LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "his Holiness" includes internal documents that shed light on power struggles inside the Holy See and the thinking of its embattled top banker. The pope has already appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the "Vatileaks" scandal. The controversy began earlier this year with the publication of leaked memos alleging corruption and mismanagement in Holy See affairs and internal squabbles over its efforts to comply with international anti-money laundering norms.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement that the book was an "objectively defamatory" work that "clearly assumes characters of a criminal act." He also vowed that the Holy See would get to the bottom of who "stole" the documents, who received them and who published them.

Rev. Federico Lombardi warned the Holy See would seek international cooperation in its quest for justice, presumably with Italian magistrates.

The Vatican had already warned of legal action against Nuzzi after he broadcast letters in January from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator to the pope in which he allegedly begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican's U.S. ambassador.

Nuzzi is also the author of "Vatican SpA," a 2009 book that illustrates the allegedly underhanded dealings of the Vatican bank based on leaked documents. Nuzzi says that he was approached by sources inside the Vatican with the trove of new documents, most of recent vintage, and many of them portraying the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a negative light.

While much of the book is centered on Italy, there are international leaks as well, including diplomatic cables from Vatican embassies from Jerusalem to Cameroon. Some concern the conclusions of the pope's delegate to the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order in a memo to the pope last fall.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the head of the Institute for Religious Works, otherwise known as the Vatican's bank, is covered significantly, with reproduced private memos to the pope with his take on the Vatican's response to the global financial crisis and how to handle the church's tax exempt status amid Italian government efforts to crack down on tax evasion.

The bank has been trying for two years to remedy its reputation in some circles as a shady tax haven beset by scandals, which include the collapse of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano and the death of its head, Roberto Calvi, who also helped manage Vatican investments and was found hanging from London's Blackfriars Bridge in 1982.

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