Rome, Italy, Jul 23, 2010 / 10:10 am
After an Italian media report exposed sexual activity by gay priests in Rome, the Vicariate of Rome responded quickly by calling on all priests who are leading such "double lives" to come out and leave the priesthood for the good of the Church community.
The Italian weekly magazine Panorama ran a feature story on Friday morning titled, "The wild nights of gay priests." The article tracks three supposed priests, monitoring their behavior in gay nightclubs and soliciting them for sexual encounters by way of male prostitutes hired by the magazine.
The author, Carmelo Abbate, claims to have everything on tape, including the sexual acts and the same priests celebrating Mass. Panorama, considered a socialist magazine, has set up priests before using false requests for the Sacrament of Confession to "poll" what they teach on moral or political issues and then publish the results.
In response to Friday's story, the Vicariate of Rome, the office which assists the Pope in running the Diocese of Rome, released a message stating that "the purpose of the article is obvious: to create scandal, defame all priests ... discredit the church and - in another way - put pressure on that part of the Church defined by them as 'intransigent, that strives not to face the reality' of homosexual priests."