Former Pope Benedict: I Broke Up Gay Lobby

There's been a lot of back-and-forth about whether there's a "gay lobby" in the Vatican -- Pope Francis says yes, a gay former priest says no -- but now Francis's predecessor says there was one and he broke it up.

The former Pope Benedict XVI makes that statement in his memoir, The Last Conversations, due out September 9, Reuters reports. The news service bases its report on an article published in Italian by Milan newspaper Corriere Della Sera.

Benedict, who has had the title of emeritus pope since stepping down in 2013, says the gay lobby was not large, but was rather "four or five people who were seeking to influence Vatican decisions," according to Reuters. He asserts that he managed to "break up this power group," the article notes.

At the time of Benedict's resignation -- he was the first pope to resign in six centuries, and his stated reason was poor health -- it was rumored that this gay network influenced his decision. At the time a Vatican spokesman refused to confirm or deny the rumor. Now, in the memoir, the former pope says no one pressured him.

The Roman Catholic Church has long condemned same-sex sexual relationships; the church preaches that gay and lesbian Catholics should remain celibate. But Benedict, both as pope and as a cardinal under his given name, Joseph Ratzinger, was particularly harsh in his anti-LGBT rhetoric.

In 2012, for instance, he said marriage equality would "harm and help to destabilize marriage, obscuring its specific nature and its indispensable role in society." In his Christmas homily of that year, he denounced transgender and gender-nonconforming people, saying the concept of being transgender was a denial of God.

As Cardinal Ratzinger, he headed the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until becoming pope in 2005. In this position he was tasked with maintaining and defending Catholic doctrine, including opposition to homosexuality, which he called an "intrinsic moral evil."

Pope Francis, while saying Catholic teaching on homosexuality is a settled issue, has used more conciliatory language, and on his visit to the U.S. last year he met with a gay man who had been his student in Argentina, plus the man's partner and friends. And while he has taken stands against the idea of gender transition, he also had a private meeting with a transgender man from Spain, who says Francis was welcoming and supportive. Additionally, Francis recently said the church should apologize to LGBT people.

In 2013, shortly after becoming pope, Francis did say there was a gay lobby within the Vatican. But last year, Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa, who was fired from a Vatican post after coming out as gay, said he knew many gay priests but that there was no organized gay lobby.