The Vatican has just paid $30 million for a portion of an apartment complex in Rome that houses Europe’s largest gay sauna, according to the UK’s Independent, which notes “faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (£21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.”
The senior Vatican figure sweating the most due to the unlikely proximity of the gay Europa Multiclub is probably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, who is due to participate in tomorrow’s election at the Sistine Chapel.
This 76-year-old “prince of the church†enjoys a 12-room apartment on the first-floor of the imposing palazzo, at 2 Via Carducci, just yards from the ground floor entrance to the steamy flesh pot. There are 18 other Vatican apartments in the block, many of which house priests.
The Holy See is still reeling from allegations that the previous pontiff, Benedict XVI, had quit in reaction to the presence of a gay cabal in the curia.
And with disgraced Scottish cardinal Keith O’Brien lending new weight to charges of hypocrisy against the Church’s stance on homosexuality, La Repubblica newspaper noted that the presence of “Italy’s best known gay sauna in the premises is an embarrassmentâ€.
Cardinal Dias, who is seen as a social conservative even by the current standards of the church hierarchy, is no doubt horrified to learn of the activities taking place a floor below.
It is not known, however, if the former archbishop of Bombay has popped downstairs to give spitiual guidances to the clients of the Europa Multiclub, given his belief that gays and lesbians can be cured of their “unnatural tendencies†through the “sacrement of penanceâ€.
The sauna’s website promotes one of its special “bear nightsâ€, with a video in which a rotund, hairy man strips down before changing into a priest’s outfit. It says Bruno, “a hairy, overweight pastor of souls, is free to the music of his clergyman, remaining in a thong, because he wants to expose body and soulâ€.
The Independent also notes the Vatican will not have to pay taxes on the property.
It should be noted that while the Independent is actually a somewhat left-leaning British tabloid, the characterization of “the activities taking place” in the “steamy flesh pot” and “the presence of a gay cabal in the curia” are not in keeping with how The New Civil Rights Movement would frame these stories.
It should also be noted that the Catholic Church in Germany, as The New Civil Rights Movement reported in 2011, owns a $2.3 billion bookseller that sells, among other items, 2500 “erotic†books, with titles like “Sluts’ Boarding School,” and the Vatican threatened to sue any publisher who accused it of selling pornography. Its “erotica” titles, available through its bookseller, Weltbild. also included “Fuckable.”
it should also be noted  in 2011, Pope Benedict XVI stated that “pornography and prostitution are crimes against humanity.”
It should also be noted $30 million could probably feed millions of children for a decade.
Image via Europa Multiclub
Hat tip: Boing Boing