A tide of lurid speculation, questionable accusations and possible blackmail attempts is buffeting the Vatican following Pope Francis’s claim that he is preparing to tackle a gay lobby secretly at work behind the Holy See’s walls.
The new pope’s private comments to a group of visiting South American churchmen, which caused a sensation when they appeared on a religious website last week, prompted blushes in the Vatican and unleashed feverish gossip in Rome regarding the contents of a report on Vatican infighting prepared last year for Francis’s predecessor, Joseph Ratzinger.
On his retirement in February, Ratzinger handed his Argentine successor the dossier, which reportedly describes a lobby of gay, senior churchmen inside the Vatican, running a network of patronage while fighting off blackmailers.
The pope’s unguarded remarks, which appeared to confirm the speculation, have fueled a new round of accusations, beginning with a convicted pedophile priest, Father Patrizio Poggi, who last week named nine fellow prelates in Rome as part of a secret band who used a police officer to supply them with eastern European rent boys.