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“Sodoma”, the book that lifts the veil on homosexuality in the Catholic Church

September 20, 2024
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HAKIZIMANA Maurice

Frédéric Martel’s book, translated into eight languages, is being published in around twenty countries. The journalist investigated homosexuality within the Catholic Church for four years. We try to summarise the essentials of these 630 pages.

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Le journaliste Frédéric Martel présente son dernier livre, "Sodoma", lors d'une conférence de presse le 20 février à Rome.  (TIZIANA FABI / AFP)
Journalist Frédéric Martel presents his book, “Sodoma,” during a press conference on February 20, 2019 in Rome. (TIZIANA FABI / AFP)

“Welcome to Sodoma,” says a priest at the end of the discussion, hearing confessions in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. That’s the context. In his book Sodoma, an investigation into the heart of the Vatican (Robert Laffont), the writer, sociologist and journalist Frédéric Martel maintains that a majority of prelates and priests are homosexual. The book, translated into eight languages, is being published in twenty countries on Thursday, February 21, 2019. And it lifts the veil on current practices among the Catholic clergy.

The 630-page book is the result of a long investigation: Frédéric Martel immersed himself in the Holy See for one week a month for four years. Assisted by 80 collaborators in thirty countries, he also had exceptional access to many high-ranking sources in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. And, according to the author, “the culture of secrecy regarding the majority homosexuality in the Vatican is a key to reading many decisions or moral positions of the Holy See” for five decades. Here are the main points he develops in his book.

There is a majority of homosexuals in the Church and in the Vatican

“In the Vatican, as you will see, there are a lot of gays: 50%, 60%, 70%? Nobody knows,” says an ambassador posted to Rome. When the author of Sodoma begins to investigate, he has already heard rumors about it but does not know to what extent homosexuality is developed within the clergy. After four years of investigation, he assures us: a majority of priests are. “Sixty to seventy percent of the seminarians” today are gay, estimates a priest in training. Another seminarian, Andrea, confides that he “only had confirmation” of his homosexuality “once he entered the seminary.” He states a “rule” that he has been able to verify: “A large majority of priests have discovered that they are attracted to boys in this homoerotic and strictly masculine universe that is the seminaries.”

According to numerous sources cited by Frédéric Martel, homosexuality is so “omnipresent” that it is tolerated in the Church, provided that it is not publicly displayed. According to the author, only a minority of priests remain faithful to the vow of celibacy taken at ordination. Prelates are inventing new forms of concubinage, between a superior and his assistant for example. The author recounts his interview with a cardinal, “among the highest ranking members of the Holy See,” who lives with his partner in an apartment in the Vatican. When the partner appears at the end of the conversation, the cardinal, embarrassed, introduces him to the author as the “brother-in-law of his deceased sister.”

“Before the 1970s, the Church was a refuge for those discriminated against outside, but since homosexual liberation, it has become a prison,” explains Frédéric Martel. In Sodoma, the author argues that the priesthood represented an escape for young men who were afraid to assume their sexuality in broad daylight and in their family. The Church appeared to them as a safe place to live without judgment. Renouncing marriage for lifelong celibacy is seen as a “relief,” according to several testimonies, and the prospect of a “life among boys” much more attractive. The seminary would be the moment of coming out, a “rite of passage,” in an intimacy shared between young men.

The author also establishes a link with the crisis of vocations that the Church is going through. With homosexuality being more accepted and same-sex marriage legal in several countries, priestly life no longer appears today as a “refuge” but as a “dead end” and therefore no longer attracts, according to Frédéric Martel.

The most homophobic clergymen are actually homosexuals

According to the author, the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI gave rise to what he calls “a crusade against gays”. He relies on the many instructions published on this subject during these decades. For example, under Benedict XVI, he describes “an army of homophiles and homosexuals who will go to war against gay marriage”. By cross-referencing his sources, he established that the entourage of the two popes was mostly homosexual.

“The reality is that in the Vatican, there is a majority of homosexual people with power”, a former priest of the Curia replied to him. This is one of the major theses put forward in Sodoma: the stronger a prelate’s homophobia, the higher he is in the hierarchy, the more likely he himself is to be homosexual.

