Bertone: Crows and Vipers in the Vatican

Cardinal Bertone isn't going quietly according to the Guardian, he speaks "crows" and vipers" in the Vatican: 

I see the record of the past seven years as positive. Of course, there were a lot of problems, especially in the last two years," he said, according to the Ansa news agency, hitting out at "a combination of crows and vipers".
"But this should not cloud what I consider to be a positive record," he added. The Italian word corvo (crow) is used pejoratively to describe informants or people who leak secrets.
The final years of Benedict's papacy were overshadowed by scandal, most prominently the so-called "Vatileaks" affair that depicted the Vatican's swollen bureaucracy as a hotbed of conspiracy and cronyism.
Bertone, who was appointed by Benedict in 2006 to occupy a role often described as the Vatican's prime minister, was blamed for much of the papacy's disfunction and poor decision-making. The German pontiff came under pressure from some senior clerics to fire Bertone, but refused.
"I always gave everything but certainly I had my shortcomings," said Bertone, 78, on Sunday. "But this does not mean that I did not try to serve the church."
He said it was not true that the secretary of state "decides and controls everything" within the Vatican.

I think Bertone's 'incompetence' has been greatly talked up by those crows and vipers in order to sabotage Pope Benedict. I might be remembered that Cardinal Angelo Sodano only made way for Bertone, after three three months of Sodano tying up loose ends, he only moved out of the Secretary's traditional apartment in the Apostolic Palace after a few more months leaving Bertone cooped up for months in St John's Tower in the Gardens, when various of his close collaborators were given jobs in various Vatican department including the IOR. Bertone found many of those who should have been close collaborators actually refused to work with him from the beginning of Pope Benedict's Papacy, hence the large number of fellow Salesians who were moved into key position in the Secretariate of State.

Throughout the last years of the JPII papacy there were tussles between Sodano at the Secretariate and Ratzinger at the CDF, the most notable was over the investigation into child abuse: Ratzinger wanted an full and frank investigation, Sodano until a few years ago regarded it as mere press 'tittle-tattle'. Matter grew worst when as Pope Ratzinger command Marcel Maciel, who was a friend of Sodano's should retire to a life of prayer and penitence. Cardinal Schönborn had already complained that Sodano had stopped the investigation into the accusation made against his predecessor Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër's.

Many of those who work with Vatican Radio and the media were appointees of Cardinal Sodano, perhaps it might be too much suggest that those in close relation wcasorolith media have been briefing against not only Bertone but Benedict himself. There are various other scandals involving the Cardinal and hiss not too competent architect nephew Andrea Sodano in the Raffaello Follieri affair that involve money laundering and inflated bills for various works around the Vatican.

As Cardinal Dean Sodano was still a key player, though at 86 not a voting Cardinal, in the last Conclave, and in the eight years of preparation for the election of Pope Francis who according to widespread rumour was the runner up in the election of Pope Benedict. As Casaroli had been Sodano's mentor, so Sodano seems to have been the mentor of the new Secretary of State Mgsr Pietro Parolin.

It will be interesting to see if any real clean up takes place in the Vatican sewers, and what the former Secretary of State has to say, a memoir would be useful, if anything his fault seems to have been about too much transparency, for the good of the Church let us hope it continues.