Information security

Wikileaks Takes A Swipe At 'Famously Secret' Vatican's Power Struggle

Wikileaks, the tell-anything anti-secrecy organization, on Wednesday took aim at one of the world's most secretive institutions, the Vatican, releasing a small collection of documents about a power struggle involving Pope Francis, a leading traditionalist cardinal, and a medieval Catholic order of knights.

The documents offered little new about a fight that two years ago was widely covered in the media. Their contents seem especially paltry at a time when the Vatican is embroiled in full-fledged scandals on multiple continents. But the release represented the first time Wikileaks has turned its spotlight on the often-acrimonious internal affairs of the Holy See, and some Vatican watchers wondered whether more damaging secrets might start to escape the city-state walls.

"The fact itself, Wikileaks entering the internal affairs of the Vatican, is an alarm bell," said Marco Politi, a veteran Vatican watcher. "The subject itself is not interesting. These are old diatribes, old fights. But the important thing will be the next step. Will there be a subsequent Wikileaks [release] on something not previously revealed? Should Wikileaks pull out stuff regarding pedophilia or banking scandals, then we would be onto something new."