Category Archives: Catholic Church

Cardinal admits sexual misconduct with priests

Catholic Church, Keith Michael Patrick O'Brien, gay news, Washington Blade

Cardinal Keith Michael Patrick O’Brien (Photo public domain)

In a dramatic development just days before the selection process for a new Pope was to begin at the Vatican, a British Cardinal admitted in a public statement on March 3 that he engaged in sexual misconduct with priests over a period of more than 30 years.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, 74, the highest-ranking Catholic leader in the United Kingdom and an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, issued his statement one week after he abruptly resigned from all of his church duties.

Last week, the Washington Blade reported that the Vatican was downplaying reports of a gay sex scandal after several allegations, including those against O’Brien.

Church insiders believe his resignation was ordered by outgoing Pope Benedict XVI following a report in the British newspaper The Guardian that three priests and a former priest filed formal complaints accusing him of engaging in “intimate” acts with them against their will in the 1980s.

The complaints were filed with the Vatican’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.

“In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public,” O’Brien said in his statement. “Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them,” he said.

“However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal,” he said. “To those I have offended, I apologize and ask forgiveness.”

He added, “To the Catholic Church and the people of Scotland, I also apologize. I will now spend the rest of my life in retirement. I will play no further part in the public life of the Catholic Church in Scotland.

O’Brien had served as head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, where the three current and one former priest said he made inappropriate advances toward them when three of them were young priests and one of them was a seminarian.

O’Brien’s statement of admission and apology came one day after The Observer published a follow-up story providing specific details of the allegations made by the three priests and former priest.

“He started fondling my body, kissing me and telling me how special I was to him and how much he loved me,” The Observer quoted one of the priests as saying.

The former priest told The Observer he was a seminarian when O’Brien used bedtime prayers as an opportunity to make advances toward him.

“I knew myself to be heterosexual, but I did say to others that I thought it would be easier to get through seminary if you were gay,” The Observer quoted him as saying.

The Observer said it chose to report the additional details with the full consent of the three priests and former priest, whose motives had come under attack by some church defenders because they haven’t publicly disclosed their names.

According to The Observer, the four men disclosed their names in the written complaints they filed with the Vatican ambassador to the U.K., Archbishop Antonio Mennini, in early February.

The Observer reports that the four decided to file their complaint after they discovered for the first time earlier this year that each of them had encountered what they believed to be improper advances from O’Brien years earlier.

The paper said the men chose to contact the media about their complaint when church officials led them to believe that little would be done about their revelations and that O’Brien would be going to Rome to help select a new Pope.

“I’d never wanted to ‘out’ Keith just for being gay,” the former priest, who is now married, told The Guardian. “But this was confirming that his behavior towards me was part of his modus operandi. He has hurt others, probably worse, than he affected me,” The Observer quoted him as saying.

“And that only became clear a few weeks ago,” he told The Observer, in noting his recent discovery of the three others to whom O’Brien made inappropriate advances.

The Observer and other British newspapers have reported that support by church critics for exposing O’Brien’s inappropriate behavior toward priests whose careers and duties were under his control was based also on what they believe to be his blatant hypocrisy.

In recent years, O’Brien spoke out harshly against same-sex marriage and warned the Scottish Parliament that Scotland would suffer dire consequences if it legalized civil marriage for same-sex couples.

He called same-sex marriage a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right. Gay activists in the U.K. said they were especially offended by his description of same-sex relationships as unhealthy and inferior to heterosexual relationships. Among other things, he told the media that legal recognition of same-sex marriage would result in schools being required to teach kids “homosexual fairy stories.”

O’Brien’s statement admitting to sexual misconduct makes him the highest ranking Catholic Church official to make such an admission, according to Vatican observers.

The admission came one week after Vatican officials denounced reports in the Italian press that an underground network of gay priests assigned to the Vatican organized meetings for sex and may have been subjected to blackmail.

Hoping for surprises from Catholic Church

Shock waves were felt among the one billion members of the Roman Catholic Church when Pope Benedict XVI announced his plans to resign at the end of February.

