Pope Benedict XVI: His resignation is linked to a gay “network” in the Vatican, a report claims

[snagglepuss]

Source: Toronto Star


The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has been linked to the discovery of a gay “network” in the Vatican that led to some prelates being blackmailed by outsiders.


The potentially explosive claim was made Thursday by the Rome daily La Repubblica. The newspaper said the network was described in a 300-page report presented to the Pope by three cardinals assigned to investigate a series of embarrassing internal leaks that rocked the Vatican last year.


The cardinals interviewed dozens of prelates and lay people in Italy and abroad. Their report describes a Roman Catholic church divided by factions, including a “cross-party network united by sexual orientation,” La Repubblica said.


“For the first time, the word homosexual was pronounced,” the newspaper said, referring to a meeting when the cardinals reported their findings to Pope Benedict.


Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/02/21/pope_benedict_xvi_his_resignation_is_linked_to_a_gay_network_in_the_vatican_a_report_claims.html

[Kingofalldems]

1. There has to be more to this story

[snagglepuss]

4. The Guardian has a few more facts but the Vatican is niether confirming or denying the story,.

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.

snip

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.



snip

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.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/21/pope-retired-amid-gay-bishop-blackmail-inquiry

[DollarBillHines]

17. Maybe it has to do with where the money came from to make the pay-outs

The Vatican (Legion of Christ) held some old lady and shook her down for $60mil.


http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.japantimes.co.jp%2Fnews%2F2013%2F02%2F17%2Fworld%2Flegion-of-christ-seized-60-million-from-woman%2F&ei=r9EnUd3UKKb8iQK-xoG4Cw&usg=AFQjCNEpXzKOell0ndL0VS3TqH4yIUzFIw&sig2=talsDp8o3qYyzYdWrzbCMg&bvm=bv.42768644,d.cGE

[Kingofalldems]

18. Ah the money

[Duer 157099]

2. Just imagine if the Catholic church finally embraced homosexuality

What if gay priests and bishops and popes were able to be open! The Catholic Church would be a totally different institution, wouldn't it? For the better, of course.

[pnwmom]

5. There would still be a major problem with the hierarchy's treatment of women

even if priests and bishops could be openly gay.

Gay priests aren't exempt from the misogyny of the culture.

[snagglepuss]

10. Within the Catholic church priests are often openly gay. They are just bleeding hyprocrites.

They are happy to be in closet and preach damnation to gays who are out of the closet. A friend of mine dated several priests fairly high on the totem pole and slept over in the houses those priests shared with other priests. I for one have no use for hyprocrites.

[aquart]

11. Pity he didn't take pictures.

[snagglepuss]

15. This was in the 90's, pre cell phone days but he showed me the houses. He

remains good friends with one of them.

[Yo_Mama]

26. Well, first they'd have to get rid of that celibacy thing

Hetero- or homosexual, priests and nuns aren't allowed to have any.

They're allowed to be open about having "impure" thoughts, just not allowed to do anything about it.

[snagglepuss]

27. The mo of the Church is say one thing do another, the only consistent rule is to maintain the lie so

the latity buys into the notion that the clergy are celibate. Sure people take vows to be celibate but they break them and they get forgiven.

[formercia]

3. Ratso is fomenting a Coup in Croatia

so he can move there and be Pope of the Black Church.

[southernyankeebelle]

6. Why does that not surprise me. The church in Rome is going to hell pretty fast.

I think once they start eating each other maybe they can be reborn and have women clergy who would help things get better.

[itsrobert]

7. MSNBC is on the story

live from the vatican

[dipsydoodle]

8. As this was posted in GD yesterday

and the article refers to Thursday this cannot be LBN.

[patrice]

9. Happy priests!?!?!! Well, THAT would be an improvement. nt

[mountain grammy]

12. I wonder if anyone can save the Catholic Church?

[elleng]

14. Doubt it.

More difficult than saving the repug party, imo, decades/centuries of human behavior.

[LadyHawkAZ]

13. The worldwide kiddie sex ring got a full brigade of spin doctors

and an all-out full throttle smear-and-discredit campaign, but the presence of gay people is so bad that the Pope resigns and the Vatican refuses to discuss it?

[Volaris]

16. I know, right?

as an aside, does it occur to anyone that there would be a lot less of these kinds of PR problems if celibacy were a CHOICE, as it once was?

[snagglepuss]

19. Actually the church usually looks the other way as in the Austrian seminary sex scandal

a few years back http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/13/world/main629194.shtml. What appears to be different here is the blackmail of these priests who may hold high positions. Look at this interesting piece of info

snip

Among those mentioned in the report is Marco Simeon, a manager at state television RAI whose name cropped up in connection with one of the intrigues exposed by VatiLeaks.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano accused him of successfully plotting to have him removed from the chairmanship of the Vatican City Governorate, following his attempts to introduce greater financial transparency.

Simeon is seen as being very close to the Vatican’s second-highest official, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The secret report also delves into suspect dealings at the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), the Vatican’s bank, where a new chairman was appointed last week after a nine-month vacancy, La Repubblica said, without going into details.

http://www.gulf-times.com/uk-europe/183/details/343061/vatican-sex-and-graft-led-to-pope-quitting%3A-report


This is not to suggest that Bertone was one of the priests involved however it does show very clearly that priests in the Vatican have considerable power. I'd like to know whether the blackmailers were successful and what sort of demands they placed on the priests they blackmailed.

[valerief]

20. Catholic clergy is gay? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

BTW, the fact that they're gay is the only nice thing about them.

[snagglepuss]

21. What is nice about people who are bald faced hypocrites?

[Iggo]

22. I don't get it.

How is this worse than fucking children?

