ROME
The Australian
JAMES BONE, ROME From: The Times June 28, 2013
A FORMER police officer pulled up outside a bar known as Twink – slang for a gay youth – next to Rome’s central station. He drove a Fiat Panda marked “Emergency Blood” so that he could park easily. Then he picked up Romanian “rent boys”, some under-age, for encounters with Catholic priests.
The explosive claim has been made by a convicted pedophile priest to Italian police in a case that threatens to rock the Vatican.
Don Patrizio Poggi, who served five years for abusing five boys aged 14 and 15 while a parish priest in Rome, named clerics who were alleged clients of the boys. They include four priests, two ex-priests and a military chaplain.
The boys were paid from E150 to E500 and sometimes more, Poggi said, and some encounters took place on church premises.
“I decided to file this complaint and co-operate with the law after long reflection and after a painful history of abuse and misuse of power that I have overcome thanks to the faith that guides me,” the defrocked priest told police.
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