"Brutal" attack on the Pope

The Vatican is clearly annoyed at the negative press generated by recent leaks, arrests, resignations, and allegations.

On Tuesday, the Vatican undersecretary of state, Archbishop Angelo Becciu, called the reports a "brutal" attack on the Pope.

The trouble with the narrative in the media is that the focus is on who leaked Vatican documents and whether the leaks were orchestrated as part of a power struggle. In other words, it's juicy gossip that has captivated the public imagination. That is not the real story.

Yes, it is a betrayal of trust for the Pope's butler to steal documents and give or sell the material to a journalist. And it would be fascinating if the leaks turns out to be part of a larger plot to discredit the current regime and make it more difficult for the Pope to pick his successor. That sort of palace intrigue would be media gold.

Unfortunately, the real story is not being told. Or at least not being told effectively. Indignation over stolen papers needs to be placed in proper context. There have been embarrassing disclosures of incompetence and corruption in the management of the Vatican's finances.

The leaks began in January with the publication of letters written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano when he was secretary-general of the Governor's Office of Vatican City State. The archbishop, who now is nuncio to the United States, warned of corruption, abuse of power, a lack of transparency in awarding Vatican contracts and opposition to financial reforms 

Later leaks included a letter from a Vatican official questioning the current reform of the Vatican's finance laws. 

Lombardi told journalists Monday the leaks' scandal and the recent dismissal of the president of the Vatican Bank were "distinct and separate" cases. Bank president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was fired Thursday by the bank's board of supervisors, who censured him for neglecting his duties amid worsening management problems.

I thought confession and repentance were required for sin. Instead, the Vatican's example is defensiveness and lashing out at critics. "Brutal" attack, indeed.

And let's not forget the carefully orchestrated attacks on women religious, homosexuals, contraception, and any regulation of Catholic institutions in America. Even the Girl Scouts have become a target for the inquisitive Bishops. The Bishops have been very, very busy, cracking the whip on the faithful and carpet bombing political targets in the culture war.

The best assessment of this mess I have seen comes from Fr. Doug Koesel:

The Vatican is hypocritical and duplicitous. Their belief is always that someone else needs to clean up their act; the divorced, the gays, the media, the US nuns, the Americans who were using the wrong words to pray, the seminaries, etc. It never occurs to the powers that be that the source of the problem is the structure itself. We can say that now with certainty as regards the sex abuse crisis. It was largely the structure of the church itself, the way men were trained and isolated, made loyal to the system at all costs and not to the person, that gave us the scandalous cover-up.

For those of us that want to repair the world and answer the prayers of the broken, the antics of sexual purity police and money changers has grown tiresome. The body of Christ has a yeast infection - the yeast of the Pharisees.