It is a very clear message. The majority of the leaked documents recently published in the book Sua Santità (His Holiness) by Gianluigi Nuzzi discredit Benedict XVI’s secretary Msgr. Georg Gaenswein and the Secretary of State, Card. Tarcisio Bertone. So, the Pope renews his trust in his closest collaborators, the ones that work in silence. It is a clear signal of change in the Holy See’s communication strategy, reached in a crescendo: first, on Tuesday morning, Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, invited journalists not to be manipulated, since many of the stories published in newspapers fall «outside reality»; on Tuesday afternoon, an interview to Angelo Becciu –substitute (deputy) to the Secretary of State – was published on the Holy See newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. In the interview. Becciu asked journalists to reach «a higher moral standard», and criticized partisan narratives of events; finally, on Wednesday morning, for the first time the Pope talked openly and clearly about the Vatileaks scandal. The Church is not whispering anymore, and there are few things left to interpretation. On the other hand, there are things to take note of.

Paolo Gabriele’s arrest

Paolo Gabriele’s arrest – the Pope’s butler is accused to be in possession and have leaked Papal and Holy See private documents – is just one piece of a puzzle that risks to become hard to manage.  It is not because the Vatican investigators may eventually conclude that there are many people who can be blamed for the situation, perhaps including some cardinals.  The issue lies with a persistent «gang of malcontents» within the Vatican.  It is not a big gang, but it is entrenched in key posts and can count on loyal and silent employees in every corner of the Rome Curia. The close linkages between elements inside and outside the Vatican complicates things even further. Some claim that the masonry had a role in this «scandal», but a masonry working for the good of the Church, in order to save the Church from Card. Bertone.  Yet, attacking Bertone means attacking Benedict XVI and his gentile revolution, which has very much changed the face of the Curial leadership. Attacking Bertone also means attacking the Secretariat of State’s credibility, and this could be dangerous: the Secretariat of State handles relations with foreign countries, and its international image has been damaged. According to Pastor Bonus – the pastoral constitution that outlines the organization of the Roman Curia – the Secretariat of State must also coordinate the Curial offices. However, on the recent past– particularly since the end of the Second Vatican Council – the Secretary of State’s coordination role has lost ground, and his diplomatic profile risen. No surprise that diplomats are unhappy: they suffer from their internal loss of influence, even when they have maintained important relations with elements outside the Church.  If one is to look for a point of contact with the masons or with those hostile to the Church, one should look there.

The inquiry

The inquiry that led to Paolo Gabriele’s arrest started long time ago. The inquiry has been described as an obscurantist Vatican initiative. In fact, the Holy See is acting as every State would, if its head had private papers stolen. The papers are stolen, so the person who stole them needs to be arrested and punished. It is a principle of justice that deals with the right to privacy. It is a crucial matter. Ever since the first leaked documents were published in the Italian newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano and were shown in Gianluigi Nuzzi’s tv program Gli intoccabili (The untouchables), it was evident that most of them were stolen directly from the desk of the Pope. Some did not even had any marking’s from  the Secretariat of State, which means that they came directly from the Pope.

The Vatican Gendarme Corps started its inquiry right after the first publication of the documents. In March, a commission of three cardinals – Herranz, Tomko, and De Giorgi – is appointed by the Pope to investigate the leaks. It was widely known – inside the Vatican – that someone had passed papers out of the Vatican Walls, and that Gianluigi Nuzzi was writing a new book. The strategy is to stay put until the publication of the book. It is a risk. But Vatican enquirers need to be able to charge someone with a crime: as long as the documents were quoted in journals, but not actually reproduced, allegations of wrongdoing could be denied. But, once the documents are published, there is proof of a crime to charge someone with. The possible motives are yet to be determined.

As soon as the book by Gianluigi Nuzzi is published, the Holy See is ready to respond. Informal meetings are called to consider whether or not to take legal action, and a decision to do so is taken. Lombardi states that the publication of the document is «a criminal act» implying that legal action is forthcoming. Everything is now clear, since that kind of document can only come from the Papal apartment.

Who took the documents out? Memores Domini – lay women at the service of the Pope – are excluded; the two secretaries of the Pope, msgrs Georg Gaenswein and Alfred Xuereb, are also excluded; the circle inexorably draws around Paolo Gabriele.

Gabriele – his lawyers maintained and Father Lombardi confirmed– wants to collaborate with the magistrates, and this will broad the scope of the investigation. Paolo Gabriele is not “the” guilty party. He is just part of a sophisticated operation, that involves many among the Curial second lines (i.e. those “grey eminences” that never lose their posts) and among those who once had positions of power but no longer do. The legacy of the 27 years of John Paul II’s Pontificate has been particularly heavy for Benedict XVI. Those who managed power during the last years of John Paul II’s Pontificate, while the Pope was ill, have sought to keep it.

It was – several voices in the Vatican corridors say – the powerful secretary of Karol Wojtya, Stanislao Dziwisz (now cardinal and archbishop of Cracow) who recommended Paolo Gabriele – even if Dziwisz now pointed out that Gabriele did not work for John Paul II. Gabriele began his service in the Papal apartment as second assistant about a decade ago. When Angelo Gugel – the previous butler – retired, Gabriele inherited the position and a house in the Vatican. Dziwisz – who did not want to leave Rome – still kept some influence, in part because he had Wojtyla’s private papers and documents. The late Pope in his will had asked Dziwisz to burn his private papers. But the archbishop of Cracow said that he kept the papers.

Rings of a long chain

We need to look back in time, to Karol Wojtyla’s Pontificate. John Paul II gave great visibility to the Church, and made of it a strong institution in diplomacy. His words, his free style, breaking conventions, tilted the balance of power between states. His first international trip was to Mexico, in 1979. There, the priests could not even wear a habit , and were not allowed to have properties of their own. His second international trip was to Poland, his homeland. There, communism put religion aside and promoted a state atheism that is evident even in public housing construction projects, built by the government, where no provisions are made for places of worship. Things would change in these two countries, and so it will happen in the several countries John Paul II will be visiting during his Pontificate.

