The Vatican has ordered an outspoken Bloc Québécois MP to quit his seat in the House of Commons and return to his job as a Roman Catholic priest. Rev. Raymond Gravel said the decision was due to a backlash in English Canada over his "misinterpreted" comments on abortion, but that he had no choice but to follow his original calling.
"My first mission in life is to be a priest, not to be in politics," he said in an interview.
Father Gravel, 55, is a former prostitute who became a priest in his mid-20s. He worked on behalf of the poor and the elderly after being elected to the House of Commons in a 2006 by-election in the Quebec riding of Repentigny.
He said he recently received a letter from Cardinals Claudio Hummes and William Levada, the Vatican officials responsible for the church's clergy and doctrine of faith, instructing him to quit politics. The package also included letters and articles - mostly in English - condemning Father Gravel's stand on issues such as abortion and homosexuality.
"Every time he said something controversial in the House, there was a group of people who sent letters of complaints here and in Rome," a Canadian church official said. He would not say who wrote the letters.
The official said Father Gravel would have been allowed to stay in the House of Commons had he abided by the church's original conditions, which were to abstain from voting on or debating issues affecting Catholic doctrine.
Father Gravel first made national headlines as a priest in 2003, when he attacked the church's opposition to same-sex marriage. As a Bloc MP, he spoke out against a private-member's bill that would have made it a crime to take the life of a fetus - a bill that was largely seen to be supported by anti-abortionists. And Father Gravel recently called for calm in the wake of the controversy surrounding the awarding of the Order of Canada to Henry Morgentaler.
"I am against abortion, but I am not in favour of the pro-life campaign that condemns all women who get an abortion," he said yesterday.
The Catholic Church has long struggled with whether to allow its priests to take on a political role. Pope John Paul II vigorously opposed the "liberation theology" in which Catholic officials collaborated with left-wing politicians in Latin and South America.
In 1984, the Vatican also ordered Rev. Robert Ogle to give up his New Democratic Party seat in the House, in a bid to avoid a blurring of lines between the secular and spiritual worlds. Like Father Gravel, Father Ogle chose the priesthood.
"I'm a priest and I made it very clear when I was first nominated that I was a Catholic priest and that if I couldn't be a priest in this role that I was assuming I would leave that role," Father Ogle said at the time.
One of the newspaper articles the Vatican included in its letter to Father Gravel was written this summer by Rev. Raymond de Souza, a Catholic priest in Kingston, Ont., for The National Post. The article attacked the Bloc MP's views on abortion and the fact Father Gravel used his public post to put these views to the public.
"There are occasions when crackpottery is newsworthy in itself - not for the crackpot's argument, but for his identity," Father de Souza wrote. "Gravel is a poseur who has made a very successful career for himself filling a niche that no publicist can resist, namely the Catholic priest who goes about slagging the Church."
After sporadically acting as a male escort in his late teens and early 20s, Father Gravel became a bartender, pursued a degree in theology at the University of Montreal and, at 25, decided his calling in life was to become a priest.
He was also a card-carrying Parti Québécois and Bloc Québécois member and often publicly defended his nationalist views. Even while officiating at mass, he often wore a bright blue stole with a white fleur-de-lys on one side and the cross of Jesus on the other.
As a priest, Father Gravel was a critic of the church's position on same-sex marriage and abortion rights, but he also pointed out that the Church and the Bloc were on the same page when it comes to social programs and poverty.
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