Vatican in chaos after Pope's butler arrested for leaks
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May 26, 2012, 11:31:59 PM5/26/12
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False
Churches, False Brethren, False Gospels
Vatican in chaos after Pope's butler arrested for leaks
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press
VATICAN CITY — An already sordid scandal over leaked Vatican
documents took a Hollywood-like turn Saturday with confirmation
that the pope's own butler had been arrested after documents he
had no business having were found in his Vatican City apartment.
The detention of butler Paolo Gabriele, one of the few members of
the papal household, capped one of the most convulsive weeks in
recent Vatican history and threw the Holy See into chaos as it
enters a critical phase in its efforts to show the world it's
serious about complying with international norms on financial
transparency.
The tumult began with the publication last weekend of a book of
leaked Vatican documents detailing power struggles, political
intrigue and corruption in the highest levels of Catholic Church
governance. It peaked with the inglorious ouster on Thursday of
the president of the Vatican bank. And it concluded with
confirmation Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI's own butler was the
alleged mole feeding documents to Italian journalists in an
apparent bid to discredit the pontiff's No. 2.
"If you wrote this in fiction you wouldn't believe it," said Carl
Anderson, a member of the board of the Vatican bank which
contributed to the tumult with its no-confidence vote in its
president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. "No editor would let you put it
in a novel."
The bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, issued a
scathing denunciation of Gotti Tedeschi in a memorandum obtained
Saturday by The Associated Press. In it the bank, or IOR by its
Italian initials, explained its reasons for ousting Gotti
Tedeschi: he routinely missed board meetings, failed to do his
job, failed to defend the bank, polarized its personnel and
displayed "progressively erratic personal behavior."
Gotti Tedeschi was also accused by the board of leaking documents
himself: The memorandum from the Institute for Religious Works, as
the bank is known, said he "failed to provide any formal
explanation for the dissemination of documents last known" to be
in his possession.
In an interview with the AP, Anderson stressed that the latter
accusation was independent of the broader "Vatileaks" scandal that
has rocked the Vatican for months. But he stressed: "It is not an
insignificant issue."
Gotti Tedeschi hasn't commented publicly about his ouster or the
reasons behind it, saying he has too much admiration for the pope
to do so. He also hasn't been arrested, avoiding the fate that
befell Gabriele.
The 46-year-old father of three has been in Vatican detention
since Wednesday after Vatican investigators discovered Holy See
documents in his apartment. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev.
Federico Lombardi, said Gabriele had met with his lawyers and that
the investigation was taking its course through the Vatican's
judicial system.
Gabriele, the pope's personal butler since 2006, has often been
seen by Benedict's side in public, riding in the front seat of the
pope's open-air jeep during Wednesday general audiences or
shielding the pontiff from the rain. In private, he is a member of
the small papal household that also includes the pontiff's private
secretaries and four consecrated women who care for the papal
apartment.
Lombardi said Gabriele's detention marked a sad development for
all Vatican staff. "Everyone knows him in the Vatican, and there's
certainly surprise and pain, and great affection for his beloved
family," the spokesman said.
The "Vatileaks" scandal has seriously embarrassed the Vatican at a
time when it is trying to show the world financial community that
it has turned a page and shed its reputation as a scandal plagued
tax haven.
Vatican documents leaked to the press in recent months have
undermined that effort, alleging corruption in Vatican finance as
well as internal bickering over the Holy See's efforts to comply
with international norms to fight money laundering and terror
financing.
The Vatican in July will learn if it has complied with the
financial transparency criteria of a Council of Europe committee,
Moneyval — a key step in its efforts to get on the so-called
"white list" of countries that share financial information to
fight tax evasion.
Anderson acknowleged that the events of the last week certainly
haven't cast the Holy See in the best light. And he said the
bank's board appreciated that the ouster of its president just
weeks before the expected Moneyval decision could give the
committee pause.
"The board considered that concern and decided that all things
considered it was best to take the action at this time," Anderson
said. "These steps were taken to increase the IOR's position
vis-a-vis Moneyval."
The Vatileaks scandal began in January when Italian journalist
Gianluigi Nuzzi broadcast letters 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.
Nuzzi, author of "Vatican SpA," a 2009 volume laying out shady
dealings of the Vatican bank based on leaked documents, last
weekend published "His Holiness," which presented a trove of other
documents including personal correspondence to the pope and his
secretary — many of them painting Benedicts No. 2, Cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone, in a negative light.
Nuzzi has said he was offered the documents by multiple Vatican
sources and insisted he didn't pay a cent (euro) to any of them.
Gabriele was in Vatican custody and unavailable for comment. No
known motive has come to light as to why Gabriele, if he is found
to be the key mole, might have passed on the documents. Nuzzi
declined to comment Saturday on whether Gabriele was among his
sources.
Bertone, 77, has been blamed for a series of gaffes and management
problems that have plagued Benedict's papacy and, according to the
leaked documents, generated a not inconsiderable amount of ill
will directed at him from other Vatican officials.
"For some time and in various parts of the church, criticism even
by the faithful has been growing about the lack of coordination
and confusion that reign at its center," Cardinal Paolo Sardi, the
former No. 2 official in the Vatican secretariat of state, wrote
to the pope in 2009, according to the letter cited in "His
Holiness."
Anderson, who heads the Knights of Columbus, a major U.S. lay
Catholic organization, said he was certain the Holy See would
weather the storm and that the Vatican bank, at least, could move
forward under a new leader with solid banking credentials as well
as a desire to show off the bank's transparency.
"I hope this will be the beginning of a new chapter for the IOR
and part of that chapter will be restoring the public image of the
IOR," he told AP. "I think we have a good story to tell."