The Man Who Gave Us Pope Francis: Bertone Under Investigation?

Whether an (earthly) day of reckoning will come for +Tarcisio Bertone, I knoweth not. However, this story makes for intriguing reading.

For admirers of Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Bertone has been a much-villified personality. By any objective measure, his management of the Secretariat of State during Benedict's reign was disastrous. True, Benedict tapped him for the job, and was perhaps not as shrewd as St. John Paul II in judging character. One also wonders how different things might have been had Benedict had a sentry as fierce as Msgr. (now Cardinal) Stanislaw Dziwisz by his side.

We may never know the contents of the dossier--ordered after the Vatileaks scandal--but it apparently was a contributing factor to Pope Benedict's decision to abdicate the Throne of Peter. There's been plenty of wild speculation about it; but I'll bet a bottle of Early Times that a substantial portion was dedicated to the deprecations of +Tarcisio Bertone.

Here's why I believe this to be true. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, in the course of cleaning up Vatican finances, uncovered a number of improprieties and reported them to the Holy Father in 2011. For his troubles, Vigano earned banishment to the United States as apostolic nuncio, a move that was none-too-subtlely engineered by Bertone. [N.B. If memory serves, Vigano is a blue-blood, and so the U.S. positing must indeed have been an affront to his patrician background.]

Around the same time, one member of the Italian Episcopal Conference was concerned that the Pope was being ill-served by his secretary of state. +Angelo Scola of Milan, in an audience with the Holy Father at which Bertone was present, told Benedict point-blank that he should fire Bertone for incompetency. This, of course, created a blood feud between Scola and Bertone.

The thread thus far:  uncovering of financial irregularities; Vigano sent far away from Rome; Scola confronts Bertone; Vatileaks; dossier; resignation.

Then the Conclave of 2013:  Bertone, working with ally-of-convenience Cardinal Angelo Sodano, organizes a bloc of votes against Angelo Scola. When +Jorge Bergoglio emerges as a compromise candidate, they pledge the bloc's votes to him, and Bergoglio becomes Pope Francis.

Thus, we have Bertone to thank for Pope Bergoglio, and not Pope Scola.

Bertone was subsequently dismissed by Pope Francis and is, apparently, living rather comfortably in some well-appointed digs.

Quite a record of achievement. But if the Tablet report is true, things may be coming full circle for Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.