It is the Cold War era, and the Church is immersed in intense but behind the scenes diplomatic relations. Notwithstanding John Paul II’s criticism of Western consumerism («We like the singer, not the song», will be the revealing headline of U.S. newspapers during the first John Paul II’s visit to the United States), diplomatic relations deepen and are strengthened with Western countries, in order to counter Communism.

It can seem self-serving, but the mission of the Church is also to protect her communities, and that is why during those times the struggle against Communism is a priority. So, the Church sent money to Solidarnosc, the Catholic Union that is going to change Poland; the Church established diplomatic ties with Ronald Reagan’s U.S. administration; the Church protected its communities even by establishing a dialogue with dictatorial regimes – in fact, you make an agreement with whom you do not trust. Augusto Pinochet’s case is very telling. Pinochet is the dictator of Chile, and he claims himself to be Catholic. In 1986, when he was the victim of a shooting, Pinochet ascribed to the Virgin Mary his survival, and proof of it – he said – was the profile of the Virgin etched by the bullets on his Mercedes. Chilean bishops did not think it was as Pinochet said. On the contrary, many of them were against him. Fortunately, there is a Papal nuncio to deflect confrontations, and his name is Angelo Sodano. At the same time, the military junta sent the nuncio several complaints about bishops and priests with strong political views.

When – in 1987 – John Paul II goes to visit Chile and leans out from the balcony of the presidential house of La Moneda, a hand ushers Pinochet to the side of the Pope. John Paul II – annoyed at what had happened – adds to his program a meeting with the Chilean opposition. Sodano’s considered the Chilean military junta  «a transitory dictatorship». Even now that everything has passed, Sodano is uncomfortable when reminded about relations with Pinochet. Back in 1993, Sodano – already ascended to the post of Secretary of State – wrote to Pinochet that he held for him the highest consideration. Even this is transitory.

The diplomats

Sodano’s way of thinking and acting comes from the diplomats’ school. It is the education of those formed in the Ecclesiastical Accademy and in the shadow of the Ostpolitik of Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, Secretary of State towards the end of Paul VI’s and the first decade of John Paul II’s pontificates. The Academy taught that diplomacy should be a sort of «martyrdom of patience»: ecclesiastical diplomats should talk with everybody, even putting aside differences, or even if the starting point of the dialogue is far from the religious truth, in order to gain some concession. This gives birth to a Church that is very active diplomatically, and this is why she breeds many «high level» diplomats during those years. A pupil of Card. Sodano is Leonardo Sandri: he will be appointed Papal nuncio to Mexico and then substitute (deputy) to the Secretary of State, at the time when Sodano himself is Secretary. Also Giovan Battista Re is formed in the confines of the Secretariat of State, and later will be created cardinal and appointed prefect of the Congregation of Bishops. So is Achille Silvestrini, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches in the nineties, an esteemed and controversial figure. And Crescenzio Sepe – now archbishop of Naples, who at first was responsible of the Information Office, and ascended to prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

Sodano is appointed Secretary of State in 1990, replacing Casaroli. The world has changed. The Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War ended, there is no longer a need to fight Communism. The world is now different. No one puts religions aside, and the Holy See is invited, repeatedly, to enhance its participation in the United Nations by becoming a member state, and not just a permanent observer. The Holy See declined, in order not to risk its neutrality. John Paul II carries on with his guiding mission, but his voice is increasingly set aside. No one listens to him when he speaks against the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia. And no one will listen to the Church when he condemned the Second Gulf War, after 9/11. John Paul II becomes definitely aware that the world has changed during his last trip to Poland: he sees that the enthusiasm for him and for the Church has diminished. The blocks of the Cold War are gone, and the multilateral world acknowledge religions’ right to exist. But this right is conceived mostly in terms of tolerance: religious freedom is confused with freedom of worship, the freedom to profess a faith is confused with freedom of expression. But, even if the world has changed, the Vatican Ostpolitik – based on a sort of Westphalian epistemology that is outmoded– remains always the same: they hope for concessions from the countries’ administration, and they seek behind the scenes agreements, since that is the diplomacy Vatican diplomats learned.

Two teams contending: diplomats and Cdf

One should maybe look to the diplomats’ environment to identify the members of the “Gang of Malcontents”. What is now evident is that the attack to the Pope comes from inside the Church, and that it takes advantage of forces against the Church that are also willing to stir trouble from the outside. The heart of the matter is the Holy See’s sovereignty, and everybody seems to be aware of it. It is at the heart of the matter when the letters by Msgr. Viganò – former number 2 of the Vatican City State administration – are leaked, since they are presented and discussed by the media as if the Church were a multinational on Italian territory. It is a key point in the discussion about the financial transparency and the anti-money laundering law, and it concerns the reform of the Vatican Law n. 127 – (the “old” law practically does not consider the Holy See a State: there is no hint to official privileges and immunities; the Holy See governmental bodies are not involved in ensuring transparency, there is just an Authority for Financial Information – as if in Italy or other countries there would just be the Financial Intelligence Unit to oversee transparency of the institutes of credit, and there would not be the Guardia di Finanza; there is no mention of the peculiarities of the Holy See/Vatican City State).

These are intersecting issues. They involve people that some would consider above any possible suspicion. There are Vatican rumors about a cupola, a group of people that meets once a month in Cardinal Sodano’s office as dean of the College of Cardinals, the first dean to have an office for that post in the recent history of the Church. Sodano very much wanted this multi-million euro office for himself, after he had been replaced as Secretary of State.

