The scandal first came to light in late January 2012 in a television program aired in Italy under the name of The Untouchables (Gli intoccabili), and escalated in May 2012 when Gianluigi Nuzzi published a book entitled His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI consisting of confidential letters and memos.The scandal appears to have been less about the financial corruption than that the information was leaked.Among the documents were letters written to the pope and to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, by then apostolic nuncio to the United States, Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, complaining of corruption in Vatican finances and a campaign of defamation against him.
Paolo Gabriele, who had been the pope's personal butler since 2007, leaked the stolen information to Gianluigi Nuzzi. He was arrested on 23 May 2012 after confidential letters and documents addressed to the pope and other Vatican officials were found in his Vatican apartment.A separate investigation took place concerning the financial and administrative problems.
The Vatican probe into the leaks worked along several tracks, with Vatican magistrates pursuing the criminal investigation and the Vatican secretariat of state an administrative probe. In March 2012 Pope Benedict appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the leaks. The three cardinals appointed by Benedict acted in a supervisory role, looking beyond the narrow criminal scope of the leaks to interview broadly across the Vatican bureaucracy; they purportedly uncovered a sexual and blackmail scandal.One outcome of the investigation appears to have been that Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who had been president of the Vatican Bank (IOR) since 2009, was forced from his position in May 2012, although this seems to have been connected with other controversies not necessarily related to the cardinals' investigation. On the other hand, it's hard to ignore that once he became pope, Bergoglio put his corrupt ally Battista Ricca into the position of IOR president.
Although Francis's "Who am I to judge?" remarks on July 29, 2013 were very well publicized, it's less well known that they were made in the context of a question about Battista Ricca and his flagrant homosexual background.
Ricca was also a subject of earlier complaints by Abp Viganò at the time of the 2012 Vatileaks scandal. The visitor with insights into the Italian press sent me a link to a much more recent story in il Giornale from September 3, 2018. The translation is via Google translate with a few emendations of clear errors:
Another burning case is likely to shake the Vatican. The polemics raised by the publication of the so-called "Viganò dossier" are not allayed. The document of the apostolic nuncio was announced a week ago, but the alleged revelations brought to the forefront continue to hold the bank.The visitor comments,The last to express themselves on the content of those pages, in order of time, was the journalist Sandro Magister.
. . . Magister, in the interview with La Verità , reported the existence of another affair, the one related to Monsignor Ricca : "There is a twin case, perhaps even more embarrassing: that of Monsignor Battista Ricca. Seventh heaven" [see below]. The clergyman in question would have been responsible for behaviors not in line with the provisions of Catholic doctrine and tradition: "In Montevideo - Magister said - between 1999 and 2001, he lived under the eyes of everyone with his lover , the former captain of the Swiss army Patrick Haari ". And again: "He attended places of appointment with young homosexuals, once he was involved in a fight and another was discovered in an elevator blocked inside the nunciature with an eighteen-year-old known to the Uruguayan police. He was recalled to Rome, his career did not suffer damage, indeed began again as if nothing had happened ".
Monsignor Ricca would have been appointed to the IOR prelature despite these events. Pope Francis was aware of these facts? A similar question was answered by Magister: "In 2013 the Pope was aware and consenting: the nuncios warned him and the documentation sent by the Uruguayan bishops was complete." A question on Ricca and the gay lobby replied: 'I did what the canon law sends to do, the Investigatio previa, and there is nothing that they are accused of". "The offices - specified the journalist - had omitted the most troubled passages, but he had submitted the true documentation and did not speak". Then the clarification: "Ricca never repented. He went out on the Espresso and did not react, with his friends he talked about chatter. Francesco also dismissed them as talk. By pronouncing the famous phrase 'Who am I to judge?' - Magister pointed out -, Francesco referred to the archetypal case of Ricca. With these words, Bergoglio overturned in his favor a public affair that could have undermined his credibility. When he refers to gay issues in the media world, the Pope does something clever. "The clash in the Vatican, meanwhile, seems to have just begun.
Reference to "seventh heaven"...it the translation of name of Sandro Magister's blog septimo cielo carried by larepubblica.it went behind a subscription paywall about a year ago.The Vatican had no more attentive theologically astute observer tracking it. And they hate him. I think they tried to have him suppressed, so now he's more remote for me.The separate Vatican investigation into the financial irregularities in the IOR referred to above appears to have collapsed with a second Vatileaks scandal -- sometimes referred to as Vatileaks II -- in 2017, which I will discuss tomorrow. However, it appears from the information we have that Ricca was placed in his position by Francis specifically to forestall any serious review of the IOR.
But beyond that, the Wikipedia entry cited above refers to a dossier on the scandals as of 2012:
On 17 December 2012 the Pope received a report on "Vatican lobbies" prepared by cardinals Julián Herranz, Salvatore De Giorgi, a former archbishop of Palermo, and Jozef Tomko. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, speaking on Vatican Radio on 23 February 2013, strongly criticized media coverage of the report as a financial scandal which purportedly became, upon the cardinals' internal investigation, a gay sex and blackmail scandal as well.It's been speculated that this dossier was the proximate cause of Benedict's abdication in February 2013. While the contents remain confidential, it's hard not to speculate that Ricca is a key figure in making sure the issues that are apparently discussed in it are not addressed.Although the dossier was available only to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and the investigators themselves, the latter were free to discuss the results of their investigation with the Cardinal electors of the March 2013 papal conclave, and the dossier itself was to have been given to Benedict's successor as Pope, Francis.
