In the Closet of the Vatican

by Frédéric Martel

  For us, today, it is hard to imagine the clap of thunder in the Vatican sky. Secretly prepared for several months, Benedict XVI’s resignation seemed very sudden. At the moment of the announcement, the Curia, calm and unconcerned, instantly became Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, as if Christ had just said again: ‘Verily I tell you that one of you will betray me.’ Time was once again out of joint. The terrified and speechless cardinals now formed a dislocated community, then protested amid the chaos of their love and truth: ‘Lord, is it me?’ And the pope, serene in his choice, bringing his internalized tragedy to a close, peaceful now that he had finished ‘fighting with himself’, was now barely concerned with this agitated Curia, so mean and perverse, so closeted, or with those intrigues featuring so many rigid men leading double lives, in which the wolves had got the better of him; for the first time, he was triumphant. His abdication – a flash of light, a historic gesture that made him great at last – was the first good decision, perhaps the only one, of his brief pontificate.

  The event was so inconceivable that the Church is still trying to tame the waves and aftershocks. Because nothing will be as it was: by abdicating, the pope ‘came down from the Cross’, in the perfidious words of Stanisław Dziwisz, former private secretary to John Paul II. Roman Catholicism had reached its low point. Henceforth, the pope’s job is a pontificate of limited duration, almost a temporary contract; an age limit would be imposed; the pope had become a man like any other, and his power had shrunk, becoming temporal.

  Everyone also understood that his illness was only one of the reasons for his resignation, among those invoked to explain such a spectacular gesture. Benedict XVI’s spokesman, Federico Lombardi, made frequent appearances to insist that it was only the state of the holy father’s health, his physical fragility, that explained his historically unique gesture. His insistence raised smiles.

  The pope’s state of health was a factor. Joseph Ratzinger fell victim to a stroke in 1991, the consequence of which, as he himself revealed, was to make him slightly blind in his left eye. He also wore a pacemaker to combat chronic atrial fibrillation. But I am not convinced that there was a new element in the pope’s health around 2012 to 2013 sufficient to explain his decision. The pope was not close to death; he has gone on to live past the age of 90. The narrative has been repeated too often to be true.

  ‘The Vatican explained the pope’s resignation with reference to his problems of health: it was obviously a lie, as so often,’ Francesco Lepore states.

  Nowadays, few journalists, theologians or even members of the Roman Curia whom I have met consider Benedict XVI’s resignation to have been linked to his health. After the false denial, in the most perfect Stalinist tradition, even the cardinals I have spoken to acknowledge that there were ‘other factors’.

  In the course of his long stations of the cross, Pope Benedict XVI – we can assert here – threw in the sponge for a number of combined or interlinked reasons, in which homosexuality occupied a central place. Among the 14 stations of that Via Dolorosa, I would list: the state of his health; his age; his ineptitude for government; the failure of Cardinal Bertone to reform the Curia; religious controversies and his disastrous attempts at communication; the cover-up of thousands of paedophile scandals; the collapse of his theology on celibacy and the chastity of priests because of sexual abuse; the trip to Cuba; VatiLeaks I; the report by the three cardinals; the methodical attacks on his pontificate by Cardinal Sodano; rumours or possible threats relating to Georg Gänswein or his brother Georg Ratzinger; internalized homophobia or ‘Ratzinger syndrome’; and finally Mozart, because this pope who didn’t like noise preferred to return to his piano and his classical music, which he missed terribly.

  Here I would leave open the question concerning which of these 14 Stations of the Cross were crucial in bringing Benedict XVI’s pontificate to a close. Each of us can bring our own arguments to bear, revise the order or ponder each station in relation to the others. All that I can affirm here is that among the 14 stations of his walk to Calvary, which lasted eight years, the fact is that at least ten of them are connected directly or indirectly to the homosexual question – a question that also became his personal tragedy.

