“I cannot take communion because I am homosexual and live as a couple,” writes Rubén García de Andrés, mayor of Torrecaballeros (Segovia) in X. The mayor has denounced through the social network and told elDiario.es that the parish priest of his municipality has denied him receiving communion due to his sexual condition, and he maintains that it is not the first case. The socialist leader affirms that this is an act of explicit homophobia.
As he explains, it was the parish priest of Torrecaballeros who denied him the Eucharist after consulting with the bishop of the diocese of Segovia. It was then that García de Andrés received a response by email. “The doctrine is clear, in short: my parish priest decides to deny me Communion” he relates in X’s publication.
The mayor assures that he is not the first to receive this rejection from this same priest. García de Andrés’s case began when he learned that a couple from the nearby town of Basardilla had been denied communion under the bishop’s approval because it was a homosexual marriage.
After learning the story, the councilor decided to ask why they had made that decision with them when he, until now, had not found any impediments being aware of their sexual orientation. It was then that the parish priest decided together with the bishopric that he could not take communion either.
Following the mayor’s publication in X, Mario Calvo and José María López, Basardilla’s partner, decided to report their experience through Facebook. “The most painful thing is that now, those who used to be our family in faith, are pointing fingers at us. We are marked as different, as if loving this way separates us from God,” they say in their publication.
It is not the first time that the mayor has experienced rejection from the Segovian Church for these reasons. Two years ago he was relieved of the service he carried out as Celebrator of the Word in the diocese. According to statements to this medium, at that time they alleged that the decision was due to “political reasons”, although he assures that after speaking with members of the diocese he is certain that there were “more obvious reasons, the same as now.”
In his statements, the mayor points out the seriousness of the homophobic slogans of the parish: “I have been told that the situation would be different if “I were only gay and followed a path of conversion”, that is, they want you to be in the closet and that you go unnoticed, then nothing happens.” He has been joined in X by Clara Martín García, the socialist mayor of Segovia, who has called the situation “outrageous.”
The Segovia PSOE has responded through a statement in which they demand that the new bishop of Segovia, D. Jesús Vidal Chamorro, who will take over from the bishop who made the decision, “take this situation of discrimination carefully and “Do not allow hatred to spread due to the sexual condition of some parishioners.”
The mayor assures that both the residents of the town and Christian associations and defenders of LGTBI+ rights are supporting him in this situation and does not rule out taking legal action against the Bishopric of Segovia. Before the publication of this news, elDiario.es tried to contact the Diocese of Segovia to find out its version, but did not receive a response.
Source: www.eldiario.es
