The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, told reporters that, while the case was under investigation, the monsignor was suspended from his job as a top official in the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy, which aims to ensure proper conduct by priests.
“The case is being handled with utmost reserve,” Father Lombardi said.
A private Italian television network broadcast a program this month in which some priests were interviewed about their homosexuality. Vatican teaching holds that homosexuality is a sin.
The men, including the monsignor who was suspended, were interviewed with their faces obscured and their voices altered so that they would not be recognized. But Vatican officials recognized the Vatican office in which the monsignor was interviewed, the newspaper La Repubblica reported on Saturday.
During the interview the monsignor said he “didn’t feel he was sinning” by having sex with gay men, La Repubblica reported.
The Vatican did not name the monsignor. NYTimes
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