October 17, 2007

Stop press! Gay priest found by Vatican

A rather non-story at first sight, don't you think, but what caught my eye in the BBC News story was the headline, because I had to read it twice: Vatican bars prelate in gay row. Maybe it had the potential of one of those unfortunate headlines when I thought the sub-editor had forgotten to add a comma between 'bars' and 'prelate', since that would make far more sense and be more newsworthy. I mean, it doesn't happen every day prelates are in the gay row at Vatican bars, or does it?
The rest of the story is, of course, rather ho-hum:
"A high-ranking Catholic priest has been suspended. The man, who works in the department in charge of clergy around the world, appeared on Italian TV earlier this month admitting that he was gay. [...] Monsignor Stenico appeared on an investigative programme about gay priests on an Italian commercial TV channel, La7.
He was filmed inside his private office in the Vatican.
Although his voice was disguised, colleagues and friends easily identified him as a monsignor who frequently used to appear as anchorman and even celebrate Mass on a well known local Catholic TV channel.
His voice must have sounded familiar to those of us who frequent sex clubs and who are often accosted through glory holes by muffled sounds from hungry clergymen.

Move along, no news here.

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