It looks like the Pope might have his Pop­pet (his pup­pet Pope) already in mind:

Pope may change con­clave rules before leav­ing: Vat­i­can

By Philip Pul­lel­la

VATICAN CITY | Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:20pm EST

(Reuters) — Pope Bene­dict may change rules gov­ern­ing the con­clave that will secret­ly elect his suc­ces­sor, a move that could move up the glob­al meet­ing of car­di­nals who are already in touch about who could best lead Catholics through a peri­od of cri­sis.

The Vat­i­can appears to be aim­ing to have a new pope elect­ed and then for­mal­ly installed before Palm Sun­day on March 24 so he can pre­side at Holy Week ser­vices lead­ing to East­er.

The rule changes could mean that the con­clave in the Sis­tine Chapel, where car­di­nals will choose the next leader of the 1.2 bil­lion mem­ber Roman Catholic Church, might be able to start before March 15, which is cur­rent­ly the ear­li­est it can begin.

Father Fed­eri­co Lom­bar­di, the Vat­i­can spokesman, said on Wednes­day that Bene­dict, who will lose all pow­er when he abdi­cates on Feb­ru­ary 28, was con­sid­er­ing issu­ing a “Motu Pro­prio,” a per­son­al doc­u­ment which has the force of Church law and address­es a spe­cif­ic need.

A 1996 apos­tolic con­sti­tu­tion by Pope John Paul stip­u­lates that a con­clave must start between 15 and 20 days after the papa­cy becomes vacant, mean­ing it can­not begin before March 15 under the cur­rent rules giv­en Bene­dic­t’s date to step down.

Some car­di­nals believe a con­clave should start soon­er than March 15 in order to reduce the time in which the Roman Catholic Church will be with­out a leader at a time of cri­sis.

Bene­dic­t’s papa­cy was rocked by scan­dals over the sex abuse of chil­dren by priests in Europe and the Unit­ed States, most of which pre­ced­ed his time in office but came to light dur­ing it.

His reign also saw Mus­lim anger after he com­pared Islam to vio­lence. Jews were upset over his reha­bil­i­ta­tion of a Holo­caust denier. Dur­ing a scan­dal over the Church’s busi­ness deal­ings, his but­ler was con­vict­ed of leak­ing his pri­vate papers.

Bene­dict and his pre­de­ces­sor made sure any man award­ed a car­di­nal’s red hat was firm­ly in line with key Catholic doc­trine sup­port­ing priest­ly celiba­cy and Vat­i­can author­i­ty and oppos­ing abor­tion, women priests, gay mar­riage and oth­er lib­er­al reforms.

Car­di­nals world­wide have begun infor­mal con­sul­ta­tions by phone and email to build a pro­file of the man they think would be best suit­ed to lead the Church through rough seas. Some 117 car­di­nals under age of 80 will be eli­gi­ble for the con­clave.

CONCERNS ABOUT EARLY CONCLAVE

But some in the Church believe that an ear­ly con­clave would give an unfair advan­tage to car­di­nals already in Rome and work­ing in the Curia, the Vat­i­can’s cen­tral admin­is­tra­tion.

“A short peri­od before a con­clave helps the cur­ial car­di­nals in Rome oper­at­ing on their home turf,” said Father Tom Reese, senior fel­low at the Wood­stock The­o­log­i­cal Cen­ter at George­town Uni­ver­si­ty and author of sev­er­al books on the Vat­i­can.

“The cur­ial car­di­nals are the ones that car­di­nals from out­side Rome turn to for opin­ions about the oth­er car­di­nals. The longer the pre-con­clave peri­od, the more time non-cur­ial car­di­nals have to talk to each oth­er and to get to know each oth­er. The longer the peri­od pri­or to the con­clave, the less depen­dent out­side car­di­nals are on the cur­ial car­di­nals.”

There is spec­u­la­tion in the Vat­i­can that, if the rules are amend­ed, the con­clave could start on March 10, last­ing a few days, and the new pope could be installed on March 17, both Sun­days. But much would depend on the length of the con­clave.

Dur­ing the con­clave, car­di­nals live in a res­i­dence inside the Vat­i­can and vote twice in the Sis­tine Chapel. They are not allowed to com­mu­ni­cate in any way with the out­side world, nor are they allowed to lis­ten to radio, watch tele­vi­sion, make phone calls or use the inter­net.

