Bishop Xavier Novell resigned his position at the diocese of Solsona last month, citing "personal reasons" for his exit, but it's since been revealed by the BBC that the conservative figure's decision to leave came after he had fallen in love with an erotic satanic fiction writer.

In 2010, Novell became Spain's youngest bishop at the age of 41 and he's held the position ever since. During his time as a bishop, he's backed conversion therapy for gay people, carried out exorcisms and was viewed as a rising star in Spain's Catholic church, but his time as a bishop has come to an end after seeking approval from the Vatican and meeting with officials including the Pope to discuss his exit.

According to the BBC, Novell is starting a relationship with writer Silvia Caballol, an erotic novelist and divorcee whose works include "Amnesia Trilogy" and "Hell in Gabriel's Lust: The First Cardinal Sin Against Being." The description for the latter book "promised a journey into sadism, madness and lust and a struggle between good and evil, God and Satan with a plot to shake one's values and religious beliefs."

Caballol was described by her publisher as a “dynamic and transgressive author [who] turns upside down our ideas of morality and ethics." Novell reportedly met Caballol, who is also a psychologist who has studied sexology, yoga, Catholicism and Islam, after he began studying demonology. The couple are reportedly living together in Manresa, about 30 miles from Novell's previous base in Solsona.

The news was first reported by Religion Digital, with the report stating that Novell was looking for a job in the Barcelona area as an agronomist. While neither the ex-bishop nor the novelist have responded publicly to the reports, Religion Digital quoted Novell as stating, "I have fallen in love and want to do things properly."

The diocese has also emphasized that "corroboration or not of this story is a strictly personal matter for him alone [to address]."

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