MALTA
Malta Independent

When Pope Benedict XVI announced last month he was transferring his respected sex crimes prosecutor to Malta to become a bishop, Vatican watchers immediately questioned whether the Holy See’s tough line on clerical abuse was going soft — and if another outspoken cleric was being punished for doing his job too well.

After all, several senior Vatican officials who ran afoul of the Vatican’s entrenched ways have recently been transferred in face-saving “promote and remove” moves as the Vatican deals with the fallout from a high-profile criminal trial over leaked papal documents, a mixed report card on its financial transparency and its controversial crackdown on American nuns.

But in an interview with the Associated Press on the eve of his departure, Bishop-elect Charles Scicluna insisted he wasn’t the latest casualty in the Vatican’s turf battles and Machiavellian personnel intrigues. Rather, he said, his promotion to auxiliary…