Vatican Watchers See Hints of a Leadership Crisis for the Church.

In breaking developments out of Vatican City, Rome newspaper Il Sicofante reports that Pope Francis’ Twitter account has been compromised. Police will not name Benedict XVI, pope emeritus, as a suspect, but they do call him “a person of interest.” Rome police are leading the investigation because although the alleged penetration occurred inside the sovereign city-state of the Vatican, Church officials “wanted to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest,” according to a source in Rome’s police department.

The Holy See confirmed that the pontiff’s stream was penetrated but insisted that the offending tweets were taken down “faster than you can say ‘Galileo.’”

Church officials say they take the pope’s security seriously, and “that includes his Twitter stream. We cannot have the Holy Father being violated,” says Antonio Russo, legate a latere and a spokesman for the pontiff.

Given his status as a person of interest, speculation has centered on Benedict XVI, who lives behind Vatican walls in an apartment with an attached chapel. He has a personal secretary and four “consecrated women” who attend to his needs. Benedict was looking extremely frail in March. But according to a Vatican source, he has been feeling “much better recently. He has a great deal of vim and vigor.”

Officials became suspicious when they were tipped off to a flurry of tweets that seemed uncharacteristic of Francis, from his @Pontifex account. In all, twenty bogus tweets were sent out. They included (translated from the Italian by ReWordIt Inc.):

 

• What’s Latin for “goody two-shoes”? “Francis.”

• What’s Latin for “liberal kiss-ass”? “Francis.”

• Poverty is free. Giving religion to impoverished people requires money. Donate!

• Poverty is free. Spiritual control of impoverished people requires money. Donate!

• I wish Benedict still controlled our beloved Church.

• Who else thinks Benedict’s papacy was the golden era of the Catholic Church? #numberonepope #bestofthemillennium

• I miss our TRUE Holy Father, Benedict. #numberonepope #bestofthemillennium

 

After Benedict resigned the papacy, the first pontiff to do so in 600 years, Vatican watchers and Roman Catholics worldwide wondered about the effects and implications of having two popes living alongside one another.

Benedict fanned the flames of those concerns when he chose to be called “Your Holiness” and “emeritus pope” rather than “emeritus bishop of Rome.” When he decided he would continue to wear the white cassock of the papacy, he elevated people’s concerns again.

He has been careful with his words, however, and publicly he affirms that Francis is pope, and that he—Benedict—is obedient to him.

A Rome police investigator involved in the probe would not speculate on any possible motive other than to say, “Maybe he was lonely. All those people kissing your ring, all that power. Now he shuffles around a little apartment. He can’t even excommunicate anyone for entertainment.”

If Benedict is looking to again grasp the crozier of power, why would he start his return on Twitter? Anthony Carravassi, a Catholic psychologist specializing in treating married couples enduring infidelity, says, “I see this in my work all the time. The internet can be so tempting. It’s there 24 hours a day, offering every type of sin. Whatever your heart lusts for, you know you can access it with a few clicks. The internet is the domicile of Satan in our age.”

Many faithful doubt the allegations about the former pope. Salvatore Credenteastro, a baker with a shop near the Spanish Steps, says he doesn’t believe Benedict perpetrated the prank tweets. “He used to be a pope,” Credenteastro said through a translator. “He has to be a good person.”

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