Join us if you love lots and lots of free news Others, last of all, proved to be loquacious, excessively so, as if they had been waiting for so many years to come out of their silence. I'm like St Thomas: I need to check to believe. This report is said to reveal not so much the existence of a 'gay lobby', as was said, as the omnipresence of homosexuals in the Vatican, blackmail and harassment built into the system. The statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary adorns the 2020 Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square (photo: Edward Pentin / National Catholic Register) Edward Pentin Blogs December 15, 2020 We will come across this archbishop several times again in the course of this book, the first in a long series of priests who described the reality of which I was already aware, but which many people will see as a fiction. Send your thoughts and reactions to Letters to the Editor. A fairy tale. ', as the Poet says, are practising. Not the exceptions but the system and the model, what American sociologists call 'the pattern'. There have been carefully chosen words about homosexuality: 'Who am I to judge?' The gay dimension doesn't explain everything, of course, but it is key for anyone wishing to understand the Vatican and its moral postures. – homosexuality is also one of the keys that explain the institutionalized cover-up of sexual crimes and misdemeanours, of which there are now tens of thousands. Do I need to say that Francis knows the people he addresses in this way without naming them: cardinals, papal masters of ceremonies, former secretaries of state, deputies, minor assistants or chamberlains? The book is based upon the concordant testimonies from 41 cardinals, 52 bishops and 45 apostolic nuncios. The book, to be released Feb. 21, will be much talked about. So it is not a matter of judging these homosexuals, even the closeted ones – I like them! How? He isn't part of the parish! The Vatican has one of the biggest gay communities in the world, and I doubt whether, even in San Francisco's Castro, the emblematic gay quarter, though more mixed today, there are quite as many gays! They also know that sexual desire, and homosexual desire first and foremost, is one of the main engines and wellsprings of Vatican life. The intimate stories of these men who give an image of piety in public and lead a quite different life in private, so different from one another, present us with a complex intrigue to unravel. So these pariahs became initiates and made a strength of a weakness. They also know that sexual desire, and homosexual desire first and foremost, is one of the main engines and wellsprings of Vatican life. Without this key for understanding, the recent history of the Vatican and the Roman Church remains opaque. Contributions are tax-deductible in the United States. Among them, alleged homosexuals, who were present in the Vatican every day, introduced me to their world of initiates. It's an occupational hazard! I'm not the first to discuss this phenomenon. Send your thoughts and reactions to Letters to the Editor. “In an explosive report that calls into question the decision-making of three Catholic popes, the Vatican has revealed a series of institutional failures that led to the repeated promotion of now disgraced ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick despite rumors of his alleged sexual misconduct with … Enter your email address to receive free newsletters from NCR. We might also put forward the hypothesis, even though it isn't the subject of this book, that lesbianism is a major key to an understanding of convent life, whether that of cloistered orders or not. How? So this book criticizes not the Church overall, but a very particular 'genre' within the gay community; it tells the story of the majority of those in the College of Cardinals and the Vatican. It would have been difficult to publish a book like this twenty or even only ten years ago. In the recently released book, In the Closet of the Vatican, the homosexual, atheist author claims the prevalence of gay liaisons in the Vatican means that clerical celibacy is a failure and a fraud.Here’s why that’s nonsense. Francis knows that he has to move on the Church's stance, and that he will only be able to do this at the cost of a ruthless battle against all those who use sexual morality and homophobia to conceal their own hypocrisies and double lives. But lots of people described this 'closet' to me. In fact, in an aside that had something of the disco-queen about it, another priest whispered to me in English: 'We are family!'. Rumours? 'He's of the parish,' the priest whispers conspiratorially in my ear. The book, to be released Feb. 21, will be much talked about. However, Francis today is the object of a violent campaign, precisely because of his supposed liberalism on questions of sexual morality, by conservative cardinals who are very homophobic – and, most of them, secretly homosexual. The Vatican says Francis received the resignation request, accepted it, and ordered McCarrick to a life of prayer and penance. In the Closet of the Vatican exposes the rot at the heart of the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church today. A gay adolescent today has other options, even in Italy, apart from entering holy orders. Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an editorial featured on the website of the National Catholic Reporter (NCR):. This brilliant piece of investigative writing is based on four years' authoritative research, including extensive interviews with those in power. For a long time, the ways of the Lord remained, if I may say so, impenetrable. In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy (French: Sodoma : Enquête au cœur du Vatican) is a book by Frédéric Martel, which was published in French by Éditions Robert Laffont in February 2019 as well as being simultaneously released in eight languages. Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Catalan Cebuano Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Corsican Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Frisian Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian … Editor's Note: We are running an excerpt from the new book In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy by Frédéric Martel. This brilliant piece of investigative writing is based on four years' authoritative research, including extensive interviews with those in power. There have been carefully chosen words about homosexuality: 'Who am I to judge?' Because here reality goes beyond fiction,' I am told by a Franciscan friar, a man who has also worked and lived inside the Vatican for over thirty years. They even suggest, when questioned, that by forbidding priests to marry, the Church has become sociologically homosexual; and that by imposing a continence that is against nature, and a secretive culture, it is partly responsible for the tens of thousands of instances of sexual abuse that are undermining it from within. Comments on Distinctly Catholic by Michael Sean Winters at National Catholic Reporter. A number of journalists have already revealed scandals and affairs within the Roman Curia. Magazine article National Catholic Reporter. 'The problem is that if you tell the truth about the "closet" and the special friendships in the Vatican, people won't believe you. The lack of vocations has multiple causes, but the homosexual revolution is paradoxically one of the main forces behind it. Editor's Note: We are running an excerpt from the new book In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy by Frédéric Martel.The book, to … In the Closet of the Vatican is a reminder that the experience of gay priests may differ from place to place. I've often had a sense during my investigation that I've gone back in time and found myself in the 1930s or 1950s, years that I haven't known myself, with the dual mentality of the chosen people and the cursed people, which led one of the priests that I met often to say: 'Welcome to Sodoma!'. Here is the pope: threatened and attacked on all sides and generally criticized, Francis is said to be 'among the wolves'. Since arriving in Rome he has known that he is dealing with an organisation that is quite extraordinary in its way, and that isn't restricted, as people believed for a long time, to a few lost sheep. Others, last of all, proved to be loquacious, excessively so, as if they had been waiting for so many years to come out of their silence. Frédéric Martel (PhD) is a French writer and researcher. We might also put forward the hypothesis, even though it isn't the subject of this book, that lesbianism is a major key to an understanding of convent life, whether that of cloistered orders or not. Since then, the Argentinian has overturned the little games of connivance and the homosexual fraternity that developed clandestinely after Paul VI, were amplified under John Paul II, before becoming ungovernable under Benedict XVI, leading eventually to his downfall. Without this key for understanding, the recent history of the Vatican and the Roman Church remains opaque. 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