Religion

Spanish archbishop reprimands priests who prayed for Pope to ‘go to heaven’

Toledo, Spain, Feb 29 (EFE) – The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Toledo, in central Spain, rejected the comments made by some of its priests in a YouTube broadcast who said they were praying for “the Pope to go to heaven as soon as possible,” and has warned of possible “corrective measures.”

The controversy arised from the statements made a week earlier by a group of priests in a virtual talk show called “The Sacristy of the Vendée: A counter-revolutionary priestly gathering,” hosted by the priest of the diocese of Toledo, Francisco José Delgado, in which one of the participants, Gabriel Calvo, also a priest of Toledo, said: “I also pray a lot for the Pope, so that he may go to heaven as soon as possible.

Archbishop Francisco Cerro of Toledo responded issued a statement expressing his “profound rejection of any manifestation of dissatisfaction with the person and ministry of the Holy Father” and said the priests must ask forgiveness for statements that “injure the communion of the Church and scandalize the People of God.”

The statement warned that “other measures of correction (against the priests) are not excluded.”

The Sacristy of the Vendée group, whose name refers to an 18th-century royalist and Catholic counter-revolution against the French Revolution that was brutally suppressed, apologized through a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying they were “sorry for the unfortunate comment” that was “made in a humorous tone.”

“It is a comment in bad taste and although it does not express a wish for the death of the Pope, as some media have maliciously reported, […] we understand that it can be understood that way,” the post read.

EFE

cst/ics/mcd

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