Vatican in a Sweat AGAIN: Catholic Church Left Red-Faced As It Emerges Priests Share Apartment Block with Europe's Largest Gay Sauna

By Simon Tomlinson
Daily Mail UK
March 12, 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2292016/Vatican-sweat-emerges-priests-share-21m-apartment-block-Europes-biggest-GAY-SAUNA.html

Next-door neighbours: The website of Europe's largest gay sauna, Europa Multiclub, which is housed in an apartment part-owned by the Holy See

Location, location, location: The Europa Multiclub in Via Carducci, Rome, where several priests live nearby

Red faces all round: Cardinal Ivan Dias (pictured), the so-called 'prince of the church' has a 12-room apartment located just yards from the Europa Multiclub

In turmoil: Revelations of the sauna come amid claims Pope Benedict XVI (above) resigned in response to a gay cabal in the curia, the Vatican bureaucracy

Array

It is already reeling from claims Pope Benedict XVI resigned because of a gay cabal in the Vatican.

Now, as the College of Cardinals prepares to elect his successor later today, the scandal-hit Catholic Church has broken into another sweat, this time over news several priests share an apartment block with Europe's largest homosexual sauna.

The Holy See owns 19 apartments in the block in Rome after buying a £21million share of the building in 2008.

Several of the flats house priests, notably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the so-called 'prince of the church' whose 12-room apartment at 2 Via Carducci is located just yards from the Europa Multiclub.

The 76-year-old, who is the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, would no doubt be horrified to discover what was happening on the floor below.

Cardinal Diaz, who is Indian and a former archbishop of Mumbai, will take part in the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI later today.

According to the Independent, he believes that gays and lesbians can be cured of their 'unnatural tendencies' through the 'sacrement of penance'.

But it's not known if he has ever nipped downstairs to impart his views on those attending the sauna.

The facility, billed as 'Italy's best-known gay sauna', boasts a Turkish bath, Finnish sauna, whirlpools and massages.

Its website ironically touts one of its 'bear nights' with a video of a hairy man stripping down and changing into a priest's outfit.

It says Bruno is 'free to the music of his clergyman, remaining in a thong, because he wants to expose body and soul'.

The purchase was apparently the brainchild of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict’s much-disliked right-hand man who held the Vatican’s purse strings during the last pontificate.

Visitors of Italian gay websites were quick to make jokes about the sauna.

One said on Gay.it: 'Oops, I took the wrong door, I thought it was the chapel.'

The Vatican has declined to comment on the proximity of the sauna to the priests' accommodation.

The revelations come days after Italian newspapers published claims of homosexuality and blackmail within the Church, with one allegation centering around a secret ‘gay cabal’ of priests.

The Vatican has also been hit with further charges of hypocrisy against the Church's stance on homosexuality following the resignation of disgraced Scottish cardinal Keith O'Brien.

The 74-year-old had been preparing to help choose the next Pope. But earlier this month effectively admitted that allegations that he made homosexual approaches to young trainee priests were true.

He conceded his ‘sexual conduct’ had ‘fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal’.

The former archbishop will face a Vatican investigation into his behaviour and could be subjected to further punishment if evidence of wrongdoing is found.

His admission left the Roman Catholic church in both England and Scotland in deep crisis over sexual standards and apparent hypocrisy on the part of its most senior priest.