A Corner of the Vatican Veil Lifted
The New York Times reports that the “widening leaks scandal has made the seat of the Roman Catholic Church appear to be a hornet’s nest of backstabbing and gossip”. “VatiLeaks”, as the scandal is now dubbed, came to light, says Time magazine, “on May 17, with the publication of a book, Your Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, in which . . . [were] reproduced dozens of leaked letters, memos and cables, many of them from within the office of the Pope”.
“The most amazing fact”, says Time, “is the extent to which things have been revealed at all.” Reuters reports that Thomas F X Noble, an expert in papal history at Notre Dame University in Indiana, states, “The Vatican has an unmatched capacity to draw a veil of secrecy over its doings. It lacks the kind of transparency that we associate with government and corporations in the modern world.” But now revelations are made “in the full light of the sun”, as the editor of the Rome-based website “Chiesa” (or Church) puts it.
What is the meaning of it all? “As with troubled waters, the chaos on display hints at happenings deep beneath the surface,” says Time. The arrest of the Pope’s butler, Paola Gabrielle, for the alleged theft of secret Vatican documents, seems to point to others in the background. The New York Times says that Gabriele is most likely a “lower-level figure in a scandal with at least three shadowy Vatican machinations that are revealed in the leaks: a campaign to undermine the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Bertone; controversy over the management of the Vatican bank; and intense infighting between Italian cardinals vying for position in the Conclave that will one day elect Benedict’s successor”. Alberto Melloni, director of the John XXIII Centre in Bologna, believes that “the ecclesiastical right wants to put the Ratzinger papacy in crisis”.
“VatiLeaks”, say various Vatican watchers, gives the impression that the Pope is “unable to rein in his infighting underlings”, “that the Vatican has lost control of its public image”, and that the affair “looks poised to become one of the most destructive crises” of the present papal reign. According to one of his lawyers, Gabriele has agreed to co-operate with Vatican investigators. So the end of the story is not in sight.
As once again we see secrets of the papacy being uncovered, we are reminded of the truth, “But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets” (Dan 2:28). These and other revelations about the “mystery of iniquity” are undoubtedly pointers to the time when “that Wicked”, “that man of sin”, “shall be revealed” (see 2 Th 2:3-10). NMR