Carmelo Abbate spent months undercover documenting a "hidden world" in which heterosexual priests have children with women who can never be their wives, and gay priests of many different nationalities visit nightclubs in Rome and pay for sex with escorts.
His book, "Sex and the Vatican: a secret journey in the reign of the chaste", was published in Italian yesterday. Two British publishers are interested in buying the rights.
"The purpose of the book is not to shame Catholic clergy, it is to expose the hypocrisy and double standards of the Church," Mr Abbate, an award-winning investigative reporter, told The Daily Telegraph.
"There are priests with children but the kids cannot talk to their fathers in public for fear of their situation being discovered.
The book developed from an investigation conducted by Mr Abbate last year 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.
He cited research which suggests that as many as a third of Catholic priests in the United States are gay and a quarter are in heterosexual relationships with women. Similar statistics have been reported in Germany and Austria.
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