'Thank God, I'm gay'

The Spanish nun who walked into Father Jose Mantero's confessional was not wearing a habit, but that was not what was troubling her. "I have fallen in love with one of the sisters, with another nun," she whispered through the grille separating them. "She wanted me to call her a monster and a sinner. Instead I told her about a gay association in Seville. She was furious and stormed out. I didn't even have time to give her absolution," says Mantero. "That's what the Roman Catholic church does to homosexuals."

Now Mantero has decided it is time to bring the issue out of the confessional and into the open. He has done so in the most public and, for many, shocking way imaginable - on the front cover of a glossy gay magazine, smiling over the top of his dog collar and saying: "Thank God I am gay."

He goes down in history as the first Spanish priest to come out. He may also be remembered as the man who finally blew the whistle on a taboo subject at the Vatican - gays in the clergy. In his interview with Zero magazine, Mantero not only came out but also admitted that he had ignored, and intended to continue ignoring, his vow of celibacy. Two weeks later, he has been suspended from his job as one of two parish priests at the baroque Our Lady of Rest church in Valverde del Camino, a town of 12,000, mainly catholic, souls. He is now waiting to be hauled over the coals by his boss, the Bishop of Huelva.

"They have special places where they send gay priests, where they try to brainwash you with verses from the Bible and offer chemical castration with pills," he says.

Another option might be "a remote mission in Latin America". Sitting in the Madrid offices of Zero, he smokes his way through a packet of cigarettes but otherwise seems remarkably unruffled by the scandal he has provoked. The dog collar is gone and, in his plum-coloured, open-necked shirt, grey jeans and brown boots there is nothing, not even a crucifix, to say he is a priest. A single silver hoop hangs from his left ear, a little silver ball welded to the bottom - a small token of nonconformity. He drags one leg as he walks, the result of polio as a baby.

The 39-year-old, who has 15 years of ministry behind him, has enraged church conservatives. Spanish bishops have declared him "sick" and talked of "moral disorder".

"A sceptic boil has appeared on the face of the Spanish church and covered it with pus," raged Cardinal Dario Castrillon, Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy at the Vatican.

At the same time, however, Mantera's email queue is full of messages of support from gay Catholics. "Last time I looked there were nearly 300 messages," he says. There is no lack of gay priests, monks or nuns in the Catholic church.

"Pope Paul VI was a great queer," says Mantero. "And when I say that I mean it with respect. He was also a great pope."

Mantero realised he was gay when he was 12. He was watching a television film with his friends. "They were all going on about how they fancied the blonde girl and I found I was thinking hey, I like that trucker with her."

Being gay is not a sin to the Catholic church - until you have sex. "The church says we must have compassion for homosexuals, which means it thinks there is something wrong with us. For many gay priests this is a personal hell. They see themselves as defective beings."

When Mantero took his vows he had no experience of sex and was convinced he would have no trouble remaining celibate. Then, seven years ago, he fell in love with his first boyfriend. His partners, and he admits to several since then, have mostly been Catholic.

Breaking his celibacy vow drove home the duplicity of his position. In Valverde del Camino he was "Don Jose" or, to the young, plain "Pepe". In gay internet chat rooms he was "Kyrlian". He would travel to Madrid, visit gay bars and go to "hairy bear" parties (a sub-genre of the gay scene, whose clientele consists chiefly of big paternal men with beards).

Last year he wrote a piece in a local Catholic magazine supporting Gay Pride day. Zero heard about it and rang him for an interview. He agreed, then rang back to say: "By the way, I am gay myself."

Mantero will not be accepting the offer of a trip to the church's Venturini centre in Italy or the Salt Lake centre in the US, where chemical castration with the drug depoprovera is allegedly on offer. He aims, instead, to stand his ground. "Being gay is a gift from God," he explains. "The reaction of the church's hierarchy is abominable. This church should be about love and justice. Now it is just worried about sex." Gays in the clergy, he says, should "kick down the closet doors."

Surely, though, by relinquishing celibacy, he has betrayed the trust of his congregation, regardless of who he has sex with? But Mantero wants this changed too. He is by no means the first priest to argue against celibacy. But, he says, there are double standards. "There are priests who actually live with the woman who is their partner... Sometimes it is well known, but nobody complains.

"The church hierarchy, from the Pope down, is deeply homophobic. I have even heard one bishop, who admitted to me that he was gay, giving rabidly anti-homosexual sermons."

That does not mean, however, that he is in favour of outing clergymen. One gay activist has threatened to out three bishops whom he had had sex with while studying at a Spanish seminary, if they act against Mantero. "That is blackmail, I don't agree with it," he says.

Some gays have criticised him for not turning his back on the church. "He must abandon a church that discriminates, rejects and offends - and all the other gay priest should go with him," said Eduardo Mendicutti, one of Spain's leading gay writers.

In Valverde del Camino, news of Mantero's coming out has caused surprise, but not rejection. He is considered an excellent priest, able, among an ageing Spanish clergy that has had to start importing priests from Latin America, to engage with the young. "If it was put to a vote, most would want him to stay," neighbours told the hordes of Spanish journalists who descended on the town.

Some time ago, Mantero remembers hearing the confession of a young man in Valverde. "Father I have sinned. I have had sex with a man. There must be something wrong with me," he said. "Don't worry, I am gay too. Do you think there is anything wrong with me?" the priest replied.

"I can see him slowly coming to terms with it," he says. "I'd like to think I helped."