The controversial Spanish ex-bishop Xavier Novell has married a writer of works on eroticism and Satanism, without it having transcended if he has asked for a dispensation from the Vatican, according to Catalan public television TV3.
Novell, who was the youngest bishop in Spain, became very popular when last August it was learned that Pope Francis accepted his resignation from the Catalan diocese of Solsona "for strictly personal reasons".
Then it was learned that after the resignation was his relationship with the psychologist Silvia Caballol, fourteen years younger than him, author of books that deal with topics such as sadism or the fight between gods and demons, with which this Tuesday it has been known that he has married.
He was previously known for his belligerence against abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality, as well as for his support for self-determination in the Spanish region of Catalonia.
According to TV3, the wedding was held yesterday by civil law in an intimate ceremony at night in the court of the Catalan town of Súria, although it is usually closed on Mondays.
Both appear smiling, holding hands, in the images broadcast by this channel, in which the pregnancy of the wife, who has two children from a previous partner, can be seen.
The ceremony was held discreetly, with only two witnesses present, the wife’s mother and her partner.
Novell presented last October in Súria the request to marry, according to an edict published in this small town, which invited all the people who might know "some legal impediment" for this marriage to manifest it within a period of fifteen days.
At the age of 41, he became the youngest bishop in Spain in 2010 and after his resignation he found a job in a company for the artificial insemination of pigs, as he is an agronomist as well as a theologian.
DISCONTINUED "TO DIVINIS"
According to canon law experts consulted by Efe, upon marriage it is de facto "suspended to divinis", that is, of divine ministries, as happens with any clergyman who marries, but not secularized, because he does not have a dispensation and it is unknown if he has requested it from the Vatican.
The religious also loses the prerogatives he had as emeritus bishop of Solsona, although it is a rather symbolic title, and he will no longer be able to officiate mass.
In statements to TV3, the justice of the peace of Súria, Jaume Bransuela, boasted that "surely there are bishops who have married judges, but judges who have married bishops, as far as I know, I am the first in Spain".
The Germinans Germinabit portal, in which priests and faithful conservatives of the Catholic Church in Catalonia write under anonymity, published after the resignation of Novell was known, since 2015 he was a titular exorcist of the diocese and "was introduced to the study of demonology", which led him to meet the psychologist in this forum.
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