Ratzinger was afraid (Adagio), page 2
1. This book
The secret visit
Benedict XVI left the Apostolic Palace in an unmarked car with tinted windows, with no escort and without telling the Vatican’s security services. It was early January 2012, and it was an afternoon unlike any other. The Pope had not realized it, but he was being followed. On the route from St Peter’s Square to Via Aurelia Antica, a few steps away from the Villa Pamphilj Park, a Vatican employee, a trusted aide to several important Cardinals, had not lost sight of the car, keeping about 100 metres behind. Both men – albeit with very different roles, temperaments and cultures – had to make choices that were key to the future of the Church.
Joseph Ratzinger was saddened by the divisions that were playing out in the Roman Curia, a community that had torn itself more and more apart since the last consistories. But he knew that calling into question, even as a hypothesis, his fragile alliance with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, would have been a point of no-return.
The man following him faced a more immediate choice. He had to decide whether to complete the truth mission that he had embarked upon since the death of Karol Wojtyla, following the teachings of his successor Benedict XVI: “In a world where lies are powerful, truth requires suffering”. In other words, he had to decide whether to expose what was going inside the Sacred Palaces, whether to expel the money changers from the Temple. Whichever way he went, it would have changed his life forever. The man had taken his mission to heart, and was ready to face all the consequences: even being found out and ruining his career.
He had acted on instinct when he followed the Pope in his rare outing from the Vatican City. He was not out to find out where he was going; rather, he wanted to share a secret moment, albeit from a distance, with the leader of the Catholic Church. And he wanted to make his choice.
The Pope’s black saloon entered the gate of a nuns convent, the home of the Sisters of the Institute of Schönstatt, a German spiritual movement. He had gone to visit one of the few friends he had kept since his election to the papacy, aside from his day-to-day encounters with Monsignors and Cardinals: Birgit Wansing, an ageing German nun and his former secretary. He shared memories with her, listened to her and was gratified by the high esteem she had towards him. Not many other people in the world, apart from his brother Georg, the German banker Thaddäus Kühnel and his trusted former governess and music teacher Ingrid Stampa, enjoyed similarly close relations with the Pope. Their down-to-earth natures reveal how strongly Benedict XVI abhorred power games.
Outside the gate, the man who had followed went on a walk, deep in his thoughts. Should he remain at all cost silent and unquestioningly faithful, even before glaring abuses of power and injustices? Could he betray the faith that over the years had been placed in him by the Curia, starting from the Pope, the Secretary of State and the most important Cardinals? Should he keep quiet or should he put an end to the lies, the secrecy and the misinformation?
If you are reading this book today, it is because the man outside that convent that evening decided not to turn back. He overcame his doubts and fears, convinced he was doing something “right and just”. He looked once more beyond the walls of the convent, and decided that he would let everybody know what was happening inside the Vatican.
He would tell me a few days later: “There are some moments in life where you are either a man or you are not. It comes down to having the courage of saying and doing whatever you think and know is just. My act of courage is revealing the most controversial affairs of the Church. Getting out secrets, big and small, that normally stay inside the Vatican’s Bronze Doors. This is the only way in which I can free myself from the unbearable burden of complicity with those who know and remain silent”.
He met me again in one of the safe places we had chosen to complete the handover of parcels, USB sticks and other material. He had built up a secret archive, starting almost by chance, during the funerals of John Paul II in April 2005. In the first years, he had no order, method or objective. He would collect Vatican documents, newsletters, letters, bank statements and examine them overnight in his private study, away from prying eyes. Then, as what he was reading left him more and more surprised, embittered and puzzled, he became more careful, selective and methodical. Over time, his discomfort led him to utter some criticism and to share his doubts with like-minded people inside Vatican palaces. A small group of people was eventually formed: they had different functions and roles within the Holy See, but they shared the common objective of documenting, understanding, discussing and archiving papers that revealed unknown Church plots, crises and business deals in all corners of the world.
Benedict XVI’s desk
These papers have all passed through the desk of one of the most powerful and influential people in the world. You are about to read the confidential dossiers that Benedict XVI and his trusted assistants, Georg Gänswein and Alfred Xuereb from Malta, received during the most delicate years of his papacy. The material came from the Secretariat of State, from nunciatures, from individual Cardinals and from all over the world, landing on the desks of the private study on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace, overlooking St Peter’s Square.
Already from a first glance, the papers reveal something important: the Curia’s first instinct was to cover up anything that could embarrass God’s representatives on earth or simply raise questions and doubts about their actions. “What I say to you in the darkness, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, announce from the rooftops”, Matthew said in his Gospel. His words still resonate today, but have gone unheeded. I quoted that passage in Vaticano S.p.A., my book on the Vatican’s secret financial dealings during Wojtyla’s papacy, which I based on the vast archive of Monsignor Renato Dardozzi. Things do not seem to have changed under Ratzinger.
