Texas Teacher Is Replaced After Telling Students She's Engaged To Jesus

A Texas teacher was replaced after delivering a monologue to her Spanish class about her unusual spiritual beliefs, which included asserting that she is Mary Magdalene and would be married to Jesus. One student recorded it on camera and posted it on YouTube, reports TV station KGBT in Harlingen. A few other apparently weirded-out students discreetly left the classroom for help, and the teacher was escorted from the classroom.

The school superintendent later claimed that the comments by Imelda Paredes, a ninth-grade teacher at San Benito Veterans Memorial Academy, were the result of a bad reaction to medication. But Paredes, who had been honored by the San Benito School District as Teacher of the Year in 2007, insisted that she said those things "because it's true."

Paredes, 42, began her 12-minute speech by describing how Jesus had fallen in love with Mary Magdelene when he was 12. Continuing in Spanish, she explained that he impregnated her before his crucifixion.

Paredes said that she and Jesus will marry one day because she is Mary Magdelene and has stayed up all night chatting with the Son of God. Wedding preparations were already underway in Heaven, she added.