Did a Secret Vatican Report on Gay Sex and Blackmail Bring Down the Pope?

Pope Benedict XVI has claimed that he’s resigning the papacy next week because of old age. But according to the major Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the real reason he resigned is because he did not want to deal the repercussions of a secret 300-page Vatican dossier that allegedly found, among other things, an underground network of high-ranking gay clergy, complete with sex parties and shady dealings with the already scandal-ridden Vatican bank. Here’s what we know:

The report sounds menacing. According to La Repubblica, the dossier comes in two volumes, “two folders hard-bound in red” with the header “pontifical secret.”

Pope Benedict asked for the investigation. “The paper said the pope had taken the decision on 17 December that he was going to resign — the day he received a dossier compiled by three cardinals delegated to look into the so-called ‘Vatileaks’ affair,” according to the The Guardian’s translation of the report.

The Vatican has a Velvet Mafia — and the Velvet Mafia is being blackmailed. The dossier alleges that a gay lobby exists within the Church, and has some sort of control on the careers of those in the Vatican. The dossier also alleges that this group isn’t as covert as it thinks — and got blackmailed by people on the outside. “The cardinals were said to have uncovered an underground gay network, whose members organise sexual meetings in several venues in Rome and Vatican City, leaving them prone to blackmail,” reads The Sydney Morning Herald’s translation of the report.

I think they meant two folders hard-bound in red leather and handcuffs.

#religion