ROME
Irish Independent
Michael Kelly on the real-life Vatican scandal that has rocked the Church in Rome to its core and reads like a raunchy ‘Da Vinci Code’ sequel
If novelist Dan Browne penned a tome, the gist of which had a female aide of the Pope seducing a monsignor to steal Vatican secrets, papal spokesmen would be aghast. Dismissals of the book as “mere fantasy” would surely be immediately forthcoming.
But more often than not, fact is stranger than fiction, and the latest dispatches from Rome make for salacious reading. Francesca Chaouqui, who was a key adviser to Pope Francis on economic reform, now stands accused of sleeping with Spanish priest Msgr Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda on the pretext of receiving documents about alleged financial mismanagement which prosecutors claim she duly leaked to the press.
Chaouqui strenuously denies the sexual relationship and that she leaked any documents. The fact that Balda is linked to the notoriously secretive Opus Dei movement within the Church has only added to the intrigue. It was Browne’s The Da Vinci Code that made famous in the popular imagination Opus Dei by way of the character of the murderous monk Silas. But not even Browne’s stretched imagination could scarcely have written the latest saga.
Vatileaks has become the byword for scandals that have rocked the Holy See in recent years. Pope Benedict XVI resigned just weeks after receiving a 300-page dossier on the scandal that reached its height under his tenure with the trial and imprisonment of his butler, Paolo Gabriele, for stealing files from the papal apartment.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.