VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
The Vatican Secretary of State who is “at the centre of the fray” is on the attack, particularly against the press
Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City
The Vatican Secretary of State set four key things straight in yesterday’s interview with Italian Pauline magazine Famiglia Cristiana. The title on the magazine’s front cover – a quotation of a comment made by the Pope’s right hand man was unequivocal: “Poison pen letter writers and the Vatican bank…pure slander”. The cardinal made his stance known after the Substitute for General Affairs to the Secretary of State, Angelo Becciu and the Dean, Cardinal Angelo Sodano expressed their own positions (both published in the Vatican daily broadsheet L’Osservatore Romano). His stance shows a continuity with the messages he has been sending out both inside and outside the Roman Curia, recalling the unity of those close to the Pope and denying the existence of clashing factions among them.
During the interview, the Secretary of State attributed most of the blame for the Vatileaks scandal and the controversies over the dismissal of the Vatican bank’s president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, to newspapers – particularly Italian ones. He claimed it was these Dan Brown wannabe journalists, with their inaccurate and poisonous information, their “pettiness” and “lies spread over the past few months”, who portrayed the Vatican as a place mired in power struggles and tensions. Information which is simply not true. “In actual fact, there is a unity in terms of objectives and a collegiality among the Secretariat of State’s collaborators that cannot be found elsewhere.” “Personally – the cardinal said – I see no sign of any cardinals being involved or of a mysterious power struggle between ecclesiastical figures.”
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