A British priest died following a drug-fueled night of gay sex with an Anglican priest, who has since been arrested.
After an alleged night of using ecstasy and poppers while having sex together, a man who has been identified by the media only as 60-year-old Father Bernard called emergency services to report that his sexual partner, Father Andrew Wagstaff, 69, had started to feel unwell and fell unconscious. Emergency services arrived shortly after midnight but couldn’t revive Wagstaff, LGBTQ+ Nation reports.
According to the Toronto Sun, the prosecutor’s office told local media that two ecstasy pills were found and that it appeared that the two priests “had used ecstasy and poppers together and had sex.”
Bernard has already been arrested and charged with drug trafficking resulting in a death despite the initial autopsy not conclusively proving the exact cause of death. A bishop will determine whether he will be allowed to keep his position within the church.
Until his retirement earlier this year, Wagstaff had been the chaplain of St. Boniface Church in Antwerp, Belgium.
Bernard had reportedly met up with Wagstaff while visiting Belgium for Pope Francis’ visit.
“[Father] Bernard is a dedicated priest. He did his job well, liked to mingle with people after church services, and was greatly appreciated for that,” chairman of the local church council Eddy Marstboom told The Telegraph. “But admittedly, all of this is also a complete surprise to us. We now mainly hope that the law will do its job quickly because I can well imagine that this is particularly difficult for him.”
This is not the only drug-related incident involving priests and gay sex recently, according to The Advocate. Back in April, a Polish Catholic priest got 18 months in prison after a male sex worker overdosed on erectile dysfunction medication and was mutilated after collapsing during a gay adult play party, but survived.
