BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Now that I have translated the two documents relating to Paolo Gabriele's crime of aggravated theft - for now ,the only immediately prosecutable action among a complex set of elements that make up his unconscionable betrayal of the Pope and of the Pope's trust in him - one may better evaluate this commentary by Lucetta Scaraffia, one of the few who came out right away to comment on the documents and what they show. I think maybe she should not have written in the heat of the moment, because she comes up with some deductions and conclusions that I find rather questionable, to say the least, after having read and translated the reports myself. It frightens me that a highly intelligent and knowledgeable commentator like Scaraffia, whose devotion, moreover, to the Church and to the Pope is unquestioned, could think along some of the lines that she does.

I disagree most strongly with two of her conclusions. The first, that the Gabriele story is stranger that fiction - because it is not. It is, in fact, so banal that it qualifies under Hannah Arendt's famous description of Adolph Eichmann's conscientiously meticulous execution of his part as a cog in the Nazis' so-called Final Solution for the Jews as 'the banality of evil'. The world is teeming with self-deluded people - just stand on a subway platform or take a train in New York or any major metropolis, and you will be subjected to the full auditory force of such delusions!

And the second is this myth about the 'solitude' of Benedict XVI. To insist on this, as Marco Politi and other infamous anti-Ratzinger commentators do, and as Scaraffia appears to buy into, is not just false and unfounded, but crassly insulting to Benedict XVI. As if his sovereign position and his immense moral and intellectual superiority have somehow made him incapable of relating on a human level to the members of his 'Pontifical Family', the term (quotation marks included) that the Vatican reports on Gabriele consistently use to refer to that privileged circle, which is all the more privileged because the number is so restricted compared to John Paul II's sprawling Polish commune in the papal apartments.

One cannot possibly live his days 24/7 with three secretaries (including Birgit Wansing), four housekeepers and one valet - saying Mass for them every day, eating all meals with them, and having them at his beck and call - and not be 'integrated'. It says volumes of B16 that he does this. In fact, I don't even know if it has been SOP at all for a Pope to sit down to all his meals with his staff and household help! I am sure no other head of state in the world does that. So enough already of Benedict XVI's 'solitude'. He may not use e-mail, but one gathers he uses the telephone frequently to talk not just to his brother but to other people he feels like talking to, and continues to write old-fashioned letters at a time when that form of correspondence is about to be completely obsolete...

Vatileaks, with the facts known
so far, surpasses fiction
by Lucetta Scaraffia
Translated from

August 14, 2012

"Seeing evil and corruption everywhere in the Church, I was motivated in more resent times of degeneration, to a point of no return, losing more of my inhibitory brakes. I was sure that a shock, even one in the media, could be salutary to put back the Church on the right track. Moreover, my personal interests have always included 'intelligence gathering - and in some way I thought that in the Church, this role was properly that of the Holy Spirit, of whom I felt infiltrated".

The words of Paolo Gabriele [Scaraffia has joined together statements that were cited separately in the reports] from the transcripts of his interrogation cited in the documents supporting his indictment, cannot but be read incredulously.

Only the novelist Dan Brown could possibly imagine that the Pope's valet could feel himself 'infiltrated' by the Holy Spirit, and a fairly informed reader would think that, in reality, such a 'topsy-turvy' situation would never be possible because the the choice of a person who would have to be so physically near the Holy Father would never have fallen on someone as unstable and verging on fanaticism as Gabriele is. But no, reality outdoes Dan Brown. [In this case, it does not. Gabriele is so much more pedestrian than the stock characters of pulp fiction - much too 'blah' to be a stock villain, and certainly, not the stuff of swashbuckling 'vincit omnia' protagonists! Boringly banal personalities never figure in potboilers. Even the interesting psychological profile elicited by the psychiatrists does not make him any less banal. In fact, it brings him to the level of those glib and annoying 'subway preachers' (loons!) who denounce everything and everyone as evil.]

And the psychiatric evaluation that finds him inadequate to carry out his task seems to be belied by the testimony of some of his co-workers in the papal apartment who describe him above all as a good family man if rather slow to understand and to execute assignments. [Actually, only two of the Memores were quoted as having unconditionally good words for him. A third one was rather astute to catch a trait the psychiatrists identified in him - the hypercritical attitude towards even routine matters. {If he could express himself so frequently against his children's school and their teachers as this Memor seems to say, one can imagine he was using the school and its teachers as a surrogate or analog for what he found wrong in the Vatican and its ruling class! How could he be so self-blinded by his deluded indignation as to ignore the reality of Benedict XVI and his work and person! That, Paoletto, is the ultimate measure of your 'cluelessness' and the root of your treason!]

