Bookgate: Vatican Admits Heist

A source told me that Baldisseri was “furious” the book had been mailed to the participants and ordered staff at the Vatican post office to ensure they did not reach the Paul VI Hall. Reports of the book’s interception have also appeared on German news sites in recent days.

Those responsible for mailing the books meticulously tried to avoid interception, ensuring the copies were sent through the proper channels within the Italian and Vatican postal systems. The synod secretariat nevertheless claims they were mailed “irregularly,” without going through the Vatican post office, and so had a right to intercept them.

The book’s mailers strongly refute this, saying they were legitimately mailed. Some copies were successfully delivered.

The words above are nothing but a confirmation of the heist, thinly veiled with “procedural” reasons.

What does it mean that a book is mailed “irregularly”? That it did not say “Buongiorno” like a good book is supposed to do? And as the books were mailed through the Italian post, where else would they be mailed but in the place provided for it in the working relationship between the Italian and the Vatican Post?

And why were they seized? Did Baldisseri fear that the packets contained bombs? If so, why was the police not called?

How can Baldisseri, or anyone else, maintain that they did not know that these were books? How seizes a book because it has not – he says – delivered through the “proper” channels? And even admitting – absurdly – that there were reasons for holding the books, why were the addressees not informed that they have received a packet that could not be delivered for (absurd) procedural reasons, like the Italian custom office does when you receive CDs from the USA for which custom duties must be paid?

Thieves, and liars too.

I hope some bishop (or several of them) presses a formal charge of theft to the proper Vatican authorities, informs the press, and demands the start of a serious investigation. Not in order to force Francis and his to become Catholic, but to expose the filth in the Vatican at every level.

Oportet ut scandala eveniant.

This is a serious scandal.

M