Suspended prelate/president-elect of Paraguay, asks Pope Benedict XVI...

... for forgiveness. ZENIT reports:

The president-elect of Paraguay, a suspended Catholic bishop, asked forgiveness from the Church for the sorrow his disobedience of canon law has caused.

Fernando Lugo asked forgiveness particularly to Benedict XVI on Monday after having been elected Sunday as Paraguay's next president. "If my attitude and my disobedience of canon law caused sorrow, I sincerely ask forgiveness to the people of the Church. In particular, I ask pardon to Pope Benedict XVI," Lugo said on the radio channel Fe y Alegria (Faith and Joy).

According to canon law, clerics cannot run for political offices.

<snip>

Lugo was named a bishop in 1994. He had since asked Benedict XVI to be able to "renounce his ecclesial ministry […] to take up again the condition of a layperson in the Church."

The petition was not accepted because, as Cardinal Re noted, "the episcopacy is a service accepted freely forever."

"With sincere sorrow," Cardinal Re announced his duty of placing on the bishop "the penalty of suspension 'a divinis,' according to Canon 1333 §1" of the Code of Canon Law.

Canon 1333 §1 states:

Can. 1333 §1. Suspension, which can affect only clerics, prohibits:

1/ either all or some acts of the power of orders;
2/ either all or some acts of the power of governance;
3/ the exercise of either all or some of the rights or functions attached to an office.

Dr. Ed Peters has much more over at "In the Light of the Law."

Comments

[Josh Miller]

Seems to me that - for now, at least - Lugo is one of the good guys.

By the way, Carl, as a former lit critic turned seminarian, I'm very pumped about your upcoming series of critical editions, devoid of the material which turned me sour on the field. Thanks!

[Thomas]

So he wants forgiveness for his disobedience while remaining disobedient?