If Torrent Freak's discovery is a basis, it would not be surprising that reports of a gay sex ring in the Vatican circulated during the time that Pope Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI quit the papacy in February 2013.

Based on the list provided by Torrent Freak, published by Gizmodo, the most popular torrents in the centre of the Roman Catholic Church which has a population of about 800 people, mostly clergymen, are porn sites.

The first entry on the list is Lea Lexis and Krissy Lynn. A YouTube searched showed the Lea Lexis is an exhibitionist who loves having sex in public.

The report generated a lot of comment from readers, ranging from disbelief to explanations on the discovery.

Shoegal, for instance, believes that the downloaders probably used proxies which would make it appear that the traffic came from the Holy See. "Who uses their real IP address?" Shoegal asked.

MoxFactor theorised the downloaders could just be next-door Vatican neighbours who are benefitting from Wi-Fi technology, recalling seeing 5 or 6 of them just right outside the walls of Vatican.

Ftballpack2 pointed out that not all the people with access to the Internet in the Vatican are clergy, although he conceded that some of the clergy may have viewed porn on the Internet accidentally or intentionally. AntoniusMajor agreed, pointing out that one of the title is in German - BDSM Sklavin Zuchtgung im dunklen Hobbykeller teen fesselspiele.avi - indicating the culprits could be the Swiss Guards.

A check with online translation services gives the English title as In the dark hobbykeller Zuchtgung slave teen Lustvolle Fesselspiele. Still vague, but some of the understandable English words indicate porn.

Duro, who also believes the downloads could be by Swiss Guards, wrote, "I'm sure they have no problem with jacking off to American porn ..."

Another commenter noted that Tiffany Starr, whose video was one of those downloaded inside Vatican, is a shemale, indicating some viewers could be into gay porn.

Amoeis was more understanding, pointing out that "This is the result of repressing the very basic of human needs ... especially if that human are men ..."

Two other commenters are quite satisfied that the porn downloaded were not child porn or gay teen twinks.

DJzrule added other possible suspects are shops and businesses within the Vatican and asked, "Do you really think some OLD priests who are barely accepting of technology know how to torrent?"

Others believe the clergy are guilty, based on the list. "Where's the child porn? Well, they got teen porn ... I'm guessing they rather have the real thing (f***kng little boys) and not just virtual videos," wrote CoolPrize.

Similarly, Rev Debra Haffner of the Religious Institute was not surprised by the Torrent Teaser discovery. She pointed out that based on the institute's survey in 2012, one in five clergy had reported intentionally visiting a sexually explicit Web site in the past six months.