Gay priest says 'all in God's hands'

(see related)(ANSA) - Rome, October 5 - Polish theologian Krzysztof Olaf Charamsa, a high-ranking Catholic prelate who was stripped of his duties after coming out at the weekend as a gay man in a committed relationship, said Monday "all is in the hands of God".
    "One is always sorry to leave Italy," the 43-year-old prelate said at Fiumicino airport on his way to Barcelona after losing his jobs as an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, adjunct secretary to the Vatican's International Theological Commission, and professor at two Vatican universities. "I will continue to face up to my vocation - my being a man and a priest - and in the same way one must wish every person, every Christian, (the ability to) be oneself on the path of faith, within the truth of one's own nature," he added.
    "That is, with the courage to face who we are...otherwise we live a lie, which is no good to anyone".
    In an interview with Corriere della Sera paper at the weekend, Charamsa said "I want the Church and my community to know who I am: a homosexual priest who is happy and proud of his identity".
    "I am ready to pay the consequences, but the time has come for the Church to open its eyes to gay believers and for it to understand that the solution it offers them - that of total abstinence from a love life - is inhumane," Charamsa told Corriere.