A Colombian man who pretended to be a Roman Catholic priest for almost two decades, was exposed just before Christmas in Spain, the diocese where he heard confessions and celebrated weddings said on Monday.Marriages and baptisms carried out by Miguel Angel Ibarra remain valid but confessions are not even though the "grace of God acted" on the faithful who were deceived, spokeswoman for the diocese of Cadiz and Ceuta told AFP.Ibarra moved to Spain from Colombia in October 2017 and had been in charge of the church in the village of Medina Sidonia, which is home to some 11,000 people, in the southern region of Andalusia.Colombian church officials informed the diocese on December 13 that it had received a complaint about Ibarra, which said he had forged his ordination documents and that after carrying out a "thorough investigation" they concluded that he had never been ordained, the Spanish diocese said in a statement.He was ordered to return to his archdiocese in Colombia, it added.The diocese in Spain that was fooled by the fake priest said it regretted that "events like this could overshadow the work of parishioners and ordained priests, who serve the Church every day in an exemplary way."Like other increasingly secular European countries, the Roman Catholic church in Spain is finding it difficult to attract new recruits to the priesthood and has had to resort to inviting priests from other countries, including those from Spain's former colonies in Latin America.AFP