Bishop Jos Punt of Haarlem-Amsterdam has suspended a gay priest who published a memoir entitled "Undressed not Naked" detailing his active homosexual life and taste for pornography.
Fr Pierre Valkering, a parish priest in Amsterdam, presented the book at a Mass marking the 25th anniversary of his ordination. "If we as a church want to continue, improve and heal, then we must tell each other the truth," he said.
Bishop Punt said Valkering, 58, had told him several times in the past that he was dealing responsibly with the issue of celibacy.
"He now unmistakably indicates publicly that he has not kept his celibacy vow and cannot and will not keep it," the bishop wrote in response the newspaper 'Gaykrant'. He therefore had to ask the priest to step aside for a period of reflection.
"We will discuss this further with him," Punt added.
The diocese had been “put on the spot” by the unexpected publication and had to react, it said in a statement.
Valkering has long advocated a more welcoming Church attitude toward homosexuals and asked to join a Gay Pride boat tour through Amsterdam's canals in 2016, which Punt did not allow.
He told Gaykrant he felt called by God to the priesthood but chose it also because it gave him “a valid reason not to have a girlfriend and not to get married”.
Valkering presented a previous book about ministering to homosexuals to Pope Francis that same year and said the pope’s positive comments during their brief encounter on St Peter’s Square amounted to an encouragement to keep up this ministry.
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