Italian Priest Quits during Mass

Sky News
December 14, 2012

http://www.skynews.com.au/offbeat/article.aspx?id=826707

A Sicilian priest has stunned his congregation by announcing during a mass he's set to become a father and is quitting to marry his partner.

'It's my last mass. I am in love with a woman and in a few months I will be a father,' Vito Lombardo, 33, told his flock in the city of Trapani in northwestern Sicily, local newspapers said on Friday.

The relationship had been going on for a while but the priest waited until his partner was five months pregnant before announcing his departure, the reports said.

According to the Giornale di Sicilia daily, Lombardo tipped off the Vatican about his decision to marry before announcing it to his parishioners.