Diane Vera

A while back I noticed a trend, among conservative and traditionalist Catholics, to blame the clergy pedophilia scandals on an alleged conspiracy by Satanists to infiltrate the Catholic hierarchy. For more about this, see my article The "Satanic Ritual Abuse" scare -- it's BAACK! The alleged conspiracy of "Satanic pedophiles" in the Catholic clergy.

Now it seems that this same alleged Satanist conspiracy is being blamed for clargy sex scandals involving adults too. Not only that, but one priest has even used this claim in an attempt to get himself off the hook.


I recently ran across the following news stories, both published on October 15, 2007: Sex, lies and videotape: turmoil at the Vatican by John Hooper in Rome, The Guardian (U.K.), and Vatican priest caught in TV sex sting by Paul Bompard in Rome, London Times (U.K.).

The London Times story begins as follows:

A high-ranking Vatican priest has been suspended after a TV programme, using a hidden camera, recorded him making advances to a young man and asserting that gay sex was not sinful.

Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, 60, is the director of one of the three departments that make up the Congregation for the Clergy, the Vatican “ministry” for the clergy.

Yesterday he claimed that he was pretending to be gay in an attempt to unmask a Satanic plot to seduce Catholic priests to homosexuality and thus discredit the Church. “I only pretended I was gay to study how priests are seduced,” said Mgr Stenico, a frequent guest on television programmes discussing religious issues. “There are people who go after them . . . I really believe there is a diabolical plan by groups of Satanists.”

Yeah, right.

The Guardian story adds:

Mgr Stenico's case is expected to be judged by a special tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Wondering whether the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the body formerly known as the Inquisition) would buy his excuse, I looked around on the web for follow-up stories. I didn't find any stories telling us the CDF's findings, just more stories from mid-October, plus commentary on same, plus a story from January 2008 in which Father Gabriele Amorth, the Chief Exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, steps into the fray.

Here's an earlier BBC story: Vatican bars prelate in gay row, Saturday, 13 October 2007. This story ends by saying: "The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the Vatican rarely comments on sexual scandal involving priests and the prompt admission of this priest's suspension is unusual."

Some commentary on a GLBT site: Creep of the Week: Monsignor Tommaso Stenico by D'Anne Witkowski, originally printed 10/18/2007 (Issue 1542 - Between The Lines News), on PrideSource:

Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, a high-ranking Vatican official, is under fire after being caught on tape putting the moves on a young man and insisting that gay sex wasn't sinful.

But he can explain. He was just pretending to be gay. You know, to help the church get rid of people who actually are.

...

This pretending, Stenico told La Repubblica, was done "to better understand this mysterious and faraway world which, by the fault of a few people -- among them some priests -- is doing so much harm to the church."

A Google/Blogspot blog called Ask a Lesbian has a post titled Vatican Official Monsignor Tommaso "I said I was homosexual in order to unmask those who really are.", Monday, October 15, 2007. One thing it mentions is this:

The biggest news is not that the Vatican has a high official who is gay, but that the news was able to get to the public at all. Generally news in Italy is controlled either by the Catholic Church, or it's staunch proponents. La7 is the only national channel not owned by Silvio Berlusconi or the state.

On the other hand, another Google/Blogspot blog called Catholic Church Conservations has a post titled Satanic sects in the Vatican , Tuesday, January 08, 2008, a translation of a German newspaper article Satanische Sekten im Vatikan, Dir Spiegel, 08. Januar 2008.

This story concerns Father Gabriele Amorth, who doesn't endorse Stenico's claim to have been doing just an investigation, but says that Stenico was "prompted by demons." Well, of course, Stenico couldn't possibly just be gay. A demon made him do it. Amorth also endorses the claim that there are "Satanic cults" in the Vatican.

According to the translated Der Spiegel story:

Don Gabriele Amorth is the busiest exorcist in Europe. His job is to keep the Roman Pontiff free of demons. This is because, says the priest, the devil is abroad in the Vatican. SPIEGEL Author Alexander Smoltczyk has visited the priest - and to test out any demons.

...

Amorth in 1990 founded the International Society of Exorcists, "whose honorary president he remains today. "We were," he says, "nine exorcists here in Rome. One is sick, one has been promoted and moved."

...

"The devil is acting in Fatima, in Lourdes, everywhere. And he is certainly in the Vatican, the center of Christianity." Father Amorth does not mean that the black danger is the convention of the Jesuits who have been since yesterday, Monday, meeting in Rome to elect their new General, the "Black Pope". No: "In the Vatican, there are satanic cults. They are everywhere. One does not see them. But they are there."

...

He recalls the case of Tommaso Stenico, a priest working in the Curia who, was recently prompted by demons, to invite a series of boys onto the premises of the former Holy Inquisition. He became the victim of a "diabolical plan" as the priest said in his defence. Father Amorth said that there was just no perfect protection against Beelzebub and cohorts. Even rosaries are not 100 percent sure. Even Mother Teresa had been exorcised in her final years of life:

...

The German Pope is incidentally quite receptive to his profession, says the Exorcist: "As president of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger played a key role in the new catechism. Several times I have spoken with him and he has greatly encouraged me during audiences. Nevertheless, I do not believe that he has ever performed an exorcism, unlike Wojtyla."

The Congretation for the Doctrine of the Faith is mentioned, but no mention of a CDF decision concerning Stenico.