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PARIS, October 28, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A priest highly regarded by the French public for his championing of human rights and founding of Emmaus, an international organization to help the poor and homeless, has confessed in a new book to breaking his vows of celibacy. In the book, which will be published soon, he expresses disagreement with the church on priestly celibacy, women’s ordination, homosexuality, and even the celibacy of Jesus Christ.

Abbé Pierre, born Henri Groues, who was voted one of France’s most popular personalities so often that he eventually removed his name from the list, admitted in a recently published book, titled Mon Dieu . . . Pourquoi? (My God . . . Why?), to having casual sexual relations with women.

“I made the decision very young to dedicate my life to God and to others and thus I made the vow of chastity,” he wrote. “That does not remove in the slightest the force of desire and it has happened to me that I have surrendered to it in a temporary fashion. But I have never had a regular liaison, because I never allowed sexual desire to take root.”

Groues wrote that he knows of several priests who live with women. “They continue to be good priests,” he claimed.

Today’s Scotsman.com reports that in his book Abbé Pierre “argues in favour of the marriage of Catholic priests and the ordination of women, and says that he is not shocked by the idea that Christ may have had a sexual relationship with the prostitute Mary Magdalene.”

  The now 93 year old priest writes of Christ, “I am convinced that wanting to fully embrace human nature He lived the experience of sexual desire which every man knows. Did He want to satisfy this desire? If so, He must have lived it in the context of shared love and Mary Magdalene seems to have been the closest woman to Him after His mother”.

  The Scotsman further reports “The priest also writes of his sympathy for homosexual couples who wish to see their union consecrated by the Church.”

  Tv