It Was An American After All

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes there is a new papa and he is an American.

Except he is a South American, from Argentina in fact.

Close but no cigar fasab 🙂

His name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but now it is Francis I, and he was the surprise choice in one of the fastest conclaves in recent times.

He is a Jesuit and he is 76 years old and, no pun intended, he has one hell of a mess to try to clean up.

In fact the trouble never stops coming.

As the election was getting under way in Rome, an article published on Monday, in the Italian newspaper La Republica, noted that the Vatican paid an estimated $30 million in 2008 for around 20 apartments in the imposing palazzo at 2 Via Carducci.

palazzo at 2 Via Carducci
The Palazzo at 2 Via Carducci in Rome, the $30 million apartment complex bought by the Vatican.

Not only will these apartments do very little to help the poor and needy in his flock as I guess very few of them could afford even to rent a $1.5 million apartment let alone buy one, but the complex it turns out is also home to Italy’s biggest gay sauna, the Europa Multiclub!

Europa Multiclub, which features a Turkish bath and Finnish sauna, bills itself as the number one sauna in Italy. Open all year, the club also offers weekly “bear parties”, which it advertises on its website with a video of a stripper donning clerical attire.

Europa Multiclub entrance
Europa Multiclub entrance adorned with phallic topiary display. (Does that sign say use rear entrance?)

And to top it all, the housing block accommodates 15 priests, including a 12-room apartment on the first floor of the building for 76-year-old Cardinal Ivan Dias, a socially conservative Cardinal who was the former archbishop of Bombay, who has called homosexuality a disease of the soul. Does anyone detect a hint of hypocrisy?

Red faces to go with those red robes I think.

Good luck Francis, you’re going to need it.

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