Leaks to Italian Media Reveal Power Struggle in Vatican, Observers Say

By Jean-louis De La Vaissiere
GMA News
February 11, 2012

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/247612/news/world/leaks-to-italian-media-reveal-power-struggle-in-vatican-observers-say

A "plot" to kill Pope Benedict XVI disclosed Friday was only the latest in a series of rumors, leaks and corruption allegations in what experts believe is a bitter power struggle in the Vatican.

The Holy See's press office has been forced into overdrive in recent days against multiple reports in Italian media centred mainly around the activities of the Vatican bank and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

On Friday, the Vatican dismissed as "delirious" the writings of a cardinal who said he had heard of an unspecified assassination threat on the pope and also described increasingly confrontational ties between the pope and Bertone.

The document -- allegedly written up by a Colombian cardinal and quoting declarations reportedly made by Italian cardinal Paolo Romeo during a visit to China -- was also dismissed by Romeo himself as "absolutely without basis."

Whether its contents are true or not, the fact that the apparently genuine Vatican document was leaked in the first place points to intrigue and growing tensions against Bertone's management style within the Roman Curia.

Although his honesty has not been called into question, Bertone has already been criticised following the publication of leaked confidential letters in which a Vatican whistleblower alleged a widespread culture of corruption.

The scathing letters were sent to Bertone and the pope last year by the then head of the Vatican governorate, Carlo Maria Vigano, who has since been appointed as the papal envoy to Washington in what he saw as a demotion.

In the letters published by the Corriere della Sera daily and La7 television channel Vigano claimed that there were "numerous situations of corruption and waste" in the Vatican governorate, which he led between 2009 and 2011.

His strongest criticism was reserved for the Vatican financial committee, which includes the head of the Vatican bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. He accused the bankers of favoring "their interests" over the Vatican's.

In one financial operation by the bankers that went wrong, the Vatican made a net loss of 2.5 million euros ($3.2 million), Vigano said.

He also claimed that the Vatican was being systematically overcharged for a range of technical services and construction contracts.

The Holy See reacted to the letters with an unusually long response signed by two current and two former directors of the governorate, dismissing the claims as "baseless suspicions and accusations".

"The claims are the fruit of erroneous judgements, or based on groundless fears, openly contradicted by those called as witnesses," the statement said, adding that the Vatican was "greatly embittered" by their publication.

"The claims cannot help but give the impression that the Vatican governorate, instead of being an instrument of responsible governing, is an untrustworthy entity, controlled by dark forces," they said.

The Holy See has also been on the defensive in recent days over a report that the Institute of Religious Works (IOR) -- the Vatican bank's official name -- is failing to co-operate with Italian prosecutors in an investigation.

The Vatican denied this and stressed that the IOR was not an "offshore" bank. It also cast doubt on a report in leftist daily L'Unita' that four priests were being investigated for laundering hundreds of thousands of euros.

"Not a day goes by now that some sort of confidential note escapes from the sacred palaces of the Vatican, which have become a sieve," Vatican expert Andrea Tornielli said in a commentary on the Vatican Insider website.

Tornielli said the leaking of the assassination plot letter was "part of a strategy in a clear internal struggle in the Vatican, which has an uncertain outcome which will in any case be devastating."

"The background to the struggle is not only the succession of Cardinal Bertone but even the conclave itself" -- the body of cardinals that meets whenever a pope dies to elect a new one. — Agence France Presse