The Vatican priest who was recently suspended after being secretly taped coming on to a young man reportedly has a list of gay clerics who work in the Vatican and is threatening to release the names:

Father Tommaso Stenico (60) had "a detailed dossier" of all the homosexual clerics at Vatican "with a list of names and circumstances implicating a certain number of priests and even bishops working at the Curia", Ignazio Ingrao, reporter for the conservative news weekly said.

Stenico also sent his superior Cardinal Claudio Hummes a report denouncing the moral degradation within the Curia, which could make the Vatican "tremble", Ingrao said.

According to Panorama, Stenico, who also worked for a Catholic television station Telepace and owns a white BMW car, also drew up the list out of resentment at having waited so long to be named a bishop.

A hidden camera in his office showed the priest, who worked in a Vatican department managing the 400 000 Roman Catholic priests around the world, declaring himself an "active homosexual" and making sexual advances to a young man.

On October 1, Italian television station La7 aired footage from the encounter showing the two men with their faces blurred. — AFP.