SPOTLiGHT movie is HALF-TRUTH deceits by VATICAN MOST EVIL POWER on earth. VA’s worst crimes are SECRET Vatican Swiss Banks that HOARD plutocrats’ WEALTH= VA perpetuates poor nations. VATICAN OWNS/CONTROLS SWITZERLAND via SWISS GUARD ARMY. UN must end Switzerland as “neutral” country.ABOLISH ALL VATICAN CONCORDATS. UNITED NATIONS must END VATICAN as a“COUNTRY”. POPES+PRIESTS have NO WOMBS = CANNOT PRODUCE BABIES or BODIES tiny FLESH of Christ in EUCHARIST HOAX+Satanic Mass. VOTE BERNIE SANDERS
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Vatileaks is a sham. A compilation of news articles. Vatican Leaks and Secrets of Benedict XVI revealed
Updated October 21, 2012
There is something very fishy about Vatileaks as if the Vatican staged it to show to the world it has its own court justice system -- which really looks like 200 years old dusty and pathetically outdated, a small room to handle quasi-justice all-for-show for the 1.2 billion Vatican Catholics .
The news do not add up on how the butler could steal "hundreds of thousands of documents and boxes" were hidden in his house - all these look more like a sham staged as a Hollywood movie script by Opus Dei Cooperators transporting all these "hundreds of thousands of documents" for him -- which we can't see but is all hearsay by the Vatican that has cried Wolf Wolf Wolf more than 3 times. The Pope's butler does not even carry clothes to wash for the Pope, so he is usually empty-handed when he leaves the Vatican.
The Vatileaks is the Vatican's ploy to become famous like Wikileaks. The Vatican Titanic is sinking in moral bankruptcy and it is clinging for breath for fame for the last time -- before it completely sink into a black hole as predicted by the Third Secret of Fatima. Read our latest articles
Vatican police found thousands of documents hidden inside the home of the pope's butler, including originals signed by the pontiff with indications they should be destroyed.
Officers gave evidence in the trial of Paolo Gabriele, the pope's once-trusted butler who faces four years in prison if convicted of aggravated theft for stealing papal documents and leaking them to a journalist.
The final four witnesses were heard and closing arguments are set for Saturday, when a verdict by the three-judge Vatican panel is expected.
Inspector Silvano Carli said that of the hundreds of thousands of documents seized from Gabriele's home, about 1,000 were of interest since they were original or photocopied Vatican documents.
Some documents came from the pope's office, some carried the processing codes of the secretariat of state, others originated in various Vatican congregations "and some documents concerned the total privacy and private life of the Holy Father," said police officer Stefano De Santis.
(Reuters) - Pope Benedict's former butler Paolo Gabriele, on trial for stealing and leaking papal documents, possessed papers the pope had marked "to be destroyed," police testified at his Vatican trial on Wednesday.
On the third day of the process, held under a 19th century Italian penal code, members of the Holy See's small police force said the theft of encrypted documents had compromised some Vatican operations.
They also found instructions that Gabriele had printed on how to hide files in computers and how to use cellphones secretly.
Members of the Corps of Gendarmerie said many newspaper clippings, books and other material seized in the search of Gabriele's apartment showed he was fascinated by the occult, Masonic lodges, secret services, and past Vatican and Italian scandals.
HOGWASH -- EVERYTHING was STAGED BY VATICAN PIED PIPERS AND MASTER MANIPULATOR BENEDICT XVI .
The Vatican Titanic is sinking in moral bankruptcy and the sooner the United Nations remove the Vatican’s status as a “country”, the sooner other world religions can accept that their after-life doctrines and outside-of-this-world dogmas that oppress and enslave women and children and poor people have no place whatsoever in a secular democratic world.
We believe in Jesus Christ but we do not believe the Pope is his representative (St. Peter Feed My Sheep has become Benedict XVI Thief of My Sheep-Catholics who must simply “Pray, Pay, Obey”) and therefore the pope should not be treated like an irreproachable simulated deity and he should be stripped of all secular diplomatic immunity and secular benefits.
In Germany, a satirical magazine called Titanic, featured in its cover of its July edition, an altered image of the Pope with a yellow stain (color of Vatican flag) on the front (below his belly) of his white robes with the headline, "Hallelujah in the Vatican - the leak is found."
Satirical mag shows Pope with pee stain
Vatican threatens to sue
By QMI Agency
The Vatican has threatened to sue a satirical magazine in Germany over their July edition because it features an altered image of the Pope with a yellow stain on the front of his white robes with the headline, "Hallelujah in the Vatican - the leak is found."
The cover story of the latest issue of Titanic is about the so-called Vatileaks scandal, where internal documents have been made public, including information about the church's tax problems, scandals involving priests and correspondence involving the Pope.
In a letter to a German lawyer, published by the magazine, Archbishop Angelo Becciu asks the lawyer to take "the necessary legal steps against this publication."
But magazine officials said there must be some mistake.
"Pope Benedict must have misunderstood us," the magazine's editor in chief Leo Fischer said, suggesting the yellow stain could be from a drink, such as lemonade. "It is well known that the Pope is a great fan of the soft drink Fanta."
The magazine said they hope for a personal interview with the Pope to address the misunderstanding" and they will not comply with a cease-and-desist order from the Vatican.
Updated June 17, 2012 Vatileaks Puts the Pope in Publicity Hell , see news updates below
Updated June 7, 2012
Why should the Vatican be considered as a "country" when it is only one medieval building and one public Square inhabited by a few hundred only-men (less than a USA High School) comprising of the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, priests and their fanatic obedient religious personnel? And all those millions and billions of dollars going to the Vatican Bank are managed only by a few men and they do not really go to charity but to secret fishy international dealings by the Pope and his "diplomatic immunity" Princes of the Church and Papal Nuncios, and fanatic Catholics who "Pray, Pay, Obey" have no clue where these money are being channelled to. But two things are sure: First, the Pope who is suppose to "Feed My Sheep" is not feeding them but rather sucking food - money from these sheep, and second, he does not - and cannot - protect the most vulnerable, the children and women and missionaries in far-flung countries, in fact he is callous to victims of the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army and he couldn’t bother to offer water to those Italian JP2 Army victims who walked across Italy to meet with their “Holy Father” in Rome, as All Roads Lead to Rome”. It has been proven centuries after centuries , that the Pope suppresses women as he is doing now to American Nuns, and he suppress all good priests who are doing the job of “feeding Christ’s sheep”, because the Pope is living in luxury in the Vatican Bank Tower, and he couldn’t care less how the poor are fed in the world, in fact, he perpetuates their poverty when he silenced the Liberation Theology priests like Jon Sobrino and Leonardo Boff so that they cannot enlighten and empower the poor to fight their despots who are the foremost investors of the Vatican Bank, read our related articles below.
