www.LifeSiteNews.com) - Nicolas Alessio, a homosexual priest who denies the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality and has publicly agitated for the approval of Argentina’s new homosexual ‘marriage’ law, has been suspended from his priestly functions following a trial by the Archdiocese of Córdoba.

In an interview following the ruling, Alessio said that he was refusing to comply with the suspension, which requires him to cease administering the sacraments, claiming that he owed obedience to his ultra-liberal order, which calls itself the Enrique Angeleli Group of Priests, and openly supports homosexual ‘marriage’. He told a reporter that only force could stop him from continuing in his duties at his parish

“I obey my community first, before him [Archbishop Carlos Ñáñez], and his canons and decrees and sanctions,” he said. He noted that the whole group has refused to comply with the archbishop’s order to retract their homosexualist position.

In a videotaped speech posted on YouTube, Fr. Alessio is seen at a rally in support of homosexual ‘marriage’ where he “asks forgiveness” for the Catholic Church for opposing the homosexual political agenda.

“First, I want to ask forgiveness because I belong to an institution that is still converting to the gospel of Jesus, a Jesus who never condemned homosexuality, who never condemned homosexual marriage, and, to the contrary, this same Jesus condemned the proud, the powerful, and those who discriminate.”

“I want to ask forgiveness for this institution that doesn’t want to lose power and still wants to manage our consciences, wants to manage the consciences of Argentineans, wants to dominate the consciences of all of those who want to live in freedom. I want to ask forgiveness for this Church that is not resigned to lose power and wants to impose its truths as if they were unique and absolute.”

Alessio openly acknowledges that he himself is a homosexual, and denies it is an illness based on his own experience.  “It not only is not an illness, it not only is not a deviation, much less a sin.  Homosexuality is a gift, it is a richness of nature, that must be recognized and respected,” he says in the speech.

In contrast to Alessio’s statements, the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is “intrinsically evil”—evil by its very nature—and that the homosexual orientation, while not a sin, is an “intrinsically disordered” attraction that must be resisted.

Appearing to endorse polytheism, Alesso goes on to say that “Those who speak, and believe themselves to have the authority to speak in the name of God (...) Please, the gods, the gods are more pluralist than we are.  The gods are liberty, the gods are love, the gods are a rainbow of diversity and the gods are with us.”

Argentinean television reports that sources within the Catholic hierarchy say that if Alessio refuses to obey the Church, he will be excommunicated.