Vatican Denies Gay Blackmail Rumours

By Dario Thuburn
CNews
February 22, 2013

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/

With just days to go before Pope Benedict XVI's resignation, the Vatican is battling rumours that his decision was triggered by an explosive report on intrigue in its hallowed corridors of power.

The secret report compiled by a committee of three cardinals for the pope's eyes only was the result of a broad inquiry into leaks of secret Vatican papers last year -- a scandal known as "Vatileaks".

The cardinals questioned dozens of Vatican officials and presented the pope with their final report in December 2012, just before Benedict pardoned his former butler Paolo Gabriele who had been jailed for leaking the papal memos.

The Panorama news weekly and the Repubblica daily said on Thursday that the cardinals' report contained allegations of corruption and of blackmail attempts against gay Vatican clergymen, as well as favouritism based on gay relationships.

The Vatican has declined to comment on these two reports, with spokesman Federico Lombardi saying they were "conjectures, fictions and opinions."

In an interview with El Pais, one of the investigating cardinals, Julian Herranz, said the scandal was "a bubble" that had been "inflated".