The book by Cardinal Bertone could be readily seen as a selection of speeches on reason. In the many speeches delivered during trips, honoris causa academic ceremonies or in meetings with the diplomatic corps and with civil society, Cardinal Bertone was transmitting Benedict XVI’s thought. The book contains observations about the «duty of humanitarian intervention» and the call for new, strong and active international governance.  These represent a development of the traditional Holy See diplomatic battles to achieve to common good.

The reading of the book also makes it clear that the non-negotiable values are not just a political machination by Benedict XVI to influence the world and appease the neo-cons. The non-negotiable values do not deal only with life and abortion issues, but the whole Gospel. The non-negotiable values come together under the principle of religious freedom, which Benedict XVI has described as «the right of all rights.» The non negotiable values are the pivotal principle, based on human dignity as the measure of all things. The dignity of the human being which is at the heart of the Holy See diplomatic action.  An action of the Church that benefits all of humanity.

Under Benedict XVI, while Cardinal Bertone was Secretary of State, the Holy See became ever more international. For centuries the Holy See has had an international impact. It was part of peace processes all over the world, from the negotiations over the Caroline Islands to those concerning the Beagle Channel. The member states of the United Nation has asked many times the Holy See to raise its status from permanent observer (yet with enhanced privileges) to member state. The Holy See’s moral authority was so highly regarded that the international community asked that it be among the founding states of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in order to provide the agency with a moral voice.

Despite its international activity, the Holy See had been considered for years a sort a small enclave of Italy. Italy and the Holy See have always enjoyed good neighborly relations, and Italian Popes have paid particular attention to events in Italy.

But the special relation between Italy and the Holy See has also brought some trouble. For example, every recent financial scandal (from the IOR-Ambrosiano scandal to the path toward financial transparency started under Benedict XVI) involved Italians, men of compromise whose specialty is the Vatican-Italian dichotomy and border, and able to nurture that all-important good relation. 

By bringing these questions to the fore, Benedict XVI also set forth a more ambitious projection for the international profile of the Holy See. The Holy See could no longer be considered a sort of Italian annex, even if the Holy See and Italy still have good neighborly relations. The Holy See is a sovereign State that supports and engages in multilateral policymaking among States, and implements it. It does not live in Italy’s shadow.

From the other side of the border, Italians kept on showing interest and consideration toward the Holy See, while also paying attention to shielding themselves from ethical considerations that could run counter to their political stances.  They could not attack Benedict XVI directly, since he spoke loud and clear, and no one dared to appear as opposing him. When there are important issues to discuss, it is difficult to escape one’s own responsibilities. For this reason, attacks against the Church’s stances took the form of guerrilla warfare.

Leaks about the Holy See’s internal debate concerning the path to financial transparency came from Italy. Also Vatileaks was a genuinely Italian scandal, full of personal attacks against Cardinal Bertone. The attacks were in fact meant to reach Benedict XVI. But how could anyone attack an undisputed moral authority who put together speeches as grandiose as cathedrals, with bricks of reason?

This was the background when Benedict XVI went to the Palace of Quirinale to visit the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano, on October 4, 2008. In that occasion, Napolitano underscored that «the laity of the state stands side by side with the recognition of the public dimension of religion,» and also noted that, in times of crisis, Italy could count on the Pope’s words and on the committed work of the «Catholic lay movements inspired by the Pope’s message.»

Catholic lay movements were not even mentioned in the speech Napolitano delivered on November 14, 2013, when Pope Francis went to visit him. In the speech, Napolitano asserted that the Church must carry forward a joint effort with Italy, in which Catholic institutions contribute with the their work on the fields of education and solidarity. 

Reading between the lines, Napolitano words seemingly aim to reduce the role of the Church in society to that of a simple NGO, as many campaigns claim that the Church should be regarded.

These campaigns fail to realize that the Holy See’s sovereignty permits the Church to be free, not to be submitted to any other state, and thus to promote the right of all the faithful to live their own religion.

In Italy, the Church’s global role to protect religions and minorities have been often reduced to a mere debate about spheres of influence.

This is probably the reason why an ambassador to the Holy See exulted in an informal chat with journalists that «non-negotiable values are not the center of this Pope’s preaching,» while Napolitano praised the Pope’s «non-dogmatism.»

Ultimately, these are minor pronouncements. Pope Francis has shown that he knows about non-negotiable values, and how to defend them, even when underlying that he does not want to make them the center of his pontificate.

Perhaps, the Church did lose a little bit of traction in rising to the challenges of the world.

Meanwhile, Italy remains too embroiled in small and narrow-minded relations with the Holy See. So much so, that it risks to be treated by the Holy See just as any other state, losing the privileged connection Italy always had. But Italy cannot accept this. And so, some in Italy focus on the lay love for the Pope to break free for old linkages, even by underlying the simplified protocol used for Francis’ visit to the Quirinale. 

For what concerns the «privacy» matter, the Vatican has denounced as «criminal» the book by Gianluigi Nuzzi, made of leaked internal documents that shed light on power struggles inside the Holy See and the thinking of its embattled top banker, and warned that it would take legal action against those responsible.

