Coming Out In The Vatican

By Beth Callaway | 15 August 2025
Fortis Esperitas

A book detailing the secret sex life of priests at the Vatican claims that about 80 per cent are homosexual and that the more a prelate criticises homosexuality, the more likely it is he is gay. (Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

Dr. Fèdèric Martel has a PhD in social science, and master’s degrees in law, political science, philosophy, social science. He is a visiting professor at Harvard and since 2025, is a professor at the University of Zurich. He spent four years traveling to more than thirty countries interviewing 1,500 priests, bishops and cardinals. The result of this extensive research is the NY Times Bestseller, In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy.

Dr. Martel is homosexual who researches and writes about same-sex cultures in the modern world. He became interested in the Vatican and its culture of homophobia. He said: “I am like St. Thomas: I need to check to believe. So I had to spend a long time investigating. . .” (Martel, viii ). His research revealed: “The Vatican has one of the biggest gay communities in the world” (Martel xi).

A Homophobic System

During his interactions with Catholic clergy, Dr. Martel felt he’d,

“gone back in time and found [himself] in the 1930’s or 1950’s” when homosexual men existed in the Closet by hiding behind false fronts, living double lives. Martel didn’t spend four years chasing after soundbites; he’s wasn’t interested in rehashing scandals. His mission was clear: “Unlike those Vaticanologists, who denounce individual ‘excesses’ but in such a way as to conceal the ‘system,’ I am less concerned with exposing those affairs. . . [than] “need to expose a system built from the holy of holies -the cardinals’ college – both on the homosexual double life and on the most dizzying homophobia” (Martel, xi, xii).

The Vatican is a culture soaked in homoeroticism. Priests who didn’t recognize themselves as gay before living in Vatican City, “discovered their homosexuality. . . when they started working at the Vatican” (Martel, 10).

A Homosexual System Explained

“If you want to integrate with the Vatican, adhere to a code which consists of tolerating the homosexuality of priests and bishops, enjoying it if appropriate, but keeping it secret in all cases . . .” (vi) Vows of chastity conceal a completely different reality. . . Many cardinals and priests who officiate at the Roman Curia, most of those who meet up in the conclave. . . share the same ‘inclinations.’ They have a ‘family resemblance.’ “Being discreetly homosexual means being part ‘of the parish,’ to be one who brings down scandal upon it is to exclude oneself from the family” (Martel, vii, 5).

Rules of Thumb

Dr. Martel compiled a list of rules to cut through misdirection and miasma in the Vatican:

1. The more homophobic a priest is, the greater the chance that he himself will be a homosexual. (Martel, xiv).

2. Homosexuality spreads the closer one gets to the holy of holies: there are more and more homosexuals as one rises through the Catholic hierarchy. (Martel, 4).

3. In the College of Cardinals and at the Vatican, the preferential selection process is said to be perfected; homosexuality becomes the rule, heterosexuality, the exception. (Martel, 10).

Martel didn’t write: In the Closet of the Vatican for the Catholic laity, but it remains an unintentional gift because the author peels away illusions one-by-one.

The heterosexual laity makes up the majority of the Church Militant, but after decades of a disingenuous hierarchy shielding ongoing clergy abuse, the laity has embraced their abusers, and now live in a Catholic Stockholm Syndrome.

The Catholic laity have memorized their lines in the Vatican theatre: “I don’t want to know.” It’s above my pay grade.” “Let’s wait and see.” “Don’t rush to judge.” “The pope is wearing the Stole!” “He prayed the Our Father in Latin!” “It’s time to unify.” and “Why are you criticizing the Church?” “Does this mean you’re not a Catholic anymore?”

Our dissembling role is not an act of charity. “Who am I to judge?” But is a holy-card makeover for hypocrites who step all over us in handmade Italian shoes.

