“A former commander of the Swiss Guard, the small force of men whose job it is to protect the pope, has said there is “a network of homosexuals” within the Vatican, the latest in a series of claims about gay priests working at the heart of the Roman Catholic church.
Elmar Mäder, who was commandant of the Guard from 2002 until 2008, said his time at the heart of the Vatican had given him an insight into certain aspects of life there. “I cannot refute the claim that there is a network of homosexuals. My experiences would indicate the existence of such a thing,” he told the Swiss newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag.
Famed for their striking uniforms of blue, red and orange, recruits to the Guard swear to protect the pope and his successors with their lives.
Mäder, 50, from the canton of St Gallen, refused to comment on speculation that he had warned guardsmen about the behaviour of certain priests.
Earlier this month, the same newspaper reported the claims of a former, unnamed member of the Guard that he had been the target of more than 20 “unambiguous sexual requests” from clergy while serving in the force.
Recounting a dinner in a Rome restaurant, the man was quoted as saying: “As the spinach and steak were served, the priest said to me: ‘And you are the dessert’.”
At the time, spokesman Urs Breitenmoser said the rumoured gay network did not pose a problem to the Swiss Guard, whose members he said were motivated by entirely different interests.
Asked about the claims, Mäder reportedly said stories of this kind “obviously lacking in factual basis” were sometimes told. But the facts remained clear, he added. ”
A working environment in which the great majority of men are unmarried is per se a draw for homosexuals, whether they consciously seek it out or unconsciously follow an urge,” he said.
“The Roman Curia [the Vatican’s bureaucracy] is exactly this kind of environment.”
Though it does not condemn gay people, whom it says should be “accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” the catechism of the Catholic church teaches that homosexual acts are “objectively disordered” and calls gay people to abstinence.Mäder, while he said he did not have a problem with homosexuality, said he feared that a network or secret society of gay people within the Vatican could pose security problems. He added that he would not have promoted a gay man in the Guard – not because of his sexuality but because “the risk of disloyalty would have been too high”.
Mäder said: “I also learned that many homosexuals are inclined to be more loyal to each other than to other people or institutions,” he said.
“If this loyalty were to go as far as to become a network or even a kind of secret society, I would not tolerate it in my sphere of decision making. Key people in the Vatican now seem to think similarly.”
“When Pope Francis referred to a “gay lobby” in Rome, he was not necessarily just referring to Vatican prelates whose sexual peccadilloes (with men or women or both) made them vulnerable to outside blackmail (though that’s been talked about for a long time as well).
He was also likely referring to reports of a tight network of gay clerics that wields influence within the Vatican and operates largely for its own (often financial) benefit rather than for the good of the Church.
According to some Italian news sources, the extent of this network of corruption came to light during the “Vatileaks” scandal, in which Benedict XVI’s personal butler released confidential documents. The then-pontiff charged three cardinals with conducting an internal investigation, the results of which were passed directly to his successor.
Some believe that the shocking enormity of the problem contributed to Benedict’s decision to resign early this year.”
But the most important part of Pope Francis’ remarks went unremarked – his remarks about Masonic groups in the Vatican.
“What Pope Francis meant by “Masonic lobbies” is a decades-old conspiracy theory advanced by rightwing Catholics that “behind every Democrat, every liberal, every progressive” are secretive and cunning Masons who want to destroy the Church and rule the world.
Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, alluded to this when he declared that reports questioning Bergoglio’s role during Argentina’s military dictatorship came from “anti-clerical leftwing elements that are used to attacking the Church.”
Pope Francis’ thoughts about “Masonic lobbies” can be inferred because first, based on the interview, he considers that they are a reality, that they are a malevolent influence and that they are important enough to mention. Secondly, Francis has ties to the ultraconservative Communion and Liberation, one of the global Catholic movements which want to “return the Roman Catholic Church to its traditional role of political power.” Those who base their political and cultural ideas on “human values” rather than a belief in Jesus Christ “are considered ‘enemies of CL.’”
Bergoglio thought highly enough of CL’s founder, Fr. Luigi Giussani, that “he distributed his books at literary fairs in Argentina.” In the judgment of “a very close collaborator with Giussani,” CL bishop, Luigi Negri, “there is no question that [Masonic] values designed and conceived within a rationalistic Enlightenment mentality” are “an enemy of the Church.” Not only do Masons want the “destruction of the Church and Christian Civilization,” but also “its replacement with a culture and a society that is substantially atheistic.”
(emphasis mine)Per Negri: “Freemasonry has certainly found its strength in secrecy, in the ability to identify and assimilate the leadership of men who are unconditionally obedient to its directives, as well as its ability to influence ever-wider strata of the culture and leadership of civic and institutional life.”
…..Furthermore, “not only has Freemasonry conquered the revolutionary avant-garde in Europe and in the world but, above all, it has strongly conditioned the regimes that, arising from these Masonic-liberal revolutions, would result in the great totalitarian systems.”
….The CL bishop gives voice to the belief, strongly rooted in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, of a greater “identity-orientation” – certainly a very serious and disturbing presence, now widely documented – of many Freemasons with positions of responsibility in the great totalitarian systems.
….To deal with the still-tangled knot of the more or less hidden relations between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the Freemasons, we must go back to the relationship between the Church and modernity. “It is not the Church that is anti-modern, but modernity that is anti-Church,” says Bishop Negri.
This is the “Masonic lobbies” to which Francis refers: prelates who secretly embrace the ideals of Freemasonry as defined by rightwing Catholics and are a threat to the Church.”