  Epilogue

  ‘I don’t love women. Love needs reinventing.’ These standard-bearing phrases, these famous formulas from the manifesto of the young Poet of A Season in Hell, drenched in a mixture of Christ-like and homosexual impulses, can guide us through this epilogue. The reinvention of love may even be the most surprising revelation of this book – the finest and the most optimistic too – and the one with which I would like to conclude this long investigation.

  At the heart of the Church, in a highly restricted universe, priests are living out their amorous passions while at the same time renewing gender and imagining new kinds of family.

  This is an even better-kept secret than the homosexuality of a large part of the College of Cardinals and the clergy. Beyond the lies and the universal hypocrisy, the Vatican is also an unexpected place of experimentation: new ways of living as a couple are constructed there; new emotional relationships are tried out; new models of the family of the future are explored; preparations are made for the retirement of elderly homosexuals.

  At the end of this investigation, five main profiles of priests take shape, encompassing most of our protagonists: the ‘mad virgin’; the ‘infernal husband’; the model of the ‘queen of hearts’; the ‘Don Juan’; and finally the ‘La Mongolfiera’. In this book we have rubbed shoulders with all of these archetypes, whether we have loved or hated them

  The model of the ‘mad virgin’, all asceticism and sublimation, is the one that characterizes Jacques Maritain, François Mauriac, Jean Guitton and perhaps also some recent popes. ‘Thwarted’ homophiles, they have chosen religion in order not to yield to the flesh, and the cassock to escape their inclinations. ‘Loving friendship’ is their natural inclination. We may assume that they have barely moved into action, even though François Mauriac, as we know, had intimate knowledge of other men.

  The model of the ‘infernal husband’ is the most repressed: the ‘closeted’ or ‘questioning’ priest is aware of his homosexuality, but is afraid of experiencing it, constantly oscillating between sin and expiation, in a state of great emotional confusion. Sometimes his special friendships lead to action, in turn producing deep crises of conscience. This model of the individual who takes no pleasure in life, who never ceases to worry, is that of many cardinals whom we have met in this book. In these first two models, homosexuality may be a practice, but it is not an identity. The priests in question do not accept or recognize themselves as gay; they even tend, on the contrary, to prove homophobic.

  The model of the ‘queen of hearts’ is one of those most frequently encountered: unlike the two previous models, this is a characteristic identity, as indeed it was for Julian Green; it is shared by numerous cardinals and countless Curia priests that I have met. If they can, these priests favour monogamy, often idealized, with the gratifications that go with being faithful to one another. They have long-term relationships and lead a double life, not without a ‘perpetual balance between boys whose beauty damns them, and God, whose goodness absolves them’. They are hybrid creatures, both arch-priests and arch-gays.

  The ‘Don Juan pipé’ chases after young men, not skirts: ‘men of pleasure’. Some cardinals and bishops that we have mentioned are perfect examples of this category: they burn their candles at both ends and are happy to make passes at all and sundry, with their famous list of ‘one thousand and three’ of the impenitent courtier, within the normal rules. And sometimes off the beaten track. (The types ‘mad virgin’, ‘infernal husband’ and ‘queen of hearts’ are borrowed from the Poet Rimbaud; the ‘Don Juan pipé’ from the Poem ‘Don Juan pipé’, by his lover, Verlaine.)

  Finally, the model ‘La Mongolfiera’ is that of perversion or prostitution networks: it is the model, par excellence, of the appalling Cardinal La Mongolfiera, but
also of Cardinal Platinette and several other cardinals and Curia bishops. (Here I am leaving aside the few rare cardinals who are truly asexual and chaste; those heterosexuals who have relationships according to one of the previous models, but with a woman – who are also large in number, but are not the subject of this book. It should also be said that there is the category of sexual predators, such as Father Marcial Maciel, who elude any objective classification.)

