Frédéric Martel’s new book, Inside the Closet of the Vatican, was supposed to expose a “velvet mafia” calling the shots in the Eternal City. Martel, an atheist and gay rights activist, was especially interested in exposing the “hypocrisy” of “rigid” conservatives: by day, they decry homosexuality in the press; by night, they chase rent boys through St Peter’s Square.
Yet Martel’s report was, according to many reviewers, badly undermined by its propensity for innuendo. For instance, the author seems to have a special dislike for Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the most powerful conservatives in the College of Cardinals. Martel describes Burke as sitting on “an asparagus-green throne twice as large as he is, surrounded by silvery drapery”, etc. He quotes a drag queen as saying that Burke’s love for grand, traditional accoutrement betrays a “fluid and queer” gender identity.
