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AFP - The Vatican's "gay lobby" was back in the headlines on Friday after the alleged exposure of a homosexual prelate appointed by Pope Francis to a key position at the Vatican bank.
The Italian weekly L'Espresso said prelate Battista Ricca had gay relationships during his time at the Vatican embassy of Montevideo in Uruguay as well as an affair with a Swiss guard which ultimately saw him sent back to Rome in disgrace.
Vatican expert for L'Espresso Sandro Magister said Ricca provided lodgings and a pay check for captain Patrick Haari in 1999 and was once left badly beaten after trawling notorious gay hangouts before his behaviour saw him transferred out of Montevideo in 2000.
An internal bid to protect him and cover up the scandal meant Francis apparently had no idea about Ricca's past before he appointed him as his personal representative at the scandal-hit bank this year.
Ricca went on to hold several prestigious positions in Rome, including the director of the Santa Martha residence where the pope lives.
While in the early 1950s, Mrs Bella Dodd was also providing detailed explanations of the Communist subversion of the Church. Speaking as a former high ranking official of the American Communist Party, Mrs Dodd said: "In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within." The idea was for these men to be ordained and progress to positions of influence and authority as Monsignors and Bishops. A dozen years before Vatican II she stated that: "Right now they are in the highest places in the Church" - where they were working to bring about change in order to weaken the Church's effectiveness against Communism. She also said that these changes would be so drastic that "you will not recognise the Catholic Church."
Originally posted by LadyofGlass
reply to post by Stormdancer777
So they will cover up and distort instances of pedophiles in their ranks so as to protect their jobs, but some guy that had consensual adult homosexual relationships gets hung up and feathered?
In response to the second excerpt the only thing the Catholic church could do to change their image drastically is to become a force of good in the world.
Originally posted by LadyofGlass
reply to post by Stormdancer777
True but remember that was the supposed 1950's. Homosexuality was a huge no-no at that time. That was before stonewall and all that jazz.