Vatican comes out swinging to dispute media reports amid storm over scandal

Lombardi said Vatican investigators were also looking into other people “who may have cooperated in acquiring the confidential documents”.

Cardinal Parolin reiterated the theme of Pope Francis’ Angelus message from last Sunday: The reforms of the Vatican will continue. Fittipaldi was quoted by his Espresso magazine as saying it’s the price he has to pay for doing his job. That scandal centered around documents fed to the media by the pontiff’s butler.

Singled out for particular scorn has been Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of state under Pope Benedict XVI who has always been blamed for numerous administrative, financial and communications problems of Benedict’s troubled papacy.

The books in question – Nuzzi’s “Merchants in the Temple” and “Avarice” by Fittipaldi – caused a storm in the Italian media.

This was paid by the foundation of a Vatican hospital for children. It said they were being investigated on suspicion of “complicity in committing a crime”.

The Vatican has condemned the books and vowed to take legal steps to defend its reputation. The Congregation for Evangelization, for example, issued a strong statement denying charges that appeared in the daily Corriere dela Sera, claiming that real-estate properties owned by the dicasteries were rented out to favored individuals at below-market rates.

However, Cardinal Parolin said “God can write straight with crooked lines”, and said although the leaking of Vatican documents is “an attack on the Church”, the situation can be “turned to the good” if welcomed with a “spirit of conversion”.

He acknowledged, however, that Francis’ reform agenda has run into “resistance”. But he said the key was to “transform what can be normal resistance in the face of change into tools for reform”.