John Allen’s ho-hum insider-ism gets the better of him with this opener:

At first blush, the release of two keenly anticipated books promising bombshell revelations about Vatican financial scandals would seem to represent something of a “Casablanca” moment. That is, they seem likely to elicit pro forma professions of shock over things which, for the most part, everyone already knew.

If everyone already knew, why did they write those books. And John, let’s get to the bottom of this. How many other things, even what you write, do people already know about and why do you and others write about them?