Accusations that a secret gay society is a security risk at the Vatican are just PR spin to distract, says Rob Buchanan.

Former Swiss Guard Commander, Elmar Mäder (pictured above) says there is a “secret society of homosexuals” in the Vatican, which conspires against the papacy and is a security risk to the Pope. There is even speculation that Mäder was forced to warn some of his guardsmen, the elite force which protect the Pope, about the behaviour of certain priests. Recently another member of the Guard anonymously wrote in a Swiss newspaper that he had received more than 20 “unambiguous sexual requests” from priests within the Vatican during his service there.

Whilst I’ve absolutely no doubt there is a so-called ‘gay cabal’, it’s their sudden exposure that has more Machiavellian undertones than the secret society itself.

That a lobby, which has existed since day one in the Vatican, should suddenly come to light now is suspicious. Let’s not forget that the Church is going through a period of PR overhaul, which includes more distraction from child abuse scandals and financial corruption of the Vatican bank.

Some have speculated that much of the recent, more moderate, talk regarding queers from Pope Francis may in fact have more to do with him currying favour with the so-called Gay Lobby than with an actual sea change in the Catholic Church’s attitude to homosexuality. The Holy See is notoriously rife with intrigue and political power-plays.

Mäder has said that while he is not homophobic he fears the ‘secret society of homosexuals’ could pose a security risk and that he would never have promoted a gay man to the prestigious Swiss guard because “the risk of disloyalty would have been too high… many homosexuals are inclined to be more loyal to each other than to other people or institutions.”

Queers operating in clandestine societies have long been a straw dog for conspiracy theorists and those who would seek to blame the worlds ills on some cartoon baddie. It makes perfect sense that a minority forced underground would seek to network with like-minded individuals. It never seems to occur to people that the very reason that gays have traditionally formed our own societies has been to protect ourselves in the face of persecution.

It’s ironic, then, that we’re being framed as the persecutors by Commander Mäder, while the powers that be in the Catholic Church have fought tooth and nail to keep us disenfranchised and unrecognised as valuable in society.

There’s no such thing as a gay threat to the Papacy, and everyone knows it, including Commander Mäder. He has simply sniffed the air that’s blowing from the East, and Russia in particular, and at the same time from Uganda and Nigeria, where distraction is the order of the day and queers are the scapegoats of choice. It’s not surprising really, given that religion is fundamental to the promotion of hatred of homosexuals in the first place.