But news of the first Papal resignation in almost 600 years took back seat to new allegations of scandals, Vatican bureaucratic in-fighting, calls to bar Los Angeles’ emeritus Archbishop, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, from participating in the next Papal conclave and the blockbuster resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the United Kingdom’s highest-ranking Roman Catholic cleric, after several priests accused O’Brien of forcing sexual relations with them.

February was a disaster for the image of the Roman Catholic Church and may clearly expose the true reason of Benedict’s decision to call it quits as Pontiff. Even for non-Catholics and non-believers, all of these stories are over the edge. But what does the prospect of a new stakeholder in the Chair of St. Peter portend for LGBT Catholics? For many LGBT Catholics that have felt abandoned by their church, the current events only point to the hurt inflicted by the hypocrisy of actions that reflect “do as I say but not as I do.” Yet there are large numbers of LGBT Catholics who defiantly remain in the church and both pray and work for changes that they believe are necessary for the church to remain true to its mission.

Many of the world’s Cardinals departed for Rome the last week of February, in part to bid farewell to the resigning Pope, but mainly to begin the delicate process of selecting his successor. Yet for Catholics, there is a belief that the Holy Spirit can break through all of the Vatican politics and the sinful components from which even the leadership is not immune. Many yearn for the likes of a Pope John XXIII, who surprised the world by opening the windows of the church by convening the Second Vatican Council. Many of the teaching documents from that Council formed great pastoral leaders, like Chicago’s late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who promoted the “seamless garment” model of moral behavior promoting the total good of the individual and Brooklyn’s Bishop Francis Mugavero, whose letter on sexuality was a breath of fresh air for gay Catholics. The Holy Spirit’s work is cut out but here are some qualities that the LGBT community can pray that will be found in the new Pontiff.

Transparency needs to be embraced; the intrigue behind the walls of the Vatican can no longer be shielded from the eyes of the media nor the church’s one billion members. The allegations of fiscal impropriety within the Vatican Bank, silencing Vatican-whistle-blowers and a culture of bureaucrats-run-wild can no longer be excused. Integrity is a moral and ethical imperative that the new Pope must impart into every Vatican bureaucrat if the church is to regain its moral standing in the world. Humility is sorely lacking among many of the Bishops who utilize their office to promote clerical ambitions to the detriment of their flock. Ego-trips, self-promotion and clericalism serve to alienate the faithful in the pews and distort the teachings of Jesus. The work of the bishop is to serve and not be served. Intellectual honesty fully recognizes the robust tradition of the church over the centuries while embracing the fact that knowledge is evolving across many anthropological disciplines and the sciences. Beliefs that have been held, especially around sexuality and human development, need to be re-evaluated, nuanced and updated.

The hope expressed by many LGBT Catholics, for the new leader that will be chosen by the College of Cardinals, may not have the best odds in their favor this time around. But Catholics do know that the Holy Spirit can pull some surprises, and perhaps, this Papal Conclave may result in just a few.

John E. Lazar is former treasurer of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. He has a master’s of divinity degree and served 13 years as a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y., and administered a Vatican Agency under Pope John Paul II. 

Gay Vatican suicide now documentary film

Vatican, Catholic Church, gay news, Washington Blade

St. Peter’s in Vatican City. (Photo by Jean-Christophe Benoist via wikimedia commons)

Gay activists in Italy say Italian gay writer Alfredo Ormando is credited with triggering Italy’s version of the Stonewall rebellion in 1998 when he took his own life by setting himself on fire in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican to protest the Catholic Church’s condemnation of homosexuality.

A documentary film called Alfredo’s Fire, which tells the story of Ormando’s struggle to cope with anti-gay bias and religious intolerance, and the subsequent gay Vatican suicide, is intended to send a message to the Vatican and the new Pope, according Andy Abrahams Wilson, the gay American filmmaker who is nearing completion of the documentary.

“In Alfredo’s name and in the names of countless other LGBT people – from those burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages, to Alfredo’s fire, to the lives and spirits that are routinely extinguished because of the Catholic Church’s anti-gay teachings – may Pope Benedict XVI’s abdication signal new light and hope for all of us,” Wilson said in a statement.

He told the Blade he’s been working on the film for fifteen years, while working on other projects, and considers it a labor of love. Among other things, he hopes the 40-minute documentary will enable the tragedy of Alfredo Ormando’s death to shed light on how religious teachings can result in dire consequences for LGBT people.

