You really wouldn't dare make this one up, yet alone conjure this story.
Vatican in chaos after butler arrested for leaks
"If you wrote this in fiction you wouldn't believe it," said Carl Anderson, a member of the board of the Vatican bank which contributed to the tumult with its no-confidence vote in its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. "No editor would let you put it in a novel."
No, not teapot or plumbing leaks. Document leaks. Secret document leaks. Sensitive secret Vatican Bank document leaks.
The detention of butler Paolo Gabriele, one of the few members of the papal household, capped one of the most convulsive weeks in recent Vatican history and threw the Holy See into chaos...
The "Vatileaks" scandal has seriously embarrassed the Vatican at a time when it is trying to show the world financial community that it has turned a page and shed its reputation as a scandal plagued tax haven.
So, who is Paolo Gabriele?
He's been the Pope's personal butler since 2006. He dresses and undresses the Pope, feeds him, rides in the Pope Mobile. He's the Pope's Mr. Jeeves. You can see pictures of this handsome suspected sleuth here:
Profile: Pope's butler Paolo Gabriele
Mr Gabriele - known to his intimates as Paoletto - usually sits in the front of the Popemobile, opening the door when the pope steps inside. Or he hands the pontiff his red cloak, when the weather gets chilly.
Although he holds no ecclesiastical qualifications, he perhaps sees more of Pope Benedict in private every day than most of the cardinals and bishops who work inside the Vatican.
What a difference a year makes.
Last year the now fired former President of the Vatican Bank provided the world economists with his outlook for the future economies of the world.
Vatican Economist: Govt Intervention Worsened Economic Crisis
Writing in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi said the “next decades risk seeing exclusively the growth of emerging countries, and not just because of their low cost of production but also due to their advanced technological level and capacity to create capital, which is far superior to that of the old West.”
Populations in these emerging countries will also become heavy consumers, he added, “attracting production investment which until now has been the privilege of western economies.”
A devout Catholic and father of five who used to be a director of Santander bank, Gotti Tedeschi has consistently said the underlying causes of the current economic crisis, particularly in Europe, is a decline in the birth rate.
You probably already know the back story of
Vatican banking intrigue.
Most recently, The Vatican Bank is trying to attain membership of MoneyVal effective on or around July, 2012. This would require transparency and has resulted in some differences of opinion within the Vatican. To be, or not to be transparent.
The Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) – a FATF-style regional body established in 1997.
In January, 2012, Cardinal Nicora was appointed by the Pope to head Vatican's new financial watchdog agency
The Jan. 19 action by Pope Benedict comes after an investigation this past September in which Italian authorities seized just over $30 million deposited by the Vatican's bank, known as the Institute for the Works of Religion, at the private Italian bank Credito Artigiano SpA.
Authorities said the Vatican's bank had not complied with Italian laws aimed at preventing money laundering by requiring the disclosure of information about account holders and beneficiaries.
The head of the Vatican bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, maintained in court that no money laundering or fraud had occurred and pointed to internal transfer orders as the source of the problem.
On May 8, 2012, the Vatican/MoneyVal negotiation details are outlined in this article:
The Vatican and transparency: Moneyval’s objections
The draft report containing Moneyval assessors’ initial observations arrived in the Vatican a couple of days ago but remains top secret.
....Cardinal Nicora has claimed that this has weakened the power and autonomy of the Vatican’s financial monitoring body. His view is shared by the President of the IOR, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi.
Vatican bank chief ousted in no-confidence vote
The president of the Vatican bank has effectively been ousted after receiving a unanimous vote of no-confidence from bank overseers for having leaked documents and failed to do his job at a critical time in the Holy See's efforts to show financial transparency, the Vatican and officials said.
So, who leaked the documents?
The Butler who has been the Pope's right hand man for six (6) years? or
The Banker, named president of the Vatican Bank IOR in 2009?
Both? Did they work together? Is one and/or both innocent of leaking?
Dan Brown, where are you? This appears to be, indeed, a tangled web of Vatican intrigue.