The Vatican had already warned of legal action against Nuzzi after he broadcast letters in January from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator to the pope in which he begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican’s U.S. ambassador.

Pope Benedict XVI has already appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the «Vatileaks» scandal, which erupted earlier this year with the publication of leaked memos alleging corruption and mismanagement in Holy See affairs and internal squabbles over its efforts to comply with international anti-money laundering norms. The group includes Cardinal Julian Herranz, president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts; Cardinal Josef Tomko, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, Archbishop emeritus of Palermo in Italy.

The publication of the book «His Holiness» added fuel to the fire, reproducing confidential letters and memos to and from Benedict and his personal secretary which violated the Pope’s right to privacy.

Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said in a statement  that the book was an «objectively defamatory» work that «clearly assumes characters of a criminal act». He said the Holy See would get to the bottom of who «stole» the documents, who received them and who published them. He warned the Holy See would seek international cooperation in its quest for justice, presumably with Italian magistrates.

Much of the documentation is fairly Italy-centric: the memos about a 2009 scandal over the ex-editor of the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference; the memos about a so-called «never-know-before dinner» between Benedict and Italy’s president; a 2011 letter from Italy’s pre-eminent talk show host Bruno Vespa to the Pope enclosing a check for 10,000 € for his charity work – and asking for a private audience in exchange; a chapter about the Vatican sovereignty that quotes the case of a past investigation toward the cardinal Michele Giordano, then archbishop of Naples.

Nuzzi proved a scant acknowledge of the Vatican, and he did not cheek all the facts. For example  there had never been a statement by cardinal Giordano claiming Vatican soverignty to avoid investigation – there is no trace of it in the archives of the Curia of Naples, no trace of it in the press correspondance. Nuzzi claims as «secret» a lunch – not a dinner, as he describes it in the book – between the Italian president of Republic Napolitano, his wife Clio and the Pope, and he interprets the memos of the Secretariat of State about the lunch as a «moral suasion» the Vatican would do on Italian government. Actually, the news of the lunch had been already wrote by Italian press, and it was part of a diplomatic courtesy the Vatican has with Italy. The struggle within Istituto Toniolo, the strongbox of Catholic University, had been widely covered by the press. And one should not be surprised about the memos the Pope got by Vatican Secretariat of State office before the lunch with Giorgio Napolitano, president of Italian Republic. In fact, the Pope gets memos from the State Secretariat whether he meets the President of Republic of any country, whether he meets the parish-priest of the smallest parish in the world. This in order to understand at the deepest level what is the situation is going to talk about. It is the praxis. When the president Obama went to visit the Pope, Benedict XVI got a memo from his State Secretariat. Holy See was peculiarly worried about the reform of United States Health Care of System, and about the pro-choice positions of the president Obama for what concerns abortion. So, the meeting had been focused on this topic, and – after the meeting – the Pope gave to Obama Dignitas Personae, the Instruction on bioethics of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Obama commented: «Ah, what we have been talking before». This was not considered surprising, nor it had been described as a moral suasion.

In Nuzzi’s book, there are international leaks as well, including diplomatic cables from Vatican embassies from Jerusalem to Cameroon. Some of these cables concern the conclusions of the Pope’s delegate about Legion of Christ religious order. Even Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the head of the Institute for Religious Works gets significant ink, with reproduced private memos to the Pope with his take on the Vatican’s response to the global financial crisis and how to handle the church’s tax exempt status amid Italian government efforts to crack down on tax evasion.

The question that lays beneath the «Vatileaks case» is: why so many document had been leaked to a journalist whose coverage of the Vatican is scant? It is very serious that papers that are sent to the desk to the Pope had been leaked to the press and in fact the last months had been marked by a sort of struggle among Italian newspapers, that competed in publishing the most accurate and itchy Vatican leaks

And Nuzzi himself, presenting his new book, explained that this was «a subsequent step» in the path he began with his first book, Vaticano S.p.A., in which he published leaks about the Vatican financial management. Nuzzi’s speaking about a «subsequent» step and the competition on Vatican leaks let understand that there can be a sort of strategy behind the Vati-leaks. Is journalism joining one party and accomplishing a peculiar strategy? And, moreover, what is the party Vati-leaker is joining? Is it a problem of an internal conflict within the Holy See? Is it a problem of a conflict between Holy See and the Italian Bishops’ Conference?

This is uncertain. There is no doubt  – on the other hand – that Vati-leaks came out by hostilities, personal disputes, power struggles that have little to do with the mission of the Church. So, the true question is another one: is who leaked the documents aware of the institutional damage suffered by the Holy See because of his leaks? In the end, it is the institutional weight of the Holy See that takes issue, and this would eventually strengthen the campaigns aimed to expel the Holy See by the concert of nations and to undermine its diplomatic weight by reducing its status to a Ngo.

In the mean time, the Pope is depicted as alone on a ivory tower while he goes on writing books and speaking about religion and faith, without any right to speak out about political and diplomatic issues.

This is how an internal conflict risks to become something bigger. Everybody is speaking well of the Pope, and badly of the Curia. But attacking Curia, attacking Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State – he is one of the main targets of the Vati-leaks – means now attacking Benedict XVI and his quiet revolution.