The film is expected to be released in late spring or early summer, Wilson said. He plans to submit it to various international film festivals and will enter it as a potential nominee for a short film-documentary for an Academy Award.

As a conclave of cardinals from throughout the world gathers at the Vatican to select Benedict XVI’s successor, Abrahams Wilson and his non-profit film company, Open Eye Pictures of Sausalito, Calif., are making an appeal for contributions to help cover post-production costs for the film.

He said the film will be made available to faith-based organizations and LGBT groups for viewing as an educational tool to address anti-LGBT prejudice and discrimination.

“On January 13, 1998 Alfredo Ormando, a 39-year-old Italian writer, arrived in Rome just as the sun was rising,” a promotional write-up released by Open Eye Pictures says. “After a long journey from his native Sicily, he found his way to the empty plaza of St. Peter’s Square and, facing the entrance to the Basilica, knelt down as if to pray,” the write up says.

“He made a rapid hand gesture and suddenly was engulfed in flames. Before the Church and God, Alfredo Ormando had lit himself on fire,” the write-up says.

In letter he sent to a friend about a month before his death, Ormando said, “I hope they’ll understand the message I want to leave: it is a form of protest against the Church that demonizes homosexuality, and at the same time all of nature, because homosexuality is her offspring.”

Wilson said he began filming the documentary in 1998 shortly after Ormando’s death. He said he returned to Italy in 2000 to continue his work on the project during a week when Italian and European LGBT activists held an international LGBT Pride festival and parade in Rome. The LGBT events took place during the Catholic Church’s Year of the Jubilee in Rome celebrating 2000 years of Christianity, which attracted thousands of Catholics throughout the world.

In a protest at the Vatican at that time, Wilson and several American gay activists, including Rev. Mel White of the U.S. group Soul Force and members of the U.S. gay Catholic group Dignity, joined Italian gay activists in demanding that the Catholic Church modify its stance on LGBT people.

While carrying poster size photos of Ormando, the protesters planned to deliver a letter to then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, according to Wilson. At the time, Ratzinger was in charge of the Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which several years earlier issued a statement written by Ratzinger calling gay people “intrinsically disordered.”

Although the protesters were unable to deliver the letter to Ratzinger, Wilson said the gathering inspired him to examine the life of Alfredo Ormando through interviews with those who knew him and through his numerous writings.

Wilson said he hopes to premiere the film in Palermo, Sicily, in June, in the Italian region where Ormando was born and raised, during Italy’s 2013 National LGBT Pride celebration, which takes place in that city.

Queery: David Lett

David Lett, North American Old Catholic Church, Lena Lett, gay news, Washington Blade

David Lett (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

David Lett understands that people see his two jobs — he’s a priest with the North American Old Catholic Church but is better known in the D.C. gay world as Lena Lett, drag hostess of the weekly shows at Town — as wildly dissimilar. He doesn’t find them as polar opposite as others, though.

“I don’t know that I’ve done enough introspection to think it all through fully, but I think in many ways, these roles exist equally,” he says. “To be a drag performer, you have to be confident, you have to be able to put yourself in front of people, sometimes you make a fool of yourself, but you take them from wherever they are and take them to a different place. A priest does a lot of the same thing, there’s just not as much liquor going around. But you take them from where they are, hopefully, to transcend to a better spot. The basic tenets of the roles are identical, it’s just the means by which they are done is completely different.”

Lett, a D.C. native, grew up Roman Catholic and immediately after high school went on a trajectory to become ordained in the Roman Church. He studied philosophy and theology and did post-graduate work in Italy — the only one from his Scranton, Pa., class to be chosen to study in Rome, where he was for about three years. But shortly before taking vows, the gravity of it all started to hit home and Lett had major reservations.

“I was reaching a point shortly before ordination and I know it sounds crazy, but it was close enough that you could almost taste it and … it was really starting to hit home. I knew in my heart I could not stand before God and make those promises if I didn’t think I could keep them.”

Part of it was being gay, he says, but another concern was having not had enough life experience of his own, yet, to feel he’d be an effective pastor.

