Far-right homophobic cardinals blame gays for child abuse

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Book alleges a Vatican gay subculture, hypocrisy

(15 Feb 2019) A gay French writer has lifted the lid on what he calls one of the world’s largest gay communities, the Vatican, estimating that most of its prelates are homosexually inclined and attributing much of the current crisis in the Catholic Church to an internecine war among them.

In the explosive book, “In the Closet of the Vatican”, author Frédéric Martel describes a gay subculture at the Vatican and calls out the hypocrisy of Catholic bishops and cardinals who in public denounce homosexuality but in private lead double lives.

Aside from the subject matter, the book is astonishing for the access Martel had to the inner sanctum of the Holy See. Martel writes that he spent four years researching it in 30 countries, including weeks at a time living inside the Vatican walls. He says the doors were opened by a key Vatican gatekeeper and friend of Pope Francis who was the subject of the pontiff’s famous remark about gay priests, “Who am I to judge?”

In an interview Friday in a Paris hotel, Martel said he didn’t tell his subjects he was writing about homosexuality in the Vatican. But he said it should have been obvious to them since he is a gay man who was researching the inner world of the Vatican and has written about homosexuality before.

He said it was easier for him, as a gay foreigner, to gain the trust of those inside the Vatican than it would have been for an Italian journalist or Vatican expert. Martel says he conducted nearly 1,500 in-person interviews with 41 cardinals, 52 bishops or monsignors, and 45 Vatican and foreign ambassadors, many of whom are quoted at length and in on-the-record interviews that he says were recorded. Martel said he was assisted by 80 researchers, translators, fixers and local journalists, as well as a team of 15 lawyers. The 555-page book is being published simultaneously in eight languages in 20 countries, many bearing the title “Sodom”.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Gay rights activist hits back at cardinals for blaming homosexuality for clerical abuse

GAY rights activist Frédéric Martel hit back at cardinals blaming homosexuality for clerical abuse today, pointing out that studies have long demonstrated that “being gay is not a risk factor” for abuse.

Instead, a “culture of secrecy” prevalent in the Catholic Church had enabled the scandal to be kept under wraps for decades, he said.

On the eve of a high-profile Vatican summit on clerical child abuse and cover-ups, cardinals Raymond Burke of the United States and Walter Brandmüller of Germany attacked Pope Francis for suggesting that sexual assaults were down to the abuse of power by priests, instead claiming that it was the result of “the plague of the homosexual agenda” infecting the Church.

Both cardinals are rightwingers who have previously clashed with the Pope over his criticisms of capitalism as well as comments that they regard as ambiguous on divorce, abortion and homosexuality.

Cardinal Burke is a close ally of US far-right strategist Steve Bannon. As president of the board of advisers to Catholic leadership training school the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, he brought in Mr Bannon to develop coursework “for a training programme for conservative Catholic political activists and leaders,” saying he hoped to work with him to “promote a number of projects that should make a decisive contribution to the defence of what used to be called Christendom.” Mr Bannon is in Rome for the duration of the Vatican conference.

See also here.

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