Asked about his seven years in office by the Ansa news agency, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said: "I see the record of the past seven years as positive. Of course, there were a lot of problems, especially in the last two years."

He hit out at "a combination of crows and vipers" - the Italian word for crow, corvo, denoting people who leak secrets. "But this should not cloud what I consider to be a positive record," he added.

He made his comments a day after Pope Francis named Archbishop Pietro Parolin, 58, currently nuncio in Venezuela, as Cardinal Bertone's replacement, with a handover due next month. Continue reading

Archbishop Pietro Parolin on Saturday was named the new Vatican secretary of state, usually described as the Holy See's 'prime minister'.

He brings to the job substantial experience in the Holy See's diplomatic corps, among the world's most ancient and respected, and considerable familiarity with the challenges facing the Church in Asia - currently the Church's most fertile soil.

Popes generally choose their right-hand men from within their ranks but Benedict XVI decided to break with tradition in 2007 when he turned to his long-time trusted aide, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, for the job.

With no diplomatic and little administrative experience, Bertone - a theologian by profession - had little background for the position of secretary of state.

The jovial but sometimes bumbling Bertone was partly blamed, especially by the media, for the many mishaps that plagued Benedict's pontificate, with its scandal-prone and inefficient Curia that drew criticism from many cardinals during the meetings that preceded the 2013 Conclave.

In this respect, the arrival of Parolin - a seasoned hand at the Secretariat of State known for his discretion and pragmatism - should help address the problems in the spirit set out by Francis.

Already in his first statement since his appointment, the Italian archbishop put in the forefront the values of service and humility - those that Francis has often said should be the hallmark of those who enjoy leadership positions within the Church.

"I feel very strongly the grace of this call, which is yet another and the latest of God's surprises in my life," Parolin wrote.

"Above all, I feel the full weight of the responsibility placed upon me: this call entrusts to me a difficult and challenging mission, before which my powers are weak and my abilities poor."

But the role of Secretary of State does not simply serve as 'chief of staff' to the pope. The position also entails coordinating the world's smallest state's relations with the rest of the world as well as with the Church's thousands of bishops.

As a career Vatican diplomat, Parolin served in the past in Africa and Latin America, and right now - until October 15 when he will take up his new office - he is the Vatican's ambassador to Venezuela.

But when he was Undersecretary for Relations with States (until 2009) - basically the Vatican deputy foreign minister - he oversaw some of the Church's most delicate international briefs. And he garnered some substantial Asia expertise, traveling all around the continent, from Pyongyang to Jakarta.

He orchestrated the Vatican's gradual rapprochement with Communist Vietnam, which eventually led in 2011 to the reestablishment of diplomatic ties that had been severed 40 years earlier when Ho Chi Minh's troops conquered Saigon.

Under Benedict, he also oversaw the German pope's attempt to thaw the Vatican's relations with China and Vietnam. The attempt with China was spearheaded by the pontiff's Letter to Chinese Catholics of 2007 but wasn't successful in stopping Beijing's government practice of forcing bishop appointments without papal consent.

When Parolin was appointed to the Caracas nuntiature and made an archbishop in 2009, some Vatican watchers described the move as a condemnation of Parolin's pragmatic approach, characterized as at odds with Benedict's style of focusing on preaching the truth rather than on subtle diplomacy.

Whether this characterization is correct remains to be seen.

What seems more certain, however, is that as a professional diplomat, Parolin will bring to the job a nuanced and realistic knowledge of the world, where the mark of a strong faith is not seen as a pretext for diplomatic grandstanding.

And looking at his past experience, the new Secretary of State will possibly make the world's largest continent and fastest growing region for the Church a more pressing priority in the Vatican's agenda.

Alessandro Speciale is a freelance journalist based in Rome
First published in ucanews.com

This is how conservative Catholic columnist George Weigel, writing in the National Review Online, describes the media blackout on Cardinals that came into force yesterday.

In the name of transparency, U.S. cardinals had held a series of parallel news briefings with the press on the issues relating to the Conclave.

The move to stop US Cardinals talking with media came like a 'slap in the face in the midst of the Synod Hall' reports Italian daily, La Stampa,

La Stampa reports that after eight years of mutual hostility towards each other the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano and the Camerlengo, Cardinal Bertone, yesterday, combined to stop the US cardinals talking in an open and transparent way.

Like Weigel, respected Vatican journalist and author, John Tharvis is similarly baffled.