In the following years, Lett worked in fundraising, for the Red Cross and then managed a Washington Video franchise where, about 18 years ago, Lena was born. Lett never lost his faith or stopped going to church but in the last few years discovered he could have an outlet for his pastoral aspirations in the North American Old Catholic Church, a liberal, progressive Catholic group that parted with the Vatican over doctrinal differences. Lett was ordained — no celibacy vows required — in December 2011. He fills in at Masses all over the region at Old Catholic parishes that need clergy.

Lett is single and lives in Silver Spring. He enjoys cooking and photo editing in his free time.

How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?

Twenty-four years and the hardest person I had to tell was myself. Everyone else seemed to already have known.

Who’s your LGBT hero?

All those who have lost their lives because of what they are at the hands of ignorance and hatred.

What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?

Tracks

Describe your dream wedding.

One in which I am a guest.

What non-LGBT issue are you most passionate about?

Feeding the hungry.

What historical outcome would you change?

9-11

What’s been the most memorable pop culture moment of your lifetime?

Seeing gay characters on mainstream television that were not the murderers, child molesters or deviants of the plot.

On what do you insist?

Everything

What was your last Facebook post or Tweet?

A Palm Sunday preparation photo.

If your life were a book, what would the title be?

“A Work in Progress”

If science discovered a way to change sexual orientation, what would you do?

Nothing. I was made this way. Just because one can do something does not mean one should.

What do you believe in beyond the physical world?

A spiritual world. Death does not end life, it merely changes it.

What’s your advice for LGBT movement leaders?

Be careful not to sacrifice our diversity for the sake of trying to gai

Video: Kate Clinton has pope partum depression

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7JcukqVvzw

Learn more than you thought you’d ever know about Kate Clinton’s TiVo, and all she has to say about both the outgoing and incoming Vatican pontiffs.

Pope should endorse condoms

It appears many are holding their breath waiting to hear the new pope’s views on condoms and AIDS. A more effective course of action, I think, would be to pray, yes, definitely to pray.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, now Pope Francis, is the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church. Since the new pope was announced, I’ve been searching for references that might shed some light on how he views AIDS. I found only a single instance: the then-Cardinal once washed the feet of 12 AIDS patients, presumably recreating Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples (John 13, 1-17).

He washed their feet. Wouldn’t it have been a greater healing for the church to loosen its stance on condom use?

Yes, I have read then-Pope Benedict XVI had wavered on the blanket prohibition, suggesting there’s some wiggle room in cases where such diseases as HIV might be transmitted.  Well, let’s set the record straight. What the former pope actually said is, “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants.”

Later, he added, “But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.  That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

Of course, the media and the AIDS and LGBT communities quickly offered their own interpretations of Pope Benedict’s words. But what’s noteworthy is that his comments on AIDS cannot be interpreted as easily as, say, his statements on life and faith. Some feel the former pope was trying to appear sympathetic as a way to deflect attention from the sex scandals that many feel are damaging the church’s stature and moral authority.

Enough with conjecture and varying interpretations. Here are facts: A condom prevents transmission of HIV and other STDs and also prevents pregnancy, if not 100 percent, pretty close to it – but only if used correctly. Fact: The Catholic Church does not support contraception, which includes the use of condoms. Period.

According to The Guardian, on issues of sex and “morality,” Pope Francis is solidly orthodox, rigidly conservative. Yet, on condom use, it appears he takes a more pragmatic view in instances where using a condom could prevent the spread of HIV and other diseases. But thus far, on such issues as sex, condoms and AIDS, Pope Francis remains silent. We can only speculate.

“Bergoglio is seen as unwaveringly orthodox on matters of sexual morality, staunchly opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception,” according to The National Catholic Reporter.

Here’s the bottom line.  If Pope Francis chooses to support the use of condoms to help stop the spread of HIV, there will be an almost immediate and global impact on the trajectory of this dreaded disease – which potentially could save millions of lives.

Now let’s talk about faith and AIDS. Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has undertaken amazing humanitarian efforts to combat the spread of AIDS and HIV, since it launched its first such program in Uganda in 1989. Today, CRS has more than 280 HIV and AIDS programs in 62 countries across Africa and the hardest-hit regions of Asia and Latin America. In partnership with other faith-based and non-governmental organizations, CRS directly supports more than 4.8 million people affected by this pernicious epidemic.  Wow!

