The Guardian

Papal resignation linked to inquiry into 'Vatican gay officials', says paper

Pope's staff decline to confirm or deny La Repubblica claims linking
'Vatileaks' affair and discovery of 'blackmailed gay clergy'



A potentially explosive report has linked the resignation of Pope
Benedict XVI to the discovery of a network of gay prelates in the
Vatican, some of whom – the report said – were being blackmailed by
outsiders.

The pope's spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report, which was
carried by the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica.

The paper said the pope had taken the decision on 17 December that he
was going to resign – the day he received a dossier compiled by three
cardinals delegated to look into the so-called "Vatileaks" affair.

Last May Pope Benedict's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and
charged with having stolen and leaked papal correspondence that depicted
the Vatican as a seething hotbed of intrigue and infighting.

According to La Repubblica, the dossier comprising "two volumes of
almost 300 pages – bound in red" had been consigned to a safe in the
papal apartments and would be delivered to the pope's successor upon his
election.

The newspaper said the cardinals described a number of factions,
including one whose members were "united by sexual orientation".

In an apparent quotation from the report, La Repubblica said some
Vatican officials had been subject to "external influence" from laymen
with whom they had links of a "worldly nature". The paper said this was
a clear reference to blackmail.

It quoted a source "very close to those who wrote [the cardinal's
report]" as saying: "Everything revolves around the non-observance of
the sixth and seventh commandments."

The seventh enjoins against theft. The sixth forbids adultery, but is
linked in Catholic doctrine to the proscribing of homosexual acts.

La Repubblica said the cardinals' report identified a series of meeting
places in and around Rome. They included a villa outside the Italian
capital, a sauna in a Rome suburb, a beauty parlour in the centre, and a
former university residence that was in use by a provincial Italian
archbishop.

Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said: "Neither the
cardinals' commission nor I will make comments to confirm or deny the
things that are said about this matter. Let each one assume his or her
own responsibilities. We shall not be following up on the observations
that are made about this."

He added that interpretations of the report were creating "a tension
that is the opposite of what the pope and the church want" in the
approach to the conclave of cardinals that will elect Benedict's
successor. Another Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, alluded to the
dossier soon after the pope announced his resignation on 11 February,
describing its contents as "disturbing".

The three-man commission of inquiry into the Vatileaks affair was headed
by a Spanish cardinal, Julián Herranz. He was assisted by Cardinal
Salvatore De Giorgi, a former archbishop of Palermo, and the Slovak
cardinal Jozef Tomko, who once headed the Vatican's department for
missionaries.

Pope Benedict has said he will stand down at the end of this month; the
first pope to resign voluntarily since Celestine V more than seven
centuries ago. Since announcing his departure he has twice apparently
referred to machinations inside the Vatican, saying that divisions "mar
the face of the church", and warned against "the temptations of power".

La Repubblica's report was the latest in a string of claims that a gay
network exists in the Vatican. In 2007 a senior official was suspended
from the congregation, or department, for the priesthood, after he was
filmed in a "sting" organised by an Italian television programme while
apparently making sexual overtures to a younger man.

In 2010 a chorister was dismissed for allegedly procuring male
prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting. A few months later a
weekly news magazine used hidden cameras to record priests visiting gay
clubs and bars and having sex.

The Vatican does not condemn homosexuals. But it teaches that gay sex is
"intrinsically disordered". Pope Benedict has barred sexually active gay
men from studying for the priesthood.

http://tinyurl.com/b42w73w

La Repubblica, by the way, is a reputable newspaper in Italy.

Well, perhaps the Catholic church should get off its high horse about
homosexuality, get real tough on pedophilia, and...at last...get rid of
the moronic stand on married priests and nuns.




--
I'm a *Liberal* because I knew the militant christian fundamentalist
racist militaristic xenophobic corporate oligarchy wasn't going to work
for me.