MADRID, Spain - In the latest sex scandal to unsettle the Roman Catholic Church in Spain, a priest has resigned after his former homosexual lover made public a video tape of them performing sexual acts.

 Eladio Ocana Serrano, a priest in the southern Spanish tourist town of Nerja, quit last week.

His resignation was widely reported Monday and was confirmed by the church authorities.

Antonio Dorado Soto, the bishop of Malaga whose diocese includes Nerja, defended Ocana in a statement, saying that the priest had "recognized his morally irregular behavior before the bishop and gratefully accepted the help of the church to transform himself as a person and as a priest."

Although the statement made no reference to Ocana's future, daily newspapers reported it was unlikely that the priest would go back to his church.

For the moment Ocana has retired to a monastery "to pray and to reflect," Dorado Soto said.

His replacement, Father Francisco Garcia, told reporters the priest had been blackmailed by his former lover who distributed the video among his parishioners. Ocana had broken off the relationship.

"He regrets all this," Garcia said. "He will continue as a priest because he has recognized his fault."

Ocana's revelation is the latest case to fan a national debate on sexuality among the clergy.

Earlier this year, a priest fell in love over the Internet and gave up his post and got married, another was jailed for involvement in an Internet child pornography ring, and a third was suspended after revealing in a magazine interview that he had been leading a secret gay life for decades.

Spain is a predominantly Roman Catholic country and the practice of homosexuality is seen as a sin by the Church.

Homosexuality — severely repressed during the 1939-75 dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco (news - web sites) — has only been accepted in mainstream Spanish society in recent years, after a senior army officer, several politicians and celebrities publicly expressed their homosexuality.

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