POPE'S BUTLER COOPERATING

Msgr Federico Lombardi

The pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, is cooperating with the Vatican investigation of the Vatican leaks.  And what if the investigation points to people in high positions in the Vatican, such as a cardinal or two?

Italian media report that a cardinal is suspected of playing a major role in the "Vatileaks" scandal. However, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, denied the reports. He said many Vatican officials were being questioned in the investigation but insisted: "There is no cardinal under suspicion."

He also dismissed as "pure fantasy" a rash of other unsourced reports about the investigation in the Italian media, which have been in a frenzy ever since reports of Gabriele's detention emerged last Friday.

Well, if the Rev Lombardi says so....  But then Lombardi also said:

...that the Pope had never been a member of the Hitler Youth, but journalists quickly pointed out to him that Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope, had admitted this himself in the 1997 book Salt of the Earth.

The ineptitude is stupefying.  If the news is bad, deny, always deny; get the facts later.

I hope the butler is receiving good legal advice, because he's up against heavy hitters.

UPDATE LAGNIAPPE: