Pope Is Quoted Referring to a Vatican ‘Gay Lobby’
Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press
Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday. He appears to have acknowledged a “gay lobby” vying for Vatican influence.
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: June 12, 2013 208 Comments
ROME — For years, perhaps even centuries, it has been an open secret in
Rome: That some prelates in the Vatican hierarchy are gay. But the
whispers were amplified this week when Pope Francis himself, in a
private audience, appears to have acknowledged what he called a “gay
lobby” operating inside the Vatican, vying for power and influence.
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Pope Said to Speak About ‘Gay Lobby’ (June 12, 2013)
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The remarks — which the Vatican spokesman did not deny and the
participants at the private audience confirmed — appeared to be part of
an effort by the pope to take on the entrenched interests in the Vatican
that many believe were a factor in why the previous pope, Benedict XVI,
resigned unexpectedly. They appear to underscore numerous reports in
the prelude to the election of the pope, that corruption, blackmail and
violation of one of the highest codes of Catholic conduct were part of
the intrigue that scandalized the Vatican in recent years.
Francis, who portrays himself as a simple pope of the people, has made
it clear that one of his highest priorities is to put the Vatican’s
house in order. He has appointed a group of eight cardinals to advise
him on how to overhaul the Vatican, and the head of the Vatican Bank has
recently given a series of interviews to journalists — an openness
unheard of under his predecessors.
“It’s pretty incredible that the pope said these things,” said Sandro
Magister, a Vatican expert at the Italian weekly L’Espresso. “I don’t
think there’s any doubt on the foundation of the phrases attributed to
him. Otherwise they would have denied it.”
The pope made the remarks at the Vatican on June 6, while speaking to a
meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious,
the regional organization for priests and nuns of religious orders.
“In the Curia, there are also holy people, really, there are holy
people. But there also is a stream of corruption, there is that as well,
it is true,” he said in Spanish, according to a loose summary of the meeting posted on a Chilean Web site, Reflection and Liberation, and later translated into English by the blog Rorate Caeli.
“The ‘gay lobby’ is mentioned, and it is true, it is there ... We need
to see what we can do,” Francis continued, in the document, produced
here verbatim.
On Tuesday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, did not
deny the reports of Francis’s remarks, saying only that he had no
comment on a private meeting — a marked shift from past months, in which
the Vatican vehemently called such reports “unverified, unverifiable or completely false.”
Also on Tuesday, the Latin American group, known by its Spanish acronym
CLAR, confirmed the remarks and issued an apology, saying it was
distressed that its summary had been published.
Long the subject of speculation in Vatican circles, the term gay lobby
had emerged most recently in juicy, unsourced reports in the Italian
daily newspaper La Repubblica and a news weekly, Panorama, before the
March conclave in which Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario
Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, was elected.
Before his retirement on Feb. 28, the reports said, Benedict had been
worn down by corruption scandals — including what they said was a
network of gay priests inside the Vatican who used blackmail to gain
influence and trade in state secrets.
A secret dossier compiled by three cardinals Benedict had asked to
investigate a leaks scandal at the Vatican last year had revealed the
network, which also included lay people who were aware of gay clerics
inside the Vatican and who were in a position to blackmail them, the
reports said.
Veteran watchers of the Roman Curia were unfazed by Francis’ remarks.
One Vatican official, speaking on the traditional condition of
anonymity, said he was not surprised that Francis had spoken of a gay
lobby, but noted that the summary lacked “context and tone.”
“If you have an institution as big as the Vatican, there are some who
will be homosexual, some maybe actively so,” the official said. “But
whether there’s collusion or internal cooperation, I’ve certainly not
been aware of it.”
Others said that the remarks were in line with the new pope’s emphasis on openness.
“A lobby of those who blackmail each other proliferates if you don’t
talk about it, if there’s no air,” said Alberto Melloni, a Vatican
historian and director of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious
Studies in Bologna, a liberal Catholic research institute. “He’s right
to talk about it, it breaks the mechanism in which omertà favors the use
of blackmail. If no one talks about it, it’s a powerful weapon. In that
way, he’s cut the issue down to size and conveys the sense that
reforming the Curia is easy.”
“This is a question of blackmail and blackmailability, not homosexuality,” he added.
Two of the biggest internal threats to Benedict’s papacy, including a
scandal of leaked documents, were driven by factions within the Vatican
who used leaked information to vie for power. Those scandals contributed
to Benedict’s decision to retire.
Writing in La Repubblica on Tuesday, the Vatican expert Paolo Rodari
said that Francis had also mentioned the gay lobby in a meeting last
month with bishops from Sicily.
In the summary of Francis’s remarks to the Latin American group, the
pope said that he was moving ahead with improving Vatican governance,
including with the committee of eight cardinals that he named in April.
“I am very disorganized, I have never been good at this,” Francis is
quoted as saying. “But the cardinals of the commission will move it
forward.”
In its statement, CLAR added that it had not made a recording of
Francis’s remarks, but that those present, a half-dozen men and women,
had written a summary of his points for their personal use. “It’s clear
that based on this, one cannot attribute with certainty to the Holy
Father singular expressions in the text, but just the general sense,”
the statement said.
The summary also quoted the pope as saying that he had not imagined he
would be elected pope. He said he had come to Rome “only with the
necessary clothes, I washed them at night, and suddenly this ... And I
did not have any chance!” the summary read. “In the London betting
houses I was in 44th place, look at that, the one who bet on me won a
lot, of course...! This does not come from me,” he added, indicating it
had been God’s will.
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