  So we can see: homosexual profiles vary greatly within the Catholic Church, even though the great majority of prelates in the Vatican and the characters in this book may be placed in one or other of these groups. I notice two constants. On the one hand, the majority of these priests have nothing to do with ‘ordinary love’; their sex life can be restrained or exaggerated, closeted or dissolute, and sometimes all of these things at once, but it is rarely banal. On the other hand, a certain fluidity remains: the categories are not as hermetic as I have described them; they represent a whole spectrum, a continuum, and some gender-fluid priests move from one group to the other in the course of their lives, between two worlds, as if in limbo. However, several categories are missing or rare in the Vatican: true transsexuals are as good as non-existent, and bisexuals seem to be unrepresented. In the ‘LGBT’ world of the Vatican, there are hardly any ‘B’s or ‘T’s, only ‘L’s and a huge crowd of ‘G’s. (I haven’t mentioned lesbianism in this book, because I wasn’t able to carry out my inquiry in a very discreet world where you probably have to be female to have good access, but I would suggest, on the basis of several statements, that female religious life in the closet is as dominated by the prism of lesbianism as the life of the male clergy is by the gay question.)

  If homosexuality is the rule and heterosexuality is the exception in the Catholic priesthood, that doesn’t mean that it is accepted as a collective identity. Even though it is the norm ‘by default’, it seems like a very individualized ‘practice’, so hidden and ‘closeted’ that it translates neither into a way of life nor into a culture. The homosexuals in the Vatican and the clergy are innumerable, but they do not form a community, and therefore they cannot have a lobby. They are not ‘gays’ in the proper sense of the word, if we understand that to mean accepted homosexuality, lived collectively. But they have common codes and references. Those of The Closet.

  In the course of my investigation, I have discovered genuine loving relationships within the clergy which, according to age and circumstance, can take the form of paternal, filial or fraternal love – and those loving friendships comforted me. Old fellows together? Confirmed bachelors? Many, in fact, live out their homosexuality stubbornly, and practise it assiduously, according to the fine model described by Paul Verlaine: ‘The story of two men living together / Better than non-model husbands.’

  It’s a fact: the constraints of the Church have forced those priests to come up with extraordinary detours to experience wonderful love affairs, like classical dramatists who attained perfect literary perfection while being obliged to respect the very strict rule of the three unities: time, place and action.

  Experiencing love under the Vatican constraint: some people manage to do so at the cost of unimaginable pieces of play-acting. I’m thinking of one famous cardinal, among the most highly ranked of the holy see, who lives with his lover. During a conversation I had with him, in his magnificent apartment in the Vatican, while we were waiting on a sun-drenched terrace, the cardinal’s companion arrived. Had the conversation gone on for too long, or had the friend come home early? In any case, I sensed the embarrassment of the cardinal, who looked at his watch and quickly put an end to our dialogue, after having unburdened himself to us for several hours previously. As he walked Daniele and me to the entrance of his penthouse, he was forced to introduce his companion with a highly convoluted explanation.

  ‘He’s my late sister’s husband,’ the old cardinal stammered, probably believing that I would fall for his lie.

  But I’d been warned. At the Vatican, everybody knows this cleric’s secret. The Swiss Guards talked to me about his tender companion; the priests of the Secretariat of State joked about the unusual length, by the cardinal’s standard, of this particular relationship. I left the couple in peace, amused by their attempts to pretend that there was nothing between them, and now imagined them starting their little dinner à deux, taking a ready meal out of the fridge, watching television in their slippers and stroking their little dog – a (nearly) bourgeois couple like any other.

  We encounter a similar kind of innovative relationship at the home of another cardinal emeritus who also lives with his assistant, which again creates several advantages. The lovers can spend a long time together, without arousing too much suspicion; they can also travel and go on holidays as lovers, because they have a ready-made alibi. No one can question their closeness, given the fact that they are working together. Sometimes the assistants live in the cardinals’ homes, which is even more practical. Once again, no one is surprised. The Swiss Guard have confirmed to me that they have to turn a blind eye ‘whatever company the cardinals took’. They have absorbed the rule ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’, which remains mantra number one at the Vatican.

  Sleeping with one’s private secretary is an omnipresent model in the history of the Vatican. It’s a great classic of the holy see: there are so many secretary-lovers, the tendency is so deeply anchored, that it could even be turned into a new sociological rule: the thirteenth of The Closet: Do not ask who the companions of cardinals and bishops are; ask their secretaries, their assistants or their protégés, and you will be able to tell the truth by their reaction.