Bene­dict has hand-picked more than half the men who will elect his suc­ces­sor. The rest were cho­sen by the late Pope John Paul, a Pole with whom the Ger­man pope shared a deter­mi­na­tion to reassert a more ortho­dox Catholi­cism in the new mil­len­ni­um.

A num­ber of car­di­nals have said they would be open to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a pope from the devel­op­ing world, be it Latin Amer­i­ca, Africa or Asia, as opposed to anoth­er from Europe, where the Church has lost cred­i­bil­i­ty and is polar­ized.

“I can imag­ine tak­ing a step towards a black pope, an African pope or a Latin Amer­i­can pope,” Car­di­nal Kurt Koch, a Swiss Vat­i­can offi­cial who will enter the con­clave to choose the next pope, told Reuters in an inter­view last week.

...

Move along, noth­ing to see here...

Vat­i­can: Trans­fer has nada to do with secret dossier reports
1:59p.m. EST Feb­ru­ary 22, 2013

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Bene­dict XVI is clear­ing the decks of his pon­tif­i­cate, tweak­ing the rules of the con­clave, finess­ing the reli­gious rites used to launch the next papa­cy and mak­ing some eye­brow-rais­ing final appoint­ments before he retires next week.

...

And on Fri­day, the Vat­i­can announced Bene­dict had trans­ferred a top offi­cial in the sec­re­tari­at of state, Mon­sign­or Ettore Balestrero, to Colom­bia — an appoint­ment that came amid swirling media spec­u­la­tion about the con­tents of a con­fi­den­tial report into the Vat­i­can’s leaks scan­dal.

Ital­ian news­pa­pers have been rife for days with unsourced reports about the con­tents of the secret dossier that three car­di­nals pre­pared for Bene­dict after inves­ti­gat­ing the ori­gins of the leaks. The scan­dal erupt­ed last year after papers tak­en from the pope’s desk were pub­lished in a block­buster book. The pope’s but­ler was con­vict­ed in Octo­ber of aggra­vat­ed theft, and lat­er par­doned.

The Vat­i­can has refused to com­ment on the reports, which have claimed the con­tents of the dossier, deliv­ered to Bene­dict in Decem­ber, were a fac­tor in his deci­sion to resign. Bene­dict him­self has said he sim­ply no longer has the “strength of mind and body” to car­ry on.

...

Balestrero was head of the Holy See’s del­e­ga­tion to the Coun­cil of Europe’s Mon­ey­val com­mit­tee, which eval­u­at­ed the Vat­i­can’s anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing and anti-ter­ror financ­ing mea­sures. He has had a hand in the efforts by the Vat­i­can bank to be more trans­par­ent and is close to Bene­dic­t’s No. 2, the Vat­i­can sec­re­tary of state Car­di­nal Tar­ci­sio Bertone.

The Vat­i­can sub­mit­ted itself to Mon­ey­val’s eval­u­a­tion in a bid to improve its rep­u­ta­tion in the finan­cial world.

The Vat­i­can passed the test on the first try in August, and Mon­ey­val said it had made great progress in a short amount of time. But the Holy See received poor or fail­ing grades for its finan­cial watch­dog agency and its bank, long the source of some of the Vat­i­can’s more sto­ried scan­dals.

Some of the doc­u­ments leaked in the midst of the “Vatileaks” scan­dal con­cerned dif­fer­ences of opin­ion about the lev­el of finan­cial trans­paren­cy the Holy See should pro­vide about the bank, the Insti­tute for Reli­gious Works. How­ev­er, Balestrero him­self was­n’t named in any sig­nif­i­cant way in the leaks.

The Vat­i­can is now work­ing to com­ply with Mon­ey­val’s rec­om­men­da­tions before the next round of eval­u­a­tion. Lom­bar­di said the lengthy Mon­ey­val process would sim­ply be han­dled by some­one else now that Balestrero is leav­ing.

Lom­bar­di said Balestrero’s trans­fer had been months in the works, was a clear pro­mo­tion and had noth­ing to do with what the Vat­i­can con­sid­ers base­less report­ing.

