Vatican department shares building with Italy's biggest gay sauna
As 115 cardinals prepare to elect a new Pope, the Vatican faced fresh embarrassment over claims that one of its key departments shares a building in Rome that hosts Italy's biggest gay sauna.
The historic palazzo is the headquarters
of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, which was founded
in 1622 and is responsible for missionary activities. The building
provides accommodation for about 15 priests.
But
the imposing stone mansion also contains the Europa Multiclub Sauna and
Gym, which claims on its website that it is "the number one gay sauna
in Italy".
The Vatican paid a hugely
inflated price for around 20 apartments in the building when it was
acquired in 2008, La Repubblica newspaper claimed in a front page report
on Monday.
The apartments were
bought for nine million euros on May 30 2008 by a property company which
later that day sold them to the Vatican for 20 million euros, making an
instant profit of 11 million euros, the daily claimed.
The
newspaper offered no explanation for the hugely inflated price but
there was no suggestion that there was anything illegal about the deal.
One of the apartments bought by the Vatican is
inhabited by Cardinal Ivan Dias, the prefect emeritus of the
Congregation for the Evangelisation of the Peoples.The cardinal, who is Indian, will take part in the conclave to elect a new Pope. He is the archbishop emeritus of Mumbai and also served as a Vatican diplomat, holding posts in Scandinavia, Madagascar and Mauritius.
Not far from his apartment, and accommodation for around 15 clergy, is the gay sauna club.
The Vatican has declined to comment
