Pope Benedict XVI granted an audience Monday to the three cardinals who led a secret investigation into the allegations of scheming and financial impropriety brought up in the VatiLeaks scandal.
Cardinals Julian Herranz, Jozef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgio met the pope in the morning, the Vatican said, after denying last week that such meeting was planned. It was one of Benedict's last engagements before his resignation on Thursday.
The Vatileaks affair centres around the publication of confidential papal papers that have shed light on suspected Vatican cronyism, corruption and scheming. Benedict's butler was identified as the leak, convicted of theft and subsequently pardoned.
As the scandal broke, Herranz, Tomko and De Giorgio were asked by the pope to investigate the matter. They concluded their investigation in December, but their findings have remained confidential.
Last week, Italian daily La Repubblica, quoting unnamed sources, wrote that the cardinals had verified the existence of a web of blackmail, graft and underground gay sex in the Vatican hierarchy, and that the shock discovery had pushed the pope to quit.
The Vatican has criticized the reports as "deplorable," and spokesman Father Federico Lombardi questioned the reliability of the La Repubblica reports, denying - as the paper wrote last week - that the pope would meet the cardinals on Monday.
The Holy See insists that the pope is retiring because he does not feel physically fit enough to perform his duties.
"The Lord is asking me ... to dedicate myself even more to prayer and meditation. But this does not mean abandoning the Church, on the contrary," Benedict said Sunday, reciting his Angelus prayers.
"If the Lord is asking me this, it is so that I can continue serving him with the same dedication and love that I had until now, but in a way that is more commensurate to my age and my strength," he added.