VATICAN CITY
The Nation
Vatican City – Pope Benedict XVI decided to resign after an internal probe informed him about the extent of sex and graft-scandals inside the Vatican, an Italian newspaper reported on Thursday, quoting unnamed sources.
Three cardinals, including the former chief of the Vatican’s secret services, were asked to verify the allegations of financial impropriety, cronyism and corruption brought up by the publication of confidential papal papers in the so-called VatiLeaks affair.
On December 17, 2012, they handed to the pontiff two red-leatherbound volumes, almost 300-pages long, containing “an exact map of the mischief and the bad fish” inside the Holy See, daily La Repubblica reported.
“It was on that day, with those papers on his desk, that Benedict XVI took the decision he had mulled over for so long,” the report suggested.
The Vatican’s press office declined to comment on the story.
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