Here is another fact: Some faith-based AIDS programs push for abstinence only, but many also encompass sex education and condom use, as well.  The point is the faith-based community has stepped up and is making a strong and measureable difference.

The separation of church and state doesn’t mean separating faith and AIDS. It is our global faith that can end this epidemic once and for all.

Dave Purdy is founder and CEO of the World AIDS Institute. Reach him at dpurdy@worldaidsinstitute.org.

Dolan: Gay Catholics ‘entitled to friendship’

Timothy Dolan, Catholic Church, gay news, Washington Blade

Archbishop Timothy Dolan (Photo by Cy White via Wikimedia Commons)

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan on Sunday conceded gay and lesbian Catholics do not feel welcome in their church.

“The first thing I’d say to them is, ‘I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God’s image and likeness. And – and we – we want your happiness. But – and you’re entitled to friendship,’” he said during an interview that aired on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “We also know that God has told us that the way to happiness, that – especially when it comes to sexual love – that is intended only for a man and woman in marriage, where children can come about naturally.”

Dolan added the church has to “do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people.”

“I admit, we haven’t been too good at that,” he told Stephanopoulos. “We try our darndest to make sure we’re not an anti-anybody. We’re in the defense of what God has taught us about — about marriage. And it’s one man, one woman, forever, to bring about new life. We gotta do better to try to dis – take that away from being anti-anybody.”

Dolan’s comments come less than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in cases that challenge the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.

Pope Francis I, who led the opposition to Argentina’s same-sex marriage bill that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed into law in 2010, last month became the first non-European pontiff.

Dolan himself opposed efforts to extend marriage rights to gays and lesbians in New York in 2011.

“We gotta listen to people,” he told Stephanopoulos in response to a question about how to make gay Catholics feel more comfortable in the church. “Jesus died on the cross for them as much as he did for me. But you got a point. Sometimes we’re not as successful or as effective as we can be in translating that warm embrace into also teaching what God has told us about the way he wants us.”

A Quinnipiac University poll earlier this month shows 54 percent of Catholic voters now support nuptials for gays and lesbians. The same survey noted 62 percent of respondents said the next pope should allow priests to marry.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said Francis should “relax the church ban on contraception.”

Early disappointments from new pope

Kate Clinton, gay news, Washington Blade

Kate Clinton is a humorist who has entertained LGBT audiences for 30 years.

A friend, a lapsed Catholic, was at the family home for her mother’s funeral. Her sister called from the mother’s bedroom, “Lisa, where is Mom’s statue of The Infant of Prague?” Lisa’s partner, a lapsed Congregationalist, looked puzzled, “The impotent frog?”

The Infant of Prague statue was the American Boy Doll of my Catholic childhood in the fifties. My mother had an eight-inch statue of the IOP under a glass dome on her beloved Ethan Allen sideboard. The cherubic child with the ornate dresses and enviable golden curls, held up two fingers of the right hand, not in a victory sign, more an iPad swipe. In the left hand, the child held an orb that looked a lot like the decorative but dusty, gold-banded Courvoisier bottle filled with blue-colored water in the musty pine-paneled basement bar my parents never used. My Dad was so not Mad Men.

Like the American Girl Doll, the IOP came with his own infant-icon back story. The statue’s lineage is an extended episode of Antiques Roadshow. The original wax-coated wooden statue has been traced back through Polish Princesses and Papal patents to Teresa of Avila, a major mystic and heavy-hitting self-flagellator during the Inquisition. Congratulations! You’ve got something there!

It is not clear from my own extensive wiki-search how the IOP, heirloom of Polish nobility and mascot of the Carmelites, came to be the patron saint of felicitous weather. Even today I hear otherwise secular planners of family reunions, gay weddings and outdoor fundraisers say they have, “turned the statue around” in hopes of good weather. Just in case.

Our family IOP is quite antique. If I could find him, I would put him on a lazy Susan on the windowsill. It has spun through many shifting winds of different papacies just in my lifetime: Pius XII the anti-Semitic dried apple head pope; John XXIII who opened the Vatican windows to let in some air; John Paul who installed double-paned Anderson windows then locked them tight, and Benedict XVI who put bars on the windows and installed a better alarm system. I only wish I had paid more attention to the Roman numerals. I’d be such a better crossword puzzle solver.

