By Rachel Helyer Donaldson
First Post
March 5, 2010
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/60538,news-comment,news-politics,gay-prostitution-scandal-rocks-pope-benedict-vxi-vatican-balducci
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A St Peter’s Basilica chorister has been caught allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a Gentleman of His Holiness
Pope Benedict XVI is embroiled in a deeply embarrassing scandal after it emerged that a senior member of his household has been implicated in a gay prostitution ring, along with a St Peter's Basilica chorister.
The latest sexual scandal to rock the Vatican came to light yesterday when it was revealed that the chorister, 29-year-old Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, had been sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.
Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness who serves in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, had negotiated with Ehiem, a Nigerian-born Vatican chorister, over the specific physical attributes of the men he wanted brought to him.
The details of how Balducci and Ehiem were caught out reads like a storyline from cult US crime drama The Wire, after police wiretaps captured the pair's incriminating conversations.
Balducci, who is also a senior Italian government official, had originally been under investigation for corruption. The wiretaps were set up as part of a police probe into the awarding of contracts to build public works. Balducci was arrested on corruption charges on February 10 - the allegations of prostitution emerged only later.
The transcripts suggest that over a period of around five months in 2008, Ehiem procured for Balducci at least 10 male prostitutes. They included "two black Cuban boys", a former male model from Naples and a rugby player from Rome.
The wiretaps also showed that at least one of the men was a seminarian, studying to join the priesthood. In one transcript, recorded in January, Balducci is quoted as asking Ehiem: "At what time does he have to return to the seminary?"
It is by no means the first time the Roman Catholic Church has been tainted by a sex scandal. In recent years several paedophilia scandals have thrown light on the abuse of children by priests in Ireland, Germany and the United States over decades. And in 2007 the Vatican suspended a senior official who was filmed apparently propositioning a young man in his office.
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