The Gay Dimension

“The gay dimension doesn’t explain everything, of course,” Martel said, “but it is key for anyone wishing to understand the Vatican and its moral postures. . . homosexuality is also one of the keys that explain the institutionalized cover-up of sexual crimes. . . Why? How? Because the ‘culture of secrecy,’ which was necessary to maintain silence about the huge presence of homosexuality inside the Church, has made it possible to hide sexual abuse, and for predators to benefit from the system of protection . . .” (Martel, xv)

Prominent priests, defenders of Catholic tradition on news channels, cardinals fostering extreme interpretations of the Novus Ordo, or recent popes, whether defenders of doctrine, or actively bent on dismantling it, all lived, and continue to live, in a monarchal system of secrecy and hypocrisy. The Vatican homosexual theocracy has nothing in common with a democratic-republic or a constitutional monarchy. Popes whether sexually abstaining or not, are surrounded by a papal court of homosexual courtiers.

A Homosexual Theocracy

Martel explained the absence of a rational government in the Vatican:

“At the holy see – a genuine theocracy rather than a state governed by law – there is not in fact, a separation of powers. According to. . . high ranking cardinals, Vatican justice leaves much to be desired. Canon law is constantly faked, apostolic constitutions are incomplete, magistrates are inexperienced and often incompetent, courts lack procedure and are not treated seriously. . . Giovanni Maria Vian, director of Osservatore Romano, . . . refused to publish the records of hearings and trials in the official journal of the Vatican, because it risked discrediting the institution . . .” (Martel, 512-513).

Senior advisor to the Dicastery of Communication, The Holy See’s Press Office, Romilda Ferrauto told Martel, ‘The Vatican is a court with a monarch . . . there is no separation between private and public life, no family . . . everything is known, everything is mixed up. That’s how rumours, gossip and slander become a system’ (Martel, 462).

Brown Tongue Promotion

Martel clarified the procedure for promotion in the Catholic hierarchy:

“Homophilic cardinals privilege prelates who have inclinations and who, in turn, choose gay priests. Nuncios, those ambassadors of the pope who are given the task to selecting bishops and among whom the percentage of homosexuals reaches record levels, in turn operate a ‘natural’ selection. . . It is not rare for a nuncio or a bishop to promote a priest who is also part of ‘the parish’ because he expects some [sexual] favours in return” (Martel, 10).

A young priest who once lived with cardinals, bishops and retired nuncios in the 2000’s was asked by Martel to estimate the size of the homosexual community in the Vatican. He said: ‘I think that the percentage is very high. I’d put it around 80 per cent’ (Martel, 18).

These men who appear to have sacrificed marriage and children, to live as celibates, who present holy and chaste lives to the outside world by day, return home – to boyfriends in their Vatican apartments or pursue risky trysts with Rome’s rent boys – by night. This habit, of conducting homosexual lives away from the glaring light of exposure is a Vatican family trait. The Bishops, the College of Cardinals and those in the priesthood are members of an extensive monarchal ‘family.’ These titled members, are the ones whom the Vatican shields and protects, from the law, a critical media, and blowback from a victimized laity.

Rev. Gene Gomulka, a retired Navy Chaplain reported in The State of the U.S. Catholic Episcopate and Priesthood:

“. . .Pope Francis’ reluctance to discipline clerical predators and homosexually active clergy prelates stems from allegations that he himself engaged in homosexual acts, and as reported in various documentaries and articles, that he. . . covered up more abuse when he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires than most cardinals, archbishops, or bishops in the world. . .”

Until the Bergoglian papacy, the Vatican Closet showed many cracks, but the door to the homosexual life inside remained firmly closed.

‘How much filth there is in the ‘Church,’ said Cardinal Ratzinger, “who also discovered the extent of the ‘closet’ through a secret report by three cardinals. “The report, says Martel, revealed a deep system of entrenched “ungovernable” . . . blackmail and harassment. . .” (Martel, xiii)

Why risk it all now?

Dr. Martel questioned the motivation behind the Vatican giving him the green light in 2015, to interview anyone who would speak to him connected to the Holy See.

“Why did these men, who were used to being silent, agree to break the omertà? What they told me was unsayable for a long time . . . the resignation of Benedict XVI and Pope Francis’s desire for reform have freed people’s tongues. Social networks, more courage on the part of the press, and countless ecclesiastical sex scandals have made it possible, and necessary to reveal this secret today” (Martel, xxii).

