In 2010, for the better part of a month, one straight journalist pretended to be the boyfriend of a gay man who acted as a “honeypot” and entrapped actual gay priests in various sexual situations.
Occasionally such clerics are unmasked, usually by stories in the Italian press. A third way, perhaps the least common but certainly the most visible, involves living a double life. Many others quietly let themselves be known as gay to a limited degree, to some colleagues, or to some laypeople, or both sometimes they remain celibate and sometimes they do not. A few keep their sexuality entirely private and adhere to the vow of celibacy. For gay clerics at the Vatican, one fundamental condition of their power, and of their priesthood, is silence, at least in public, about who they really are.Ĭlerics inhabit this silence in a variety of ways. Cozzens in his well-regarded The Changing Face of the Priesthood. Between 20 and 60 percent of all Catholic priests are gay, according to one estimate cited by Donald B. Though the number of gay priests in general, and specifically among the Curia in Rome, is unknown, the proportion is much higher than in the general population. And they inhabit a secretive netherworld, because homosexuality is officially condemned. They may not act as a collective but are aware of one another’s existence. At the Vatican, a significant number of gay prelates and other gay clerics are in positions of great authority. “Gay lobby” is really shorthand for something else. This is the sort of idea that lights up the tinfoil hats of conspiracy theorists, and it doesn’t capture the slow, feudal, inefficient workings of the Vatican. The term could refer to a shadowy group like the Illuminati, whose members quietly exercise supreme power. Francis was quoted as saying, “The ‘gay lobby’ is mentioned, and it is true, it is there … We need to see what we can do.” In June, those notes were published on a progressive Catholic Web site. Someone took notes during what was meant to be a private meeting between Latin-American Church leaders and the new Pope, the former cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, now known as Francis. Months later, another leak of confidential information brought the subject of a gay lobby back into the news. Sensationally, the newspaper suggested that Benedict’s concern about the alleged gay lobby was one reason he had suddenly resigned the papacy. Yet details concerning gay priests’ gatherings added up to old news: the tales had been told in articles previously published by La Repubblica itself. The report was also said to document the alleged gay lobby’s social structure and customs. The internal VatiLeaks report, according to La Repubblica, indicated that gay clerics in the Vatican were being blackmailed. We left the sauna and, after further conversation, civil but stilted, went our separate ways. No, he did not think the subject worthwhile. No, he did not wish to discuss the subject I was interested in. The priest was embarrassed: to have been chanced upon at this place to have had his small evasions revealed. But I would never have the experience firsthand. Supposedly, he loves to dish male colleagues with campy female nicknames. I had heard that he is a gossip, a social operator whose calendar is a blur of drinks and dinners with cardinals and archbishops, principessas and personal trainers. Yes, his plans had changed, he said, but he was leaving again the next day and would return only after I was gone.ĭuring the previous few days, I had heard a lot about this man.
“How lucky for me: you’re here!” Startled, the priest talked fast. “I thought you were out of the country,” I said. When we were alone, I spoke his name, telling him mine. Yet as I looked at the man more closely, I saw that it was definitely him. He had told me that he’d be away and couldn’t meet. My friends told me that this priest was gay, politically savvy, and well connected to the gay Church hierarchy in Rome.īut this couldn’t be that priest. He looked like a priest with whom I’d corresponded after mutual friends put us in touch, a man I had wanted to consult about gay clerics in the Vatican Curia. I had not met this man before, but as I entered the sauna, I thought I recognized him from photographs.
Naked but for the towel around his waist, a man of a certain age sat by himself, bent slightly forward as if praying, in a corner of the sauna at a gym in central Rome.