From the descriptions that emerge from the interrogations, as cited in the documents, the 'Pontifical Family' comes through like a real family, in which the persons who are in it accept it each other with charity, forgiving each other's weaknesses and inabilities,and not as a place where efficiency and service well done ought to prevail above all. [???? That looks like deducing too much from the statements that have been disclosed. Moreover, a caring, mutually tolerant family atmosphere does not exclude aiming for efficient service at all! The inexpressible uniqueness itself of the privilege of working so intimately with the Holy Father would and should inspire each member of the 'Pontifical Family' to do his/her best, in spite of any personal limitations.]

A place, therefore, precisely as in a family, where each one would be ashamed to suspect the other, to seek to justify them, knowing their human limitations well. [That might be true of all the others in that family, but not of Gabriele, who set himself to be judge, jury and executioner of 'the Church' herself ("Seeing evil and corruption everywhere in the Church..."), condemning the Church - and by implication, everyone in it, especially at the Vatican, including Georg Gaenswein who committed the 'caring and tolerant' error of giving the valet simple tasks in the papal study beyond being merely a 'gofer' during the times in his working day when he was not directly needed by the Pope. And of course, by being so sanctimoniously sweeping about this 'evil and corruption' he professes to see, Gabriele is ultimately judging and condemning Benedict XVI himself for not seeing what he, a simple valet 'infiltrated by the Holy Spirit', could so clearly see! But he is too simple-minded and/or delusional to even perceive this manifest logical contradiction!]

If it was not that way, a valet like Gabriele would never have been kept in that position for long: In addition to his slowness in carrying out his tasks, it emerges from the reports that he had a habit for exaggerated talk and the need to catch the attention of others outside the 'family', especially VIPs by gossiping about the private life of the Pope. [Did I miss this part in the reports? I must go back and check the originals!]

The interrogations of Gabriele [as reported] depict an inept valet, whom anyone else would have quickly replaced, but was here 'supported' because of his declared devotion and his role as a family man. In addition to the affection that had been generated for him during years of working together.

Of course, the papal apartment is quite different from the corridors of earthly power where iron controls and absolute efficiency are the rule rather than an understanding of human weaknesses and an indulgence towards inadequacies.

Even if it is most unpleasant [what an understatement!] that the Pope's valet came to commit such terrible thefts, and even if one might think that someone in the 'Pontifical Family' ought to have kept an eye on him and become aware of his betrayal earlier, it is certainly not an unpleasant surprise to find out that around the Pope, relationships have formed and consolidated based on criteria different from that in the immediate entourage of secular leaders. And to learn that the Pope charitably tolerates the defects of others. [And did we need the reports to tell us that????]

Stealing confidential documents was truly quite extreme: The gossipy incompetent valet had become a thief able to harm the Church! In this regard, Benedict XVI chose to pursue justice and truth: to thoroughly investigate what happened and make the facts known, instead of sweeping unpleasant facts under the rug in order to keep a less negative image of the Vatican.

The Pope knows very well that a healthy image of the Holy See can be projected only by the truth, even if for now, the truth seems only to obfuscate this image. [Not the objective truth in this case! And it is a mistake to even say that "for now, the truth seems only to obfuscate this image". The facts known so far reveal a simple-minded delusional man unleashing what is truly a tempest in a teapot, but which the MSM - especially La Repubblica and Il Fatto Quotidiano in Italy - choose to inflate by every means they can into a 'major scandal in the Church' latching on. starting last January, to unsubstantiated allegations in Mons. Vigano's unfortunate and self-serving letters, and now on this simple-minded valet's words 'seeing evil and corruption everywhere in the Church' - when the documents themselves that he managed to purloin show nothing more than the usual bureaucratic power games and petty rivalries that happen in any large institution! This is outrageous manipulation of public opinion by elements who have been fiercely engaged a long time and openly committed - in ways as fanatic as Gabriele's self-deluding and grandiose idea that "I did it to save the Church' - to undermining the Church and its institutions with a view to robbing the Church of her influence and reputation in these secular times.]

A reading of the documents brings out - in a clear and dramatic way - the solitude of the Pontiff which everyone can imagine, but which stands out quite clearly through this photograph of his daily life seen from the eyes of the 'serving class', as in a Vatican version of 'Downtown Abbey'. [Excuse me, Ms. Scaraffia, but what is it exactly in the testimonies cited in the reports, that paints this picture of solitude? To draw that conclusion is to buy into Gabriele's delusional notion that 'the Pope is not always informed or incorrectly informed", and therefore, to inexplicably under-estimate Benedict XVI's own intelligence and his personal awareness of how things work in the Roman Curia and the Secretariat of State from a quarter century of direct experience.

