The next Vatican scandal: don’t say I didn’t warn you

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 16, 2019

Back in June 2016 I made a prediction about the next Vatican scandal:

This time the subject will not be sex, but that other rich lode of corruption: money.

Then the police raid on Vatican offices was followed by the resignation of the Vatican’s top police official. We still don’t know what happened but it’s abundantly clear that another “turf war” has begun—or perhaps I should say “escalated”—inside the Vatican, precipitated by an investigation into questionable financial deals.

In the National Catholic Register, Edward Pentin provides an excellent summary of what we know and what we can readily infer. It should be an astonishing story on intramural conflicts, involving outrageous charges and counter-charges, bugged offices, hacked computers, suspended audits, threatened criminal charges, and finally the forced resignation of an official who perhaps “really did know too much about corruption at the Vatican.” Unfortunately at this point the story isn’t astonishing; it fits into a pattern that it all too familiar: the pattern of infighting and profiteering that was exposed by the Vatileaks scandals, the pattern of corruption that we were told was being rooted out.

Take a look at the penultimate paragraph in Pentin’s report:

[Giani’s] resignation might also have something to do with the publication of a new book next week by the Italian investigative reporter Gianluigi Nuzzi, which threatens to herald another Vatileaks scandal.

Brace yourself.