Vargas Llosa asks Pope to remove Dominican Cardinal

Santo Domingo.– Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Literature prize 2010, said he hoped Pope Francis would remove Dominican Republic’s Catholic Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez for supporting "racist laws which strip Dominican nationality from nearly 200,000 Dominicans for being sons or descendants of Haitians."

In an interview with the Peruvian newspaper La Republica, Vargas Llosa said that the Cardinal’s position "seems to me totally incompatible with what the Catholic Church should represent."

Dominican ambassador to the Vatican Victor Grimaldi sent a letter to the Pope calling the author’s comments "rude" and expressing continued support for Cardinal De Jesus Lopez.

Last summer the Cardinal also made headlines when he referred to the newly nominated, openly gay US ambassador to the Dominican Republic, James "Wally" Brewster, as a "faggot."