(From left), Monsignor Alejandro W. Bunge, Monsignor Dimitrios Salachas, Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto, Vatican spokesperson Father Federico Lombardi, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, Monsignor Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer and Rev. Nikolaus Schoch meet the media to illustrate a new law issued by Pope Francis regulating how bishops around the world determine when a fundamental flaw has made a marriage invalid, at the Vatican, Sept. 8. (AP/Riccardo De Luca)

The Vatican has fired a monsignor who came out as gay on the eve of a big meeting of the world's bishops to discuss church outreach to gays, divorcees and more traditional Catholic families.

Monsignor Kryzstof Charamsa was a mid-level official in the Vatican's doctrine office. In newspaper interviews published in Italy and Poland Saturday, Charamsa said he was happy and proud to be a gay priest, and was in love with a man whom he identified as his boyfriend.

In a statement Saturday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Charamsa's public statements were "serious and irresponsible" coming on the eve of the synod and that he could no longer continue working at the Vatican or its pontifical universities.

Despite his dismissal, Charamsa remains a priest. (k)(++++)

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