A young man told a Vatican court that a fellow seminarian, who is now a priest, wanted to have sex in St. Peter’s Basilica when the two were altar boys. He claimed that the seminary’s dean sought to cover up the abuses.
The accuser, who was identified only as LG, testified for the first time during a criminal trial inside the Vatican on Wednesday.
He claimed that Father Gabriele Martinelli abused him between 2007 and 2012, especially when they were both minors at the Preparatory Seminary Pius X, which houses altar boys from 12 to 18 years old who deliver mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, the main Vatican church and one of most iconic temples of Catholicism.
LG testified that Martinelli, who is older than him, would lie in his bed at night and force him to touch him and have sex in another room. He said it was his first sexual experience, and that he felt “Paralyzed”.
The accuser also said that Martinelli tried to convince him to have sex in a bathroom behind one of the altars in St. Peter’s Basilica while both were to serve mass. He added that, during the alleged incident, Martinelli was naked under his cassock, a robe-like garment worn by the clergy.
“I was shocked,” LG told the court, saying he refused to follow Martinelli to the bathroom.
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Martinelli previously denied the charges. He told the court last month that allegations of abuse made by LG were physically impossible due to the layout of the seminar and that the dean could enter the dorm rooms at any time. He also denied having any power over the altar boys. Martinelli also said that by making false accusations, LG wanted to discredit him and the seminar, and that there were “jealousy” among ex-seminarians he ended up being ordained a priest.
LG claimed that in 2009 it alerted former seminar rector Enrico Radice about Martinelli’s behavior, but gave no details. He told the court that Radice threatened to ban him from seminary unless he stopped complaining. The former dean is now in charge of protecting Martinelli from investigations.
Radice denied having known anything about the alleged abuse. “The walls were thin, you could hear everything”, he told the court, adding that he believed the accuser was motivated by “Financial interests.”
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The high-profile trial, which is the first of its kind in the Vatican, is the latest in a series of sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years. Most of the cases involved accusations of child abuse by clergy and the alleged attempts by the Church’s elite to cover up the abuse.
In November 2020, the Vatican published a report implicating senior Church officials for ignoring allegations of sexual abuse in their ranks. Pope Francis expressed support for the victims and promised “Eradicate this evil” from within the Church.
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