Heterosexual Crumbs

The Theology of the Body, John Paul II’s clarion call about the sacredness of heterosexual marriage and the gravity of being created male and female is a text the laity never reads because it’s too hard to be – that Catholic. This cultivated ignorance fits in seamlessly with the sodomite philanderers in the USCCB and the Vatican. The material trade off for the laity not being fully Catholic is: we are loyal to the idea of the Vatican; we love the drag show: the grandeur, the pomp and the processions. We give generously to Peter’s Pence and the Cardinal’s Appeal because it is a quid pro quo.

They don’t push us to be true Catholics and we pretend they’re not gay. We’ll pick up a giving tree ornament during Advent and return a wrapped present for the hastily scrawled name in a box by the tree. That’s what being a good Catholic has become – perpetual donations, acceptance of vice, no questions asked. Our loyalty to the hierarchy’s game is a vital part of the system. The laity are overlooked lackeys who tip-toe around the Vatican royal family speculating what they will do next.

Heterosexual Marriage

When I was growing up on Long Island, (a part of NY State), no one could conceive the notion that the same sex could marry each other; it was impossible, unimaginable, unthinkable. Heterosexual families in my 1970’s beach town, though attacked on all sides by feminism, gay rights, easy divorce, drugs, contraception and abortion-on-demand still recognized, though inarticulately, that a man and a woman became one when joined together in marriage.

John Paul II described it in The Theology of the Body, “. . . this original unity in marriage between man and woman was the original or primordial sacrament . . . through their original bodily unity, man and woman expressed God’s invisible love and grace to each other and to the rest of creation” (TOB 97-98).]

I asked, Dorothea Ludwig-Wang, Th.M. a theologian, what the Catechism of the Catholic Church meant when it speaks about homosexuality. “So, when the Catechism says “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to natural law (CCC 2357). “Is this what the Catechism means?”

That is certainly part of it. Not only are homosexual acts contrary to natural law because they frustrate the primary purpose of the sexual faculty, which is to bring forth children, they even deny the secondary purpose, which is to support the type of mutual love and intimacy which, by definition, is only possible between a man and a woman. This is why homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered in a way that sexual relations in a sinful context between a man and a woman would not be. Two men, or two women, simply do not possess the complementarity that God endowed humanity with, and this applies physically, psychologically, and socially.

The physical side, however, isn’t the whole picture. When men and women go to war with each other, all of society collapses. Not only are fewer and fewer children being produced because of sexual immorality, the children who are being brought into the world are also not receiving the proper moral formation that can only be offered by two parents of different sexes together. What applies to the family as an imperfect society also applies to the two perfect societies God established, to which the family is directed: the Church and the State. Because the masculine and feminine represent contrasting attributes of God, such as justice and mercy, ignoring one or the other will necessarily lead to a warped view of reality itself.

Rent Boys

Martel came to understand that the presence of priests in search of male prostitutes in Roma Termini is “a well-established business – a small industry. It involves hundreds of prelates and even some bishops and cardinals from the Roman Curia whose names we know. . . “Martel interviewed Rome’s migrant rent boys who regularly have anal sex with Vatican priests and clergy. The more expensive escorts are called into the Vatican by prelates who may send for a “high class escort” from Naples. For priests who survive on a thousand euros a month, a rent boy of 14 or 15 years, (or even younger) is the anonymous sexual encounter they prefer.

Martel wondered,

“. . . Why do they try to ‘save’ the prostitutes they’re exploiting? Is there a remnant of Christian morality that makes them human at the very moment when they are betraying their vows of chastity?” (Martel, 129)

Priests Who Abuse Choose Boys

Karen J Terry Ph.D. a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, wrote an academic paper in 2008 to explain the underlying reasons for the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church and what to do about it.

“According to victimization studies of sexual abuse, more females than males are sexually victimized, but this differs in the clergy population . . . priests abused significantly more boys. . . The majority of victims. . . About 40% of all victims were males between 11 and 14. The mean age of male victims was older than the mean age of female victims. The more victims the offenders had, victims tended to be both younger and male” (Terry 2008).

  • Priests abused significantly more boys (81%) than girls (19%).
  • The majority of victims (51%) were between the ages of 11 and 14,
  • 27% were 15–17, 16% were 8–10 and 6% were under age 7.
  • About 40% of all victims were males between 11 and 14.

