Gay sex scandal rocks Vatican

Pope Benedict XVI (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

One of Italy’s most respected daily newspapers has reported that Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation on the same day he learned that an underground network of gay priests assigned to the Vatican organized meetings for sex and may have been subjected to blackmail.

In a development that has caused an uproar at the Vatican, the Rome based newspaper La Repubblica reports it received detailed information about a 300-page Vatican report on the conclusion of a nine-month internal Vatican investigation that uncovered a “faction” within the Vatican “united by sexual orientation.”

The newspaper said it had no confirmation that Benedict based his decision to resign solely on the explosive findings of the investigation. But it reported sources as saying Benedict planned to keep the findings confidential and planned to leave it up to his successor to decide how to address the matter.

“It was on that day, with those papers on his desk, that Benedict XVI took the decision he had mulled over for so long,” La Repubblica reported in its Feb. 21 edition while discussing Benedict’s resignation.

According to La Repubblica, the investigation was conducted by a panel of three cardinals and was launched last May after one of the Pope’s butlers was arrested for allegedly stealing Vatican correspondence and leaking it to the media.

A Vatican spokesperson, Rev. Federico Lombardi, would neither confirm nor deny the reports by La Repubblica and at least one other Italian publication, the news magazine Panorama, about the internal investigative report.

CNN reported on Saturday that another Vatican spokesperson denounced the media for reporting sensational claims that could not be substantiated and were, according to the spokesperson, an attempt to improperly influence the process for selecting a new Pope.

The report prepared by the three cardinals said their investigation uncovered an underground network of gays working at the Vatican who organized “sexual meetings” in several locations, including a sauna in Rome, a private villa just outside Rome, and a beauty salon inside the Vatican, according to La Repubblica.

The newspaper identified the cardinals who conducted the investigation as Julian Herranz of Spain; Jozef Tomko of Slovakia; and Salvatore De Giorgi, the former archbishop of Palermo.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland based group that advocates for LGBT equality within the Catholic Church, said the unfolding scandal is due, at least in part, to the Vatican’s harsh position on homosexuality.

“They have created a situation where people can’t express their sexuality in healthy ways,” he said. “They can’t even deal with their sexuality in the open. So it creates a climate of suspicion and a climate of fear.”