But, writing in his Vatican Diary, he is not surprised that the day after the media blackout, the Italian papers were chock full of unsourced details from the cardinals' closed-door general congregation meetings, notes.

Tharvis says La Stampa was full of

• Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the Italian head of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, gave a global report on missionary challenges.
• Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, the Italian head of the Congregation for Clergy, weighed in with an overview on the priesthood and vocations.
• Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini spoke about the need to choose a younger pope with sufficient energy.
• Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet and U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, both Roman Curia officials, talked about the figure and role of "pope emeritus."
• The paper also noted Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola went over the five-minute limit in his talk on the nature of the church.

Calling the American Cardinals' press conferences "the most refreshing and media-friendly source of positive information and commentary on a story that has riveted the world's attention," Weigel wants to know how Italian Daily, La Stampa, is able to print verbatim reports from the Cardinals' meeting.

In rather strong terms, Weigel says Vatican master spin doctor, Fr Federico Lombardi's explanation of the media blackout is "Baloney and not very artful baloney".

Weigel calls the blackout a missed opportunity to explain what the Catholic Church is.

Today at his media conference, Vatican Spokesman Federico Lombardi said he does not accept that Italian cardinals are leaking information to Italian media.

Lombardi was responding to a question why the US cardinals, who did not leak, are paying for the sins of Italian cardinals who did and continue to leak.

Sources

• La Stampa
• National Review Online
• John Thavis
• Gerard O'Connell (Twitter)
• Lisa Wangsness (Twitter)
• Image The Guardian

The wiretaps were part of its Vatileaks investigation.

The admission came as Panorama magazine reported Thursday, that the Vatican Secretariat of State had ordered wiretaps on the phones of several Vatican prelates as part of an investigation into the scandal in which confidential documents were leaked to the news media and the author of a tell-all book.

Vatican watchers have described the wiretapping as a shocking breach of trust and an indication of the high levels of distrust since the leaks scandal.

Panorama's Vatican expert, Ignazio Ingrao, called the Vatican's clandestine efforts "a sort of Vatican Big Brother" operation.

"Everyone was spied on in the Vatican," he said.

Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi S.J., said that magistrates of the Vatican "might have authorized some wiretaps or some checks," but nothing on a significant scale.

The Vatican has also denied Panorama's claim that the wiretapping was ordered by the former pope's right hand man, Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Lombardi said if wiretapping was authorized, it was ordered by magistrates and not by Bertone.

Panorama also alleged the wiretapping is ongoing.

Lombardi said the idea of "an investigation that creates an atmosphere of fear of mistrust that will now affect the conclave has no foundation in reality".

Sources

• NY Times
• LA Times
• Huffington Post
• Image ucanews.com

Benedict says his health is not up to it. That seems fair.

If the Pope says he's not up to it, I think we have to believe him don't we?

He's not going to "tell porkies".

However people believe what they want and a number of conspiracy theories have emerged including:

• Benedict's health is actually much worse than he's let on as evidenced by several alleged late night helicopter flights to hospital.
• Benedict's fall in Mexico last March where he hit his head on the bathroom sink leaving his white hair and pillow stained with blood has seriously affected him.
• He has leukemia.
• He is tied to the Vatican Bank financial scandal.
• And the most far-fetched, his resignation came after a long night of soul-searching following the England rugby team's victory over Ireland in Dublin.

Does anyone know when the next Dan Brown novel is to be released?

Since resigning, and for the first time, Benedict has spoken openly about the betrayal of Paolo Gabriele, his former butler.

"To me it is simply incomprehensible", Benedict said.

"I cannot fathom this psychology", he is said to have told German author Peter Seewald, who wrote a book on Benedict in 2010 based on interviews.

It's clear that Benedict has been very hurt by Gabriele's betrayal and whatever we think of his papacy most seem to agree that Benedict is a highly intelligent man, a humble man, a man of faith and a loyal servant of God. To him, betrayal is the ultimate ignominy.

However many talents Benedict has though, it seems he might not have been a strong administrator, and while entrusting much of the Vatican's administration to the Curia, the loyalty he showed them, was alas, not returned.

One thing we know about Pope Benedict is he plays a strong hand in key appointments and none more key was the appointment of the Vatican's Secretary of State (Prime Minister) Cardinal Bertone.

