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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment