Pope Francis has acknowledged the existence of a “gay lobby” and a “stream of corruption” in the Vatican, according to reports in Catholic media.
The
pope made the remarks last week in Spanish during a private meeting
with representatives of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation
of Religious (CLAR), according to the Chilean Catholic website
Reflection and Liberation.
The Vatican declined to comment on the
report.
Yesterday, it published what it said was a
summary of the conversation written by participants after the June 6th
meeting in the Vatican. CLAR, which is based in Colombia, confirmed that
a summary had been written but regretted that it had been published.
In the conversation, the pope is quoted as
talking about various subjects of concern, including the problems of the
Curia, the church’s central administration which was at the centre of a
corruption scandal last year.
“In the Curia,
there are also holy people, really, there are holy people. But there
also is a stream of corruption, there is that as well, it is true... The
‘gay lobby’ is mentioned, and it is true, it is there... We need to see
what we can do,” the synthesis by CLAR officials said.
In
its own statement, the presidency of CLAR said it “deeply regretted the
publication of a text which refers to the conversation with the Holy
Father”.
It did not confirm the precise quotes
attributed to the pope but acknowledged the summary reflected the
“general feeling” of the meeting.
After the
initial report was picked up and translated by a number of other
Catholic websites, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said: “It
was a private meeting, therefore I have no comment to make on the
contents of the conversation”.
Earlier this year, in the period immediately after Pope Benedict
announced his resignation, Italian media published unsourced reports of
a powerful “gay lobby” in the Vatican that left the Holy See open to
blackmail.
Before resigning on February 28th, Benedict left Francis a top secret report about the leaks scandal that rocked the Catholic Church last year.
The
report concerned the so-called Vatileaks affair in which internal
documents alleging corruption, mismanagement and infighting in the Curia
were leaked to the media.
The report was prepared for Benedict, who is now “Pope Emeritus”, by three elderly cardinals who investigated the leaks.
Paolo
Gabriele, the pope’s butler, was convicted last year of stealing
personal papal documents and leaking them to the media. He was pardoned
by Benedict after being briefly jailed.
The
documents alleged corruption and rivalry between different factions
inside the Curia and was one of the major concerns of cardinals choosing
a new pope to run the Church at a time of crisis.
Anger
over the dysfunctional state of the Vatican bureaucracy, which includes
many Italians, is said to have been one factor in the cardinal
electors’ decision to choose a non-European pope for the first time in
nearly 1,300 years.