Cardinal Bertone With Some Weirdness

If you've been following the saga of all the Vatican leaks stuff, you know that one of the names that pops up a lot is that of the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. And by "popping up," we mean "the subject of a conspiracy to have him removed." Cardinal Bertone's reaction to all this, per Zenit, is to blame the media.

In regard to the way that some of the media have engaged in aggression against the Pope and some Vatican officials, the secretary of state said: “Many journalists play at imitating Dan Brown. They continue to invent fables and re-propose legends.”

Really? This is the media's fault? This reminds me of another old Chris Rock routine, but I won't link to it here because of the vulgar language. A lot of you probably know the one I'm talking about, anyway. So what does His Eminence think about the apparent inter-Curial war going on?

Basically, he says the butler did it.

And he assured that there is no “involvement of cardinals or of fights between ecclesiastical personalities for the conquest of an imaginary power...”


According to the secretary of state there is a “relentless and repeated attempt to separate, to create divisions between the Holy Father and his collaborators, and between the collaborators themselves.” 


There is a desire to “strike those who are dedicated with greater passion and also greater personal toil for the good of the Church.” 


The Secretary of State confirmed the gravity of the “publication of a multiplicity of letters and documents sent to the Holy Father, by persons who have the right to privacy,” which constitutes, as we have confirmed many times, an immoral act of unheard of gravity.”

This is problematic for me. Let  me be clear that I'm not in the camp who thinks that Cardinal Bertone is a villain in all this. All I've done is acknowledge that there are factions and that the interests of the Holy Father are being ignored by all sides. The difficulty I have here is that, regardless of his intentions, Cardinal Bertone is doing the exact same thing. When he denies that there is Curial infighting, he sounds like Baghdad Bob. I'm not sure that such a statement would be true in all of Church history.

How about leaving those kinds of comments off the record or something? Not only does he deny the maneuvering going on, but in the same interview, he pretty much admits that the documents from the leaks are legit. I'm not sure how these two propositions (1. Curia is one big happy family & 2. the leaked stuff is genuine) can both be true. Are we to believe that the people writing in their private letters were lying so that the documents could be leaked? That's an even bigger conspiracy than what folks are talking about now. I hate to say it, but these comments look more like a guy trying to demonstrate that his own position is secure, rather than someone who has Pope Benedict's back in all this.

Given where this situation is now, I don't think anybody would bat an eye if +Bertone or the Pope himself came out and said that there are some major issues, that the Church has enemies, and that, yes, some of those enemies are nestled in the heart of the Church.