As if the Vatileaks scandal were not enough to create more anti-Curia and anti-Italian sentiments as the 115 cardinal electors start the conclave on Tuesday, March 12, a new scandal threatens to overshadow the results of the papal election.

Reports said that the Vatican is the majority owner of an apartment block whose tenants include Europa Multiclub, the continent's largest gay sauna. Vatican just purchased the apartment block for €23 million.

Among the building's tenant is Cardinal Ivan Dias, head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, one of the 115 cardinal electors. He has a 12-room apartment on the first floor of the building at 2 Via Carducci. Eighteen other Vatican apartments in the same block are accommodations for Catholic priests.

Cardinal Dias, the former bishop of Bombay, is a known anti-gay clergy and had been quoted as calling homosexuality unnatural but believes gays could be cured.

At its entrance is the gay sauna bath, which is apparently taking advantage of its proximity to its religious neighbors by featuring a special bear night in which a hairy male stripper removes his clothes and then changes into a priest outfit. The club's Web site described the stripper, Bruno, a hairy, overweight pastor of souls who wears a thong since he wants to expose his body and soul.

Club members said church officials should just leave them alone. "They should be quiet and stick to their business: Doing prayers!" The New York Times quoted a Europa Multiclub habitué.

The proximity between holy men and sinful ones prompted jokes such as this one from an Italian gay Web site, Gay.it, which quipped, "Oops, I took the wrong door, I thought it was the chapel . . . If you can't go to the gay sauna for fear of being seen what do you do if you have millions of Euros stolen from Italian? You buy the apartment block with the sauna inside."

Besides the Vatileaks, another source of embarrassment for Vatican officials is a report from Worldcrunch.com that the Catholic Church owns shares in Weltbild, a German media company that sells books, DVDs, music and pornographic materials as well.

Weltbild has over 2,500 erotic books on its online catalogue including titles such as Sluts' Boarding School and Lawyer's Whore. The Catholic Church allegedly also owns a 50 per cent stake in Droemer Knaur, another German publishing firm, that also offers erotic materials with titles such as Call Me Slut! and Take Me Here, Take Me Now!

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