VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 22, 2013

I’ve received numerous requests to comment on the sensational story in an Italian newspaper Thursday suggesting the existence of a shadowy “gay lobby” in the Vatican, linking it to the prospect of blackmail and suggesting that such dark forces may have factored into Benedict XVI’s decision to resign.

For what it’s worth, I’ll lay out my initial reaction here.

First of all, the paper that carried the story, La Repubblica, is not a scandal sheet. It’s the largest circulation daily in the country, with a center-left editorial stance. It’s sometimes critical of the church, but it’s not the National Enquirer.

What makes the piece slightly hard to evaluate is that it was written by a journalist named Concita De Gregorio, who’s not among La Repubblica’s usual stable of Vatican writers. (Sometimes Italian papers will let…