Pope Francis I certainly started off his papacy with some hopeful gestures: bus-riding, soccer loving, papal crowd surfing, prisoner foot-washing. Unlike ex-Benedict, he didn’t seem to scare the children. But soon the Pope was kicking the nuns off his bus, and espousing the Papal party line of the glories of celibacy and evils of homosexuality. Turns out it was all atmospherics. The impotent fog.

Chicago Archbishop calls gay bill ‘legal fiction’

cardinal francis george, chicago pride, gay news, gay politics dc

Cardinal Francis George (photo by Adam Bielawski via Wikimedia Commons)

CHICAGO — Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago, last week issued a letter to parishes denouncing as a “legal fiction” a proposed bill to legalize same-sex nuptials in the Prairie State.

The letter alleges that because “the human species comes in two complementary sexes,” marriage is established by nature, not the church or the state, and therefore, “the State (sic) cannot change natural marriage,” the Cardinal writes, according to the Windy City Times.

“It is unfortunate for Cardinal George that he has chosen not to join the growing number of religious leaders and faithful laypeople across Illinois – including many devout Catholics,” read a statement by Rick Garcia, senior policy adviser to Illinois LGBT advocacy group The Civil Rights Agenda. “People of all backgrounds and beliefs are standing up for equality under the law, the protection of families, and the advancement of religious and individual freedom here in the Land of Lincoln.”

Cardinal George has butted heads with LGBT leaders on several occasions in the past, including comparing LGBT Pride festivities to the Ku Klux Klan last year.

The same-sex marriage bill was expected to have been taken up in the Senate as early as Thursday.

Vatican denounces reports of gay sex scandal

Catholic Church, Keith Michael Patrick O'Brien, gay news, Washington Blade

Cardinal Keith Michael Patrick O’Brien (Photo public domain)

Vatican officials this week denounced reports in the Italian press that an underground network of gay priests assigned to the Vatican organized meetings for sex and may have been subjected to blackmail.

Criticism of the press reports by a high-level Vatican spokesperson came less than a week before yet another gay-related scandal hit the Catholic Church – this time in Scotland.

British Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who has called same-sex marriage “grotesque,” announced he decided to step down a month ahead of previously announced retirement plans after allegations surfaced on Feb. 23 that he engaged in “intimate” acts with priests in the 1980s.

O’Brien denied the allegations but said on Monday he cancelled his trip to Rome this week, where he was expected to participate in the selection of a new pope. He said he didn’t want the allegations against him to overshadow the conclave of cardinals set to convene within the next week.

The Vatican immediately accepted his decision to step down from his church duties, which it viewed as a resignation.

News of the alleged network of gay priests at the Vatican surfaced last week when the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the Italian news magazine Panorama reported that Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation on the same day he learned of the allegations.

In a development that created an uproar at the Vatican, La Repubblica reported it received detailed information about a 300-page Vatican report prepared by three cardinals who uncovered the network of gay priests during a nine-month internal Vatican investigation.

Among other things, the report says the investigation discovered a “faction” within the Vatican “united by sexual orientation,” according to La Repubblica.

The newspaper said it had no confirmation that Benedict based his decision to resign solely on the explosive findings of the investigation. But it reported sources as saying Benedict planned to keep the findings confidential and decided to leave it up to his successor to determine how to address the matter.

“It was on that day, with those papers on his desk, that Benedict XVI took the decision he had mulled over for so long,” La Repubblica reported in its Feb. 21 edition while discussing Benedict’s resignation.

Vatican officials have since confirmed that the investigation took place but have refused to comment on its findings. Vatican spokesperson Rev. Federico Lombardi acknowledged the reports by La Repubblica and Panorama that the investigation was launched last May after one of the pope’s butlers was arrested for allegedly stealing papal correspondence and leaking it to the media.

La Repubblica reported several other findings of the investigation, including problems associated with the Vatican bank. Vatican observers in Italy speculated that various rival factions of cardinals and other Vatican officials were likely responsible for leaked information about the investigative report.

