VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
An authentic, but obviously inconclusive, note unleashes a turmoil over a hypothetical conspiracy to possibly assassinate the Pope
Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City
Not a day goes by now without some sort of confidential note fromt he Vatican being leaked. What Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano publishes today is a document sent to the Pope on 30 December. It is a “confidential” note that Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, former Prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy, received from a friend and concerns the possibility of a “criminal conspiracy” to eliminatethe Pope. The alleged “source” cited in the text, is Cardinal Paolo Romeo, Archbishop of Palermo, a former nuncio in Italy, who, during a trip to Beijing in November 2011, had spoken with some Chinese interlocutors of the possibility that Benedict XVI will die within a year and the possibility that his successor will be the Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice and a few months now, the new Archbishop of Milan.
It should be said firstly that the note published by the newspaper is authentic. It was actually received by the Secretary of State, where after a first reading and a few laughs, it was not given the least weight, even if it was sent to the Pope.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.