‘Vatican priests, 80% closet gays’

This 13 February 2019 video from the USA says about itself:

Eighty per cent of Vatican priests are gay and living in the closet, according to an explosive new book to be published next week.

The 570-page expose, titled In the Closet of the Vatican, claims that four in five clerics in the Roman Catholic Church are homosexuals – but aren’t necessarily sexually active.

French sociologist and journalist Frédéric Martel, who spent four years conducting 1,500 interviews for the book, found that some priests maintained discreet long term relationships, while others lived double lives having casual sex with gay partners and using male prostitutes.

He found that a number of clerics spoke of an unspoken code of the ‘closet’, with one rule of thumb being that the more homophobic they were, the more likely they were gay.

The author, a former adviser to the French government, claims the late Alfonso López Trujillo – a Colombian cardinal who held senior roles in the Vatican – was an arch-defender of the church’s teaching on homosexuality and contraception while using male prostitutes, according to Catholic website the Tablet.

The book is a ‘startling account of corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the Vatican‘, according to British publisher Bloomsbury. In its marketing material, Bloomsbury claims the book ‘reveals secrets’ about celibacy, misogyny and plots against Pope Francis.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV, 15 February 2019:

A majority of cardinals and many bishops and other church leaders are homosexual. This is the conclusion of sociologist Frédéric Martel, who immersed himself four years in the world of the Vatican. According to an initiate to whom Martel spoke, in the Vatican it would even be about 80 percent of the clergy.

Martel, who himself is also gay, does not aim to blame people who do not want to come out of the closet. He does want to expose a system: according to him, the Catholic Church has a hidden face that is based on a double life: on the outside radically homophobic, in reality homosexual. “I do not want to out individuals, I want to out the Vatican”, Martel says to Dutch Nieuwsuur TV.

Hide nature

He emphasizes that homosexuality is not the problem. The situation is complex. “What you want most as a homosexual cleric is to hide your nature, to show everyone you’re not gay, so you’re more homophobic than others.”

And that, according to Martel, worsens other issues, such as the AIDS problem. Martel explains: “As a clergyman you want to show that you are more celibate than others, so you become extremely rigid in propagating a sexual morality, which is why you are also against condoms, because they represent sex with a partner which is not fixed.”

Martel’s voluminous book Sodoma [In the Closet of the Vatican] of 670 pages will appear Monday in the Netherlands and other countries. He did research in more than 30 countries and spoke 1500 people, inside and outside the Vatican, including 41 cardinals, 52 bishops, 45 nuncios and more than 200 priests and seminarians.

The vast majority of all clergy in the Vatican is gay, practicing or not. And according to the author, that also applies to the four predecessors of the current Pope, Francis.

Martel also says that many homosexual clergy in Rome lead a double life with secret relationships. Some have a permanent partner, others hire escort boys. A minority of these clergy lives strictly celibate. Another conclusion: because of the culture of secrecy, sexual abuse of children could remain hidden for a long time.

There is also manipulation in the Vatican. According to the researcher, spreading rumours about the alleged homosexuality of a cardinal or bishop is a crucial weapon to attack opponents. The rumours often come from other clergymen who are themselves in the closet.

‘Fifty shades of gay‘

“The world that I have discovered, with its fifty shades of gay, is beyond understanding”, writes Martel in his book. “Appearances are deceiving, perhaps no more than in this institution, and the declarations of principle about celibacy and the vows of chastity are equally deceitful, for behind them lies a completely different reality.”

The Vatican’s Secret Rules for Priests Who Have Children: here.

Dutch bishop suspends openly gay priest: here.