Vows

Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo has admitted he is the father of a child who was conceived when he was still a Roman Catholic bishop.

Mr Lugo, who took office last August, made a televised address accepting paternity of the one-year-old boy.

He admitted having an intimate relationship with 26-year-old Viviana Carrillo, the child’s mother.

Mr Lugo had received permission from the Pope to leave the priesthood and run for political office.

Well not really. In 2006 he was told by the Vatican not to run and last year the Congregation for Bishops said, Bishop Lugo will, “remain in the clerical state and continue to be obliged to its inherent duties, although suspended in the sacred ministry.” Later though the Pope did end up laicize him – but that was certainly an outcome of the election and certainly not the Pope’s permission to leave the priesthood and run for office since this action happened after he was elected.

“I assume all responsibilities having to do with the fact that I had a relationship with (the mother of the child), and I recognize paternity,” said Mr Lugo. [reference]

And the story only gets worse:

In it, the 26-year-old Carrillo said they began having sexual relations when she was 16. As bishop of San Pedro, Lugo sometimes stayed at the rural home of her godmother, where Carrillo also lived, she said.

McClatchy Newspapers obtained a copy of the nine-page paternity suit on Monday.
Carrillo said that she first met Lugo when she was studying in preparation for the sacrament of Confirmation in her church, and that their personal relationship began one night shortly thereafter.

She said she’d just brought bed sheets to his room at her godmother’s house and then asked him if he needed anything else.

“He told me yes,” Carrillo wrote, “that he needed me.”[reference]