Here it becomes evident that, during this Papacy, the «bite and devour» that the Pope censored in a letter to bishops in 2009 has nevertheless been going on. At the beginning of  2006, Sodano knows that his time as Secretary of State is coming to an end. He wants to place his men in key posts. He was one of the first promoters of an immediate beatification of John Paul II – he wanted it to be by acclamation right after his death, in order to move the historical assessment on the Pontificate at least 50 years forward. He did not succeed: Benedict XVI waives the five year waiting period after the death of a candidate, but requests a traditional canonical process.

Then, Sodano presses for the appointment of a successor to Card. Camillo Ruini, then president of the Italian Bishops’ conference. Vatican chats tells that Sodano asks Msgr. Paolo Romeo – then Papal nuncio to Italy, now cardinal and archbishop of Palermo – to send a letter to all the Italian bishops (except Ruini) to indicate who they would prefer as successor of Ruini. Unsurprisingly, someone informs Ruini. Also to be expected, Ruini refers the issue to the Pope. And, naturally, the Pope confirms Ruini as president of the Italian Bishops Conference donec aliter provideatur. He also calls Paolo Romeo for consultations. Romeo leaves the meeting anguished. But it is Sodano that is left shaking.

The news that Sodano will be replaced takes place in June of 2006. To do away with tensions, the Pope announces the substitution will come into effect in September. The new Secretary of State will be Tarcisio Bertone, archbishop of Genoa. Sodano does not waste time. He sends Msgr. Piero Pioppo, then his personal secretary, to Genoa in order to convince Bertone not to accept the new post. But Bertone stands firm, he is faithful to Benedict XVI. There is a summer of interregnum, and Sodano makes his last appointments: Piero Pioppo is appointed as prelate of the I.O.R., a position that had remained vacant for years and that represents a sort of link between the (lay) board of Superintendence and the college of cardinals of the Institute. Then, in September, when the replacement takes effect, Sodano refuses to vacate his office quarters, waiting for his new office as dean to be restructured. After one year, he moves to his new office. The officers of the Secretary of State are still on his side.

The Pope’s Regensburg speech takes place during the 2006 trip to Germany, and it is a diplomatic earthquake. It is the «swansong» of Sodano’s era. Benedict XVI had already began to change the art of diplomacy. The all-is-good Casaroli’s Ostpolitik does not work anymore: the Berlin Wall fell, and with it the traditional enemies of the Church have left the scene. There are no more Communists, and if there are, they struggle among themselves. On the other hand, the Western world is thriving, and Vatican diplomats feel they are among friends. In the name of the struggle against Communism, many relationships had been established. There is, among the Vatican top officials, a mistaken sense of victory. Centesimus Annus, one of the social encyclicals by John Paul II, is a result of an internal debate: how much does the Social Doctrine of the Church apply to the modern world? A «middle way» prevails: it is not overtly critical of the Western World and liberalism, but at the same time it reaffirms the positions of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

In the mean time, the diplomats’ careers are advancing, they are a closely knitted group – even if a book, Via col Vento in Vaticano, published at the end of the nineties, insinuates a subtle war between two factions. They have strengthened their ties in a thousand battles, when they needed to save a community, a diplomatic relation, and this had to be done without taking into consideration more deeply rooted truths. During the war, the Church must promote peace. And truth is maybe a goal too big to achieve.

But there is another team being trained, and it is the team of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The leader of the Cdf team is Joseph Ratzinger, since 1983. Step by step, the Cdf assumed the «Ratzinger’s method». It suffices to read his biography to understand that Ratzinger loves to harmonize positions, not to impose his own point of view. And this is why the decisions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith do not just censure a position, but go on to note those aspects of a criticized book, theology or ideas which are good. Few may remember, but there are two Cdf statements on the Theology of Liberation,  the first one pars destruens and the second one pars construens of a dialectic process. Nothing is demonized completely.

When prefect of the Cdf, and even earlier, as archbishop of Munich and as a theologian, Joseph Ratzinger warned that pragmatism and ideological struggles had taken the place of faith in Jesus. It is Joseph Ratzinger’s constant worry. In his theological works, he always shed the light on the «Jesus issue». For years, he thinks about a historical  biography of Jesus based on the Gospel, which he will publish after his election as Pope. He is also always worried and aware of the need to harmonize different positions, a concern that he takes from the theology of history of Saint Bonaventure –the topic of his postdoctoral dissertation.

Ratzinger’s team

There is more. Benedict XVI makes of the struggle against the old guard of the Church a sort of moral battle. One of the very first decisions he makes as a Pope is on access to seminaries: the instruction – issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – is criticized, since it denies access to seminaries to anyone who has in any way, even superficially, supported a «gay culture» or a gender culture. Benedict XVI, wants to form true and well-rounded priests, and he also maybe wants to avoid even the opportunity of a gay lobby, believed to be an old undercurrent in some Church circles.  Several times he censured and condemned priestly careerism. One of his strongest denunciations is in 2009, as he celebrates a mass to ordain five bishops.  Among them are Pietro Parolin and Gabriele Caccia, numbers 3 and 4 of the Secretariat of State, faithful to Angelo Sodano, who are appointed bishops and respectively sent as Papal nuncios to Venezuela and Lebanon. It is Benedict XVI’s quiet revolution: the Pope waits for members of the old guard to end their terms in office, and then he replaces them with people he trusts.

In addition to Bertone, the team of Benedict XVI slowly, but inexorably, takes hold of the Curia: William Levada replaces Ratzinger as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Ivan Dìas is appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples; Malcolm Ranjuth – now archbishop of Colombo -  is appointed secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship. With Bertone, Dias, and the new foreign minister Giovanni Lajolo (who afterwards was appointed as number one of the Vatican City State administration, and has since retired), the Church’s international politics will be less passive and more interventionist, less «realist» and more «Wilsonian»,  along the great ideological battle lines that influence laws, customs, and coexistence among peoples. In Italy, in Spain, and in the West, the principles that Benedict XVI defines as «non-negotiable» are life, the family, and education. In the Islamic countries, the key issue is religious liberty. The same goes for China. There the new course of Vatican geopolitics was reinforced by the naming as cardinal – a firm decision taken by Benedict XVI against the judgment of Sodano and his followers – of the combative bishop of Hong Kong, Joseph Zen Ze-kiun.

