Slog
News & ArtsThursday, March 4, 2010
International Gay Prostitution Ring in the Vatican
Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:33 PM
A corruption investigation in the Vatican has uncovered a gay prostitution ring in which members of an elite Vatican men's choir were solicited for sex on behalf of Angelo Balducci, 63, himself a prominent official and Papal Gentleman, or lay attendant of the Roman Catholic pontiff...According to police, Balducci regularly contacted Chinedu Ehiem Thomas, a Nigerian man who sings in St. Peter's Cappella Giulia, to engage the sexual services of young male members of the choir, along with seminarians and undocumented immigrants seeking residency status...
The scandal now envelops Balducci, a well-known and powerful local figure who is married with two children...
(Via Joemygod.)
6
I've always imagined the Vatican as a bloated tick.. Sitting on a vast fortune while some of the poorest people in the world are Catholic... Didn't Jesus say to give to the poor? Or maybe Jesus said hoard your gold and your goods and prey on the most vulnerable amongst your fold, that must be the version of the bible that Those People follow now...
Yes, this is delicious.. And nauseating, at the same time.. Hunh.
Yes, this is delicious.. And nauseating, at the same time.. Hunh.
10
This makes me sad. The inability to accept each other for who we are, to allow each other to live our lives honestly and openly is at the root of this. Very sad.
13
@8 Not only inside the Vatican, but at least once inside "in Chigi Palace, home of the Italian prime minister." Who has sex with prostitutes in the prime minister's house (besides, perhaps, the prime minister)?
15
#7 - Dan is Catholic.... had his kid blessed as I remember reading.
So a whorehouse in Rome, linked to top Vatican guys .... boy is that news.
This is most simple minded and provincal bunch of rubes in the world of the internet.
Whorehouses for males and women abound worldwide ... and have for centuries.
Oh, but not in the cabbage patch, I see.
So a whorehouse in Rome, linked to top Vatican guys .... boy is that news.
This is most simple minded and provincal bunch of rubes in the world of the internet.
Whorehouses for males and women abound worldwide ... and have for centuries.
Oh, but not in the cabbage patch, I see.
16
Growing up in the Church and being forced through catechism - later even attending a Catholic University - I learned from an early age that one can always look for advice in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
For example, here in Part Three: Life in Christ - The Ten Commandments.
Offenses against chastity:
"2355 Prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his Baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit.139 Prostitution is a social scourge. It usually involves women, but also men, children, and adolescents (The latter two cases involve the added sin of scandal.). While it is always gravely sinful to engage in prostitution, the imputability of the offense can be attenuated by destitution, blackmail, or social pressure."
and, in the same chapter...
"Chastity and homosexuality:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection."
More...
For example, here in Part Three: Life in Christ - The Ten Commandments.
Offenses against chastity:
"2355 Prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his Baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit.139 Prostitution is a social scourge. It usually involves women, but also men, children, and adolescents (The latter two cases involve the added sin of scandal.). While it is always gravely sinful to engage in prostitution, the imputability of the offense can be attenuated by destitution, blackmail, or social pressure."
and, in the same chapter...
"Chastity and homosexuality:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection."
18
Again with prominent anti-gay authority figures being promiscuous closet-cases.
Seriously, this has just jumped the fucking shark.
Seriously, this has just jumped the fucking shark.
19
I think what I found funny was "In 72 pages of transcribed wiretaps, Ehiem tells Balducci about one possible candidate: "Angelo ... I'll say no more. Two meters (6-foot-7), 97 kilos (250 lbs.), 33 years-old and completely active (top)."
Need a power fuck, he'll deliver one.
Need a power fuck, he'll deliver one.
20
Further evidence that the more publicly, stridently and uncompromisingly a person espouses the anti-sex platform, the more likely it is that he is abusing his power to conceal and enable his own corruption of his own supposed ideal.
22
A great-uncle was a papal ambassador of some kind, and the stories, whoo-ee. He saw it as a good thing for the cap-c Church he loved so that it should get its comeuppance, he saw it as his god's long-term plan. Very long-term, he figured, but he died before the internet started hastening things so. I can picture him clapping his hands in delight over this.
25
I think the Church has always been a hiding place for gay men in the past. When you have to deny in yourself what is socially condemned, what better place to hide than an (ostensibly) asexual religious life among other men?
That trend most likely set up cultural norms of secret acceptance within the entire Catholic structure early on, which clearly continue to this day.
A moment of silence for all the victims of such institutional denial...
That trend most likely set up cultural norms of secret acceptance within the entire Catholic structure early on, which clearly continue to this day.
A moment of silence for all the victims of such institutional denial...
26
Longer Mr. Poe: "Sorry, dearest Slog compatriots, I cannot tarry. I must commence googling Angelo Balducci."
27
@25. Too true, I think. Too many families/communities where someone would be shunned for being gay but venerated for becoming clergy. I'm guessing for a teenager, it would seem somewhat simpler than having to fake attraction to a woman and have a sham marriage.
But, any society with a foundation of men who are attracted to men living together with a goal of celibacy is going to have a significant set of cracks in the edifice. Even if a great number of them manage celibacy, many will not, and many of the ones who do manage celibacy could still end up emotionally and spiritually blunted, through having to live their lives in denial. Kim (@10) is right. Trying to live like this is tragic.
But, any society with a foundation of men who are attracted to men living together with a goal of celibacy is going to have a significant set of cracks in the edifice. Even if a great number of them manage celibacy, many will not, and many of the ones who do manage celibacy could still end up emotionally and spiritually blunted, through having to live their lives in denial. Kim (@10) is right. Trying to live like this is tragic.
29
What next? Will Papa Nazi deliver his next sermon will some Italian stallion is huffing and puffing and busting his b-side?
30
Minimum Daily Requirement of Schadenfreude! I love it, but I think that it means a lot more than just gloating! It is gloating, that far exceeds the minimum daily requirement! Like pig-out on it! But don't forget to save a little for dessert for our German Pope, who will say something like he "shares our outrage, betrayal and shame," like he did the news of over a hundred thousand kids being abused, molested and sodomized in Ireland.
31
Reminds me of the discussions we had about homosexuality with our (kind, beduin) palestinian neighbor at college in Germany.
33
I can't help but be reminded by a certain episode of South Park, even though it's only vaguely related.
35
Sirkowski @ 12, I thought of Rodrigo Borgia too. The official church historiography really downplays the orgies that Alexander VI used to have in the official residence, claiming that accounts were "exaggerated" but my understanding was that his butler (I forget the proper title) kept daily accounts of the parties he threw.
37
I have said for decades that underneath those holy garbs are the unholiest men on the earth. I document my claim in "Son of Perdition," my newest book.
Reformer, Phoenix
Reformer, Phoenix
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