When Spanish Bishop Xavier Novell confessed to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Rome that he was “madly” in love with a divorced woman, officials told him he was possessed by Satan and ordered him to undergo an immediate exorcism. ” to calm his worried soul ”. ”
Novell, 52 years old and a prominent exorcist in his parish of Solsana, in the Catalan region, flatly refused. After all, he had the devil in common with his younger partner: an erotic novelist and psychologist he had met in a demonology workshop.
Novell formally left the Catholic Church last month for “strictly personal reasons.” These reasons were not revealed until his outrageous relationship with Silvia Caballol, 38, was revealed this week by Religion Digital.
The two met in 2015 in a workshop where they both studied demonology, which probes the existence of “fallen angels” and evil spirits. This week the BBC referred to his work as “satanic dye”.
Caballol, a graduate in psychology and dedicated to the study of yoga, sexology, Catholicism and Islam, was conducting research on her emaciated novels, which have been described as “a journey into obsession. , madness and lust, pitting God against Satan. Its publisher describes Caballol as a “dynamic and transgressive author [who] it overturns our ideas of morality and ethics. “
His most recent book, “The Hell of Gabriel’s Lust: The First Cardinal Sin Against Being,” tells the story of a psychopathic prisoner who falls into the hands of the psychologist who treats him. The copy of the book’s jacket compares the characters’ relationship to “the battle between God and the Devil.”
“As if possessed by the demon of lust, I begin to suck and kiss her neck, lips, breasts and shoulders,” Caballol writes in the 2017 novel. He then describes several sex scenes in detail. tearing the body: “Our bodies were incandescent and aroused and our sex was inflamed and throbbing.”
He now lives with a man who once said in an interview, “Why are people so obsessed with sex that if they don’t have it every day they can’t breathe?”
In fact, Caballol’s intensely breathing eroticism is a long way from Novell’s pious life as one of the toughest clergymen in Spain. But again, his fundamentalism may have been created as a reaction against his own lust.
“I’ve fallen in love with a woman for the first time in my life and I want to do things right,” Novell told Religion Digital this week.
However, this statement was not entirely accurate. When Novell was appointed bishop of the rural archdiocese of Catalonia, overseeing 51 priests, in 2010, the handsome prelate confessed that he had fallen in love before. Rumors quickly circulated that he had seduced some of the young women who had worked for him in the past.
In 2011, Novell told a Spanish newspaper that at the age of 22 he had fallen in love with a girl and wanted to marry her shortly after entering seminary. He immediately proposed marriage, adding that the sexual tension I felt was so full that “the girl left me nervous.” At that time, he even campaigned to end the celibacy of Catholic priests.
“I told everyone I wanted to marry this beautiful girl and have a lot of children,” he told El Pais. But religion nullified love. “The idea wouldn’t leave my head until I said, ‘Sir, let me see clearly.’ And I saw it.” God “hugged him tightly,” he said, and he soon went the “right way.”
The episode strengthened his devotion to Christ and made him a fundamentalist and confessed autocrat.
“Here I am at the helm,” he told the newspaper about how he governed his 139,000-person parish after becoming the youngest bishop in Spain at 41 years old.
At a time when the Church was becoming more progressive after Pope Francis took over the leadership of the Vatican in 2013, Novell continued to defend his harshest teachings.
In an interview, he said that contraception was ruining the family in Spain and that it needed to be stopped. He criticized abortion, comparing it to “one of the worst genocides in history.”
Novell claimed that the way to end AIDS in Africa was to abstain. He believed in “conversion therapy” to “treat” homosexuality and had conducted several workshops in his own parish, according to press reports.
He also became controversial, supporting Catalan nationalism, becoming the only prelate in Spain to drive a bold movement for independence in 2017.
“I’m Catalan,” he told the El Pais journalist. “Però jo no sóc bisbe català ni bisbe espanyol. I am simply a bishop. Si hi ha fidels catalans, els felicitaré i si hi ha partidaris pro-espanyols que volen acabar amb l’autonomia catalana i ho aconsegueixen, així sigui. In the end, Christ has made us all brothers. ”
Novell’s separatist policy did not sit well with the elders of the Church. In Spain, Cardinal Ricardo Blazquez described as “serious and disturbing” the declaration of independence approved by the regional parliament of Catalonia in 2017.
For years, the Church hierarchy has had problems with the Frankish bishop, which is why many claimed he had been possessed by the devil when he confessed his relationship with Caballol last month.
“The issue is not a problem of celibacy, but of infestation,” quipped a colleague, who echoed the Vatican’s belief that Novell needed an immediate exorcism to deal with his obsession with Caballol.
Another claimed that Novell was subjected to “a satanic action by the psychologist.”
Novell could have predicted his own obsession. “My God, how lucky you were Xavier, that no woman has been able to catch you,” she told a Spanish journalist several years ago. “If I ever feel attracted to a woman’s way of thinking and doing that makes me feel loved, I know what I should do: I’ll never see her again.”
It is not clear how long Caballol and Novell lived in Manresa, an industrial city in central Catalonia where houses were built around Santa Maria de la Seu, an old basilica.
The author, who has not spoken publicly about her relationship with the former bishop, grew up in Barcelona, where she also attended university. Her father ran a mechanic’s shop and her mother was a housewife and a devout Catholic, according to Spanish news.
She lived for a time in Morocco with her first husband and has two children.
Novell, who graduated in agriculture before entering the priesthood, seems to be looking for work in Manresa
Few in the church have sympathy for Novell. Dominican nun Lucia Caram called him “unbalanced” and a “broken toy.”
A recent column titled “Less Tinder and More Satan” in El Pais criticized the Catholic Church for not repressing Novell’s hateful “orthodoxy” and welcoming the departure of a tough advocate from a leadership position.
“The reaction of the Church, without having read anything [Caballol’s] books – has been possessed by demons … but it never occurred to them that real demonic possession would occur when Novell uttered his odious opinions, “columnist Manuel Jabois wrote this week. “Novell’s love story is not so sensational. The sensational thing is that Novell and other people in the Church have been allowed to promote a hateful and violent society.”
Our bodies were incandescent and aroused and our sex was inflamed and throbbing.
A scene from Caballol’s book
In the past, Novell has criticized many of his generation, calling them “fragile” and immoral. He said it is only through a relationship with God that he fosters the strength of character.
But some in the Spanish Catholic Church consider their love affair with Caballol to be the ultimate weakness. Bishop Ramon Casanova Casanova, who was temporarily assigned to the parish of Novell in Solsana, said the church would “continue to pray” for Novell.