This Papal line – that dates back to the very beginning of the Pontificate – is confirmed by the last consistory and even by the most recent choices of Benedict XVI. Diplomacy must be rooted in law, and law in truth. Since his first message for the World Day of Peace (In truth, peace) to the appointment as Papal nuncio to Ireland of Charles J. Brown, a non diplomat that previously served in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict has changed the face of the Church and of its diplomacy, making them more concrete and Jesus-oriented.

Diplomats are marginalized, and unhappy. In the mean time, new Benedict XVI’s men take important posts in the Roman Curia: in 2010, Marc Ouellet is appointed prefect of the Congregation of Bishops. He was one the Canadian editors of the Communio magazine, of which Ratzinger is one of the founders, and in Canada he faces the so-called revolution tranquille, the progressive Canadian secularization. Now he seems to be one of the candidates to be the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Joao Braz de Aviz is appointed as Prefect of the Congregation for Religious orders, replacing Franc Rodé – who, as Sodano, was considered one of the protectors of the Legionaries of Christ, the Congregation that Benedict XVI wants cleaned up and reformed after the scandals involving its founder Marcial Maciel.  A Curia and a College of Cardinals enriched with able jurists, confirming a «more law, less diplomacy» approach. In fact, Benedict XVI clearly affirmed in the letter to the Catholics of Ireland in 2010 that underappreciating canon law is one of the reasons why the Church is rotten.

Within the Curia, a guerrilla warfare is being waged.

Old stories, new problems

This guerrilla is also fed from some «missteps». Leonardo Sandri is moved from his post as substitute at the Secretariat of State and replaced with Msgr. Filoni. Filoni – who had previously served as Papal nuncio to the Philippines and in Iraq – is a pupil of Cardinal Bertone, and seemed to be the right man at the right place. If Sandri was the focus of too much gossiping and was too close to the old establishment to be a trusted man, Filoni seems to be the opposite.

But the relationships between Filoni and his old master Bertone worsens. There are rumors – no one would confirm them – that maintain that Filoni wanted to send money to a mission he was very close to, in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan). Both Bertone and the Pope asked him not to send this money: if the substitute of the Secretary of State sends money to the Republic of China, this may be considered by the government of the People’s Republic of China an undue intromission, thus complicating the already complex links between Holy See and Beijing. But Filoni sends the money anyway, and the Secretary of State gets a formal diplomatic protest from the People’s Republic of China. The relationship between Bertone and Filoni – is said – deteriorates from there on.

Filoni is nowadays a cardinal and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and the Secretariat of State substitute is now Angelo Becciu. Even though he studied at the old diplomatic school, Becciu has a completely different profile. His career makeover came about in Cuba, where – as Papal nuncio – he managed to smoothly navigate the transition of power from Fidel to Raul Castro.

The Secretariat of State has been regenerated, and so the guerrilla has aimed at other targets. The first leak of Vatican documents – a delicate surgical operation – originally takes place with the publication of another book by Gianluigi Nuzzi, Vaticano S.p.A.. Then, in 2010, the scandal of pedophilia breaks out in the headlines of newspapers, and it is also fed from some internal leaks. These are all circumscribed situations, as were the leaks of the first months of 2012. Up until Sua Santità (His Holiness) is finally published. The book – evidently written in a hurry, since it is full of mistakes – is the signal that maybe something got too far out of the program of measured leaks.

Everybody tries to take advantage from this warfare: every single issue – even if does not have anything to do with it – is described as one of the reasons behind this situation. Even the no-confidence vote on the president of I.O.R. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi by its board of Superintendence is linked to Vatileaks. It is not. Many try to explain the no-confidence motion by linking it to the internal debate about the new Vatican anti money laundering law that both Gotti Tedeschi and Card. Nicora defined «a step behind» in the path to transparency.  Nicora is president of the Authority for Financial Information, Aif, and also a member of the Commission of Cardinals in the I.O.R. and of the Pontifical Commission of Vatican City State – these last two also under the Aif.

Cardinal Attilio Nicora seems to be a key person in the passage from the whispering Church to the Church that speak out loud. He – during the first months of 2005, when John Paul II was about to pass away – was asked to outlined a reform of Pastor Bonus, favored by Angelo Sodano himself. The project remained just a draft. Some sources, who wish to remain anonymous, say that the project’s goal was to have a less bureaucratic Curia: the Pontifical Councils would be embodied in the Congregations, and the prefects of the Congregations, together with other trusted cardinals, would be part of a sort of committee for the management of the Church that would take the duties of the first section of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness. So, His Holiness secretariat would disappear as it exists today, and would keep just the diplomatic section. Part of the reform would address Pontifical Universities, which would fall under the umbrella of a single Roman university, and would each take different specializations.

Some observers considered this reform overwhelming. Yet, the reform would have let Angelo Sodano maintain in effect his leadership. Not as Secretary of State, but exercising his weight and his influence as a member of the «management committee» and trying – as Dean of the College of Cardinals – to guide the works of the next Conclave.

None of these scenarios can be officially confirmed: they are based on hearsays gathered from the Vatican corridors. But these stories point to a more complex and diverse scenario than just a struggle between old and new, good and evil, sketched out by the media. Bertone is depicted as the absolute evil. He surely suffers from some oversights and unfortunate choices. He is accused of an overtly personalistic management of the Church. On the other hand, who wouldn’t appoint trusted associates to key positions? And it is Benedict XVI who trusts Bertone. So much that the Pope – several times, and publicly – has renewed his confidence on him.

