Vatican visitors unmoved by Vatileaks

People visiting the Vatican before mass on Saturday were ambivalent about the ongoing controversy over leaked documents that lead to the arrest of the Pope's butler on Friday.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) VISITOR, CHRIS COOKSLEY, SAYING:

"To me it's like any big organisation, there will be leaks, it could be for money, it doesn't seem to be any sort of conspiracy necessarily, it's just something that happens in any large organisation. Unfortunately when it's linked to religion it tends to cause more of a furore."

(SOUNDBITE) (English) TOURIST, GEOFFREY WILKINSON, SAYING:

"Is it really surprising? I don't think it is really and I think that a lot of things are just covered up and have been over the years, so maybe we need to get to grips with a lot more things and tighten our belts up."

The scandal, dubbed "Vatileaks", involves secret documents including letters to Pope Benedict being leaked to Italian media.

Some of the documents allege corruption, mismanagement and cronyism over Vatican work contracts as well as internal arguments over Vatican Bank operations.

The bank's president was fired by the board on Thursday.

Jessica Gray, Reuters