The fact is, the Vatican is controlled and ruled by the despot Opus Dei and they are neophytes (as their religious congregation Prelature, no matter how unique Escriba wanted it to sound) in handling world affairs, as we can see now that they recourse to the Jesuit Fr. Lombardi and the Jesuit Gregorian University to be their janitors for the mess that Opus Dei Golden Cow John Paul II left behind in the longest papacy in the history of the world, 27 years. Opus Dei believe that their ancient formulas of the Latin Mass and Rosaries and "Pray, Pay,Obey" from their Opus Dei members and fanatic Catholcis are enough to rule the Catholic Empire and the Vatican Bank as they whore around with despots and their ill-gotten wealth.
If the Vatican loses its status as a “country”, Catholics worldwide will not lose anything related to their faith – they are free to continue to worship in every democratic country where they are now living. Catholics will continue to have their sacraments of the Eucharist, they can still worship each Sunday and believe in the sorcery and “supernatural powers” of the Pope and priests who claim to reincarnate the Almighty God even if they cannot reincarnate dead cats and dead dogs. The biggest loss for Catholics will be the aura and glory of the Pope as the “Representative of Christ on Earth”, but this loss will be the biggest gain for the world, because all other religions will follow in the loss of credibility of their “divine” beliefsembodied by fallible men or mortal animals.
The “deification” on men and animals must stop in our century so that children and women and poor people, who are the most vulnerable in society, will have almighty powers to command respect, protection, and social justice.
This belief on "The Pope is as it were God on earth” has got to be flushed down the toilet because John Paul II only papal farted at us Bostonians when he promoted the criminal-Cardinal Bernard Law - after we forced him to resign as Archbishop of Boston after he admitted in public of transferring 80 pedophile priests from one parish to another – to Rome as Archpriest of the St. Mary Major, the Mother of all basilicas in Rome.
"The Pope is as it were God on earth, sole sovereign of the faithful of Christ, chief king of kings.… The Pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret even divine laws.” — Translated from Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, art. “Papa,” (Pope) II, Vol VI, pp. 26-29, 1763
“We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.” — Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical letter dated June 20, 1894, The Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII, p. 304. New York: Benziger Brothers.
"Currently, God's law is subservient to whatever law the bishops wish to utilize." This has been the publicly acclaimed modus operandi of the RCC for a long time.
“God's law is subservient to whatever law the bishops wish to utilize” – well those bishops have proven themselves to be criminals and protectors of criminals.
But authority without accountability is tyranny” and the Pope, Cardinals and Bishops have proven themselves to be tyrants centuries after centuries...
May Bishop Finn go rot in jail and Monsignor William Lynch go rot in jail for the rest of his life for transferring pedophile priests in Philadelphia.If these two go rot in jail, it will be part of justice on behalf of the other Bishops and Monsignors faithful members of the B16 Army – Benedict XVI Pedophile Priests Army
June 3, 2012
This is a compilation of all news articles about the current Vatican Leaks or Vatileaks. Benedict XVI Cardinal Ratzinger is having a taste of his own medicine when he tracked down every correspondence and spied on every actitvities of Liberation Theology theolgians and then silenced them like docile lambs, like Jon Sobrino and Leonardo Boff, because he knew that it only takes a few good men (and women) writers for 'the pen is mightier than the sword ' to incite a non-violent revolution like Gandhi did - to topple down the British Empire (oh, the parasite Queen is celebrating her jubilee today, read our related article John Allen promotes monarchy of Catholicism. As Vatican Pied Piper he announces ‘Meet the new Crown Prince of Catholicism’ http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/07/john-allen-promotes-monarchy-of.html. From far-flung Vatican, as he sits in his billion-dollar Chair of St. Peter, Benedict Cardinal Ratzinger and John Paul II knew they couldn't defeat the Liberation theologians who are living amidst the people like Gandhi did. Because the Vatican Bank's main source of income are from despots, the poor would have been awakened of their God-given rights and those leaders especially in South America would have been toppled down and John Paul II would not have been able to court their billions of dollars ill-gotten wealth into the Vatican Bank, read our related article Holy Heist! John Paul II WYD had no role with Arab youths who liberated Egypt from Mubarak who stole then deposited billions into Vatican Swiss Banks http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/2011/02/holy-heist-john-paul-ii-wyd-had-no-role.html .
Rosary could not defeat JP2 Army John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army in the 20th Century ... unlike the Battle of Lepanto in the 16th Century http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/
Jon Sobrino describes John Paul II's manipulation of the poor of South America. In El Salvador, John Paul II suppressed the poor Crucified Peoples and the Jesuits Martyrs who were working for social justice - whose anniversary is November 16.
Below is an excerpt from Jon Sobrino's book that speaks of John Paul II's un-realistic papal attitudes and ignorant perception towards the poor. These are the paragraphs that made Benedict XVI issued the "Notification" and the Opus Dei Bishop of El Salvador "silence" Sobrino, meaning he can no longer teach or preach and help the poor to whom he has given all his life in service.
Witnesses to the Kingdom: The Martyrs of El Salvador and the Crucified PeoplesPage 141. Important ecclesial events, like a papal visit, are often organized in such a way that they too produce a feeling of unreality. In the Pope’s 1996 visit to El Salvador, it is true that most of the people who attended were poor. But all one could see of their reality was their religious enthusiasm, more or less effectively organized. One didn’t see their poverty, their fears, their discouragement and helplessness, not even their true faith and hope; one didn’t see their reality. As the event was organized, the poor served more as a backdrop than as the reality of the country; in the foreground were minorities that do not represent the reality: the government, legislators and politicians, the rich and powerful, and the Church beside them. The Pope’s visit neither reflected reality nor, to judge from the consequences, had any important effect on it.
On page 140. This applies to the allocutions and homilies of the Pope to the Congregation when he was an "adult-pope’. And that is still a serious problem: humanistas without sarx, factuality without reality (in the world of the poor). To give a few examples: one often gets a feeling of unreality from homilies, documents and messages that do not make central - although they may mention it - the poverty of reality, the injustice and corruption that cause it, and the cover-up that accompanies it. The feeling of unreality comes especially from the lack of commitment to get involved in the conflict, to struggle against injustice and to suffer the consequences. Words, words, words, as J. Comblin calls such messages in the article mentioned above. At another level, one gets the same feeling of unreality from a seminary formation that protects the seminarian from reality; or from the spiritualities and pastoral practices promoted or tolerated by movements that lead the human being into an a-historical transcendence with infantilizing consequences. (From Martyrs of El Salvador. By Jon Sobrino)
So here we show in pictures how John Paul II contrast with Mary who like Rachel weeps for her thousands of little boys (and girls) who were sodomized by the «John Paul II Pedophiles Rapists-Priests Army see our sister weblog http://jp2army.blogspot.com/
This is the image of the woman as the sun Our Lady of Guadalupe defending and protecting children and holding a child up high away from the snares and snatches of the Serpent while John Paul II gave countless thousands of little boys to the Serpent of Sodomy to be sodomized and raped by his John Paul II Pedophiles Rapists-Priests Army for over 26 years during his glorious papacy as John Paul II the Great
The Danish cartoonist of the prophet Mohammed portrayed John Paul II as the Pope of Pedophilia with the inscription "I am not for homosexuality but for pedophilia".
