The real scandals—Estermann (1998), Vatileaks (2012), the Gloor allegations (2018), the Becciu trial (2023)—all carry the same DNA: power, secrecy, homosexuality, and the Swiss Guard. The keyword “gaybelamiscandalinthevatican2theswissguardpart new” does not lead to an official document. But it leads to a journalistic crime scene. The Vatican has never fully declassified the Estermann case. The 2020 Vatican “Decree on the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Adults” explicitly added “seminarians and religious novices” (which includes many guards) as protected persons. And whispers continue that a future “Part 3” will involve a current Swiss Guard officer testifying before a European court about coercion inside the Leonine walls.
Until 1980, the Guard was an all-male, predominantly Swiss-German Catholic force, often recruited from conservative mountain cantons. Secrecy was absolute. Homosexuality, while canonically a “grave disorder,” was an open secret in certain Vatican congregations, but never officially discussed. That silence created a pressure cooker. The modern scandal sequence began not with “Gaybelamis” but with Paolo Gabriele , the Pope’s butler, who leaked papal documents in 2012. While Gabriele’s motives were supposedly “to expose corruption,” the leaked documents hinted at something deeper: a network of clergy, lay administrators, and even guards using their positions for financial gain and sexual favors.
This was Part 1 of what some Vatican insiders began calling “the lavender dossier” – a collection of evidence pointing to an influential homosexual network inside the Vatican, vulnerable to blackmail. No understanding of “Vatican + Swiss Guard + gay scandal” is complete without the 1998 triple murder . On May 4, 1998, newly appointed Commander of the Swiss Guard, Alois Estermann, 43, and his wife, Gladys Meza Romero, 30, were found shot dead in their Vatican apartment. The killer was 23-year-old Swiss Guard Corporal Cédric Tornay, who then killed himself.
Several former guards (speaking anonymously to Kriminalpolizei in 2016) admitted that homosexual encounters between guards are officially prohibited but “tolerated if discreet.” When it involves a guard and a prelate, however, that crosses into blackmail territory. The most recent twist, as of 2026 looking back, was the 2023 Vatican money laundering trial involving Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu. During testimony, a Swiss Guard financial auditor revealed that the Guard’s own accounts had been used to transfer 50,000 euros to a Sardinian layman for “security consulting.” That consultant turned out to be a former escort involved in a homosexual blackmail ring in Cagliari.
Pope Francis responded by rewriting Vatican penal law in 2019, explicitly criminalizing “the use of office to solicit sexual acts” and making it a “crime against the dignity of the person” – an unprecedented move. Vatican journalist Edward Pentin, a conservative, has long alleged that a network called “Sotto-Sopra” (Upside Down) – a homosexual network within the Curia – functions like a secret society. According to witnesses, some meetings occur in the Vatican itself, involving priests, lay officials, and occasionally guardsmen who are “discreet.”
This article is the definitive, long-form investigation into those intersections, updated for the current papacy of Pope Francis, and exploring the three major scandals that have rocked the Vatican’s closets and its guardsmen. The Pontifical Swiss Guard is the oldest active military unit in existence, founded in 1506. Their Renaissance-era uniforms (famously designed by Michelangelo, contrary to popular myth) and halberds project timeless loyalty. But behind the striped jerseys and medieval armor lies a modern intelligence and security force sworn to protect the Pope at all costs.
For now, the scandal remains half-confessed, half-buried. But as long as young Swiss men in striped uniforms stand guard over a celibate king, the world will keep adding new parts to the story—whether the name is real or not.
But here is the deeper truth: The Vatican has struggled for 500 years with the tension between its all-male, celibate hierarchy and natural human sexuality. The Swiss Guard—handsome, young, loyal, and sworn to silence—exists as the perfect protagonist for these narratives: part guardian, part captive, part forbidden fruit.