Sex Abuse Scandals News Stories

Excerpts of Key Sex Abuse Scandals News Stories in Major Media

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For the second time this month, a uniformed military official whose job was to prevent sex abuse has come under investigation for a sex crime. Agents from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division were looking into allegations that an Army sergeant first class at Fort Hood, Texas, sexually abused females in his unit and ran a prostitution ring on the base. Officials said that the soldier, who was not identified, had been assigned as an Equal Opportunity Adviser and Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) program coordinator at Fort Hood with the Army’s III Corps when the allegations surfaced. The CID investigation was looking into allegations that the sergeant was involved in “abusive sexual contact, pandering, assault and maltreatment of subordinates” in his oversight of a unit of about 800 soldiers. The allegations against the sergeant surfaced a week after Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, branch chief of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault and Prevention Office, was arrested and charged by Arlington County, Va., police for allegedly being drunk and groping a woman in a parking lot near a strip club one mile from the Pentagon. Krusinski has been charged with sexual battery, and a hearing on his criminal case has been set for July. The charges against Krusinski rocked the Air Force, which was already dealing with numerous courts-martial stemming from the alleged abuse of female recruits at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. .

Note: So the officer in charge of sexual harassment and assault was also running a prostitution ring? And this according to military.com. Do we have a serious problem here? If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here.

[The] military criminal justice system ... frequently grants impunity to [sex] offenders and punishes victims -- the outcome of a fiercely guarded power of commanders who wield broad discretion over the handling of sex crimes in their ranks. From the accounts of sexual assault survivors in every branch of the military, a stark panorama emerges: Many victims were drugged or forced to drink and were raped, attacked as they slept, beaten unconscious and coerced into sex by their superiors. They were strongly discouraged from disclosing the crimes, or forced to report assaults to commanders who are closely connected to the accused. Few suspects face criminal punishment. Of 3,374 reports of sexual assault last year involving 2,900 accused offenders, only 302 went to courts-martial and 238 were convicted, the Defense Department says. Meanwhile, 286 offenders received nonjudicial or administrative punishment or discharges, allowing them to dodge a criminal mark on their record. In 70 cases, suspects slated for possible courts-martial were allowed to quit their jobs to avoid charges. Prison sentences are rare. Only 177 perpetrators were sentenced to confinement. But the most jarring statistic: about half of all convicted sex offenders were not automatically expelled from the armed services. For all the public outrage sparked by sexual abuses at the Navy Tailhook convention in 1991, the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1996 and the Air Force Academy in 2003, the military criminal justice system has failed to stem an epidemic of sexual assaults, reaching an estimated 26,000 last year.

Note: Read the full, disturbing article at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.

13 studies find that more than half of schizophrenics suffered childhood abuse. Another review of 23 studies shows that schizophrenics are at least three times more likely to have been abused than non-schizophrenics. It is becoming apparent that abuse is the major cause of psychoses. It is also all too clear that the medical model is bust. In the press release accompanying publication of DSM-5 [the American Psychiatric Association's classification of psychiatric disorders], David Kupfer, who oversaw its creation, states: "We've been telling patients for several decades that we are waiting for biomarkers. We're still waiting." This is an astonishing admission that there are no reliable genetic or neurological measurements that distinguish a person with mental illness. By contrast, there is a huge body of evidence that our early childhood experiences combined with subsequent exposure to adversity explain a very great deal.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on the devastating psychological impacts of sexual abuse, click here.

An Air Force officer was arrested for sexual assault. The remarkable thing is the accused man was the chief of the Air Force sexual assault prevention unit. The mug shot of Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski shows signs of struggle on his face. The police report alleges that a drunken Krusinski "approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks." The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police. News of the incident in the Virginia suburbs of Washington broke the day before the Pentagon is scheduled to release new figures showing a continuing rise in sexual assaults in the military: A six-percent increase from 3,192 to 3,374 reports of sexual assault in fiscal year 2012 compared to the previous year. Estimates of the actual numbers of what is a notoriously underreported crime go much higher. According to the Pentagon figures, an estimated 26,000 servicewomen experienced unwanted sexual contact, up from 19,300 two years ago. Krusinski has been removed from his job, but that will not change the reality that the Pentagon's own figures show sexual assaults are on the rise in the military.

