Vatican Melrose Place: Two Popes, One Secretary

Things don't get much more bizarre than sexuality at the Vatican.  On the one hand we see a bunch of bitter old men - many closeted queens - incessantly condemning sex of more or less any kind (especially if the participants enjoy it) while on the other hand we see truly strange relationships that look an awful lot like gay relationships whether consummated or not.  Leading the way in the later category is the relationship of Benedict XVI's personal secretary whom some in the past have deemed to be Benedict's boyfriend.  Whatever the true nature of the relationship, it's weird in my opinion.  Andrew Sullivan looks at the utterly bizarre situation that will follow Benedict XVI's abdication.  Here are highlights:

The damage Benedict XVI has done to the Catholic church and the papacy may be far from over. All I can say about yesterday’s developments is that they seem potentially disastrous and also indicative to me of something truly weird going on underneath all of this.

Benedict XVI has claimed that his almost unprecedented resignation came about simply because of his physical infirmity in the face of what appears to be a growing vortex of sexual and financial scandal inside the Vatican. He said he would quietly disappear to serve the church through prayer and meditation. But we now realize he’s going nowhere. He’s staying in the Vatican’s walls, and retaining the honorific “His Holiness.”

If you were trying to avoid any hint of meddling, of a Deng Xiao Peng-type figure pulling strings behind the scenes, you would not be doing this. The only thing the Pope will give up, apparently, are his red Prada shoes.  .  .  .  . But this is what really made me sit up straight, so to speak:

Benedict’s trusted secretary, Monsignor Georg Gänswein, will be serving both pontiffs — living with Benedict at the monastery inside the Vatican and keeping his day job as prefect of the new pope’s household. Asked about the potential conflicts, Lombardi was defensive, saying the decisions had been clearly reasoned and were likely chosen for the sake of simplicity. “I believe it was well thought out,” he said.

So Benedict’s handsome male companion will continue to live with him, while working for the other Pope during the day. Are we supposed to think that’s, well, a normal arrangement? I wrote a while back about Gänswein’s intense relationship with Ratzinger, while noting Colm Toibin’s review of Angelo Quattrochi’s exploration of Benedict, “Is The Pope Gay?”

This man – clearly in some kind of love with Ratzinger (and vice-versa) will now be working for the new Pope as secretary in the day and spending the nights with the Pope Emeritus. This is not the Vatican. It’s Melrose Place.

These bitter old queens have no concept of what normal relationships, gay or straight, are like, yet take it upon themselves to lecture others and denigrate gays and gay rights even as they participate in a world wide conspiracy to protect child rapists.   It simply doesn't get any stranger or filled with hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy.