Ο ''ΠΡΩΤΟΣ'' GAY ΙΕΡΕΑΣ ΤΗΣ ΙΣΠΑΝΙΑΣ - "FIRST" SPANISH GAY PRIEST

FEBRUARY 2, 2002. José Mantero, the parish priest of the Andalusian town of Valverde del Camino has outed himself, in style. "I thank God for being gay," the intrepid priest told the Spanish gay magazine, Zero, which features him on its cover this month. He was "fed up," he said, with the silence and the guilt that surrounds gayness in the Catholic Church.

"God may be asking me to take this step," he said yesterday of his decision to make history as the first Spanish priest ever to publicly declare that he was gay. In a nationally broadcasted interview on the Cadena SER radio network, quickly picked up by the rest of the Spanish media, Mantero, 39, said that he had not outed himself "for psychological relief; I did it because I had to do it, because something like this could also answer a call from God saying: you have to face this."