Bishop denies championing anal sex after spoof article

The bishop of Alcalá on Tuesday denied having championed anal sex as "a way to prevent abortions," as published in the popular Spanish satirical magazine El Jueves.

"Naturally, the whole thing is absolutely false, an intolerable invention that is repugnant to intelligence, to the Catholic doctrine, to the faithful and people of good will all over," wrote Juan Antonio Reig Plà on his website.

Reig Plà's clarification comes two days after the archbishop of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, in southern Mexico, took El Jueves' article seriously and accused the Spanish cleric of being "crazy" for defending anal sex in the name of the Catholic Church. "He is crazy because this is not a Church proposal; you have to be able to distinguish between that and individual opinions," said Fabio Martínez Casilla following Mass in San Marcos cathedral, the Mexican news site Noticias Net reported. During the same address, the Mexican archbishop also stated that "qualitatively, abortion is much more serious than the rape of children by priests."

The satirical article by El Jueves comes in the wake of a planned abortion law reform by the conservative Popular Party government, which wants to eliminate abortion on demand within the first 14 weeks and prevent terminations even in the case of fetal abnormality.