Francesco Sisci
AsiaTimes

The story is only marginally about China. It has more to do with the many troubles inside the Catholic Church, the largest and most widespread unitary religion in the world, a faith strongly institutionalized and very prominent even outside the large circle of its over one billion followers – something that makes the pope, if not the most powerful man on Earth, certainly the most influential.

On February 10, an Italian left-wing daily, Il fatto quotidiano, leaked an internal document, which purportedly revealed a plot to kill Pope Benedict XVI in November.

The plan was reportedly hatched by a senior cardinal, Paolo Romeo, during a short trip to China in November, in cahoots with another cardinal, Angelo Scola, a man widely considered “papabile”, likely to become the next pope.

The plan was revealed to the pope by yet another cardinal, Dario

Castrillon Hojos, who had been until recently prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, one of the most important “ministries” of the Church. Castrillon revealed it by passing the pope a letter “written in German”. Castrillon had been head of the bishops of Colombia at the time when Romeo was nuncio(Vatican ambassador) there.

The story was so wild that after a few hours of shock even the Italian press, often famished for unreasonable scandals and secretive conspiracy theories, dropped it.

There was a grain of truth in the story: Romeo did come to China in November, as he admitted in a note. That grain is the only known point in the alleged plot, which seems taken straight from a Dan Brown novel or Machiavellian theory. The rest is dusky.

It is not sure whether Castrillon actually informed the pope. Although the Italian daily claimed to possess the original letter to the pope with all the relevant stamps, it would not be the first time a forgery was created all or in part to lend credence to lies. But in theory, the letter is possible.

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