The sword of Damocles of the Past

More than an axe, it is a sword of Damocles, made up of a past that hangs above Benedict XVI, but does not refer to Joseph Ratzinger. When he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger used to work in the same way he worked as a theologian: he did not want to raise up a school, he preferred to build a team; he did not oppose to any one, he preferred harmonically match ideas of different kind; he did not acted a short-sighted protectionism of pre-judicial positions, he preferred looking at innovative foods for thought. This attitude had been the same of his Papacy. With a starting point: the search for truth. Benedict XVI dedicated the first of his Messages for the World Day of Peace to the truth. The theme was: «In truth, Peace». It is important to notice that the Message for the World Day of Peace has a very strong diplomatic impact: it is delivered to the Chancellors of all over the world, and it is the trace on which the Secretariat of State develop the traditional Papal new year speech to the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Yet, only after seven years, this Papacy’s address seems to be in some ways understood. Before, medias provided just a distorted image of Benedict XVI. Then, medias began to put the Pope up everything, as if he was an ascetical, evanescent and out of the current business of the Church leader. But Benedict XVI, little by little, shaped the face of his Curia. His men trained in the Holy Office he leaded, applying the canon law and being kind with people and understanding to ideas. This Curia knows Ratzinger’s modus operandi, that is determined and accommodating at the same time. This Curia now can prepare for the final act of this quiet revolution: the Year of Faith.

«Scoops» against the Pope?

Right when the year of Faith is up to come, informing papers are delivered behind the curtain of the Roman Curia and are leaked to the press. The last «scoop» would be about a plot to kill the Pope. It is a note written in rough German – probably by a non German speaking person – , that Cardinal Darìo Castrillòn Hoyos brought to Vatican Secretariat of State. The note was a summary of a report of non well précised Chinese officials. These latter were reporting what they learned by cardinal Paolo Romeo, archbishop of Palermo that went mysteriously (maybe to encourage Chinese business in Sicily) to China the last November. Romeo would say that the Pope was not supposed to live more than 12 months. The newspapers made headlines news of the plot. «It seems to me something that is so far from reality that I don’t even want to address it», Father Federico Lombardi, s.j. director of the Holy See Press Office said.  Evidently, somebody has all the interest that these news, this «nonsense» were headlines.

Before,  The letters that msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò – former General Secretary of the Governatorate of Vatican City State – addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and to card. Bertone, Vatican secretary of State, to denounce the «corruption » in procurements of Vatican City State administration had been profusely highlighted by the Medias. According to the press, Viganò had been appointed as Papal nuncio to the United State because of this letter.

Then, an internal memo of the Authority of Financial Information – the Vatican body that  controls all Vatican finances – had been leaked to the press. The memo was part of an inside debate if the new Vatican legislation was to be considered a retroactive legislation, and if it was to be applied in the so-called IOR case (that is the seizure – ordered by Italian magistrates – of 23 million euro transferred by the IOR). Can this memo be considered a proof that the Holy See does not want to cooperate with Italian Magistrates? Actually, the reform itself of the Vatican Law n.127 (the anti-money laundering law) shows that Holy See is going to accomplish the international standards, yet not denaturalizing the nature of Vatican finances (in the Vatican there are no market and no banks).

Some days later, Luca Tescaroli – the Rome prosecutor who has pursued a 30-year-old case concerning the worst scandal at the IOR: the death of Roberto Calvi, the Catholic banker who helped managed the Vatican’s investments and was found hanging from London’s Blackfriars Bridge in 1982  – has recently revived judicial requests to the Vatican for information about IOR/Ambrosiano scandal. He complained that no information has been provided by the Holy See. But these international requests never got to the office of the Protocol of the Secretariat of State, nor they had ever passed through the Italian Embassy to the Holy See. His requests did not probably fulfill all the requirements of an international submission by a foreign prosecutor, the same requirements needed for all States.

Is Bertone under attack?

While speaking about these cases, Vatican had been treated by Italian medias as any multinational company whose seat is in Italy, while prelates had been always depicted as sharks money-makers. «We defend the Pope, not Bertone», was the slogan within newspapers offices. Bertone was in fact the executor of Benedict XVI’s will. In a meeting with the heads of Vatican offices, he asked for more cohesion and stigmatized the «small chatters», that weaken the Church.

In a passage of the last document leaked to the press, one can read that the Pope «barely stands Bertone». It is false. Let’s make a step back in the past. In June 2006, the Pope had to announce that -  after his return to Rome from his trip to Bavaria -  his first act of governance will be the change of the secretary of state, with cardinal Tarcisio Bertone replacing cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Benedict XVI’s initial plans did not include making the announcement as early as he did, with an official statement in June 22, 2006. But the resistance he encountered within the curia convinced him to nip the opposition in the bud. Many in the Curia were discontent. Bertone not only was not a career diplomat – as almost all the secretaries of state have been in recent centuries – but he came from the ranks of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which he was the secretary from 1995 to 2003. He was the number two man, with Joseph Ratzinger as prefect, and now he is again becoming the main collaborator of the new Pope. Even after his election as Pope, Ratzinger has kept him as an adviser and a friend: not a week was gone by that they have not spoken together or seen each other.

Bertone’s appointment as Secretary of State signed a sort of “vindication” for the Holy Office. Called by this name until the 1960’s, the Congregation was referred to within the Vatican as «la Suprema». Its highest official was the Pope himself, and the rest of the curia hinged upon it. But then came Paul VI, and the secretariat of state became the central axis of the curia. With John Paul II, who had little interest in Church governance, the power of the secretariat of state in the Church’s internal and external affairs grew even greater. It is no surprise that in the last change of the papacy, the two head honchos of diplomacy and of the curia – cardinals Sodano and Achille Silvestrini – were the ones most staunchly opposed to the election of Ratzinger, just as they later tried to block the appointment of Bertone.

