Pope Francis reaches out to gays The Pope was asked about long-standing claims that there is a powerful "gay lobby" within the Vatican. In June, he himself acknowledged that such a lobby existed in the Curia, the Vatican's secretive administration. On the plane, he said the gay lobby was a problem - not so much because the people involved were homosexual, but because of the machinations that they got up to within the Vatican. The problem is not having this orientation. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worst problem," he said. He was quizzed specifically on claims that one of his trusted confidantes, a priest appointed to oversee the reform of the scandal-ridden Vatican bank, had had a series of homosexual trysts while serving as a Vatican diplomat in Uruguay and Switzerland a decade ago. The 57-year-old monsignor, who had a 15-year career as a Vatican diplomat, allegedly shocked fellow priests and nuns at the Holy See's embassy in Montevideo by having a homosexual affair with a captain in the Swiss army, whom he had met during an earlier posting to Berne. The Pope said he had investigated the allegations but had found nothing to back them up. He had ordered a "brief investigation but we found nothing on him," he said during a wide-ranging question and answer session lasting nearly an hour and a half. I have not seen anyone at the Vatican who is registered as gay on his identity card. We acknowledge that there are (gays)," he said. There have long been claims that many clergy within the Vatican are gay. In 2011 an Italian investigative journalist, Carmelo Abbate, spent months undercover documenting a "hidden world" in which gay priests of many different nationalities visit nightclubs in Rome and pay for sex with male escorts. Abbate said there was "a culture of 'omerta" (silence) " about the issue in his book, "Sex and the Vatican: a secret journey in the reign of the chaste." The book developed from an investigation conducted by Abbate in which he used hidden cameras to film three priests attending gay nightspots in Rome and having casual sex, before donning their cassocks the next day and holding church services. On corruption in the Holy See, the Pope referred specifically to Msgr Nunzio Scarano, a Vatican priest who has been jailed in Rome on suspicion of plotting to smuggle 20 million euros on board a private plane from Switzerland into Italy. There are many people (in the Vatican) who are saints but there are those who are not very saintly ... and it pains me when this happens. There is this monsignor in jail. He didn't go to jail because he resembled a saint ... these are scandals that do damage," he said. Msgr Scarano is alleged to have been laundering money through at least two accounts at the Vatican bank, which Francis has vowed to reform and make more transparent. Catholic pilgrims wait for the arrival of Pope Francis for the final mass of his visit to Brazil, at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro (AFP/Getty Images) The Argentinian Pope said the bank, known as the Institute for the Works of Religion, must become "honest and transparent." On other key issues, the Pope said that women should be given a bigger role in the Catholic Church but refused to consider their ordination, saying the "door is closed" on the issue. He also declined to change the Vatican's opposition to gay marriage and abortion, saying "you know perfectly the position of the Church." He also showed his lighter side, making a joke when asked what he carried in a black leather bag that he carried up the steps of the Alitalia flight when he departed Rome for Rio de Janeiro last week. "The key to the atom bomb is not inside it!" he said. Instead it contained a diary, a book to read and a razor. He said he found it extraordinary that the photo of him carrying his own hand luggage had made news around the world. I always travel with this travel bag, it's normal. Asked what it was like to have another pontiff, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, living within the walls of the Vatican, a few minutes" walk from his residence, he said it was "like having a grandfather - a wise grandfather - living at home." "The last time there were two or three Popes, they didn't talk among themselves and they fought over who was the true Pope!" he said, referring to historic schisms between popes and challengers. Although he appeared physically robust and remarkably energetic on the week-long trip to Brazil, he said he had hurt his sciatic nerve after using a bad chair in the first month after his election."It was so painful. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. He said his week-long trip to Brazil left him very tired but "did me a lot of spiritual good." He said he did not want to be surrounded by 'yes" men and preferred his aides to challenge him. "I like it when someone tells me "I don't agree." When they say "Oh, how great, how great, how great," that's not useful."