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Frédéric Martel sets the cat among the pigeons at the Vatican

By Peter Sellick - posted Wednesday, 29 May 2019


Martel's second rule of the Vatican closet states:

Homosexuality spreads the closer one gets to the holy of holies; there are more and more homosexuals as one rises through the Catholic hierarchy. In the College of Cardinals and at the Vatican, the preferential selection process is set to be perfected, homosexuality becomes the rule, heterosexuality the exception. (p10)

The upper echelons of the Vatican during the papacy of John Paul II and Benedict XVI were inhabited by homosexuals but, despite this, these two papacies were virulently homophobic. The dark side of this virulence was the suppression of the sexual abuse, mostly of boys, by priests. Ratzinger, in particular, as Prefect for the Doctrine of Faith and later as Benedict XVI, helped suppress reports about sexual abuse for a total of thirty years. It is no wonder that when the scandals could not be denied during his papacy, he chose to abdicate. If it was not evident to him, it was evident to many others that the Vatican's hard line on sexuality, homosexuality, birth control, priestly celebacy and its adherence to conservative theology had produced a crisis in the Catholic Church not seen since the Reformation.

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The topsy turvy world of the Vatican is summed up in the third rule of the closet:

The more pro-gay a cleric is, the less likely he is to be gay; the more homophobic a cleric is, the more likely he is to be homosexual. (p41)

For example, Pope Francis - who am I to judge? - is gay-friendly and is most probably heterosexual. Benedict XVI opposed gay marriage with all his might and sponsored conversion therapy with the help of the priest/psychoanalyst, Tony Anatrella, who was later exposed as a sexual abuser and suspended. Martel comes to the conclusion that Benedict XVI was most probably a non-practising homosexual and that the sublimation of his sexuality produced his absolute abhorrence of homosexuals even though his secretary of state and many people around him were practising homosexuals. There is an inverted hatred of the self here that makes one wonder. As Martel says, "one could not make it up".

Martel proposes a sixth rule - we will skip a few - of the closet:

Behind the majority of cases of sexual abuse, there are priests and bishops who have protected the aggressors because of their own homosexuality and out of fear that it might be revealed in the event of a scandal. The culture of secrecy that was needed to maintain silence about the high prevalence of homosexuality in the church has allowed sexual abuse to be hidden and predators to act. (p92).

Here we have an institution frozen in fear and incapable of reform from within. Careerism does not help. Many celibate clergy do not have a private life, or if they do, that private life has to be a secret. The lack of family means that work, and often ambition, takes centre stage. A lifetime dedication to the Church may become code for an obsession for advancement.

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These are men who mostly have not experienced long term relationships and their maturing effect and thus find themselves captive to their own egos, as is evidenced by Martel's visits to several over-the-top cardinals' residences. Thus, the Vatican is a hotbed of spite and ambition that makes it overbearing in its relations with those who are thought to threaten the conservative order. This often goes along with misogyny that makes the ordination of women unthinkable.

One fundamental reason why sexual abuse by clergy could be covered up for so long is that the Vatican is an independent state and hence its inhabitants have diplomatic immunity. This also applies to extra-territorial properties that house clergy in Rome and that are not actually within the Vatican walls.

Any crimes committed within these territories have to be handled by the Vatican police and its justice system. Neither has the resources nor expertise to investigate wrongdoing. There is also no separation between the Vatican government and its judicial system. It is no wonder that the Vatican is besieged by financial and sexual scandal, there is simply no staff or institution to deal with wrongdoing. Unfortunately, the idea that the Church was outside local legal systems inhibited the reporting of sexual abuse carried out by clergy. The Australian royal commission into institutional sexual abuse has put an end to that, as it has in many other countries.

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About the Author

Peter Sellick an Anglican deacon working in Perth with a background in the biological sciences.

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