The Vatican said it has suspended a monsignor from a senior post at the Holy See after an Italian TV program, with a hidden camera, recorded him making advances to a young man, while the monsignor said he was pretending to be homosexual.
The monsignor, who told the young man on camera that it was not a sin to be gay, said in an interview published yesterday that he is not gay and was only pretending as part of his work.
In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico said he frequented online gay chat rooms and met with gay men as part of his work as a psychoanalyst.
Stenico said that he had pretended to be homosexual in order to gather information about "those who damage the image of the church with homosexual activity."
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.
"It's all false; it was a trap. I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the Church with my psychoanalyst work," La Repubblica quoted Stenico as saying.
Vatican spokesman the Reverend Federico Lombardi said on Saturday that the monsignor had been suspended pending a Vatican investigation.
Stenico is a top official in the Vatican's Congregation of the Clergy.
The Holy see acted after Vatican officials recognized Stenico's office in the background of a television program on gay priests that was broadcast on Oct. 1 on La7, a private Italian TV network.
While the Vatican rarely comments on individual sex scandals, this case directly touched the Holy See, apparently prompting its public confirmation of the report to media.
I can't deny the fact," Lombardi told journalists on Saturday.
"Higher-ups are evaluating the situation with the necessary reserve and with the obligatory respect for the person involved, even if this person has erred," Lombardi said.
In the Repubblica interview, Stenico said he had met with the young man and pretended to talk about homosexuality "to better understand this mysterious and faraway world which, by the fault of a few people -- among them some priests -- is doing so much harm to the church."
Stenico said he had never been gay and was heterosexual, but remained faithful to his vow of celibacy.
Italy's Sky TG24 said that Stenico had written a letter to his superiors, explaining his reason for approaching the young man about homosexuality.
Calls placed to Stenico's home and Vatican office went unanswered yesterday.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS