Ill, Timed

The first Vatican show-trial set up to acquit the Holy See of any complicity in child abuse has been postponed because the accused has developed a sudden and convenient illness. The former nuncio to the Dominican Republic is accused of paying shoeshine boys to service his needs: a comparatively minor offence in the annals of priestly paedophilia, many of whose victims received no other payment than a lifetime of mental illness. It is not as yet clear whether Józef Wesołowski's condition is related to the useful form of dementia which afflicted Ernest Saunders during the Guinness affair a quarter of a century ago and, more recently, certain members of the Murdoch gang during the phone-hacking inquiry. Possibly the Vatican's traditionalists have been asserting themselves, and have given Wesołowski a bit of unofficial medication à la Borgia.