More than diplomacy, it is important to Benedict XVI that his secretary of state be highly skilled «in pastoral practice and doctrinal understanding». And Bertone, in the Pope’s view, had both of these prerequisites. Ratzinger discovered him in 1988, and since then he has had him work on the most intricate and controversial issues: the schism of the ultra-traditionalist archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, liberation theology, the married men with children who were ordained as priests in communist Czechoslovakia, the third secret of Fatima, the apparitions of Medjugorje, the scandal of pedophile priests in the United States, the marriage of archbishop Emmanuel Milingo to one of the members of the sect of Sun Myung Moon.

One can understand many of Benedict XVI’s choice in Bertone’s appointment. Last but not least, the appointment of Charles J. Brown – a non-diplomat that served in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – as Papal nuncio in Ireland. The next consistory, in fact – so marked with well-formed experts in Canon Law, as Antonio Maria Vegliò and Francesco Coccopalmerio – is the signal that Benedict XVI want to get back to the solidity of Law, more than entrust on the liquidity of diplomacy. More firmness in Faith, acknolewdge of law and catechism and pastoral care, less diplomacy: these seem to be Benedict XVI’s word orders.

And behind the curtain is…

After Bertone’s appointment, Sodano refused to leave his office as Secretary of State, waiting for the works in his new office to be ended, and so Bertone had to work for about a year in a little office. Sodano is still secretary of State when the Pope goes to Bavaria, in September 2006. There, the Regensburg case on the lecture of the Pope bursted. It seems a Benedict XVI’s owngoal, it is instead the opening of unprecedented path of dialogue with Islam.

There was something else that made Sodano’s remaining in office questionable: his maneuver  to put out of commission the then Pope’s vicar and president of the Italian bishops’ conference, CEI, Camillo Ruini, when this latter turned  75 years old and handed over to the pope the letter of resignation that every bishop is required to write when he turns 75.

In 1991, 1996, and 2001, John Paul II, each time before he made Ruini head of the CEI, asked for the advice of the presidents of the sixteen regions into which the Italian episcopacy is subdivided. But that time – and this was at the end of January 2006 – rather than the pope, the secretariat of state extended the consultation to all of the 226 bishops in office. To each one, the then nuncio in Italy Paolo Romeo sent a letter under the seal of Pontifical Secrecy, asking the recipient to «indicate ‘coram Domino’ and with gracious solicitude the prelate that you would like to suggest».

The letter began by stating that «next March 6 the mandate of the Most Eminent Cardinal Camillo Ruini as president of the CEI will come to a conclusion». And it continued by asserting that «the Holy Father thinks that a change in the office of the presidency is in order».

The letter bore the date of January 26, 2006, and the only one to whom it was not sent was Ruini. But he was immediately made aware of it, and Benedict XVI – who intended to keep Ruini at his post – was also informed. On February 6, 2006 the nuncio who signed the letter, Romeo, was called by Benedict XVI for an audience. The Pope asked him how and why this initiative came about. Romeo left the audience in shambles, but Sodano was the one who was really trembling. On February 9, 2006  Benedict XVI received Ruini together with his then right hand man, the secretary general of the CEI, bishop Giuseppe Betori. They both received the Pope’s reassurances. News of the letter had not yet leaked to the outside.

But a few days later, the news agencies and newspapers were writing about it, attributing the idea for the letter to the pope and to his desire to decide «more collegially» on a replacement for Ruini. And in fact, on the morning of February 14, 2006,  as soon as he saw the complete text of the letter published in two newspapers, Benedict XVI picked up the telephone and ordered that his confirmation of Ruini as president of the CEI be made public immediately.

New stories, old people

Paolo Romeo is also one of the characters of the mordkomplott against the Pope. Behind him, there is still the same cardinal Sodano, that wanted to show his solidarity to the Pope before of the Easter Mass in 2010 – in the spite of clergy abuse storm – attacking the revelations on sex abuses as «petty gossip», and «the chatter of the moment». Yet, it was the same Sodano that for years debarred to make investigations on Marcial Maciel, the founder of Legionaries of Christ, who was found to live a double life, with illegitimate sons and a past of abuses on his seminarists.

A quiet revolution

In the meantime, Benedict XVI went on with his governing project, bringing on his quiet revolution. With time, he changed men in the key posts. It is not sufficient. The strikes does not come from the upper levels, but from the lower ones, clerks within the Secretariat of State that have nothing to lose if they leak some document, and that are still linked to the previous administration. It is a problem that deals with the quality of men. After the fall of the Wall of Berlin, within the Catholic Church, there had been the persuasion that the choice of clerks and official could be made with some more superficiality. Was not the War against the Communism over? An ex clerk of the Secretary of State – who served at the end of card. Agostino Casaroli administration and at the beginning of card. Sodano administration – tells that «suddenly, hiring conditions changed. I had been attentively analyzed, for our psychological quality and our intellectual attitudes. The new clerks hired in Secretariat of State did not seem to have any of these requisites, but a certain good will».

A weakened Curia

Step by step, the machine of the Curia is weakened from the inside. The new pieces of this machine are fascinated by privileges and at the same time they are unconscious of prestige and importance of their role. It is a machine with defective pieces, where an attack against the universal Church and its sovereignty can be easy stroke.

Right after the fall of the Wall of Berlin, the medias spoke only positively about John Paul II. On the other hand, they depict the Curia as rotten, as something that needs to be changed. So rotten that it would be better the Pope to pray, and for the Church not to involve too much in the current affairs of the world. Is it part of the strategy to undermine Holy See diplomacy? Pressures are made against the moral authority of prelates, and at the same time lay government confer upon Churchmen and Churh communities some financial privilege – e.g. tax cuts or financial aids. These tax cuts and financial aids are sometimes legitimated by the law (they are the same acknowledged to other companies and associations), but they are conferred with such a dim procedure that it is easy to create a misgiving climate. The “hottest” case are set aside, in order to use them at the most proper moment.

