Xavier Novell, a 52-year-old Spanish Bishop has allegedly renounced his calling as a priest after falling in love with a divorced author of satanic-themed eroticas.
Religion Digital reports that Novell resigned from his position as Bishop of Solsona in Catalona for “strictly personal reasons.”
Reports say that Novelli had fallen in love with Silvia Caballol, a divorced mother of two saying he “wanted to do the right thing.”
38-year-old Caballol is a writer of erotic novels featuring characters ‘possessed by the demon of lust,’ a fact which has raised eyebrows among the revered father’s former colleagues.
He is reported to have met Caballol, a psychologist who studied sexology, yoga, Catholicism and Islam after he started studying demonology.
Her books have been described by her publisher as “turning all our moral and ethical consideration upside down.”
Caballol’s latest book, ‘The Hell in Gabriel’s Lust,’ promises ‘prisons, psychopathy, sects, sadism, madness, lust and, little by little, as the story progresses… the unreality of immortality and the crude struggle between good and evil, between God and Satan, and between angels and demons.’
Bishop Novelli had been seen as a star on the rise within the Catholic Church in Spain after he was appointed as the country’s youngest Bishop in 2014 at the age of 41.
The Times reported that his ascent was stalled with the election of Pope Francis in 2013.
Francis is on record to have steered the Vatican towards more liberal stances than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI who was seen as traditionalist.
Novelli is seen as having stepped out of the mood of the church under Pope Francis after defending gay conversion therapy and described abortion and euthanasia as “genocide.”
The Pope has accepted his resignation but no official statement has been issued by the church.
His resignation was accepted by the Pope and the church has not commented.
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