Analysis: Spirit of Machiavelli stirring up unholy tension in the Vatican

CALL it Scandal City. Call it Leak City. These days the holy city has been in the news for anything but holy reasons.

The Machiavellian manoeuvring and machinations that have come to light in the Vatican recently are worthy of a novel about a sinister power struggle at a mediaeval court.

Almost daily embarrassments that have put the Vatican on the defensive could force Pope Benedict to act to clean up the image of its administration.

The outcome of a power struggle inside the Holy See may even have a longer-term effect, on the choice of the man to succeed Benedict when he dies.

From leaked letters by an archbishop who was transferred after he blew the whistle on what he saw as a web of corruption and cronyism, to a leaked poison pen memo which puts a number of cardinals in a bad light, to new suspicions about its bank, Vatican spokesmen have had their work cut out responding.

The leaks seem to be part of an internal campaign – a sort of “mutiny of the monsignors” – against the pope’s right-hand man, secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Bertone, 77, has a reputation as a heavy-handed administrator and power-broker whose style has alienated many in the Curia, the bureaucracy that runs the central administration of the Catholic Church. He came to the job, traditionally occupied by a career diplomat, in 2006 with no experience of working in the Church’s diplomatic corps, which manages its international relations.

Benedict chose him, rather, because he had worked under the future pontiff, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in the Vatican’s powerful doctrinal office.

Vatican sources say the rebels have the tacit backing of a former secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, an influential power-broker in his own right and a veteran diplomat who served under the late Pope John Paul II.

The trouble began last month when an Italian television investigative show broadcast private letters to Bertone and the Pope from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the former deputy governor of the Vatican City and currently the Vatican ambassador in Washington.

The letters, which the Vatican has confirmed are authentic, showed that Vigano was transferred after he exposed what he argued was a web of corruption, nepotism and cronyism linked to the awarding of contracts to contractors at inflated prices.

Other leaks centre on the Vatican bank, just as it is trying to put behind it past scandals.

Last week, an Italian newspaper that has published some of the leaks ran a bizarre internal Vatican memo that involved one cardinal complaining about another cardinal who spoke about a possible assassination attempt against the Pope within 12 months and openly speculated on who the next one should be.

Bertone’s detractors say he has packed the Curia with Italian friends. Some see an attempt to influence the election of the next pope and increase the chances that the papacy returns to Italy after two successive non-Italian popes.