VATICAN CITY
Canada.com
By Nick Squires, The Daily Telegraph June 6, 2012
The Vatican said Wednesday it was being blackmailed by the leaking of confidential documents taken from the Pope’s private apartment as an anonymous mole threatened to release more embarrassing material unless two senior officials were sacked.
In the latest round of leaks, an Italian newspaper was sent three letters apparently stolen from the Vatican, two of which were signed by the Pope’s private secretary and had their contents blanked out. An anonymous note claimed that they dealt with “shameful events inside the Vatican” and threatened to reveal the contents of the letters “if there is an attempt to hide the truth of the facts”.
The accompanying letter called for the resignation of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as secretary of state is the Vatican’s de facto prime minister, and Mgr Georg Ganswein, the Pope’s secretary. It claimed that Paolo Gabriele, the butler arrested over the affair, was simply a scapegoat.
Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said the note represented “a grave threat” to Benedict XVI’s seven-year papacy. “Blackmail is a plausible way of defining it,” he said. “We have arrived at a situation of blackmail threats.”
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