VATICAN CITY – Catholic officials in Italy have threatened former altar boys of the pope with criminal defamation charges for having publicly accused an older seminarian of sexual misconduct when they lived together at the youth seminary inside the Vatican gardens.
Church lawyers in the diocese of Como have also warned the Mediaset television network against broadcasting the boys' claims and have purportedly pressed a church official to recant his suggestion of a cover-up.
The response is indicative of how the allegations of gay sex among altar boys inside the Vatican walls have touched a raw nerve in the Vatican and the Italian church. The reaction has been particularly acute within a small Catholic association, the Opera Don Folci, which runs the seminary for altar boys who serve at papal Masses in St. Peter's Basilica.
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