Efforts to portray rivals in a negative light are “part of the great game of the conclave, whose tools include political attacks and efforts to condition consensus,” Vatican observer and author Alberto Melloni of Bologna, Italy, told the New York Times.

Other observers have said intrigue and infighting that sometimes takes place in the process of selecting a Pope appears to be occurring at a greater intensity this time, as conservative and more progressive factions of cardinals line up behind different candidates under consideration for the papacy.

The Vatican’s Secretariat of State, its highest office, issued a statement on Feb. 23 denouncing the press accounts of the contents of the investigative report or “dossier” as “unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories.”

In a separate statement, the Vatican said Benedict dissolved the three-cardinal investigative committee on Monday and expressed “satisfaction for the results of this investigation,” according to a report by the Washington Post.

“The Holy Father has decided that the acts of this investigation, known only to himself, remain solely at the disposition of the new Pope,” the Post quoted the statement as saying.

La Repubblica reported that the investigation uncovered an underground network of gays working at the Vatican who organized “sexual meetings” in several locations, including a sauna in Rome, a private villa just outside Rome, and a beauty salon inside the Vatican.

The newspaper also reported the investigation found some of the gay priests may have been subjected to blackmail by men not associated with the Vatican with whom they had “worldly” relations.

“When you have this culture of secrecy and guilt and repression you have conditions which foster the potential for blackmail and for manipulation,” said gay British journalist and former priest Mark Dowd in an interview with CNN.

The cardinals who headed the Vatican investigation have been identified as Julian Herranz of Spain; Jozef Tomko of Slovakia; and Salvatore De Giorgi, the former archbishop of Palermo.

The British newspaper The Guardian broke the story about Cardinal O’Brien’s alleged “gay” scandal in a story in its Feb. 23 edition.

According to The Guardian, three priests and a former priest, all from Scotland, filed a complaint against O’Brien with the Vatican’s ambassador to Britain one week before Benedict announced his resignation.

One of the complainants, The Guardian reports, charges that O’Brien “developed an inappropriate relationship with him, resulting in a need for long-term psychological counseling.”

Another, identified only as “Priest A,” described being visited by O’Brien and “inappropriate contact between the two took place,” the newspaper reported. “Priest B” claims he was invited to spend a week at the then archbishop’s residence, where he encountered “unwanted behavior by the cardinal after a late-night drinking session.”

The Guardian said “Priest C” had been seeing O’Brien for counseling over personal problems and alleges that O’Brien “used night prayers as an excuse for inappropriate contact.”

The four who filed the complaint called on the Vatican ambassador to take steps to prevent O’Brien from going to Rome to participate in the conclave to select a new pope, saying the papal selection process would be tainted if the cardinal was part of it.

O’Brien, who announced he had cancelled his trip to Rome the day after The Observer published its story, said he would obtain legal counsel to fight the allegations, which his accusers say took place in the 1980s.

The press reports about the alleged network of gay priests at the Vatican reportedly involved consenting adults, and the allegations against O’Brien involved adult victims. But the revelations of these developments prompted news media outlets in the U.S. and Europe to bring up longstanding allegations of the sexual abuse of children by pedophile priests that have plagued the Catholic Church for more than two decades.

Organizations representing victims of sexual abuse by priests have called on the Vatican to bar cardinals in the U.S. and elsewhere from participating in the selection of a new pope if they knew about priests that sexually abused juveniles but did not act to stop the abuse.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based group that advocates for LGBT equality within the Catholic Church, told the Blade the unfolding gay sex scandal, if true, is due in part to the Vatican’s harsh position on homosexuality.

“They have created a situation where people can’t express their sexuality in healthy ways,” he said. “They can’t even deal with their sexuality in the open. So it creates a climate of suspicion and a climate of fear.”

Jeannine Gramick is a Roman Catholic nun who co-founded New Ways Ministry and serves as national coordinator for the National Coalition of American Nuns. She told the Blade she is hopeful that the scandal would nudge the church into adopting a more tolerant position on gays.

“I think the impact it should have is to point out the hypocrisy of having a very negative stance about homosexual activity between loving persons and the private secret condoning of activity that is not in the context of a committed relationship,” she said.

“So my hope is that it will bring about a re-examination of the church’s approach to sexuality to become more realistic and honest,” Gramick said.