Quebec priest leaves politics at Vatican's insistence
September 04, 2008
Father Raymond Gravel, a former gay prostitute who became a Catholic priest, is relinquishing his parliamentary seat in response to a directive from the Vatican.
The CBC coverage states, inaccurately, that Gravel received Vatican permission for his political campaign in 2006. Bishop Gilles Lussier of Joliette issued a statement at that time, saying unequivocally: "No 'green light' has been given by the Vatican." Bishop Lussier himself apparently did give permission for Gravel's candidacy, despite the canonical prohibition against clerical involvement in partisan politics.
During his campaign, Gravel had promised that he would not take public stands in opposition to Church teachings. In practice he was an outspoken opponent of a bid to uphold traditional marriage. He provoked storms of outrage this summer when he defended the award of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest honor, to the country's leading abortionist.
The Vancouver Sun coverage of Gravel's departure, evidently written with the priest's cooperation, uses language that capture the partisan sympathies. The article begins:
Members of the religious right seeking to recriminalize abortion are putting pressure on MPs to support a bill making it a crime to kill an unborn child while attacking its mother, says Bloc Quebecois MP Raymond Gravel.
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