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:

STORM IN THE HOLY SEE

Paolo Gabriele riding in front of the pope

 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 pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, allegedly did it...stole the documents.

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.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the president of the Vatican Bank, aka the Institute for Religious Works (I am not joking!) was fired.  Carl Anderson, a member of the board of the bank said you can't make this stuff up.  As the Fonz would say, "Heeeeey!"

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.

Sooo, the former No 2 man is now exiled to the U.S., the equivalent of Siberia to Vatican insiders, and the present No. 2 man in the Vatican, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, is in hot water.

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.

Can't the pope trust anyone?  Perhaps the butler did not realize he was playing with the big boys.  According to the Vatican spokesman, Msgr Federico Lombardi, Paolo is in detention in the Vatican and is being investigated.

I hope I've got the complicated story more or less right, as it's not easy to follow.  Read the article, and correct me if I've made mistakes.

Meanwhile back in Siberia - er - the U.S., the Roman Catholic bishops are moving ahead to deprive their female employees of health insurance coverage for birth control.

Picture from Wikipedia.

Thanks to all who sent me links to the story of the shenanigans in the Vatican.