More than 20 cables involve refugee issues and 16 are tagged “human trafficking.” Several dozen cables involve biotechnology and dozens others appear to be related to terrorism.
About 62 entries bear the “IZ” tag, signifying Iraq. Several of these cables were sent in the months before and after the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003.
A March 20, 2001 cable from the Vatican Embassy includes the subject tag “PROP.” According to a glossary provided by The Guardian, this abbreviation means “Propaganda and Psychological Operations.”
U.S. State Department cables from other countries are also tagged as Vatican-related. These cables are from embassies and consulates in countries including China, Israel, Iraq, Venezuela and Vietnam. They are frequently tagged as involving religious freedom and human rights topics.
Two such cables from the U.S. Consulate at Ho Chi Minh City were sent on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 2008. This was a time of major conflict between Catholics and Vietnam’s communist government over confiscated church lands. Another cable came from the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi in early October, 2007.
Other State Department cables involving the Vatican originated at the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong and the U.S. embassies to Germany, France, Italy, the Philippines, Lebanon and Colombia.
James Ball, a journalist working with the WikiLeaks project, on Nov. 29 told the British newspaper The Telegraph that some of the Vatican-related cables would be released “in the next few weeks.”
Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.