Bishop of Largest Portuguese Diocese on Christmas: Our Lady not really a Virgin

This was touched on in the Church Militant Headlines on Christmas Eve, but here are more details.

'RORATE: in better days, this heretic and blasphemer would be thrown out of his place by enraged Catholics, thrown into the sea for such grievous offenses against Our Lord, the All-Holy Virgin, and Holy Mother Church. Where's the Catholic laity of Portugal?'

I agree!

From Rorate Caeli

The Portuguese website "Observador", one of the most important news and opinion websites in the country, published a special Christmas interview with the Bishop of the most populous diocese in Portugal, Oporto (Porto), Manuel Linda, and another theologian, a priest called Anselmo Borges. [Update: the wicked bishop has tried to hide his declarations by adding "clarifications" to the original piece; therefore, in order to preserve historical record, the original piece has been posted in our Repository.]

In it, they dismantle all "myths" related to Christmas, including its December date ("probably September"...), but the greatest scandal of all is the direct attack on several Dogmas related to the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the purity of His Immaculate Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The main passages are translated below (tip: local reader):

"He [Christ] was conceived by Mary and Joseph as any other person... Virginity is only associated with Mary as a metaphor to prove that Jesus was a very special person." ...

The Bishop of Oporto tells the Observador website that, "we should never refer to the physical virginity of Mary." "The Old Testament says many times that Jesus was to be born of a maiden, a daughter of Israel, who was simple, poor, and humble. But this is truly just a reference to the full devotion of this woman to God.The gift of being mother of God was given to Mary because she had an undivided heart.What matters is full giving of herself,"explains Bp Manuel Linda.

And he adds, "There certainly are women with a ruptured hymen who are more virgin in the sense of full devotion to God than some with an intact hymen."

RORATE: in better days, this heretic and blasphemer would be thrown out of his place by enraged Catholics, thrown into the sea for such grievous offenses against Our Lord, the All-Holy Virgin, and Holy Mother Church. Where's the Catholic laity of Portugal?

Linda was named auxiliary bishop of Braga by Benedict XVI in 2009, and was named Military Ordinary of Portugal by Francis in 2013, and again named by Francis this year as the titular bishop of Oporto, one of the most prestigious positions in the nation of Fatima.