bishop in charge of cleaning up Vatican finances 'Got Stuck in Elevator with a Rent Boy; Lived with Gay Lover in Uruguay

Absolutely nothing surprises me any more when it comes to the hypocrisy and number of gays in the Catholic Church hierarchy.  As more and more bizarre stories come out, one is left feeling that one could not write stuff as crazy and over the top of the reality within the Vatican and the Church hierarchy.  The latest story involves Monsignor Battista Ricca was recently appointed as Pope Francis's new point man charged with cleaning up the beleaguered Vatican Bank.  It seems that in addition to living with a gay lover in the past, Fr. Ricca was trapped in an elevator with a rent boy.  As I said, you can't make up shit this good.  Absent a complete house cleaning of the hierarchy to purge (i) child rapist enablers and protectors and (ii) hypocrites like Ricca, Pope Francis will only bring more of the same old sickness to Roman Catholicism.   The Daily Mail has coverage.  Here are highlights:

The man appointed by Pope Francis to clean up the Vatican's scandal-hit bank allegedly had a gay affair with a Swiss soldier and had to be rescued after getting stuck in a lift with a rent boy.

Monsignor Battista Ricca was recently appointed as Francis's new prelate with responsibility for the Vatican bank, the Institute for Religious Works which has been hit by years of financial scandal.

But according to an expose by weekly Italian news magazine L'Espresso, Monsignor Ricca's own record is less than spotless.

The publication has claimed that Monsignor Ricca only got the position as IoR prelate after the supposedly powerful 'gay lobby' in the Vatican airbrushed his CV.

According to the claims, Ricca took a Vatican diplomatic post in Uruguay in 1999 and caused shockwaves within the church when moved his Swiss army captain lover, Patrick Haari, in.

The publication claims that the allegations have been confirmed by a number of bishops, priests and laity in Uruguay.  Ricca was eventually moved to Trinidad and Tobago and then recalled to Rome in 2002.

The same year, he allegedly found himself in more hot water when he was attacked at a notorious cruising ground.  Soon afterward, Ricca had to be rescued by firemen when he got trapped in a lift.   He was reportedly found inside with a youth who was known to local police.

As well as his role as primate of the IoR, Ricca is also in charge of the Pope's residential quarters at the Vatican.

The allegations come a month after Pope Francis acknowledged the existence of a 'gay lobby' inside the Vatican's secretive administration for the first time.

The Vatican is no stranger to gay sex scandals.  In 2010, it was reported that one of Pope Benedict's ceremonial ushers and a member of the Vatican choir were involved in a gay prostitution ring.

The Vatican's problems would be laughable but for the harm that the sex obsessed bitter old men continue to do to gays  - especially gay youth - and women by portraying women and gays as inherently disordered sinners and temptresses, respectively.  If anyone is disordered, it's these bitter old queens in dresses.    With every passing day, I become increasingly amazed that anyone truly moral listens to these foul men much less gives them undeserved deference.

Was the Pope’s Resignation Connected to Network of Gay Bishops?

OK.  In a prior post I referenced the rumor that Benedict XVI resigned because of blackmail and a cabal of gay cardinals and bishops within the Vatican and thought I'd say no more.  But the topic is just too much fun to pass up.  Especially, with the new allegations against Britain's highest ranking prelate.  Combine all of this with the world wide conspiracy to protect predatory priests, allegations that  Cardinal Dolan of New York hid money while in the Milwaukee archdioceses to protect it from pay out to sexual abuse victims and the Vatican bank's suspicious transactions and the Mafia begins to look pretty straight forward and upstanding.  John Allen, a long time Vatican reporter at the National Catholic Reporter looks at the increasingly bizarre picture of the goings on at the Vatican.  Here are article excerpts:

I've received numerous requests to comment on the sensational story in an Italian newspaper Thursday suggesting the existence of a shadowy "gay lobby" in the Vatican, linking it to the prospect of blackmail and suggesting that such dark forces may have factored into Benedict XVI's decision to resign.  For what it's worth, I'll lay out my initial reaction here.

First of all, the paper that carried the story, La Repubblica, is not a scandal sheet. It's the largest circulation daily in the country, with a center-left editorial stance. It's sometimes critical of the church, but it's not the National Enquirer.

In terms of the story's specifics, I don't know whether it's accurate that a commission of three cardinals created by Benedict XVI to investigate the Vatican leaks affair, composed of Cardinals Julian Herranz Casado, Jozef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi, actually considered possible networks inside the Vatican based on sexual preference, but frankly, it would be a little surprising if they hadn't.

Here's why. In 2007, Msgr. Thomas Stenico in the Congregation for Clergy was suspended after being caught on hidden camera making contact with a young man posing as a potential "date" in gay-oriented chat rooms, then taking him back to his Vatican apartment. In 2010, a "Gentlemen of the Pope" named Angelo Balducci was caught in a wiretap trying to arrange sexual hookups through a Nigerian member of a Vatican choir. Both episodes were highly public and caused massive embarrassment.

In that context, it would seem odd if the cardinals didn't at least consider the possibility that somebody with a big secret to hide might be vulnerable to pressure to leak documents or spill the beans in other ways.

It also doesn't stretch credulity to believe there are still people in the system leading a double life, not just in terms of their sexual preference and activities, but possibly in other ways as well -- in terms of their financial interests, for example. Whether they form self-conscious cabals is open to question, but they may well naturally identify with each other, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that trying to chart such networks was part of what the three cardinals tried to do.

Among many cardinals, it's become a fixed point of faith that the Vatican is long overdue for a serious housecleaning, and certainly the furor unleashed by the La Repubblica piece is likely to strengthen that conviction.

However, it's probably a stretch to draw a straight line between all of this and Benedict's resignation. For the most part, one has to take the pope at his word: He's stepping aside because he's old and tired, not because of any particular crisis.

That said, I don't believe you can completely discount the cumulative impact of the various meltdowns over the last eight years on Benedict's state of mind. Read Benedict's anguished letter to the bishops of the world back in 2009, at the peak of the frenzy over the lifting of the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, and it's crystal clear he was both pained by the criticism it generated and frustrated the Vatican hadn't handled the whole thing more effectively.

If you want to understand why Benedict is tired, in other words, part of it is because he knows that putting things right inside the Vatican will take a tremendous investment of administrative energy, which he doesn't feel he can supply, and which probably isn't in his skill set in any event.

No, Benedict didn't quit under the pressure of a "gay lobby." But the perceived disarray in the Vatican, which may well be one part perception and one part reality, probably made resignation look even better.