Vatican Screws Up, Fires Half of its Priests

Vatican officials today made the "shocking" discovery that they'd accidentally ordered almost all of their priests to quit, apparently due to a bureaucratic snafu that insiders attribute to poor interdepartmental communication.

The calamity started earlier this week when Panorama, a weekly Italian magazine, published a huge exposé (not safe for work, adult content) The Wild Night of Gay Priests... (here's the English translation).

The calamity started when the Roman Diocese urged the gay priest to "leave the closet" and the priesthood too. But someone forgot to tell the Diocese that somewhere between 50% (the low estimate) and 98% of the priests in the Vatican are gay. Word finally got through but by then it was too late – the halls were empty, and the Pope couldn't find even one priest to bring him his morning coffee.

OK, enough poking fun. The Panorama exposé really did happen, and it does seem that the Roman Catholic leadership is the only group that is surprised. Time after time, there are revelations that Roman Catholic priests are not following their celibacy guidelines nor heeding the prohibition against homosexuality, and each time the Vatican reacts with apparent surprise and sadness.

It's a complete charade. The Vatican knows exactly what's going on in its ranks, and always has. I've heard from many sources, including friends who were part of the priesthood, that the Vatican itself is heavily gay. This was once again confirmed by the Panorama article.

So when the Vatican expresses surprise at these revelations, it is a complete fake. They know the truth, but are lying.

The real tragedy here is the self-loathing and misery that all of this causes. The Roman Catholic Church simply needs to abandon its policy of celibacy, which is immoral and unhealthy, and it needs to recognize that we're all sexual beings that need love, whether we're straight, gay, or anything in between. That would be the way of a truly loving church.