Those pesky leaks at the Vatican

John L. Allen Jr. sums up the ongoing controversy:

This week, whenever such a chance encounter has occurred, conversation fairly quickly has turned to one question above all: What the hell is going on around here?
The basis for the question, of course, is the mushrooming Vatican leaks scandal, in which confidential documents are appearing in the papers almost on a daily basis, putting the Vatican in a highly unfavorable light. By now, there are almost too many to keep track, but big-ticket items have included:

• Letters written to the pope and to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, by the current papal ambassador in the United States, Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, complaining of corruption in Vatican finances and a campaign of defamation against him. At the time, he was the No. 2 official in the Vatican City State, and desperately trying to avoid being sent away.

• An anonymous memo written about a new Vatican law against money laundering, which suggests the law contains an enormous loophole -- that it blocks action against any offense before April 1, 2011, when the law came into effect.

• Leaked materials fueling charges that the Institute for the Works of Religion (the so-called "Vatican Bank") recently transferred millions of Euro to foreign banks to evade Italian controls, and that it's dodged various Italian inquests.

• Another anonymous document, written in German, describing a conversation Cardinal Paolo Romeo of Palermo, Sicily, allegedly had during a trip to China, in which he predicted the pope would be dead within 12 months and replaced with Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan. That document was passed along to the pope by retired Colombian Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos.

• Two internal Vatican memos, including one written by Cardinal Atillio Nicora, who heads a new financial watchdog agency, warning that recent modifications to the Vatican's law against money laundering would be seen as a "step back" on reform, and could create "alarm" among international regulatory bodies.

As this column is written, rumors have it that more leaked documents are on the way, perhaps as early as the end of this week. Obviously, someone inside the Vatican -- what L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, recently called a bunch of irresponsible "wolves" -- has decided to let the photocopies roll.

And analyzes the impact of these continuing leaks.

Pray for the Holy Father and the Cardinals as they gather for the Consistory tomorrow.