Market rules

In the mean time, European Union is formed, and market is always more allowed to dominate policy. At the beginning, Vatican machine is not even aware of the new challenge: it is still appeased on precedent positions.  Casaroli’s ostpolitik is considered good in every contingency, from the dialogue with Islam to Chinese situation. The Church is diplomatically weakened – even if still able to fight good fights, e.g. in U.N. Conferences in Beijing and Cairo. Benedict XVI took over this weakened Church. He wants – he has – to repair. He begins changing some piece of the machine. Giovanni Lajolo is appointed as Vatican foreign minister, and his growing agreement with the vision of Benedict XVI was made evident by the sequence of his actions and addresses as the Holy See’s foreign minister, which display a progressive distancing from the «realist» politics treasured by secretary of state Angelo Sodano. Benedict XVI wait the right time. In 2009, msgr. Gabriele Caccia and msgr. Pietro Parolin, number 3 and 4 of Vatican Secretary of State under Sodano’s administration and the under Bertone’s one, are promoted as Papal nuncios. For the first time, the “upper level” of the Secretariat of State has been appointed under Bertone’s administration. The Papal homily at the episcopal ordination of Parolin, Caccia and three other bishops is meaningful. The Pope said: «We do not bind people to us; we do not seek power, prestige or esteem for ourselves. We lead men and women toward Jesus Christ, hence toward the living God. In so doing, we introduce them into truth and into freedom, which derives from truth. Fidelity is altruism and, in this very way, liberating for the minister himself and for all who are entrusted to him. We know how in civil society and often also in the Church things suffer because many people on whom responsibility has been conferred work for themselves rather than for the community, for the common good».

These are the first signals of the fact that the Church changed its attitude, and gets back – modernly – to the origins. The world map goes on changing. States hand over sovereignty to markets, and there is an economic crisis in 2008. In 2009, European Union communicates that the Monetary Agreements with the Vatican is to be reviewed, if Vatican wants to remain hooked to the European Monetary. But Eu commissioners show their hostility, and the Convention will be signed by the European Commissioner Joaquin Almunia and by the Papal Nuncio to the European Union André Dupuy in separate rooms. To face the global crisis, Benedict XVI delivers a social encyclical, the Caritas in Veritate: handed by several people – many do not even agree with the Church -, the encyclical keeps its prophetical message. This prophecy is rooted in the request for more democracy and for an authority with universal competences, whose members are chosen democratically and whose goals is the common good, by regulating the market (thus facing the new Leviathan: international finance) and letting the State develop in a just way. The encyclical is destructured, not understood, un-focused. It is 2009.

The annus horribilis

In the mean time, international scenario changes again. A new global crisis is up to come, and men of Trilateral Commission works for having less democracy – as a paper by Zbigniew Brzezinsky, former U.S. National Security Advisor, states. Holy See has a different idea: at the international tables, Holy See asks more multilateralism, and – on economical scenario – it auspicates a new Bretton Woods, whose winner would be this time John Maynard Keynes ideas.

And here comes the 2010, the annus horribilis. Pedophilia scandals swept all the world, clergy abuse are brought into life, while they had always been hidden. Things are slightly different, and medias do not speak unambiguously, aiming to attack the Pope. It is the same strategy experimented by Adolf Hitler. Together with moral attacks, Hitler obliged the faithful of each religion to pay Kirchensteuer, a tax on religion. It is the reason why religions in German countries became rich and powerful, even if overlooking its focus, as Benedict XVI underlined during his last trip in Germany.

While the Year of Faith is being prepared, bankers took over in Europe. Italian Prime Minister is Mario Monti, Greek Prime Minister is Nicolas Papademos. They both come from Goldman Sachs and Trilateral commission; they both have been appointed, not elected. They must guide Europe to be always more market-oriented. Mario Monti – who claims himself Catholic – give a signal when he went to visit the Pope: one of the Italian Prime Minister’s presents was a book – Il governo dell’Economia e della Moneta – that he wrote in 1992, and this book was one of the pillars of the Maastricht treaty.

Jesus is the key

Attacks to the Church come from the outside, and they are favorite from the inside by incapable officials. Now, these attacks are going to strike the Pope. The tailor-made suite for the Pope is similar to the one tailored on John Paul I: a poor man alone, closed in an ivory tower, taking care of paintings in his apartments and of his clothes – both liturgical and non liturgical. He would make a revolution, but he cannot. Facts says that revolution has come. It was a revolution of faith and thought. A revolution whose symbol is Jesus of Nazaret, to whom Benedict XVI – not casually – already dedicated two books.

Even Scola wants to be archbishop of Milan. It is not just a sort of vindication for the Patriarch of Venice, since he comes from Milan but he was not ordained priest in his home-diocese. Cardinal Giovanni Colombo, archbishop of Milan at the time, had strong reservations about Communion and Liberation, the ecclesial movement whose Scola was a strong activist, and so Scola was ordained priest in the diocese of Termoli. From there, he had begun an ascent who brought him, from being number 2 of  Fr. Luigi Giussani, founder of Communion and Liberation, to a free-thinker activist within Communion and Liberation itself, until his appointment as Patriarch of Venice. In Venice, Scola did not typify himself as a man of Communion and Liberation. He founded a «Studium generale» there named after Saint Mark, the patron of the city, which covers all of the stages of learning, from childhood to university, with students from many countries, with courses in various disciplines and theology embracing them all, and with its own publishing house. He then created a magazine and an international cultural center named «Oasis», as a bridge to the East, from Eastern Europe and Northern Africa all the way to Pakistan, in multiple languages including Arabic and Urdu, with marked attention to Islam and Christianity in those countries, with periodic conferences between bishops and Christian and Muslim experts.