  Did Nietzsche not state that ‘marriage must be considered as a long conversation’? By hitching themselves to an assistant, prelates finally construct lasting relationships based more on work than on emotion. That may explain their longevity. Because power relations are also at work here, some of these cardinals owe their sexual success to their position: they have been able to feed and encourage the ambition of their favourites.

  These ‘arrangements’ remain vulnerable. Making one’s lover one’s assistant is a bit like a straight couple having a baby to save a marriage. What happens in the event of a break-up, of jealousy, of cheating? The cost of separation is multiplied ten times over compared with a ‘normal’ couple. To leave one’s assistant is to risk embarrassing situations: rumours; betrayal; sometimes blackmail. Not to mention ‘transfiliation’, to use a religious image: an assistant close to a cardinal can’t start serving another cardinal, a transfer of allegiance which often provokes jealousy and sometimes ends up in violence. Many Vatican affairs and scandals can be explained by these emotional break-ups between an eminence and his protégé.

  A variant of this model has been dreamed up by a cardinal who, after paying for his young men, seems to have settled down. He has developed a charade: every time he goes out, every time he travels, he is accompanied by his lover, whom he introduces as his bodyguard! (An anecdote confirmed to me by two prelates, as well as by the former priest Francesco Lepore.) A cardinal with a bodyguard! In the Vatican, everybody smiles at such extravagance. Not to mention the jealousy that the relationship provokes, because the companion in question is, I am told, ‘a bomb’.

  Many cardinals and priests in the Vatican have invented their own Amoris laetitia, a form of love between men of a new kind. It’s no longer ‘coming out’, a sacrilegious admission on papal territory, but ‘coming home’ – which consists in bringing one’s lover to one’s own apartment. And this takes us to the heart of gay households in the world today. Have priests anticipated new LGBT ways of life? Are they now inventing what sociologists call affective fluidity and ‘liquid love’?

  A French cardinal with whom I struck up a friendship lived for a long time with an Anglican priest; an Italian archbishop with a Scotsman; one African cardinal also has a long-distance relationship with a Jesuit at Boston College and another with his boyfriend in Long Beach.

  Love? Bromance? Boyfriend? Sign
ificant other? Hook-up? Sugar daddy? Friends with benefits? Best friends for ever? Everything is possible and forbidden at the same time. We get lost in words, even in English; we struggle to decode the precise nature of these relationships, which are constantly renegotiating the clauses of the contract that relate to those who are or were ‘practising’. This is a logic already analysed by Marcel Proust, in terms of homosexual love, and this will be the last rule in this book, the fourteenth of The Closet: We are often mistaken about the loves of priests, and about the number of people with whom they have liaisons: when we wrongly interpret friendships as liaisons, which is an error by addition; but also when we fail to imagine friendships as liaisons, which is another kind of error, this time by subtraction.

  Another model of love within the Catholic hierarchy involves ‘adoptions’. I know of a good dozen of cases in which a cardinal, an archbishop or a priest has ‘adopted’ his boyfriend. It is true, for example, of a francophone cardinal who adopted a migrant of whom he was particularly fond, prompting great surprise among the police, who discovered, when they examined this undocumented individual, that the cleric wanted to legalize his companion!

  One Hispanic cardinal has adopted his ‘amigo’, who became his son (and remained his lover). Another elderly cardinal whom I visited lives with his young ‘brother’; the nuns who live with them quickly worked out that he was his lover, and give themselves away by calling him his ‘new’ brother.

  A renowned priest also told me how he ‘adopted a young Latin American, an orphan, who was selling his body in the street’. At first his client, the relationship ‘rapidly became paternal, by common agreement, and it is no longer sexual,’ the priest tells me. The young man is wild and elusive, and his protector talks to me about him as if he is his son, which in the eyes of the law he is.

  ‘This relationship has humanized me,’ the priest tells me.