John Paul II is the Sun as the Infallible Most Powerful Pope of the Catholics with seven rays of the 7 Sacraments, he is in his white papal uniform and his two papal hands pulls up the children`s robes because he enabled and allowed thousands of pedophiles rapists-priests to go on freely sodomizing and raping little boys (and girls) during his longest reigning papacy of 26 years, together with Cardinal Josef Ratzinger his right-hand man as Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2007/10/john-paul-ii-portrait-by-danish-artist.html.
Saint Michael the Archangel tied a giant millstone to John Paul II's neck at the last World Youth Day speech of JP2 see John Paul II the Pope of Sodomy: Vision of St. Michael the Archangel tying a giant millstone to John Paul II at World Youth Day in 2002 http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2006/08/john-paul-ii-pope-of-sodomy.html
A picture speaks a thousand words and so here we show the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe saving young little children from the snares of the Serpent while John Paul II gave freely thousands of children to the Serpent of Sodomy which included his beloved companion Fr. Marcial Maciel a serial pedophile together with thousands of pedophiles rapists-priests as they satiated their lusts on little boys and young pubescent boys hence they will be forever known as the John Paul II Pedophiles Rapists-Priest Army -- they are the JP2 Army because they even out-number the 500 men in the Swiss Guard Army at the Vatican see http://jp2army.blogspot.com/
In the 20th Century and dawn of the 21st Century this is the new statistic of the JP2 Army and American crimes which the Rosary could not defeat:
Opus Dei controlled the 27 years papacy of John Paul II and is therefore the foremost guilty party who aided and abetted and covered-up the John Paul II Pedophiles Rapists-Priests Army. Opus Dei wrote most of John Paul II’s books and writings and to ensure their perpetuity as “All things Catholic”, they want JP2 to be beatified and canonized now by Benedict XVI so as not to take any chances on other future popes. The FACE of Opus Dei is John Paul II and the PHANTOM Spirit of Opus Dei is their founder St. Josemaria Escriva, read our related article John Paul II, Patron of Pederasts and Opus Dei – analysis of Joaquin Navarro-Valls’ reasons for JP2 beatification at Opus Dei conference in Rome http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2011/04/john-paul-ii-patron-of-pederasts-and.html
Pope John Paul II was a popular figure in Mexico and local Catholic Church leaders have lauded current Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to beatify him on May 1. But not everyone is happy.The Mexican-run group Observatorio Eclesial (Ecclesiastic Observatory) is mounting a worldwide campaign against the decision, entitled “A call to clarity.”
Pope John Paul II’s close relationship with Marcial Maciel (right), the disgraced founder of the Legionaries of Christ, is sufficient for him not be beatified, some Catholics argue.
Pope John Paul II’s close relationship with Marcial Maciel (right), the disgraced founder of the Legionaries of Christ, is sufficient for him not be beatified, some Catholics argue.
The group alleges that Pope John Paul II failed to recognize and possibly even covered up abuses that the founder and leader of the Legionaries of Christ in Mexico, Marcial Maciel, carried out during his tenure. Maciel is accused of abusing numerous young boys over a period stretching from the 1950s until the 1990s, fathering children and of consecrating 900 women as nuns, without the Vatican’s knowledge.
John Paul was said to be close to Maciel and encouraged him in expanding the Legionaries of Christ. The Ecclesiastic Observatory is hoping to get “contrary testimonies” to the beatification of Polish Pope John Paul II.
The other major point of contention the group has to the Pope’s beatification is his flat-out rejection of Liberation Theology, postulated by priests such as Ernesto Cardenal in Central America.
Cardenal this week criticized the beatification and accused John Paul II of “protecting” people accused of pedophilia.
UNITED STATES
Washington Post
By David Gibson| Religion News Service, Updated: Thursday, June 7
As the nation’s Catholic bishops mark 10 years since they adopted sweeping reforms to address the sexual abuse of children by clergy, the 800-pound gorilla in the chancery remains a lack of accountability for the bishops themselves.
That gap also remains the single greatest obstacle to ensuring the safety of children in Catholic parishes and schools and to restoring some measure of credibility for the bishops — and, by extension, the entire Catholic Church in the U.S.
“Bishops should be accountable to their people, to their priests,” Nicholas Cafardi, a canon and civil lawyer who teaches at the Duquesne Law School in Pittsburgh, writes in the current issue of U.S. Catholic magazine.
“But authority without accountability is tyranny,” writes Cafardi, who once headed the bishops’ National Review Board that was established to ensure compliance with their own reforms.
ITALY
Vatican Insider
The dramatic statement of the banker whose home in Piacenza was searched at the crack of dawn
Andrea Tornielli
Piacenza
It was still pitch black in the building's spacious internal court yard, which resembled a Vatican cloister, when Ettore Gotti Tedeschi descended the last step of the enormous flight of stairs, suitcase in hand, and approached his car. He was supposed to leave for Milan before dawn, as usual. A fifty minute car journey, a flick through the newspapers and mass at 8. Then in the afternoon, he was meant to get the train to Rome. Among the letters he had with him, was a memorial he intended to deliver to Benedict XVI: a reconstruction of the recent events that led to his controversial dismissal from the Vatican Bank (IOR).
But when he got to the car, there were four men waiting for him. The warrant officer slipped his hand into his pocket and extracted his police badge. It all happened so quickly that Gotti Tedeschi thought they had come to shoot him.
For a fraction of a second, God’s former banker feared the worst. Then, he was shown a search warrant and told that he would have to change his plans for the day and cancel his trip to Rome. Gotti Tedeschi, with his sallow face, took a quick look at the piece of paper. Then he called out to his wife: “Francesca!”
The Vatican bank board’s shocking no-confidence vote in Gotti Tedeschi two weeks ago, was followed by a harsh communiqué that was not in keeping with the Holy See’s style. A document that was both morally and professionally devastating. And now this new unexpected blow. A search warrant was issued but the Vatican bank’s former head was not under investigation.
ROME
Vatican Insider
Rome’s public prosecution has unearthed suspicious money transfers totalling 23 million Euro. Paolo Cipriani, the former director general of the Vatican bank is under investigation
Vatican Insider staff
Rome
Today, Rome’s chief prosecutor, Giuseppe Pignatone, interrogated former Vatican bank president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, in Milan. This is after Naples prosecutors ordered a search of Gotti Tedeschi’s study, at his home in Piacenza (northern Italy) yesterday, unearthing some material that was considered to be of interest. The interrogation carried out by Rome’s public prosecution is apparently linked to suspicions of money laundering activities in Vatican bank accounts.
The Vatican bank’s former president was heard as a witness being investigated in a legal procedure that is linked to this one and was therefore assisted by a defending counsel. Gotti Tedeschi’s name is on the Roman public prosecution’s list of people under investigation, on charges of violation of money laundering laws through suspicious money transfers worth 23 million Euro. The money was seized in September 2010 and then returned to the Vatican bank (IOR). The public prosecution in Rome believes these operations are punishable in accordance with current money laundering laws. The Vatican bank’s former director general, Paolo Cipriani is still being investigated for this.
UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic
Thursday, June 7, 2012
By Scott Alessi
At a time when most Americans are cutting back on their spending, the Catholic Church has been shelling out quite a bit of cash lately.
Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has spent $11.6 million over the last two fiscal years--including $10 million in the first nine months of the current fiscal year--on legal bills, primarily defending priests accused of sexual abuse. And that number doesn't even include the bill for the landmark trial of Msgr. William Lynn, which is still ongoing. In comparison, the entire payroll for the archdiocese, including all of its priests and lay employees' salary and benefits packages, totaled $18.6 million for the last fiscal year.
Of course, this kind of spending from the church is nothing new. A number of dioceses have had to pay out massive settlements in sexual abuse lawsuits. Last year the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, for example, was forced to pay a $77.4 million settlement that also resulted in 22 employees being laid off--without unemployment benefits, since dioceses are exempt from paying unemployment taxes--and the diocese's newspaper being shut down.
Such settlements are in some ways unavoidable, particularly when the amount the church must pay is handed down by the court. But footing the legal bill to defend priests who have abused children seems like more of a choice--one that many Catholics might question.
ITALY
Vatican Insider
The dramatic statement of the banker whose home in Piacenza was searched at the crack of dawn
Andrea Tornielli
Piacenza
It was still pitch black in the building's spacious internal court yard, which resembled a Vatican cloister, when Ettore Gotti Tedeschi descended the last step of the enormous flight of stairs, suitcase in hand, and approached his car. He was supposed to leave for Milan before dawn, as usual. A fifty minute car journey, a flick through the newspapers and mass at 8. Then in the afternoon, he was meant to get the train to Rome. Among the letters he had with him, was a memorial he intended to deliver to Benedict XVI: a reconstruction of the recent events that led to his controversial dismissal from the Vatican Bank (IOR).
But when he got to the car, there were four men waiting for him. The warrant officer slipped his hand into his pocket and extracted his police badge. It all happened so quickly that Gotti Tedeschi thought they had come to shoot him.
For a fraction of a second, God’s former banker feared the worst. Then, he was shown a search warrant and told that he would have to change his plans for the day and cancel his trip to Rome. Gotti Tedeschi, with his sallow face, took a quick look at the piece of paper. Then he called out to his wife: “Francesca!”
The Vatican bank board’s shocking no-confidence vote in Gotti Tedeschi two weeks ago, was followed by a harsh communiqué that was not in keeping with the Holy See’s style. A document that was both morally and professionally devastating. And now this new unexpected blow. A search warrant was issued but the Vatican bank’s former head was not under investigation.
ROME
Vatican Insider
Rome’s public prosecution has unearthed suspicious money transfers totalling 23 million Euro. Paolo Cipriani, the former director general of the Vatican bank is under investigation
Vatican Insider staff
Rome
Today, Rome’s chief prosecutor, Giuseppe Pignatone, interrogated former Vatican bank president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, in Milan. This is after Naples prosecutors ordered a search of Gotti Tedeschi’s study, at his home in Piacenza (northern Italy) yesterday, unearthing some material that was considered to be of interest. The interrogation carried out by Rome’s public prosecution is apparently linked to suspicions of money laundering activities in Vatican bank accounts.
The Vatican bank’s former president was heard as a witness being investigated in a legal procedure that is linked to this one and was therefore assisted by a defending counsel. Gotti Tedeschi’s name is on the Roman public prosecution’s list of people under investigation, on charges of violation of money laundering laws through suspicious money transfers worth 23 million Euro. The money was seized in September 2010 and then returned to the Vatican bank (IOR). The public prosecution in Rome believes these operations are punishable in accordance with current money laundering laws. The Vatican bank’s former director general, Paolo Cipriani is still being investigated for this.
ITALY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the former head of the Vatican bank, has put together an archive of potentially damaging information on senior Italian and Vatican figures, according to reports.
11:27AM BST 07 Jun 2012
The archive made up of hundreds of pages, was reportedly seized by prosecutors during raids on Mr Gotti Tedeschi's home and office on Tuesday, as part of a separate inquiry into alleged bribery at defence giant Finmeccanica.
The former banker is already under investigation on allegations of money laundering of 23 million euros ($29 million) through the Vatican bank.
He was questioned on Tuesday and Wednesday and is said to be assisting prosecutors.
Among those mentioned in the archive were "senior clergymen, shady intermediaries and influential Italian politicians," the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported.
ITALY
Reuters
By Laura Viggiano
NAPLES, Italy, June 7 (Reuters) - Italian police searching the home and office of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the former head of the Vatican's bank, have found a confidential dossier relating to his three-year tenure as the bank's president, a judicial source said on Thursday.
The dossier appeared to have been put together by Gotti Tedeschi to defend himself from allegations over his mismanagement of the bank.
Gotti Tedeschi was ousted from his position as head of the Vatican's Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) on May 24 after the bank's board passed a motion of no-confidence, accusing him of neglecting his basic management responsibilities.
The unusually abrupt dismissal, which followed the arrest of the pope's butler for allegedly stealing confidential papal documents, was the culmination of a leaks scandal that has shaken the Vatican since January.
ROME
End the Lie
By Richard Cottrell
Contributing writer for End the Lie
There are many striking similarities between the former Soviet Kremlin and the Vatican (which has been besieged by even more scandals than usual as of late).
Consider, for example, the question of organizational bureaucracy. Commissars equal Cardinals. It is easy to swap democracy and freedom preached in the name of the people for everlasting life equally pledged to the devout and faithful by the Catholic Church.
Possession of a party card could be seen as the equivalent of obedient presence at Sunday Mass.
There are no popular elections in the Roman Church. The Pope is chosen by his own internal clique, just as Soviet leaders clambered over each other to the seat of power.
Joseph Ratzinger, alias Pope Benedict XVI, reminds me strongly of Brezhnev in his final decline. Then the corridors and chambers of the Kremlin hummed with plots, horrific acts of political treachery occurred behind closed doors as the general secretary quietly faded away, like the smile on the face of the Cheshire Cat.
The communist system effectively died with Brezhnev.
That story is being repeated right now within the sacred precincts of the Holy See.
One Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, was moved to describe the commotion inside the Vatican as the “penultimate act of a medieval battle moved to the 21st century.”
This is slightly an understatement. The Vatican is gripped by a civil war of such bitterness and furious intensity it may never fully recover.
The issue, as with Leonid Brezhnev, is largely but not fully connected to the toxic issue of the succession. Ratzinger is 85 years old, increasingly infirm, and wheeled to Mass on a kind of trolley pushed by Vatican staff. He mutters wearily, “We are an old Pope.”
Benedict’s lament echoes the Pandorian plague of crises sweeping the Roman Catholic Church.
Last week, the Pope’s formerly intimately trusted valet, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and thrown into a four by four meter cell in the Vatican’s tiny prison. He languishes there, charged with pilfering highly sensitive documents from the Pope’s personal apartments.
The whole of Italy is reeling from the ‘what the butler saw’ scandal. There is a natural prurient desire among the faithful to discover exactly what might have been so incriminating in these documents as to thrust the church bureaucracy into blind panic.
