Handmaids News: Digesting Cardinal George Pell Sex Abuse Charges, Vatican Reels Over Msgr. Luigi Capozzi's Gay Sex Orgy

It's been a rough couple of weeks at the Vatican, and Pope Francis is not amused. The Daily Beast reveals the latest scandal, one in which the Vatican's Swiss Guards were called to "break up a drug-fueled gay orgy in Pope Francis' backyard'.  Last week's blockbuster found Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican's de facto finance chief, according to the New York Times, charged with sexual assault. Pell is due in court in Melbourne, Australia on July 18. He has testified previously before Australia's Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about charges that he "had sexually abused minors himself beginning early in his priesthood and continuing until he became archbishop of Melbourne." Cardinal Pell insists that he's innocent of all charges and will return to Australia, as soon as possible, to clear his name following advice and approval by his doctors who will also advise on his travel arrangements,” according to a statement issued by the Archdiocese of Sydney. 

With Rome reeling from the Pell charges, the Vatican's Swiss Guards were called to a ruckus in the so-called Ex Sant'Uffizio Palace, owned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, charged with investigating charges of clerical sex abuse within the church, and formerly occupied by Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI. Countless high-ranking cardinals live in the palatial building, whose 'Ratzinger' quarters had been given to Monsignor Luigi Capozzi, the secretary for Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, who heads the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, charged with deciphering and clarifying various points of canon law. 

When the Swiss Guards showed up, an orgy was in progress, with numerous naked men allegedly writhing around the floor with Capozzi and his guests, apparently under the influence of hard drugs according to the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano which broke the story.

Catholic Culture confirms that indeed the event did occur, noting as well that it's not clear how Msgr. Capozzi landed an apartment there, a plum not normally accorded to his rank. 

Msgr. Capozzi had access to a car with Vatican license plates: again a sign that he had influential friends. Those license plates made him virtually exempt from searches by the Italian police, and could have facilitated the transportation of illegal drugs. The location of his residence—in a building with one door leading onto Vatican territory, the other onto the streets of Rome—was also ideal for someone avoiding police oversight.