This is how conservative Catholic columnist George Weigel, writing in the National Review Online, describes the media blackout on Cardinals that came into force yesterday.

In the name of transparency, U.S. cardinals had held a series of parallel news briefings with the press on the issues relating to the Conclave.

The move to stop US Cardinals talking with media came like a 'slap in the face in the midst of the Synod Hall' reports Italian daily, La Stampa,

La Stampa reports that after eight years of mutual hostility towards each other the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano and the Camerlengo, Cardinal Bertone, yesterday, combined to stop the US cardinals talking in an open and transparent way.

Like Weigel, respected Vatican journalist and author, John Tharvis is similarly baffled.

But, writing in his Vatican Diary, he is not surprised that the day after the media blackout, the Italian papers were chock full of unsourced details from the cardinals' closed-door general congregation meetings, notes.

Tharvis says La Stampa was full of

• Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the Italian head of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, gave a global report on missionary challenges.
• Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, the Italian head of the Congregation for Clergy, weighed in with an overview on the priesthood and vocations.
• Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini spoke about the need to choose a younger pope with sufficient energy.
• Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet and U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, both Roman Curia officials, talked about the figure and role of "pope emeritus."
• The paper also noted Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola went over the five-minute limit in his talk on the nature of the church.

Calling the American Cardinals' press conferences "the most refreshing and media-friendly source of positive information and commentary on a story that has riveted the world's attention," Weigel wants to know how Italian Daily, La Stampa, is able to print verbatim reports from the Cardinals' meeting.

In rather strong terms, Weigel says Vatican master spin doctor, Fr Federico Lombardi's explanation of the media blackout is "Baloney and not very artful baloney".

Weigel calls the blackout a missed opportunity to explain what the Catholic Church is.

Today at his media conference, Vatican Spokesman Federico Lombardi said he does not accept that Italian cardinals are leaking information to Italian media.

Lombardi was responding to a question why the US cardinals, who did not leak, are paying for the sins of Italian cardinals who did and continue to leak.

Sources

• La Stampa
• National Review Online
• John Thavis
• Gerard O'Connell (Twitter)
• Lisa Wangsness (Twitter)
• Image The Guardian

Cardinal Scherer, 63, is a well-respected Latin American prelate, of German extraction, he is considered to be "measured" and who speaks good Italian.

He worked in the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops from 1994 to 2001 and with Cardinal Re, who later became head of Congregation for Bishops and ensured Scherer became a bishop.

Among the proponents of this initiative are two leading cardinals - Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, and Giovanni Battista Re, the Deputy Dean, and the man who because Sodano is over 80, will take over from Sodano once the Conclave is formed.

It is no secret that Sodano and the current Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone do not see eye-to-eye.

At the same time as promoting Scherer, Sodano and Re are suggesting, as part of a 'ticket', either Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, the Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, or Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, as the Secretary of State.

Both Piacenza and Sandri are said to know the Roman Curia well.

Sandri had the post of 'Substitute', that is the third ranking position in the Vatican, in the last phase of the pontificate of John Paul II and the beginning of Benedict XVI's reign.

However, John Allen in his NCR blog, is quick to point out that Andrea Tornielli, widely seen as the best-connected of the Italian Vatican writers, maintains that no one enjoys the early obvious support that Ratzinger did at the last conclave.

Allen also draws attention to Tornielli's colleague, Giacomo Galeazzi, who in a separate piece in La Stampa, points out the obvious, that even if there are 38 voting cardinals from the Roman Curia voting as one in this conclave, they number well short of a two-thirds majority, which also means they are in a position to stop the election of a candidate, but not impose their own.

Source

• Vatican Insider
• NCR
• NCR (Photo)

Were Benedict to die today, it would be Sodano, 83, who presides over the daily General Congregation meetings of the cardinals, which shape the discussions leading into the election of the next pope. It would also be Cardinal Sodano who would preside over the funeral Mass for the deceased pope, and who would celebrate the Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice, the "Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff," which is the final public act before the conclave.

Cardinal Sodano, in other words, would be the face of the Catholic Church during the papal interregnum — a time when the eyes of the entire world are squarely upon Rome.

What's the problem with that? In a nutshell, Sodano has a troubling record of both words and deeds on the sexual abuse crisis. Granted, he's not generated the public backlash that, say, Cardinal Bernard Law faced in Boston. Yet if Cardinal Sodano is front and center during the interregnum, his history could easily be spun into a cause celebre.

In some ways, of course, it's unfair to reduce Sodano's legacy entirely to his profile on the crisis. He had a long, albeit controversial, diplomatic career (his role vis-a-vis the Pinochet regime in Chile as nuncio from 1978 to 1988 is still debated), and he served John Paul II for 15 years in one of the Vatican's most complex posts.

In the eyes of the people most scandalized by the sexual abuse crisis, however, Cardinal Sodano has become a symbol of the ambivalence.

Read more on What to do about Sodano?