'Spying' on Pope: Vatican leaks reveal dirty dealings

Pope Francis arrives to celebrate a Mass for cardinals and bishops who died in the past year, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, on November 3, 2015.

While Francis has hoped to set an example, rejecting the pomp of a papal palace for modest living quarters, Curia cardinals are said to live in "princely dwellings" around 10 times the size of the pope's residence.

"There is an nearly total lack of transparency in the accounts of both the Holy See and the Governerato [of Vatican City]". He appointed a commission of eight experts in 2013 to gather information and make recommendations after an earlier expose helped drive his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to a historic resignation.

The other book, "Avarice: Documents Revealing Wealth, Scandals and Secrets of Francis' Church", is by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi.

Father Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, 54, remains in jail at the Vatican, while consultant Francesca Chaouqui, 33, was released after her arrest by Vatican police.

Mr Nuzzi has now written a book describing a nest of greed, cronyism and mismanagement at the Vatican and its administrative body, the Curia.

In his book, Nuzzi highlights the internal fight being waged by Benedict's Argentine successor Francis, who was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, against excessive Church spending.

Both were taken into custody, Washington Post reported.

"Publications of this kind do not contribute in any way to establishing clarity and truth", the Vatican said in a statement on Monday, "but rather create confusion through partial and tendentious interpretations".

Magister asserts that the news of the Pope's July 18, 2013, appointment of Chaouqui to the Vatican financial reform commission therefore "stunned" those who knew the backstory.

The two, including a high-ranking cleric of the Holy See, were arrested on suspicion of leaking confidential documents to the authors.

Nuzzi writes, "I have access to thousands of documents, the most significant of which are reproduced in this book".

Pope Francis signalled when he was elected that cleaning up church finances was a top priority and the Vatican bank - just one arm of the Vatican's financial empire - has since claimed that it has come a long way since the days when it was considered a pariah in the global banking system, a place where mobsters and corrupt politicians alike could allegedly launder their funds with impunity.

In a post on Tuesday Chaouqui denied leaking "even one piece of paper" and said "there is nothing I have ever loved more or defended more than the Church and the pope".

Now to the Vatican, which is embroiled in another scandal.

Francis named the Maltese financier Joseph Zahra to head the commission and named Vallejo Balda his No. 2.

"It was he who played one of the recordings to the members of the COSEA", Chaouqui said, adding that the others has been "astounded" by what Vallejo Balda had done but the matter ended there.

In "Merchants in the Temple", Nuzzi reveals how the finance committee found $1.75 million worth of stock listed in the inventories of Vatican shops that did not exist, suggesting it had been purloined or invented. But the commission did its job, coming into possession of thousands of pages of information, such as the existence of "secret" accounts held by the Secretariat of State that had never figured into the Vatican's consolidated balance sheets. A more objective, serious investigation would better distinguish between the majority of Vatican financial dealings that are above board and those areas "to correct, ambiguities to be clarified (and) real improprieties or illegalities to be eliminated".

The trained lawyer, who is reportedly pregnant, hit the headlines again in 2014 when she was suspected of having organised a lavish party for the rich and famous on a Vatican terrace at the Holy See's expense.

"If the allegation turns out to be proven, it will be particularly painful because of the damage done to the church", Opus Dei's statement said.