Spanish priest to pope: ‘Measure my asshole’

It’s hard to judge who’s crazier in this story: the Spanish bishop who fired a priest because a picture surfaced of him with his arm around a young man, proving that he’s gay, or the priest who’s challenging church authorities in Rome to measure the width of his asshole to see that it’s not dilated, proving he’s straight.

Here’s the picture of Andres Garcia Torres (right) that caused all the kerfuffle.

I trust readers to weigh in in the comments on whether this picture implies a gay relationship.The young man in the photo is a 28-year-old Cuban seminary student. Torrens, who practised in the town of Fuenlabrada until he was separated from the church, says that the photo is a completely innocent picture of two friends. However, the local bishop says otherwise. Reports have varied, from saying that this photo is the only evidence to saying that the bishop claims to have evidence that Torrens had posted himself on gay dating sites as a passivo (bottom).The bishop has ordered the priest to be tested for HIV and undergo psychological treatment, which is insulting and demeaning on multiple levels. And while the church may have the right to dismiss a priest for being gay, I’d be surprised if any employer has the right to order an employee to take a medical test and disclose its results. But let’s get to the anus measuring. Certainly, we can all see the flaws in the logic here. Even if anal sex did actually cause permanent anal dilation (it doesn’t, BTW. If it did, Depends would have a whole new market), receiving sodomy is not a mandatory part of the gay experience. There’s a whole world of non-bottoming gay sex that Father Andres could explore. For that matter, being straight and chaste and taking stuff up the butt aren’t mutually exclusive, either, since straight guys, horny virgins and men in need of rectal exams have been known to stick everything from fingers to wine bottles up the shitter. That said, I’d love to know how the church authorities responded to an offer to take a measuring tape to a bare ass.

Rob Salerno is a playwright and journalist whose writing has appeared in such publications as Vice, Advocate, NOW and OutTraveler.

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