Some faces at the Vatican are redder than a Bishop’s skullcap after it became public that several priests and a Cardinal live in comfortable quarters in a building shared with Rome’s biggest gay bathhouse.

Cardinal Ivan Dias has a 12 room apartment on the ground floor of 2 Via Carducci, his door being just steps away from the fleshy temptations of the notorious “Europa Multi-Club”.  18 other priests and Vatican workers also have units in the building.

Dias is a social conservative who has claimed gays and lesbians can be cured of their “unnatural tendencies” through the “sacrament of penance”, a belief that has long been refuted by science and psychiatry.

Dias is taking part in the conclave to vote for a new Pope.  Pontiff Emeritus Benedict XVI stepped down amid several scandals, including revelations of a “gay cabal” in the Vatican hierarchy.