Indirectly, buying into Gabriele's idee fixe also implies that Georg Gaenswein has deliberately been holding back from the Pope any significant documents he thinks the Pope should not see. But again, the objective fact seems to be that, at least, insofar as what has been published so far of purloined documents, there is nothing there of major importance that the Pope was not already aware of (even in the unlikely event that he had not read letters directly addressed to him) since they had been the subject of earlier extensive news reports, i.e., Cardinal Bertone's various schemes that the Pope himself eventually turned down, and reports about IOR. Gaenswein is not stupid - he knows the Pope reads the newspapers and watches the TV evening news. If the Pope saw anything significant reported, about which he had no prior knowledge, he would ask not just Gaenswein himself but the people directly involved!]

It shows a Pope made defenseless by his own human pietas and his respect for others, whoever they may be. [Anyone is defenseless against betrayal. The devil works in such devious ways. Jesus, the perfect man, was betrayed by Judas. The evil others do against you is not generated in any way by being good! Rather, good attracts evil.]

But would we prefer a Benedict XVI who keeps strict watch over where a gold nugget sent as a gift ends up and would therefore fire a distracted and simple-minded valet? [Stealing the nugget was no act of distraction or simple-mindedness! It was, to use Gabriele's own words, 'a degeneration of his disorder', i.e. 'If I take this before Mons. GG even knows that they arrived, no one will ever know!' He was no longer stealing something because of seemingly high-minded motivations, but simply because he could, not necessarily for the objective value of the stolen objects, but for the sheer self-satisfaction of possessing something intended for the Pope.]

Of course, we would prefer a Pope who stays above the fray, and who accepts his solitude courageously, acting only when the truth becomes a fundamental condition for the purification of the Church. [This description is just as artificial as the first alternative Scaraffia presents. 'Solitude' is not an absolute all-encompassing term with a single sense. The 'solitude' of the Vicar of Christ is absolute, by definition. There is only ever one living Vicar of Christ. But 'solitude' in terms of human contact and relationship is something else.

As one has argued against Politi et al who peddle this stupid notion of Joseph Ratzinger choosing to isolate himself in his ivory tower, nothing in his personal biography shows this at all. His very upbringing as part of a tight-knit loving family militates against that. His close relationship with his sister (until she died) and brother shows the abiding value he places on familial personal relationships. The familial relationship he has developed with trusted aides like Mons, Clemens, Ingrid Stampa, Birgit Wansing and Georg Gaenswein (and the other members of the 'Pontifical Family') shows he needs and is able to form relationships arising initially from practical necessity but which ripens over the years. If we did not already know it from the apparent joy he derives from the human contacts, no matter how fleeting, made possible at public events, the very fact that he takes his meals with the entire 'pontifical family' and chooses to take his daily walks - which become occasions for prayer - with at least one of his private secretaries, symbolizes his acknowledgment of the value of human companionship, at the very least. He is obviously not the almost-compulsively gregarious person that the public John Paul II was (during the times he was not in mystic communion with the Lord) but he definitely is not a self-isolated person.]

Perhaps, the continuing investigations will yield new unpleasant surprises - one would think so from the involvement of some persons only indicated by initials in the reports so far - bu what counts, for Catholics, is not corruption in the Vatican, but the way out that Benedict XVI has chosen.

[I will consider the use of the word 'corruption' in the above sentence as being in its general sense - of an erosion or undermining or infectation in the Church, because what human institution is exempt from that? - rather than in the specific sense that Mons. Vigano and the MSM mean, of actual deals that are morally and ethically wrong, or even the virtual buy-and-sell inherent in power games.

It must also be pointed out that Benedict XVI - with everything he has done to stifle pedophilia and cover-ups by men of the Church once and for all, his repeated warnings that the worst persecution of the Church comes from within and his consequent calls for purification - obviously did not need Paolo Gabriele's 'help' to realize this at all.

Everything he said publicly since he became CDF Prefect, especially in the interview books, has shown extreme awareness of the 'filth' within the Church, which he dared to publicly renounce in the Good Friday meditations of 2005. (To my mind, it was perhaps the most effective 'messaging' achievement executed in the Church by a single individual, precisely because the occasion for it was so unexpected. It was to be equalled just a few weeks later by the 'dictatorship of relativism' homily before the Conclave.]

So, no one in the Church, or outside it - not one - can fault him for 'not being informed' - least of all a valet, of whom we can charitably say, "Father forgive him for he knows not what he is doing", because even if he was aware he was doing wrong, as he admitted, his mental state deluded him into thinking that his end justified his stupid and totally unnecessary means.]