UNITED STATES
PowerTrip
By Mark V. Serrano·May 30, 2012
Cronyism, corruption and power struggles. Where else would you find such things, along with palace intrigue and a butler leaking sensitive information, but the Vatican?
A book just published in Italy references private letters, internal memos, and a treasure trove of secret information that includes pleas to the Pope to deal with a money-laundering scandal.
Such scandals seem to abound in the church hierarchy. Ironically, we see countless examples of Catholic bishops and cardinals let off the hook for hiding serial sex offenders in the church, but if you steal the church’s money or reveal secrets from inside the Pope’s own Vatican apartment, it’s time to call in the hounds!
The Pope’s butler has been arrested as the Julian Assange of the Vatican, and will likely rot in an Italian jail for many years. Supposedly, he is the one who leaked all the juicy data to the author of the book, which is flying off the shelves in Italy.
This sort of tale is not unusual, of course. Stories have leaked recently about the fate of a teenaged girl with Vatican City citizenship who was kidnapped and held for ransom in 1983 in lieu of the release of the man who attempted to assassinate John Paul II (see: What is the Vatican’s sinister secret behind teenager Emanuela Orlandi’s 1983 disappearance?).
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