VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

Fresh off approving a sweeping overhaul of America’s main umbrella group for the leaders of women’s religious orders, Pope Benedict XVI this week turned to getting his own house in order by creating a panel of three veteran cardinals to investigate the tawdry recent Vatican leaks scandal.

The Vatican announced yesterday that Benedict has created a new Commission of Cardinals “to undertake an authoritative investigation” and “to throw light on these episodes,” which it characterized as “recent leaks of reserved and confidential documents on television, in newspapers and in other communications media.”

The commission is led by Spanish Cardinal Julián Herranz, 82, formerly the president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. It also includes Slovakian Cardinal Jozef Tomko, 88, a former prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and Italian Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi,…