VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 01, 2012 All Things Catholic
While the arrest of the pope’s butler has triggered feverish speculation about the “who” of the Vatican leaks scandal, there’s been less attention so far to the “what” of the revelations contained in the sensational new book His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, published by journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.
In part, that’s because the scores of documents in the 326-page book are complex and highly diverse, often composed in dense ecclesiastical Italian; in part, that’s because a Vatican whodunit is tough to resist.
Yet the substance of the leaks obviously merits consideration, so below, I present a sampling of the highlights, including material likely to interest English-speaking readers. Later, I’ll roll out more. …
2. The Legionaries of Christ
Critics have long asserted that the Vatican had all the information it needed to act against Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, well before it sentenced him to a life of “prayer and penance” in 2006. Charges of sexual and financial misconduct by Maciel became public in the 1990s, though Vatican officials have insisted those reports were not confirmed until later.
Nuzzi’s book adds another detail, producing the brief notes taken by a papal secretary on Oct. 19, 2011, after a half-hour meeting with Fr. Rafael Moreno, a Mexican priest who served as Maciel’s private assistant for 18 years.
The full text of the unsigned note reproduced by Nuzzi, written on letterhead of the “Particular Secretary of His Holiness,” is as follows:
19 October 2011
Meeting 9:00-9:30 am
By me
Meeting with Fr. Rafael Moreno, priv.sec. of M.M. •Was for 18 years private secretary of M.M.; from this was … [word is illegible]
•Destroyed proof against him (incriminating material)
•Wanted to inform P.P. II in 2003, but he didn’t want to hear them, didn’t believe
•Wanted to inform Card. Sodano, but he didn’t concede an audience to them
•Card. De Paolis had too little time
Nuzzi writes that in all probability, “P.P. II” refers to John Paul II. Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, meanwhile, is the Vatican official Benedict XVI has tapped to oversee a reform of the Legionaries. …
Perhaps most explosively, Calcagno’s report advises against giving in to demands for large-scale financial compensation for Maciel’s victims.
Calcagno says reconciliation with some victims “has not been difficult,” but it’s more complicated with regard to “those who demand, in the name of justice, enormous sums that the Legion absolutely cannot afford, and which in fact cannot be based on claims of justice.”
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