A priest in the Sicilian city of Ragusa has chosen love over the Church, daily newspaper La Sicilia said on Thursday.
Don Ignazio Grillo, who has headed the local branch of Catholic charity Caritas for the last three years, said he was hanging up his cassock to be with the woman he loves and with whom he is already expecting a child.
In a letter to Pope Benedict XVI and the bishop of the diocese, Don Grillo said that after thinking things over he realised it was necessary to face up to his ''responsibilities''.
He also asked the bishop to let him marry his pregnant girlfriend in church.
The baby is due in September, a Ragusa daily reported.
