VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
by John L Allen Jr on Mar. 02, 2012 NCR Today
In the latest round of the Vatican leaks scandal, an Italian newspaper on Wednesday published two confidential letters documenting a failed 2011 effort by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s powerful Secretary of State, to take control of an important Italian Catholic university and hospital system.
Release of the documents is seen as another embarrassment for Bertone, whose effectiveness had already been called into question by the leaks scandal and other episodes since Benedict XVI named Bertone to the position in 2006.
The letters, and their aftermath, also document a case in which Pope Benedict XVI sided with local bishops against an attempt to centralize additional ecclesiastical power in the Vatican.
The tug-of war centers on the “Giuseppe Toniolo Institute of Superior Studies,” effectively the governing body for the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, a sprawling academic operation based in Milan but with outposts up and down Italy. Its affiliated institutions include the famed Gemelli Clinic in Rome, where a private suite of rooms is always reserved for the pope.
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