Pope Francis told to probe friar over allegations of poppers-fuelled sex with homeless

More than 100 parishioners sign letter appealing for investigation into unnamed senior friar

Pope Francis is being asked to investigate allegations against the unnamed friar (Getty Images)

The Pope is facing calls to investigate a friar over allegations that he paid for sex with homeless men while high on poppers.

More than 100 parishioners have signed a letter appealing to Pope Francis to look into the unnamed friar, who is a senior member of the Discalced Carmelites order in Rome.

The letter also calls on Francis to reverse the transfer of another senior priest at the order’s headquarters, Father Alessandro Donati, who revealed the allegations. The unnamed friar was also transferred in the wake of the affair.

Allegations against the friar have been made by a man identified as Sergio Marsini, 54, who said he was working as a prostitute between 2003 and 2007 when the friar paid him three times for sex while high on poppers, The Times reports.

Another homeless man, named only as Sebastiano, alleges that he began a sexual relationship with the friar after the friar approached him in 2004 and offered him a cigarette.

Sebastiano, who was living on a bench in the Villa Borghese park at the time, said that the physical relationship did not involve payment but was also fuelled by poppers, or alkyl nitrate. He told The Times that he ended the relationship when he attended mass at a church in Rome.

Sebastiano is understood to have been brutally beaten at night in Villa Borghese in 2006 but his attackers were never identified.

The letter to Pope Francis was signed by Giuseppe De Ninno and 109 parishioners. Mr De Ninno said: “We want to defend Father Donati, who is a great priest, who has been transferred because he was making serious allegations.

“These allegations first surfaced 18 months ago and this year we wrote to the Pope, but we are not even sure he was given it read.”

Some worshippers at the church expressed their displeasure at Mr De Ninno and his letter after mass on Sunday, however. One had to be physically restrained and shouted at him: "You have criminalised all Carmelites."

The Discalced Carmelites were formed in the early 1500s as an offshoot of the Carmelites. They get their name because their members go shoeless or wear sandals.