Cardinal Agostino Vallini
After Panorama magazine’s shocking exposure of three Vatican priests who were caught on tape engaging in gay sex
acts, the Vicar of Rome issued a statement asking gay priests to come out and leave the church.
The article, “Le notte brave de preti gay” (“a good night for gay priests”), ran in last week’s issue of the magazine, which is owned by Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The story has created an international stir, culminating in Cardinal Agostino Vallini’s recent statement. He announced, “No one is forcing them to stay priests, only getting the benefits. Coherence demands they should come out into the open. They never should have become priests."
AsNew Statesman explains, the exposé “is a particular blow for Pope Benedict's regime, since one of his first acts following inauguration was to ban all gay men from entering Catholic seminaries and training for the priesthood, even if celibate.”
This scandal builds upon the early March scandal that uncovered 29-year-old chorister Thomas Chinedu Ehiem’s solicitation of male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.
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