VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
Vatican news correspondent, Enzo Romeo, has just published a book analysing the tensions in the Holy See over the past two years. The text reveals the involvement of a Vatican policeman in the Vatileaks inquiry
Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City
“It does make one wonder what poison pen letter writers, moles and all this poison have to do with the announcement of Christ’s message, which should be the Church’s only priority. Nothing in theory…But money, power, scandals and gossip – evenn wars – are part of human history and the Church is immersed in this history…The Church must live with the failures which are a reminder that we need to constantly convert to the Gospel. It will also have to take recent events as a lesson and speed up that renewal which is vital if the Church is to engage in a dialogue with modern man and ensure that he does not forget the transcendental realm.”
These opening words are the key to reading “Guerre Vaticane” (“Vatican Wars” – Rubettino publishers, pp. 272, 13 Euros), the book written by Enzo Romeo, Vatican correspondent and editor-in-chief of Tg2’s world news section (Tg2 is Italian television channel Rai 2’s news programme, Ed.).The book is the first attempt to analyse what has been going on in the Roman Curia over the past two years. What is interesting about Romeo’s book is that it gives a comprehensive interpretation of events, a “war” characterised by blows and counter-blows, anonymous letters and an unscrupulous use of the media, which caused clashes between various networks and groups.
One of the revelations the book makes is the involvement of a Vatican policeman in the inquiry into the leaked confidential documents. It is likely that the policeman had some kind of contact with the Pope’s self-confessed former butler who has now been sentenced to a year and a half in prison for the theft of secret documents from the papal apartment and for photocopying and sending them to Italian writer, Gianluigi Nuzzi. The policeman was initially suspended from service as a precaution and had no direct involvement in Gabriele’s trial. He may do in the brief and less important trial against Vatican Secretariat of State computer technician, Claudio Sciarpelletti, on 5 November. However, it is likely Vatican investigators have not found enough evidence against him and this is probably the reason why his involvement has so far been kept secret.
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