[snagglepuss]

24. It appears it has to do with blackmail. Did these priests do the bidding of their

blackmailers? If so what did that entail? The church histroically has turned it's head not only from child abuse but from consensual sex between members of the clergy.

[Iggo]

25. So there's blackmail and payouts.

Still, kid-fucking oughta trump that.

[Liberalagogo]

23. The only gay networks I know

are Logo, Here TV and maybe Bravo.

[tomm2thumbs]

29. hahahah

cracked me up

[AlbertCat]

28. The potentially explosive claim

Oh PU-LEEZ!!!!!!

Are folks really this naive?

Any time you get a group of MEN and only men together....

I wonder what goes on after those Scottish Rite Temple meetings.....


Haven't you seen those videos of drunk soccer teams playing with each other's ding-alings each other and kissing....and they still THINK THEY'RE STRAIGHT?

That guy who was molested on an oil rig.... and even the wives of the molesters were saying "He musta done something to encourage it"... like the victim was gay!

Men...


P.S. Human sexuality is complicated, y'know.

[snagglepuss]

30. The explosiveness relates to the allegation of blackmail.

[Stuart G]

31. The proof of the lies of the Catholic Church is clear...He did not resign for what he said....

Good...let the world see clearly..who they are for what these liars are..

[Merlot]

34. When he resigned first thing I thought was something

made him do it other than his health. I knew there was some kind of scandal or somehow he was being forced out.

This is the catholic church, you know better than to believe what they say. No one gives up power like that. If it really were his health there would be many people anxious to keep him in office as a puppet...ala ronnie.

[AntiFascist]

32. "Gay Prostitution Ring Linked to the Vatican"

reported back in 2010 by Reuters and La Repubblica:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2010/03/04/13106366-reuters.html

VATICAN CITY - One of Pope Benedict’s ceremonial ushers and a member of an elite choir in St Peter’s Basilica have been implicated in a gay prostitution ring, in the latest sexual scandal to taint the Vatican.

...

Among four people arrested last month in the corruption probe was Angelo Balducci, a engineer who is a board member of Italy’s public works department and a construction consultant to the Vatican. Balducci was arrested on corruption charges and the allegatons of prostitution emerged only later.

Balducci is also a member of an elite group called “Gentlemen of His Holiness”, ushers who are called to serve in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on major occasions such as when the pope receives heads of state or presides at big events.

[snagglepuss]

33. I wonder how they relate to the prelates who have been allegely

blackmailed.

[itsrobert]

36. key quote out of context

"...pope receives head..."

[freshwest]

35. This reads like a novel:

The Pope asked them to investigate after his papacy was undermined in early 2012 by the leaking of a series of Vatican documents. They included private letters to the Pope complaining of corruption and cronyism in the awarding of Vatican contracts. Allegations of money-laundering at the Vatican’s bank were reignited.

A confidential letter from a Vatican official described a presumed plot to kill Benedict and discussed his potential successor. Other leaks linked the murder-suicide of two Vatican Swiss guards in the 1980s to the kidnapping of a 15-year-old Vatican resident, the attempted murder of Pope John Paul II and the controversial burial in a Roman Catholic basilica of Enrico De Pedis, one of Italy’s most notorious gangsters.

The Pope’s butler was eventually convicted of stealing the documents.

And in the end, the butler did it.

I'd say you can't make this stuff up, but melding rumor, fiction and facts is close enough, I guess.

[RainDog]

37. They probably prefer this scandal to the pedophile issue

I'm sure the church would rather put focus on priests who were blackmailed b/c of their sexual orientation/activity rather than focus on the L.A. diocese and the Father Maciel scandal that JPII helped to create by favoring Maciel.

This isn't just about the current Pope on the ropes.

The entire institution is medieval and should cease to exist. The world would be better off if Catholics who work with people could auction off the Vatican holdings and distribute them to the needy.

[Kingofalldems]

38. Shaping up to be a great movie

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

39. At the very least, priests should be allowed to be married.

But that's just common sense.
At one time they were allowed to be married.

[Nine]

40. Some of them are. Seriously.

Episcopal priests who convert to Catholicism but are already married are given special dispensation to remain married and serve as priests.

[amandabeech]

42. So are the priests of Eastern Rite Roman Catholicism

who were married before they joined the priesthood.

Eastern Rite RC churches hold with Rome on matters of doctrine, but their services are more like the Orthodox churches in their areas.

The group is also known as "Greek Catholic."

My family is split between Protestant and Catholic. I'm part of the Protestant bunch, but right now, I'm feeling sorry for my Catholic relatives. Their church is clearly in trouble, and they're having a hard time with it.

[DaveJ]

41. I feel kind of bad for them.

Catholics do not discriminate, they look down upon all recreational sex whether gay or straight.

A lot of people bring up the fact that there are outliers in the ministry who actually do have sex, maybe there are lots of them. But they seem to ignore the vast number who actually are virgins and have no idea how to handle these types of issues. Those are just snarky, unproductive remarks, IMO.

Does that gay network imply they are having sex, or are they gay virgins? If they start accepting homosexuality does that mean they need to start accepting recreation sex? What then happens to all the virgins? Should the Catholic schools start teaching about sex from the nuns and the priests? I see their dilemma. I think they should start accepting recreational sex, sex is healthy, but it would not be an easy transition.

[TroglodyteScholar]

43. The church has had a tendency in the past to equate "homosexual" with "pedophile."

I wonder if it might be the "paedophile" thing that's being referred to as gay................

[sikofit3]

46. Just what I was thinking

I couldn't help but think exactly this TroglyodyteScholar. This link has been thrown out there for a while and they have been trying to do this here under the fundie churches. Hopefully it will be seen for what it really is regardless.

[blkmusclmachine]

44. .

[blkmusclmachine]

45. .