Pope Benedict delivered a soul-searching homily to mark Pentecost Sunday before a crowded St Peter’s square but, in common with the Vatican’s official newspaper, the weary-looking pontiff drew a veil of silence over the arrest of his personal butler who has been formally charged with stealing confidential papal documents.
Paolo Gabriele, 46, remained incarcerated in a “secure room” within the city state as papal investigators continued their questioning over large quantities of sensitive documents found in the Vatican apartment he shared with his family and how they reached the Italian media with sensational effect.
The most damning leaks related to claims of corruption and financial mismanagement in the Vatican made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, papal nuncio to Washington.
A Vatican source suggested further arrests could follow, with friends of the butler and media commentators dismissing the idea that a man described as simple, reserved and devoted to the Pope could have acted alone.
Separately, details emerged on Sunday about the shock dismissal last week of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi as head of the Vatican bank, including failure to explain “the dissemination of documents last known to be in the president’s possession”.
However Carl Anderson, a US lawyer and secretary of the four-man lay “board of superintendence” that delivered a vote of no confidence in Mr Gotti Tedeschi last Thursday, was quoted in media reports as saying his dismissal was not linked to the arrest of the Pope’s butler.
The board’s memorandum, released to the media, elaborated nine reasons for his sacking, starting with “failure to carry out basic duties incumbent upon the president to perform” and ending with “polarising” the bank and “alienating personnel” and “progressively erratic” behaviour.
It made no mention of an investigation by Italian authorities into the bank’s alleged breach of anti-money laundering regulations.
“My love for the Pope prevails over every other sentiment, even the defence of my own reputation which is being basely questioned,” Mr Gotti Tedeschi, who is also a professor of ethics at Milan’s Catholic University, said in explaining his reluctance to comment on his dismissal which was confirmed by a supervisory board of cardinals.
Nevertheless, the loss within two days of the banker he appointed in 2009 to put the Vatican’s finances in order and then his personal valet has reinforced the image of an increasingly frail and isolated Pope surrounded by intrigue and power struggles revolving around his number two, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
“The Church… must with urgency recover the trust of its followers,” commented Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, writing in Corriere della Sera, Italy’s leading daily, suggesting that Pope Benedict, like Jesus, had been betrayed and that the Church should ask for pardon to all.
Citing the New Testament on Saturday, the Pope said the Church was being battered by wind, rain and floods but being founded on rock it would not fall. In his Sunday homily, he suggested that people were living in a “new Babel”, riven by conflicting human and spiritual impulses.
But he made no reference to what has become known as the “Vatileaks” scandal that his spokesman said had “saddened and pained” him. No mention either was made by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s newspaper that featured in the leaked documents as being involved in Machiavellian intrigue.
Sunday’s mass was also attended by a group of demonstrators asking for “truth and justice” over the disappearance in 1983 of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi who lived in the Vatican with her father, an employee.
One of the leaked memos, dated last year, advised the Pope not to comment on the matter that has gripped the Italian media since she vanished, with her brother Paolo leading a campaign to establish her fate.