In this image distributed by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, newly-elected Cardinal, Archbishop of Toronto Thomas Christopher Collins, receives his biretta hat from Pope Benedict XVI during his elevation inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.
Can the Vatican still keep a secret?
Such a question was once unthinkable for an institution legendary for its ability to keep its lips sealed. In recent weeks, however, the Holy See has suffered an unusual hemorrhage of in-house leaks.
Vatican officials are struggling to figure out if the leaks are a string of coincidences or part of an internal campaign to undermine the Holy See's leadership by violating a tradition of confidentiality that has long held together church ranks, according to several officials.
In any case, the best-kept secret inside the Vatican these days may be who, exactly, is doing the leaking.
"We see these documents coming out of the Vatican, and we don't know how or why it's happening," said Bishop Sergio Pagano, head of the Vatican Secret Archives, as the papal archives are called.
In January, an Italian television program unveiled letters from an archbishop to the 84-year-old Pope Benedict XVI alleging Vatican corruption. That was followed by an internal memo casting doubt on the Vatican's commitment to cracking down on alleged money laundering by clients of the Vatican bank. Then came the most surreal leak: A memo delivered by a cardinal to the Vatican's No. 2 official speculating about a plot to kill the pontiff.
The timing of the leaks was particularly delicate for the Vatican, coming just before Saturday's ceremony at which Pope Benedict elevated Catholic Church officials from around the world to the rank of cardinal.
Though he has confirmed the authenticity of the documents, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi has issued extensive rebuttals of their actual content.
For centuries, the Vatican has been a repository of state secrets, its own as well as those of foreign countries. The Third Secret of Fatima – a 1917 prophesy describing the assassination of a "bishop dressed in white"– was kept under wraps in Vatican's doctrinal office, in a separate archive to the Secret Archives, until 2000. It was then published by John Paul II, himself the target of a 1981 assassination attempt.
The Vatican Secret Archives holds documents that it says date back 12 centuries and take up 85 kilometres of shelf space, partly housed in an underground bunker.
Documents surrounding historical events, from the conviction of Galileo Galilei for heresy to Henry VIII's break from the Catholic Church, can now be consulted by scholars. But the section of the archive dating from the papacy of Pius XII, the World War II-era pope, remains off-limits, Bishop Pagano said.
The Vatican's code of silence is often upheld to protect the confidences of churchmen around the world, especially in regions hostile to the Catholic Church.
In China, which doesn't have diplomatic ties with the Holy See or recognize the pope's authority over his flock, a large swath of the church's flock practices underground to avoid state persecution. At least one Chinese bishop was secretly appointed a cardinal in pectore, Latin for "in the breast" of the pope, and unknown to the outside world for many years.
"The church is different, because it's not a political structure like other states," Bishop Pagano said. "There are always situations that require prudence, and the church has always been hyper-prudent."
The past few weeks have revealed that, in a media age fuelled by Internet gossip, not even the Holy See can keep a lid on its internal machinations.
Some Vatican officials see the leaks as a campaign to discredit the Vatican's current administration, which is overseen by of the Holy See's No. 2 official, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Unlike past secretaries of state, Cardinal Bertone doesn't hail from the Vatican's vaunted diplomatic ranks – men schooled in discretion and other arts of statecraft. He is instead a canon lawyer by training, who served as Pope Benedict's right-hand man when the pontiff was a cardinal in charge of the Holy See's doctrinal office.
Cardinal Bertone didn't respond to requests to comment.