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The Pentagon [has] released a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010. The study, based on a confidential survey sent to 108,000 active-duty service members, was released two days after the officer in charge of sexual assault prevention programs for the Air Force was arrested and charged with sexual battery for grabbing a woman’s breasts and buttocks in an Arlington, Va., parking lot. In a separate report ... the military recorded 3,374 sexual assault reports last year, up from 3,192 in 2011, suggesting that many victims continue not to report the crimes for fear of retribution or a lack of justice under the department’s system for prosecution. The numbers come as the Pentagon prepares to integrate women formally into what had been all-male domains of combat, making the effective monitoring, policing and prosecuting of sexual misconduct all the more pressing. In 2010, a similar Pentagon survey found that 4.4 percent of active-duty women and fewer than 0.9 percent of active-duty men had experienced sexual assault. Pentagon officials could not explain the jump in assaults of women, although they believed that more victims, both men and women, were making the choice to come forward. In the general population, about 0.2 percent of American women over age 12 were victims of sexual assault in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.

A highly-organised paedophile ring involving Victorian police and former politicians had been operating in the state since the 1970s, anti-child abuse groups claimed today. Dr Reina Michaelson of The Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program (CSAPP) and Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston today said they had been told by child sex abuse victims that former Victorian elected politicians and police members were involved in child pornography and prostitution. Dr Michaelson said she was working with child sex abuse victims who said they had witnessed significant police corruption and protection of paedophilia rings. The allegations come in response to a damning report released by Victoria's Ombudsman George Brouwer yesterday into Victoria Police's botched handling of four cases of child sex abuse. Ms Michaelson and Ms Johnston today called for the confidential Ombudsman's report to be made public and for a royal commission into child sexual abuse and corruption. "When problems within Victoria Police are shown to have extended into the investigation of serious sex crimes against children, as has been revealed by the Ombudsman's investigation, it is time for the Victorian government to act," Dr Michaelson said.

Note: Because of intense pressure from politicians and police and disturbing threats, Dr. Michaelson eventually gave up trying to push for justice in these sexual abuse cases. For lots more solid information on this disturbing news, click here and here. And if you are willing to explore how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here.

The suspects include a flamboyant pop star, a sharp-tongued comedian, [and] a disc jockey known as “the hairy cornflake”. Most are in their 70s or 80s, and most are, or were, household names — celebrities from a bygone era. All have been caught up in ... Operation Yewtree, a nationwide inquiry into sexual offenses that may or may not have been committed decades ago. In American terms, it is as if Captain Kangaroo, Dick Clark and Jerry Lewis were suddenly being accused of committing sexual crimes dating back 30 or 40 years. Yewtree was formed in response to the disclosures last year that the entertainer Jimmy Savile had been a serial sexual predator with scores of victims, many of them under age, in an entertainment career spanning four decades. The case ... spurred hundreds of people to come forward with their own accounts of being sexually assaulted as teenagers. The operation involves at least 69 police officers and staff members and has already cost more than $2.7 million. The result has been a flurry of arrests, about a dozen involving very public people. England has no statute of limitations on serious crimes like rape and murder, yet it is notoriously hard to obtain convictions for sexual crimes, especially ones from years ago when no physical evidence exists. Mark Williams-Thomas, a former detective who amassed much of the evidence against Mr. Savile [said] “Savile lifted the lid on people who are considered untouchable because of their celebrity status.”

Note: Another NY Times article reports on TV personality Stuart Hall, who "pleaded guilty to the charges last month, but the news media was prohibited from reporting the plea until now." Why was the media prohibited from reporting this? If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here.