Fr. Dariusz Oku, a Polish theologian underscored Professor Terry’s findings in this excerpt from his 2012 article, “With the Pope against the Homo heresy“

“We should first expose the common lie presented by the media. They keep talking about paedophilia among clergymen, while it is most often the case that the problem is ephebophilia, which is a perversion consisting in adult homosexual men being attracted not to children, but to pubescent and adolescent boys. It is a typical deviation related to homosexuality.”

The Enemies Within

These princes, these eminences, these excellencies, these fathers of the Apostolic See are clearly in mortal danger of losing their souls, and dragging the rest of the Church down with them. Yet, they refuse to leave the highly constrained homophobic environment of Vatican City to live freely as gay men in the 21st century. Why?

The Vatican system is a near occasion of sin: patronage: comfort, class, status, influence, protection, position, sexual encounters and power. Fr. Dariusz Oku in a passage from his 2012 article, With the Pope Against Homo heresy, described his fellow priests who’ve become habituated to mortal sin:

“If they yield to temptation and go down the road of active homosexuality, their situation becomes desperate. On the one hand, they administer the sacraments, celebrate the Holy Mass every day, deal with the holiest of holy objects; and on the other hand they keep doing the exact opposite, that which is particularly deplorable. This way they “become immune” to that which is higher, that which is holy, their moral life yields to atrophy, going steadily downhill towards the fall. The more of that which is higher dies in them, the more room there is for that which is lower – the desire for material, sensual things – money, power, career, lust and sex.”

The Curia, forced to put a toe out of the Vatican Closet, experienced what Cardinal Walter Kasper called, “the small step strategy” of Bergoglio’s” Proclaiming charity for the outcasts, the poor, those who live on the margins, those who live peripherally, then, zero in on the true goals: ordination for women – homosexual priesthood. Kasper warned, ‘If you advance too quickly. . . there will be a schism among Catholics. . .’ (Martel, xiii)

The Francis pontificate capitalized on liberal Catholic American’s support for the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022 that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States. By releasing Fiducia Supplicans (2023) a wedge was created in Church teaching. The Vatican issued this encyclical a year after the U.S. “Catholic” president signed a bill for same sex marriage. Coincidence? Not really. The U.S. approved gay marriage and one year later, the Holy See released a test run blessing same-sex couples.

Luke Coppen of The Pillar noted:

The first thing to note is that the document is a “declaration” — the most important level of document issued by the Vatican’s doctrine department.

During Francis’ papal reign, new doctrines were tested out amid confusion, ambiguous statements, and outright heterodoxy. Catholics’ brains were too flummoxed to get off the spin cycle. In spite of many warning signs, like Fiduciary Supplicans, the laity, have not caught up. The overarching goal: To Come Out of the Vatican Closet without causing an uproar.

At the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, the Vatican is “past the point of wondering whether it’s okay to be LGBTQ and Christian” Its aim is a queer theology – the gay-ing of Jesus and the Apostles, the old testament and the new. The spiritual emphasis for the laity won’t be what can the Faith teach me, but what queerness can teach the Faith. Ultimately, the Vatican – the largest secret gay community in the world – will become the largest unzipped queer community – in the world.

The Catholic Remnant

The Catholic Remnant: summed up in a scene from Peter Jackson’s, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:

Galadriel: “. . . Something moves in the shadows, unseen, hidden from our sight. It will not show itself, not yet. . . but every day it grows in strength. You must be careful.”

[Gandalf nods and turns to leave]

“Mithrandir, why the halfling?”

Gandalf: “I don’t know. Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I’ve found it is the small things; everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay . . . simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I am afraid . . . and he gives me courage.”

Notes

Frèdèric Martel, In the Closet of The Vatican Power Homosexuality Hypocrisy, English language edition. (New York: Bloomsbury Continuum., 2019)

Terry, K, (2008, January). Understanding the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church: Challenges with Prevention Policies.Research Gate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247523934

Reprinted with permission from the author.

Beth Callaway graduated Pace University in NYC, magna cum laude and is a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the American honor society in history. She is curious about the historical realities behind the news and in the Church.

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