...

Asked if the trans­fer had any­thing to do with the broad­er Vatileaks inves­ti­ga­tion, Lom­bar­di said he was declin­ing com­ment in line with the Vat­i­can’s deci­sion not to con­firm or deny any specifics of the inves­ti­ga­tion.

Span­ish Car­di­nal Julian Her­ranz, the Opus Dei canon lawyer who head­ed the car­di­nal’s com­mis­sion, has spo­ken in vague terms about the report and the well-known divi­sions with­in the Vat­i­can Curia that were exposed by the leaks.

“Cer­tain­ly, it has been said that this was a hypoth­e­sis behind the pope’s res­ig­na­tion, but I think we need to respect his con­science,” Her­ranz told Radio24 last week. “Cer­tain­ly, there are divi­sions and there have always been divi­sions, as well as clash­es along ide­o­log­i­cal lines. These aren’t new, but yes, they have a weight.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/21/pope-retired-amid-gay-bishop-blackmail-inquiry

Report: Papal res­ig­na­tion linked to inves­ti­ga­tion into ‘black­mailed gay Vat­i­can offi­cials’

Pope’s staff decline to con­firm or deny La Repub­bli­ca claims link­ing ‘Vatileaks’ affair and dis­cov­ery of ‘black­mailed gay cler­gy’

John Hoop­er in Rome
The Guardian, Thurs­day 21 Feb­ru­ary 2013

A poten­tial­ly explo­sive report has linked the res­ig­na­tion of Pope Bene­dict XVI to the dis­cov­ery of a net­work of gay prelates in the Vat­i­can, some of whom – the report said – were being black­mailed by out­siders.

The pope’s spokesman declined to con­firm or deny the report, which was car­ried by the Ital­ian dai­ly news­pa­per La Repub­bli­ca.

The paper said the pope had tak­en the deci­sion on 17 Decem­ber that he was going to resign – the day he received a dossier com­piled by three car­di­nals del­e­gat­ed to look into the so-called “Vatileaks” affair.

Last May Pope Bene­dic­t’s but­ler, Pao­lo Gabriele, was arrest­ed and charged with hav­ing stolen and leaked papal cor­re­spon­dence that depict­ed the Vat­i­can as a seething hotbed of intrigue and infight­ing.

Accord­ing to La Repub­bli­ca, the dossier com­pris­ing “two vol­umes of almost 300 pages – bound in red” had been con­signed to a safe in the papal apart­ments and would be deliv­ered to the pope’s suc­ces­sor upon his elec­tion.

The news­pa­per said the car­di­nals described a num­ber of fac­tions, includ­ing one whose mem­bers were “unit­ed by sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion”.

In an appar­ent quo­ta­tion from the report, La Repub­bli­ca said some Vat­i­can offi­cials had been sub­ject to “exter­nal influ­ence” from lay­men with whom they had links of a “world­ly nature”. The paper said this was a clear ref­er­ence to black­mail.

It quot­ed a source “very close to those who wrote [the car­di­nal’s report]” as say­ing: “Every­thing revolves around the non-obser­vance of the sixth and sev­enth com­mand­ments.”

The sev­enth enjoins against theft. The sixth for­bids adul­tery, but is linked in Catholic doc­trine to the pro­scrib­ing of homo­sex­u­al acts.

La Repub­bli­ca said the car­di­nals’ report iden­ti­fied a series of meet­ing places in and around Rome. They includ­ed a vil­la out­side the Ital­ian cap­i­tal, a sauna in a Rome sub­urb, a beau­ty par­lour in the cen­tre, and a for­mer uni­ver­si­ty res­i­dence that was in use by a provin­cial Ital­ian arch­bish­op.

Father Fed­eri­co Lom­bar­di, the Vat­i­can spokesman, said: “Nei­ther the car­di­nals’ com­mis­sion nor I will make com­ments to con­firm or deny the things that are said about this mat­ter. Let each one assume his or her own respon­si­bil­i­ties. We shall not be fol­low­ing up on the obser­va­tions that are made about this.”