There are few cases that better illustrate why the military needs to create an independent office to investigate rape than that of Lt. Col. James Wilkerson. Wilkerson, a fighter pilot, was sentenced to a year in prison and dismissed from military service after being found guilty of aggravated sexual assault by a jury of his peers. His commanding officer then threw out the conviction and reinstated Wilkerson at full rank. Under the military code of justice ... the commanding officer's discretion and bias may overrule legal decisions. In this case, Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, the commander of the 3rd Air Force, declined to approve Wilkerson's conviction by a jury of senior officers, all men. His decision suggests the Air Force doesn't take sexual assault seriously. Yet, an estimated 19,000 rapes or sexual assaults occur each year in the military, although just 8 percent of sexual assaults are referred to military court, according to a Department of Defense survey of active-duty members. That compares with 40 percent in the civilian court system. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-[CA], last week reintroduced legislation that calls for overhauling how the military justice system handles rape and sexual assault by taking prosecution, reporting, oversight, investigation and victim care out of the chain of command and putting it in an autonomous office housed in the military but staffed by both civilian and military personnel. "Victims of rape and sexual assault should not have to choose between career-ending retaliation and seeking judicial action against their attackers," said Speier.

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The Joliet Diocese readily admitted that David Rudofski was sexually abused during his first confession at St. Mary Catholic Church in Mokena. It offered him an in-person apology from the bishop and more than six times his annual salary in the hope of putting a quick, quiet end to yet another ugly incident involving a priest. But Rudofski wanted more than money. He demanded that the diocese settle its debt by turning over the secret archives it maintained on abusive priests and making them available for public consumption.The diocese, however, fought Rudofski's efforts for more than a year before agreeing to turn over the personnel files of 16 of the 34 priests with substantiated allegations against them. The files ... contain more than 7,000 records detailing how the diocese purposefully shielded priests, misled parishioners and left children unprotected for more than a half-century. Researchers and Roman Catholic Church officials have previously said that about 4 percent of priests nationally committed an act of sexual abuse against a minor between 1950 and 2002, with church officials claiming the rate of abusers within the priesthood is no different from that among other professions. However, the files show that the Joliet Diocese ... had double or triple that percentage in the 1980s. In 1983, for example, more than 13 percent of priests serving in the diocese would later have credible abuse allegations leveled against them.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.

Jimmy Savile met Margaret Thatcher several times to get support for his Stoke Mandeville Hospital appeal, newly released government papers show. In letters they exchanged, released by the National Archives, Savile tells Mrs Thatcher that the patients at the hospital love her - and he does too. The government eventually gave Ł500,000 to the Buckinghamshire hospital. The papers also show Savile approached Mrs Thatcher about tax relief on charitable donations. The charitable covenant rules at the time meant a donor would have to commit to give to a charity for seven years for their donations to be eligible for tax relief. The documents show Mrs Thatcher thought the so-called "seven-year rule" was a disincentive to charitable giving, "and that three years might be a more reasonable period". In a letter to the prime minister a week later, Savile says he waited before thanking her for the "lunch invitation" because he did not want to be "too effusive". In a letter to Savile, dated 25 February 1980 and addressed "Dear Jimmy", Mrs Thatcher said: "I am interested in the subject myself and I am now looking into it." Other related documents also released by the National Archives show that at a private meeting with Mrs Thatcher in January 1981, Savile raised the possibility of "some government support" as a "goodwill gesture" for the Stoke Mandeville spinal injuries unit appeal. The records show Mrs Thatcher and Savile then met for a private lunch on 8 March 1981 and, in a handwritten note to her private secretary at the time, she says she "promised to get government contribution".

Note: CNN strangely included several photos of Savile and Thatcher together as they reported on her death, as shown at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.

