Monday, July 22, 2013

Gay Scandal Rocks Vatican

A Vatican official promoted last month by Pope Francis is reportedly gay.
Monsignor Battista Ricca, a 57-year-old former Vatican diplomat, was appointed on June 15 to be “prelate” of the Vatican “bank,” formally known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). In this position, Ricca is representing Pope Francis.
According to Italian news weekly L'Epresso, Ricca made friends with a Swiss army captain while serving on a diplomatic mission in Switzerland. In 1999, Ricca arrived at a nunciature in Montevideo, Uruguay with Patrick Haari.
“The intimacy of the relations between Ricca and Haari was so open as to scandalize numerous bishops, priests, and laity of that little South American country, not last the sisters who attended to the nunciature,” L'Espresso reported.
In 2001, Ricca was beaten up when he went to a “meeting place for homosexuals” and had to call some priests for help.
Later that year, he was caught with another young man when the elevator of the nunciature got stuck and firemen were called to the scene. L'Epresso reported that the man was “known to police,” suggesting that he worked as an escort. Ricca returned to the Vatican in 2004.
The pope's spokesman has called the report “not trustworthy.”

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