While I don't think there is any question about Bertone's loyalty, he seems to have been a polarising character. Benedict, unable to deal with the power struggles at the Vatican and the situation surrounding Bertone, the Cardinal's resignation is just one the many eventual outcomes of having a new pope.

Benedict may not have the physical nor mental strength to deal with the Vatican's power struggles one by one, but "for the good of the church" his resignation gives his successor the chance of starting over with a new Curia, as it were beginning with a 'clean slate'.

There's a tendency to over-simplify events of this magnitude, to look for one reason when in fact there can be multiple factors that converge and point to an eventual outcome, and what the 'theory of the clean slate' does not explain is the pace at which Benedict's resignation has come about, particularly since the Year of Faith has only just begun.

'This' year of faith is not just an 'ordinary' year of faith, but is a personal initiative of Pope Benedict.

A pivotal part of the year of faith was to have been the third part of Benedict's encyclical on the theological virtues, (faith, hope and love), the virtue of Faith.

Benedict began writing part three but now the Church is effectively left with an incomplete encyclical.

The outcomes of Benedict's resignation are clear, the haste with which it happened remains uncertain.

- John Murphy is a Marist priest working in digital media at the Marist Internet Ministry, New Zealand.

"We cannot continue to tolerate the deaths of so many mothers; we cannot but think of thousands of babies as a lost generation," said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The Vatican secretary of state spoke in Rome June 22 during a conference on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The conference, sponsored by the lay Community of Sant'Egidio, brought together African health ministers, representatives of international organizations and donors supporting anti-AIDS projects in Africa.

Continue reading

"Personally, I don't sense any sign of cardinals or church personalities being involved in any conquest of some phantom power," he said.

Bertone admitted the Secretariat of State is facing difficult times, but went on the offensive Wednesday, saying while there is some truth in the stories, the media has gone way beyond the facts.

He also accused the media of pettiness, lies and intentionally ignoring the good things the Church does.

Journalists reporting on the leaks are "pretending to be Dan Brown ... inventing stories and replaying legends" he said.

Admitting the Vatican is not perfect, Bertone said that the Vatican did not want to hide the Church's defects, but the media had gone too far, violating the rights of the Holy Father and people who corresponded with him.

"The truth is that there's a will to create division that comes from the devil," said Bertone in a rare interview with the Catholic magazine, 'Famiglia Cristina'.

Responding to media questions, Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said that while he did not want to make "generalized condemnations", he believed that some of the coverage of the Vatican was "not founded on objectivity".

Lombardi said that a commission of cardinals investigating the leaks scandal had so far interrogated 23 people, including Mr Gabriele as well as other lay and clergy, Vatican superiors and employees.

The commission members reported back to the Pope on Saturday about their investigation and are continuing their work.

So far Vatileaks has seen only one person, Paolo Gabriele, father of three and the Pope's butler, arrested in the case.

Sources

• Chicago Tribune
• Daily Nation
• The Independent
• Image: Fellowship of the Minds

That instinct seemed to be the principal subtext to Benedict XVI's June 1-3 outing to Milan.

Formally, Benedict made the short trip north to attend the seventh "World Meeting of Families," a Vatican-organized event held every three years to celebrate marriage, youth and the family. In context, however, the trip also offered an opportunity for the Catholic rank and file to embrace Benedict amid one of the greatest trials of his papacy, the mushrooming Vatileaks scandal.

That, at any rate, is how Vatican officials have touted what happened. In an interview with Italian TV, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State (and, according to many analysts, the principal target of the leaks), referred to the "extraordinary display of love for the pope and ... support for him and his magisterium" witnessed in the streets of Milan, as well as among the more than 1 million people who turned out for Sunday Mass at Bresso Park.

Bertone said it was significant that such affection, including "frenetic" applause for the pope wherever he went, poured out "in this particular moment" — and by that, of course, he meant the current atmosphere of scandal. Continue reading

Sources

• John L Allen Jr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: thestar.com

"He doesn't allow himself to be frightened by attacks, of any sort, nor by the hard accumulation of prejudices," Bertone said.

"I'd like to underline that Benedict XVI, as everybody knows, is a gentle man, of great faith and prayer. He is certainly not frightened by attacks of any kind," he said.

Calling the attacks "ferocious, destructive, and organised," Bertone disagrees with the assessment many hold that he is the subject of the Vatileaks attack. Rather, he said, they were an attack on the Pope himself, and those who work closely with him.

