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“In these online interactions, the priest admitted to sexual relationships with other religious figures – as well as members of the Vatican’s elite Swiss Guard – using the internet to find new partners and engage in sexual encounters online.” – Rose Troup Buchanan

The Vatican has been embroiled in two separate, highly embarrassing, scandals.

In one, a north Italian priest has been removed from office after allegations emerged that he had been surfing the internet to find gay lovers and had been involved in gay orgies.

The other, which has generated – if possible – even more lurid press coverage in Italy, alleges a priest in the south of the country is under investigation on suspicion of murdering one of his parishioners.

Father Gratien Alabi, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is under investigation for murder following the discovery of female bones under the flagstones of an ancient mountain chapel.

The bones are anticipated to belong to Guerrina Piscaglia, 50, who disappeared from nearby Arezzo in Tuscany last year, The Times reported.

The case has generated intense media interest, with some papers claiming that Father Alabi had engaged in an affair with the woman, a parishioner of his and another priest’s church, and fathered a child with her.

Father Alabi has denied all claims, protesting his innocence.

Meanwhile, to the north of the country, the local Curia is scrambling to address the allegations made by a 32-year-old man from Rovigo, midway between Bologna and Venice.

The unidentified man apparently approached the media after church authorities failed to take action following his official complaint to the Ecclesiastical Court of the Puglia region against the unidentified 50-year-old priest.

The younger man claimed he met the priest through Facebook, forming a close friendship with the clerical figure who then confessed his homosexuality to his online correspondent.

In his complaint, according to Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno, the man included a record of his conversations with the priest.

In these online interactions, the priest admitted to sexual relationships with other religious figures – as well as members of the Vatican’s elite Swiss Guard – using the internet to find new partners and engage in sexual encounters online.

Following the involvement of Archbishop of Taranto Filippo Santoro, the individual involved was immediately removed from office, once the “reliability of the facts” had been established.

He added that the allegations included behaviour that was “absolutely incompatible with the priestly ministry”.

“Needless to say, the feelings of the archbishop and the Curia are those of the regret and dismay,” a Vatican spokesperson told the Italian newspaper. – The Independent, 8 April 2015

» Rose Troup Buchanan is an online news reporter for The Independent, London.

On Sunday, January 5, 2014, the Swiss weekly paper Schweiz am Sonntag broke the story of a former Vatican Swiss Guard, who claims to have received offers for homosexual acts from Cardinals.

Swiss Guard Breaks Silence: “Cardinals solicited me for sex” – Henry Habegger and Beat Kraushaar

Now the Swiss Guard joins the sordid circle of the Vatican’s Gay Lobby. A former guardsman tells for the first time that the Pope’s Swiss protectors are one of its preferred objects.

The young Swiss native claims to have been the desired object of a number of clerics. This includes a high dignitary who was inside the Vatican’s center of power. The ex-guardsman tells in detail how this person called him on his cell phone to invite him to his room after midnight. This person, who was lodging in the papal palace near the Holy Father, is considered by insiders as directly linked to the Homosexual Network.

The Swiss Guard explains that this was not an isolated case. While he served [in the Vatican], he allegedly received unambiguous offers from up to 20 clerics. This includes bishops, cardinals, and priests.

The unambiguous offers included also a dinner with a priest who confided to the guardsman that he was going to be the “dessert.” A member of the Holy See’s Department of State, too, is alleged to have made close advances — the man was later transferred to another post. Reports according to which obscene sexual behavior was practically occurring under the eyes of the Pope, so to speak, are raising troubling questions. And these would have to be coming at a rather inopportune time for Rome: for on April 27, John Paul II will be canonized a saint.

Is the guardsman just a blowhard and a troublemaker? Vatican insiders consider his story to be credible, not only overall but also specifically with regard to the high dignitary close to the Pope. According to his own testimony, he did not receive any support from the Swiss Guard itself when he reported the incidents to his superiors. He was accused of having misunderstood something.

The press office of the Swiss Guard in the Vatican has responded to the accusations of the former guardsman: “The rumored ‘Homosexual Network’ does not pose a problem for the papal Swiss Guard,” spokesman Urs Breitenmoser says. According to him, “The young Swiss natives who sign up for a two-year term in the Guard, sternly follow military and religious values. For them, there are completely different issues at the center of their camaraderie and recreational activity,” Breitenmoser says. – Schweiz am Sonntag, 4 January 2014

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