America is a country where all of us should be able to pursue our own measure of happiness and live free from fear. But for the millions of children who have experienced abuse or neglect, it is a promise that goes tragically unfulfilled. National Child Abuse Prevention Month is a time to make their struggle our own and reaffirm a simple truth: that no matter the challenges we face, caring for our children must always be our first task. Realizing that truth in our society means ensuring children know they are never alone -- that they always have a place to go and there are always people on their side. Parents and caregivers play an essential part in giving their children that stability. But we also know that keeping our children safe is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors and the broader community. All of us bear a responsibility to look after them, whether by lifting children toward their full potential or lending a hand to a family in need. Together, we are making important progress in stopping child abuse and neglect. So this month, let us stand up for them and make their voices heard. To learn more about ending child abuse and how to get involved, visit www.ChildWelfare.gov/Preventing. Now, Therefore, I, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, ... do hereby proclaim April 2013 as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities that help prevent child abuse and provide for children's physical, emotional, and developmental needs.

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Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens was best known during his bustling 16-year career in Parliament as a pugnacious right-winger who supplied “hang ‘em and flog ‘em” quotes to the tabloids. Eighteen years after his death, however, the backbencher’s reputation as a political lightweight is being revised in the wake of a Scotland Yard investigation which is exhuming a scandal long buried in the Westminster of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership. New evidence suggests that Dickens stumbled upon an Establishment paedophile ring in the early 1980s – and that his efforts to expose a cover-up left him in fear of his life. In 1981 Dickens had used Parliamentary privilege to name a diplomat and MI6 operative, Sir Peter Hayman as a pederast and demanded the Attorney General explain why he had escaped prosecution over the discovery of violent pornography on a London bus two years previously. Two years later, in 1983, he warned a paedophile network involved “big, big names – people in positions of power, influence and responsibility” and threatened to expose them in Parliament. In 1984, he campaigned for the outlawing of Sir Peter’s Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) organisation. Last month Metropolitan Police began Operation Fernbridge into allegations that residents of a childrens home in Richmond, west London, were taken to the nearby Elm Guest House in Barnes, where they were abused. Pornography involving adults having sex with children was allegedly shot at the property and then circulated commercially. Sir Peter was among the visitors to the property.

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Allegations of [a] disturbing pedophile ring with connections to the highest ranks of government have come to light. Campaigning Labor MP Tom Watson [has] rocked the House of Commons by airing allegations from child-protection professionals of a "powerful pedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10.” Watson’s co-author of Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain, Martin Hickman, [said] on the eve of [Watson's] parliamentary statement “this is much darker and more disturbing than phone hacking … We have no idea where it will go." Within days, Steven Messham, one of the alleged victims, went on camera on a BBC Newsnight documentary to say that he and other children were sexually abused on a regular basis at a care home by a circle of men that included a leading Thatcher-era politician during the 1970s and 1980s. Messham claimed to have been raped by the senior political figure at least a dozen times, and his accusations were echoed by [an] anonymous victim, who told Newsnight that in 2000 he was abused by the same man. Watson, who for years led a lonely campaign to expose phone hacking at Murdoch tabloid News of the World, described this new scandal as “potentially worse.” In a blog post titled "10 Days That Shook My World," Watson wrote ... that “these allegations go way beyond the claims made on BBC Newsnight yesterday ... It sounds like I’ve taken leave of my senses,” Watson admitted, “Just like they said I had during the early days of the hacking scandal.”

Note: To learn about a widespread pedophile ring which reaches to the top levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.

A powerful paedophile network may have operated in Britain protected by its connections to Parliament and Downing Street, a senior Labour politician suggested. Tom Watson, the deputy chairman of the Labour Party, called on the Metropolitan Police to reopen a closed criminal inquiry into paedophilia. Mr Watson referred to the case of Peter Righton, who was convicted in 1992 of importing and possessing illegal homosexual pornographic material. Righton, a former consultant to the National Children’s Bureau and lecturer at the National Institute for Social Work in London, admitted two illegal importation charges and one charge of possessing obscene material. He was fined Ł900. Mr Watson said the evidence file used to convict Righton “if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring”. He told a hushed Commons: “One of its members boasts of a link to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad. “The leads were not followed up, but if the files still exist, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it, and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10.” The Independent understands that Mr Watson’s comments were [aimed] at a living person associated with Margaret Thatcher’s administration. They are thought to involve the activities of the Paedophile Information Exchange, a pro-paedophile group in existence between 1974 and 1984, which believed there should be no age of consent.

