Papal resignation linked to inquiry @ 'Vatican gay officials

[antediluvian]

The shoe drops:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/fe ... il-inquiry

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.

[rickcopeland648]

Ratzinger is a vile human being. This clown cannot die slowly and painfully enough for all the problems he's linked to. Papal infallibility, The Rick Copeland's ass...

[stromboli]

I can't help but think everyone here is feeling smug as shit from this. I know I am. I'm waiting with malicious joy in my heart to see what happens next.

[Nonsensei]

I'm not feeling smug. The pope could fuck a male sheep on the altar and offer his cum as the blood of christ for communion and Catholicism would barely pause. Religion is an addiction. People need it. Just because the cocaine isn't as pure as advertised doesn't mean the junkie wont do a line anyway.

[antediluvian]

I'd like to think this is the beginning of the end of the vatican.
Won't happen soon enough for me.

[Thumpalumpacus]

This is the beginning of a power struggle.

[Cocoa Beware]

Ha! As expected. I am curious what will happen to that file. These people are simply retarded if they think they can sweep this to under the carpet and go on like nothing happened.

Thanks, antediluvian.

You know theyll probably try to anyways! The Vatican is renowned for their naiveity.

[WitchSabrina]

Ratzinger is a vile human being. This clown cannot die slowly and painfully enough for all the problems he's linked to. Papal infallibility, The Rick Copeland's ass...

My exact words the day they made him Pope.
Nooobody listens to me.

 

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Meanwhile, Britain's most senior cardinal is under investigation after accusations were lodges by other priests about 'inappropriate advances' he made towards them.

When will people wake up and smell the coffee? The RCC has nothing to offer humanity. Time to let it die

[St Giordano Bruno]

He called it time to pass on the poisoned chalice

[SGOS]

All the atrocities committed by the Catholic church have been in the past.  Lets put that behind us and base our opinion on the church as it is today.  Oops... more atrocities.  Oh, well.  

And it's not just the child molestation issues.  The church has a lot to explain to the modern world, right up to the recent glorification of that wonderful icon, Mother Teresa.  Lots of religions do horrible things, but lets not pretend that's limited to the Waco, Texas type cults.

The church wants so bad to be good.  Well, at least they want their image to be good, but when they try to ignore the bad, or even worse, hide it, even when caught with their pants down in the act, you have to wonder what they are thinking.

Some people expect honesty and integrity in religions.  Most at least claim they do, but there are still the Azzis of the world that will bury their heads in the sand and keep the money flowing, while pretending the latest scandal is just an isolated hiccup.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The church has a lot to explain to the modern world, right up to the recent glorification of that wonderful icon, Mother Teresa.

They're implicated in the Rwandan genocide insofar as they perpetuated the racial divisions, and they have the blood of untold tens of thousands in their anti-condom campaign in Africa, too.  The more we read about the Church's Third-World operations, the more Mother Theresa's heartless ministry seems par for the course, sadly.

[St Giordano Bruno]

The Vatican is just an extravagantly opulent palace filled with clergy wallowing in their ivory castles totally disconnected to the third world preaching dogma which makes the third world even more so.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I have the feeling that the resignation of the English cardinal is the first, but not the last.  I  think there's a fierce struggle going on behind the scenes.

[gussy]

A bunch of repressed homosexuals all living together and not having sex would be a much bigger story.  This one is clearly a 'dog bites man'.