Short list:
- The Vatican’s own piggy bank, the Institute of Religious Works, is back in the headlines yet again, on grounds of deep involvement in age-old money-laundering connected to narcotics and arms smuggling rings.
- The spreading global scandal over pedophilia practiced by the clergy. The US-based organization Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests (SNAP, established in 1991) has tabled a case against the church at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The leading charge being crimes against humanity.
- From the strictly internal perspective, the struggle between rival factions to bag the highest office in the Vatican government: that of Secretary of State, whose occupant is effectively the Holy See’s prime minister.
In actuality, it is probably, all of the above. This is a cipher struggle for the papacy itself, the ignition factor in the raging civil war, even as Ratzinger sinks fast into the shades.
The present Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, is an equivocal figure who has taken a leading line designing the strategy to fight off the sexual abuse claims. But he did not do himself or the Church any favors by shifting the great weight of blame to homosexuals in the ranks of the clergy.
He would not have said this without the benign consent of his patron, Ratzinger. Bertone is also responsible for the amazing statement that bishops are under no obligation to report abuse cases among the clergy “because it would infringe freedom of speech.”
Bertone is named alongside Ratzinger in the case standing before the International Court. But even so, as La Repubblica observed, “Those who live within the Walls know that the game is larger, has many more players, and has been especially hard for a long time.”
Summoned back from the everglades, the Borgias would instantly recognize the following stanza. La Repubblica does not directly attribute the quote but clearly it echoes Ratzinger directly.
“In here, as to who guides me, and helps me to understand – there’s a good amount of blackmailers, an equal amount of blackmail, a mass of employees and a small percentage of people of faith: among them the Saints, that keep the Church.”
Here is a gloomy painting of a largely secular political structure, all those jewel-encrusted gowns, bells and fancy smells amounting to little more than a deceptive pageant designed principally for entertainment. Truly, a Roman circus.
The fascinating thing about the Vatican Civil War is the fact that it is being fought between rival gangs of theological conservatives. The reformista are nowhere in the frame. Whenever they appear, they are promptly dealt with. Example:
The Secretary of the Governorate of Vatican City (mayor, if you like) Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, sent a letter to Ratzinger, personally denouncing the systematic embezzlement, trafficking and conspiracy raging inside the Vatican. For good measure he attacked the Vatican’s back-tracking on the introduction of new anti-money laundering laws to bring the Holy See in line with western banking norms.
For these sins he was promptly sacked by Bertone, and sent into exile as apostolic nuncio (ambassador) to Washington.
Last year a troika of three arch neo-theocon heavyweight cardinals, namely Camello Ruini, Angelo Bagnasco and Angelo Scola, met for a seminal private lunch with Ratzinger at the papal summer retreat at Castello Gondolfo, far from the prying eyes of Rome. Scola had been touted as a possible elevation to the papacy last time around.
The first course was Cardinal Bertone. All three demanded his head on the nearest plate.
Ratzinger dithered, the signal stripe of his papacy. But the tongs approached from another direction.
The Spanish cardinal Julian Herranz Casado hails from another wing of neo-theocon set. He was the nearest thing there is to a deputy Pope during John Paul II’s many illnesses, particularly after he was seriously wounded in the assassination attempt in on May 13, 1981.
At 82, Herranz Casado entertains no promotion hopes for himself. Rather, he intends that Rome should pass the throne of St. Peter to his photogenic “young” acolyte Cardinal Juan Thorne, whose seat is the Peruvian capital, Lima. He is, with Herranz Casado, one of only two Opus Dei initiates in the entire holy conclave.
Moreover at 68 he is still a “Giovanni” in his pontifical short pants and might reasonably anticipate a stabilizing reign of at least twenty years.
The problem is that the aforementioned Latin troika led by Ruini is determined to recapture St. Peter’s for the Romans. The very idea of a South American Pope is unmentionable heresy.
It was Herranz Casado, the so-called J. Edgar Hoover of the Vatican, who recently arrested the errant butler. This was seen as a warning shot to the Ruini Set of worse to come, if necessary. Yet Herranz Casado equally regards Bartone as a road block, in his case in passing the papal succession to his Opus Dei co-religionist Juan Thorne.
For the Ruini Set, an Opus Dei Pope is impossible to contemplate, quite apart from all the controversies that swirl around a sect seen by many detractors as a kind of Moonie-like organization inside the holy church.
Neither of these rival factions are remotely interested in cleaning up Vatican sleaze, especially those ill-gotten gains at the Sacred Bank which oil the Lateran State’s costly machinery.
Ratzinger’s single decision seems to be to cling to Bertone at any price, in which case the civil war is certain to intensify as the Pope’s reign drifts to an end. He says that he cannot contemplate changing horses now, dealing with a new prime minister at this late stage of his life.
But it is reasonable assumption – insofar as any assumption is reasonable in the dystopian environment of the Vatican – that he regards Bertone as the guarantor of a successor in his own image. Bertone is 77, roughly the same age as Ratzinger when he acceded as “humble laborer in the vineyard” as Vicar of Christ. But he is not the next Pope.
All Vatican watchers agree that the atmosphere inside the Holy See is thoroughly poisonous. The feuding and back-stabbing has reached an unprecedented pitch.
Effectively, except for ritual stage performances, Ratzinger seems to have given up on the job, except for the occasional Molotov cocktail.
Here’s one of them:
Corriere Della Sera, Milan, June 1st: “Pope Benedict XVI, accompanied by surprise by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, has arrived in Milan for the pastoral and the VII World Meeting of Families. The presence of the Cardinal Bertone is an exceptional event, as the Secretary of State usually does not follow the Pope during travel in Italy.
The fact shows the intimacy of the Pope’s closest collaborator. Benedict XVI thus intends to confirm his faith and his closest collaborators and at the same time denouncing the many allegations that are raised against the Church.”
This amounts to a papal declaration of war on the Ruini crowd. It is also an extraordinary parallel with interpreting smoke signals from the old Kremlin of yore. In those days, who was in or out could be gauged from whether their images were photoshopped, as it were, from the podium atop Lenin’s tomb at the annual May Day parade.
We are also informed that Ratzinger sees the clergy abuse case placed before the International Court as sufficiently serious to confirm his co-defendant Bartone in the 2nd highest position in the Vatican state. To do otherwise might invite doubts when the church’s most urgent need is to stand firm.
He has not ended the civil war; rather he has prolonged it, albeit for pragmatic reasons of state.
VATICAN CITY
Sydney Morning Herald
June 3, 2012
DPA
An Italian newspaper has received confidential Vatican documents from a unknown source who in a message claimed that a papal butler arrested last week for allegedly stealing Holy See files was a "scapegoat" in a plot involving top officials.
La Repubblica said the leaking of the documents showed that Paolo Gabriele, who is currently held in the Vatican, "is not the only one" responsible for the so-called "Vatileaks" scandal which has engulfed the Vatican.
La Repubblica published on Sunday part of what it said was an anonymous, computer-typed message carrying the heading: "Chase away from the Vatican, those really responsible (for the scandal)."
