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…