VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)
[Papa Francesco e la lobby gay in Vaticano – L’Espresso]
[The Prelate of the Gay Lobby – Chiesa]
John Hooper in Rome
The Guardian, Sunday 21 July 2013
Vatican post was named in a gay sex scandal. Photograph: Max Rossi/Reuters
Pope Francis will fly out of Rome on Monday, leaving behind the latest controversy to engulf the Holy See – a slew of gay sex claims, denied by the pope’s spokesman, against the man Francis chose to be his representative at the Vatican “bank”.
On 15 June, the pope appointed Monsignor Battista Ricca, an Italian cleric and former Vatican diplomat, to be “prelate” of the bank, formally known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). As such, Ricca is entitled to attend meetings of both the bodies that oversee the scandal-ridden IOR’s operations – its board and a five-strong commission of cardinals. The prelate can also demand to see any document he cares to inspect.
According to the latest edition of the weekly news magazine L’Espresso, Ricca has a past punctuated with scandal. Its report, which the pope’s spokesman branded as “not trustworthy”, claimed Ricca lived more or less openly with a Swiss army officer while at the Holy See’s nunciature (embassy) in Uruguay. It said he arrived with his lover and, while running the post between nuncios, provided him with both accommodation and a job.
The weekly magazine said Ricca was once beaten up in a gay bar in Montevideo and that, when the lift at the nunciature broke down in the night, firefighters called to deal with the emergency found him inside with a local rent boy known to police. It said that, after he was transferred to Trinidad and Tobago, that his alleged lover left trunks behind in Uruguay containing his effects. When they were opened later, they were found to contain a pistol, large numbers of prophylactics and sizeable quantities of pornography, the magazine said. Ricca has not made any comment on the allegations.
Catholic teaching regards homosexuality as “objectively disordered” and homosexual acts as “contrary to natural law”. It condemns discrimination against gay men and women on the grounds of their sexual orientation, but says they are “called to chastity”.
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