City of secrets : the startling truth behind the murders the Vatican murders

On the night of Monday, May 4, 1998, in Vatican territory, the bodies of the commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife, and a young lance corporal were found in the barracks of the picturesque force entrusted with protecting the pope. It was the worst bloodbath to take place in more than a century in the heart of the supreme authority of the world's one billion Catholics. Four hours later, the Vatican announced that the lance corporal, twenty-three-year-old Cédric Tornay, had shot the couple, then committed suicide in "a fit of madness" brought on by frustration with the unit's discipline -- a conclusion it reaffirmed after a nine-month internal inquiry. But as John Follain's hard-hitting exposé shows, the official report was a travesty, a tissue of suppositions, contradictions, and omissions. Based on an exhaustive three-year investigation, City of Secrets reveals how the Vatican, the oldest and most secretive autocracy in the world, staged an elaborate plot to obstruct justice -- and hide the scandals it dared not confess. \_\_\_\_\_ A shocking expose, drawn from an extensive investigation, delves into the truth behind the murder of the Swiss Guard, his wife, and a young vice-corporal at the Vatican, revealing a world of corruption, hypocrisy, betrayal, and injustice that reaches to the highest level of this mysterious autocracy. Timely and explosive, City Of Secrets is the story of a still-unsolved crime on holy territory- the infamous Swiss Guard murders on 5/4/98-and of a systematic attempt to hide the fatal failings of a security force charged with protecting the Pope. City Of Secrets contains some of the most dramatic and sensational revelations ever published about the internal affairs of the Vatican. Powerful and suspenseful, it is the product of a three-year investigation, and a chilling portrait of actions unworthy of the Catholic Church in the twilight of John Paul II's papacy.This is not only the story of a gruesome crime on holy territory. It is also the story of shameful efforts by men of the cloth, including a would-be successor to John Paul II and one of his most trusted servants, to obstruct the course of justice, vilify the character of Tornay who had fallen victim to barrack mobbing, stifle a potential scandal over homosexual affairs within the Guard, and hide fatal failings that make the force unfit to protect the pope. "On the night of Monday, May 4, 1998, in Vatican territory, the bodies of the commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife, and a young lance corporal were found in the barracks of the picturesque force historically entrusted with protecting the pope. It was the worst bloodbath to take place in more than a century in the heart of the supreme authority of the world's one billion Roman Catholics. Four hours later, the Vatican announced that the lance corporal, twenty-three-year-old Cedric Tornay, had shot the couple, then committed suicide in "a fit of madness" brought on by frustration with the unit's discipline - a conclusion it reaffirmed after a nine-month internal inquiry." Examines the truth behind the murder of a Swiss Guard, his wife, and a young vice-corporal at the Vatican, revealing a world of corruption, hypocrisy, and injustice that reaches to the highest level of this mysterious autocracy SHORTLY BEFORE NOON on the day after the deaths at the Swiss Guard, I left my home in the historic center of Rome and set out down the Via dei Coronari, a narrow street of ancient palaces and ocher houses with flaking facades. Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 9, 2007).