WikiLeaks cables: Pope wanted Muslim Turkey kept out of EU | World news. The pope is responsible for the Vatican's growing hostility towards Turkey joining the EU, previously secret cables sent from the US embassy to the Holy See in Rome claim. In 2004 Cardinal Ratzinger, the future pope, spoke out against letting a Muslim state join, although at the time the Vatican was formally neutral on the question. The Vatican's acting foreign minister, Monsignor Pietro Parolin, responded by telling US diplomats that Ratzinger's comments were his own rather than the official Vatican position.
The cable released by WikiLeaks shows that Ratzinger was the leading voice behind the Holy See's unsuccessful drive to secure a reference to Europe's "Christian roots" in the EU constitution. The US diplomat noted that Ratzinger "clearly understands that allowing a Muslim country into the EU would further weaken his case for Europe's Christian foundations". But by 2006 Parolin was working for Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and his tone had distinctly chilled. Vatican Inc. - People & Power. Pope Benedict's resignation shocked the Catholic Church and left the Vatican in disarray. His successor will face many challenges, from recurrent sexual scandals to concerns about financial impropriety at the Vatican's own bank.
In 2011, we investigated allegations that bank had been involved in money laundering and examined Pope Benedict's plans for cleaning up the secretive system. But with many of the reforms having fallen short and the Vatican's finances still under a cloud, the next pope will have to introduce new rules to clean up the financial system. At the heart of the Vatican, the sovereign papal state at the heart of Rome, is the Vatican's own bank, the Institute of Religious Works (IOR). Until now the IOR has operated with few of the regulations that govern the activities of banks in the wider world, with sometimes disturbing results.
Filmmakers Alessandro Righi and Emanuele Piano have been examining this latest chapter in the history of a notoriously secretive organisation. The Vatican claims Darwin's theory of evolution is compatible with Christianity.