Italian police are investigating claims that a former policeman visited the area around a bar named Twink (seriously) to recruit rentboys for Catholic priests assigned to churches across Rome.
Don Patrizio Poggi, 46, told Italian authorities that a former Carabinieri pimped boys for nine clergymen. Poggi, who served a five-year sentence for abusing teenage boys while he was a parish priest at the San Filippo Neri church in Rome, said he made the allegations to “protect the Holy Church and the Christian community.”
The boys were chosen because they were starving and desperate, he claimed, according to Il Messaggero newspaper. The former policeman used to recruit the boys, mostly eastern European immigrants, outside a gay bar named Twink near Rome’s Termini train station. He reportedly sat in his Fiat Panda – marked “Emergency Blood” to avoid parking fines – to make his selection.
He was helped in the recruitment process by a friend who ran a modelling agency. He lured underage boys into prostitution through “false work offers for modelling and acting roles”, Poggi said. The agent also looked for rentboys at gay discos, saunas and gyms across Rome. An accountant was also said to be involved. The boys were paid €150-€500 (£130-£425) to perform sex acts in church premises across the capital.
The informant also claims that the former cop stole consecrated communion wafers to sell to Satanists. According to the above-linked report, two senior members of the Vatican have “vouched” for the “documentary and photographic evidence” given to the police. Stand by for Bill Donohue to scream, “But what about the RABBIS that are hiring rentboys!”