ITALY
Malta Today
Source: Corriere dell Sera – click here for original story.
[with audio]
[LISTEN] Auxiliary Bishop Mgr Charles Scicluna says Pope Benedict XVI ‘decapitated himself to get rid of people he could not trust.’
Matthew Vella
The Catholic Church’s former prosecutor of priests accused of child sex abuse, believes that Pope Benedict XVI “anticipated his death” in a bid to remove the Vatican’s chief antagonists.
Mgr Charles Scicluna, whose high-profile role as promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, came to an end in 2012 when he was transferred to Malta to be auxiliary bishop, was speaking to Italy’s Corriere della Sera in what sounds like a candid audio recording with the journalist.
It is not clear whether the recording was an off-the-record conversation.
“To me it seems that he wants to give space to a person that can take the situation in hand in a way that he cannot presently ensure for the Church,” Scicluna is heard telling the journalist when asked about the investigations into paedophilia inside Catholic churches.
When asked whether there were people around Benedict that could not fully trust, Scicluna replies:
“If he goes, these people will also go. Maybe, not being able to decapitate everyone, he chose to go himself… it will be the next pope to handle the matter.”
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