"What's most sad in these events and these situations is the violation of the privacy of the Holy Father and his closest collaborators," he said.

Bertone told RAI that despite the scandal, the pope's collaborators were united behind him.

"Those who are near him and work by his side are sustained by the pope's great moral force," Bertone said, reading from notecards.

In what many interpret as a visible statement of Benedict's trust in his 'closest collaborator', Bertone and the pope appeared side by side during during a three day visit to Milan to support the activity of the World Meeting of Families.

However also over the weekend is a sign the scandal may widen further. As reported in CathNews on Tuesday, Italian newspaper La Repubblica published new documents, received after the pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, had been arrested and was in custody in the Vatican's police station.

A note the La Repubblica daily said it had received anonymously stated that there were "hundreds more documents" and that Gabriele was just a fall guy.

Sources

• Associated Press
• NCR
• CathNews
• Image: Photobucket

In its Sunday edition, Rome newspaper La Repubblica published more documents saying it received them anonymously after the arrest of the Pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele.

The paper also received a note saying there were hundreds more documents and that the Butler was just a scapegoat.

One letter, dated January 16 from Cardinal Raymond Burke, (pictured) Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura; apart from the Pope, is the highest juridical authority in the Catholic church. Burke's letter, marked 'highly confidential' to the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, complains that Bertone took a decision on liturgy without consulting his department, the rightful place for the decision, and expresses his concern that because of Bertone's intervention the pope may approve a Neocatechumenate liturgical practice that is against Church teaching.

The leaker also supplied two letters from the pope's private secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein. The letterhead and signatures were whited out "so as not to offend the Holy Father."

"For months we have seen anonymous and signed documents being published and it is obvious that whoever has all these documents intends to release them only a few at a time. Personally, I am not surprised and I am no more worried than I was before. We know that many papers have been released," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi SJ said.

In a show of solidarity, Pope Benedict and Bertone, regarded as the chief target of the leaks, appeared side by side at the start of the pope's visit to Milan.

Sources

• Reuters
• AGI
• Image: Wounded Bird

Allen says Nuzzi's book leaves little doubt about the resistance around Bertone and the Vatileaks thriller cites the following example from early 2009, around the time of the lifting of the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops, including one who is a Holocaust-denier.

"In roughly the same period," Allen writes, "Benedict XVI was also putting the finishing touches on his social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, which would be released that summer.

Nuzzi publishes a Feb. 5, 2009, letter to Benedict XVI from Cardinal Paolo Sardi, formerly a principal ghostwriter for John Paul II and still consulted on Benedict's texts. Sardi complains that Bertone was mishandling consultations on Benedict's encyclical, in part because of his frequent trips out of the country.

Toward the end of the letter, Sardi adds a stinging observation.

"A final, painful annotation: For some time in various parts of the church, including among people extremely faithful to it, critical voices have been raised about the lack of coordination and confusion which reins at its center. I'm saddened by that, but I can't avoid recognizing, from my own modest angle of vision, that there's some foundation to it. For instance, I'd like to note that I was not consulted on the editing of the decree about the Lefebvrite bishops (and I could have given some suggestions which wouldn't have been useless). Moreover, yesterday the text sent to Your Holiness on the same subject by the substitute was not shown to me until a few minutes before the deadline, when Monsignor Gänswein yelled [at me] over the telephone to get it back. I'm trying to see in these situations (which, to tell the truth, are numerous) the benevolent intervention of Providence, that wants to prepare me to leave the Secretariat [of State] without regrets."

Nuzzi also includes the text of a lengthy memo from an unnamed senior Vatican official, presumably at the Prefecture for Economic Affairs, written for Gänswein in spring 2011. The memo ticks off a series of alleged problems with Bertone's leadership, including ignoring the Vatican's own internal checks and balances, "demoralization" of personnel, and the appointment of people "who lack the adequate competence" in important jobs.

The conclusion is unequivocal: "The problematic situations are numerous and of notable gravity, above all because they could have devastating effects in the future, even if they can't been seen right now and everything looks fine. My direct superiors, with whom I've spoken repeatedly, for now don't believe it's opportune to do anything. They say that our principal point of reference is the Secretary of State, yet in many cases he's precisely the problem. Conscience requires that I present these matters to the Holy Father.""

Sources

• NCR
• Image: Chiare Lettere

The commission of cardinals must decide whether or not to uphold the bank board's decision to oust Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was fired for allegedly failing to clean up the institution's image amid accusations of corruption and money-laundering.

