Pope gives blessing for ex-bishop to lead Paraguay

ASUNCION (Reuters) - Pope Benedict granted an unprecedented waiver to allow a former bishop to serve as president of Paraguay without violating church rules, a Vatican representative said on Wednesday.

Although the Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes clergy taking political office, the Pope gave Paraguayan President-elect Fernando Lugo a special dispensation and downgraded him to layman's status.

Lugo was elected in April, ending more than 60 years of one-party rule in the poor South American country notorious for corruption and contraband. He had stepped down as a Roman Catholic bishop, saying he felt powerless to help the poor.

"It's the first time this is granted. It was accepted because the people have chosen him and ... because his clerical status is incompatible with serving as president," said Orlando Antonini, the Vatican's ambassador to Asuncion.

"The Pope has granted him the loss of his clerical status ... he's a layman now," Antonini told a news conference after meeting with Lugo.

For more than 10 years Lugo served as bishop in the impoverished region of San Pedro, but the bearded and bespectacled clergyman shed his cassock in late 2006 to launch his political career despite church opposition.

He had asked that the Vatican grant him layman's status so he could run for president at the head of a center-left coalition. The Holy See rejected this, suspending him from priestly duties but saying he was still a bishop since his ordination was a lifelong sacrament.

After Lugo won the election, the Vatican reconsidered its position. He assumes the presidency on August 15.

"I'd like to sincerely thank his holiness Pope Benedict for a decision that hasn't been easy for the Vatican," Lugo told reporters. "They reconsidered my request for the good of the country."

Antonini said Lugo, 57, could only become a priest again with a special papal authorization.

"He's not outside the church, only the church hierarchy, and that's what he had sought," Antonini said.

Under Benedict's predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, the Vatican vocally opposed priests pursuing political office.

Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left the priesthood in 1994 under pressure from the Vatican and later married.

And the Rev. Robert Drinan, the first Roman Catholic priest elected to the U.S. Congress, decided not to run for re-election after being told in 1980 to decide between politics and the priesthood.

At one time Lugo was an advocate of Liberation Theology, a left-leaning Catholic movement begun in Latin America in the 1960s, but in recent years he had become more moderate.

(Additional reporting by Mariel Cristaldo; Writing by Hilary Burke; Editing by Stacey Joyce)