In the Closet of the Vatican

In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy
By Frédéric Martel
Published in February 2019
576 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 4/5

Like everyone, I had heard vaguely about the Vatican sex abuse problems. I expected this book to be about that. To my surprise, the problem goes way beyond sex abuse - this book alleges that roughly half of the leadership of the Catholic church is homosexual.

Homosexuality has a long, and strange history in the Vatican. On one hand, the Catholic Church is very politically opposed to homosexuality. On the other hand, many high level Catholic priests have been found to be secretly gay.

A lot of things surprised me. First, I didn’t know that the Catholic church was openly homophobic. In fact, my personal experience has been the complete opposite - that Catholics are a bunch of obnoxious homosexual social justice warriors who never shut up about LGBT rights. However, my experience mostly involved dealing with Catholics in the San Francisco and Washington DC areas. I was very surprised to hear that, in fact, the Catholic church isn’t predominantly leftist. 

The author is a lot older than I am. It might boil down to a generational difference - he grew up in a world with a very different Catholic church than I did.

The other thing that surprised me was likely the thing that surprised just about everyone who read this book: that the entire leadership of the Catholic church is openly gay.

In many cases, the evidence is direct - court cases, admissions, interviews with gay priests, etc… In other cases, the admission is anecdotal - interviews with gay prostitutes in Rome, rumors, the presence of homosexual paraphernalia, etc… The authors even used gay dating apps in the Vatican, and through data engineering, found many clergymen on the apps.

Attempts by the Catholic church to reduce the presence of homosexuality in the church have dramatically backfired. This has only succeeded in attracting self-hating homosexuals. The presence of large amounts of celibate and closeted homosexuals contributes to pedophilia.

The author argues that the solution is, instead, to allow priests to marry people of either gender. That will make it easier for the church to attract people with normal sexual tendencies, rather than people desperately attempting to restrain themselves.

One example really stood out to me. For awhile, some Catholic churches offered gay conversion therapy - a therapeutic treatment designed to help homosexuals become heterosexual. This gay conversion therapy was usually targeted towards teenagers. The priest administering the therapy would undress the boys, and masturbate them. Obviously, the gay conversion therapy was just a ploy for pedophilic abuse with vulnerable teenagers.

I’ve never liked Catholicism for the following reason - it is a religion entirely predicated on earthly authority - the authority of a Medieval corporation. Most Catholics I have met are very uninformed, and can’t even tell you who the most prominent medieval popes were and what they did. They cannot explain, in historical terms, why the papacy exists and should exist. They are both ignorant and loud.

I have many Catholic friends who happen to be homosexual. Immediately after publishing this book review, I will suggest that they read it. I look forwards to hearing their thoughts.

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