WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 06 2002

 Papal favourite retires

 FROM RICHARD OWEN IN ROME

...Barcelona: Spain’s first openly gay priest said yesterday that he intended to continue in the priesthood even though he had been suspended from pastoral duties by his bishop (Stephen Burgen writes).

José Mantero, who revealed his sexuality in a gay magazine, said that he did not believe that being gay and being a priest were incompatible. “It’s perfectly natural, there are thousands of us,” he said.

However, a spokesman for Ignacio Noguer Carmona, Father Mantero’s bishop, said that the bishop had been “tremendously surprised” by the content and the manner of the priest’s revelation. The spokesman said that the priest should have confessed his sexuality to his bishop and then left the Church, as he could no longer comply with its precepts, including that of celibacy.