A male escort sent a 1,200 page dossier calling 40 priests ‘actively gay’ to the Vatican
(Photo by ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images)
A male escort has sent a 1,200-page dossier to the Vatican naming 40 religious figures as being “actively gay”.
The file contains message logs from WhatsApp, Facebook, Grindr and Telegram that were allegedly shared between 34 priests and six seminarians and male sex workers.
Photographs of an explicit nature were also included the document.
Francesco Mangiacapra, who works as a sex worker in Italy, sent the dossier.
In a statement, he said that he was annoyed with the hypocrisy in the Catholic Church and so he felt the urge to uncover the “double life” of religious leaders.
“The aim is not to hurt the people mentioned, but to help them understand that their souls life, however seemingly convenient, is not useful to them or.to all the people for whom they should be a guide and an example to follow,” he said in a statement.
(Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
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Mangiacapra originally handed the dossier to the archdiocese of Naples but this was later passed on to the Vatican.
In a statement released by the head of the Naples archdiocese, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, they said that they had decided to pass the allegations on to the Vatican because none of the alleged priests were from Naples.
“There remains the gravity of the cases for which those who have erred must pay the price and be helped to repent for the harm done,” Sepe said.
Mangiacapra has insisted that the supposed acts he has detailed in the dossier should be treated as “sins, not crimes”.
He has pulled similar dossiers on religious figures in the past.
He exposed Father Luca Morini, or “Don Euro”, for allegedly spending thousands of euros collected from parishioners on male escorts, parties, drugs, hotels and restaurants.
Mangiacapra leaked videos allegedly showing the father taking drugs with male escorts.
Now, he is facing charges of embezzlement, fraud, drug distribution and blackmail.
He faces trial on March 8.
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The Catholic Church does not consider homosexuality to be sinful as long as it is not acted up.
However, it considers active homosexuality to be “an intrinsic moral evil”.
Despite this view, Pope Francis did call for the church to become more welcoming of LGBTQ+ members.
He insisted that each case should be “welcomed, accompanied, studied, discerned and integrated”.
In 2016, the Pope said the increased visibility of trans people was “terrible”.
Growing acceptance of trans issues was due to “ideological colonising” through textbooks financed by wealthy people and institutions in “very influential countries,” he added.
His official statement after the Pulse Massacre failed to even acknowledge that the attack was homophobic or that it took place in a gay club.
He also previously released a report which said gay people should receive “assistance” to bring them back to normality.
The same report also insisted that there were “absolutely no grounds” for considering recognition of “homosexual unions”.
Last year, he was allegedly left furious after a gay orgy was discovered in a cardinal’s apartment, it was claimed.
Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano reported that Vatican police raided the apartment of a senior aide to Pope Francis.
Police allegedly busted the orgy in an apartment that belongs to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — a department whose duties include dealing with clerical sexual abuse.
