Vatican denounces reports over pope's resignation

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican lashed out yesterday over what it said has been a run of defamatory and false media reports ahead of the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI's successor, saying they were an attempt to influence the election.

Italian newspapers have been rife with unsourced reports in recent days about the contents of a secret dossier prepared for the pope by three cardinals who investigated the origins of the 2012 scandal over leaked Vatican documents.

Those documents were taken from the pope's study by his butler and then leaked by a journalist.

They revealed petty wrangling, corruption and cronyism and even allegations of a gay plot at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.

The new Italian media reports have suggested the revelations in the dossier, given to Benedict in December, were a factor in his decision to resign. The pope himself has said merely that he doesn't have the "strength of mind and body" to carry on and would resign Feb. 28. Sunday, he will give his final Sunday blessing in St. Peter's Square.

The Vatican secretariat of state said the Catholic Church has for centuries insisted on the independence of its cardinals to freely elect their pope.

"If in the past, the so-called powers, i.e., States, exerted pressures on the election of the pope, today there is an attempt to do this through public opinion," the statement said.

While a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, has said the reports "do not correspond to reality," the pope and some of his closest collaborators have recently denounced the dysfunction in the Apostolic Palace.