The documents shatter a common misconception about Benedict XVI: it is not true that he was interested only in theological questions and religious texts and that he shied away from day-to-day Curia and Church affairs. Of course, he was a very distinguished and erudite scholar, but he was also a pastor who followed everyday matters with great attention to detail. He tried to introduce changes, which were sometimes resisted, as he responded to burning earthy matters, to the scandals which had to be managed and hushed up, and to the persecution of Christians in many parts of the world. I think he was an alert and dynamic Pope, eager for truth and transparency, whose reform drive inevitably fell victim to compromises and to the Church’s reason of State. Ratzinger wanted to be constantly updated about the most pressing issues, and he even took radical actions, though he always tried to seek common ground between the different stands of the Church.
All the action took place in the Apostolic Palace, in simple office with a humble bookshelf, low armchairs, a wooden desk, two landline telephones, no mobile phones: that was all for the office of Joseph Ratzinger, the 265th Pope in the history of Catholicism. None of the high-tech you could find in the White House; not much even in the way of sophisticated security systems. Yet the office of the Holy Father is one of the centres of world power, the beating heart of the Catholic Church, hidden from the world’s one billion Catholics. It is the place where he gave advice to his assistants; it is the place where he took his most difficult decisions.
You are about to read Benedict XVI’s secret papers. Hundreds of documents that expose the day-to-day business of the Church, including its hushed-up truths, resolved crises, endemic difficulties and jealously-guarded secrets. Secrets that remained so until a man, catching a glimpse of Ratzinger’s profile through the windows of a convent on a January night, realized that exposing them was his only possible choice, regardless of the personal consequences for him.
If you are reading this book, it means that neither the Vatican nor others blocked its publication. You will have the chance to see and evaluate dossiers, information and manuscripts which, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, have leaked from the Curia. You will have access to the Sacred Palace: not just to the marvels of the Sistine Chapels and of the Vatican Museums, to the doctrine of the Church, but also to Benedict XVI’s desk, to the money, the affairs and plots revealed by the papers delivered to his private office. We have to thank the brave man I met over several months: without him, this book would have never been written.
2. Code name: Source Mary
Inside Benedict XVI’s chambers
Joseph Ratzinger used to wake up every morning at 6.30-6.45 am, in the papal apartments on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace. After getting ready, he would walk down the corridor taking him to his private chapel, where he would serve Mass at 7.30 am. At around 8 am, he would remain in prayer with his book of hours, and have breakfast with his closest assistants at around 8.30 am. The Pope would normally have milk, decaffeinated coffee, bread, butter and jam and, on rare occasions, a slice of cake1.
Members of the Papal Family would look after him: his chamber assistant Paolo Gabriele – a sort of butler – and four consecrated laywomen from the Memores Domini Association of the Communion and Liberation movement: Carmela, Loredana, Cristina and Rossella, the newcomer. She replaced Manuela Camagni, who was run over and killed on the Via Nomentana in Rome in one of her rare outings from the Vatican. There were also two personal assistants. Father Georg Gänswein was the most famous, a German pastor and theologist and former dean of Freiburg Minster until his move to Rome, where he served in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under then-Cardinal Ratzinger, and taught Canonical Law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross2. Everybody knew him as Father Georg or Don Giorgio. Alfred Xuereb from the diocese of Gozo in Malta, born in 1958, was the second assistant and minute taker for the Secretariat of State.
Benedict XVI’s lifestyle was almost monastical, he would share his private moments with very few people. His lunchtime habits were a case in point. Paul VI would dine with his assistants; John Paul II would invite bishops and cardinals to eat with him, preferably fellow Poles. Benedict XVI would almost always eat with the Memores, who would cook, clean his apartment, listen and smile at his quips. Loredana and Carmela, both from the Italian region of Apulia, would take turns in cooking, catering to their master’s simple taste. Benedict XVI liked strongly flavoured dishes, with pepper or chilli. He would have fish-based pasta recipes, like penne with salmon, one of his favourites, and meat everyday except Fridays, when he would eat a single course of fish and vegetables. No shellfish or complicated dishes. For supper, a soup or a bowl of milk would suffice, and his demands were even more frugal on Friday nights: boiled potatoes and cheese. His only indulgence was a sweet tooth: he used to jokingly refer to his favourite cake, a soft sponge with some drops of alcohol, as the “Drunken virgins”. Otherwise, he was practically a teetotaller: he hardly ever drank wine during meals.
The Memores used to live on the same floor of the Apostolic Palace, but their chambers were facing the back of the building. There they would sleep, pray and keep their personal belongings, including Manuela Camagni’s obituary, which the Pope had published on the L’Osservatore Romano. It was the first time that a Pope signed a message of condolences in a newspaper.
There was little time for friends and relatives, like his brother Georg, beyond the daily interactions with the Papal Family. On a return from a trip, the Pope would have working lunches with a restricted circle, comprising: Father Federico Lombardi, the head of the Vatican Press Office; Professor Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of L’Osservatore Romano; Monsignor Guido Marini, Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations; and Monsignor Peter Brian Wells, Assessor for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State3.