Note: To learn about a widespread pedophile ring which reaches to the top levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.

The detective spread out the photographs on the kitchen table, in front of Nicole, on a December morning in 2006. She was 17, but in the pictures, she saw the face of her 10-year-old self, a half-grown girl wearing make-up. The bodies in the images were broken up by pixelation, but Nicole could see the outline of her father, forcing himself on her. Her mother, sitting next to her, burst into sobs. The detective spoke gently, but he had brutal news: the pictures had been downloaded onto thousands of computers via file-sharing services around the world. They were among the most widely circulated child pornography on the Internet. Also online were video clips, similarly notorious, in which Nicole spoke words her father had scripted for her, sometimes at the behest of other men. For years, investigators in the United States, Canada and Europe had been trying to identify the girl in the images. Nicole’s parents split up when she was a toddler, and she grew up living with her mother and stepfather and visiting her father, a former policeman, every other weekend at his apartment in a suburban town in the Pacific Northwest. He started forcing her to perform oral sex and raping her, dressing her in tight clothes and sometimes binding her with ropes. When she turned 12, she told him to stop, but he used threats and intimidation to continue the abuse for about a year. He said that if she told anyone what he’d done, everyone would hate her for letting him. He said that her mother would no longer love her.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.

It was the start of the end of the silence, and wasn't it a racket? Yet officially at least, the "survivors" of child sex abuse who have waited decades to be unburdened of their stories must wait a little longer. Inside the [Australian] Royal Commission, where the hands on the wall clock were missing, chair Justice Peter McClellan announced that evidence was unlikely to start being heard in public until October. Outside the County Court, however, ... some survivors rushed to tell their secrets now. Ray Thomson told tales he had never admitted to in public before. He was a lucky one, he explained. Unlike so many other wards of the state, he hadn't landed in jail by his 20s. He wasn't dead. There had been suicide attempts. For decades, Thomson, of Coldstream, lived in denial. For a long time, he derided those who said they couldn't remember the atrocities committed against them, even though he himself still blanks them out. He also alluded to darker things, far darker things. He couldn't talk about those. Yes, he wants justice. "Five minutes" with any one of his childhood predators, in NSW boys' homes and in foster care - that would be justice enough. Thomson made clear that he didn't want his story alone highlighted. In talking to other protesters from Care Leavers Australia Network, who queued to share their sadness, his reasoning became dreadfully clear. Thomson's story wasn't at all unusual. It was just another in a sinkwell of cruelty that Australia would not or could not confront. Until now.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.

Bill Nelson has been a boat captain most of his life. [He] is speaking out for the first time about the two-and-a-half years he spent at the Dozier School for Boys. Just a skinny 11-year old, he was sent away for a crime he was later exonerated of. "I was raped over there as a kid, and there were several boys raped. Anything we spoke out about, we went to the White House," he said. It's a story many Dozier boys never lived to tell. "A lot of boys didn't make it. They weren't strong enough to make it," said Nelson. "Sometimes at night you could hear the screams," said Nelson. [The White House is] a small building where the temperature drops inside and paint peels off the walls and where Nelson remembers being tortured. "Sometimes you stayed two or three days in chains and they beat you," he said. "They were beaten to death." Soon the Dozier graveyard, known as Boot Hill, may become a crime scene. Scientists are preparing for a massive exhumation. They've discovered nearly 50 unmarked graves in the woods using ground-penetrating radar. The state shut down the institution for wayward boys in 2011 after allegations of abuse and suspicious deaths. "I didn't want to say anything because it's personal. But with all the boys that died up there, somebody needs to speak up for them," [Nelson] said.

