VATICAN CITY
Sky News (Australia)
Power-hungry cardinals, spies and a suspicious butler: ‘Vatileaks’ is just the latest scandal to grip an institution dogged down the centuries by damning tales of greed, corruption and betrayal.
From clerical sex abuse scandals to accusations of money-laundering and ties with the mafia over the years, critics do not have to indulge in Dan Brown Da Vinci Code theories to accuse the Church of slipping from its moral code.
While rumours of wild sex parties are today more easily associated with former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, the tiny Vatican state in the heart of Rome was once a hotbed of lust and depravity.
Tenth-century pope John XII, appointed aged just 18, is said to have indulged his teenage sex drive by throwing exotic orgies, sparking outraged religious observers to describe the Lateran palace, the papal home, as a whore house.
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