A Canon, A Choirboy, and Homosexuality in Late Sixteenth-Century Italy:

Abstract

Documents in the Archivio di Stato of Florence allow for the reconstruction of a case of clerical sodomy involving a canon and a choirboy of the Church of Our Lady of Loreto in the year 1570. The story can be followed in detail from its beginning to its tragic conclusion through letters sent to the Cardinal Protector of Loreto and transcripts of interrogations carried out in the town itself.

Child sexual abuse and the Catholic church: An historical and contemporary review

“…Although little information is available regarding the history of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in public documents, ample evidence exists that it had reached public and legal visibility centuries earlier. On October 15, 1570, for example, a Jesuit priest was defrocked, sentenced to death, and decapitated for engaging in sodomy and other sexual acts with an adolescent choirboy (Sheer, 1991). The boy, tortured to see ff he would maintain his story, was also punished by being whipped and banned from the Papal States.…”