Priest talks about sex

2005-10-28 20:55

Paris - Abbe Pierre, the celebrated French Roman Catholic priest known for helping the poor, suggests in a new book that he had sex as a younger man and says he favours allowing priests to marry.

The 93-year-old priest, who polls show is one of France's most adored public figures, also writes in Mon Dieu ... Pourquoi? (My God... Why?) that he supports unions of gay couples and the ordination of women as priests.

He acknowledged having "never understood" why Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, said the church will never ordain women.

The book, which has not yet been published, also takes up subjects like happiness, sin and hell - and takes on church dogma, according to weekly Le Point, which published excerpts on Thursday.

Abbe Pierre explained that he decided at a young age to become a clergyman and took the priest's vow of chastity.

However, he wrote: "That did not take away from the force of desire, and I happened to give in to it in passing. But I never had a regular relationship because I never let sexual desire take root."

"I thus knew the experience of sexual desire and its very rare satisfaction, but this satisfaction was a real source of dissatisfaction, because I felt that it was not real," he said.

"I felt that to be fully satisfied, sexual desire needs to be expressed in a loving, tender, trusting relationship," Abbe Pierre added. "But such a relationship was closed off to me by my choice of life."

As for gay relationships, he said he prefers use of the word "union" rather than "marriage" - which is "too deeply rooted in the collective consciousness as the union of a man and a woman."

Abbe Pierre, a former Resistance fighter and lawmaker, is the founder of France's Emmaus association, which works to improved the lives of the impoverished.

- AP