The message claims that the Vatican's second highest official, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and Pope Benedict XVI's personal secretary Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, are the main culprits in an unspecified plot.
CITTA DEL VATICANO
La Repubblica
Secondo la nuova indiscrezione, c'è uno scambio di documenti e un patto segreto tra il numero due della Santa Sede e il segretario particolare di Ratzinger. Repubblica è in possesso di tre documenti riservati. Sul quotidiano, il testo integrale di una lettera inviata dal cardinale Burke al segretario di Stato
di MARCO ANSALDO
MILANO - "Cacciate i veri responsabili dal Vaticano. Ancora una volta a pagare è il solito capro espiatorio. Quale migliore vittima del maggiordomo del Santo Padre. La verità va ricercata nel potere centrale". Il corvo vola ancora in Vaticano. Volteggia, osserva e colpisce, mentre Benedetto XVI si trova in visita ufficiale per tre giorni a Milano cercando qualche momento di serenità dai veleni che lo assediano. Il corvo sforna a sorpresa nuovi documenti. Tre, per la precisione, di cui Repubblica è in possesso e che oggi presenta. Ma, avverte subito la fonte, di carte come queste ne abbiamo "centinaia". Lo scrive in una lettera - che prelude ai tre documenti - battuta sul computer. Dimostrando, qualora ce ne fosse ancora bisogno, che il maggiordomo del Papa accusato di essere il postino delle missive fuoriuscite in passato dalla Santa Sede, "il capro espiatorio" come lo definisce la lettera, non è per niente il solo. Perché il corvo, in realtà, è ancora attivo. "La verità - denuncia - va ricercata nel potere centrale". E spiega: "Ovverossia, nell'archivio privato di mons. Georg Gaenswein segretario particolare del Santo Padre, dal quale fuoriescono di continuo innumerevoli documenti riservati a favore del Segretario di Stato Cardinale Tarcisio Bertone".
Un'accusa forte, che la fonte fa propria, al segretario particolare di Benedetto XVI, uomo in cui il Papa ripone invece la massima fiducia, e che da molti anni rappresenta la persona cui affidarsi
per le questioni non solo di carattere personale, ma anche spirituali e politiche. Negli ultimi anni, infatti, monsignor Gaenswein ha accresciuto notevolmente la sua influenza all'interno dell'Appartamento, maturando un ruolo di certo del tutto informale, eppure tangibile e chiaro a tutti, di consigliere di Joseph Ratzinger, del quale è anche connazionale. Aggiunge il corvo nella sua missiva preliminare alle tre carte: "Non sempre le cose vanno per il verso giusto e tra Mons. Georg ed il Cardinale ci sono passaggi incontrollati di documenti ed atti riservatissimi". Come a dire: i documenti e gli atti interni che transitano dall'Appartamento papale all'ufficio del Segretario di Stato, e viceversa, talvolta prendono anche altre strade. E il loro controllo si perde.
VATICAN CITY
Reuters
Sun Jun 3, 2012
By Philip Pullella
MILAN (Reuters) - Pope Benedict got no rest on Sunday from a leaks scandal when an Italian newspaper published documents showing that his butler was not the only person in possession of confidential correspondence indicating a Vatican in disarray.
Benedict, 85, ended a weekend trip to Italy's industrial and financial capital Milan with a closing mass for an international gathering in which he praised traditional Catholic family values and re-stated his opposition to gay marriage.
But in its Sunday edition, the Rome newspaper La Repubblica published documents it said it had received anonymously after the arrest of the pope's butler on May 23.
A note received by the newspaper said there were "hundreds more" documents and that the butler, Paolo Gabriele, was just a scapegoat.
VATIKAN
Zeit
Tarcisio Bertone kommt im Vatikan gleich nach dem Papst. Sein gewaltiger Einfluss bringt die Kurie gegen ihn auf. Noch stützt der Papst den Staatssekretär.
Gestohlene Briefe, Ächtungen, Machtspiele und sogar Mordkomplotte – die Berichterstattung über die Vatikan-Krise übertrifft fast schon die Fantasien reißerischer Thriller-Autoren. Ein Name taucht in jeder neuen Geschichte auf: Tarcisio Bertone.
Auch der jüngste "Vatikanleaks"-Skandal um das Buch Sua Eminenza des Journalisten Gianluigi Nuzzi ist aus Sicht von Beobachtern nur eine Offensive im langjährigen Kampf zwischen dem vatikanischen Kardinalstaatssekretär und seinen Gegnern. Die Veröffentlichung der privaten Korrespondenz des Papstes – sagen Vatikan-Insider – soll das Ziel haben, die Machtspiele in der Kurie publik zu machen, um Bertone zum Rücktritt zu zwingen. Sicher ist, dass der 78-Jährige immer weniger Freunde in Rom hat.
VATICAN CITY
Sky News (Australia)
Power-hungry cardinals, spies and a suspicious butler: 'Vatileaks' is just the latest scandal to grip an institution dogged down the centuries by damning tales of greed, corruption and betrayal.
From clerical sex abuse scandals to accusations of money-laundering and ties with the mafia over the years, critics do not have to indulge in Dan Brown Da Vinci Code theories to accuse the Church of slipping from its moral code.
While rumours of wild sex parties are today more easily associated with former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, the tiny Vatican state in the heart of Rome was once a hotbed of lust and depravity.
Tenth-century pope John XII, appointed aged just 18, is said to have indulged his teenage sex drive by throwing exotic orgies, sparking outraged religious observers to describe the Lateran palace, the papal home, as a whore house.
UNITED STATES
New York Post
Maureen Callahan
As if to further underscore their deep remove from the modern world, Vatican officials, in a clumsy attempt to stanch new and damaging leaks from within, announced that they’ve arrested the person responsible: the pope’s butler.
“It’s like a punchline,” says Matthew Bunson, editor of Catholic Answer magazine. “You wind up with the headline, ‘The Butler Did It.’ ”
Among those who pay close attention to this stuff, none believe that the butler did it.
“The evidence stacked up against him is almost too good,” says Michael James, fellow at the Roche Center for Catholic Education at Boston College. “There’s been [an internal] investigation going on for a year about missing documents. The theory is that he’s being set up.”
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. For many Americans, the question remains: What, exactly, is the butler supposed to have done? And does it really matter?
VATICAN CITY
Times of India
Already this year we've read about documents warning of a "death threat" against the Pope, widespread nepotism and corruption, exiled whistle-blowers , gay smear campaigns and embarrassing revelations about the Vatican's tax affairs. Most of the damaging of the " Vatileaks" were revealed by the reporter Gianluigi Nuzzi in a series of TV programmes and now his new book Sua Santita (Your Holiness).
As ever, lumbering several steps behind , the powers that be at the Holy See last month set out to catch the mole or moles behind the leaks — which they refer to as "criminal acts". The Pope's butler has already been nabbed in possession of some of the confidential papers. But few people think he acted alone.
This week, we learnt that an unnamed Italian cardinal is now a suspect. But even if all the leakers are caught, few observers think that there's an end in sight for the PR disasters that have blighted the reign of 85-year-old Pope Benedict XVI.
