Bertone: "It's the Pope, not me!"

Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone is unable to keep his own counsel any longer! Having been named by La Repubblica [not to mention WWW! Ed.] as either the attacker or the attackee in the ongoing Vatileaks saga, the Man Who Would Be Pope has given an interview to RAI-TV on the leaks of confidential Vatican documents.

According to the "Prime Minister of the Vatican" the leaks are an attack on Pope Benedict XVI. Recalling an earlier day when Pope Paul VI was under attack from within the Vatican, the cardinal said that in this case "the attacks are more carefully aimed, and sometimes also ferocious, destructive, and organized". Click here to read the full text of the interview, as translated by the National Catholic Reporter.

Surely Walt is not the only one experiencing a certain cognitive dissonance here. In other words... say what?! Odd that the cardinal should point the finger at the Pope, since he -- not the Pope -- is the one who appears in an unfavourable light in the documents that have been released so far. None of the leaked documents has been embarrassing to the Holy Father.

Cardinal Bertone's use of the word "organized" to describe the leaks suggests that he shares the general belief in Rome that the leaks have been orchestrated by a group of people. But who is the organizer? Is there some kind of collective mind at work, or could it be just one jealous and disgruntled individual?

One more innocent question. Should we believe Cardinal Bertone? Or is this another instance of his going on the air to present misinformation and disinformation to a lapdog interviewer?

Something similar happened just over five years ago, on the popular RAI talk show Porta a Porta. On 31 May 2007 the cardinal got Bruno Vespa -- Italy's answer to Phil Donahue -- to toss him a couple of fungos on the subject of the Third Secret of Fatima, which Bertone insisted had been disclosed at last, in its entirety, on 26 June 2000.

Unfortunately for His Eminence, the interview turned into a huge "own goal", as Bertone showed the world, on live TV, that there were at least two envelopes whose contents (Sister Lucia wrote) were only to be opened in 1960. Until that interview, the cardinal had maintained that there was only one envelope, and that Lucia had never received an order from Our Lady referring to 1960.

For an excellent account of Cardinal Bertone's deception and his personal campaign to conceal the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Third Secret of Fatima, read The Secret Still Hidden by Christopher Ferrara (Good Counsel Publications, 2008).

In the old Soviet Union, it was said that you couldn't believe anything until it was officially denied. Walt thinks the same could be said of the Vatican Secretariat of State. Stay tuned.

Breaking news! We didn't have to stay tuned too long. None other than Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, has conceded that the multiple leaks of confidential documents have damaged the credibility of the Vatican. "Clearly to restore a climate of serenity and trust is a process," said Father Lombardi. (Walt's emphasis.) "It is not something that can be solved in a few days." Indeed? Indeed.

Further reading: "Benedict XVI admits Church's problems come 'from within'" posted here 11 May 2010.