ROME, January 21, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A former Swiss Guard commander has affirmed the rumours about the prominence of a “gay lobby” of powerful cardinals and prelates inside the Vatican who routinely harassed young men in the elite unit. In an interview with a Swiss newspaper, calling it a “security risk,” Elmar Mäder, 51, told Swiss weekly Schweiz am Sonntag on Sunday, “I cannot deny that a gay network exists.”
“My experiences confirm its existence. A place where a majority of unmarried men work … is an attraction for homosexuals as it would be for pedophiles near schools and sports clubs. The Roman Curia is exactly this kind of environment,” he said.
Mäder entered the Papal Swiss Guards in 1998, was named commandant in 2002 and served in that office until 2008. He said that homosexual prelates and priests in the Vatican “are inclined to be more loyal to each other than to other people or institutions.”
This group, he said, “is made up of people so loyal to one another they’re practically a secret society. When loyalty is in question, it becomes a security risk.” He added that certain people in the Vatican agree with this assessment.
The comments have aroused a response from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the Substitute for General Affairs, said today that Mäder should bring his concerns to him directly, and offer proof. “My office is open. If Elmar Mäder wants to come and say exactly whom he’s referring to, I’m here,” he said.
In an interview with La Repubblica, Becciu said, “Once again we speak of the existence of a ‘gay lobby’ in the Vatican, but as has happened other times, you do not name names or surnames. Too easy to do.”
“When he was in the service, he had suspicions? These suspects are still present? He argues that this is ongoing? Okay, come here and tell us exactly to whom it relates. We are willing to listen and take note. Pope Francis first wants clarity and truth, and so do we all.”
Asked if there have been any actions taken on the issue since Francis became pope, Becciu said there were two persons who were “the subject of rumors.” “As the rumors did not stop, we had to take the necessary precautions. And the outcome of this work was that these two people have been completely cleared of suspicion.”
He added that he found the timing of Mäder’s comments “very suspicious,” coming as they do “now that we live in a beautiful and important spiritual time, and right now, after the valuable work of Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis is working hard to make a missionary Church and a Vatican transparent and clean.”
Mäder’s concerns, however, have long been echoed by analysts who hold that the existence of a cabal of homosexuals, whose first interest is their own activities and secrecy, is a threat to papal security, including through the risk of blackmail. Such concerns became front-page news in 2012 with the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal in which private and sensitive documents were removed from the Vatican, including from Pope Benedict’s own desk, and given to newspapers. Many have speculated that the scandal, which is known to have affected the former pope deeply, was part of what pushed Benedict to resign.
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In the last days of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate, the world’s media exploded with stories of a large dossier of information on the so-called “gay lobby” in the Vatican, a group of prelates who pushed the homosexual agenda in the Church from within. Following the election of Pope Francis, and the unprecedented adulation by the secular media, the story has been almost forgotten.
A 300-page document compiled by a committee of trusted prelates concerning the needed reforms of the Vatican was confirmed to have been presented to Pope Benedict in the final days of his reign, and was reportedly stored in a locked safe in the papal apartments with instructions that it be handed to the next pope. Despite the flood of speculation as to its contents, particularly in the Italian press, nothing has been heard of it since, and Benedict’s successor has said little on the subject of homosexuality in the Curia.
When queried about it directly early in his pontificate, Pope Francis famously said, on the plane back to Italy from World Youth Day in Brazil, “I have yet to find on a Vatican identity card the word ‘gay’.”
Pressed on the question of actively homosexual priests, Francis said, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?”
Though there was no first-hand quote cited, in June the Italian media reported that Francis had told a group of South American missionaries: “There is talk about a ‘gay lobby,’ and it’s true, that exists.”
Together with his comments telling Catholics to be less “obsessed” with moral issues like abortion and homosexuality, his now-infamous “who am I to judge” statement has caused a frenzy of response in the secular media, and even prompted the US homosexualist magazine The Advocate to name Francis “person of the year”.
Echoing Francis’ quote, Becciu said, “The Pope reminds us continually the Gospel teaching: respect and love everyone, do not judge anyone.”
“From this, however, people have taken him to say that he approves of ‘gay marriage’… something that hurts him deeply. The Pope is the son of the Church and is faithful to its doctrine, as he himself said.”
The existence and power of a homosexualist cabal within the highest ranks of the Vatican’s curia, however, has been extensively documented by a Polish priest, Fr. Dariusz Oko, PhD, a priest of the Archdiocese of Krakow and Assistant Professor at the John Paul II Pontifical University in Krakow.
In his report, originally published online in Polish in 2012, Fr. Oko went so far as to call it an “underground Church” with goals that are essentially the opposite of those of the Catholic Church.
“I began my work as a struggle against a deadly, external threat to Christianity, but then gradually discovered the enemy is not only outside the Church, but within it, as well,” he said. In attempting to investigate, he said he “encountered a wall that could not be overcome.”
What finally broke through the wall, he said, was “a tremendous commotion in the media and reaching the Pope himself. … Otherwise, everything was blocked at lower levels of local or Vatican hierarchy.”