Bertone announcement



Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has been appointed Secretary of State to succeed Cardinal Sodano who will retire from office on 15 September.

The Times heads up its article Pope promotes 'hardliner' in reshuffle of his top team. You can get a spin-free account from Catholic World News.

Cardinal Bertone called the Da Vinci Code a "sackful of heretical lies". In the picture above, he illustrates one of the non-heretical silly mistakes. He is standing by one of what Dan Brown calls "unostentatious and unmarked" Vatican cars (the SCV number plate is a bit of a giveaway.)

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