Note: To see how this sadly may be more common than most would ever imagine, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.

"You just get a funny feeling every time you come back here," said Marinna resident Elmore Bryant. You can feel, taste and listen to the silence on Boot HIll. It's heavy, bitter, and deafening. "Who's going to listen to you when you're poor, committed a crime and you're in an institution," said Bryant. Wards of the defunct Dozier School for Boys, children, are buried in the Marianna, Florida graveyard. Ground-penetrating radar revealed nearly 50 unmarked graves that the state never detected. "Like a sorority or a fraternity, everything was closed-mouth," said Bryant, talking about his town. Bryant, 79, grew-up in Marianna with the silence in the woods. He heard the hushed stories of boys who were beaten, tortured, or worse: Disappeared. He says his town was complicit in keeping these secrets. "Nobody knew anything or was going to tell you anything," he said. Bryant tells a story he heard about Dozier boys running away at night. He says a group called the "Dog Boys" would wait for them in the woods. "The dogs would about tear them to pieces and they would holler and yell," he says. "How many? What happened to them? Were there crimes committed?" asked U.S. Senator Bill Nelson standing atop Boot Hill. Now, after nearly a century of quiet, Nelson, University of South Florida researchers and a Tampa Bay family searching to bring their loved one home, may have made enough noise to answer these questions. They are pushing for a massive exhumation of an unknown number of bodies. "We were uncovering what was clearly grave shafts," said USF's Dr. Erin Kimmerle.

Note: To see how this sadly may be more common than most would ever imagine, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.

A former supervisory FBI agent has been arrested and jailed on child pornography charges. Donald Sachtleben was taken into custody and charged ... after a nationwide undercover investigation of illegal child porn images traded over the Internet. The 54-year-old resident of Carmel, Indiana, has pleaded not guilty. A federal complaint alleges 30 graphic images and video were found on Sachtleben's laptop computer late last week when FBI agents searched his home, about 23 miles north of Indianapolis. The arrest was a result a months-long probe, said the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Joseph Hogsett. "The mission of our Project Safe Childhood initiative is to investigate and prosecute anyone found to (be) engaged in the sexual exploitation of children," Hogsett said in a news release. "No matter who you are, you will be brought to justice if you are found guilty of such criminal behavior." Sachtleben is currently an Oklahoma State University visiting professor, according to his online resume. He is director of training at the school's Center for Improvised Explosives. He had been an FBI special agent from 1983 to 2008, serving as a bomb technician. He worked on the Oklahoma City bombing and Unabomber investigations, according to his university biography. The Justice Department's Project Safe Childhood initiative was launched in 2006, leading to what federal officials call a more than 40% increase in the number of cases investigated. The project's website says 2,700 indictments were filed last year alone.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.

Faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (Ł21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna. The senior Vatican figure sweating the most due to the unlikely proximity of the gay Europa Multiclub is probably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples. This 76-year-old “prince of the church” enjoys a 12-room apartment on the first-floor of the imposing palazzo, at 2 Via Carducci, just yards from the ground floor entrance to the steamy flesh pot. There are 18 other Vatican apartments in the block, many of which house priests. The Holy See is still reeling from allegations that the previous pontiff, Benedict XVI, had quit in reaction to the presence of a gay cabal in the curia. La Repubblica newspaper noted that the presence of “Italy’s best known gay sauna in the premises is an embarrassment”. There was further embarrassment for the Holy See when the press observed that thanks to generous tax breaks it received from the last Berlusconi government, the church will have avoided hefty payments to the Italian state. The properties are recognised as part of the Holy City. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Emeritus Benedict’s widely disliked right-hand man, ... was said to have been the brains behind the purchase of 2 Via Carduccio in 2008.

Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on secrecy, click here.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.