LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Sun
February 14, 2019
By Neal Baker
SENIOR Catholic bishops who attack homosexuality are MORE likely to be gay, an explosive new book claims.
Among its most startling claims is an alleged “rule” about top figures in the church who condemn homosexuality, Catholic news site The Tablet reports.
According to sources close to the book, author Frederic Martel suggests that senior clerics who are more vocal in their criticism of homosexuality are more likely to be gay themselves.
The French journalist and sociologist is said to have spent four years carrying out 1,500 interviews with dozens of clergy and other Vatican sources.
His landmark book – which will send shock-waves through the Catholic church – is due to be published next week.
Many priests maintain discreet long-term relationships – while some live double lives having casual sex with gay partners and using male prostitutes, the book allegedly finds.
Also among the most incendiary claims is the suggestion that up to four in five priests working in the Vatican are gay – although they may not be sexually active.
Bloomsbury, the British publisher, describes In The Closet Of The Vatican as a “startling account of corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the Vatican.”
The book will be published in eight languages across 20 countries next Wednesday – to coincide with the opening of a Vatican conference on sexual abuse.
Martel, a former adviser to the French government, alleges that Colombian cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo was among the most vociferous defenders of church teaching on homosexuality – while also being gay.
Trujillo – a senior Vatican figure – regularly used male prostitutes, the book claims.
Critics of the book said “it is not always easy to tell when Martel is trafficking in fact, rumour, eyewitness accounts or hearsay,” according to the Tablet.
The book does not make links between the allegedly widespread homosexuality among priests and child sex abuse in the church, sources say.
Although In The Closet Of The Vatican does reportedly claim that gay priests felt compelled to keep quiet about reports of abuse to avoid their sexuality being exposed.
Martel is a non-believer and is gay.
Among his interviewees were 41 cardinals, 52 bishops and monsignors, 45 papal ambassadors or diplomatic officials, 11 Swiss guards and more than 200 priests and seminarians, The Tablet reported.
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