UNITED STATES
Esquire

By Charles P. Pierce
at 3:40PM

Now it gets interesting.

According to La Repubblica, the dossier comprising “two volumes of almost 300 pages – bound in red” had been consigned to a safe in the papal apartments and would be delivered to the pope’s successor upon his election. The newspaper said the cardinals described a number of factions, including one whose members were “united by sexual orientation”. In an apparent quotation from the report, La Repubblica said some Vatican officials had been subject to “external influence” from laymen with whom they had links of a “worldly nature”. The paper said this was a clear reference to blackmail. It quoted a source “very close to those who wrote [the cardinal’s report]” as saying: “Everything revolves around the non-observance of the sixth and seventh commandments.”

There are a number of things to keep in mind here. The…