The issue of the Italian news magazine “Panorama” hitting the stands tomorrow reports astounding accusations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) listened in on telephone calls going in and out of the Vatican during the papal conclave in March.

“The National Security Agency does not target the Vatican,” said NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines in an email sent to a reporter checking out the story, adding, “Assertions that NSA has targeted the Vatican, published in Italy’s Panorama magazine, are not true.”

That’s the denial.  But Panorama says the surveillance went way beyond the NSA’s pattern of gobbling up vast amounts of metadata.  The magazine reports that calls to and from Bishops and Cardinals were singled out, captured, tracked, and then classified into four categories: “Leadership intentions”; “Threats to financial system”; “Foreign Policy Objectives”; and “Human Rights”.

If true, it means that the US was snooping on the phone calls of Argentina’s Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio – the one who became Pope.

The Vatican played it cool:

“We are not aware of anything on this issue and in any case we have no concerns about it,” said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.