The Holy Father kept an absolutely low profile. He would invite people who helped him in the past, like his former driver, or Camillo Cibin, former head of the Vatican Corps of Gendarmerie, who also served under Paul VI and John Paul II, as a way of thanking them for their devotion. Cibin shot to worldwide fame after catching Ali Agca following his failed attempt on Wojtyla’s life on May 13, 1981; his family was also invited to dine with Ratzinger.
Among the Cardinals, German-born Joachim Meisner, former bishop of Berlin and current Archbishop of Cologne, was one of the Pope’s closest friends. They would even watch together the news on TV or occasionally play Mozart on the piano. Benedict XVI was often kept busy by engagements, such as official meetings in his ceremonial apartments on the second floor, or the regular audiences with the Cardinals or other members of the Roman Curia. On Mondays, he would meet with Secretary of State Bertone; on Wednesdays, he would hold his General Audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall near St Peter’s.
There were other female figures in the Pope’s entourage, albeit more marginal. A physiotherapist, also a laywoman from Communion and Liberation, held afternoon sessions with him in the former surgery room in the papal medical offices. There was Ingrid Stampa, one of the Pope’s few trusted confidants. She had been his music teacher and the housekeeper of the 300-square-meter apartment in the Leonine City where Ratzinger used to live as a Cardinal. Finally, he had Birgit Wansing, his long-serving secretary and one of the few people in the world who could decipher his handwriting. It was Wansing whom the Pope had gone to visit in early January 2012 in the convent on the Aurelia Antica. Stampa and Wansing are both members of the Schönstatt spiritual movement, founded by Joseph Kentenich.
The opening of the Vatican doors
Blind dates are frequent in investigative journalism. You meet people you scarcely know, who want to see you because they have a story to tell, documents to show. Normally, you ask them to send you a summary of what they have by email, to get a sense of how important the material is. But sometimes a source does not trust you, so you have to meet them personally. You invite these strangers in your office or arrange to meet them a crowded bar, as a mutual precaution.
My work has landed me in a lot of unusual circumstances, sometimes more akin to a spy novel than to everyday life. In Florence, a general from the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s militarized tax police, had me followed for hours before meeting me in the afternoon, to make sure that nobody else was following me. It was a Kafkaesque situation. In Brescia, I had to meet up with a source in a car junkyard, and in Trieste I had to be blindfolded before being escorted into a flat where a mafia turncoat was hiding.
But I had never experienced what I went through over the past year, after meeting the key source who supplied the hundreds of documents this book is based on. I never had to face a degree of precautions that was almost obsessive. For the first time, I sensed that I got into a story that was bigger than me. “Caution is a way of life”, my Vatican source once told me. “In the Curia, we always make the most discreet choice”. From the start, he took every possible pain to ensure that our contacts were as invisible, as camouflaged as possible.
Only with hindsight, I realized that each one of his steps was calculated and planned in advance to elude the Vatican’s security services, which Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal always described as “the best intelligence apparatus in the world”. Only with hindsight, I realized what pains he took to protect the information he leaked from the impenetrable walls of the Vatican. He had to arouse no suspicion in his daily life, as he interacted with superiors, including powerful, shrewd and charismatic figures such as Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, while he was getting out the most relevant and secret dossiers under the nose of the Swiss Guards. A duplicitous behaviour that he conducted for months, like a professional secret agent.
I had an equally delicate role. The psychological factor plays a key role in these situations, so I had to build a relation of trust and avoid any false moves. I had to be ready to listen to all of his doubts and confessions, boost his confidence so that he could be ready to face the unexpected, and never show any fear.
My source thought I was the right man after reading Vaticano S.p.A.,my book on the Church’s secret financial dealings. He liked my factual approach and the protection I had given to the people who had supplied me with documents. But first of all, he had to find a way to get in touch with me. He chose the most complicated route, but also the safest, avoiding personal contact, phone calls, letters or emails.
In the Spring of 2011 I received a call from an old friend I had not heard from a while. He has nothing to do with the Vatican or with courtrooms, my usual haunts. He proposed to come to Milan for a coffee, an excuse to meet face to face which I gladly accepted. After the usual pleasantries, he conveyed a message: a friend of his had some Vatican inside information that he wanted to get out into the open. No other details. I was not particularly excited, but I was struck by how much effort my old friend had put into telling me about this potential source, travelling to Milan on purpose. I smiled and told him to give the person my mobile number. That was how it started: the contact called me, using a fake name.
I took the train from Milan to Rome, for a meeting in a bar near Piazza Mazzini. Unexpectedly, two men showed up: two Italians in their forties, dressed well but discreetly. They asked me about my interests, my working methods, my professional inclinations, how journalists protect the identity of people who leak sensitive information. They were friendly, they spoke gently, but they did not look like priests. On the contrary, they seemed more like army types. I had the strong impression that they were not my final interlocutors.
