98% of Rome’s Priests Are Gay
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The Pope must be having a lot of sleepless nights these days. Especially now that Panorama, a magazine owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has just published an exposé on the secret lives of
Rome’s gay priests.
They’re not sitting home saying the rosary. Nor are they molesting children, as one might think, given how the Vatican has tried its best to push its ongoing sex with kids scandal onto the backs of gay priests.
Instead, these priests are enjoying the gay night life that the city offers -- visiting bars and having consensual sex with other adults.
The article, which is the cover story, is entitled “Le notti brave dei preti gay” (The good nights of gay priests) and is illustrated by a photo of a man’s praying hands with a rosary slung over them and his fingernails painted pink.
The sensationalistic (think National Enquirer) “inchiesta” (investigation) looks at “priests that attend parties with “escort uomini” (male escorts); that have “rapporti omosessuali” (homosexual relationships) with “partner casuali” (casual partners); and that frequent online chats and gay nightspots. For “venti giorni” (20 days) reporter Carmelo Abbate, accompanied by a gay tour guide, followed the adventures of priests “perfectly integrated in the homosexual atmosphere of the capital.”
Using hidden cameras, the magazine caught a French priest (identified as Father Paul, a name given him to protect his identity) at a party (which featured two “escort uomini”) wearing a dog collar and no pants. He is seen on the publication’s website sans trousers with the reporter’s gay guide. In one photo, their bodies are entwined. Maybe they’re practicing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Other gay priests are also seen locking lips with the tour guide.
Incidentally, Father Paul said Mass the next morning and then took the male escorts to the airport. On the Vatican’s dime, no doubt.
Gay priests are apparently not a rarity in Rome. Father Carlo (another fake name) told the magazine that 98% of the priests in the “Holy City” are queer. He sat with the reporter at a restaurant frequented by gays and pointed out a male couple in which one was a priest. Afterwards, he led the tour guide to his apartment and they had “un rapporto sessuale” (a sexual encounter).
Rome’s diocese immediately denounced the publication, saying that its purpose was “to create scandal (and) defame all priests.” It also said that gay priests should come out of the closet and then exit the priesthood. They “ought not to have become priests,” the diocese proclaimed.
But as gay activist Franco Grillini, a former MP, observed: “If all the gays in the Catholic church were to leave it at once--something we would very much like -- they would cause it serious operational problems.” Especially in Rome.
Maybe Pope Benedict XVI should lighten up and remember the old saying: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Tommi Avicolli Mecca is co-editor of Avanti Popolo: Italians Sailing Beyond Columbus, and editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, which has been nominated for both an American Library Association and a Lambda Literary award. His website is www.avicollimecca.com.
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