Vatican City, Jul 24, 2006 / 22:00 pm
Pope Benedict XVI, who is on vacation until July 28 in Les Combes in northern Italy, met privately on Tuesday with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Archbishop of Genoa and soon-to-be Vatican Secretary of State.
The meeting “did not focus on international political issues,” said Vatican sources, in an apparent response to speculation by some reporters that the Pope and his former collaborator at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith may have been discussing the appointment of a successor to Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo as the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States.
The same sources also hinted that the meeting touched upon two other issues: what actions to take regarding Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, who recently announced his decision to join a new cult started by a renegade priest in Washington; and the creation of a special commission at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to look into the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje, where the Virgin Mary supposedly began appearing to six young people on June 24, 1981.