Rumour of plot to kill pope ‘delirious’: Vatican

The Vatican yesterday dismissed as “delirious” a newspaper report that the Pope would be assassinated within the next 12 months.

Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano ran a front-page story reporting that a cardinal had written a secret note to a superior in the Vatican saying he had heard of a sinister plot to kill Pope Benedict XVI within a year.

The sensational prediction was allegedly made by Cardinal Paolo Romeo, the archbishop of Palermo in Sicily, on a trip to China last November.