He added that inter­pre­ta­tions of the report were cre­at­ing “a ten­sion that is the oppo­site of what the pope and the church want” in the approach to the con­clave of car­di­nals that will elect Bene­dic­t’s suc­ces­sor. Anoth­er Ital­ian dai­ly, Cor­riere del­la Sera, allud­ed to the dossier soon after the pope announced his res­ig­na­tion on 11 Feb­ru­ary, describ­ing its con­tents as “dis­turb­ing”.

The three-man com­mis­sion of inquiry into the Vatileaks affair was head­ed by a Span­ish car­di­nal, Julián Her­ranz. He was assist­ed by Car­di­nal Sal­va­tore De Gior­gi, a for­mer arch­bish­op of Paler­mo, and the Slo­vak car­di­nal Jozef Tomko, who once head­ed the Vat­i­can’s depart­ment for mis­sion­ar­ies.

Pope Bene­dict has said he will stand down at the end of this month; the first pope to resign vol­un­tar­i­ly since Celes­tine V more than sev­en cen­turies ago. Since announc­ing his depar­ture he has twice appar­ent­ly referred to machi­na­tions inside the Vat­i­can, say­ing that divi­sions “mar the face of the church”, and warned against “the temp­ta­tions of pow­er”.

La Repub­bli­ca’s report was the lat­est in a string of claims that a gay net­work exists in the Vat­i­can. In 2007 a senior offi­cial was sus­pend­ed from the con­gre­ga­tion, or depart­ment, for the priest­hood, after he was filmed in a “sting” organ­ised by an Ital­ian tele­vi­sion pro­gramme while appar­ent­ly mak­ing sex­u­al over­tures to a younger man.

In 2010 a cho­ris­ter was dis­missed for alleged­ly procur­ing male pros­ti­tutes for a papal gen­tle­man-in-wait­ing. A few months lat­er a week­ly news mag­a­zine used hid­den cam­eras to record priests vis­it­ing gay clubs and bars and hav­ing sex.

The Vat­i­can does not con­demn homo­sex­u­als. But it teach­es that gay sex is “intrin­si­cal­ly dis­or­dered”. Pope Bene­dict has barred sex­u­al­ly active gay men from study­ing for the priest­hood.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/02/secret-vatican-report/62419/

Did a Secret Vat­i­can Report on Gay Sex and Black­mail Bring Down the Pope?

ALEXANDER ABAD-SANTOS FEB 22, 2013

Pope Bene­dict XVI has claimed that he’s resign­ing the papa­cy next week because of old age. But accord­ing to the major Ital­ian news­pa­per La Repub­bli­ca, the real rea­son he resigned is because he did not want to deal the reper­cus­sions of a secret 300-page Vat­i­can dossier that alleged­ly found, among oth­er things, an under­ground net­work of high-rank­ing gay cler­gy, com­plete with sex par­ties and shady deal­ings with the already scan­dal-rid­den Vat­i­can bank. Here’s what we know:

- The report sounds men­ac­ing. Accord­ing to La Repub­bli­ca, the dossier comes in two vol­umes, “two fold­ers hard-bound in red” with the head­er “pon­tif­i­cal secret.”

- Pope Bene­dict asked for the inves­ti­ga­tion. “The paper said the pope had tak­en the deci­sion on 17 Decem­ber that he was going to resign — the day he received a dossier com­piled by three car­di­nals del­e­gat­ed to look into the so-called ‘Vatileaks’ affair,” accord­ing to the The Guardian’s trans­la­tion of the report.

- The Vat­i­can has a Vel­vet Mafia — and the Vel­vet Mafia is being black­mailed. The dossier alleges that a gay lob­by exists with­in the Church, and has some sort of con­trol on the careers of those in the Vat­i­can. The dossier also alleges that this group isn’t as covert as it thinks — and got black­mailed by peo­ple on the out­side. “The car­di­nals were said to have uncov­ered an under­ground gay net­work, whose mem­bers organ­ise sex­u­al meet­ings in sev­er­al venues in Rome and Vat­i­can City, leav­ing them prone to black­mail,” reads The Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald’s trans­la­tion of the report, and The Guardian adds: “They includ­ed a vil­la out­side the Ital­ian cap­i­tal, a sauna in a Rome sub­urb, a beau­ty par­lour in the cen­tre, and a for­mer uni­ver­si­ty res­i­dence that was in use by a provin­cial Ital­ian arch­bish­op.” Some impor­tant con­text on this still pow­er­ful group:

This isn’t the first time there’s been talk of a gay fac­tion inside the high­est ranks of the Church. Indeed, it isn’t even the first time that La Repub­bli­ca has writ­ten about it. Back in 2010, Ghine­du Ehiem, a Niger­ian cler­gy­man who was part of one of the Vat­i­can’s pres­ti­gious choirs, was dis­missed after police wire­taps found him nego­ti­at­ing for male pros­ti­tutes. La Repub­blic­a­had those wire­taps.
And “in 2007 a senior offi­cial was sus­pend­ed from the con­gre­ga­tion, or depart­ment, for the priest­hood, after he was filmed in a ‘sting’ organ­ised by an Ital­ian tele­vi­sion pro­gramme while appar­ent­ly mak­ing sex­u­al over­tures to a younger man,” accord­ing to The Guardian — evi­dence the paper says con­nects to a gay net­work with­in the Holy See.

- La Repub­bli­ca’s sourc­ing seems to have been cor­rob­o­rat­ed. So how much of this new scan­dal should you believe? Well, La Repub­bli­ca is not the only pub­li­ca­tion with an out­line of this scan­dalous dossier. Panora­ma, an Ital­ian week­ly, has a sim­i­lar report out late this week and accord­ing to the AFP, both pub­li­ca­tions have sources (per­haps the same source) who said the same thing: that the inves­ti­ga­tion shows trans­gres­sions that “revolve around the sixth and sev­enth com­mand­ments” — “Thou shall not com­mit adul­tery” and “Thou shall not steal.” It’s assumed in mul­ti­ple reports that homo­sex­u­al sex acts fall under the “adul­tery” umbrel­la.

- The Vat­i­can’s bank sounds fishy. La Repub­bli­ca says that the sev­enth com­mand­ment (“Though shall not steal”) has to do with the Insti­tute of Reli­gious Works, the Vat­i­can’s Bank. “The three car­di­nals con­tin­ued to work beyond 17 Decem­ber last year. They came up with the lat­est events con­cern­ing the IOR — here you go to the sev­enth com­mand­ment,” reads the report, accord­ing to a rough Google Trans­la­tion. On Feb­ru­ary 15, Pope Bene­dict appoint­ed Ernst von Frey­berg, a Ger­man lawyer, to head the scan­dalous bank.

- The Vat­i­can’s response isn’t exact­ly com­fort­ing. They Church isn’t flat-out deny­ing the inflam­ma­to­ry alle­ga­tions from La Repub­bli­ca, and they’ve pulled the clas­sic act of nei­ther con­firm­ing nor deny­ing. Vat­i­can spokesman Father Fered­eri­co Lom­bar­di said in a state­ment:

Nei­ther the car­di­nals’ com­mis­sion nor I will make com­ments to con­firm or deny the things that are said about this mat­ter. Let each one assume his or her own respon­si­bil­i­ties. We shall not be fol­low­ing up on the obser­va­tions that are made about this.

- Pope Bene­dic­t’s suc­ces­sor will have a rough first day. If this damn­ing dossier was real­ly a big enough deal to have forced the first papal res­ig­na­tion in 600 years, who gets to deal with it? That under­tak­ing will go to Bene­dic­t’s suc­ces­sor. Accord­ing to La Repub­bli­ca, the dossier will stay in a secret papal safe and deliv­ered to Bene­dic­t’s suc­ces­sor when­ev­er he is elect­ed — and that isn’t all, La Repub­bli­ca said this gay black­mail thing is just the first in a series of arti­cles by the paper.

@Robert Wil­son–

Won­der if the pedo/blackmail scan­dals here will over­lap the Penn State inves­ti­ga­tion, with the VERY con­nect­ed Louis Freeh hav­ing head­ed up the inves­ti­ga­tion (cov­er-up?)

The “La Repub­li­ca” alle­ga­tions involve the IOR as well. Won­der who was black­mail­ing who and over what?

Q: What do Wal­mart and the Vat­i­can have in com­mon?

A: Boys’ under­wear half off.

Best,

Dave Emory

@Dave: I had to admit I chuck­led at the (macabre) joke at the end.....