For Valerio Gigante, a vaticanologist at the Adista religious news website, the church is suffering a moral crisis. "The contradiction at the heart of the church grows greater all the time. It exists for moral reasons but also generates huge amounts of money and is ever more occupied with political and economic power," he said.
VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
The murky saga of the leaked Vatican documents has damaged the worldwide image of the Catholic Church, just as it was trying to recover from the paedophile priest scandals, writes Nick Squires.
By Nick Squires, Vatican City
7:00AM BST 03 Jun 2012
Its massive walls, topped by stone eagles and statues of saints, dwarf the crowds of tourists queuing to see the treasures inside its museums.
The Vatican may look like a medieval fortress, but the apparent impregnability of its bastions, buttresses and revetments is illusory.
Not even the Swiss Guards in their flamboyant harlequin uniforms managed to prevent the worst security breach in the Holy See's recent history - the theft of hundreds of confidential documents, some of them stolen from the desk of Pope Benedict himself.
Smuggled out of the secretive city state, they were handed to an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, who dropped a metaphorical bomb on the Holy See by publishing them as a book: His Holiness - The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI.
ROME
BBC News
By David Willey
BBC News, Rome
A book reproducing the private correspondence of Pope Benedict XVI has angered the Vatican and forms part of a series of leaks revealing allegations of corruption and internal conflicts.
Pope Benedict complained bitterly at his latest general audience about the international media. He said they had unfairly latched on to the admittedly very unusual story of the arrest of his butler, to distort the truth about recent goings-on at the Catholic Church's power centre here in Rome.
Yet he looked saddened and understandably angry about this invasion of his privacy in his own home on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace.
Every day, the Italian media give their latest versions about what they call the "Vatileaks" crisis which has been headline news.
VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune
Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
Reuters
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict is fighting the worst crisis of his papacy, but his problems are only the latest in a long history of controversies and intrigue in the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.
The "Vatileaks" scandal, in which the pope's private papers are alleged to have been pilfered by his own butler, pales in comparison to the scandals of centuries past when popes were accused of violence, nepotism and sexual excesses.
Pope Benedict has angrily charged that "totally gratuitous" accounts in the media "offer an image of the Holy See which does not correspond to reality."
Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the third-ranking official in the world's smallest state, bemoaned the "distorted image" presented of the Vatican and said the internal debates revealed by the documents were perfectly normal in any organization.
ROME
NPR
[with audio]
by Sylvia Poggioli
June 2, 2012
The scandal over leaked documents that has been engulfing the Vatican is the biggest breach of confidence and security at the Holy See in recent memory.
Known as Vatileaks, the crisis has shed light on a Vatican gripped by intrigue and power struggles like a Renaissance court.
Vatileaks erupted into a full-blown scandal with the publication two weeks ago of a book of Vatican documents alleging corruption and conspiracies among cardinals.
Within days, the Vatican bank president was abruptly dismissed and the pope's own butler was arrested on charges of stealing the pope's correspondence.
VATICAN CITY
CBC News
By Mark Quinlan, CBC News
Posted: Jun 1, 2012
The Vatican has been under intense scrutiny for almost six months now, the result of leaked correspondence — the so-called Vatileaks — that alleges financial corruption and intrigue within the internal government of the Holy See.
The subject of the leaks has sparked a media frenzy in Rome and even among some of the world's financial press, but it is no surprise to church historians who have seen all this before.
"The Vatican is in a sense almost perpetually enmeshed in scandals, because it continues to act like a kingdom," says John Stackhouse, professor of theology and culture at the University of British Columbia's Regent College.
"It might have made sense at one point in history for the pope to also be a prince, but whenever you're involved in politics or business, things get messy."
UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society
Posted: Fri, 01 Jun 2012
By Terry Sanderson
It's always a pleasure to read that the Pope is upset. Nobody deserves to be upset more than His Holiness.
This time Mr Ratzinger is wailing about the publication of a book, His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi. It is based on documents leaked from the Vatican by un-named sources. The documents reveal a web of corruption and cronyism within the walls of Vatican City that would put a Dan Brown novel to shame.
You can read some of the details in this article.
The Vatican launched an investigation into who could have passed the documents on to the journalist and eventually pinpointed the Pope's valet, Paolo Gabriele. Yes, the butler did it!
Or that's according to the Vatican who are now suspected of making this poor man — presently under arrest by the Vatican police — a fall guy.
VATICAN CITY
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
The 'Vatileaks’ scandal has lifted the lid on a world of Catholic clerical intrigue and rivalry in the Holy See.
By Peter Stanford
7:56PM BST 31 May 2012
A British diplomat, sent as Her Majesty’s representative to the Holy See, once characterised the Vatican as being like a palace, floating adrift from the rest of the world. It is an image that has surfaced again this week with the extraordinary spectacle of the “Vatileaks” scandal, in which Pope Benedict XVI’s butler has been accused of passing stolen documents to the Italian press at the behest of senior clerics who want to discredit their rivals at the papal court.
Paolo Gabriele, a 46-year-old valet who has worked for Benedict since 2006, is being held in custody in “secure rooms” within the Vatican, the world’s smallest sovereign state at just 108 acres. As a Vatican citizen, one of only 600, he faces being dealt with by its own justice system rather than the courts in Rome, which surrounds this enclave.
Not that the international boundary that cuts across Saint Peter’s Square has deterred the Italian press from working itself up into a frenzy. Among the revelations in the private documents are details of church tax problems, its handling of child sex abuse cases, and the on-going negotiations between Benedict and ultra traditionalist “Lefebvrists”, currently excommunicated from the Church, but whom the Pope wants to readmit to his flock, apparently at any price.
Another week, another set of Vatican leaks. Barbie Latza Nadeau on how the Holy See’s spinmeister is coping with allegations of a disappeared hacker and a ‘pathological’ banker.
It’s been more than three weeks since the pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested for allegedly stealing secret documents from the papal desk, and the details spilling from Vatican City are as murky as smoke from burning incense.
The heavily filtered “facts” of Gabriele’s arrest are channeled from the hallowed Holy See through sporadic press briefings held by Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s Jesuit spokesman, who sits at an expansive high table above reporters in the blue velvet press room inside the Holy See Press Center. The briefings often contain sarcastic micro-sermons on the interpretation of truth among the Vatican press corps, and Father Lombardi generally begins the Q&A sessions by wielding press clippings of what he considers the biggest offenses when it comes to accurate reporting. “There is a way of doing journalism that does not reflect the reality of the actual situation,” he lectured last week. “I am constantly amazed.”
In many ways, Lombardi’s job is more about battling rumors than revealing actual information. He often answers questions with condescending half-laughs and never allows himself to be pushed into a corner. When the going gets tough, he simply ends the briefing. And so it was last week when the latest gossip swirling around the VatiLeaks intrigue was swatted away like a pesky Roman tiger mosquito.
