Fr Alfredo Rosa Borges, who's known for conservative views on moral issues and disapproving in his sermons of kissing and sex has been suspended, according to a diocesan spokesman at Campos de Goytacazes, a northern town in Rio state said.
Father Borges is reportedly seen posing naked in front of a mirror holding his mobile phone in pictures posted last week via smartphone service Whatsapp which have since appeared in online media.
Rio newspaper O Dia claims he had admitted sending suggestive messages to a woman who later posted them but denied having an intimate relationship with her.
"An investigation has been opened but the photo comprises a transgression for the Church," the Bishop of Campos, Roberto Francisco, told O Dia.
Worshippers at Father Borges' Santo Antonio church reported he had first insisted the picture was fake but then conceded it was him and explained that "we are all sinners".
The priest authors a blog where he expresses conservative views on social issues, dubbing kissing a "grave sin" and sexual liaisons as a "serious moral disorder as normally it leaves aside and abandons the procreative aspect".