The most homophobic clergymen are actually homosexuals According to the author, the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI gave rise to what he calls “a crusade against gays”. He relies on the many instructions published on this subject during these decades. For example, under Benedict XVI, he describes “an army of homophiles and homosexuals who will go to war against gay marriage”. By cross-referencing his sources, he established that the entourage of the two popes was mostly homosexual.

“The reality is that in the Vatican, there is a majority of homosexual people with power”, a former priest of the Curia replied to him. This is one of the major theses put forward in Sodoma: the stronger a prelate’s homophobia, the higher he is in the hierarchy, the more likely he himself is to be homosexual.

Vatican Prelates Use Migrant Prostitutes

The book also denounces the existence of prostitution networks that benefit Vatican residents. Under the pontificate of John Paul II, a cardinal, nicknamed “La Mongolfiera” in the book, used intermediaries who constituted a network of foreign prostitutes for them. The author uses reports from the Italian police to advance: “We recruit in all directions, including migrants who need a residence permit.”

This prostitution network ended under the pontificate of Benedict XVI, but some prelates are accused of still using migrant prostitutes in Rome. Nearly 60 of them were interviewed as part of this investigation. Several explain that priests are their most faithful and discreet clients. “They just send us a text message!” assures one of them. “I went away for three days with a religious man. He paid for everything. Normal,” says another.

The AIDS epidemic is said to have wreaked “ravages” among homosexual priests

Frédéric Martel mentions several cases of prelates who died from AIDS, which, according to him, wreaked “ravages in the Italian episcopate in the 1980s and 1990s.” This is another revelation in the book, established after several interviews with medical staff in various Roman clinics. Priests are said to be “one of the social categories most at risk” in the face of the AIDS epidemic, says Massimo Giuliani, a professor specializing in sexually transmitted infections who works in a renowned clinic in Italy. He continues: “We have seen many priests and seminarians come here who are HIV-positive. (…) We believe that the AIDS problem exists very strongly in the Church.” Living in denial, sexually active homosexual priests are not very inclined to get tested and protect themselves.

Secrecy around homosexuality partly explains the cover-up of sexual abuse

Sodoma describes a system that perpetuates a strong culture of secrecy, which allegedly allowed sexual abuse scandals to be covered up and predators to operate for several years. According to Frédéric Martel, “priests covered up the abuse out of fear that their homosexuality could be revealed” in the event of an investigation.

The culture of secrecy was allegedly fueled by the violently anti-homosexual stances of those around John Paul II and Benedict XVI. A theologian quoted in the book directly accuses Benedict XVI: “He never really made the distinction theologically between sexual relations between adults, freely consented, and sexual abuse of minors under the age of 15.” The book lists several examples of prelates more likely to denounce the advancement of gay rights than to punish pedophiles identified in their ranks.

In Mexico, Frédéric Martel and his collaborators went, for example, on the trail of Marcial Maciel, an influential priest accused of having sexually abused “more than two hundred victims”. He was pardoned several times by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. However, the entourage of the popes had been alerted several times. According to the author, the cardinals who were aware of it lived in “sexual lies” and chose not to excommunicate him.

Former American cardinal Theodore McCarrick was also allegedly covered up by several bishops and cardinals. Pope Francis’ entourage claims to have first learned of McCarrick’s “homosexual relationships” with “young seminarians” and to have “immediately sanctioned” him when sexual abuse of minors was established.

The cover-up of child sex abuse by senior clergy is currently bringing together 190 leaders of the Catholic Church from around the world in Rome. They have been summoned by Pope Francis to propose “concrete measures” against sexual abuse of minors by clergymen. But nothing changes till now.

2 Timothy3: 5

“ Having an appearance of godliness but proving false to its power; and from these turn away.” 

This world,

HAKIZIMANA Maurice: II To follow my channel  Whatsapp https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaCyM5ILdQejDYwQ2b2u II To follow me on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/professormaurice/. 

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