In Milan, Scola will have two tasks: the first one is to keep culturally active and at the same time anchored to orthodoxy the diocese of Milan; the second one will be to chair the board of administration of Istituto Toniolo, the “strongbox” of Catholic University and of other 13 universities inspired to Catholicism, schools and hospitals. But his main task will probably be another one: to open – and hopefully to close – the beatification process of Fr. Luigi Giusanni. It is very important for Benedict XVI – who celebrated Fr. Giussani funeral as pontifical delegate – that the beatification process would be brought on in the best way possible. Scola is the right man to do it.

Behind the shadows of the dome of Milan, a larger game has been played. It was a sort of «chess» played by large sectors of the Curia, with the goal to occupy every single space of power. There is the strong impression that it is now the time of a crucial transition for Vatican balances. After this transition, nothing will be the same.

Two of the main characters of the last part of John Paul II pontificate, cardinals Angelo Sodano and Camillo Ruini, retired some time ago and will not be able to take part to the next conclave since they are older than 80. Yet, both of them have still their importance and influence in the Sacred Palaces. Sodano, former secretary of State, had a brief interregnum before he had to give up his charge – Bertone was nominated in June 2006, but he took possession of his new charge in September. Then, Sodano extended the interregnum by not leaving his office until his new office of Dean of the College of Cardinals had not been completed. In his new office, he still meets his faithful friends, prelates that together with him and thanks to him made career in the Vatican diplomacy. Mons. Gabriele Caccia and Mons. Pietro Parolin often go and visit him when they are in Rome – they are now appointed as nuntii in Lebanon and Venezuela. Mons. Parolin suddenly jumped forward in the rose of candidates to be archbishop of Milan, and there is now the possibility that he will then appointed as successor of card. Scola as Patriarch in Venice.

Even card. Leonardo Sandri often meets card. Sodano. Sandri is the prefect of the Congretation for the Oriental Churches, and owes his career to Sodano. This latter appointed him as Apostolic Nuntio in Mexico, in order to face the mounting denounces to Legionaries of Christ – Sodano was very linked to the Congregation founded by Marcial Maciel. Then, Sandri became Substitute in the Secretary of State, and then he had the charge of Prefect of the Oriental Churches, a very important one.

Card. Ruini is now president of the scientific committee of Ratzinger Foundation, but he is also president of Progetto Culturale, the organization that manages the money for the Culture of the Italian Episcopal Conference. Even the founding for Istituto Toniolo pass through the Progetto Culturale.

And the Istituto Toniolo has been – and is – the key issue. The Istituto is controlled by Ruini fellowships after a cocaine scandal that brought the previous board to resign, and has constantly been under attack during the last year. Dino Boffo, former director of Avvenire (the news daily owned from the Italian Episcopal Conference) was obliged to resign after being put under attack from Il Giornale (the news daily owned by Berlusconi’s brother).   This was the full-page headline in the August 28, 2009  issue of Il Giornale: “Sexual incident of ‘Avvenire’ director. The supermoralist charged with harassment. Dino Boffo, at the helm of the newspaper of the Italian bishops and involved in the fiery press campaign against the transgressions of the prime minister, intimidated the wife of the man with whom he had a relationship”. The article based on an anonymous flier. The same flier that had been passed from hand to hand in the rooms of the Toniolo since 2005. The flier had the same peculiarities of the informative footnotes written by Carabinieris of the Borgo quarter in Rome (where the Vatican is sited) and usually passed to Secretariat of State for «good neighborhood relationships»

Nowadays, it’s Bertone that is running for the Istituto Toniolo, anxious to have fellowships within the strongbox of Catholic culture. Bertone is backing as new president of the Board of the Administration Gian Maria Flick, former Italian minister for the Justice.

The name of Flick resounds of the third empire that is now firing for the last times. Card. Achille Silvestrini had been a powerful and admired member of the Roman Curia. His career has nevertheless drowned, even after the publication of Via col Vento in Vaticano, a poisoned-pamphlet written with the task to attack the Silvestrini-Casaroli cartel in the State Secretariat. Yet his opinion seems to be important again. Gian Maria Flick would be – according to rumors – part of the Silvestrini-cartel. He was one of the lawyer of the trial that abolished the crime of slavery, and consequently the crime of plague. There were several law proposal in Italy to reintroduce at least the crime of psychological plague, but none of that succeeded.

The appointment for the new archbishop of Milan and the struggle for the new board of Istituto Toniolo were just the pretext for a sort of  game for the power that seems to be a struggle to survive, since the cartels are going to fall. Even the links with the external world of the Vatican are at risk. Gianni Letta, the shadow of Silvio Berlusconi, Gentleman of His Holiness, the man who links Italian State and Church, is now under attack. There were at least three judicial inquiries that stroke him and his men: one against him, the other one against Guido Bertolaso that brought to Propaganda Fide scandal, the last one against Luigi Bisignani, exponent of the masonry well known in the «good society». Cesare Geronzi, the banker that sponsored the 2005 World Youth Day, is now out of scene. Giulio Tremonti – Italian Minister for the Economy, appreciated by Benedict XVI and close to the ecclesiastical environments, that his aiming to be Prime Minister – risks to be marginalized. In the mean time, the last true exponent of the finance inspired on Catholic values, Antonio Fazio, has been subjected to a controversial first appearance sentence.

This is the temperature of the Roman Curia. A Curia too appeased on Italian issues, sometimes – but there is a Vatican diplomacy who is alive and not taken in account by medias – with no awareness of the universal mission of the Church. After these last fires, everything will change. Now Marc Ouellet – a Canadian – is the Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, and this fact is emblematic: the new Episcopal appointments will be done with a different point of view from the Italian one, even if they concern Italy. The Joseph Ratzinger’s Papacy was not a transition papacy. It is the quiet transition to a revolution.