On Thursday, the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica published a “scoop.” The piece apparently never made it to the online version of the paper, but in the print edition the paper announced that the Vatican’s chief information technology guru had disappeared without a trace, taking with him the passwords, codes, and presumably secrets from the Vatican’s intranet servers. The nameless Vatican employee was, curiously, said to be an ex-hacker who had broken the Vatican firewall once before and then redeemed himself to land a trusted position. La Repubblica’s intrepid—or possibly creative—reporters said he had created an “unbreakable” network to protect the Vatican network and that only he knew how to open it, thus giving the impression that the Vatican was once again at risk of a serious security breach. No sources were cited. Lombardi adamantly denied that anyone had disappeared from the Vatican’s employee roster, and most assuredly not any ex-hacking computer expert. The La Repubblica report, he said, was “completely unfounded.”
Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican last week. (Max Rossi / AFP-Getty Images-pool)
The supposedly groundless scoop about the missing hacker highlighted a week of PR problems for the Vatican bank. Former president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was let go in late May, has reportedly been spilling once-confidential information to prosecutors who are investigating alleged improprieties in the Vatican bank dealings with external Italian companies. He had compiled a secret dossier as early as last January in which he detailed many of the Vatican bank’s allegedly creative accounting procedures. One file in his dossier leaked to the press contained vital information about Vatican bank account No. 1365 with JPMorgan that the New York–based financial firm closed down last year because of suspicious behavior. JPMorgan had requested documentation to prove the account was not being used for money laundering.
“Don’t you have something more interesting to write about?” asked Lombardi at a recent briefing.
According to Gotti Tedeschi’s dossier, he had asked Vatican bank technicians and advisers for help clearing up what he said he assumed was a misunderstanding. Instead, according to the leaked documents printed in the Italian press, “the board of the bank stopped him” from investigating further, which then “created a conflict” among the board over the Vatican’s anti–money laundering regulations, which he says were merely “on paper and not in practice.” All of which, he says, is why the bank fired him.
To counter the flow of negative information, the Vatican has been working hard to discredit Gotti Tedeschi as inept and potentially certifiable. In another letter leaked to the press, which the Vatican denies leaking, a noted psychoanalyst who had been brought in by the Vatican bank directors to “evaluate stress levels” had written a letter to the Vatican bank’s general director, Paolo Cipriani, describing Gotti Tedeschi’s behavior at the company Christmas party last year as “consistent with a pathological disorder.” The Vatican said it regretted the leaking of the psychological evaluation, but Lombardi remained adamant that it wasn’t their doing. Why anyone else would want to discredit Gotti Tedeschi remains yet another unanswered question on a list of many.
Meanwhile, the papal butler remains under investigation, reportedly cooperating with the Vatican authorities who have interrogated him in the presence of his lawyers. Lombardi says he now faces up to eight years in prison for stealing the papal papers. His trial may be held this summer, but undoubtedly will be closed to the press. Information will come at Lombardi’s discretion.
Lombardi says no others have been implicated in the crime and that there is “ample evidence” to convict the butler, assuring reporters that he will keep them abreast of the situation as events dictate. But even with the butler locked away, a steady stream of documents has been finding its way to the front pages of the Italian papers.
“Don’t you have something more interesting to write about?” asked Lombardi at a recent briefing. That, of course, will ultimately be up to him.
A series of leaks have exposed chaos at the heart of the Pope’s empire.
Pope Benedict XVI wakes every morning between 6:30 and 6:45 a.m. in the papal apartment on the third floor of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, which overlooks St. Peter’s Square. After bathing and shaving, he makes his way to his private chapel, where at 7:30 he celebrates the first mass of the day. After a time of private prayer in the chapel, at around 8:30 he joins Msgr. Georg Gänswein, his personal secretary, and a small circle of his closest collaborators for breakfast. The pope’s preference is decaffeinated coffee, bread with butter and jam, and, once in a while, a slice of tart.
We know all of these details because the Vatican has sprung a leak. For centuries one of the tightest organizations in the world, with a code of honor to rival that of the Sicilian Mafia, it has been turned inside out in the past six months. A gusher of highly confidential letters to the pope and his closest associates, many of them originally in code, has poured into the Italian media and into a book, Sua Santità by Gianluigi Nuzzi, which became an instant bestseller. The leaks are just one in a string of scandals to rock the Vatican this year—the latest, in early June, involved the ouster of the head of the Vatican bank, who possessed documents that apparently showed the Church circumventing European money-laundering regulations. To combat the spate of bad publicity, the Vatican has gone as far as hiring a former Fox News reporter, who happens to be an Opus Dei numerary, to be one of its official PR flacks. But whether the pope and the Vatican establishment can recover their credibility is now a matter of serious doubt.
The target of the most damaging leaks is the most important and powerful figure in the Vatican besides the pope: the 77-year-old secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone. The leaks have been loudly condemned by the Vatican, and the man blamed for them—the pope’s butler—may end up going to jail for years. But if the ambition that motivated the leaks was the sacking of Cardinal Bertone, they may yet succeed. Bertone’s name recurs in letter after secret letter, as he plots to oust rivals as varied as the editor of the bishops’ daily newspaper and the man sent in to clean up the Vatican’s finances. Though Benedict is said to have turned down the cardinal’s offer of resignation in late June, the informed consensus now is that Bertone’s days are numbered. Though he may limp on into 2013, the leaks have done their corrosive work.
The Vatican Pied Piper, Sandro Magister, has recycled his article of 30 June 2006 entitled The Victorious Barque of Peter, Buffeted in Vain by Satan: In his homily for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Benedict XVI describes a Church “buffeted by the wind of ideologies,” but unsinkable…. This year, on July 6, 2012, Magister calls it, “The Mutineers of the Barque of Peter but added a pathological lie that Benedict XVI had something to do with the Arab Spring: The memorable lecture in Regensburg was the first demonstration of this. Benedict XVI… invoked for Muslims the revolution of the Enlightenment that Christianity has already experienced. Years later, the springtime of freedom that sprouted and immediately withered in the city squares of the Arab world confirmed that he had seen correctly…
The reason why the Vatican has diplomatic status is because a world criminal, Mussolini gave the Vatican independent nation status, which should be taken away! Why should the world honor the will of an international criminal like Mussolini? We don't honor Hitler that way! Regarding Vati-Leaks, instead of solving the problems that were identified by Archbishop Vigano and our Vati-Leaks experts, the Vatican chooses to go after those who "leaked" the information by criminalizing them rather than the criminal cardinals inside of the Vatican! But, in reality that makes perfect, "Vatican Sense!" Prosecute the "do-gooders" on the outside and protect the criminals within!
1 comment:
The reason why the Vatican has diplomatic status is because a world criminal, Mussolini gave the Vatican independent nation status, which should be taken away! Why should the world honor the will of an international criminal like Mussolini? We don't honor Hitler that way! Regarding Vati-Leaks, instead of solving the problems that were identified by Archbishop Vigano and our Vati-Leaks experts, the Vatican chooses to go after those who "leaked" the information by criminalizing them rather than the criminal cardinals inside of the Vatican! But, in reality that makes perfect, "Vatican Sense!" Prosecute the "do-gooders" on the outside and protect the criminals within!
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