Former Priest: Vatican Sends Gay Priests to Convent to be 'Cured'

As Pope Francis leads a synod of bishops in discussions about Catholic families, a former member of the Vatican family has revealed a long-held secret regarding priests who exhibit what the defrocked Father called "homosexual tendencies."

This former priest claims others like him are packed off to a religious retreat in the mountains outside Milan, in order to be "cured."

The report in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Monday quoted 44-year-old Mario Bonfanti, who said he was forced to leave his Italian parish by his superiors three years ago, despite the fact that he was not in a relationship and had maintained his vow of celibacy.

Bonfanti told the newspaper that priests suspected of being gay are often sent to a convent in the northern Italian city of Trento in order to "reflect" on their futures.

"There exists a convent where priests who manifest inappropriate sexual tendencies are sent to reflect. It's a place where they help you to rediscover the straight and narrow. They wanted to 'cure' me but I refused to go," he told La Repubblica.

The Venturini Convent was founded by Mario Venturini, a priest, in 1928, reported U.K. newspaper The Telegraph, and can "accommodate a large number of priests, offering them an open and tranquil environment in which they can confront their problems."

Psychiatrists and psychologists are on hand, The Telegraph claimed, to help with "various types of therapy."

Father Gianluigi Pasto, 71, the head of the convent, told The Telegraph: "Priests come to us for a period of formation and personal reflection. At the moment we have neither gay priests nor pedophile priests here. Certainly our job is to welcome everybody."

The facility has dealt with priests who suffered from depression, alcoholism and who had "problems connected to sex," he said.

"We don't speak of our work but it is well known to many bishops and dioceses," said Father Pasto. "They know what we can offer."

When asked for more information, however, a spokesman for the convent told The Telegraph: "We have nothing more to say."

The Vatican declined to confirm or deny whether the convent dealt with priests who were struggling with their sexuality.

The role of gay Catholics within the Church is one of the subjects being discussed at the three-week-long synod, which was preceded by the firing of a high-ranking priest who worked in the Vatican press office and came out as gay in an Italian newspaper.

As The Advocate previously reported, the synod opened with a clear statement by Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo about marriage equality: "There is no basis for comparing or making analogies, even remotely, between homosexual unions and God's plan for matrimony and the family," he said.