But media reports had said the cardinals were split, with two of the four siding with Mr Gotti Tedeschi, widening the bitter rift between the financial ethics expert and Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican number two.

"It's not true, there is no split. The commission has taken note of the board's decision and has written to Gotti Tedeschi," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told a press conference in Milan during the Church-sponsored World Meeting of Families.

Mr Lombardi made no reference to other media reports suggesting the cardinals were being forced to choose sides in the "Vatileaks" scandal. Continue reading

The commission of cardinals must decide whether or not to uphold the board's decision to oust Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who was fired for failing to clean up the institution's image amid accusations of corruption and money-laundering.

But the cardinals are reportedly split, with two of the four siding with Gotti Tedeschi, widening the bitter rift between the financial ethics expert and Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican number two.

It was Bertone who reportedly pushed the bank's board to fire their president as internal divisions over financial transparency came to a head. Continue reading

The statement, released yesterday by the Secretariat of State, says the purpose of the commission is "to undertake an authoritative investigation and throw light on these episodes."

The Cardinals' Commission will "act at all levels on the strength of its pontifical mandate."

Benedict appointed three retired cardinals to the commission. The chairman is Opus Dei Cardinal Julian Herranz, the former president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, and the other commission members are Cardinal Jozef Tomko, the former prefect of the Congregation for Evangelization; and Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, the former Archbishop of Palermo.

The Commission met for the first time on April 24 to establish procedures for their inquiry. No timetable has been given for their work.

The Vatican has been embarrassed by what has been called "Vatileaks," the disclosure of a series of internal documents that have highlighted disagreements within the Roman Curia, with a particular focus on the Secretariat of State.

While some of the leaked material was of a gossip nature, other material included allegations of serious financial misconduct.

Sources

• VIS
• Reuters
• The Guardian
• Image: Times of Malta

The leaked letters expose a failed effort by Bertone to take control of an important Catholic university and hospital system. The aftermath, also documented, shows Pope Benedict siding with the local bishops in the attempt to centralise church power in the Vatican.

The Catholic University of the Sacred Heart is a Milan-based organisation but with outposts around Italy, is the largest private university in Europe. It has 1,400 faculty members and some 7,000 employees.

The university is controlled by the Giuseppe Toniolo Institute of Superior Studies whose president is the Archbishop of Milan, the then Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi.

Bertone's letter ordered Tettamanzi to step down and was proposing to replace him with the powerful Cardinal Angelo Scola, whom some see as a leading candidate to succeed Pope Benedict, however after Tettamanzi met with Benedict on April 30, 2011 no changes were made.

Allen predicts there will be more revelations, however for three reasons sees the this revelation as significant.

• It is rare that Benedict would side against his longtime friend Bertone and shows Benedict's support and esteem for Bertone is not limitless.
• The popular perception is Rome is trending towards centralisation and it is rare for pope to side with local bishops, particularly when Scola is also a close friend of Benedict.
• This latest round of Vati-leaks shows the scandal is not over, and material is continuing to be leaked, or as Allen advances, has been leaked in bulk and is being selectively rolled out by media outlets.

Sources

• NCR
• Image: KonserVat

The Vatican mole claimed on private Italian Television channel La7 to be one of more than 20 people in the Vatican who have leaked sensitive material to news media in the last few weeks.

Extracts from the interview reveal the whistle-blower believes the Vatican is engulfed in intrigue, secrecy and a climate of intimidation.

"Maybe there is a kind of omerta to prevent the truth from surfacing. Not because of a power struggle but maybe because of fear," he said.

The whistle-blower claims to have worked in the Secretariat of State, which is led by the apparently unpopular Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, whom some claim has fallen out of favour with the Holy Father and his supporters.

The whistle-blower said the Vatican is a place where "you can commit a murder and then disappear into the void" - a reference to a murky scandal in the Swiss Guard in 1998, when a young soldier shot dead the corps' commander and wife before apparently committing suicide.

The leaks have embarrassed the Vatican in recent weeks, with claims of corruption and nepotism, questions over the transparency of the Vatican bank and unconfirmed reports of an assassination plot against the Pope within the next 12 months.

The whistle-blower dismissed suggestions that documents were being leaked in exchange for money.

"Something like that is inconceivable for me. That would mean betraying what we believe in," he said.

Sources

• Daily Telegraph
• Image: Syracuse.com