Vatican clergy and employees will be issued with an identity card
complete with a microchip-tracking device in sweeping new security
measures designed to prevent a repeat of the Vatileaks scandal.
Much tighter controls have already been introduced for anyone seeking
access or photocopies of the Holy See's archives, dossiers and
documents.
The Papal Apartments, which include the living quarters of Pope
Benedict XVI and the offices of his personal staff inside the Apostolic
Palace, are totally off limits to anyone without strict authorisation.
Slovenian priest, Mitja Leskovar, an anti-espionage expert nicknamed
'Monsignor 007', is in charge of implementing the new security
procedures with the identity cards expected to be introduced from
January 1.
Leskovar, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia under Communism, is
responsible for the transmission of confidential documents between the
Vatican and its papal nuncios or diplomats inside the Secretariat of
State and also supervises all requests for document photocopying within
the secretariat.
Thousands of clerical and lay staff working inside the walls of the
Vatican from the Apostolic Palace to the Secretariat of State will be
affected by the tighter scrutiny that will also enable their superiors
to monitor when they clock in and out.
The security shake-up was revealed after Claudio Sciarpelletti, the
computer expert convicted of aiding and abetting the pope's former
butler Paolo Gabriele in the Vatileaks scandal, dropped his appeal on
Saturday.
The move came as the three judges who assessed the case raised doubts
about Sciarpelletti's credibility and the friendship between the two
men.
Sciarpelletti was convicted in November of aiding and abetting
Gabriele, who himself was convicted of stealing the pontiff's private
documents and leaking them to an Italian journalist in an embarrassing
security breach that rocked the Vatican earlier this year.
According to a report in the Italian daily La Stampa, Gabriele's
replacement – Sandro Mariotti known as 'Sandrone'– is prohibited from
carrying out any secretarial tasks or even sharing an office with the
pope's personal secretaries, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein and Monsignor
Alfred Xuereb, as Gabriele did in the past.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told The Daily
Telegraph these kind of security measures had been talked about within
the Vatican for years but declined to comment on any details and said he
did not know the precise timing of the measures.