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September 13, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The bishop of the Diocese of Saltillo in the Mexican state of Coahuila will be required to “clarify” his views on homosexuality and abortion following revelations of his support for a homosexual organization that celebrates the gay lifestyle, as well as his leadership of two organizations that have advocated the legalization and government provision of abortion, according to national and international media reports.

Raul Vera López met earlier this month with various Vatican officials, including Cardinal Marc Ouelette, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, and William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, after reports by LifeSiteNews and the Spanish-language Catholic news agency ACI Prensa revealed the bishop’s controversial views on human life and sexuality.

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Although the exact content of the discussions are not known, Notimex and CNN are reporting that “the Vatican recommended to the bishop of Saltillo, Raúl Vera López, that he clarify his posture regarding the Catholic rejection of homosexual marriage, and regarding the defense of life from conception to natural death,” in the words of CNN’s Spanish edition.

In remarks made following his visit to Rome, the controversial bishop denied that he had been “admonished” by Church authorities, and characterized the discussion as a “dialog.”

“They don’t have any reason to admonish me, we haven’t done what the media has claimed,” said Lopéz Vera, who also claimed, “It isn’t anything new that the Church supports sexual diversity because in the United States there are at least 50 dioceses that tend to homosexual communities.  The only [difference] is that the American bishops did issue an instruction on carrying out the ministry and we don’t have that in Latin America.”

LifeSiteNews published its first investigative report on Vera’s “San Aelredo” (Saint Aelred) group in 2008, when the group’s leadership admitted in interviews with this reporter that the organization condones homosexual relationships.

Although the organization continued to promote the homosexual lifestyle for years, even sponsoring a homosexualist conference with a dissident priest and a “gay film festival” together with the pro-abortion organization “Catholics for the Right to Decide,” the Vatican did not react until the story was reported in Spanish by ACI Prensa.

After Vera was called to Rome in response to the reports in early August, LifeSiteNews revealed that the bishop is also leading two “human rights” organizations that support the legalization and government provision of abortion, apparently leading Vatican officials to require a “clarification” on that issue as well.

Before traveling to Rome, Vera López spoke to LifeSiteNews in an exclusive interview in which he defended his organizations’ opposition to a pro-life amendment in the Mexican state of Jalisco, and claimed that laws against abortion were used to persecute indigenous women.

In his statements following his return, Vera Lopez did not immediately issue the clarification he reportedly was asked to make, but acknowledged that the Saint Aelred group was being “restructured.” Local media reports had previously stated that the group would cease to be a diocesan group.

The Saint Aelred group is named after a Catholic saint and monk that some homosexuals claim was “gay” because of his intense friendship with another monk, despite Aelred’s explicit condemnation of sodomy.