THE TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC FAITH

Suspended Catholic cleric has Vatican gay list -- report

Agence France-Presse
First Posted 23:15:00 10/19/2007

Filed Under: Gender Issues, Religions, Religion & Belief

Editor's Note: Re-posts to clarify Catholic Church position on homosexuality in last paragraph.

ROME -- A high profile Vatican cleric suspended after he was shown on television making advances to a young man allegedly had a list of homosexual priests and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church's governing body, Italy's Panorama weekly reported Friday.

Father Tommaso Stenico, 60, had "a detailed dossier" of all the homosexual clerics at Vatican "with a list of names and circumstances implicating a certain number of priests and even bishops working at the Curia," Ignazio Ingrao, reporter for the conservative news weekly said.

Stenico also sent his superior Cardinal Claudio Hummes a report denouncing the moral degradation within the Curia, which could make the Vatican "tremble," Ingrao said.

According to Panorama, Stenico, who also worked for a Catholic television station Telepace and owns a white BMW car, also drew up the list out of resentment at having waited so long to be named a bishop.

A hidden camera in his office showed the priest, who worked in a Vatican department managing the 400,000 Roman Catholic priests around the world, declaring himself an "active homosexual" and making sexual advances to a young man.

On October 1, Italian television station La7 aired footage from the encounter showing the two men with their faces blurred.

Stenico argued he had been trapped and had falsely stated he was homosexual "in order to unmask those who really are."

Last week, the Vatican suspended the priest and opened an investigation.

Should Stenico be found guilty of homosexual activity, which the Roman Catholic church bans, he risks being defrocked.


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