Cardinal’s niece poses topless to embarrass her uncle

The niece of the head of Spain’s Catholic Church has stripped off in a soft porn magazine in protest at her uncle.

Magdalena Rouco Hernández, a 27-year-old mother of two, appears topless on the cover of the May edition of interviú.

Wearing red suspenders and stockings and with her breasts bared, the image will embarrass her uncle, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, 72.

Cardinal Rouco, a close friend of Pope Benedict XVI, leads an ultra conservative wing of the church and has clashed with Spain’s socialist government over issues such as gay marriage and relaxing divorce laws.

But his niece, who told the magazine that she was brought up believing her uncle was “some kind of saint”, accused him of double standards.

“My uncle never tires of repeating that the family is sacred and that you have to respect it. But then he does not respect it and abandons his own,” she said.

“When my father died, [Rouco] did not come to the funeral, didn’t send flowers or tell my mother of his sorrow. He told us he had a meeting with Pope John Paul II, but it was not true.”

Ms Hernández also claimed Cardinal Rouco did not call her family after her mother’s death and failed to help her when her husband lost his job.

“I wanted to lay bare the hypocrisy of my uncle,” she said.