Voices
Joseph Ratzinger would not have
become pope in the first place, nor
would the Vatican be such a repository of blood-curdling homophobia.
But it would not be surprising
if there were some truth to the
report in the Italian newspaper
La Repubblica that three Vatican
cardinals conducted an investigation focusing on the existence of
many gay men in the Vatican and
produced a report on their findings. The Vatican has angrily dismissed the idea that a gay cabal
led to Benedict’s resignation, but
it has not outright denied the existence of that investigative report.
If the report had anything to do
with Benedict’s stepping down, it
is probably that at 85 years old,
he is not up to the task of purging
the Vatican and the church of the
secret gays whom the Vatican sees
as the cause of its problems. But
make no mistake: That would certainly be the plan, and, if true, it
will be left to the next pope.
In recent years the Vatican has
been besieged by gay scandals,
which the Vatican wrongly points
to as the source of its problems
rather than the church’s sexually
repressive doctrine or its coverups
for child rapists. But it’s long been
known that there are gays in the
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Vatican, mostly cowering in the
closet and certainly fearful of being
found out. Over the past 20 years
I’ve spent time in Rome working on
various stories, and many gay men
in that city know where various
Vatican priests go for sex. Back in
2000, during World Pride, which
It’s long been known
that there are gays in the
Vatican, mostly cowering
in the closet and certainly
fearful of being found out.”
coincided with the church’s Great
Jubilee, word on the street was that
Rome had cut down the bushes at
the Circus Maximus because too
many Vatican priests were caught
having sex in the shrubs. (But not
to worry: They apparently shifted
over to that old standby of outdoor
gay cruising, the Monte Caprino.)
But things went far more public
in 2007, when Monsignor Thomas
Stenico of the Congregation for
Clergy was videotaped by Italian
TV, in a sting via hidden camera,
with a man he’d met in an online
gay chat room whom he’d brought
back to his Vatican apartment for
sex. In 2010 Vatican usher Angelo